*In the Pond*
one
SHAO BIN FELT SICK of Dismount Fort, a commune town where he had lived for over six years. His wife, Meilan, complained that she had to walk two miles to wash clothes on weekends. She couldn't pedal, so Bin was supposed to take her on the carrier of his bicycle to the Blue Brook. But this month he worked weekends in the Harvest Fertilizer Plant and couldn't help her. If only they had lived in Workers' Park, the plant's apartment compound, which was just hundreds of paces away from the waterside. These days Meilan prayed to Buddha at night, begging him to help her family get an apartment in the park soon.
"Don't worry. We'll have one this time," Bin told her Wednesday afternoon.
"How can you be so sure?"
"They should give us one. I have more seniority than others."
"That can't be a guarantee."
Indeed he had worked in the plant for six years. According to the principle of need and seniority, this time it seemed the Shaos should have a new apartment, but Meilan was not optimistic. "You know," she said, "if I were you I'd give Secretary Liu and Director Ma two bottles of Grain Sap each. I heard that lots of people have visited them in the evenings. You shouldn't just sit and wait."
"Forget it. I won't spend any money on them."
"Stubborn ass," she said under her breath.
Bin was a small man. He used to be healthy and stout, but in recent years he had lost so much weight that people called him Skeleton behind his back. Despite his physique, he was both talented and arrogant. He was better read than others in the plant, and he knew a lot of ancient stories, even the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. What is more, his handwriting was handsome. That was why some women workers used to say to one another, "If only the man was as good looking as his handwriting." When he was engaged to Meilan five years before, people had been amazed and remarked, "A beauty loves a scholar indeed." Although Meilan was not beautiful and Bin was not a true scholar, compared with him she was a better match, having several suitors.
Since they were married, they had lived in one room in a dormitory house on Old Folk Road, owned by Meilan's work unit, the People's Department Store. They now had a lively two-year-old, for whom alone the room, twelve feet by twenty, was hardly enough. Besides, Bin was an amateur painter and calligrapher, though officially he was a fitter. As an artist, he needed space, ideally a room for himself, where he could cultivate and practice his art, but that had been impossible. Every night he stayed up late, wielding a writing brush with the table lamp on, which disturbed his wife's and baby's sleep. And the room was always saturated with an inky smell. Often Meilan had to open the windows in the cold winter, yet Bin had no other way to do brushwork. How the Shaos were longing for decent housing.
These days Bin had been trying in vain to find out whether or not his name was on the list being considered by the Housing Committee. Most of his fellow workers grew reticent and mysterious, as though all of a sudden everybody had struck gold; they became mean to others.
Now it's my turn to have an apartment, Bin repeated to himself on Thursday morning, when he was repairing a hydraulic jack for the Transport Team. The night before, Meilan's words about the workers' bribing the leaders had sown some fear in him; yet he kept reminding himself not to lose heart.
Sooner than he expected, in the afternoon the final list was posted on the notice board at the plant's front entrance. Bin went there but didn't find his name among the lucky ones. He was outraged; so were many others. In all the workshops angry voices were rising while those who had been assigned apartments turned silent at once. Some workers said they would put out big-character posters without delay, to expose the leaders' corruption. A few declared they were going to demolish the four larger apartments built for the leaders, blowing them up with packages of TNT at night. But this was merely bluff; the same thing had been said many times before, and nothing of the sort had ever taken place here.
As soon as the electric bell announced the end of the shift, Bin left the plant. He was cycling home absently, an army cap askew on his head and his white shirt unbuttoned, its tail flapping gently behind him. His mind was full. How should he break the bad news to Meilan? She would be so disappointed. How could he console her?
The moment he passed the railroad crossing near the northern end of the plant, he saw the Party secretary, Liu Shu, walking ahead with his hands clasped behind. Bin caught up with him and got off his bicycle. "May I have a word with you, Secretary Liu?" he said.
"All right." Liu stopped and straightened up a little, his hooded eyes half closed.
"Why didn't I get housing this time?" Bin asked.
"You're not alone. Over a hundred comrades are still in line. Don't you know that?"
"I've worked in our plant for six years. Hou Nina has been here for only three years, but she got an apartment this time. Why? I cannot understand this."
Liu told him bluntly, "That's a decision made by the Housing Committee. They believe she needs it more than you. Women and men are equal in our new society. You have a place to live now, but she has stayed with her folks in the village all these years. She needs her own place to get married. Her wedding has been put off twice; she can't remain single forever."
Bin wanted to yell: She can live with you, can't she? But he didn't say a word; instead, he turned and hopped on his National Defense bicycle, riding away without saying good-bye to the secretary. He couldn't help cursing Liu to himself, "Son of a tortoise, you've had a good apartment already, but you took a larger one this time. You've abused your power. This is unfair, unfair!"
The stocky secretary shook his head and said to Bin's back, "Idiot!"
Bin planned to break the bad news to his wife after dinner, but seeing his dark face, Meilan sensed that something was wrong and asked him several times what it was. He went ahead and told her; he even mentioned that Hou Nina, the junior accountant, had received a new apartment. At this, tears came to Meilan's eyes, and she cursed the leaders loudly. She also blamed Bin for his stubbornness, saying, "A few bottles of liquor are a small cost. How many times did I tell you? But you wouldn't listen."
"Come and eat," he said, picked up a pair of chopsticks, and lifted a bowl of noodles to his mouth, slurping the soup. Then with a spoon he put some minced toon leaves into his bowl.
"I don't want to eat, I'm full of gas." She turned and pushed the window open. Outside, a breeze passed by and shook a few raindrops off the aspen leaves, pattering through the trees. A frog was croaking hesitantly.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"I don't know. What do you think?"
"They've maltreated us. You should report those corrupt men."
Bin didn't answer and went on eating. Shanshan, their baby daughter, was stirring her bowl of custard with a green plastic spoon, waiting for her mother to feed her. A short noodle was lying on her white bib, near the red bill of an embroidered dove.
Meilan, in a sky blue dress, remained at the window, her shapely chest bulging a little as she was still fuming. She raised her hand and put a strand of hair back behind her small ear; she leaned over the sill and spat out the window. Once in a while she wiped the tears off her cheeks with her thumb and forefinger.
