by Han Shaogong
Apparently, Maqiao used to be particularly low, and only became more upright after brutal rectification by the commune cadres. After arriving in the village, Mr. He the Commune Head not only took over any private land, manure, chickens, ducks, and so on that exceeded the permitted quota, he also at one large meeting produced a strange object made up of two long tubes with lenses inside: "What are these, you ask? X-ray glasses! With these, I can see every single low-down thing you get up to! If I catch someone, I'll punish 'em! Catch ten, punish ten! No mercy!"
These, in fact, were binoculars belonging to the Commune Forestry station, used to watch for mountain fires.
Hearing this, even Benyi started to look anxious, directing one troubled glance after another at the binoculars. Afterwards, people no longer dared speak or act indiscreetly, for months not one filthy word slipped from Wanyu's mouth-you could beat him to death before you'd get a qoqo song out of him. When evening came, everyone went early to bed and all fell perfectly quiet in the village, every lamp left unlit. Many people said they didn't even dare touch their wives during that time.
Wanyu had been deeply upset about the X-ray glasses: "It's unfair, it's so unfair," he once complained to me. "You city people have films to watch, zoos to visit, cars and trains to look at-what do we country people have? This is the only cultural life we have,"-he was referring to his qoqo songs and to goings-on between men and women-"using X-ray glasses, now, what's the world coming to! And another thing, if the Communist Party doesn't let everyone do low stuff, how's there going to be a little Communist Party later on?"
I won't consider right now whether or not Wanyu's complaints about Commune Head He were justified. I will say, though, that it isn't historically correct to view sexual conservatism, as represented by the binoculars, as a speciality of the Communist Party. When the Guomindang (GMD) ruled China, it so happened that the military governments of Guangzhou, Wuhan, and other places too prohibited ballroom dancing, regarding it as a form of licentiousness "harmful to social morals and mores." And earlier than this, when China was ruled by the Qing dynasty, The Romance of the Western Chamber was right at the top of the list of forbidden operas, and love stories and poems were all officially viewed as "works of evil filth," with pile after pile rooted out, confiscated, and burned. The word "low," still in use by Maqiao people, likewise has a long history as a moral prejudice against sexual behavior, and forms part of a single thread that has permeated Chinese linguistic thinking for several thousand years. As long as this name, "low," remains unchanged or unexpunged, people will always have difficulty in truly, totally, thoroughly walking out from under the shadow of prejudice. Even if Commune Head He had been an exceptionally open and enlightened individual, he wouldn't necessarily have been able to shake off a mindset that was as much a part of him as his own flesh and blood. He was just a traditional dictionary user, wielding his binoculars, coasting along the track of a given meaning; like a donkey on a halter, he could do nothing other than move forwards. In this sense, then, do people produce words, or words produce people? Was Commune Head He indeed responsible for his implacable strictness, or was it this word "low" that way back in the past had become a halter for Commune Head He-in that case, then, should all users of Chinese, including Maqiao people, be held responsible for Commune Head He? This, of course, is a question.
*He-Ground (and She-Field)
:When Maqiao people were working on the land, their favorite type of conversation, apart from food talk, was low talk. The endless variety of low talk would make your eyes pop, jaw drop, mind blow, thoughts wander, make the heavens spin, the earth turn, and the sun and moon darken. Nothing, not even the most ordinary of things-radishes, ploughs, carrying poles, caves, birds in flight, grain mortars, grassland, ovens-failed to invite low associations for them, anything could become an excuse or an analogy for lowness, could provide justification for the endless repetition (with minor alterations) of jokes and stories, could detonate rallies of raucous laughter. It was during the planting season in particular that their crude rantings got wilder than ever.
