Go to: Chapter 1
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After taking the exam, Bing stayed at home, passing his days and nights in anxious suspense.
His future was to be determined within two months.
It was the second of August. Three weeks had passed since the fateful three-day exam taken in early July, and, entering August, the days were numbered towards the release of the exam results.
‘Mum, I don’t think I can get into university,’ he said to her, while walking towards the field. ‘I won’t mind just working on the fields and help you.’
‘Ehm, of course I need your help. But if you don’t get in this time, you can try again.’
‘No, I don’t want to do it again,’ he said wistfully, as if the result was already known. ‘I know some students who had tried quite a few times but still no more luck.’
‘At least you try once more, as your dad and I both agree.’
The type of conversation between them had actually taken place for many times, his tone always negative and pessimistic, whilst his mother had tried to be neutral, to soothe his distress by her contingency plan. At any rate, it served reasonably well to alleviate their pending anxiety, and to prepare their hearts for his very possible failure. The waiting was a torturous experience to almost all the Chinese students who had taken part in the life-changing examination. In the entire town, there were about eleven students on the waiting list, and Bing was the only one in his village. Any news for eleven candidates would reach the ears of others within two days at most, although they were far apart from each other.
There had been no news or rumours until 12th of August, when two successful cases were reported. Then the day of the next, another reached the ears of his uncle, who immediately told Bing with vivid concern in his voice. Three of them were then described enthusiastically by the villagers, as to whom they were, and what their parents did, and how hard and relentless their parents had been working to support their study. It was the kind of gossip in the countryside that the villagers would repeatedly chatter about, as if the subject students were their own children, or at least directly related to them.
Then Bing was told by one villager who had just come back from the market, that Kai had got into Renmin University of China in Beijing. To this, Bing’s emotion was twofold of the same intensity, one, the gladness for Kai, whose exhilarating moments could be easily imagined, and two, the misgiving and apprehension for his own future. How had he responded to the news and what sort of expression he, and the reporter, had worn at the time, he couldn’t tell. But the subterranean perturbation must have been thorough and significant in those moments.
‘I won’t make it,’ he muttered to himself, when he was alone, looking at something he didn’t see.
His mother, sister, uncle, aunt, and even the babbling Dan, had been very quiet for the period, evading any topics about the dreadful exam. But their concern was never so vivid and visible in their faces, in their words and their gestures. Only his grandma seemed to be honest and easier with him, consoling him by ‘Aiya-hah, don’t worry, you can get in, don’t worry…’
He was restless, and worrying like a rat that has dropped into water fighting its way out.
Then on the nineteenth of August, the heaven kissed his cheek.
His father, brandishing a piece of paper, shouting to the house as soon as his head had emerged from the road. ‘Bing got in…’ were his words, which he repeated again and again as if by doing so he could keep up his ecstasy.
Unlike his sister who rushed to his father, Bing didn’t run. His mother immediately dropped the clothes she was then chafing on the washing board. In the face of the fateful news, Bing appeared ridiculously calm, as though the information was not new, only confirmed at this moment.
His dad smiled an undiscounted smile, and his sister had the letter in her hands as if it were for her. When Bing had his chance to read it, into his eyes was the green characters of Shanghai International Studies University, and its round official stamp, and the hand-written name Wang Bing, and the major English he was enrolled in. Getting into a university, indeed any university was already too much a wish for him. So the fact that he was up to the first choice on his wish list for both university and major, was breaking a wave of elation his young heart could hardly sustain.
His impatient sister took again the letter from him. When he looked up at his parents, he noticed they were already in tears. But his grandma was just smiling, as if to her this was not a surprise.
Then Bing suddenly felt dizzy. He said: ‘I am feeling unwell.’
His mother asked him to take a rest upstairs, where he stayed not more than five minutes before coming down to join the blissful circle, now becoming larger as his uncle, aunt, Dan, and other villagers also took part in.
In his usual humour, Dan didn’t forget to mock at his happiness, ‘Haha, you look like a university student already, no more tree cutting any more.’ Apparently he was alluding to the incident on the hill.
His dad told the story how he got the notice. He got it directly from the school, he said, he had called to check twice a day for any news for him. The letter was first securely mailed to the school, which was considered safer than being delivered directly to the village. It would have been some days delay if his dad hadn’t gone to the school himself.
The dinner of the night was ginger-fried duck, savoury pig-meat, rice-wine in the glasses and more in the elegant-looking flagon, and happy faces and fluid smiles and animated chopsticks.
‘Now let’s toast the first university student in the village for the last thirty years.’ His uncle raised his cup, his thin and narrow face flushed by unusual excitement. ‘Bing, you earned the honour for the family.’