After dinner Bin was sitting outside the dormitory house, smoking and waving a fan on which spread a misty landscape-a temple, a river, and two slender boats, each punted by a tiny fisherman in a straw hat. His Adam's apple moved up and down while his lean face looked tense. He was deep in thought; his small eyes narrowed as the bushy brows joined. Above his head flared a 25-watt lightbulb, around which a puff of gnats were flitting, a few mosquitoes buzzing among them. The air smelled of rotten fish and fresh corn. Beyond the high wall two trucks were tooting their horns on the street, as if quarreling.
In the middle of the courtyard, Meilan was washing bowls and dishes with an angry clatter at the faucet. Bin understood that this time he had been in the wrong. A wise man should do everything to preempt bad odds, as Meilan had told him, but he had been impervious to reason and let the bad odds multiply. Unlike his plant, the department store had only sixteen employees; it was unable to build an apartment house on its own. So his family depended on him to get decent housing, but he had blown the opportunity. Who could tell in what year a new apartment would be available again? Heaven knew how long his family would have to live in this single room.
Choking with anger, he was determined to do something about the injustice. Even though he couldn't correct the leaders' wrongdoing, he wanted to teach them an unforgettable lesson and show them that he wouldn't swallow an offense. But what should he do?
He remembered that the materialist thinker Wang Chong of the Han Dynasty had said something about punishing the evil with the writing brush. He couldn't recall the exact words. That passage must have been in the paperback The Essence of Ancient Chinese Thought, which he had read a few weeks before. He stood up and went back into the room. On the top of a wicker bookshelf, the book was sandwiched between an epigraphic dictionary and an album of flower paintings. He pulled it out and without difficulty found the passage, since he had folded the bottom corner of the page as a bookmark. He perused Wang Chong's words:
How can writing be merely playing with ink and toying with brush? It must record people's deeds and bequeath their names to posterity. The virtuous hope to have their deeds remembered and therefore exert themselves to do more good; the wicked fear having their doings recorded and therefore make efforts to restrain themselves. In brief, the true scholar's brush must encourage good and warn against evil.
Bin closed the book, profoundly moved. Writing and painting belong to the same family of arts, he reasoned; they are both the work of the brush. Yes, to fight the evil is the essential function of fine arts. As an artist and scholar I ought to expose those corrupt leaders. Whatever they are, painting and writing must not be embroidery and decoration; they must have strength and a soul-a healthy, upright spirit. A good piece of work should be as lethal as a dagger to evildoers.
After Meilan and Shanshan went to bed, Bin began grinding an ink stick in his antique ink slab, which was in the shape of a crab, carved out of a Gold Star stone. His hand kept moving clockwise in tiny circles. The ink was ready in a few minutes; he picked up a brush made of weasel's hair and began to draw a cartoon. On a large sheet of paper he drew a huge official seal, standing upside down. Then on the seal's bulky handle he sketched an ecstatic face with a few hairs on the crown. Up on the seal's flat top, which was in the form of an oval stage, he put a dozen midget men and women sitting together in two rows. He made sure that two of them in the center resembled Secretary Liu and Director Ma. Liu, wearing a handlebar mustache, sat with his short arms crossed before his chest, while Ma's long face was pulled downward as though his mouth was filled with food. Behind the human figures Bin set up a six-story building with broad balconies and tall windows, from which fluorescent rays were darting out.
The drawing finished, Bin dipped a smaller brush in the ink, then wrote a line of bold characters at the top of the paper as the title: "Happy Is the Family with Power."
The excitement of creating a meaningful piece of work kept him awake after he went to bed. He forced himself to count his heartbeats, which were faster than the second hand of the clock on the wall. His temples were tight, and his head wouldn't cool down; within two hours he got up three times to urinate in the outhouse in the west corner of the courtyard. Not until two o'clock did he go to sleep.
The next morning he showed the cartoon to his wife. "Good, good," she said. "I hope this will be a land mine and blast them."
Carefully he stuffed it into a manila envelope addressed to the L?da Daily, a regional newspaper in which he had published three words of calligraphy. On his way to work, he went up Bank Street and dropped the envelope into the mailbox in front of the post office.
Two
FOR DAYS the whole plant was talking about the housing assignments. The leaders had anticipated the discontent and were not worried. Only two big-character posters, fewer than they had expected, appeared in the plant; both were pasted on the side wall of the office building. One was entitled "Workers' Park Is Not for the Workers to Inhabit"; the other, "What Makes the Housing Principle Flexible?"
Though the two posters touched on bribery and the privileges the leaders had granted themselves, Secretary Liu and Director Ma were not daunted by this sort of writing. What they feared was that some workers might put out posters at the Commune Administration, appealing to their superiors to interfere with the plant's housing, but so far nothing of that kind had happened. In fact, the workers' bitter voices were dwindling.
The mollification was mainly the result of four buckets of human excrement that had been secretly dumped into the larger apartments, one bucket in each. For two days the unused rooms stank and teemed with flies and maggots; some of the walls were soiled.
It was a simpleminded trick, far from reaching the effect the rumor claimed: the leaders would no longer want the stinking apartments. On the contrary, they still meant to move in, though it was true that Liu and Ma had been outraged and almost called an emergency meeting after seeing the mess. But both of them were seasoned cadres and hadn't acted rashly.
- posted on 11/13/2006
*Ocean of Words*
A REPORT
Our Most Respected Divisional Commissar Lin:
I am writing to report on an event that occurred last Saturday afternoon. Our Reconnaissance Company, the best trained men and the flower of our Second Division, marched through Longmen City to the Western Airport, where we were to do parachute exercises. While we were passing Central Boulevard at the corner of the First Department Store, I ordered Scribe Hsu Fang to start a song with an eye to impressing the pedestrians. He executed the orders, and the whole company began to sing:
Good-bye, mother, good-bye, mother-
The battle bugle blowing,
Steel guns shiny,
The outfits on our backs,
Our army is ready to go.
Please do not weep in secret,
Please do not worry about your son.
Wait for my triumphant return;
I will see you then, my dear mother.
. . . . . . .