She pants to catch me
Runs to catch me-I'm like a wet loach,
Loaches love their rice gruel
Squeezing into slippery wet rice gruel…
At planting time, a song like this was counted as really quite refined. Singing this stuff wasn't normally allowed, it was prohibited by the government, but it was encouraged in the planting season and cadres turned a deaf ear. Wanyu said this was called "soiling the ground"-and the lower you went, the better. Unsoiled ground was dead ground, cold ground, ground that wouldn't produce shoots or allow seeds to take root.
Maqiao people saw "ground" as distinct from "fields": ground was "male," fields were "female." Ground had to be sown by women, whereas fields, of course, had to be sown by men. Both these stipulations had an important part to play in guaranteeing bumper harvests. Rice seedlings were to be planted in the fields, so the job of immersing them in water inevitably had to be done by men, and it was strictly taboo for women even to stand by and look.
By the same logic, a greater degree of sexual immodesty amongst women when they were on the ground was temporarily permitted and became entirely proper, enjoyed a kind of tacit approval. This wasn't just a type of diversion: it was a struggle for production, a sacred mission to be carried out with the loftiest sense of responsibility. Some female Educated Youth couldn't get used to it, couldn't hide their feelings of embarrassment and aversion on encountering it; their frowning and blocking of their ears so disheartened the local women that they couldn't get any "soiling" done; the men would then get anxious and make the team cadre transfer the female Educated Youth to work elsewhere.
I've seen with my own eyes the savagery of women on the ground, how they dragged a young man to one side, for example, how everyone pitched in to pull down his pants and throw balls of ox dung down his crotch to teach him a lesson, then scattered with roars of laughter. They wouldn't have treated Educated Youth like this, of course, but lesser instances of harassment were quite common, stealing and sitting on a grass hat, for example, followed by a volley of guffaws; or calling you over to make you guess the answer to a riddle, followed by a volley of guffaws. Ill at ease, you couldn't clearly make out what the riddle was, but you could tell from their mad laughter that this riddle didn't need to be answered, and could never, ever be answered.
* Menstrual Holes
: Fields were maternal, female, and so the holes where water flowed in the ridges between fields were called "menstrual holes." Humans have menstrual leaks, or menstruation as it's more standardly termed, so it's perfectly natural that fields should also have menstrual holes.
Depending on the irrigation needs of the seedlings in the fields, the water level needed to be adjusted whenever necessary by blocking up or digging open each menstrual hole; this was the duty of the water regulators. Normally it was old people who took on this job, solitary figures roaming around the ridges with a hoe on their shoulders; sometimes you heard the intermittent pad-pad-pad of their footsteps in the depths of the night, each one sounding out with a particular, crisp clarity, one clattering pebble after another rising up out of an insomniac night.
There were always small puddles by these menstrual holes where water sprang forth, sometimes there were even small fish struggling desperately against the water-flow; this was where people could easily wash and scrub themselves when work stopped for the day. If women couldn't face going to the river, which was a long way away, they'd stop to wash their hoes or sickles if they passed by one of these holes; while they were about it they'd wash their hands and feet, wash away the mud and sweat from their faces; one after another, they'd wash back into view a shining face and bright eyes before they walked off toward the cooking smoke of the evening. Once they'd passed the menstrual holes, they were transformed. Their brightness tarnished by a whole day of overwork, it was only on their way back home that the gurgling flow of water from the menstrual hole suddenly restor
ed their radiance.
*Nine Pockets
: As I used to imagine them, beggars had to have shabby clothes and haggard faces. It would have been absurd, impossible to link beggars with extravagant living. It was only after coming to Maqiao that I realized I was mistaken, that there are all sorts of beggars in this world.
Benyi's father-in-law was a beggar who lived off the fat of the land, who lived better than many landlords. But as he didn't have a single inch of land, he couldn't be classified as a landlord. He didn't have a shop either, so he couldn't be counted a capitalist. Forced to adjust to this, the first land-reform team reluctantly defined him as a "rich peasant beggar." The work team that checked and rechecked class status felt this term was neither one thing nor another, but since they couldn't actually find a policy clause that would furnish a better label, since they didn't know how to settle the question, they had to make do.