All cups lifted, and tipped to the lips.
His father, half intoxicated, seemed ready in the mood to talk about all the things of all the time. ‘Me and your uncle had not been able to do much study in our youth, when all the people struggled to find food. Nothing to eat, people starving. Then the Cultural Revolution, everyone fought each other, everyone was today a friend, tomorrow an enemy.’
His uncle made a comment, ‘Well, people here were not fighting as much as in the big cities...’
‘Probably not in the village, but in the town it was just the same. People joined and switched groups all the time, no peace of mind at all.’ He paused, taking a long second sipping his wine, as if recalling something. The faces around the table, in the meantime, were stern and curious and expectant. It was very rare for his father to be in such a state of mind to recount the past. ‘Looking back, it had been ridiculously unbelievable. Do you remember the days when we had to pluck out the well-growing crops in many fields and replant them into just one field?’
His uncle chuckled, ‘Of course, that was before you went to work in the town, we were instructed to do this so that a better harvest rate could be reported.’
His mother rejoined, ‘But they all died later in the fields.’
‘How could the people do such a silly thing?’ Bing asked first time.
‘Well, most of us knew it wouldn’t work, it was just common sense. We have been growing rice for generations. But nobody dared to say no to the command from above.’
‘Why?’ Bing wondered. ‘Didn’t the leader know it wouldn’t work?’
‘Maybe they meant to test a new way of doing things. People in those days were very different,’ his father replied.
Then his uncle turned to Bing, ‘Bing, let me tell you one thing, you will definitely laugh your teeth off,’ but he suspended at least two seconds by sipping the wine, ‘I remember there used to be a type of bird in the village, very big, and always coming to the fields to eat the ripening grains. We tried to stop it, but didn’t know how. One day someone got an idea, he said we could bring basins, stand on the edges of the fields, and use stones to strike the basin, making noise to scare the birds away.’
‘What? But you couldn’t stand there all day?’ Bing said.
‘No, we didn’t stand there all day, but once in every two hours. A line of people stood there banging the basins or mugs, with sticks or anything that could make a sound.’
A chorus of laughter filled the room.
‘It was like a dog trying to chase a bird in the sky,’ his dad made an extra comment.
But his uncle quieted down. ‘You may laugh at them today, but people of those days were very serious about this. It was a task of Revolution, such named and labelled, like many other things we did.’
His mother chimed in, ‘I remembered one thing. Your dad missed it in his story. You know we dug out the rice stalks and re-planted them into one field? After that, we were still clever enough to know that the crops were not able to breathe, with so many squeezed together in one place. Someone then had an idea of using the windmill, the handled one we used for rice sifting, to help them breathe. People were just a little suspicious, but went for it just the same. Therefore, we carried the big windmills to the fields and pumped the air into the crops.’
‘Haha, using a windmill to help them breathe,’ Ming said, in the midst of the laughter.
Nevertheless, Bing thought, although it seemed ridiculous, it was not entirely illogical. Because the birds ate the crops, so we needed to scare them away; wasn’t banging out a sound effective? And, because the crops couldn’t breathe, so we needed to help them, wasn’t the air out of windmill helpful? It was of course naïve, but quite innocent and even as creative as a child.
However, gathering all crops into one field, and without receiving any extra benefit, without making better use of the spare fields, it was utterly stupid, it was absolutely imbecilic. But, wait a minute, maybe they thought they could save labour on a smaller space when they were weeding and harvesting?
He turned to his dad, and then his mother, ‘So the crops were almost ripened when they were dug out?’
‘Yes, the rice head was bulging with baby grains already,’ his mother confirmed.
‘But why? They didn’t mean to better use the spare fields, or to save the labour by working on lesser acres, did they?’
His father explained, ‘No, the intent was to report the bigger harvest per acre to the leader, because, for the same amount of grain, the rate would be much higher if denominated by smaller acres.’
‘But it all died,’ Bing said.
‘Yes, that was a tragedy,’ his dad said, ‘that was why we had such a famine in the sixties.’
At his last words the air turned a little gloomy, especially when most diners, including Bing, knew one son of his Grandpa’s first wife, who was also present and sat quietly in the diner table, had died from the mentioned famine.
His dad decided to cheer all up, ‘Well, things are getting better, and you go to university!’
The following days and weeks, prior to the semester start which was in early September, Bing was drinking the praises and congratulations like a hero. Some villagers had a certain hint of jealousy in their words, but that didn’t matter at all, for jealousy was indeed one of the many ingredients in the wine of triumph.
