*Riding a Wheelbarrow
: "Riding a wheelbarrow" was a phrase that Tiexiang used to refer to what went on between her and Three Ears in bed. This was something Zhongqi had secretly overheard; people laughed for days after it'd spread about, and it subsequently became a Maqiao idiom. Chinese has no lack of food-related vocabulary. For cooking methods, there's steam, boil, fry, stir-fry, quick-fry, saute, shallow fry, stew, cure, pickle, casserole, braise, and so on; for the action of the mouth there's eat, sip, suck, slurp, swallow, lick, gnaw, bite, chew, gulp, and so on; for the sense of taste, there's sweet, acrid, salty, bitter, hot, sour, fresh, spicy, crisp, slippery, numbing, clean, mellow, crumbly, powdery, and so on. But although sex is also a human need, there seem to be in comparison far fewer words relating to sex. As Confucius said: "food and sex are human nature." But our linguistic heritage has wiped out half of Confucius's venerable opinion.
There is still, of course, what's called low talk, mainly low-quality, perennially popular expressions, oral excretions you hear everywhere. Though there's no lack of them, their deficiencies are only too apparent. Firstly, they echo, they duplicate each other, they add nothing new; secondly, they lack content, they overgeneralize, they're all talk and no action, like politicians' speeches on state affairs, like cultural bureaucrats slapping each other on the back. Even worse, they're mainly borrowed words that don't even cover the meaning, that don't express the sense, that rely on tacit, contextual understanding; the effect produced is as ludicrous as putting Mr Zhang's hat on Mr Li, or calling a donkey a horse. "Clouds and rain," "grinding bean curd," "cannon firing," "steaming buns"… All these expressions sound like mafia codes. And so, left thus with no alternative, people begin to act like shifty mafiosi, while linguistic ethics equate sex with mafia crimes, with conspiracies that evade clear, precise expression.
This sexual vocabulary necessarily springs from the transformation of sexual feeling into something crude, formulaic, utilitarian, and furtive. The surging excitement of exchange between the sexes springs from a delicate, shimmering trembling from deep within the body, from anxiety, obduracy, sympathy, and an unnerving joy, all of which both clash with and support each other, from secret, storm-tossed explorations that, at dizzying emotional heights, sit poised on the cusp of destruction, infatuation, and hurtling descent, bringing every single part and process of one's being to life.… It's a great pity that all this has for so long been driven underground into a deep, linguistically unreachable blind spot.
A linguistic blank is a human abandonment of self-knowledge, an ignominious defeat, hinting at some form of enormous, lurking danger. Language serves as the link between humans and the world: once this link is broken or lost, people have as good as lost their control over the world. In this sense, it can perfectly justifiably be said that language equals the power to control. To chemistry experts, a complex chemistry laboratory is like their own backyard; to someone ignorant of chemistry, it's a terrifying minefield, covered in death traps. To those who've grown up in the city, a bustling city is their home territory, there's nowhere more convenient or comforting; but to people from the countryside with no knowledge or experience of the city, it's a thorny jungle where enemies, obstacles, and nameless, unshakable terrors lurk everywhere. There's a very simple reason for all this: a world hard to describe in words is a world beyond your control.
Sociological research has identified a kind of "marginal person," someone who leaves one culture and enters another, such as country people who go into the city, immigrants who leave their native country for distant lands. Language is the chief problem encountered by such people. Whether or not they have money, whether or not they have power, if they haven't grasped the new language, as long as they haven't yet gained a proficient linguistic grasp of their new environment, they'll never manage to shake off the feeling of rootlessness, of insecurity. When rich Japanese go to France, some of them suffer from "Paris syndrome." When courageous Chinese migrate to America, some suffer from "New York syndrome." Their limited foreign-language skills prevent them from blending into the unfamiliar turf of a foreign land. Neither their money nor their courage can protect them from their nameless anxiety, tension, terror, palpitations, rising blood pressure, paranoia, and the delusion they're being spied on. Any incomprehensible dialogue with neighbors or people on the street, any foreign object or vista they can't put a name to imperceptibly increases the psychological pressure on them, leaving them highly vulnerable to illness. Many people, in this kind of situation, closet themselves in desolate residences, continually fleeing from the outside world-just as people having sex seek to avoid the eyes and ears of others.
