Rewriting Stella
Page 14
first lesson in their textbook: hot and sour
soup. That’s inane, he thought, what savoir faire
does book expect from us in supper hour?
Meals could be key… Rules mesmerizingly
constructed, he found growing appetite
for grammar. What book said were wise strings he
would copy dutifully, in hope it might
cement word-order rules inside his head.
His prof considered rote recall not dead.
113.
With focus more rehearsed, Ai sat right next
to Abu at the desk. She worked on math.
Though doing well by grade, its use perplexed
her. She perceived it part of trodden path
that China used to force-rank students, so
the need for high performance was quite clear.
She feared she might have already plateaued,
which shook the falsity that engineer
was her desired life track, a lie she kept
in recognition she’d need to support
her parents as they aged. That broad precept
the public swallowed easily. Purport
to go in risk’s direction, and you play
a gamble with your kin’s halcyon days.
114.
“Wǒ xiǎng hē yī wǎn suānlàtāng,” Ab asked
that night at dinner, poorly. Eyebrows raised.
They passed the spiced soup as requested, grasped
his rudeness as of language learning phase.
“Dāngrán,” said Long, then “hǎohǎor xǔexí,”
encouraging his guest to study hard.
He pleasured in host’s purvey – serving tea –
but on each pour against full cup would guard.
In switch to English, Stella asked, “I saw
you fill each cup just two-thirds full then pause.”
He twinkled, “Our tradition says it’s flawed
to top it up.” “But why?” Stel asked. “Because
it tells your guest that you’d like them to leave.”
That logic, Stella thought, was misconceived.
115.
They sipped and supped. Ai’s cup soon nearly ran
completely dry. She left one dime-sized drop
in base of porcelain. Like serviceman
her father poured from pot refill near top.
Ai’s index and her middle finger tapped
the table absentmindedly. “I’m used
to chai with breakfast,” Stella then recapped,
“with milk and spice and sugar.” Long, bemused,
said, “Sounds like something England left behind.”
Imperials had quite traumatically
scarred both their states, in different time and kind.
Ab irked naïvely and dramatically
his hosts by broaching smold’ring theme that blows
the even-tempered into furies’ throes:
116.
“Did China have a conqueror?” he posed,
eyes innocently scanning ’round the room.
Wide pupils glimpsed looked down. He sensed he’d nosed
into a topic better left entombed.
Ai’s mom jumped in, “Our history’s complex,
with dynasties, invasions, wars, and clans.
It’s hard to say that we have been annexed,
but there were many overlapping hands.”
Then Long spoke up, “The China of today
is unified and stable. We can thank
the Party for creating that walkway
from chaos.” (Ai bobbed head.) “Each file and rank
is focused on development within.
It’s jobs and growth that help new China win.”
117.
The mother riffed on hist’ry, “Stel you know,
tombed author who you mentioned, that Xue Tao,
was known for more than that portfolio.
Her curiosity and tech knowhow
helped her invent new paper-making means.
Her papers had these finely detailed lines
and rosy tinge that no other machines
in her time could create. She’s now enshrined
less as inventor, more as poet. But
do not forget her whole life she combined
mixed interests that to others were somewhat
confusing.” “We, too, haven’t been confined
to boxes others had for what we ought
to do,” Abu replied. “Is that what’s taught
118.
in Tanzania?” mother asked, surprised,
with hint of curling lip upon her face.
“Not really,” he explained, “you’ll be chastised
for choosing things that aren’t so commonplace.”
He paused, and thought, continued, “If it’s grades
you stand out with, you’re fine. You’ll get ahead,
see university. That mercy fades
if how you live your life is odd instead.”
Her lip unbent, resumed its steady state,
compression lines of smiling smoothing out,
said, “I think you’ll be able to relate,
then, to the ways that expectations route
our kids’ directions.” “Nonsense,” stiffly snapped
Jiang Long to wife, “you still need to adapt
119.
to modern times and what’s required! Right now
our country needs more educated youth.
Those scientists and engineers allow
our state to shed its infancy, to tooth!
We’re masters now of making nature ours,
we reroute rivers, seed the rains, we plow
straight through the earth, control when floods discharge.
We’ll use the stores with which we were endowed
to exit poverty, selves redefine.
We know the way: technology and math,
construction, planning, that’s what moves mankind.
Lǎopó, don’t see me as a sociopath,
we’ve talked through this before—what’s culture when
our lives are doomed by famines yet again?”
120.
“My husband,” she said slowly to the guests,
“fits squarely in the Party. His view’s that
our future’s all about where we invest.”
