I didn’t know how I should respond, but I knew I couldn’t say, “Noticed what?” She seemed to be testing me. If I gave her the wrong answer, it was unlikely she’d open up to me. As a writer, I like people to tell me their innermost thoughts. As a man, I wanted this woman to tell me her innermost thoughts.
I paused, feeling a little awkward, and she asked, “Is it kind of hard for you to express your feelings?”
I gave a small nod. I’ve often felt nothing at all when people have asked how I feel about a work of art or a piece of music. I hate this feeling of feeling nothing, but I’m pretty good at faking an acceptable response.
“That’s great, I knew it,” she went on. “When I saw you going down the stairs, I thought to myself, Lao Chen will understand. Then I sat there waiting for you to come back up the stairs.”
In Little Xi’s mind I’m probably a reasonable, mature, and fairly knowledgeable person.
At least, that’s what I’d like people to think.
“Let’s sit down on this bench,” I suggested gently.
It seemed to work, because after we sat down she relaxed, closed her eyes, sighed deeply, and said, “At last.”
Little Xi was definitely my type. After so many years, her looks and figure hadn’t changed much, but wrinkles had begun to appear on her face from neglect. She also looked pretty depressed.
She kept her eyes closed, trying to regain her composure. I looked at her intently and I suddenly realized how much I still liked this woman. I like melancholy women.
“I don’t have anyone to talk to. I feel like there are fewer and fewer people like us … There are so few of us left that life hardly seems worth living anymore.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Everybody’s lonely, but no matter how lonely you are, life still goes on.”
She ignored my banal response. “No one remembers, except me. No one talks about it, except me. Does that mean I’m completely mad? There’s no trace of it, no evidence, so nobody can be bothered.”
I was enjoying the sound of her Beijing accent.
She briefly opened her eyes before closing them again. “Well, how about it? We were such good friends. Why haven’t I seen you for so many years? What happened?”
“I thought you’d gone abroad.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Well, it’s good that you didn’t. Now everybody’s saying there’s no country in the world as good as China.”
She opened her eyes once more and gave me a look. I didn’t really understand what she was getting at, so I didn’t react. She broke into a smile and said, “It’s unbelievable that you can still make jokes.”
I hadn’t been joking, but I immediately went along with her and smiled, too.
“You sound just like my son,” she added.
“Your son? You seem not to want to talk about him. What’s up between the two of you?”
“He’s doing really well,” she said in an ironic tone. “He’s studying law at Peking University and he’s joined the Communist Party.”
“That’s good,” I said vaguely. “It will be useful when he tries to find a job.”
“He wants to go into the Chinese Communist Party Central Propaganda Department!”
At first I thought I hadn’t heard her clearly.
“The Central Propaganda Department?” I ventured.
Little Xi nodded. “He says it’s his life’s ambition. He’s got big ideas! If you ever meet him, you’ll know what I mean.”
I was enjoying a feeling of happiness sitting there next to Little Xi. It was such a beautiful spring afternoon; the sun was so bright and warm that many elderly couples were strolling around the park. There were also a few smokers … smokers? Two of them were standing close by chain-smoking. I like to read detective stories and I’ve even written a few myself, and so this situation left plenty of room for the imagination. It could have been a surveillance scene, but as I was nothing more than a self-indulgent writer of very ordinary bestsellers, why would anyone want to spy on me? Wherever there are people in China there are smokers.
I listened as Little Xi continued to pour her heart out to me. “Am I causing trouble, making a fuss? I know it’s none of my business, but I can’t act just like nothing’s happened. How can things change just like that? I don’t get it and I can’t stand it.”
I was still wondering what had made her so upset. Her son, or the after-effects of her own nightmarish experiences?