People have little fear about revealing their own bodies. In the bathhouse, the gym, swimming pool, even-in some Western countries-on nudist beaches, people feel no great discomfort or terror. People only feel the need to shut curtains and doors when having sex, like rats trying to burrow into a hole in the ground. There are a lot of reasons for this crucial distinction, of course. But in my opinion, one reason that's always been overlooked is that people have a complete linguistic grasp of activities like washing, exercising, swimming, and so have effective control over themselves and other people, sufficient to exercize their sense of reason. It's only when people drop their pants and face the unbounded linguistic blind spot of sex that ignorance and confusion create insecurity, and the human subconscious slinks back into its lair. What are people afraid of? Not just moralizing public opinion: subconsciously, they're far more afraid of themselves, afraid of losing themselves in the unnamed darkness of sex. Once they drop their pants, they too experience anxiety, tension, terror, palpitations, a rise in blood pressure, paranoia, and the delusion of being spied on, just as if they'd been thrown into the Paris or New York they have yearned for, only to burrow themselves away in their apartments.
Statistics show that crime levels for "marginal people" are high, as is the occurrence of mental illness. Everything foreign that lies beyond the linguistic grasp of marginal people, beyond the power of their intellect, amounts to primal chaos, dissipating with the greatest of ease their consciousness and competence. By a similar logic, the linguistic blind spot of sex easily brings human irrationality to the surface. Perhaps this is the unspoken condition by which sexual adventures achieve their charm, and also, of course, the condition by which sexual desire leads to catastrophe. Schemes involving beautiful women can often bring down great political plans, economic strategies, and military structures. Common sense can often melt away in one night of dissolution, hurling people carelessly into the wilds of passion-just as it did with Tiexiang.
Maybe this was how things were:
1. Tiexiang was perfectly aware of how poor and inferior Three Ears was, but after the two locked in carnal embrace she was suddenly seized by a kind of charitable urge, a kind of passionate interest in using her body to achieve miraculous ends. If she'd already been bedded by several men of standing, a repeat of this experience would have held little interest for her. In Three Ears, she saw a new battleground, a more challenging mission. Poverty and inferiority held no terrors for her: quite the opposite, the idea of poverty and inferiority intoxicated her; the thought of rebuilding a man's sense of pride made her heart thump uncontrollably.
2. Three Ears did a great many truly terrible things, coming to blows with his parents, for example, fighting with his brothers, never working in the village, stealing a bag of chemical fertilizer from the team leader, even climbing the wall of the women's toilet in the clinic, and so on; Tiexiang, too, snorted with contempt at these past offences. But she later decided to attribute all this to her own magical powers. Maqiao's melons all rotted because of her, Maqiao's animals all went mad because of her-could it not be that Three Ears had committed all these outrages because of her? Three Ears-no, she now preferred to call him Xingli, her own Xingli-was brave, chivalrous, a man who could put up with a lot: the way he'd stuck his neck out over Yanwu's schooling was proof enough. If he hadn't secretly adored
her all along, if he hadn't been driven wild with unrequited love, he wouldn't have run headlong into all those disasters with quite such abandon. All this produced a sudden burst of realization that filled her with an enormous sense of well-being: a stream of warm, compassionate emotion flooded through her heart, sending her body into uncontrollable spasms of trembling.