“You liked that once,” he added. “Technocrats
are necessary, Jiang, agreed. But what
I liked was that your vision was so big,
and you had eye for nuance Party’s shut.”
The dragon’s souring face gulped down a swig
of tea to squelch belch fire and left the meal.
Without discomfort’s pause, the mother turned
to Stella, saying, “I hope you freewheel
for yet some time, it does some good. Concern
for how to get ahead pollutes kids’ minds.
Young years are not for competition’s grind.”
121.
Throughout these interactions, Ai sat mum,
eyes following each speaker’s volleyed points.
Stel felt it wasn’t first time that she’d swum
these choppy waters. “China disappoints
me, how it’s turned our kids into machines
that memorize instead of think. That’s why
we send Ai to your school. It contravenes
the expectation Party’s unified
with common people; that’s a risk we took.”
To hear divergent views on Chinese life,
society, and politics had shook
Ai’s view compliance was prime role of wife.
Too many fragment thoughts to keep the thread
of conversation, Abu asked instead,
122.
“I haven’t asked how you learned English. Your
pronunciation’s near American.”
/>
“Born there. My family moved twelve years postwar
to San Francisco. The hysterics when
the Communists prevailed had scared my dad.
He had an uncle living there who’d split
through Taiwan midway through the war. He had
a little business, said he could commit
some small sum to my father if he came.
So I grew up in schools that weren’t like this.
To me that’s sugar. Ours are aspartame.”
She seemed to like the chance to reminisce.
“Of course, I had to work a lot, and go
to Chinese school on weekends. That helped sow
123.
the seeds for an eventual return.”
She paused, her head a-tilt. She said, “Wait here,”
to indicate they hadn’t yet adjourned.
Abu looked bright. She left, then reappeared
with what she called a ‘souvenir’, a slight
and aging book named Brocade River Verse.
“What left my family constantly contrite
was how the Gang of Four somehow coerced
the country to destroy its artifacts
and culture, starting 1963
when I was born. They torched text and land tracts,
erasing history. Back then, ‘bourgeoisie’
was label put on anyone who tried
preserving them or not falling in line.
124.
In California mom read that to me
as bridge to homeland’s hist’ry they’d destroyed.
Till eight when we moved back, this imagery
laced dreams, as bedtime stories filling void.”
She tossed the book on table ’tween the two
rapt guests. “Although there’s no heroes inside,
each page now read reminds this ingénue
rebellion’s free—my mind’s not occupied.”
She coursed out, taking dishes to the sink.
Stel tightly gripped the poem book resting there.
Abu sought desk again to start to ink
calligraphy as homework. Stel, ensnared
by words on title page, found author’s name
‘Xue Tao’ was who she’d seen in park’s tombed fame.
125.
But each one perches on its own branch, Stel
recalled from note she’d found aground. She paged
through poems, and saw the right had English, spelled
out clearly, annotated. Left had aged,
distinguished Chinese script in running style,
like Middle English to the learnéd eye.
Ten thousand common characters compiled
their modern speech, Lao Yan had clarified.
But literary scholars needed more,
the foreword claimed, to understand the shades
of nuance in linguistics’ old decor.
Light lines of ink formed fern-tipped promenades
of thousand years ago, when feudal lords
commensally lived ’longside nature’s hoards.
126.
BLING interrupted reverie with bark
at Huhu, who mistook him as more food.
Stel asked Ai if she wanted to embark
on dog walk to help BLING be more subdued.
She nodded. “Back in Tanzania, I
could leave BLING out to roam the fields. We’d find
enough ways to have fun. We loved to lie
down in acacias’ shade.” “Dad did not mind
you outside play?” Ai asked, incredulous
no supervision freed kids to do stuff
past what classrooms required. “He’s dead. To us,”
Stel pointed head toward BLING, “us is enough.”
That no one knew that BLING existed kept
Stel from adverse attention’s intercept.
127.
Ai walked as if competing, not in stroll.
“Ai, why are you in such a hurry? It’s
a Saturday.” Ai paused, “I have two whole
math homeworks.” Stella felt at edge of wits.
“Come on! Ease up. You heard your mom explain
she doesn’t need you at the top in grades.”
“Choice is not mom’s, choice is not mine,” complained
Ai, “country make the choice.” “No, there are shades
between. You have some say.” “No, life is race.
Mom someday old. And Dad too. I can take
much care for them if studying can place
me in Běidà…” (the college that can make
a plutocrat of anyone) “and we,
the kids, soon be China’s economy.”
128.
Stel didn’t know herself how parents shaped
their children’s views on virtue, duty, need.
