Choose Strong
For Tim.
2025 Qing Ming fell on Apr 4 and as my cousin was visiting, I put it off till
the second weekend of the month. I first fasted for 48 hours in Apr 2020, soon
after my dad passed away. The Chinese government revoked the 10yr visa for covid
and I didn't go back to see him off and felt guilty.
I have fasted every year since and turned numb through the second part of the
drill: hunger pangs after 20 hours, cold feet and poor sleep the second night,
and stupor and craving for the last 10 waking hours. I have to do something, to
take the mind off food.
Sat noon, I checked out from the library "Under the Red Flag," a work of the
Chinese expat author Ha Jin and the 1997 winner of the Flannery O'Connor award
for short fiction. I was not disappointed. English is his second language and
Jin doesn't boast a mastery of its idioms and slangs, but he has a style
nonetheless. Through writing, he has created a lingo for things northern-Chinese
in the 60s and 70s. As I read, I couldn't help smiling at the recognition of dacron,
haw jelly, milk and red bean popsicles, garlic bolt, water vat, public latrine,
production brigade, Heaven Lamp, Fox Spirit, etc., etc. Rendered into Chinese in
my mind, they brought back vivid pictures of my childhood. I might not agree
with all the translations but still they spoke to me and at the same time, I
questioned in my mind how a westerner, or anyone, lacking the experience, could
enjoy reading Jin. The first half of the book and a second pot of strong coffee
tided me over a hungry evening.
The next morning, after a restless night, I resumed reading at Starbucks.
Technically, I had broken my fast by adding two bags of sugar and a shot of
half-and-half to my cup of joe. Instead of easing the hunger, however, the drink
seemed to stoke it, and I let it pass.
At the sentence level, I found many faults in the book, for example, on page 123
The heavy dew made mosquitoes unable to fly, so that the air felt cooler and
fresher.
Air-freshening through grounding mosquitoes?
I was impressed nonetheless by the natural way Jin wrote and his tales, set in the
Cultural Revolution, sound mostly credible to me. I finished the last story,
"A Decade," around 5:00pm, time to break the fast.
Here's the list of summaries:
- In Broad Daylight: public denounciation of an adulteress followed by the
tragic suicide of her husband.
- Man to Be: A reluctant rapist was jinxed at the scene and his fiancée broke
the engagement because he lost virility.
- Sovereignty: Pig breeding ended in disaster.
- Winds and Clouds over a Funeral: The Dings cremated their dead, against her
will, to gain an upper hand in the game of survival.
- The Richest Man: It was impossible to stay neutral in faction wars, especially
for a rich coot.
- New Arrival: Baby-sitting brought together an estranged childless old couple.
- Emperor: How the weakest in a young street gang became the boss.
- Fortune: Fortune-telling and the illusion of grandeur drove a father to kill
his son.
- Taking a Husband: The consequences of betting on a loser in a political game.
- Again, the Spring Breeze Blew: The young widow and mother killed her attacker
and her story brought good fortune.
- Resurrection: After running out of options, he castrated himself for
redemption from an affair.
- A Decade: The teacher, a daughter of a Shanghai capitalist, in surviving a
brutal world, lost her innocence.