“One day in a small restaurant in Lanqiying,” she said, looking directly at me, “I went on a blind date with one of you Taiwanese men—he was a businessman. He was a terrific talker, there was nothing he didn’t know: astronomy, geography, medicine, divination and horoscopes, finance, investments, and world politics, you name it, he just wouldn’t stop and I was bored to death. When I managed to get a word in edgeways about our government’s failings, he called me ungrateful and said I didn’t know just how good I had it. He made me furious. I really felt like giving him a good slap.”
“Taiwanese men are not necessarily all like him,” I said. I felt I had to stick up for us Taiwanese men. But I was also curious. “So what happened?”
She smiled broadly. “He was so busy leaning over to tell me off that his butt was barely on the edge of his chair. When a tall, muscular young guy from the table next to us walked by, he deliberately bumped into his chair and knocked him off onto the floor.”
“What about this young guy?” I asked, still curious.
“He was just a strong young man.”
“But did he say anything?”
“He just walked out. And I felt delighted.”
“Did you know him?”
“No, but I’d like to.”
I felt a twinge of jealousy. “You can’t go around being violent like that.”
“Well, I thought it was great. I seem to feel like slapping people in the face all the time these days.”
Little Xi had seen a great deal of violence in her life, and some of it must have rubbed off on her. I remembered then why I hadn’t dared get too close to her. “What did that Taiwanese guy do after that?”
“He got up, absolutely livid, and looked around for someone to swear at, but he couldn’t see anyone, so he just muttered ‘philistine’ under his breath. You see, you Taiwanese still look down on us.”
“Not anymore, we don’t.” I know there used to be a certain amount of mutual contempt between people from the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, but I think all that has changed now.
I said, “So how are things for you now, Xi?”
She knit her brows and pursed her lips. “Things are okay, but the people around me have changed and I feel pretty low. I feel a lot better now talking with you. I haven’t had anyone to talk to for a long time …”
She suddenly turned her gaze into the distance, her expression quite blank. Her behavior puzzled me. What on earth was she looking at? The scattered shadows of the leaves on the ground as the slanting sun filtered through the branches? Or had she suddenly thought of something that threw her into a daydream? After a minute or so she abruptly said, “Oh, I’ve got to go, the rush-hour buses will be packed.”
I quickly got to my feet and gave her my card. “Let’s have dinner sometime, with your mother and your son.”
“We’ll see,” she said rather noncommitally. Then, “I’m off,” and away she went.
Little Xi still walked quite fast. I took a good look at her from behind—she could definitely turn heads. Her figure and swinging stride were still youthful. Xi left by the south side of the park while I happily ambled along toward the east-side exit. I suddenly remembered those two smokers, and looking back, I saw that they were already at the south-side exit. Little Xi turned right toward the National Art Museum and walked out of my line of sight. The two smokers waited a couple of seconds and then followed her in the direction of the museum.
Fat years in Sanlitun
I don’t feel like going home right away, so I catch a taxi to the S
wire Village in Sanlitun and go to Starbucks. Ever since the Wantwant China Group acquired Starbucks, many Chinese drinks have gone global. Take this great-tasting Lychee Black Dragon Latte I’m drinking now. I’ve heard that Wantwant Starbucks together with a Chinese investment consortium called EAL Friendship Investments (EAL for Europe, Africa, and Latin America) have opened outlets in several Islamic cities in the Middle East and Africa, including Baghdad, Beirut, Kabul, Khartoum, and Dar es Salaam. This is one big new global market guaranteeing that anywhere the Chinese live in the world there will be a Starbucks. In business never forget culture—a wonderful expression of China’s soft power.
Coming here was the right thing. I feel better and that familiar feeling of happiness comes flooding back. Look how busy the mall is. The young people look great, and there are so many tourists and visitors from abroad—what an international city. And everybody’s shopping—stimulating domestic demand and contributing to society.
