Liuba --
Wandering Between City and Mountains
Liuba is the oldest daughter of Barajay. As the first girl university student
from Aoluguya hunting tribe, she later became a popular Ewenki painter.
The fur paintings created by Liuba are considered both art and cultural relics.
A Japanese businessman once offered US$100,000 to buy one piece of Liuba's
fur painting, and she said "No" without any hesitation.
Born in 1960, Liuba had spent her childhood and teenage years in the mountains
with reindeer. "I was from one of the oldest and most primitive ethnic
groups in deep mountains," she once said. "Born and raised in such
an environment, My world was pure and had never been polluted."
Though having little contacts with the outside world, young people from the
hunting farm all hope to leave home for better lives in big cities.
When Liuba realized her dream to become a student at the Central University
of Nationalities in 1981, her family was crowded with villagers coming to
say congratulations. "My memory is still fresh while recalling the happy
moment," Liuba's mother Barajay said. "Then, villagers came to my
house. They sang and danced. It was such a great thing for us all," she
said.
After Liuba graduated from the Arts Department of the Central University of
Nationalities, she became an art editor with the Inner Mongolia People's Publishing
House. Struggling to merge herself into city life of the modern society, Liuba
found herself in a difficult situation. "She tried hard to get accepted
by people around, but she was weak and incapable to adapt herself to the city
life," recalled one of her friends. "She tended to go to extremes
and habitually used the straightforward way in dealing with people."
After experiencing a heart-stricken failure of love affair, she was badly
hurt and began to miss her home, mother, grandma and the old lifestyle in
the reindeer farm.
In 1992, Liuba returned to the hunting farm in Aoluguya Township where she
grew up. She was back for shooting a documentary film "Legend of Reindeer"
which traced the life of Liuba. The film gained popularity in China, through
which many people got to know this Ewenki woman artist's unique life experience.