While we were singing, the march suddenly slowed down, and the uniform footsteps of one hundred men grew disordered. The words and music, suitable only for lamentation, melted the strength in the soldiers' feet. I shouted to stop the singing, which in fact became crying. But we were in the middle of the thoroughfare, and my voice could not overcome the loud noises of the bustling traffic, so they continued to sing. Some new soldiers burst out sobbing; even the experienced ones were overwhelmed with tears. Imagine, a hundred of the best-disciplined fighters were bleating without shame on the street like a herd of sheep! And with machine guns and bazookas! People paused on the sidewalks to watch us whining and weeping. Someone commented, "This is a funeral procession."
I do not blame my men, nor have I criticized Scribe Hsu Fang. They are brave soldiers, and the history of our company has borne that out with ample evidence. Our Most Esteemed Commissar Lin, probably I am partly responsible for this occurrence, because I did not prevent my men from learning the song in the first place. My vigilance of class struggle must have slackened. I thought it would do them no harm if they sang a song that the Central Radio Station broadcast every day. Please do not misunderstand me here: We did not teach this contagious song; the soldiers just learned it by themselves. My mistake was not to intervene in time.
The event I have described demonstrates that this song is a counterrevolutionary one. All the men in my company now feel ashamed, because they were seized by the surprise of bourgeois sentiment. We have all been dishonored and have done damage to the image of our army.
It goes without saying that a true revolutionary song belongs to the kind that inspires, unifies, and instructs, not like the one we sang, which undermines our morale and destroys our solidarity. A good song must encourage people's upright spirit and must make friends more lovable and enemies more detestable. Commissar Lin, you must remember those old genuine revolutionary fighting songs; here I cannot help picking out one as an example:
We are all super marksmen.
Every bullet strikes and enemy dead.
We are all swift troops,
Not afraid of waters deep and mountains high.
On the lofty cliffs
There are our quarters.
In the thick woods
There are many good brothers.
If we have no clothes and food
The enemy sends them to us.
If we have no weapons
The enemy makes them for us.
We were born and grew up here,
Every inch of the land is ours.
If someone dares to take it from us,
We shall fight him to the end!
What a song! At this very moment of writing, I can recall that when singing it we walked with tremendous confidence, as if the earth beneath our feet would quake because of us and as if we could topple the mountains and overturn the seas, not to mention eliminate our enemies. I need not dwell on this further, because you, a Revolutionary of the Older Generation, actually grew up with those genuine songs, and you must have a profounder understanding of their nature than I do.
The lesson we have learned from the reported event is as follows: Our class enemies are still active, and they never go to sleep; whenever we doze off, they will take advantage of us, sabotaging Socialism and changing the political color of our army. We must grow another pair of eyes in the backs of our heads so that we can keep them under watch everywhere and at all times.
Our Most Respected Comrade Commissar, on behalf of my company, I suggest we ban this poisonous song and investigate the family and political backgrounds of its author and its composer. Whoever they are, they undoubtedly have the outlook of the bourgeoisie. They have committed sabotage-their work aims to disable our troops, corroding the iron bastion from within. Also, those who have helped disseminate this song must not be let off their responsibility. Ideally, we should bring a couple of people to the Military Court. We must show our enemies that we are also superior fighters on the Ideological Front!
My Revolutionary Salute,
I Remain Your Loyal Soldier,
Political Instructor and
Party Secretary of
Reconnaissance Company-
Chen Jun
Longmen, May 27
TOO LATE
It began as a bet at the Spring Festival. After the feast, the soldiers of my company were playing chess and poker, chatting and cracking roasted peanuts and sunflower seeds. In the Second Platoon some men were talking about women and bragging of their own ability to resist female charms. Gradually their topic shifted to the Shanghai girls at the Youth Home in Garlic Village. How were the girls doing on the holiday eve? What a pity there was no man in their house. Who would dare to go have a look and ask if they miss their parents and siblings?
Someone said he would pay a Spring Festival call on the girls after eleven. Another boasted that he would take a bottle of wine to that house and have a cup with them. Emboldened by alcohol and the festive atmosphere, they indulged themselves in the big talk.
Then Kong Kai declared he dared to go and sleep on the same brick bed with the girls. This was too much. Everybody thought he just wagged his tongue, and they told him to draw a line somewhere if he wanted to talk sense. But a few men challenged him and even proposed a five-yuan bet. To their amazement, Kong swung his quilt roll on his back and set off for the Youth Home.
There was only one young man living at that house, but he had left to spend the holiday with his family in Shanghai. Unlike the country women, those city girls had tender limbs and looked rather elegant. They knew how to use makeup and wore colorful clothes.
Kong entered the Youth Home and dropped his quilt at the end of the brick bed. The five girls were too shocked to stop him. He climbed on the bed, spread his quilt, lay down, and closed his eyes. For half an hour, they didn't know what to do about this man, who wouldn't respond to their questioning and tittering and instead was sleeping or pretending to be asleep. They brought out candies, chocolates, and frozen pears in the hope of inducing him to open his mouth, which like his eyes was shut all the time. They even cooked him a large bowl of dragon-whiskers noodles with garlic, ginger, and two poached eggs, hoping the fragrance might arouse his appetite. Nothing worked. One of them put a few lamp-soot stains on his face, saying, "This makes him look more handsome." They giggled; still he remained motionless. Finally, the five girls decided to keep watch on him by turns throughout the night, for fear he might do something unusual once they went to sleep, though they knew Kong by sight and didn't feel he was a bad man. Each of them sat beside him for one and a half hours while the rest were sleeping at the other end of the large bed. The oil lamp was burning until dawn.
On hearing of the incident at daybreak, Commander Deng and I set out for Garlic Village right away. It was crisply cold, and a large flock of crows were gliding over the snow-covered fields, clamoring hungrily. A few firecrackers exploded in the village that sprawled ahead like a deserted battlefield. Among some wisps of cooking smoke, two roosters were crowing on and on, as if calling each other names. In the north, the Wusuli River almost disappeared in the snow, and beyond it a long range of cedar woods stretched on the hillside like a gigantic spearhead pointing to the Russians' watchtower, which was wavering in the clouds. Though day was unfolding, the Russians' searchlight kept flickering.
