Shaogong, han - A Dictionary of Maqiao.html

by A Dictionary of Maqiao (lit)

  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 aga
inst 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 feeling 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.

  The earliest mention of this custom is in The Record of the Four Seasons in Jingchu, written at the time of the Southern Dynasties (440-589 a.d.) by Zong Bing, a man of Liang. Before this, no one spoke of commemorating Qu Yuan on the fifth day of the fifth month. In fact, dragonboat racing had long been a common sight in the south, a part of their ritual sacrifice to the spirits that lacked any verifiable connection to Qu Yuan. The link between the two was most probably fabricated by the historical fantasy of literati. It was done for Qu Yuan, but also for themselves. Therein lies the rationale of the ever more elaborate celebration of ritual sacrifices: aren't those who martyr themselves to civilization reassured by the promise of eternal glory as final compensation?

  Qu Yuan never saw this glory, and in any case, not just any aspiring Qu Yuan could win this glory. Looking at things from the opposite angle, the way in which Maqiao people understood and used the word "awakened" concealed another viewpoint, concealed the dislike of their forefathers for the politics and foreign culture of a powerful state, concealed the necessary ambiguity between different historical positions. This use of the word "awakened" to mean "ignorant" or "stupid" is a fossil seam running through the unique history and beliefs of the Luo people.

  * Asleep (Qo)

  : The character pronounced jue in Mandarin is pronounced qo in the Maqiao accent, with a rising tone, and means "clever," the opposite of the Maqiao meaning of "awakened." In fact, when pronounced jiao in Mandarin, this character happens also to mean not clever at all, but muddle-headed, confused, dazed, as in the phrase shuijiao, meaning "asleep."

  "Awakened" and "asleep" are antonyms. Directly opposed to normal understanding in standardized Chinese thinking, this pair of antonyms exchanged places when their meanings were extended in Maqiao: as Maqiao people see it, regaining consciousness is stupid, while sleeping is in fact clever. This inversion always sounded rather odd to outsiders who were new to the village.

  We have to allow that different people will judge cleverness and stupidity from different angles and using different yardsticks. We must, it seems, also permit that Maqiao people are perfectly entitled to draw from their own experience original metaphors from "awakened" and "asleep." Take Ma Ming: people can sigh about what a down-and-out he was, and laugh at how he was smelly and stubborn and crazy and stupid and how he lived, quite frankly, like a dog. But if we look at things from a different angle? From Ma Ming's angle? Far from lacking happiness or unfettered freedom, his existence could often be compared even with that of the immortals. And if we consider how act upon act of bitter farce have played themselves out: the Great Leap Forward, the Anti-Rightist Movement, the Cultural Revolution… far too much human brilliance dissipated into absurdity, far too much diligence turned into mistakes, far too much enthusiasm diverted into wrongdoing; at least Ma Ming, this distant onlooker, remained pure and unblemished, with no trace of blood on his hands. Even with all the natural hardships he endured, he lived to be healthier than most.

  Now, does that make him stupid or clever?

  Was he "awakened" or "asleep"?

  Every pair of antonyms is in fact the fusing of different understandings, the intersection of different lives and paths of practice, leading in turn to two paradoxical extremes. This type of intersection is concealed in a secret language which often gives those traveling abroad pause for thought.

  * Delivering Songs

  : If you happen to spot Maqiao men getting together in twos and threes, squatting down by walls, or crouching by the fireplace, cupping their chins or covering their mouths in a way born of long habit, then you know they are singing. They have a secret way of singing: not only do they keep their voices low, they also avoid the eyes and ears of outsiders and do it in out-of-the-way places. For them, the activity of singing is closer in spirit to a game of chess within a small circle of friends than to a kind of public performance. Originally, T thought this resulted from fear of official censorship and political criticism; later, however, I found out that this secretive style of singing existed many years before the Cultural Revolution. I don't know why this was so. In Maqiao, "singing" {changge) is also called delivering songs, or dealing songs (fage), similar in sense to "delivering a speech" at a meeting, or "dealing cards" at a card table. In Chinese, this word fa can also mean "incite" or "exhort," and in the Han (202 b.c-220 a.d.), Mei Sheng wrote the famous "Seven Exhortations," a type of fu rhapsody poem, mostly made up out of a question-and-answer structure. "Delivery of songs" in Maqiao is also structured around a question-and-answer opposition, one singer inciting, exhorting the other, but I have no way of knowing whether this is the same as the "exhortation" of the Han dynasty.

  Young people like listening to people deliver songs, and react promptly to each phrase in the song with comments or cheers. If there's someone fairly generous in their midst, he may fish out some money to buy a bowl of wine or use "face" to buy a bowl on credit, as a reward for the singer. After the singer has finished singing a round, he'll take a sip of wine, after which, fueled with alcohol, he can of course make up lines that are even more vigorous, cutting, and impossible to answer, forcing his opponent into a corner, so heavily under siege that all around is blocked out, yet still the hand cupping the chin or covering the mouth won't be released.

  Their songs have always derived from great affairs of state. One might ask an opponent, for example, who is the country's Premier? Who is the country's Chairman? Who is the country's Chairman of the Military Commission? Who is the elder brother of the country's Vice-chairman of the Military Commission? What illness has the elder brother of the country's Vice-chairman of the Military Commission had recently, and what medicine did he take? and so on. I was amazed by the difficulty
of these questions. I read the newspapers every day, but I'm afraid I couldn't recite details about these remote great personages as if they were members of my own family, or recall with such exactitude their lung cancer or diabetes. I can only guess that the amazing memory of these men, who stank from head to foot of ox dung, must have developed out of a particular type of training. Just as vagabond barbarians did not forget their sovereigns, their ancestors must have had a tradition of paying attention to court affairs.

  They later move on to delivering filial songs. The singers often find fault with each other, blaming their opponent for failing to fluff cotton wadding for their beloved parents, or for not having bought a coffin for their godfather when he died, or for not having sent cured meat over to their uncles on the fifteenth day of the first month, or saying that the fat on the meat wasn't even two inches thick, or even that the meat was swarming with maggots, and so on. They always sing with the force of justice behind them, calling their opponent to account: isn't this stingy miserliness? Isn't this rank ingratitude? Isn't this someone who, eating animals every day, has grown the heart of an animal? Of course, their opponent has to keep his wits about him under this barrage, use the weather or a lame foot as a pretext to exonerate himself from his own wrongdoing, then quickly launch a counterattack, seeking out his opponent's recent unfilial behavior-neither adversary balks in the slightest before exaggeration of the facts. They have to face up to sung interrogation; this kind of folk morality is strictly enforced.

  The above forms the necessary opening struggle, setting up the stand-point of the adversaries.

  After this has been delivered, they can relax and deliver a few qoqo songs. Qo can also mean "joke," for example "qoqo talk" can mean "funny talk." It can be further extended to mean indecent, and "qoqo songs," for example, often mean flirting songs. Qoqo songs excite the physical senses, and these are the numbers that animate young men the most. They can still be delivered in adversarial mode, as long as one side plays the male role and the other plays the female; one side has to love, and the other has to refuse this love. Here's one I wrote down: