Up at the top of the Jade Dragon Mountain

(The Naxi people are a minority population living in China,
at the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains.
Starting in 1723, the local overlords instituted a severe law:
Those who had defied their arranged marriages, and pursued their forbidden loves instead, had to die.

It was believed that this would be an effective deterrent to such relationships, and to the children that might result from them. Instead, it led to an 200-year-long tradition of teen suicide pacts, and a legend that these practices would result in everlasting love.

The first verse of this song quotes scholar Li – Lin - Ts’an’s description of this legend. The remainder is a modern New Yorker’s attempt at an accurate translation of the pictographs found on a Dongba religious priest’s prayer scroll used in a teen couple’s funeral.)

Up at the top of the Jade Dragon Mountain
Under the white snowy peak, is a kingdom
Thousands of flowers of different kinds
Cover the fields in this wonderful land
It’s called the kingdom of suicide lovers
If you live in torture from your love frustration
Climb to this place with your forbidden love,
Climb to this place and kill both of yourselves
You never will part from each other again
And will keep all your beauty forever and always, amen.

But when everyone dies they first go straight to hell
Appeal to the spirits and they’ll help you out
A tiger will offer steamed rice to the mountain peak
Your monkey ancestors from heaven hang down to eat
Wind shuts the door, and the wind blows the clouds.
The Yaks of Good Fortune reopen the door
The tiger will order some wine from the rabbit
He’ll hold out his paw and that means you should grab it
Drink it with mushrooms and go down the stairs but
Beware there’s an angry Bird God who been banned from that bar.

The Bird God will sic his pet jellyfish on you
Placate the Bird God with big bowls of steamed rice
The tiger will offer more rice to the mountain peak,
and pray for good fortune and starlight and all your teeth
Flowers will break through the floors of gazebos
Rabbits with scissors protect you from fires
Finally a spaceship will take you away
And you’ll be united through hailstorms, through sunrise
You never will part from each other again
And will keep all your beauty forever and always, amen.

Copyright © 2010 by Steve Espinola. All Rights Reserved.
(First verse based on quotes by scholar Li Lin-Ts'an.)

Thanks to the Talking Stick Tours and The Ruben Museum for inspiration.