To celebrate the event, Bing’s family arranged a grand banquet, to which Kai, and a number of his good childhood mates were also invited. It had been so long a time since the villagers had seen anyone reaching such a higher education. This was partly due to the ten years of Cultural Revolution, during which the academic system in China had almost been paralysed, and partly due to the fact that hunger, instead of education, had always been a more prominent and desperate issue in all those years.
And, the financial issues as how to support Bing’s study in Shanghai had not proved to be a real headache to his parents, for anybody in the village, who had some spare cash under their beds, would be happy to lend the money if they were so honoured as to be asked for it.
So after all that Bing had lavishly enjoyed, he was ready to advance his earthly existence beyond the boundary of the Ancient Village, of Mianyang, of Sichuan province, of all the wider territories leading eastward to Shanghai, which was a symbol of glory and mystery and great expectation in the eyes of all the people around him. A debate arose on whether his father should accompany him all the way to his university. As a fledgling and ambitious youth, Bing was against the idea, but his mother and especially his grandma, had expressed concern about his taking the unprecedented trip alone. In the end, it was agreed that his father would go together with him to Mianyang, from where he could take about three days of train directly to the city by himself.
On the eve of his departure, his grandma secretly inserted into his hand a number of crumpled notes. He could not but accept her gift from her mottled hands. He wondered how she could have saved the money over the years, for, in his mind, she had never had anything to do the household economics.
In the morning, all members got up early, checking, reminding, repeating a lot of trivial things, more for the sake of relieving emotions that had gathered thick and affluent over the months. They escorted him to the little bridge, which was often used as a platform for departure. Ming, and Dan who presently carried his luggage with a bamboo stick, would go further to the town’s bus station. His mother, ever since he saw her first time in the morning, had been in tears, and now more in silence, and his grandma had been exceptionally quiet, neither dusting off his clothes nor saying any of her habitual ‘Aiya-hah’ tagged words or admonitions. Like a slim tree, she was just standing there, among others who minutely circled around him, her tears some, most already dried.
When he turned his eyes over his shoulder the third time to check his two beloved women, he saw his mother already on her way back home. But his grandma, thin and weak and herself alone on the bridge, was still waving her hand.
A flood of something broke from his heart, and forced its way upwards. No more could he look back again...
Half an hour later, he and his father were seated on the bus. Dan smiled an unusual smile, the smile of meekness and wistfulness, of poignant loss. His sister appeared weaker; she had a smile of full tears, her hands ceaselessly wiping her eyes.
The bus started, lurched a bit and moved on. He heard from behind him, ‘Ge, take care…write me letters...’
The fields, the shortly cut rice-straws, and chickens, cows, and swallows, among many familiar things, passed along. The bus was creaking to the bumping of the road, to the screeching and trilling of swallows.
A considerable time had elapsed, before Bing was able to settle down. Then he heard a song from the little radio on the panel in front of the driver’s seat. He knew the song from school; its name was ‘Back to mother’s home’, about a married daughter on her way to visit her mother.
‘The wind blows, rustling the willow; the water crashes, laughing in the river…la la la…whose daughter-in-law hurries on, isn’t she going back to her mother’s home. A chicken in her left hand, a duck in her right, plus on her back a baby strapped….la la la…a dark cloud is coming and rushing is a gust of wind, and soon the raindrops are striking like beans…la la la…the chicken is flying, the duck running away, and the baby is frightened fully awake…la la la…nowhere to hide from the rain, her rouged face is full of red-soil stain... Aiya, how can I face my mother!’
The song must have lightened all the souls on the bus. When Bing heard the Aiya, which reminded of her grandma’s characteristic speech, he couldn’t help but break into a half-smile.
At the County station, they made a transfer, and it was not until mid-afternoon did they arrive in the city of Mianyang. As soon as they got off the bus, the pedicab drivers were swarming over. His dad asked about the fare to railway station. ‘Two Yuan,’ a driver said, his forefinger pointed to the sky to justify the price. Hesitating, his father was seeing around. Another driver managed to get closer, but the first didn’t give him any chance, for he instantly reduced the price to one and half Yuan, which made his father even more nonplussed. After further bargaining, a price of one Yuan struck the deal.
The streets of Mianyang were wider than in Sangton County, with more bicycles and tricycles, more people loitering about. The buses, with two joint sections, looked very long, hauling and tooting through the traffic, mixed in the flow with sedans. After about forty jolting minutes in the pedicab, they arrived at the railway station.
Bing had never seen or taken a train before, nor had his father. The concept and image of a train was in the books, with its long caterpillar-like body, dark fumes billowing out of its head.
