Iron and Silk

by Mark Salzman

  Liang turned out to be such a cheerful man that I later wondered why he had seemed so grouchy the first time we met. “Teacher Liang, why were you so quiet that night? Were you angry?”

  “Angry? Are you joking? I was nervous! I’d never seen a foreigner up close before. But once we got outside where it was dark, you didn’t look so frightening.”

  “Do I look frightening?”

  “Well, your eyes maybe.… They are so bright, as if there were lights inside. At first it was hard to look at you and talk at the same time, because whenever I saw the eyes, I forgot what I was going to say.”

  Liang had studied taiji with several teachers, but gained most of his expertise in a less conventional way. For many years he went out to the parks each morning, approached anyone practicing taiji and asked them to push hands with him. “For the first five years or so I lost every bout. I went home and wrote down in a little notebook how and why I lost, and studied my notes every evening. Then I started to win sometimes. I wrote down how and why I won and studied my notes every evening. I kept this up until I won every time. This is a good way to learn, but it is also the hard way. Not all boxers are good people. Many people I practiced with used unfair techniques, like kneeing me in the groin, poking at my throat, or spitting in my eyes to gain an advantage. That is not good taiji; if you can’t win by legitimate technique, using the opponent’s force and balance to defeat him, then you are not a good taiji player.”

  “What did you do when people cheated that way?” I asked. He laughed dryly. “I criticized them, then we continued. If they did it again, I squeezed them until they fainted.”

  One night after dinner with his family, we took a long walk to a park and practiced there. I had been pushing hands with him for several months by then, and had still not been able to shove him off balance even once. Before we began, I warned him that tonight I would topple him no matter what. He smiled and wished me luck. Perhaps because the dinner had been so much fun, with plenty of joking and teasing back and forth, or maybe because each of us had had a glass of baijiu, we both felt especially playful that night. After a few rounds of pushing, all of which ended with me flying through the air as usual, I decided to make my move. Using all my strength I rushed forward, grabbed his arms, threw my shoulder into his chest and let loose. We locked, and for a few long seconds grappled like bears. Just as I thought I would collapse from exhaustion, I stuck my knee behind his and swept his foot out from under him. He didn’t expect that, and started to go down, but as he fell he pivoted and jerked me towards him with unbelievable strength, carrying us both down to the ground with a loud thump. I hit the ground first; he had still won. We lay there tangled up for a while, gasping for breath and laughing. “Not bad!” he said, “I’ll have to call you ‘Little Tiger’ from now on. Would that be all right?” “That would be fine, Teacher Liang. Shall I call you ‘Big Tiger,’ then?” “That would be wonderful! Soon the Little Tiger will be stronger than the Big Tiger, and will eat him up!” “I doubt that.” We retired to a park bench to rest, watching some fireflies hover around a bamboo thicket. “What a shame you can’t stay here,” he said suddenly. “Then we could wrestle like this for years and years.”

  “I’m sure I’ll come back to visit someday.”

  “Really? You know, there is supposed to be an international push-hands competition in China in 1986 or ’87—maybe I’ll see you there! Maybe you and I will have to fight for the gold medal!”

  “Wouldn’t that be something!”

  “Oh, that would be exciting. You know, if you keep practicing taiji, you’ll look the same in 1987 as you look now. Taiji keeps you young. That’s why I have two daughters almost as old as you, but I have the body of a twenty-year-old.”

  One beautiful Sunday morning I went to Liang’s house to take some pictures of him and his family. They were all dressed in brightly colored outfits, since these would be their first color photographs. Liang and his wife argued for a few minutes about something, then Liang reluctantly took off his blue cap. I realized then that I had never seen him without it. They posed in various combinations in front of their apartment; then I suggested taking a picture of Liang with his shirt off. “That way, Teacher Liang, my friends in America will believe me when I tell them how strong you are.” He politely declined, at the same time unbuttoning his shirt. “Well, if you insist,” he said, undoing the last button.

