by Han Shaogong
He would forego anything for the rest of his life, apart from dreams. During his whole life he was particular about nothing, except for where he slept. For him, the most pitiful of beings were those for whom life meant only the awakened state and who didn't experience the life of sleep. Sleeping-awakening-sleeping-awakening: it was always sleeping that had to come first. A life with no dreams was a life half lived, was, in fact, a gross outrage of the Way of heaven and earth.
Other people regarded these remarks of his as the talk of a madman, or as a joke. This made his feelings of rancor towards the villagers grow ever deeper, made him even more stonily silent in public.
He was, in point of fact, someone who lacked all public connections, someone who had no connections with Maqiao's laws, morality or any of its political changes. Land reform, the campaign against bandits and landlords, the mutual aid teams, the cooperatives, the People's Communes, the Socialist Education Movement, the Four Clean-ups, the Cultural Revolution, none of these had any effect on him, they weren't part of his history, they were no more than a play that he enjoyed from a great distance, but which was incapable of having any influence on him. The year they opened canteens, a cadre from outside the village-who wasn't in the know-tied him up with a rope and dragged him down to the construction site for labor reform. No matter how much they beat him with sticks or whipped him, he remained coldly contemptuous, preferring to die rather than labor, to die rather than stand up. He just lay there, stubbornly prostrate, rolling around in the soupy mud, refusing to get up. What's more, once they'd gotten him there, it wasn't so easy to get him home again: he repeated over and over that he wanted to die in front of the cadre, and wherever the cadre went, he would crawl after him; in the end, everyone had to lend a hand lifting him back to the House of Immortals. Since he didn't want to be counted as a person, he overpowered any authority. Having easily foiled society's last attempt to harass him, he henceforth became in Maqiao even more of a nothing, a blank space, a drifting shadow. As a result, when it later came round to checking class status, grain allocation, family planning, even carrying out the census-I helped the village do this-nobody thought about whether there was still a Ma Ming, and nobody felt he should be included in the calculations.
He was definitely not included in the full national census.
He was definitely not included in the worldwide census.
Obviously, he didn't qualify as a person.
If he wasn't a person, then what was he? Society means People, writ large. He rejected society, and society canceled his qualifications as a person. My guess is that he finally brought the situation to a head because he'd always wanted to become an immortal.
The slightly surprising thing is that in the stretch of land near Maqiao, there were quite a number of creatures like Ma Ming who were perfectly happy to withdraw from the normal run of human society. Fellows like Maqiao's Four Daoist Immortals, it was said, were still to be found in most villages from far around; it was just that outsiders tended not to know of them. If an outsider didn't discover them by chance or curious inquiry, the locals wouldn't talk about these creatures, would even forget they existed. They were a world inside this world that has already caved in and disappeared.
Fucha once said that they weren't at all awakened (see the entry "Awakened"). Most of their parents weren't hard-up, and there was an insolent cleverness about them. As an early indication of what they'd become, though, they'd been a bit mischievous as children, not very diligent as students. Ma Ming, for example, never did his homework, but when it came to writing couplets, they'd spring from his mouth fully formed. One example: "See the national flag, everyone goes spare, do the rice sprout dance, we're got nowhere." Agreed, it was counterrevolutionary, but the sound and sense of the lines (in Chinese, at least) are flawless. Even while they were struggling him for it, everyone praised the kid's phenomenal literary aptitude. Once someone like him lost his parents, he started to turn bad, turned scientific (see the entry "Science"). Who knew what possessed him.
*Science
: When Maqiao people chopped firewood on the mountainside, they'd carry it home on their backs, then lay it out on the ground to dry in the sun before burning it. Wet firewood is very heavy, and carrying it on the back really bit into the shoulders. We Educated Youth later on came up with the idea of leaving the firewood, after it had been cut, to dry in the sun on the mountainside. Once it had dried, we would come back to carry it down the next time we came to cut firewood. We still carried a whole load of firewood every time, but as it was dry firewood, it was quite a lot lighter. Uncle Luo had heard that this technique was quite effective, and swapped loads with me to give it a try; eyes wide in astonishment, he agreed that it was a lot lighter.
