The Boat Rocker

by Ha Jin

  Before I left for work that morning, I told Katie about my appointment—when and where it was. “If for some reason I don’t come back,” I said, sheepish about my suspicions, “you’ll know something’s gone wrong.”

  I hadn’t entered the pale gray building at the west end of Forty-second Street for years. It was the same inside, though the old man with the turkey throat, once the receptionist in the front office, had been replaced by a soft-spoken woman in her early forties. Tao’s office was on the third floor. He was reading a magazine when I was led in by his young assistant. At the sight of me Tao stood up and stretched out his hand as he walked over to greet me. I had always been struck by how short he was—he couldn’t have been more than five feet. It’s common knowledge that people of short stature are rarely found in diplomatic service. Ministries of foreign affairs as a rule employ people whose physical beauty surpasses the national average, since diplomats are the country’s public face. For China to have made such an exception for Tao was extraordinary, and meant that his service must be invaluable. As I shook his hand, I could already sense his charisma.

  “Congratulations, Comrade Feng Danlin!” He greeted me cheerfully. His voice was resonant and forceful, his eyebrows sloped down to his temples, and his hair was raven black, obviously dyed.

  “What happened? Why congratulate me?” I asked. I sat down on a leather sofa, its arms decorated with brass rivets.

  “You were just elected one of the top one hundred Chinese intellectuals of this year, ranked ninety-four.”

  “Oh! I didn’t know the voting had finished.”

  “It’s a huge honor—and just announced.”

  I was amazed that he, an official, had followed the grass-roots election. I said, “I’m only a journalist—you’re a real intellectual.” I knew his credentials well—he had earned a PhD from UC-Berkeley and authored a book in English on international politics. A decade earlier I had seen a spate of articles about his return to China, an event about which the media made a fanfare. Tao was celebrated as a hero who, out of his profound love for our motherland, had declined a professorship at a private college in Chicago. After his return he started teaching at Nankai University in Tianjin, but soon he entered the diplomatic service and his career took off. Now, in his presence, I felt somewhat inadequate—Tao seemed completely at ease and in control, though at the moment I might have been slightly better known than he was.

  His assistant stepped in and served tea and a fruit platter—tangelos, grapes, kiwis, pears, nectarines, even a couple of plum tomatoes. A flat-screen TV mounted in a corner was on mute, showing CNN news—a squadron of U.S. helicopters had just attacked an Al Qaeda cell in Iraq. I took a sip of the tea, which was Big Red Robe. “Great tea!” I said, jolted by a sudden surge of homesickness. I hadn’t tasted such a fine tea in years. I swallowed the lump rising in my throat, surprised by my emotion.

  Tao began to talk about the relationship between China and the United States, saying we had to help strengthen the ties between the two countries despite their occasional friction. I was nonplussed, unable to see what he was driving at. For much of his career, he had condemned the United States and advocated aggressive foreign policies, even declaring at one point that there would be a war between China and the United States in the Taiwan Strait. Why all this talk about cooperation between the two countries now?

  Tao told me, “I’ve been following your coverage on the novel Love and Death in September.”

  “Is it a national project?” I asked tentatively. I still couldn’t quite believe it was backed by the government, as Haili had claimed—so many of her claims had evaporated when they were subjected to the barest scrutiny.

  Tao seemed surprised, then laughed. Looking me in the face, he said, “We couldn’t possibly have initiated such a thing. But when the novel started encountering so much flak here, mainly from you, we felt we ought to intervene because the situation could soil China’s image. That’s why we want you to stop reporting on it.”

  “I’ve been reporting on it because there’s a lot to report,” I said. “This novel is a sham.”

  “You could say that,” Tao said, “but believe me, the author truly intended to promote mutual understanding between the Chinese and the Americans. So we want you to wrap things up and move on.”

  “How can I abandon this story? It’s of great public interest, and it’s important news.”

  “Because the way you report it looks like mudslinging, and this story has been dragging on for too long. If it keeps snowballing, it could damage the relationship between the two countries.”

  “Isn’t George W. Bush going to endorse the English translation of the novel?” I said matter-of-factly.

  “That’s just hearsay and might not materialize, we all know.” Tao forced a laugh, his rectangular face crinkled a little. “Just let it go, all right? Danlin, you should learn to enjoy peace and harmony. Life is never easy—we always go from trouble to trouble. That’s my definition of life—one problem after another until we die. Life is already hard, and there’s no reason to create more difficulties for others.”

  “Let’s be fair,” I said. “I’m not the one who lied about this novel. If anyone is causing difficulties, it’s Yan Haili and her publisher.”

  “Still,” he said, “you can make peace.”

  “But a reporter is obligated to expose lies.”

  “I know you want to tell truth, but truth must serve a purpose. If it doesn’t help make good, what’s the point in telling it? I’m talking to you, Danlin, not as a Party cadre but as an older brother who has seen more and gone through more.”

  “I appreciate that, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to comply.” I was getting angry in spite of my calm voice. He was treating me as though I was supposed to be obedient and had to compromise.