Suddenly he heard a sharp, furious cry from behind the building. He hadn’t spotted the train yet, but he could feel its ponderous body moving, its head hissing and fuming. At once an excitement was washing over him. It was as if the call was from his own body and he was going to a battlefield to challenge an object more powerful than his own might.
Inside the ticket hall, there were two queues leading to two small windows, labelled as Lei Feng 1 and Lei Feng 2. Lei Feng was a model youth of the country, who had an unselfish heart in helping others in need. ‘Learn from Lei Feng’, like ‘Long Live Chairman Mao’ and ‘Long live the Proletariat’, was one of the most popular slogans printed on walls and in books. In 1987, slogans related to the Cultural Revolution were only seen on some very old walls or buildings. But Lei Feng, as a long worshipped character, had continued to be used as a good example of serving the people.
His dad put down the luggage on the floor.
‘Can you take out the notice letter of the university, we need it to get the discounted student ticket,’ he said.
But Bing said, ‘Dad, let me go buy the ticket. You stay here.’
‘OK, but don’t forget to buy me a platform-ticket.’
Bing went and picked Lei Feng 1 queue, which had one or two fewer people, attaching himself to its tail.
It was a long wait. More and more people came to stand behind him.
In his front was a middle-aged man, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat. With a bamboo pole he was carrying a large tin pot crammed with many little things, and a nice-looking canvas bag with a zipper. It was amusing to notice that the things he carried seemed to have far better quality than his clothes. His Zhong Shan dress, named after Dr. Sun Zhong Shan, the founder of the Chinese National Party, with four capped, floppy pockets in the front, was faded, crumpled, looking very old and odd on him. Curiously, Bing checked his own dress: white shirt, blue pants, and a pair of pale-green Revolution Shoes as the nickname of the civilian version of shoes worn by the soldiers in the Revolution Army. For the moment he was feeling himself more on fashion.
Turning around, Bing found behind him a little girl, very skinny, as well as a woman immediately behind her. The woman had a large straw basket on her back, strapped by two straw ropes to her shoulders. The child clung very close to Bing, her feet, in slippers, frequently touching his heels. When Bing looked down at her, the girl tipped up her head, looking at him innocently. Her hair was plaited to two little pigtails, in the same style as his sister’s.
Bing smiled at her. But she didn’t smile back, nor did her mother manage any friendly expression. He was somewhat confused. Then he guessed they might have thought he looked at them because he was unhappy with the little girl getting so close to him.
The queue moved, rather slowly, and the girl’s toes kept brushing him. Then the man in his front, suddenly turned and swung his carriage. The tip of his bamboo pole nearly struck Bing’s face. Instinctively, he stepped back to avoid the imminent mishap, but unfortunately he was unable to prevent another collision with the girl behind.
‘Ouch...’ the girl cried.
Bing turned and squatted down. ‘Sorry! Sorry!’ he said, ‘I must have hurt you.’
The girl didn’t actually fall, but Bing’s gesture was as if trying to pull her up.
Her mother cradled her to her, half bent to look at the foot of her daughter.
‘Don’t worry, just a little scratch,’ she said, smiling. Then she said to her daughter, consoling her by caressing her head, ‘Don’t stand too close to uncle.’
Bing rose, and patting her little arm, apologizing, ‘Sorry.’
‘Say to uncle, never mind,’ her mother encouraged. The girl muttered faintly, ‘Thank you, uncle, never mind.’
‘Thank you,’ he smiled, a little amused with her timid voice. But he was again confused. How could he have judged them wrong when they had not returned a smile previously? They were just good people.
From then on, Bing tried to keep a safe distance from the heavy man, but he felt the little girl treading on his heels all the same.
Finally, reaching the window, Bing asked for the earliest ticket to Shanghai.
‘No.48, tomorrow 11:20 am.’ The ticket woman said in a flat and dry voice.
Bing hesitated only for a moment, wondering if he should discuss this with his father. But then he decided, ‘Get one for me, and also a platform-ticket.’
The ticket was a yellow rectangle, thicker and better quality than the bus ticket. It printed: From Mianyang to Shanghai, hard-seated, average speed, No Seat. Whole price 22.80 Yuan.
So it cost 11.40 Yuan for students, and No Seat, which was expected because Mianyang was not a starting station.
Returning to his dad, he showed the ticket. Like himself, his dad studied the ticket for almost half a minute, turning over it a few times as if he were trying to eat it but didn’t know how to begin.
Now, they had to find a place to pass the night.
As soon as they walked out of the building, a bulky woman approached them, asking if they needed hostel. Two other men also chanced to come over, asking the same question. Then as soon as his dad began to chat with her, the other two withdrew.