When we arrived Kong was still in bed. The girls were all up, some washing clothes while others were combing and braiding their hair. They looked jubilant, humming light tunes and giggling as if something auspicious had descended on their household. At the sight of us they stopped.
"Lock up the door and don't let anyone out," Commander Deng cried. With a mitten he wiped the frost off his mustache, his deep-sunk eyes glinting. He spat a cigarette end to the floor and stamped it out. Orderly Zhu executed the orders.
Kong Kai heard the noise and got out of bed to meet us. He didn't look worried and gave us a toothy grin. His broad face was smeared with soot, but he still had on his fur hat, whose earflaps were tied together under his chin. I felt relieved; it seemed he hadn't taken off his clothes during the night. We brought him into the inner room and began our questioning.
It took us only a few minutes to finish with him. He tried to convince us that he had slept well. That must have been a lie. How could a young man sleep peacefully while a girl was sitting nearby with her eyes on him all the time? And another four sleeping on the same bed? Didn't he know his face still had stains of lamp soot on it? But we didn't ask him those questions, for it wasn't important for us to know how he had felt and what he knew. We cared only what he had done.
Convinced that nothing serious had taken place, we put him aside and brought in the girls one by one. Each questioning was shorter than two minutes. "Did he touch you?" Deng asked a tall, pale-faced girl, whom we had got hold of first.
"No." She shook her head.
"Did he say anything to you?"
"Un-un."
"Yes or no?"
"No."
"Did he ever take off his clothes?"
"No."
In the same manner we went through the other four girls, who gave us identical answers. Then we brought our man home, believing the case was closed. On the way back I criticized Kong briefly for intruding into a civilian house without any solid reason, especially on the Spring Festival's Eve, when the Russians were most likely to cross the border and nobody was allowed to leave the barracks.
At once Kong became a hero of a sort. Those foolish boys called him "an iron man." Together with his fame, numerous versions of his night adventure were circulating in the company. One even said that the girls had welcomed Kong's arrival and lain beside him by turns throughout the night, patting his face, murmuring seductive words, and even drawing a thick mustache on his lip with charcoal, but the iron man hadn't budged a bit, as though he were unconscious. We tried to stop them from creating these kinds of silly stories and assured them that the girls were fine, not as bad as they thought. They'd better cleanse their own minds of dirty fantasies.
A month later Kong's squad leader, Gu Chong, was transferred to the battalion headquarters, to command the anti-aircraft machine gun platoon there. Gu suggested we let Kong take over the Fifth Squad. Indeed Kong seemed to be an ideal choice; the men in our company respected him a lot, and he was an excellent soldier in most ways. So we promoted him to squad leader.
Who could tell "the iron man" would be our headache? In a few weeks it was reported that Kong often sneaked out in the evenings and on weekends to meet a girl at the Youth Home. There were larch woods at the eastern end of Garlic Village; it was said that Kong and the girl often wandered in the woods. I talked to him about this. He said they had gone in there only to pick mushrooms and daylilies. What a lie. I told him to stop pretending. Who would believe the iron man had become a mushroom picker accompanied by a girl? I wanted him to quit the whole thing before it was too late, and I reminded him of the discipline that allowed no soldier to have an affair.
One Sunday morning in April, Orderly Zhu reported that Kong had disappeared from the barracks again. Immediately I set out with Scribe Yang for the larch woods. When we got there we came upon two lines of fresh footprints on the muddy slope. We followed them. Without much difficulty we found the lovers, who were sitting together by a large rock. They saw us approaching, and they got up and slipped away into the woods. We walked over and found five golden candy wrappers at the spot. I told the scribe to pick up the wrappers, and together we returned.
Scribe Yang said he recognized the girl, whose name was An Mali. The tall, pale-faced one, he reminded me. I recalled questioning her and didn't feel she was a bad girl at all, but a rule was a rule, which no one should break. Kong was creating trouble not only for himself but also for our company. We had to stop him.
Soon the leader of the Second Platoon reported that there had been confrontations between Kong and some men in the Fifth Squad. One soldier openly called him "womanizer."
In May we held the preliminary election of exemplary soldiers. As usual, we had all the guns and grenades and bazookas locked away at the company's headquarters for five days, for fear somebody might be so upset about not being elected that he would resort to violence. There had been bloodshed during the election in other units, and we had to take precautions.
All the squad leaders were voted in except Kong Kai, though three of his men got elected. The soldiers complained that Kong had a problematic life-style. Commander Deng and I worried about the results of the election, particularly about Kong, so we decided to talk to him.
After taps, we had him summoned to our office. The kerosene lamp on the desk was shining brighter with the new wick Orderly Zhu had put in. I walked to the window to look out at the moonlit night while Deng read a newspaper at the desk. Beside his elbow lay a blue notebook and a pen; whenever he came across a new word, he would write it down. He had only three years' education.
- posted on 11/13/2006
*The Bridegroom*
A Tiger-Fighter Is Hard to Find
We were overwhelmed by a letter from the provincial governor's office. It praised our TV series Wu Song Beat the Tiger. The governor was impressed by the hero, who fought the tiger single-handedly and punched it to death. The letter read: "We ought to create more heroic characters of this kind as role models for the revolutionary masses to follow. You, writers and artists, are the engineers of the human soul. You have a noble task on your hands, which is to strengthen people's hearts and instill into them the spirit that fears neither heaven nor earth." But the last paragraph of the letter pointed out a weakness in the key episode, which was that the tiger looked fake and didn't present an authentic challenge to the hero. The governor wondered if we could improve this section, so that our province might send the series to Beijing before the end of the year.
That evening we had a meeting and decided to reshoot the tiger-fighting scene. Everybody was excited, because if the series was sent to the capital, it meant we'd compete for a national prize. We decided to let Wang Huping take the part of the hero again, since the governor had been impressed with him in the first version. He was more than happy to do it. Now the problem was the tiger. First, a real animal would cost a fortune. Second, how could we shoot a scene with such a dangerous animal?
With the governor's letter in hand, we obtained a grant from the Municipal Administration without difficulty. Four men were dispatched to Jilin Province to bring back a tiger just caught on Ever White Mountain. By law we were not allowed to acquire a protected animal, but we got papers that said we needed it for our city's zoo.