This man was called Dai Shiqing and used to live in Changle. The place was a communications center on land and water, a collecting and distributing center for rice, bamboo, tea-tree oil, tung oil, and medicinal herbs through the ages. It was, of course, full of life, of brothels, opium shops, pawnshops, taverns, and other similarly intricate enterprizes; even the water running in the sewers reeked prosperously of oil, and just one mouthful of street air turned the stomachs of country-dwellers used to nothing but maize gruel. Because of this, Changle was nicknamed "Little Nanjing," and for the local villagers became something to boast about to outsiders. People traveled dozens of miles bringing a couple of tobacco leaves or to break a few lengths of bamboo strips, just to strut down one length of the main street; this they called "doing business." In fact, there was no commercial sense at all behind their journeys, they were just an excuse to see some of the action or listen to people singing and reciting stories. I don't know when the numbers of beggars, with their emaciated bodies and long hair, small faces and big eyes, and ill-fitting shoes of every hue, gradually began to increase, endlessly multiplying the pairs of eyeballs intent on swallowing up the cooking pots on the market street.
Dai Shiqing, who came from Pingjiang, became the leader of these beggars. Beggars divided into various classes: One Pocket, Three Pockets, Five Pockets, Seven Pockets, and Nine Pockets. He was of the highest rank, a Nine Pockets, and was respectfully addressed as "Old Master Nine Pockets"-everyone in the town knew this. A bird cage always hung on his begging stick, inside which a mynah bird always called out "Old Master Nine Pockets is here, Old Master Nine Pockets is here." There was no need to knock on the door of whichever household the myna bird called out in front of, no need to say anything; no family would fail to come out and greet him with smiling faces. When they were confronted with ordinary beggars, one dipper of rice was quite enough. But Old Master Nine Pockets had to be appeased with a whole bamboo cup, sometimes even with large presents, his pockets stuffed with money or with cured chicken feet (his favorite food).
Once, a newly arrived salt merchant who didn't understand the rules around here sent him on his way with just one copper coin. He was so angry he hurled the coin onto the ground with a clatter.
The salt merchant, who'd never seen anything like it, almost dropped his glasses.
"What d'you think this is?" Old Master Nine Pockets glowered.
"You-you-you-what're you complaining about?"
"I, Old Master Nine Pockets, have been through nine provinces and forty-eight counties and have never met such a gutless bloodsucking houseowner!"
"This is all very odd-look here, who's doing the begging here? If you want it, then take it, if not then get out of here, stop holding up my business."
"You think I'm begging? Me, begging?" Old Master Nine Pockets opened his eyes wide, feeling he owed it to this idiot to teach him a lesson or six. "Mysterious winds and clouds float across the heavens, from morning to night man meets good fortune and bad. In these unlucky times of ours, the country faces calamities, drought in the North and flooding in the South; government and people unite in concern. Although I, Dai Shiqing, am but one insignificant mortal, I accept that it is right to lead a loyal and filial life, placing country before family, family before self. Is it right that I should stretch my hand out to the government? No. Is it right that I should stretch out my hand to parents, brothers, kinsmen? Once more, no! I walk everywhere on my two bare feet, the true man of honor, strengthening my character without rest or repose, neither robbing nor stealing, neither cheating nor deceiving, conducting myself with dignity and respect, helping myself. And you expect me to put up with a stuck-up, cross-eyed bully like you! I've seen plenty of your sort, I have, once you've got a couple of stinking coppers to rub together your morals go out the window, it's just money money money…"
The salt merchant had never heard such a stream of rhetoric: spattered into retreat, step-by-step, by showers of saliva, all he could do was raise his hands in self-defence, "okay, okay, okay, whatever you say, but I've still got business to do, off you go, off you go. Off, off."
"Off? I'm going to get something through to you if I do nothing else today! I want you to tell me, clearly now: am I begging? Have I come to beg from you today?"