I remember that a couple of months ago, a friend of mine studying rural culture at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences asked me a favor. Her niece from Lanzhou was in Beijing for her winter vacation and staying with her. When she asked her niece where she fancied going, she said she wanted to go to Y-3 to buy some clothes. My friend hadn’t a clue what Y-3 was, so she asked me. She’s such a bookworm. It didn’t even occur to her to look it up online. Y-3 is a new clothing brand started as a cooperative venture between Adidas and Japan’s celebrated Yohji Yamamoto. “Y” stands for Yohji and “3” is probably for the three leaves of the Adidas trefoil logo. The Y-3 brand is really hot here. In fact, they say the biggest Y-3 market in the world is in China, and its flagship department store is right in front of me now, opposite the Swire Village Wantwant Starbucks.
When they opened just before the 2008 Olympics, they occupied only about one-third of the fourth floor of the five-story Adidas outlet. Now one whole floor belongs to Y-3. Of course Adidas also expanded its Swire Village area by taking over the floors once occupied by Nike. This was all due to the merger and reorganization of the local brand Li Ning with Adidas, but the thanks should go to the Chinese government’s new policies. Every brand that wants to enter the Chinese market has to have at least 25 percent Chinese-owned capital; with 50 percent or more, they can receive even more favorable terms. If they want to be listed in Shanghai, they have to meet extra requirements, I can’t remember exactly what. Any foreign brand that does not meet these conditions has to wait for the Ministry of Commerce to grant it special permission; if it doesn’t receive special permission, then it has to remove itself from China’s 1.35-billion-person market.
I’ve lived over half my life in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and I always used to believe that for any place to develop it had to rely on exports. The population had to depend on living frugally and getting rich through thrift in order to fill the first bucket of gold. But now I finally realize how important domestic demand and consumption are. If the Chinese are willing to spend money, they may not be able to save the world, but at least they can improve their own situation.
I’m not blindly praising China. I know China has many problems. But just think about this. There was the 2008 financial tsunami, when the developed capitalist countries, led by the United States, began to self-destruct. They enjoyed only a couple of years of slight recovery before they fell into stagflation again in 2011. This new crisis spread right across the globe, leaving no nation untouched. And now there’s no end in sight to this depression. Only China has been able to recover, surging forward while the others are on the decline. With domestic demand filling in for the dried-up export market, and state capital replacing evaporated foreign investments, the current forecast is that this year will be the third successive year of more than 15 percent growth. Not only has China changed the rules of the international economic game, we’ve also changed the nature of Western economics. Even more importantly, there has been no social upheaval; in fact, our society is even more harmonious now. You can’t help accepting that it’s all really incredible. Now I’m beginning to get emotional. It’s been happening to me a lot recently, being so easily moved that I actually start to weep.
Then I remember how depressed Little Xi looked and it makes me sad. Everybody around us is living the good life, while she’s becoming more and more despondent. I take a couple of deep breaths and fight back my tears. I used to be a very cool guy. Why am I so sentimental these days? I quickly fly out of Starbucks.
A future master
Ever since the All Sages Bookstore, the best one in Beijing for humanities and academic books, had been forced to close down, I hardly ever went to the Haidian area near Peking University’s east gate. But about a week after the Sanlian Reading Journal spring reception I found myself over there. Things had been fine all week, nothing unpleasant had happened. Every day I read the papers, surfed the net, and watched the TV news, and every day I congratulated myself on living in China. At first I didn’t think about Little Xi. I figured her attitude was out of tune with my life and my present state of mind. But then for a few nights in a row the last dream I had before waking up was about her, and it got me all aroused. I guess it had been too long since I’d been with anyone. I also dreamed about Fang Caodi, a repetitive dream of walking up and down in the same spot. I was sorry I hadn’t taken their cell phone numbers. But they hadn’t contacted me, either—I guessed I wasn’t that important to them. I didn’t know how to track down Fang Caodi and actually I didn’t really want to. But I still had an idea of how to find Little Xi and that’s what brought me to the east gate of Peking University.
