Chapter 20
At breakfast next morning, the canteen proved to be the contrary to what he had experienced the day before. Boys and more girls had flooded out like rabbits from their dens, thronging a dining room that should have been large enough to host hundreds of students. Bing had to wait fifteen minutes in the queue to get to the window. There were six lines in total. Girls were talking and twittering like birds at dawn, in contrast to the boys, who waited in the queue quietly but eagerly as if to buy tickets at a railway station.
The atmosphere was hot and vigorous; the shapes and forms and colours were diversified, unlike the general greyness in his high school, where all the people looked roughly the same.
The breakfast was simple, consisting of porridge and white-bun and beans and peanuts. He finished it in less than two minutes. The bottleneck of breakfasting was actually at the window. Regardless of what foods being served and how quickly one could eat them, the unit transaction at the window required the same length of time for the staff. If only students could attend their meals at a different time; but then, it may reduce the fun and satisfaction which could only be bestowed on the eaters by their prolonged and patient waiting.
After breakfast, Bing decided to take a tour of the campus. He was told it was some five hundred meters down Eastern Tiyu Hui Road. The day was Tuesday, 1st of September, a free day for all the students who had already arrived. And on the 2nd his class would assemble for the first time - he caught the idea with a shake of excitement as he descended the stairs two at a time.
On the road, young faces were everywhere; some were strolling on foot, some riding bicycles, going along the road or crossing it against the alarms of passing vehicles. Furtively or as if carelessly, he would looked at them all, marvel at their dresses, their lavish laughter, their cocking heads and gestures, their sandals, their skirts, their books or basket balls in their hands. Overall, his secret glance took more interest in girls than boys, although he should, sensibly, check more with the dresses and deportment of his same sex, from whom he would learn and copy in many days to come. After all, he was a freshman, from the poor rural countryside; everything here would be fresh and new. And like a sponge, he was to suck any active elements coming his way.
Some distance away, there was a stony bridge, which excited him at once. To think there was a bridge in this crowd, and so close to his university! Actually he appreciated any type of bridge, may it be made of wood or stone or steel, or even twigs or feathers, if only so constructed to support the weight of humans or insects, to link two points of which connection would be otherwise impossible. Furthermore, where there is a bridge, there is usually water, providing the very source for all lives to thrive.
Then two bicycles came over, both carrying a female passenger on its back rack. They raced each other, cheerful laughter floating about. Each bicycle was swerving precariously, but the girl had no problem fastening to the rack. Their legs dangled one side, now and then tipping one foot down to the black asphalt-road, like a stone skimming on the water, which would inevitably disrupt the bicycle’s balance, causing the driver to shout an emergency, ‘Stop, stop, stop touching the ground.’
As they approached the bridge and began to ascend the slop, the driver arched his back, swinging his hips, pedalling so hard that he had to stand on the pedal with all his bodily weight.
The bridge was named after the road it arched to join. The water in the river was silently and sluggishly moving. On its surface, there was not much dirt or litter, nor did it have any ripples or waves or shadows or reflections.
Perhaps there was not enough wind or sun to make those effects.
He raised his head to look up in the sky, then felt a breath of wind blowing over. At once a gust of stench came to assail his nostrils.
Now he noticed the water was thick and dark and stagnant like oil; now he realized nobody but himself stood still on the bridge, looking at the water as if enjoying the scene; now the acrid smell grew stronger, to a point he couldn’t stand any longer; now he plucked his feet, and joined the flock of people to escape its stink…
Some distance away, he looked back at the bridge, thinking that because of the dirty water, he had to love the bridge more. Without its service, he imagined the students would have to swim, wade, suffocate in the water, and come out at the other side blackened and ruined.
But honestly, the stench was not worse than the unforgettable toilet in his village. It was not even more horrid than a loud fart, released by someone with severe indigestion, that could have so much affected one’s respiratory system. The trouble here with the river, was again, as he guessed, to do with economics of quantity, to do with the numerous collective culprits. How many people, factories, pets and birds and dogs and machines might have shit into the river, so much as to turn stinky so vast an amount of water? When one farts his own individual way, it comes and goes quick; but imagine a massive crowd of people in a room, do the same thing, chance it at the same time, surely it is a disaster…
The entrance to campus was a simple L-shaped structure made of dark-yellow marble. The name of the university bulged out vertically on the right wall. However, the left part of the framework didn’t seem to be part of the marble design. It was just an extension of the white building on the left, which made the whole structure look awkward, as if it was joined by two disagreeable parts like clothes that had been patched with different colours.
The university name, seven-characters, had a likeness of Chairman Mao’s handwriting; if not, it must be that of some other important person. A school couldn’t be famous without the great strokes of some famous hand. But, apart from the name, the door was not as impressive as might have been expected, for it looked even less remarkable than the entrance of his high school.
Then came the campus. Coming to him first were a few low, two-storied houses that looked like private residences with steep slate roofs, not in the least having the right image of ‘his university’. Further down the lane, some higher buildings began to border both sides. The lane was loosely occupied by bicycles, tricycles, the happily talking students, and several slowly moving sedans. The buildings, with many windows in the wall, looked rather old and weather-stained.