I said that at least half the water had evaporated out.
He put my load down, then took up once more the wet firewood he had just cut and set off down the mountain. A little perplexed, I went after him to ask why he didn't give our method a try.
"People who chop wood but won't carry it have missed the whole point."
"It's not that we won't carry it, we just want to carry it a bit more scientifically."
"What d'you mean scientific? You mean lazy! Those city automobiles, railroads, flying machines of yours-name me one that hasn't been thought up by a lazybones! Who else but lazybones would've thought up such a devilish set of names?"
This outburst quite took my breath away.
He went on: "With all these scientific comings and goings, we'll all be like Ma Ming before you know it."
He was referring to the owner of the House of Immortals. Ma Ming, its resident-in-chief, had never come out to work, didn't even want to see to his own needs. Sometimes he would bring back a bit of gourd, but he was too lazy to light a fire, so he would eat it raw. He'd got used to eating things raw like this, and so when he'd scavenged out some uncooked rice, he'd put it straight into his mouth and crunch away on the grains until the corners of his mouth were a mass of powdery rice starch. People would laugh at him, but still he came up with justification after justification, saying that cooked things lacked nutritional value; that tigers and panthers in the mountains had always eaten their food raw, and see how much stronger they were than humans, how much less prone to illness-so what could be wrong with it? He never used a urine bucket either, but instead poked a hole in the wall at crotch height, and fixed a length of hollow bamboo stem leading out of the house; any urine was discharged into the stem. He considered that this method was more scientific than hauling a urine bucket: the water flow was carried along, and it was better to let things run out than have them pile up.
Once winter came, he never washed his face. A crust formed around his face, which fell off in pieces once he gave it a rub or pinched and picked at it. He wouldn't say he was afraid of cold water, but would argue that frequent washing of the face wasn't scientific-washing your face clean of its natural organic oils damaged the skin.
The absurdest thing of all was the way it took him an hour to carry a load of water back home from the stream. Particularly when going uphill, he would walk in a Z-shape, taking ages twisting and turning back and forth, then still find he was only halfway there. Onlookers idling around the hillside would watch in bemusement: wouldn't it be better if you just put down your water buckets and sang us a song? Ma Ming said: "What do you know? This is the only way to preserve your strength when walking. Zhan Tianyu built the railroad at Badaling in a Z-shape."
His listeners had no idea who on earth Zhan Tianyu was.
"How on earth would you know?" His face set into a mask of arrogant aloofness as if he disdained to waste his breath on the masses, he picked up his two buckets of water and continued on his way, twisting and turning as before, saving his precious energy all the way to the House of Immortals.
From this time on, people said that as the lazybones in the House of Immortals were each more scientific than the other, it should really become an academy of science. It's easily to imagine, then,
that for Maqiao people the implications of the word "scientific," once projected onto Ma Ming, were far from positive. I suspect that henceforth they barely glanced at the pamphlets on crop-sowing distributed from above, simply ripped them up into cigarette papers, that they remained entirely indifferent to the endless broadcasts on scientific pig-feeding, that they even cut the metal wire serving as a lead to use as a hoop for the piss bucket; all this was a form of psychological inertia. To put it another way, science became an extension of the general mockery of the Daoist Immortals. There was the time a group of Maqiao lads set off to carry lime into Changle; on the highway they passed a big bus that was being repaired, which struck them as a great novelty. They gathered round, unable to help themselves from knocking at the body of the vehicle with their carrying poles until it rattled and shook, until, before they knew it, they'd bashed two dents in the body, which had been hitherto in perfectly good condition. The driver, who had been lying under the car making repairs, sprang out furiously and started cursing them, jumping up and down, spoiling for a fight, until they finally scattered. But still the Maqiao lads were unable to suppress a kind of nameless impulse, turning to shout and yell, picking up stones to hurl at the big bus after they'd fled some distance away.