In the 1980s, Little Xi and her mother were getihu, self-employed entrepreneurs. They ran a small restaurant called the Five Flavors in a one-story temporary shack outside some apartments near the university’s east gate. I called Little Xi’s mother Big Sister Song; her Guizhou-style goose was very popular, but the main attraction of the Five Flavors was that Little Xi and her mates hung around there all day. They chatted all day and all night, so that the restaurant became a sort of Haidian salon for foreigners and intellectuals. They went out of business for a few years, but after Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 southern tour called for continued economic reforms, they found a place nearby and started up again. Whenever I came to Beijing, I would go over there to eat, but I hadn’t been there for years and didn’t even know if the restaurant was still there.
As soon as I reached the east gate, I knew I was out of luck. The surrounding apartments had all been torn down to build office towers. The Five Flavors was gone, the All Sages Bookstore was gone, too, so I left without a backward glance. I decided to walk over to the Photosynthesis Bookstore in the Wudaokou district and browse around. It was better than nothing, and I could kill some time having a cup of coffee. This used to be the rock-music center of Beijing’s Westside, with quite a few performance venues, but I hadn’t followed those guys in recent years and didn’t know if there were any venues left. On Chengfu Road just before Wudaokou, I passed by a restaurant and then felt like I’d missed something, so I stopped. Turning back, I saw that the front was extensively decorated. The place was simply called Five Flavors, with no indication whether it was a Chinese restaurant, a Western restaurant, or some kind of club. I decided to go in and investigate.
The inside was also elaborately decorated, though the tables and chairs were quite ordinary. There was a stage that could just about accommodate a four-man rock band. The front hall was empty, but I heard the sound of a loud, resonant, and very familiar voice ringing out from the back room. I drew the curtain and marched in. “Big Sister Song!” I called.
“Lao Chen!” Little Xi’s mother recognized me instantly.
“I came to see you, Big Sister Song.” It felt a little hypocritical saying that.
“It’s good to see you after all this time!”
She picked up a room-temperature bottle of Yanjing beer and led me into the front hall. “It’s so great to see you, Lao Chen, I’ve really missed you.”
; I felt a little ashamed that I’d lived in Beijing for so many years and had never come to see the old lady. “I ran into Little Xi last week,” I said.
Big Sister Song suddenly lowered her voice. “You should talk to her, try to get her to stop all her antics.”
“I only ran into her briefly at a bookstore. Will she be coming over?”
“Definitely not.”
“But do you have her cell phone number so I can give her a call?”
“She doesn’t use a cell phone.” Big Sister Song kept her eye on the door as she spoke. “She’s on e-mail. She spends all her time arguing with people on the Internet, and she keeps changing her address. I wish you’d talk to her.”
I figured dropping her an e-mail would be better than not being able to reach her at all.
Big Sister Song stood up purposefully. “I’ll get you her new e-mail address.”
“There’s no rush, you can get it later,” I said rather insincerely.
“I’m afraid I might forget.” And she hurried off to the back.
Big Sister Song is still so gracious, I thought, an old-style Beijinger.
At this point, a young guy walked in. He was the kind of young guy who would have all the girls chasing him—tall and muscular like an athlete. He was wearing white high-top sneakers. There is so much dust in Beijing that most men don’t wear white sneakers. He looked me over very confidently like he wanted to know who I thought I was, but then he said politely, “Hello. Are you … ?”
“I’m … a friend of Big Sister’s.” The penny dropped. “You’re …” I was going to say “Little Xi’s son,” but for some reason I didn’t.
“Grandma!” The young man greeted Big Sister Song.
“Hey, you’re back. This is my grandson. This is Master Chen.”
I acted surprised. “Your grandson!”
“Master Chen, I’m Wei Guo.”
“Pleased to meet you. What a handsome young man you are.” We shook hands. I remembered that when I’d last seen this boy over ten years ago, Little Xi had told me he used her maternal surname, Wei.
The Fat Years Page 3