3. Even after the so-called rape, Xingli often returned to the village looking for her, his face set into a mask savagery, and he would beat her till her nose went blue and her face puffed up, till she screamed for her parents. This made everyone in the village furious. Even though some suspected the rape hadn't been everything it seemed, that maybe there'd been an injustice, a real man shouldn't fight with a woman, the vendetta couldn't go on and on like this. Surely only a madman, a bandit would go on beating a person like this? Only Tiexiang, out of all Maqiao, failed to sense any malice in Three Ears' revenge: quite the opposite, she tasted sweetness in her own pain, tasted the immutable love of her adversary. She believed that only the person who loved you most could be pushed beyond desperation to such deep resentment and hatred. In their past life together, Benyi hadn't been exactly happy with her, but he'd hardly ever beaten her; more often than not, after he'd had a drink, he'd head out the door, hands behind his back, to a cadre meeting. The director of the Cultural Institute and the photographer had also been let down by her, but they were even less likely to strike out at anyone, they just rubbed their hands and slipped away without a trace. This tolerance and irresolution quite simply enraged her, prevented her from discovering her true position and power over these men. But she was addicted to the crack of the vine whip and rod, to men who left souvenirs of their wild obsession and crazed desire in the form of scar upon scar of heart-stopping pain. Several times (incredibly enough, even to her) orgasm would suddenly wash over her as she was being beaten, her cheeks burning bright red, her legs writhing uncontrollably.
Her pleasure intensified even further when Xingli passed on to her devices for feminine use. She secretly hid these things away, turning them over, looking at them when there was no one around.
In the end, she left in the night, casting back among Maqiao people the enormous linguistic blank represented by this code name, "riding a wheelbarrow."
*Hey-Eh Mouth
: This word appears in the Annals of the Ministry for the Suppression of Rebellion, in the confession written by the rebel leader Ma Sanbao after his arrest: "I was very scared, but I was tricked by that Hey-eh Mouth Ma Laogua who said the government troops wouldn't come." Reading this, I thought to myself: someone who hasn't lived in Maqiao might not know what a "Hey-eh mouth" is. "Hey-eh mouth" is still used in Maqiao today, meaning people who argue a lot, who like spreading rumors and secrets; also, unreliable blabbermouths. People like this probably use a lot of interjections like "hey" or "eh" as they talk, which would explain the word's provenance.
Zhongqi, from the lower village, who often reported to Benyi about rapes and other village matters, was a famous Hey-eh mouth. No secret in the village could get past his jug ears. Never mind how hot the day, he'd always stomp around in his shoes. Regardless of what he was working on, he'd never take off those suspicious, battered shoes-even if everyone else was going around barefoot, even if that day there'd be no work for which shoes could be worn, he'd just idly keep watch on the ridges between fields, wasting his time looking on as other people earned work points. No one knew what unspeakable visions hid within those shoes of his. He fiercely guarded the secret of his shoes, just as he tirelessly probed all the other villagers' secrets, and his face always wore an expression of secret satisfaction, deriving from a sense of profiting at others' expense.
Or perhaps I should say: because he himself had two shoefuls of secrets, he had to ferret out other people's secrets to make things even.
He'd creep stealthily up on me, prepare himself for a good long time, finally arrange his features into a smile and say: "Enjoy your sweet-potato flour last night, did you, hmm?" then shrink coyly back into himself, waiting for me to plead innocence or make excuses. Seeing I'd failed to react even slightly, he'd beat a deeply cautious but still smiling retreat from such personal matters. I didn't know how he'd found out about that sweet-potato flour last night, neither did I know why he considered this matter so important that he'd kept it in mind and made pointed reference to it. Even less did I know which part of him inside rejoiced at this ability of his, at his record of achievement in ferreting out the tiniest details.
Sometimes, he'd rouse himself into irregular passions: he'd be digging away at the ground, then suddenly heave a resonant sigh, or howl terrifyingly at some faraway dog, look to see if we'd reacted at all, then finally, his face a picture of misery, burst out with: "Yayaya, terrible." What's terrible? people would ask in surprise. Oh, nothing much, he'd say, shaking his head repeatedly, nothing much, a thread of self-satisfaction hanging from the corners of his mouth, smiling coldly at other people's indifference and disappointment.