They harbored no ill will toward the driver. Neither had they ever displayed any wantonly destructive tendencies: when walking past any household, for example, they'd never dream of knocking against the walls or door with their carrying poles. Why, then, could they not restrain themselves on encountering a motor vehicle? I can only suspect that underneath their joking and laughter there lay concealed a kind of unconscious loathing, a loathing of all new-fangled gadgets, of all the fruits of science, of all the mechanized oddities that came out of modern cities. In their opinion, the so-called modern city was nothing other than a great big bunch of scientific-or lazy-people.
To blame this assault on a bus on Ma Ming is, or course, rather farfetched, and not entirely fair. But the process behind understanding a word is not just an intellectual process, it's also a process of perception, inseparable from the surroundings in which the word is used and the actual events, environment, facts relating to it. Such factors often largely determine the direction in which understanding of this word proceeds. "Model Operas" (the eight revolutionary operas deemed "politically correct" during the Cultural Revolution) are an appalling concept, but someone whose memories of love or youth are interlinked with the strains of a model opera tune will perhaps feel an unstoppable surge of heightened emotion on hearing these words. "Criticism," "position," "case for investigation" are not made up of inherently evil words, but someone whose memories have been colored by the red terror of the Cultural Revolution may well start to tremble with deep, uncontrollable revulsion on hearing them. Actual understanding of these words in their final form will perhaps have a far-reaching influence on the subsequent psychological state and existential choices of a person or race, but the literal meaning of these words can't be held responsible for this understanding. Thus, the word "science" can't be held responsible for the vicious attacks on "science" expressed in the views of Uncle Luo and other Maqiao people; neither can it be held responsible for the chance encounter on the highway in which Maqiao lads picked up their carrying poles to launch a unified assault on the fruits of science.
Who was responsible? Who made "science" so hateful that it became something that Maqiao people must shun at all costs?
All I can say is that perhaps it was not Ma Ming alone who was responsible.
* Awakened (Xing)
: Out of the many Chinese dictionaries that exist, not one gives a pejorative sense for the word xing (awaken). For example, the Origins of Words (Commercial Press, 1989) defines it as "recover from drunkenness," "rouse from dream," "become conscious" and so on. Awakening is thus the opposite of befuddlement and confusion, and implies only rationality, clarity, and intelligence.
There is a famous line in Qu Yuan's poem The Old Fisherman, "Throughout the world all is muddy, I alone am clear; everyone is drunk, I alone am awakened (xing)"-a line which did much to boost the prestige of "awakened."
Maqiao people don't see things this way. Quite the opposite: Maqiao people have long used this word, spat out with a disdainful wrinkling of the nose and thinning of the lips, to refer to all kinds of idiotic behavior. "Awakened" means stupid. Someone awakened is a stupid fool. Could it be this custom dates from when their ancestors encountered Qu Yuan?
In c.278 b.c, Qu Yuan the Awakened, Qu Yuan the self-proclaimed member of the Awakened, unable to tolerate the drunken disorder prevailing throughout the world, resolved to make a martyr of himself, and to oppose evil through death. He threw himself into the Miluo River (the lower reaches of the Luo River) and drowned-in the area nowadays called Chutang township, where he went after having been condemned to exile. At that time in the state of Chu, which he had loyally served, "crowds of ministers vied jealously for success and toadied to gain advancement, while good ministers were dismissed and banished far from the hearts of the common people" (taken from The Record of the Warring States). He was thus no longer wanted in Chu. He looked back over the city of Ying, Chu's capital, composing aloud poems to vent his grief. His lofty aspirations thwarted, he released cries of deep melancholy to the heavens. If he was not to be the savior of this world, he could at least reject it. If he could not tolerate the betrayal and falseness that surrounded him on all sides, he could at least shut his eyes to it. Thus he finally chose to settle his suffering heart in the dark quiet of the riverbed. It is worth noting that his route to exile took him through Chenyang, Shupu, and so on, leading him finally to the edge of the River Xiang, which winds up to the land of Luo. In fact, this was one of the last places on earth that a dismissed Chu minister should go. This was the first place to which the Luo people had fled for refuge after being brutally routed by the mighty state of Chu. When the people of Chu had themselves been brutally routed by the even mightier state of Qin, Qu Yuan himself drifted there soon afterwards, following almost exactly the same route. History was repeating itself, simply with the roles switched around. Why revive old grievances between those who wander together in desperation through foreign lands?
