Shaogong, han - A Dictionary of Maqiao.html

by A Dictionary of Maqiao (lit)

  He'd ascertained, moreover, it was this very fishy smell that had spoiled his fruit. Behind his house were two peach trees which, despite blooming luxuriantly every year, never produced much fruit; even when fruits appeared, they would rot away one by one. Some said these trees were diseased. He shook his head: those rotten women and their wild goings-on make me ill, he said, so how's a tree to bear it?

  He was referring to the fact that the two peach trees were next to a tea plantation, where every year women would go to pick tea and generally let their hair down; as he saw it, it would've been strange if the trees hadn't gone rotten.

  Some didn't give much credence to what he said and wanted to test his nose, test whether it really was different from everybody else's, whether it really had this implacable hatred for women. So, at the end of one working day they stole his straw coat and offered it to some women as a cushion to sit on, before returning it back to its original place to watch what kind of reaction there would be.

  Everyone was astounded: when he picked up the raincoat, his nose wrinkled and face darkened instantly:

  "You low-life lowlifes, who touched my raincoat?"

  The men present glanced at each other, pretending to know nothing.

  "What've I ever done to you? When did I do you wrong? To make you do this to me?" He made a face and stamped his foot in genuine anger.

  The raincoat thieves quickly slipped away in alarm.

  Uncle Luo threw away his coat and huffed and puffed his way back home. Anxious to make peace, Fucha washed the coat in the pond. But the coat never again reappeared on the old village head's back-people said he'd burned it immediately.

  No one dared play another joke like this on him. If you invited him to dinner, there could never be any female guests at the table, nor any women's clothes drying nearby. And when arranging his work assignments, you had to be careful not to send women off with him. Once, Benyi sent him off on the tractor to the county seat to buy some cotton flower seeds, a trip that took him a whole two days; when he got back, he said when he'd set out his leg had suddenly started to hurt, but he hadn't been in time to catch the tractor and had had to go on foot, so he'd lost a day. It was only afterwards, when villagers happened to bump into the tractor driver in the commune, that they discovered he had been in time to catch the tractor, but just because there were a few women catching a lift on the vehicle he'd absolutely refused to get on, insisting that he preferred to walk by himself. There was no one to blame but himself.

  He walked very slowly: the thirty li from the county seat back to Maqiao took him a whole day. And not only that: he did everything slowly, nothing rashly, as if he knew full well there were days beyond days, and also days beyond the days beyond the days, there was no need to shit your breakfast as soon as you'd got it down. The young men all liked to work with him, as he'd make the day fairly relaxed, not overly pressured. One day, the young men went with him to Tianzi Peak to repair the aqueduct over the mountains. The weather was terribly cold that day and an ice crust had frozen over the ground; even though everyone's feet were tied up with grass rope, they still slipped at every step, and at every fall, wails and laughter rose and fell in waves. By the time everyone arrived at the construction site, they were all dreading the work ahead of them, and seeing as even the cadres hadn't arrived and Uncle Luo was the only person who had any speech rights to speak of, they begged him to agree to let everyone wait a while, at least until the sun had come up and melted the ice, before starting work. His drowsy eyes full of sleep, Uncle Luo dug his tobacco out of his cloth bag saying: "Who's to say otherwise? Dragging everyone out from under their quilts on such a cold day, as if you were going to bury your nearest and dearest…" Whatever he was saying wasn't all that clear, but everyone caught what he meant. A roar of delight went up, then everyone dispersed, each looking for a corner to hide from the wind and warm himself up. Uncle Luo had searched out from who-knew-where a few withered, fallen leaves and had squatted down around a mounded fire, winning himself several jostling companions.

  "Maybe you'd like to bring over a couple of baskets of charcoal, eh? Set up a few stoves, eh?" Benyi cleared his throat before producing these two enigmatic conversational gambits: everyone jumped with fright. No one knew where he'd popped up from, wielding a bamboo measuring pole.