In empathy she let off footfall’s brakes
and moved at pace that Ai strove to proceed.
Once home, Ai hastily retired to books
of calculus. Loud English radio
was playing on the stereo. It looks,
Stel thought, like Sichuan airwaves play the show
I listened to at home. By that she meant
the VOA, Voice of America.
Quick channel flip showed local complement
called Xīnhuá. Latter seemed generic, the
aired stories sounded fluffy. She heard not
a single disagreement driving plot.
129.
On Monday Shi Laoshi conducted drills,
expecting weekend mostly spent at work.
Abu and Stel sat facing her. She grilled
them each in turn. It’s not like Stella shirked
assignments, she’d just spent one day on them
and that was half of what Abu had done.
She hadn’t thought a teacher’s RPM
could question at that rapid of a run.
“Wǒ hěn xǐhuān mǐfàn,” Stel tried. “Wǒ hěn
xǐhuān chī,” teacher said, “mǐfàn gèng hǎo.”
In here, Stel realized, no credit’s won
for nearly-perfect answers. Just allowed
were sentences as memorized, err-free,
or “dàjiā dōu bù huì míngbái nǐ.”
130.
Right post-interrogation marathon –
two hours with but a five-min bio break –
kids tottered arm-in-arm as pair to lawn
instead of cafeteria. Heads ached.
They’d learned that hunger’s best reserved for facts
about Chinese, and stomach’s needs could stay
in second place. “Prepare for more attacks,”
Abu nudged Stel on seeing boy make way
toward them. “He’s rude one from last week’s affront.”
“His walk’s not quite as stiff as last time.” He
looked like he’d borne an equally sore brunt
from scolding as had they. Accordingly,
they didn’t scamper off when he collapsed
on seat, with slumping shoulders, sulk unwrapped.
131.
Ignoring him, they waxed about the days
when expectations had been minimal,
no adult sentinels to disobey.
To use time as they’d then seemed criminal,
the constant looking back on times that flew.
Be born, be served, age into servant caste
as obligations endlessly accrue…
The idiom piqued interest of outcast,
whose eyes had welled but had not convalesced.
Boy sniffled, straightened, breathed, tried to remold
good outward face, cleared throat, and voiced request
with interruption, asking, “You enrolled?”
Stel was offended momentarily:
first bully, then forget so verily?
132.
She checked herself. “Yes, I’m enrolled
,” then closed
her mouth since she knew not where he would try
to go. “You English so good. How?” he posed.
“Where I grew up tongues were diversified.
Swahili, English, tribal language all
had uses.” “Try bull language?” “Kimasai,
Kichaga, dialects of place.” A wall
of understanding stood tall. She’d just try
the same idea, simplified: “I learned
in school.” He got it then. Reducing thought
complexity left details undiscerned
unsatisfyingly, but won jackpot
of conversation partner hanging on.
Reward was worth the cost of slang things gone.
133.
“I think like Sìchuānhuà and Hànyǔ,” he
said, catching meanings ‘place’ and ‘school’ intend.
“I speak Chinese, Han language. Maybe we
can talk? You teach, I teach.” Why’d he befriend
me all the sudden? Stella thought, then gazed
again at his appearance, armor chinked
since being teasing bad guy. He was fazed.
She’d seen that he to cooler kids was linked,
thought maybe she’d dodge teasing with assent.
Before agreeing, Ai walked up, scowled. She
standoffishly spoke with him. They’d relent
peroxide level of acidity
in minutes. “I ask why he mean. He said
he not know you could English friend instead.”
134.
“He’s sorry? What has changed?” Stel then inquired.
Ai translated, boy nodded, then shook head.
He seemed unwilling to share what transpired:
to share a shame was not that shame to shed.
Ai guessed instead, “He so low in our class
he must want helps.” She then recalled, “I heard
the mother angry he test bad, not pass.”
“I’m angry all he wants is English words,”
Stel turned to him, “But fine. We’ll buddy up.
You help me with Chinese, and I’ll help you
with English. Here. Tomorrow. Follow up.”
“Hěn hǎo! Zài zhèlǐ míngtiān jiàn nǐ,” blue-
no-longer boy replied, form raised with hope,
as if he’d slain an inner misanthrope.
CHAPTER 9
135.
Fluorescent lamps lit hidden conference room,
their bleaching light eliminating time.
The men within debated if lagoon
would soon be made of Fan’s green valley. “Prime
geology for generation is
so scarce these days: this site’s our only shot,”
reported Land and Resources, “my whiz-
bang scientists have plotted every spot.”
“Our rivers’ flows are growing volatile,
the age-old patterns offer no more use