  “A smart man ought to know his place in the world. Have you ever thought about yours? Have you ever considered the odds you are facing? You’re like a little turtle attempting to rock a boat shared by two huge countries. What will come of this? Clearly and simply, you won’t be able to shake the boat at all, so you’d better give it a wide berth.” His tone grew harder. “Also, keep in mind that you’ll always be held responsible for your conduct, even here. If we draw a small circle on the ground for you, you’ll have no choice but to dance around it for twenty years. If we put down a few more circles, your life will be wasted altogether. We don’t have to deal with you directly—we can just put you in a category, and your value as a human being will be reduced to zilch. To a country like China, which has never been short of citizens, one person more or less makes no difference. Therefore, no Chinese citizens can afford to alienate themselves from our country. Think about what I just said. You don’t have to respond now.”

  I was unsettled but managed to say, “Let me ask you something, Mr. Tao. Do you consider yourself an intellectual?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then why do you speak only for power?”

  “I see this as my duty.”

  “Then my duty is different from yours.”

  “In what way?”

  “I believe I ought to speak for the weak and the voiceless.”

  “Please be honest with yourself. We all know why you’ve been so aggressive—you have a personal stake in stringing out this case. Don’t assume that the powerless are more decent than the powerful. People are the same, and there’s no reason to create such a distinction.”

  “But one group is abused by the other.”

  “As I said, what you’ve been doing is seeking self-destruction while disturbing others.” Tao touched a magazine on the table, The International Forum. “There’s an article in this issue by Sam Waide, the prominent man of letters in the United States. Do you know his work?”

  “Yes.” I nodded. “I read his novel The Woman I Left Behind and enjoyed it immensely.”

  “Take this with you and read it carefully. You will see how an intellectual should define his role through s
erving his country. Sam Waide insists that American people ought to trust their president and give the White House a free hand so it can win the war on terror.”

  “But you’re a Chinese,” I said skeptically.

  “I’ve been playing a role similar to Waide’s, which is to combine my personal existence with the interests of my country and my people. If I serve, I serve our motherland. If I fight, I fight her enemies. I pride myself on my role as an intellectual of this type, because I know what the world is like and how it operates. Don’t talk to me about justice, freedom, and equality. All those so-called universal values originated from colonialism and imperialism and have been utilized to suppress the local, the particular, and the colonized. Nowadays, at best they are abstract words thrown around to mislead people. They’re merely beautiful lies. Tell me, at what point in history did the United States embody any of those values? It’s true that people here have some freedom of speech, but their words are feckless, like farts. As a matter of fact, this country is the world’s number one liar and hypocrite, yet we have no choice but to cooperate with it as much as we can because it’s a superpower with more than a dozen aircraft carriers and thousands of nuclear warheads. The world is a battlefield where the strong, the winner, defines the terms of equality and justice.”

  “So to your mind there’re no universal values at all?”

  “Of course there are. But what’s universal is not any of those abstract, misleading words.”

  “What is universal then?”

  “Money. That’s the universal language.”

  “This is quite cynical, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the truth. Have you heard of the Great Firewall?”

  “You mean China’s Internet police apparatus in the making?”

  “Correct. Who has been helping us build the system to regulate China’s cyberspace? Some American companies volunteered. Because they all want a share of the Chinese market. They understand our policy—whoever is against us won’t have any economic opportunities in China. Believe me, most people will sell their parents if there’s enough profit to be made. History has proved that any of the Western countries will stop clamoring about human rights whenever China grants it a couple of lucrative deals. Money doesn’t smell or rot and is invincible everywhere. So don’t be misled by the slogans others chant. You must look at what they’ve done.”

  “Mr. Tao, I respect you as a scholar, but I must admit that we’re different species. What I want is to be an honest, independent, and rational voice.”

  “But I don’t think you’ve been rational at all. You have confused your private life with your professional life.”

  “We both know that’s not true.”

  “You’re too stubborn—you treat everything in the world as black or white.”

  “What’s wrong with that? One must have integrity.”

  “That’s an American way to be.”

  “It’s a positive quality the Americans have. Their first instinct isn’t to compromise.”

  “That’s why they wreak havoc. They’re obsessed with abstract ideas and use them to measure everything and to shape the world.”

  “Without ideas there will be no vision. Without a vision, how can we improve things?”

  “Don’t assume you can become a real American. If you don’t mend your ways, eventually you’ll be ostracized and out of place wherever you go, and you won’t be useful even to the Americans. When you’re old, at best you’ll end in a nursing home, toothless and incontinent, wearing diapers day and night, with no company but a small TV. Try to do some soul-searching and be honest with yourself. In this world no one can exist alone, detached from any group or community. No one can prosper for long by destroying their good relationships with others. It’s always better to promote goodwill than to be a rabble-rouser. Now, take the magazine with you and think about what I just said. I hope one day we’ll see eye to eye on something. By the way, have you seen this?” He pointed to a World Journal lying open on the coffee table, the page carrying an article about the daughter of Foreign Minister Liu—the girl had just been admitted to Yale.

  “I read today’s paper,” I said, guarded.