Qu Yuan had been a top official in the state of Chu, in charge of official court documents, and so would naturally be very familiar with the history of Chu, and thus also be well aware of the rout of Luo by Chu. When he climbed mournfully up onto the bank of the Luo River, saw faces, heard words, or experienced local customs that seemed familiar, when he encountered all this that had by some lucky chance escaped all the executioners' knives of Chu, what thoughts and feelings were in the mind of this exile? I don't know. I find it even harder to guess whether, when the humiliated and impoverished Luo people faced the former minister of the invading state, when they silently approached, mutely grasping the handles of their swords, when finally they held out bowl and spoon, did the hands of the great minister tremble?
History has recorded none of this.
Suddenly, I feel that there are complex reasons for Qu Yuan's choice of final resting place, reasons that remain beyond our comprehension.
The land of Luo was a mirror which permitted him to see clearly the absurdity of concepts of rise and fall, of division and unity. The land of Luo was a dose of bitter medicine, sweeping away all self-control in the innermost being of this court official. The chill billow of the waves on the river made him question all his memories, not only his grievance against the state of Chu, but also his loyalty to Chu, his lifelong self-love, and his lifetime's devotion to these causes. This was not the first time he had had to endure rejection, and he ought to have had sufficient experience and psychological resources to cope with exile. He had already spent many days journeying through wild lands, and he should have been used to the hunger, cold, and hardship of exile. His eventual death at the side of the Miluo river, leaving behind a vast, empty riverbank, meant that he must have received some fundamental shock which induced in him a feelin
g of terror towards the yet vaster life that existed beyond life, a feeling of unassailable confusion at the yet vaster history that existed beyond history. The only thing he could do was to take a step into the unknown.
Where else could he have experienced such a dazzlingly rude-awakening?
Where else could he have come to understand better his long-prized sense of-awakening?
All this is conjecture.
Qu Yuan wandered barefoot far and wide through the land of Luo, wrapped only in flowers and grasses, drinking dew and eating chrysanthemums, greeting the wind and rain, conversing with the sun and the moon, sleeping alongside the insects and birds. By then, I think he can't have been quite right in the head. He had awakened (as he, as well as the later Origins of Words and the like understood it), and truly was awakened (as Maqiao people understand it).
His leap into the river generated a dual meaning for the word "awakening": wisdom and ignorance, heaven and hell, the physical present and metaphysical eternity.
The Luo people couldn't really understand the staunch loyalty of the Chu minister, but they empathized with a fallen enemy, and expressed their sorrow for Qu Yuan in the annual tradition of dragon-boat racing on May Fifth that later developed. They throw rice dumplings into the river, hoping this will persuade the fish and shrimps to leave Qu Yuan's corpse in peace. They bang deafeningly on drums and gongs, hoping to waken the poet from his deep sleep on the riverbed. Time and again they shout themselves hoarse trying to summon his soul: men and women, young and old all shout till their veins almost burst, their eyeballs bulge, their throats hurt, the sweat pours off them. Their shouts fill the heavens, obliterating their age-old enmity toward the Chu army, as they apply themselves only to saving the life of a man, of a foreign poet.