After settling the price, they were led by the woman along the side of a high building. Bing found it hard to match her speed. She looked back frequently to usher them on, as if she was afraid they could escape from her at any moment.
Five minutes had dragged by, a vague fear began to worry the son, and the father. His dad called after her, ‘Comrade, where is it? You said it was just around the corner.’
‘Just over there,’ she pointed, maintaining her brisk paces.
So, they had to move on. The buildings on both sides now looked dirtier, the road narrower. Bing had a growing fear they were being led into a trap; some devilish cheating stories of the city started to plague his mind. He was about to express his concern to his dad, when the woman, standing at the corner waiting for them, declared, ‘We have arrived.’
It was a relief when they saw on the wall, You Hao (Friendship) Hostel, although it looked dilapidated, poorer than many buildings he had seen in the County.
They entered into the little lobby. A girl behind a window was looking at them, in a quiet and resigned expression as if she was expecting someone else.
‘You go and check in,’ the woman threw her words and walked out.
For a moment, they stood there, didn’t know what to do the next. Then the girl said, ‘Give me your identity certificates.’
So stepping closer to the window, they went through the forms and signatures and payments, before they were led into a room. Two beds, wooden, straw-sheeted, were laid against the wall. The pillows looked cleanly washed. On each wall fastened two identical posters by four round pins. The picture was a woman, a film star or somebody Bing was not sure, but she looked very beautiful. A desk was between the beds, with a thermos bottle on it. Overall the room appeared good enough to be the first hostel Bing was to stay in his life.
They both sat on the bed.
‘Sleep here one night, no need to unpack,’ his dad said. Then checked his watch, he added, ‘It’s five o’clock. We need to get something to eat.’ He stood up. ‘Maybe we can go the Tieniu street, the busiest and the only street I can remember.’
‘Is it far from here?’ Bing asked.
‘I don’t know how far,’ his father replied. ‘I didn’t go there from the railway station last time. We can ask the girl in the lobby.’
They went out, closing the door behind them. The girl was bent reading a book, his father asked timidly, ‘Comrade, is Tieniu Street far away from here?’
She raised her eyes, answered shortly, ‘Very far.’ Then she relapsed into her reading again.
But his dad pursed, ‘Is there any bus going there.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where is the bus station?’
The girl lifted her eyebrows and looked at them for a second or two, and then as if she had found a quick way to put an end of the conversation, she advised, ‘Outside, there is one.’
‘Thanks,’ his father nodded gratefully.
They went out to the main road and, seeing nothing like a bus station around the place, they realized the answer they had obtained from the girl was worthless. They simply couldn’t grasp where her ‘outside’ was.
‘Why wasn’t the girl more helpful?’ Bing asked. ‘She didn’t seem to like to talk to us.’
‘She knows we’re from a poor village.’
‘How? Do we look very different?’ There was a heavy touch of anger in his voice.
‘Well, of course, in her eyes. Every day she sees different people from different places, must be very smart in doing that.’
‘The dog’s eyes are looking down on humans,’ Bing was using a Chinese proverb to describe the type of people who have snobbish attitude towards the poor. And the dog was regarded by Chinese as a bad, despicable creature.
‘Don’t get upset, you need to learn to be patient. Otherwise you may easily get into trouble,’ his father said, in a more serious tone. ‘We farmers have to get used to this type of discrimination when we go into the cities. I don’t know about Shanghai, but definitely it is a place where a lot of wealthy and snobbish people reside.’
‘But...’ Bing was about to protest, when he spotted some distance away a pedicab standing motionless. ‘Can we take the pedicab?’
His dad agreed, and they walked there.
Getting closer to the cab, Bing saw a man, the driver, wearing nothing but a pair short pants, sprawling inside the two-seated carriage. He was snoring aloud, his head bending over his bare chest.
‘Master,’ his father called. and without getting any response, he repeated again the ‘Master’ title referring to the workman with a certain privilege, someone supposed to be in a better social class than the lowest farmers in China. ‘Master, master…’
The driver woke up, stirring his bulk fretfully as if he had had a horrible dream.
‘Need a lift?’ he asked the obvious. ‘Where to go?’
‘Tieniu Street.’
‘Two Yuan,’ he said. And before his dad had the chance to bargain, he rushed his words out, ‘Not less, otherwise no go,’ he relaxed his body again on the seats as if to resume his sleep.