A week later, the four men returned with a gorgeous Siberian tiger.
We all went to see the animal, which was being held in a cage in the backyard of our office building. It was a male, weighing over three hundred pounds. Its eyes glowed with a cold, brown light, and its scarlet tongue seemed wet with blood. What a thick coat it had, golden and glossy! Its black stripes would ripple whenever it shook its head or stretched its neck. I was amazed at how small its ears were, not much larger than a dog's. But it smelled awful, like ammonia.
We were told to feed it ten pounds of mutton a day. This was expensive, but if we wanted to keep it in good shape, we had no choice.
Wang Huping seemed a little unnerved by the tiger. Who wouldn't be? But Huping was a grand fellow: tall, muscular, straight-shouldered, and with dreamy eyes that would sparkle when he smiled. I would say he was the most handsome young man in our Muji City, just as his nickname, Prince, suggested. A girl told me that whenever he was nearby, her eyes would turn watery. Another girl said that whenever he spoke to her, her heart would pound and her face would burn with a tickle. I don't know if any of that was true.
A few days before the shooting, Director Yu, who used to be a lecturer at a cinema school in Shanghai, gave Huping a small book to read. It was The Old Man and the Sea, by an American author, whose name has just escaped me.
The director told Huping, "A man's not born to be defeated, not by a shark or a tiger."
"I understand," said Huping.
That was what I liked most about him. He wasn't just handsome, like a flowered pillowcase without solid stuff in it; he studied serious books and was learned, different from most of us, who merely read picture books and comics. If he didn't like a novel, he would say, "Well, this isn't literature." What's more, he was skilled in kung fu, particularly mantis boxing. One night last winter, he was on his way back to his dorm when four thugs stopped him and demanded he give them his wallet. He gave them a beating instead. He felled them with his bare hands and then dragged the ringleader to a nearby militia headquarters. For that, he got written about in the newspapers. Later, he was voted an outstanding actor.
The morning of the shooting was a little windy and overcast. Two Liberation trucks took us four miles out of the city, to the edge of an oak wood. We unloaded the tiger cage, mounted the camera on the tripod, and set up the scene by placing a few large rocks here and there and pulling out some tall grass to make the flattish ground more visible. A few people gathered around Huping and helped him with his costume and makeup. Near the cage stood two men, each toting a tranquilizer gun.
Director Yu was pacing back and forth behind the camera. A scene like this couldn't be repeated; we had to get everything right on the first take.
The medic took out a stout jar of White Flame and poured a full bowl of it. Without a word, Huping raised the liquor with both hands and drank it up in a long swallow. People watched him silently. He looked radiant in the shifting sunlight. A black mosquito landed on his jaw, but he didn't bother to slap at it.
When everything was ready, one man shot a tranquilizer dart into the tiger's rump. Holding his forefinger before Huping's face, Director Yu said in a high-pitched voice, "Try to get into the character. Remember, once you are in the scene, you are no longer Wang Huping. You are the hero, a true tiger-fighter, a killer."
"I'll remember that," Huping said, punching his left palm with his right fist. He wore high leather boots and a short cudgel slung across his back.
Director Yu's gaze swept through the crowd, and he asked loudly if everyone was ready. A few people nodded.
"Action!" he cried.
The door of the cage was lifted up. The tiger rushed out, vigorously shaking its body. It opened its mouth, and four long canine teeth glinted. It began walking in circles and sniffing at the ground while Huping, with firm steps, began to approach it. The animal roared and pranced, but our hero took the cudgel from his back and went forward resolutely. When he was within ten feet of the tiger, the snarling beast suddenly sprang at him, but with all his might Huping struck its head with his cudgel. The blow staggered the tiger a little, yet it came back and lunged at him again. Huping leaped aside and hit its flank. This blow sent the animal tumbling a few feet away. Huping followed it, striking its back and head. The tiger turned around with a menacing look. Then they were in a real melee.
With a crack the front half of the cudgel flew away. Huping dropped the remaining half, just as Wu Song does in the story. The beast rushed forward, reached for Huping's leg, and ripped his pants, then jumped up, snapping at his throat. Our hero knocked the animal aside with his fist, but its attack threw Huping off balance--he tottered and almost fell.
"Keep engaging it!" Director Yu shouted at him.
I stood behind a large elm, hugging my ribs.
"Closer, closer!" the director ordered the cameraman.
Huping kicked the tiger in the side. The animal reeled around and sprang at him again. Huping dodged the attack and punched the tiger's neck.
Now the drug began taking effect; the tiger wobbled a little and fell to its haunches. It lurched to its feet, but after a few steps it collapsed. Our hero jumped on its back, punching its head with all his strength. The tiger, as if dead, no longer reacted to the beating, only its tail lashing the grass now and again. Still Huping pulled and pushed its huge head, forcing its lips and teeth to scrape the dirt.
"Cut!" Director Yu called, and walked over to Huping as two men helped him up from the unconscious animal.
The director said, "I guess we didn't time it well. The tiger passed out too soon."
"I killed him! I'm the number-one tiger-fighter!" Huping shouted. With his fists balled at his flanks, he began laughing huskily and stamping his feet.
People ran up to him and tried to calm him down. But he wouldn't stop laughing. "I killed him! I killed him!" he yelled, his eyes ablaze.
The medic poured some water into the bowl and took out a sedative tablet. He made Huping take the medicine.
"Good wine, good wine!" Huping said after drinking the water. He wiped his lips with his forearm.
Then, to our astonishment, he burst out singing like a hero in a revolutionary model opera:
My spirit rushing toward the Milky Way,
With my determination and bravery
I shall eradicate every vermin from earth. . . .
A young woman snickered. Two men clutched Huping's arms and dragged him away while he was babbling about plucking out the tiger's heart, liver, and lungs. They put him into the back of a truck.
"He's punch-drunk," said Secretary Feng. "Tough job--I don't blame him."
The tiger was lifted back into its cage. Director Yu wasn't happy about the botched scene. According to the classic story, which our audience would know well, the hero is supposed to ride the tiger for a while, bring it down, and punch its head hundreds of times until it breathes its last. The scene we had just shot missed the final struggle, so we would have to try again.