  After I had taken the picture, he took me aside and asked in a whisper, “Could you do me a favor? Taiji has kept me young except for my hair—I’m starting to get bald. In America, people say, everything is modernized. Do you have ways of adding hair in photographs? If you could do that for me, I’d be very grateful.”

  The train came to a screeching, steaming halt at a mud-brick shed with a thatched roof and a forty-watt bulb hanging outside. It was a small station, but at least fifty peasants stood waiting on the platform, bent under the weight of their shoulder poles and heaping baskets. The passengers groaned when the doors opened and the peasants struggled to get on; already people were nearly faint from the heat and the crowding. As we got under way again, the men around me seemed to agree all at once to try to shift from a standing to a sitting position. We slid down, our backs against the walls, shoulders pressed together, and came to rest in a squat. I found myself knee to knee with the two young men opposite me. I hadn’t noticed them before—perhaps they had gotten on at the last stop—but one of them started to talk to me as if picking up where our last conversation had left off.

  They both wore battered army fatigues, had sweat and dust smeared across their faces, and reeked of baijiu. One of them was tall and broad-shouldered and looked dazed, his mouth slightly open and his bloodshot eyes staring a little past me into the wall of the train. He didn’t say much. The talkative one was small and lean, and obviously the more clever of the two. His eyes darted, and his hands made all sorts of gestures as he talked, occasionally finding their way into the canvas sack where he had his bottle of baijiu. He offered me some but I refused, saying I could not drink on an empty stomach. Usually when I rode the trains I pretended not to speak or understand Chinese, because once I opened my mouth I was obliged to amuse everyone on the train by answering questions about my nationality, height, weight, age and salary—attention I enjoyed less the longer I spent in China. It was different with these two, though. They did not seem particularly impressed by me, as if they had something more exciting to think about than a Caucasian on a local train. Their casual manner disarmed me and made me curious to know what could possibly be on their minds, that they would not be impressed by me and want to know my salary.

  As the shorter man got redder in the face from the baijiu, his voice got louder and his hands moved more. He told me that he and his friend had that very day been released from “corrective labor,” where they had done time for having stabbed someone over a poker game.

  “My friend here,” he said, poking the taller man, “held the guy like this. And I took the knife and stuck it in him here, under the ribs!” He seemed to relish telling the story, making me suddenly nervous about sitting so close to him, but then he closed his eyes and smiled.

  “And now we are going home! My mom will be at the station—she visited me a few times at the prison. She loves me!”

  He took another shot of liquor, then closed his eyes again.

  “My mom will be standing there at the station, because she loves me! When I was at the prison, she missed me and brought me home-cooked foods sometimes, and—”

  The big fellow struck him hard in the chest with the back of his forearm, knocking him out of his reverie and nearly out of breath.

  “What did you do that for?” the smaller man screamed, his face now crimson.

  His partner looked down at the floor between his legs and said quietly, “Don’t talk like that, about seeing your mom.”

  “Why not?”

  He pointed at me without raising his eyes. “Because he’s from far away. He can’t see hi
s mom at all. He doesn’t need to know how happy you are.”

  “Don’t You Know It’s Snowing Out?”

  A Coffee Shop

  Professor Jin

  After one of Pan’s long trips abroad, I noticed that he looked thinner in the face and had developed a habit of pressing his left hand to his stomach and chest when he sat down. I asked him about it, but he seemed unconcerned, saying that he perhaps worried too much, but that was all. One morning, while I was riding to class, one of my doctor students called to me from a window in the hospital. She said that my teacher had collapsed and had arrived by ambulance not long before. She told me to come see him after class, that by then it would be all right to visit, then closed the window.