They looked around the street, no more pedicabs in their sight. Then his dad decided, out of a farmer’s humble courage and rare impulsiveness in the circumstances, ‘OK, OK, two Yuan, two Yuan. Let’s go…’
The cab was very tatty; all the parts were wrapped by scraps of sack or dusty plastic. The roof was tied with many layers of who knows what material; the small, triangle-shaped driver’s seat was covered by old garments from an Army uniform. The driver’s hips were very wide and thick, overwhelming the small and narrow seat underneath. But he did have great muscles, expanding and contracting with his pedalling motion. The lumps of his calves and thighs were flexing vigorously like a frog kicking its legs.
It was the second time Bing had taken a cab. He had not enjoyed well his first time, when he had strained himself to clutch the luggage in the narrow carriage. Now, sitting there, under the safe though patchy roof, pulled by a cattle-like person, he had a gratifying sensation. He looked at his father on his left, who, with his head turning outside, was apparently engrossed with what was passing his eyes. After all, it cost two Yuan for the service, the amount of money able to buy more than a dozen of chicken eggs.
Then he saw a young man squatting on the edge of the walk path in front of a shop, brushing his teeth with the tool ramming swiftly in and out of his mouth; the white foam smearing his lips, dribbling down to the blackened road, creating a sharp contrast of black and white. Why did he brush his teeth at this time of afternoon? Wasn’t the activity only done in the morning? Bing wondered. But his attention soon shifted to a nearby woman, contented-looking, in a beautiful red sweater. She was sitting on a wooden stool, held a baby on her tummy and split the baby’s feet as far apart as her own. Obviously she was in her joy inducing the baby to pee, directly to the road.
Then, an aged man, pulling, now really like cattle, a wooden cart stacked full of black coal bricks, came into his view, reminding him of the poor people in the old society before the Revolution, who had been oppressed under the three big mountains of Imperialism, Feudalism and Capitalism.
In a while, it was drizzling. The street, the building, the moving things were thus thrown into a mist, making a scene he had never perceived in his life. In his village, there were the greens, water, plants and manures. In his school, there were some trees, wide roads and landscapes, as well as the red-scarfed students. But, here was so different, all gloomy, narrow, discoloured, without the green and space, without swallows and crickets and frogs. In its bleakness, things and people were moving, groping about like ghosts in the dusk.
Then, there was a passing bicycle, with a grey umbrella hitched up above the head of the rider, whose back was arched severely as if in pain.
Only the cab driver was as active as ever. The sweat and rain and grease on his skin had been mixed into a sheen of substance, glistening in the dim light.
They left the cab in a street announced confidently by the driver as Tieniu Street. And lucky, the rain gradually died out, when they strolled along.
Bing was hungry. They came to a stall, where he was immensely attracted by a huge basket full of pig-meat: pig-head, pig-ear, pig-leg, pig-knuckle, pig-intestine, all of which looked fully cooked, ready to eat, with a delicious colour of brown. Oh, such a range of pig meat!
Chained by the goodness of pig, his desire was so much aroused that Bing felt his feet were unable to move. His father, of course no less hungry, was also lingering about the shop, tempting a bold decision.
Then without any discussion, they went in and ordered a plate of pig-ears and other thick-skinned parts of who knows what of a pig. His dad must have been in the same thread of thinking. Price was nothing, they could easily borrow the money, now that he was a, ah! University Student! And he was told he was already a person with the Urbane Identity, belonging to one of the superior unsoiled class in New China. The thought of his good fate, refreshed at this particular moment, was sending a thrill up and down his young spine, driving his saliva out from under his tongue like spring.
A shirtless man, with a size and stance of a butcher, and whose tummy was only covered by a red apron, brought the bowls and chopsticks to them, and asked, ‘Do you want beer?’
‘Beer?’ his dad questioned, more as if to himself, and then looked at Bing. ‘Do you want to try?’
Bing had heard of it, but had never drunk it. The only alcohol he had previously tried was the rice-wine brewed by his smother. ‘Yes.’
The first mouthful of beer tasted bad enough to make him frown into a grimace. It wasn’t sweet, nor having any sense of alcohol to his understanding. Slightly bitter and even stale-smelling like the pig food, the liquid may only serve to relieve a desperate thirst. But the colour looked fine and acceptable, though it reminded him of the urine in the bucket in his bedroom at home. Nevertheless, after two glasses, Bing felt he was affected; his eyes shone a little wild.
‘Dad, thank you for…’ he raised the cup, in the closest manner of toasting in his memory, and stammered, ‘for everything, you, had asked me to study hard, so…’
His father, whose complexion had been customarily firm and reserved, was clearly moved. His eyes grew twinkling, his features, softening, at the gratitude expressed explicitly for the first time by his child.