Making a face, the salt merchant rummaged out a few more copper coins and pressed them against his chest with a kind of desperation that showed his resignation to defeat. "Okay, okay, you're not begging today, and you haven't come to beg from me."
Instead of accepting the money, Old Master Nine Pockets plonked himself down on the threshold, panting with rage. "Stinking cash, stinking cash, all I beg for today is justice! If you'd only acted reasonably, I'd have given you all my money!" He took out a big handful of copper coins, far more than the salt merchant's coppers, that glinted and gleamed, and attracted the eyes of lots of little urchins.
After that, if he hadn't suddenly needed to visit the toilet, the salt merchant would never have gotten him off his threshold. By the time he returned, the salt store had already been tightly bolted shut. He banged his stick on the door with all his might, but it wouldn't open; male and female voices shouted out filthy abuse from inside.
The formal opening of the salt store came a few days later, and a few courtesy tables of meat and wine were laid out for the town's VIPs and the merchant's neighbors. Just after the firecrackers had been let off, a raggedy bunch of beggars suddenly descended, a dense agglomeration giving off an unspecified rancid odor, and who surrounded the salt store, shouting and yelling. If they were given steamed rolls, they'd say they were spoiled and throw them back one after another. If they were given a bucket of rice, again they'd say there was sand in the rice and spit it out all over the ground and street. There was nowhere for passers-by to tread and the guests who'd come for the banquet were repeatedly splattered on the nose or forehead by rice grains. Finally, four beggars beating a broken drum scurried in amongst the feast to perform a small drum dance in celebration of this happy event, their bodies covered in pig and dog shit. The terrified guests fled in all directions, holding their noses. The beggars then took the opportunity one after another to spit on the fine fare laid out on the table.
It was only after a good half of the guests had fled that the salt merchant realized what a force Old Master Nine Pockets was to be reckoned with, and what a sticky situation he was in. He asked his neighbors to plead for mercy from Old Master Nine Pockets. Old Master Nine Pockets was asleep under a big tree at the quayside and took absolutely no notice. The salt merchant had no choice but to prepare two cured pig's heads and two vessels of matured wine, and go in person to apologize for his transgression; in addition, with help from his neighbors he shelled out to buy the favor of a Seven Pockets, second in rank only to Old Master Nine Pockets, to have him also intervene for him. Only then did Dai Shiqing raise his eyelid a tiny, tiny crack and remark bitterly that the weather was very hot.
The salt merchant rushed forward to fan him.
Dai Shiqing let out a yawn and waved his hand; I know, he said.
His words were very veiled. But
for the salt merchant to get this much out of him was no mean feat, and when he returned home he in fact discovered that the beggars had already scattered, with only four self-styled Five Pockets beggars remaining, stuffing their faces around a table of wine and meat; they were just stoking up for later, nothing excessive.
The salt merchant smilingly told them to eat more, poured wine for them himself.
It was no simple matter for Dai Shiqing to achieve such strict, orderly control over the comings and goings of vagrant beggars. Apparently, the original Nine Pockets had been a cripple from Jiangxi, a man of astonishing courage, a man of iron who surpassed all others in the beggars' gang. But he was also a crooked individual, who'd collected in too many of the takings; when dividing up the beggars' land all the best land went to his nephews-the most fertile plots, in other words, were never fairly-allocated. This was more than Dai Shiqing, at that time of the Seven Pockets rank, could bear, and finally one dark night, he and two other brothers under his leadership pounded this Nine Pockets to death with bricks. After he became the Nine Pockets, matters were managed more justly than under the previous dynasty: the beggars' fields were redivided, fertile land was balanced out with barren, and everything rotated at set times so that no one lost out and everyone had an opportunity to "rinse bowls" with prosperity. He also ruled that if members of the gang were ever ill and couldn't work in the fields, they could eat off common land and draw a guaranteed allowance from him; this, in particular, won him the unanimous gratitude of gang members.