He saw a pool, a swimming pool it must be, at the end of the lane, which was a delight, an absolute credit to the university; then a sporting arena, where some students were presently playing basketballs, jumping and shouting very much like excited monkeys. The lane ended abruptly at another entrance, from where he walked out to find a road named Western Tiyu Hui Road.
So the distance across the two gates was very short; it took him less than five minutes to walk across. Back inside, he took a branch tour to the left, and soon noticed a library, and soon reached another end of campus, bounded by Dalian Western Road.
The smallness of campus quite disappointed him, though the swimming pool and the library were definitely two new facilities he would look forward to.
Strolling back to his dormitory, he saw the last roommate had arrived. He was occupied himself unpacking things.
‘Hi,’ Bing said to gain his attention.
A young, square face turned up, energetic with some acnes. ‘Hi,’ he replied, but didn’t pause his rummaging in his luggage.
‘My name is Wang Bing, from Sichuan.’
The fellow now stretched up, very tall, at least 180cm, and with his athletic build, seemed to tower over Bing.
‘Nihao, nihao, I am Wu Kang, from Helongjiang,’ he said, smiling with a mouth of white teeth.
‘Oh, Helongjiang!’ Bing exclaimed. ‘So far north.’
‘Yes, the most northern province of China, on the border with Russia,’ he said, ‘I am actually in Jiamusi, some distance from Haerbin.’
‘Haerbin?’ Bing muttered, repeating the name as if recalling from a memory. ‘Must be very cold there.’
‘Yes, in winter, negative 30 degrees.’
‘Negative 30?!’ Bing’s eyes were widening. ‘Is that something like your ear would simply drop off if being pulled?’
‘Hahaha, yes, but we don’t stay long in the open, and when we do, we wear thick shawls that cover the ears, nose and mouth. And inside house the Kang - stove - is well heated, where we pass most time in winter.’
‘Is that so?’ Bing asked, turning to climb upstairs to his bed. ‘So cold…’
‘Yes,’ Kang nodded and set to resume his activity on his items.
The time for lunch was still hours away. Then he remembered the dirty clothes he had left in the basin. So he spent next half an hour doing the washing, after which, seeing Kang, with his immense body in the little space setting up his net, he helped him with the task.
From their conversation, Bing knew that Kang’s parents were also farmers. He had three brothers and one sister - a big family, indeed! When asked how his parents could support his study, he confided that he had studied very hard, and his parents had borrowed a lot of money from their villagers and relatives.
Later they came down together to the canteen, and while reaching the ground floor, Kang turned his head aside and spat onto the floor. He then stepped on the phlegm, chafing it with a few strokes as if to make it look cleaner and dry off quicker.
Well, it was not an uncommon scene in China, but with a rice-bowl in his hand, Bing felt very uncomfortable. But he couldn’t say anything.
Apart from this little unsightly habit, Kang was very friendly, open and frank, and easygoing. He didn’t spit very often, never in the dormitory. But he did spit twice into the dirty river when, after lunch, Bing accompanied him to the campus.
One couldn’t expect a friend to be perfect, he thought as he lay in the bed the second night in the university, persuading himself into sleep. But he found the task difficult, for there was one roommate, whose name he didn’t yet remember, snored intermittently, on and off to accord his bodily position. Why didn’t he hear it last night? Was he too tired to notice it?
Again, he couldn’t say or do anything, but stared hard at the roof of the net, listening to one or two starving mosquitoes buzzing and complaining. Lucky, they were outside the net.
Then his thought strayed to reason with the mosquitoes: Why do the little creatures have to disturb human’s living comfort so much? They are hungry; and hunger is tormenting to any life - Bing was prepared to sympathise with them in this regard. If they don’t make that nerve-inflicting noise, if they just suck enough from him and then fly quietly away without leaving the itchy marks on his body, he won’t mind giving a little of his blood to feed them. However, they are just too stupid, too impractical, too ill-behaved; they have to make that whining noise first to make people hate them to guts, and then bite their skin and leave it red and itchy after having enjoyed their feast.
How disagreeable and inharmonious it is in their sharing the planet with human beings! And to imagine the ugly species may have existed on Earth much earlier than when mankind began walking on his hind-legs! Perhaps, much of human’s killing instinct had been derived from his constant fighting with mosquitoes. And, when a man murders one of them, there is usually some blood in his hand, but ironically, it is the blood of his own, not that of the enemy he has just perished. Therefore, his victory of killing would be discounted and nullified, his resentment increased, his killing motive multiplied. However, its population is no doubt much larger than the human’s. They only need a little trace of blood to breed hundreds even thousands of their offspring. So the fight continues to no end, or if there is an end, the human species may be the ultimate loser.
Now, as he lay in the bed judging the life of mosquito, he felt his bladder growing tight, to a point where peeing was the only solution. He exercised his greatest care opening the flap of his net and sliding out, dreading lest the mosquitoes find the opportunity to get in. He stepped down the ladder and went to the toilet.
After coming back to the bed, he still couldn’t sleep; and worse, in a while, he felt his bladder growing tight again, so he repeated the same trip, very carefully for a second time… and, a third time maybe, as his weak memory could not well reflect upon the numbers.
At last, his waking energy yielded to the power of sleep, when, he didn’t know.