  Uncle Luo, his eyelids stuck up with sleepy dust, remained sedate: "The road's too slippery to stand up on, how d'you get that pole here? Didn't you see? Even the dogs won't go out on a day like this."

  That's right, that's right, everyone else seconded him.

  "Well, that's great!" Benyi gave a cold laugh, "So I came here to supervise your sleeping: Party members and People's Militia can take the lead sleeping, poor and lower-middle peasants can overcome hardships sleeping, you can all sleep everything into its fundamentals. D'you all know what sleep is?"

  He was making use of the Marxist "externals/fundamentals" philosophy he'd just studied. When he'd finished talking, he took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, spat into his palm, heaved a brick boulder onto his shoulders, and headed off towards the aqueduct. This was quite an impressive performance, and everyone present watched in silent embarrassment; seeing as some of the others had also started to stir, a few at a time they reluctantly abandoned their corners of warmth, bracing themselves against the freezing wind.

  Uncle Luo swallowed his anger, and when he'd finished smoking his ball of tobacco he too picked up a boulder of brick and followed Benyi, muttering as he went. Then something unexpected happened. Just as he'd walked up to the aqueduct, a shrill cry came from Benyi out in front: his body swayed back and forth, his feet failed to steady themselves, and he slid down the slippery face of the aqueduct. It looked as if he was going to slide over the edge of the mountain, right down into the mountain valley where water rushed and freezing air billowed. Everyone's hearts leapt into their mouths. But way before they'd realized how critical the situation was, Uncle Luo's eyes and hands were already on the case: he yelled out, hurled the brick boulder off his shoulder, and immediately flung himself forward; unable to grab hold of the torso before him, he managed a foot instead.

  Fortunately, Uncle Luo's own foot was lodged behind a steel girder in the aqueduct and, though pinned against the ice and hauled along by Benyi's considerable weight, he ground to a halt at the edge of the aqueduct.

  He couldn't really hear any of Benyi's yells-buffeted here and there by the valley wind, they sounded like a handful of mosquitoes buzzing from a very, very distant valley floor.

  "What-did-you-say?" All Uncle Luo could see was the other foot flailing about wildly.

  "Quick, pull me up, quick…"

  "Let's not be hasty about this," Uncle Luo was also out of breath, "You're the one who's studied philosophy: now, would you say weather like this is an external, or a fundamental?"

  "Quick…"

  "There's no hurry, it's nice and cool here, nice place to have a chat."

  "You son of a…"

  By this time, a few of the young men had arrived on the scene: with some pulling the rope, some stretching out their hands, they finally, perilously managed to rescue the Party Secretary from his suspension under the aqueduct.

  After Benyi got back on his feet, face red all over, he was no longer so proud, or so philosophical; he even needed to lean on people as he made his way pigeon-toed back down from the aqueduct. After returning to the village, he cut off a catty of meat and invited Uncle Luo over for a drink to thank him for saving his life.

  From this time on, Benyi would spare only Uncle Luo-out of all Maqiao-his curses. Whenever Benyi had some decent wine, he'd take it over to Uncle Luo's thatched cottage and invite Uncle Luo to take a drop with him. Some said that later on, when Benyi was arguing with Tiexiang every other day, the main reason was that he was always hanging around Uncle Luo's place. They not only drank and chatted together, they also did some other things that people found rather puzzling, for example, washed together, even went under the mosquito net tog
ether, making the bed-plank creak under the pressure-no one knew what they were playing around at. As they were same-pot brothers, was there any reason to say they couldn't sleep under the same quilt? Once, someone in Uncle Luo's back garden stealing bamboo shoots happened to take a glance inside through a hole in the window paper. It was incredible:

  They weren't sticking (see the entry "stick(y)") each other's bottoms, were they?

  Meaning: irregular goings-on between men.

  Maqiao people didn't concern themselves too much about such things. There was someone in Zhangjia District, and also some redflower daddies and red-flower uncles in neighboring villages who got up to similar stuff-it wasn't that uncommon. In any case, seeing as Benyi was always busy being angry during the day, no one dared make any further inquiries, so nothing was ever proved.