But Huping was in no condition to work. For the rest of the day he laughed or giggled at random. Whenever someone came into sight he'd shout, "Hey, I killed the tiger!" We worried about him, so we called in a pedicab and sent him to the hospital for a checkup.
The diagnosis was mild schizophrenia, and the doctor insisted that Huping be hospitalized.
What should we do about the fight scene? Get another tiger-fighter? Not so easy. Where on earth could we find a fellow as handsome and strapping as our Prince? We looked through a pile of movie and TV magazines in the hopes of finding someone who resembled him, but most of the young actors we saw were mere palefaced boys; few had the stature and spirit of a hero.
Somehow the prefecture's Propaganda Department heard about the governor's interest in our TV series. Its deputy director phoned, saying we should complete the revision as early as possible. It was already mid-September, and trees were dropping leaves. Soon frost and snow would change the color of the landscape and make it impossible to duplicate the setting.
Because it was unlikely that we would find a substitute for Huping, some people suggested using him again.
Quite a few of us opposed this idea; those who supported it didn't seem to care that a man's life was at risk. In private, some of us--clerks, assistants, actors--complained about the classic novel that contains the tiger-fighting episode. Why would an author write such a difficult scene? It's impossible for any man to ride a tiger and then beat it to death bare-handed. The story is a pure fabrication that has misled readers for hundreds of years. It may have been easy for the writer to describe it on paper, but in reality, how could we create such a hero?
Full of anxiety, Director Yu suffered a case of inflamed eyes--they turned into curved slits between red, doughy lids. He'd wear sunglasses whenever he went out of the office building. He told us, "We must finish the scene! It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!"
One night he even dreamed he himself wrestled the tiger to the ground, and his elbow inflicted a bruise on his wife's chest.
We were worried, too. Our company couldn't afford to feed the tiger for long; besides, we had no place to shelter it for the coming winter.
The following week, Secretary Feng held a staff meeting with us. We discussed the predicament at some length.
Gradually it became clear that if we couldn't find a substitute, we might have to use Huping again. The proponents of this idea argued their position logically and convinced us, its opponents, that this was the only way to get the job done.
At the end of the meeting, Director Yu stressed that this time everything had to be accurately designed and calculated. The tranquilizer dart should carry a smaller dose so that the tiger would remain on its feet long enough for our hero to ride it a while. Also, we would have to be more careful not to let the beast hurt him.
To our relief, when the leaders broached the plan with Huping, he eagerly agreed to fight the tiger again. He said that he'd live up to their expectations and that he felt fine now, ready for work. "I'm a tiger-fighter," he declared. His voice was quite hoarse, and his eyes glittered.
"Yes, you are," agreed Secretary Feng. "All the provincial leaders are watching you, Huping. Try to do a good job this time."
"I shall."
So we trucked the tiger to the site the next morning. The weather happened to be similar to that of the previous time: a little overcast, the sun peeking through the gray clouds now and then. I identified the elm and the spot where the fight had taken place before. Huping sat on a boulder with a short cudgel across his naked back while the medic was massaging his shoulders. After a tranquilizer dart was shot into the tiger's thigh, Huping rose to his feet and downed a bowl of White Flame in two gulps.
Director Yu went over to give him instructions, saying, "Don't lose your head. When I shout, 'On the tiger!' you get on its back, ride it for a while, then bring it down. Until it stops moving, keep punching its head."
"All right." Huping nodded, his gaze fixed on the caged animal.
In the distance, on the hillside, a few cows were grazing, the west wind occasionally blowing their voices to us.
The tiger was let out. It pranced around, bursting with life. It opened its mouth threateningly. It began eyeing the distant cows.
"Roll the camera!" shouted Director Yu.
As Huping was approaching the tiger, it growled and rushed toward him. Our hero seemed stunned. He stopped and raised the cudgel, but the beast just pounced on him and pawed at his shoulder. With a heartrending cry, Huping dropped his weapon and ran toward us. The tiger followed, but having been caged for weeks, it couldn't run fast. We scattered in every direction, and even the camera crew deserted their equipment. Huping jumped, caught a limb of the elm, and climbed up the tree. The animal leaped and ripped off Huping's left boot, and instantly a patch of blood appeared on his white sock.
"Save me!" he yelled, climbing higher. The beast was pacing below the tree, snarling and roaring.
"Give it another shot!" Director Yu cried.
Another dart hit the tiger's shoulder. In no time it started tottering, moving zigzag under the elm.
We watched fearfully while Huping yelled for help. He was so piteous.
The tiger fell. Director Yu was outraged and couldn't help calling Huping names. Two men quietly carried the cage over to the motionless animal.
"Idiot!" Director Yu cursed.
The medic wiggled his fingers at Huping. "Come down now, let me dress
your foot."
"No."
"The tiger's gone," a woman said to him.
"Help me!" he yelled.
"It can't hurt you anymore."
"Shoot him!"
No matter how many comforting words we used, he wouldn't come down from the tree. He squatted up there, weeping like a small boy. The crotch of his pants was wet.
We couldn't wait for him like this forever. So Secretary Feng, his face puffy and glum, said to a man, "Give him a shot, not too strong."
From a range of five feet a dart was fired into Huping's right buttock.
"Ow!" he cried.
A few men assembled under the elm to catch him, but he didn't fall. As the drug began affecting him, he turned to embrace the tree trunk and began descending slowly. A moment later the men grabbed his arms and legs and carried him away.
One of them said, "He's so hot. Must be running a fever."
"Phew! Smelly!" said another.
Now that our hero was gone, what could we do? At last it began to sink in that the tiger was too fierce for any man to tackle. Somebody suggested having the beast gelded so as to bring the animal closer to the human level. We gave a thought to that and even talked to a pig castrator, but he didn't trust tranquilizers and wouldn't do the job unless the tiger was tied up. Somehow the Choice Herb Store heard about our situation and sent an old pharmacist over to buy the tiger's testicles, which the man said were a sought-after remedy for impotence and premature ejaculation. In his words, "They give you a tiger's spirit and energy."