‘Hehe..’ he didn’t seem to know what exactly to say, his short white-streaked hair making him look as if an old man. ‘As I said, you have earned the precious honour for the family, for the whole village.’
Bing picked a piece of pig-ear, chewing its soft bones. His dad continued, ‘You go to Shanghai, again, study hard, we shall thank Deng Xiao Ping for his new policy, and you ought to make your contribution to our country.’
It sounded like the droning preaching of the teacher in the school, of the text books. Yet Bing sensed afresh of its real touch and truth, now so intimately said by his own father.
‘Yes, I will,’ he promised.
The eating continued, with good noises from both mouths. The half-naked shop owner was there chopping heavily a thick piece of pig-meat on a great stump.
‘Dad, had grandma once lived here in Mianyang?’ Bing asked, as his musing thread turned to his grandma.
‘I think somewhere in the suburbs, not in the town.’
‘Hasn’t she ever come back to her hometown?’
‘No, not that I am aware of. She’s rarely mentioned it.’
‘Mum told me that grandma had a hu*****and in Mianyang, and her four sons, all had been stolen and sold.’
His father was surprised. ‘No, no, I think her children were sold by her hu*****and, for money, not stolen.’
‘Ah? What? Her hu*****and sold them?’ Bing stared at his father, in di*****elief. ‘How?’
‘Well, I was only told by other village elders, your grandma never told us of her past,’ he answered, sipping the beer. ‘But her ex-hu*****and was not a good person, for sure. He sold the children for money.’
‘Was he a gangster?’
‘Maybe, some kind…’
The air had now turned grave and sombre. The buoyancy in Bing’s heart, stirred up by the beer, was replaced by thoughts of his grandma.
‘She was always troubled with toothache and headache, can’t she go to see a doctor?’
‘She had seen some local Chinese Traditional doctors, taken some herbs,’ he answered. ‘Difficult to cure…’
‘Maybe she needs to go somewhere better, in the County hospital, or here in Mianyang?’ Bing probed, ‘borrow the money if we need, we can pay back in the future.’
‘Let me see what we can do after I go back.’
His dad had now relapsed into his usual state of solemnity and obscurity, even with the colour affected by the beer. For a moment, he found the resemblance between his father and his grandpa amazing.
Emptying the glass, Bing asked, on a whim, ‘Mum told me also grandpa had never seen his father.’
His father raised his eyes, regarding his son for a second or two, as if in surprise at the sudden swing of topic. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And his father was addicted to opium, and disappeared.’
‘I don’t know if he was an opium addict or what, but he simply vanished, and never returned home, while his wife, that was your great grandma, was pregnant.’ Taking another big sip, he was more ready to tell the story. ‘And did you know it was only by a little chance that he and his mother had survived?’
‘No.’
‘She hanged herself, while pregnant.’
‘Ah?’ Bing was astounded.
‘A villager, a woman was then looking for a lost pig. She came to a straw cottage and, looking through the chink of its door, she saw a body dangling from the roof. Shocked and alarmed, she pushed it, but the door was latched tight inside. So she called for help, and the door was broken open. When they laid her down, she was still breathing. Well, that was how she had lived again. And only some months later, she gave birth to your grandpa.’
‘But, why?’
‘Not sure exactly why, but I would guess she had lost hope, after her hu*****and disappeared, and also the hardship of living, and mostly likely after being insulted by some men. There were rumours in the village.’
‘How could she then lead a life after grandpa’s birth?’
‘Don’t know that part of story, but I won’t assume she committed suicide again. She had to rear up your grandpa, after all.’
‘Had grandpa told you about his past?’
‘No, never, we only heard from other village elders. And I don’t think your grandpa knew much about his parents during his childhood. I know he once managed to draw a picture of his father, conjured up by bits and pieces of description from other elder villagers. The picture used to hang on the wall in the living room, but it was completely damaged when, during a flood, a landslide from the hill rolled into the house.’
‘Did he also do a picture of his mother?’
‘Yes, I think he did it at the same time as that of his father, but it was damaged as well.’
‘So he didn’t say anything about his father, or at least his mother whom he should have remembered?’
‘No.’
‘So strange.’
‘It is, but when people were starving, dying of one thing or another, the past was easily spared from more compelling life matters. And, you know about your grandpa’s furious temper; there had never been a sensible dialogue between him and the rest of family. He was always demanding, reproaching, and enraged whenever his requests were not met.’
‘Hehe..’ Bing grinned, in spite of himself, as some recollection of his grandpa relived in his mind. He finished the rice, putting down the chopsticks. ‘So, if the woman had not chanced to look for her lost pig, grandpa would have died together with his mother.…’
‘Yes… then, without me, and you…’
‘Did she find her lost pig?’