  *Old Man (etc.)

  : This term doesn't actually mean anything much, it's just a turn of phrase which can be used for old people, young people, even children. When overused, it gradually loses its meaning, becomes equivalent to the interjection of coughs or yawns into speech, camouflaged between phrases; no one whose ears were attuned would take any notice, would sense it was there. For example, someone might ask whether the supply and marketing cooperative had slaughtered a pig. The reply would be: "It's been slaughtered, old man." Or then again: have you bought any meat? The reply would be: "Bought some, old man." Here, the listener should hear but not heed "old man," should just pass it by, shouldn't take it the wrong way. Once, Uncle Luo cheerily greeted a female Educated Youth carrying rice seedlings whom he came across on the road: "Carrying seedlings, old man?" The girl, who'd just arrived in the village and wasn't much of a looker, spun on her heel and stomped off in a great rage. She later said to everyone else: "That old guy's so rude! Just because my skin's a bit dark doesn't mean I've become an old man, does it? I don't look older than him, do I?" This was what happened when outsiders hadn't yet got the hang of local expressions; it also showed how Educated Youth didn't always understand the Maqiao tradition of prizing age far above youth: it was a compliment to call you old, it was, in fact, a form of flattery.

  Careful investigation has shown that linguistic development and distribution are not even, uniform processes. There are actions that lack words, and words that lack actions-this is how things have always been, without any system or balance. It's rather like how some people die in droughts, some in floods, while inhabiting the same world. When the floodwaters are high, perfectly serviceable words will bloat up to distorted dimensions, then even when the high waters recede the effects of the flooding remain. When foreigners visit Japan, they never fail to notice all the superfluous "convention words" that exist. If a Japanese person were to praise a commodity you produced and approve your plans, without discussing with you any concrete steps toward a joint venture, you really mustn't take it seriously, you mustn't stay at home, waiting like an idiot for him to place an order. Foreigners have to be careful in Paris, too: if someone invites you to visit them at home, no matter how great their enthusiasm, no matter how much they slap your back, shake hands, even embrace you, press their face against yours, while they haven't actually given you their address, haven't actually fixed a time, you should just smile and read their behavior as a form of social nicety, as a common, standardized false token of friendly feeling, to be broadly ignored. You should not phone them and ask, "When should I come?"

  It isn't that the Japanese and the French are particularly hypocritical; Chinese people are also extremely proficient at producing words that lack actions. For a long time now, Maqiao phrases such as "the revolutionary masses" / "the state of the nation is excellent, and is improving all the time" / "the warm, loving concern of our brilliant higher-level leadership" / "say what is in our hearts" / "elevate thought progressively" / "don't withdraw troops before victory is complete," etc. haven't stood up to serious scrutiny, either. Take, for example, the death of Uncle Luo, the old village leader. He'd been an old poor peasant, a pillar of Land Reform, even a sometime Red Army soldier-of course he had to have a proper funeral. At the wake, Benyi spoke as representative of the Party's deep sadness: "The golden monkey twirls a staff of a thousand tons, the jade roof is cleared of a myriad li of dust. The four oceans seethe, clouds and rain rage, the five continents quake, winds and thunder rise. In the mass upsurge of study of Mao Zedong philosophy and thought throughout the entire county, in the entire excellent circumstances of national revolutionary production, under the brilliant leadership and loving concern of the higher level Party organizational leadership, in the upsurge in our production brigade's complete implementation of deployment of the serial strategy from the Commune's Party representative meetings, our comrade Luo Yuxing was bitten by a mad dog…" A young cadre from the county civil administration wrinkled his brow and nudged Benyi, "What was that? What's that got to do with the brilliant upper-level leadership?" Taken aback, Benyi blinked: "Did I say leadership? I just said mad dog." The civil administration cadre said: "What about before? What did you say before that?" Benyi said: "Nothing much, just a bit of padding-shouldn't I have said it?"