  Tao put his finger on the girl’s fleshy cheek. “Do you think Yale accepted her purely for merit?”

  “It seems unlikely.”

  “Right, they admitted her because she’ll be useful to the university. By the same logic, you must make yourself useful to a country. That’s how a person realizes his value. Without a country behind you, you’ll be nothing. You’re a smart man. Try to figure out how this young girl made herself useful.”

  “I don’t think she herself is that useful, though,” I countered. “It’s her father who is important.”

  “That also makes her useful to Yale, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, I wish I had been born into a powerful family like that. Too late now. I can’t blame my parents for giving me my humble origins.”

  We both laughed.

  I left his office after another swallow of the fragrant tea. Though slightly unsettled, I must admit that I had enjoyed the exchange of words with Vice Consul Tao. Seldom could I have an invigorating conversation like that with Chinese officials; most of them just hemmed and hawed and appeared polite and mild to avoid expressing their opinions or confronting others. They were famous for showing no temper (immobile as a hill, not even batting an eyelid). Tao was an exception.

  On the subway, I read Sam Waide’s article, which was unconvincing. The writer argued that democracy could and ought to be exported as a civilizing mission of the West, so the occupation of Iraq was to establish the first democratic Arab country in the Mideast. It was also a way of stabilizing the region and maintaining peace and world order. People should therefore trust the professional politicians and allow the White House more time to make progress and eventually win the war. I was disappointed, because I liked Waide’s novels, but this essay was narrow-minded and imperialistic. I could accept Waide as an intellectual, but he was not the type I wanted to be. I wanted to become someone who wouldn’t hesitate to expose lies and hypocrisy or, if necessary, to speak against my country (if I still had one). Nevertheless, I understood that I had been chosen as a public intellectual mainly because people wanted to have honest voices in the media—by my qualifications, I wasn’t an intellectual at all. All the same, now that I’d been officially voted in, I couldn’t help brooding about this role and imagining how to fulfill it.

  SEVENTEEN

  Two days later I mailed the magazine back to Vice Consul Tao with a letter enclosed. I could not agree with him about serving one’s country unconditionally. “What is a country?” I asked. “For me, it is not a mythical, sacred figure but an apparatus, like a set of machines (each ministry is a machine in this sense). It would be insane to regard the country as a deity and let it rule one’s life. Moreover, I simply cannot trust any country, which might run amok at any time. That’s why E. M. Forster hoped to have the guts to betray his country if he had to choose between betraying his friend and betraying his country.”

  I continued: “What if your country commits genocide? What if your country has become a fascist state? In such circumstances, a decent citizen should stand up to the government. History has taught us that no country is qualified for the moral high ground. An intellectual’s role is not to serve the state but to keep a close watch on it so that it may not turn abusive, oppressive, and destructive. Therefore, as an intellectual, one must uphold justice, freedom, and equality as universal values. Abstract as those concepts might be, despite their problematic origins and despite the West’s dubious history in measuring up to them, they are still essential in improving our social conditions and making us more human. Furthermore, I must emphasize that no true intellectuals should be in bed with power, letting political shifts determine their ups and downs, nor should they become the hangers-on of some lords. Vice Consul Tao, have you never dreaded the country you have been serving? Has it not destroyed millions of l
ives? Has it ever hesitated to swallow or squash even those who loved it? You claimed that without a country an individual would be nothing, but how many people have been reduced to nothing by their countries? Patriotism is a pejorative word in my dictionary: it connotes spiritual paucity, intellectual blindness and laziness, and moral cowardice. Isn’t it terrible to let only a country form the underpinning of one’s being? Last but not least, I don’t believe that money is the universal value that you claim it to be—I don’t believe that it can buy every soul and every thing. There are values beyond gold.”

  I had to write him to express myself clearly; otherwise he might have assumed I’d agreed with him. After the letter was mailed, I got more agitated. I knew the die was cast, and from now on the Chinese government would view me as an enemy. No matter what, I’d never be a servant of any country, because I believed that the country and the individual were equal.

  About a week later Katie heard from Rudolph that the litigation against me was on a contingency basis, which meant that the attorney could get paid only after the case was won or settled. If the defendant had no money, all the effort would be wasted. This news heartened me. I could see that Haili had started the suit mainly to torment and intimidate me. Better yet, the contingency arrangement indicated that Larry was not financially involved. Rudolph told Katie that their attorney might discontinue his service unless the plaintiffs put up a retainer of eight thousand dollars. My gut told me that Haili was unlikely to take such a risk. She was always smart moneywise and wouldn’t open her checkbook that way. On Katie’s advice, I bought a bottle of Russian vodka for Rudolph.

  Katie went back to the Chinese consulate to try again for her visa. To her delight, this time they granted it to her. The day after she’d told me the good news, I went to the visa office outside the consulate to try my luck too, hoping that my one-month-old U.S. passport would give me some leverage for a visa, with which I could accompany Katie to Henan province and visit my parents afterward. After standing in line for forty-five minutes, I reached a window in the visa office. The young man behind the glass skimmed the form I had filled out, glanced through my papers, and asked me, “Where’s your Chinese passport?”