Then, after a while, he'd go all miserable again, ah terrible, again. When other people asked him what was wrong, his tongue would loosen slightly, there was low stuff going on, he'd say, someone's got big, big problems, don't you know… Once he'd gotten bystanders interested, he'd promptly slam on the brakes and reply with a complacent question: "Guess who it is? Guess who it is? Can you guess, eh?" He'd clam up, then repeat the performance five or six times, till no one asked anymore, till everyone was totally indifferent to, was exasperated by, his alternating melancholy and complacency; only then would he chuckle jubilantly and return to concentrating on his digging, as if he didn't have a care in the world.,
*Agreed-Ma
: Zhongqi was always a great supporter of the government, and a red Mao button, big as an egg, would usually be pinned conspicuously on his chest and a quotation bag always slung over his shoulder at meetings, long after they stopped being fashionable. Generally speaking, he was pretty handy at using political jargon, watched what he said, didn't let his tongue run unwisely away with him. And there was always a fountain pen stuck in his breast pocket. He hadn't bought it, of course-one look at the slightly mangled shaft told you it'd been cobbled together from scrap remnants, it'd been through a tough refining process. As I recall, he'd never been a cadre or even held any kind of position in the Peasants' Association. But he loved using this pen, and he'd endorse anything that moved with "Agreed-Ma Zhongqi." Almost every team invoice, receipt, work-point book, account book, newspaper, and so on, carried this three-word mantra of his. Once, Fucha picked out a receipt for the purchase of some baby fish and was about to write it into the accounts when he spotted that, following a momentary lapse of watchfulness, the receipt had fallen into Zhongqi's hands; before he'd had time to shout stop, it'd already been inscribed with "Agreed," the nib being sucked in preparation for the final, solemn blow.
"Writing your funeral speech, are you?" Fucha snapped. "What's your agreeing got to do with it? What right d'you have to agree? Are you team leader, are you Party Secretary?"
Zhongqi laughed, "What skin's it off your nose? These fish were bought honest and above board, what's the problem if people agree? You tell me-did you steal these fish?"
"I don't want you to write on it! I just don't want you to write on it!"
"Did I write it wrong? How about if I tore that bit off?" Zhongqi was in a humorous mood.
"Damned pain he is," Fucha said to the people standing around.
"D'you want me to write 'Not agreed' then?"
"I don't want you to write anything at all, you shouldn't write anything on it! You want to write something, wait a couple of lives to see if you've turned into something human."
"Fine, then, I won't write anything. Mean little devil."
Feeling he'd got the upper hand, Zhongqi sedately stuck the fountain pen back in his pocket.
Somewhere between amusement and exasperation, Fucha fished another receipt out of his pocket and fluttered it about in front of everyone: "Hey, eve
ryone, look, I haven't settled accounts with him. That catty of meat for the kiln yesterday, I can't charge it to the expense account, he's signed for it too."
Zhongqi reddened and glanced at the rustling receipt, "Don't charge it then."
"What were you doing writing 'agreed' on it? Got cold feet now?"
"I didn't see…"
"You sign something, you take responsibility."
"Well, I'll change it, okay?" He walked back over, hurriedly taking his pen out again.
"Can you change your crappy words? When Chairman Mao writes something, it's set in stone, the whole country follows every thousand-ton word. When you write, it's like a dog peeing, lifting its leg wherever it goes-what's it going to achieve?"
Zhongqi had reddened all the way down his neck, a small patch of light reflecting off the tip of his nose. "You're the dog round here, young Fucha. I reckon the higher-ups'U still pay-you work, you get to eat meat."
"If you've got the money, then get it out and pay! You're going to pay this back if it's the last thing you do today!
What with everyone being there, Zhongqi couldn't easily wriggle out of it. He stamped his foot: "Well, just charge it to me then, see if I care!" He swung off, his shoes clacking away. Shortly afterwards, he returned, rather out of breath, to slam a silver bracelet on the table. "Who's afraid of what a catty of meat costs? Young Fucha, I gave my agreement! Give it here, I'll pay for it!"
Shaogong, han - A Dictionary of Maqiao.html Page 29