  The two hours passed slowly. At last the class ended, and I ran over to the hospital to see Pan. By the time I got there, though, he had already left. Several nurses stood nearby talking about him, so I asked them what the problem was. They said it wasn’t clear, but that he was a very interesting patient. They said the doctors wanted to keep him in the hospital for observation, but that as soon as he could stand he left, saying he had better things to do than lie around in a hospital. Even more interesting, they said, was that when one of the nurses tried to insert an intravenous device in his wrist, he wouldn’t let her, saying that he needed the use of his hands just then, as he didn’t want his time in the hospital to be a complete waste. He had a little pad of paper and a pen, and seemed to be practicing some sort of foreign script as he lay in bed.

  I met with the doctor who had examined him, and he recommended a specialist in our hospital who might be able to treat Pan. Another student of mine arranged an introduction, and I was eventually able to set up an appointment. In the meantime, Pan confessed that he had had these pains for several years but had never found the time to do anything about it. He asked me to accompany him to the hospital to make the proper introductions, but once he met the doctor, he asked me to leave.

  I didn’t see him for several weeks after that. I happened to bump into the doctor on the street, though, and thanked him for seeing Pan so quickly. He smiled, and said that it was no trouble, but that he was afraid he wouldn’t be of much help. Pan suffered from an ulcer, a gall bladder disorder, heart disease, and a fourth problem that I didn’t understand, and he refused to stay in the hospital for rest and treatment. When I saw Pan next I asked why he would not stay in the hospital. He replied that the National Competition was only a few months away, and that if he left to sleep in the hospital for a few months, the athletes would lose heart. “I’m their trainer. I said I would take them to the Nationals, and I will.” He did not mention his illness or the hospital again.

  During winter break of my second year I did not travel, choosing to stay in Hunan to practice wushu. I thought Pan would be there the whole time, but the day before the break he was called away. I stayed anyway, and held to a ten-hour-a-day practice schedule, hoping that he might return before vacation ended. Four weeks passed, which I spent in front of our house drilling, or in back of the house hitting a sandbag propped against the wall. The morning of the last day of the break, I spun around with the staff, slipped on some ice and fell down. I twisted my knee somehow and lay biting my tongue for a few minutes. It had started snowing not long before, so at least the scene around me was pleasant. I turned around and noticed Pan standing at the gate of our little compound. He walked over, helped me up and looked at me for a long time.

  “Don’t you know it’s snowing out?” he finally asked.

  “Yes …”

  “Then why are you practicing?” It seemed an odd question, coming from him, so I didn’t bother to answer. We went inside and I boiled some water for tea. He answered my questions about his trip absent-mindedly, then left.

  Winter turned to spring, and by May Changsha was sweltering again. Instead of slipping on patches of ice, I was splashing around in the puddles I made by dumping buckets of water over my head every few minutes to keep cool. Since that day in winter I hadn’t seen Pan much, except when he came to adjust and correct the repertoire I was learning from my other teachers. One day he interrupted our session and asked me to sit down for a while. We went inside, sat down, and he became very serious.

  “We don’t have much time. Just a few months. I don’t have time for English anymore—there’s only wushu now. What is the one thing you want to learn before you leave? Choose it, and I’ll give it to you.”

  I didn’t have to think long. I had once seen him using, all by himself in the training hall with the lights turned off, a huge sword that he held with both hands. He only let me see it once, and laughed whenever I asked if I could learn it. “I want to learn the long sword.” He frowned, then said very slowly, “Very few people use that sword. I’ve never taught it to anyone. And I only perform it for certain people.” I didn’t say anything, nor did I avoid his gaze. After an interminable silence, he pushed his finger hard against my chest and waited until he knew he had grasped my full attention. “If I teach it to you, and you wield it poorly, you will make me very, very sad.”

  Bill was a reader. Wherever he was he usually had some kind of relevant literature with him. On a trip to Southwest China he bought and read Rare Fungi of the Yunnan Region; when we rode a boat down the Yangtse River he skimmed through Maritime Trade on the Yangtse During the Ming Dynasty; next to his manual typewriter in Changsha sat a copy of The History of Moveable Type—all in Chinese, no less. When he and I traveled to Hangzhou, he brought along Myths, Stories, Facts and Anecdotes About Hangzhou. Whenever we came upon a historical site, Bill managed to find reference to it in that book. For example, we found a huge stone with a poetic couplet carved on it. The couplet went something like this:

  Sky sky earth earth rock rock water water

  Green green swift swift drop drop rainbow rainbow.