‘How could we know? That was not important.’
‘But the pig was important, without the pig, hehe…’
‘Yes, we may have to thank the pig…’ his dad almost broke into rare laughter, then seeing Bing emptying his bowl, he asked, ‘Do you want more to eat?’
‘No, had enough,’ Bing replied, and noticing some beer left in his glass, he drank it up.
The cost of the meal was three Yuan and eighty cents.
Outside, the air was clear, and with his stomach filled with delicious food, Bing felt less gloomy, more like a tourist in leisure. They paused at a shop selling picture-story books. A row of little students inside seemed enraptured in reading. Bing went in, and was amazed by the hundreds of little books spreading on the wall. The shop owner, sitting in a corner, was sipping his tea. There were four long, four-legged wooden stools, fully occupied by at least fifteen children. Bing managed to brush his way through their legs and arms, looking closer at the book titles. ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’, ‘Water Margin - Outlaws of the Marsh’, many more Chinese classic stories, and many, many others, but none of which Bing had ever read in his boyhood.
He asked the shop owner for the price; not for sale, five cents was the cost for reading a book on the spot.
This was fascinating. So the kids here read books in this manner. He remembered Xing, who had told him and Kai the stories of One Thousands and One Nights. How many books had he read then? Only one or two little Kongfu books in his whole memory, which had contributed much to his day-dreaming in the classroom.
At the end of Tieniu Street, they turned left to the Riverside Street, ambling on. The water of the river, the real one, unlike the little stream in his village, was swelling and shimmering in the twilight. And on the river was a long elegant bridge, the longest ever he had seen.
‘The river was Fujiang, and the bridge was Dong Fang Hong bridge,’ his dad explained. ‘The Jiuqu river in our country is just a little branch of Fujiang.’
Dong Fang Hong, the Eastern Redness at Sunrise was a reference to Chairman Mao, who had saved the country from its wretchedness and let Chinese people stand erect and be proud on their own feet.
More bicycles, one, two or sometimes three people together on the ride, were ringing, easier on the ears than the horns of the crawling bus, than the beeps of those impatient arrogant sedans. The little bell, fixed on the handle of the bicycle, had a little pad for the rider’s thumb. Whenever Bing had a chance to get close to a parked bicycle, Bing would always press the bell to make a series of sounds, as sweet and liquid as a bird’s singing.
There was a little crowd some way down the road. Bing broke into the wall of standing people. In the centre of the circle, he saw two monkeys presently mating, actively and passionately. A quick laughter rushed to his throat, but he had to stifle hard to suppress its freedom, because, looking around, all spectators, half smiling in concentration, were in absolute silence. The owner, who ran the circus, sat on a flat stone, looking benevolently at the monkeys and none the less at the faces of gazers.
Forgetting his dad, and even himself, Bing watched the show to the end. He didn’t know how long it had taken. The time in the circumstances were immeasurable and unmeaning. The scene, together with what he had perceived in the mating of dogs, cattle, and chickens, made up a picture-book as how sex on earth worked and acted, how it created a life, and at the same time entertained a life, or more.
His father was just nearby when the crowd began to disperse. They moved on, and soon reached the footings of the bridge, where the people there attracted him. Some were sleeping on a piece of broken straw sheet, cushioned comfortably by a layer of rice straws. Some were sitting on filthy ground, eating food of one form or the other. But they all looked dirty, half-clothed, unkempt, unclean.
‘Who are they?’ Bing asked. He had seen such people in the County, but not so many gathering.
‘Beggars, tramps...’
Now, a naked boy was running out from the back of a bridge pillar; his ‘little chick chick’ was flicking up and down, like a live thing itself. But his belly was big, round and smooth, not as if he had been starving. There was a very old woman, her hair matted like a tangle of dry straw, her face like the surface of pine tree, was feeding a baby with a pair of exceptionally long and thick chopsticks. The bowl she was holding was huge, doubling the size of the typical soup bowl.
Amazed, Bing made a comment: ‘They must have come from villages. They should go back to their home, growing the rice.’ The view was not as good as he could have wished, and he was tired. ‘Should we go back? It is getting dark.’
‘I remember there is a park somewhere along the river, we may walk over there.’
‘What to see in the park?’
‘Flowers, plants…’
‘Why? Flowers and plants? There are plenty in our village.’
‘But that is different,’ his dad replied emphatically.
Bing didn’t answer. They retraced back to Tieniu Street, and forgot the park as soon as they spotted an empty pedicab. When asked where to go, they were at first confused, but then, with the brains of two generations, they eventually worked it out.