  Once he'd opened his mouth, the civil administration cadre had ruined the whole meeting: it wasn't just Benyi who was put out, the gathered crowds also felt their spirits dampened. As I saw it, no one had understood that people hear things in different ways, that everything Benyi had said before "mad dog" had long been automatically applicable to things like irrigation, manure collection, logging, struggling landlords, school commencements, had been so overused that it went in one ear and out the other, had already merged so completely with the linguistic scenery that only an outsider would take any notice of it. This outsider was still too young, didn't understand the potential of language to create verbal flourishes, to misfit reality, to diverge from facts.

  As the encrustations of linguistic camouflage, superfluous words- which include terms of respect-can rarely be speedily purged and buried. In certain circumstances, they can suddenly, dramatically proliferate and expand, like a linguistic amplification of human morality, a sort of linguistic collagen implant within the austerity of human truth. Anyone with any knowledge of the world ought to realize this.

  Having knowledge of the world means having the ability to make use of superfluous words-or rather, developing the functions cultivated by the vast quantities of ethical and political superfluous words in the world.

  I know of a foreign writer who venerated slang, who described slang as the most powerful, the most precious language there was. These views of his are a little overstated, of course, a little inaccurate. But there's one reason, there's one point on which I can empathize with this writer: this writer wrote in the most refined and elegant of countries. That he shocked his world and transgressed its norms in this way must be because he had been so long suppressed by the oceans of incomparably refined, affable, courtly superfluities used in his sophisticated interpersonal relations that irritation finally gave way to torrents of obscenities. He must have been suffocating so much under the weight of linguistic falsity that he couldn't stop himself from spewing forth filth: it was as if he'd ripped off everyone's pants, exposing the anus of language to one and all. The anus is just like the nose, ears, and hands: it doesn't matter whether it's pretty or not, it isn't born pretty or ugly. In a world congested with falsity, the anus becomes the final unimpeded outlet to truth, the last bastion of rebellion where life force is stored and preserved. It thus becomes only too understandable that after Benyi had closed his grand, stately mourning meeting, as soon as he walked out into the night, he couldn't stop himself from yelling out:

  "Stick your fucking, fuck, fucker-"

  He'd stubbed his toe on a stone, seemed to be swearing at the stone.

  His swearing done, he felt the blood begin to flow much more smoothly around his body.

  *Eating (as Used in Springtime)

  : Spring brought with it an unperceived seasonal change in language. A nephew of Uncle Luo from far away had come to
the mountains to haul charcoal and, on reaching Uncle Luo's doorway, was asked by the master of the house: "Have you eaten?" To ask someone on meeting whether they'd eaten or not was a Maqiao custom, and a waste of breath: generally speaking, it was a convention that didn't need to be taken seriously.

  Similarly speaking, "I've eaten," the set response, was not to be taken seriously. Particularly not in springtime, as it was then, in the time of shortage when every family ate porridge, when most people were so hungry their hands and feet went weak and their knees knocked.

  But the nephew turned out to be a bit dim and adamantly replied: "No, I haven't," which caught Uncle Luo off guard. "You really haven't eaten?" he asked. "I really haven't," the young man said. Uncle Luo blinked: "Out with it now, if you've eaten you've eaten, if you haven't eaten you haven't eaten, now have you eaten or not?" The young man's features twisted under the pressure: "I really haven't." Uncle Luo started to get angry: "I know you, you never give me a straight answer. When you've eaten you say you haven't, when you haven't eaten you say you have, what're you playing at?! If you really haven't eaten, I'll go and cook something, the firewood's ready, the rice is ready, a lick of flame and it'll be done. Otherwise, I can go and borrow a bowl from someone, easy as pie, don't hold back now!" The young man was quite swept away by this verbal torrent, couldn't understand what he'd just held back on and started to sweat beads of embarrassment: "I… I really…" Uncle Luo fiercely intoned: "You, you, you really need a wife you do, still talking rubbish you are, don't leave things out, keep it plain, can't you tell me the truth? When you're here you make yourself at home. We're not strangers. If you've eaten, then you've eaten, if you haven't eaten, then you haven't eaten."