But finally realizing that the crux of our problem was the hero, not the tiger, we decided against castrating the animal. Without a man who physically resembled Huping, we could get nowhere, even with a tamed tiger. Then someone suggested that we find a tiger skin and have it worn by a man. In other words, shoot the last part of the scene with a fake animal. This seemed feasible, but I had my doubts. As the set clerk, whose job it is to make sure that all the details match those in the previous shooting, I thought that we couldn't possibly get a skin identical to the real tiger's. After I expressed my misgivings, people fell silent for a long time.
Finally Director Yu said, "Why don't we have the tiger put down and use its skin?"
"Maybe we should do that," agreed Old Min, who was also in the series, playing a bad official.
Secretary Feng was uncertain whether Huping could still fill his role. Director Yu assured him, saying, "That shouldn't be a problem. Is he still
a man if he can't even fight a dead tiger?"
People cracked up.
Then it occurred to us that the tiger was a protected animal and that we might get into trouble with the law if we had it killed. Director Yu told us not to worry. He was going to talk with a friend of his in the Municipal Administration.
Old Min agreed to wear the tiger's skin and fight with Huping. He was good at this kind of horseplay.
Two days later, our plan was approved. So we had the tiger shot by a militiaman with a semiautomatic rifle. The man had been instructed not to damage the animal's head, so he aimed at its chest. He fired six shots into the tiger, but it simply refused to die--it sat on its haunches, panting, its tongue hanging out of the corner of its mouth while blood streamed down its front legs. Its eyes were half closed, as though it were sleepy. Even when it had finally fallen down, people waited for some time before opening the cage.
To stay clear of anybody who might be involved with the black market, we sold the whole carcass to the state-owned Red Arrow Pharmaceutical Factory for forty-eight hundred yuan, a little more than we had paid for the live tiger. But that same evening we got a call from the manager of the factory, who complained that one of the tiger's hind legs was missing. We assured him that when the carcass left our company, it was intact. Apparently en route someone had hacked off the leg to get a piece of tiger bone, which is a kind of treasure in Chinese medicine, often used to strengthen the physique, relieve rheumatic pains, and ease palpitations caused by fright. The factory refused to pay the full price unless we delivered the missing leg. But how on earth could we recover it? Secretary Feng haggled hard in vain, and they docked five hundred yuan from the original figure.
This time there was no need to persuade our hero. Just at the mention of beating a fake tiger, Huping got excited, itching to have a go. He declared, "I'm still a tiger-fighter. I'll whip him!"
Because the shooting could be repeated from now on, there wasn't much preparation. We set out for the woods in just one truck. Old Min sat in the cab with a young actress who was allergic to the smog and wore a large gauze mask. On the way, Huping grinned at us, gnashed his teeth, and made hisses through his nose. His eyes radiated a hard light. That spooked me, and I avoided looking at him.
When we arrived at the place and got off the vehicle, he began glaring at Old Min. The look on his face suggested intense malice. It made me feel awful, because he used to be such a good-hearted man, gentle and sweet. That was another reason why the girls had called him Prince.
Old Min changed his mind and refused to play the tiger. Director Yu and Secretary Feng tried to persuade him, but he simply wouldn't do it, saying,
"He thinks he's a real tiger-killer and can have his way with me. No, I won't give him the chance."
"Please, he won't hurt you," begged Director Yu.
"Look at his eyes--they give me goose bumps. No, I won't have anything
to do with him."
Desperate, Secretary Feng shouted at us, "Who'd like to play the tiger?"
There was no response, only a grasshopper snapping its whitish wings in the air. Then an explosion was heard from the distant mountain, where granite was being quarried.
Director Yu added, "Come on, it will be fun, a great experience." Seeing nobody step forward, he went on, "I'll treat whoever takes the part to an eight-course dinner."
"Where will you take him?" asked the young truck driver, Little Dou.
"Four Seas Garden."
"You really mean it?"
"Of course--on my word of honor."
"Then I'll try. I've never been in a movie, though."
"You know the story Wu Song Beat the Tiger, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Just imagine yourself as the tiger being beaten by the hero. Crawl and roll about, keep shaking your head until I say, 'Die.' Then you fall down and begin to die slowly."
"All right, I'll give it a shot."
Huping was already in his outfit, but this time not wearing the cudgel. They wrapped the small driver in the tiger's skin and tied the strings around his belly. Director Yu said to him, "Don't be scared. Try to be natural. He'll wrestle with you bare-handed. This tiger skin is so thick that nothing can hurt you."
"No problem." The driver spat on the ground, then pulled on the tiger's head.
The director raised his hand, an unlit cigarette between his index and middle fingers. "Action!" he called.
The tiger crawled into the grass, wandering with ease. Its rump swayed a little. Huping leaped on its back and began riding it around, shouting,
"Kill!" Gripping its forelock with his left hand, he hit the tiger hard on the head with his right fist.
"Oh, Mama!" the tiger squealed. "He's killing me!"
Huping kept punching until the tiger staggered, then collapsed. Just as we were about to intervene, Director Yu motioned for us not to move. Old Min laughed boisterously, bending forward and holding the swell of his belly with both hands. "Oh my! Oh my!" he kept saying.
Meanwhile, Huping was slapping the tiger's face and spat on it as well.
The animal screamed, "Spare me! Spare me, Grandpa!"
"He's hurting him," said Secretary Feng.
"It's all right," Director Yu assured him, then turned to the crew. "Keep the camera rolling."
I said, "If he cripples Little Dou, it'll cost us lots."
"Don't put such a jinx on us!" the director snapped at me. I held my tongue.
Finally, Huping got off the motionless tiger, but then he started in ferociously kicking its flank, head, neck, face. His boots produced muffled thuds as he cursed, "Kill this paper tiger! I'm going to finish him off!"
How frightened we were! The driver wasn't making a sound at this point. Huping stepped aside and, picking up a rock as large as a melon, muttered, "Let me smash this fake."
We ran over and grabbed him.
"Stop it!" the medic yelled at our hero. "You've already beaten the crap out of Little Dou!"
Huping wouldn't listen and struggled to reach the tiger. It took five men to restrain him, wrench the rock from his hands, and haul him away. He shouted, "I killed another tiger! I'm a real tiger-fighter!"
"Shut up!" Director Yu said. "You couldn't handle a tiger, so we gave you a man."