  “And the truly spellbinding thing about this couplet,” Bill read aloud from the book, “is that it can be read backwards.” In a bamboo garden we stumbled on a sign that indicated that the bamboo in that particular grove was important. After only a few minutes of searching under “Facts,” Bill found out why: “This variety of bamboo was long considered extinct. In the middle of this century, however, a team of Chinese scientists discovered specimens of it in a remote area of Zhejiang Province. This discovery shook the world.”

  Having enriched ourselves with this sort of information all day, we found that by evening we both felt terribly sleepy. Back in our room in the Hangzhou Hotel, Bill stayed awake reading Strange Rock Formations of the Lake Tai Region. I didn’t have a book with me, so I decided to wander around the hotel.

  On the ground floor a string of flashing Christmas lights over a doorway caught my eye. I walked over and saw, under the lights, a sign saying “Coffee Shop.” The thought of coffee excited me so much I jogged through the entrance, startling the young fuwuyuan—service person—sitting at a desk just inside the door, reading a comic book. I smiled at her. “You have coffee here?” She tossed her head back and replied, “It says Coffee Shop, doesn’t it?” I wasn’t going to let her spoil my mood, so I walked quietly past her into the cafe. “Stop!” she barked. I turned around; without looking up from her comic book she said, “Five dollars. Entrance fee.” “Five dollars to get in?” She pointed to a paper sign on the desk that announced: DANCING PARTY AT 9:00. ENTRANCE FEE: FIVE YUAN FOREIGN CURRENCY.

  “Oh, but I’m not here for the party—I just want a cup of coffee, then I’ll leave right away.” “Doesn’t matter. Five dollars.” “But it’s only 7:15—the party hasn’t started yet.… ” She didn’t answer this time, just stuck her palm out and tapped her foot impatiently. I felt my face getting hot but managed to keep my voice calm. “Well, if that’s the rule, I won’t break it. Can I buy a cup of coffee to go?” “Nope. The cups can’t leave the restaurant.” I didn’t say anything, hoping that curiosity would get the better of her and force her to look at me, but the magazine held her attention. There was nothing to be done. I walked ou
t of the shop burning with frustration. On the way back to my room, though, I suddenly had an idea—why not get my metal travel mug out of my duffel bag and ask her simply to fill it. That way I could have my coffee in bed and enjoy it all the more. When I got to the room, I saw that one of the other four men sharing the room with Bill and me had returned. From his accent I could tell he was African; he looked about twenty-eight or nine and was in the middle of telling a story to Bill. “I tell you,” he said, his head leaning back for emphasis, palms raised toward us, “it is very, very difficult. You cannot imagine, I think.” Bill interrupted him to introduce me and explain that the African was a medical student in Beijing. “I am from Sudan,” the man said. “In my country, if you want to study medicine abroad, your name is put on a list, and when your name comes up, they assign you to a country. No one wants to go to China, but if you turn down the offer, you forfeit your turn, and may have to wait years for another chance. So I accepted. And I discover, oh, it is true what they say. To be African and live in China, oh, it is terrible.” He was a master storyteller, flaring his nostrils, pausing, and sighing with controlled despair. “Why is that?” Bill asked. “The Chinese look down on black people! They think we are animals, not people! I have lived in China now six years, all of my classes in Chinese, with Chinese teachers and Chinese classmates. In six years, oh, have I ever been invited to a Chinese man’s home? Have I ever been invited to have tea? To a movie? Have any of the Africans? I tell you, if an African must live in China, he has a clear choice: he keeps his mind, or he loses his mind. To keep his mind, he must not think. He thinks, and oh, my friend, he dies. His mind dies.”