Source: CCTV.com

08-29-2008 11:41

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In recent years, a young woman named Yang’erchenamu has astonished people with her exploits. She has written an autobiography describing her travels around the world. But throughout, the underlying emotion in the book is a longing for her home town. Her descriptions of beautiful Lugu Lake and Mosuo Culture have inspired many people to visit the place where she grew up. Since she left in the 1980s, she has sent countless letters and parcels home, from Shanghai and Beijing, and as far afield as the U.S., and Europe. And always Labaoding has been her messenger.

The name Yang’erchenamu conjures up images of a familiar face. But it’s a common name among the women of Lugu County. As for Labaoding, for the past 36 years he alone has delivered all the mail sent to Lugu.

The town of Lugu in Yanyuan County, Sichuan Province is named after the nearby Lugu Lake. Few of the people of Lugu have a surname. This can create confusion in villages where dozens of the residents share the same given names.

It was a simple method of dealing with a difficult problem. It made delivering the mail quite straightforward, even monotonous. Still, day in day out, Labaoding would spend most of his time delivering mail to its various destinations.

Labaoding can now deliver the mail to the right recipient without any mistake. For this, he has earned the respect of the ethnic Mosuo villagers. Prior to February 1970, when he became a postman at a branch post office in Yanyuan County, Labaoding had worked as a village accountant. He was responsible for delivering mail in an area covering several hundred square kilometers, including the towns of Lugu, Qiansuo, Gaizu and Bijie. The population was over 40,000, belonging to more than 2,000 households.

The area was mostly mountainous, and had no decent roads. So he made all his deliveries on foot. To get to Bijie, the most distant town, involved a trip of over 40km, which would take him 4 days. Except for the occasional weekend and holiday, Labaoding would walk from dawn to dusk.

There was no telephone in the area at the time. The mail, newspapers and magazines constituted the only link with the outside world. It was the smiles of the grateful recipients at the sight of their mail that encouraged Labaoding to carry on.

For decades before roads reached the area, the mail would be brought by vehicle only as far as Tianbazi, 100km from Lugu. There it would be sorted, before being sent on to its various destinations. In the summer of 1998, on a trip to fetch the mail, Labaoding found himself in a perilous situation.

The sudden storm gave rise to flooding. At the confluence of the Bayin and Lhasa Rivers, the water overflowed the banks, blocking Labaoding’s route ahead.

The valley ahead of him was filled with a raging flood. Even if he turned back, the nearest house was 20km away. Moreover, two days of walking through the mountains had left him completely exhausted. He was facing a terrible dilemma. To make matters worse, the mail bags were in danger of being soaked and washed away at any moment.