Hurriedly, we removed the animal skin from the driver, who was unconscious. His lips were cut open; his mouth and eyes were bleeding.
Old Min, still unable to stop chuckling, poured some cold water on Little Dou's face. A moment later Little Dou came to, moaning, "Help . . . save me . . ."
The medic began bandaging him, insisting we had to send him to the hospital without delay. But who could drive the truck? Secretary Feng rubbed his hands and said, "Damn, look at this mess!"
A young man was dispatched to look for a phone in order to call our company to have them send out the other driver. In the meantime, Little Dou's wounds stopped bleeding, and he was able to answer some questions, but he couldn't help groaning every few seconds. Old Min waved a leafy twig over Little Dou's face to keep mosquitoes and flies away. Tired and bored, Huping was alone in the cab, napping. Except for the two leaders, who were in the bushes talking, we all lounged on the grass, drinking soda and smoking cigarettes.
Not until an hour later did the other driver arrive by bicycle. At the sight of him some of us shouted, "Long live Chairman Mao!" although the great leader had passed away five years before.
The moment we arrived at the hospital, we rushed Little Dou to the emergency room. While the doctor was stitching him up, the medic and I escorted Huping back to the mental ward. On the way, Huping said tearfully,
"I swear I didn't know Little Dou was in the tiger."
After a good deal of editing, the fake-tiger part matched the rest of the scene, more or less. Many leaders of our prefecture saw the new part and praised it, even though the camera shakes like crazy. Several TV stations in the Northeast have begun rebroadcasting the series. We're told that it will be shown in Beijing soon, and we're hopeful it will win a prize.
Director Yu has promised to throw a seafood party if our series makes the finals, and to ask the Municipal Administration to give us all a raise if it receives an award.
Both the driver and Huping are still in the hospital. I was assigned to visit them once a week on behalf of our company. The doctor said that Little Dou, who suffered a concussion, would recuperate soon, but Huping wasn't doing so well. The hospital plans to have him transferred to a mental home when a bed is available there.
Yesterday, after lunch, I went to see our patients with a string bag of Red Jade apples. I found the driver in the ward's recreation room, sitting alone over a chessboard. He looked fine, although the scars on his upper lip, where the stitches were, still seemed to bother him, especially when he opened his mouth.
"How are you today, Little Dou?" I asked.
"I'm all right. Thanks for coming." His voice was smoother, as though it belonged to another man.
"Does your head still hurt?"
"Sometimes it rings like a beehive. My temples ache at night."
"The doc said you could leave the hospital soon."
"Hope they'll let me drive the truck again."
His words filled me with pity, because the other driver had just taken an apprentice who was likely to replace Little Dou eventually. So I gave him all the apples, even though he was supposed to have only half of them. He's a bachelor without any family here, whereas Huping has two elder sisters who live in town.
I found Huping in his room. He looked well physically but no longer possessed any princely charm. He had just returned from kung fu exercises and was panting a little. He wiped his face with a grimy white towel. The backs of his hands were flecked with tiny scars, scabs, and cracks, which must have resulted from hitting sandbags. I told him that we had received over three hundred fan letters addressed to him. I didn't reveal that more than ninety percent of them were from young women and girls, some of whom had mailed him sweetmeats, chocolates, raisins, books, fountain pens, fancy diaries, and even photos of themselves. How come when a man becomes a poor wretch he's all the more splendid to the public?
Huping grinned like an imbecile. "So people still think I'm a tiger-fighter?"
"Yes, they do," I said and turned my head away. Beyond the double-paned window, the yard was clear and white. A group of children were building a snowman, his neck encircled by an orange scarf. Their mouths puffed out warm air, and their shouts rose like sparrows' twitterings. They wore their coats unbuttoned. They looked happy.
Huping stroked his stubbly chin and grinned again. "Well," he said, "I am a tiger-killer."
- posted on 11/13/2006
Ha Jin
Ha Jin was born in 1956 in Liaoning Province in northern China. For six years, beginning at age 14, he served in the People's Liberation Army. After his military service ended, he taught himself English while working the night shift as a railroad telegrapher. In 1977, when colleges reopened after the Cultural Revolution, he passed the entrance exams and was assigned to study English, although this was his last choice for a major. Ha Jin received B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from Chinese universities, and came to the United States in 1985 to do graduate work at Brandeis University, supporting himself as a busboy in a Chinese restaurant and as a night watchman in a factory. After the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, he decided that, as a writer, he could not return to China. In 1993 he earned a Ph.D. in English from Brandeis. He has published two collections of poetry, Between Silences (1990) and Facing Shadows (1996), and two collections of short fiction, Ocean of Words (1996), which received the PEN/Hemingway award, and Under the Red Flag (1997), which won the Flannery O'Connor Award. In the Pond was published in 1998. His novel Waiting won the National Book Award for fiction in 1999, as well as the PEN/Faulkner award. Ha Jin lives in Atlanta, where he is Young J. Allen Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University. - Re: Ha-Jin's Novels Excerptsposted on 11/13/2006
黑胡子老汉 wrote:"Ha Jin lives in Atlanta, where he is Young J. Allen Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University."
That is old news. Ha Jin has long left Emory and is now teaching Creative Writing at Boston University. - posted on 11/13/2006
SHAO BIN FELT SICK of Dismount Fort, a commune town where he had lived for over six years. His wife, Meilan, complained that she had to walk two miles to wash clothes on weekends. She couldn't pedal, so Bin was supposed to take her on the carrier of his bicycle to the Blue Brook. But this month he worked weekends in the Harvest Fertilizer Plant and couldn't help her. If only they had lived in Workers' Park, the plant's apartment compound, which was just hundreds of paces away from the waterside. These days Meilan prayed to Buddha at night, begging him to help her family get an apartment in the park soon.
That's the most Chinglish I ever read. If a Chinese can't understand it, well, ... Maybe some old miracle happens to this luck guy to win some "literature award", just as people wished: The more national, the more international... :) - Re: Ha-Jin's Novels Excerptsposted on 11/14/2006
1.Dear Housheng: yes this is very old news much thanks for your updated file.
2.Thank Linghu for your brave comments.
3.This is only a source bed and index for those want a further trot in the area of English writings espically beginners from mainland.
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