by Fan Wu
“Well, your parents pay me ten yuan an hour to teach you.”
“I asked them to find me an English teacher. A female English teacher. They have a lot of money. Ten yuan an hour is nothing.”
“You’re not paying out of your own pocket,” I said. He looked like a spoiled kid to me.
“You speak like my ma. She’s a phony. My ba is an even bigger phony. Look at this room. Nothing! They thought I’d be a good student if I didn’t have girls’ pictures on my walls.”
I looked around. The only decoration was a map of the world occupying half the space above his bed. I laughed.
“How old are you?” he asked.
I told him.
He winked at me. “You’re only two years older than I am. You must have skipped grades. Actually, you look younger than me. You have a baby face.”
“You’re the one with a baby face!”
“Don’t be mad. I think you look cute. Haha, your face is red! You’re shy!”
I reached for his English textbook on the desk, pretending to be serious. “No more joking. Let ’s start the class.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?” He flipped over on his stomach, fists propping up his chin, legs kicking in the air.
I shook my head.
“I thought every college girl had a boyfriend.”
“I don’t have time for that.”
“Which male movie star do you like the most?”
“I don’t like any.”
“Not even Jackie Chan?”
“Let’s start the class.” I opened his textbook, thinking his parents would fire me if they overheard our conversation.
“Just one more question.”
I sighed and put down the book. “Okay, the last one. Make it quick.”
“Do you think I’m handsome? Some girls in my class say I look like Jackie Chan.” He combed his hair sideways with his fingers in a pretentious gesture. He had a broad forehead, big eyes, straight nose, and full lips.
“You’re a handsome little kid,” I said.
A knock sounded on the door. Ar Yu leaped from the bed, jumped into the leather chair at the desk, grabbed a book, and opened it. “Teacher,” he said aloud, “what did you just say about this verb?” He was pointing to a random page in the book.
His mother walked in. She seemed happy with what she saw. “Teacher Chen, how ’s everything?”
“He’s smart. I’m sure he’ll do well in English,” I said, pretending that I was going to write something on the sheet of white paper Ar Yu was handing me.
She touched her son’s head, said something to him in Cantonese, and shut the door.
“She checks on me all the time.” Ar Yu jumped back onto the bed and lay down.
“Did you have many teachers before me?” I put down the paper and the pen.
“Oh, yeah. But don’t feel bad. My parents just don’t trust people. They find me a new teacher every few months. They have a lot of secrets.”
“Like what?”
“I think my ba takes bribes. He’s a big guy in the government.” He paused. “You won’t tell anyone, right? You seem trustworthy, that’s why I’m telling you. I still need his money to go to the United States. That ’s the only way I can escape from them. My ba said he’ll send me to the U.S. after I graduate from high school. That ’s why he cares so much about my English.”
“If they have so much money, why don’t they spend some decorating the house?” I thought of the shabby leather sofa in the living room and the underpowered air conditioner.
“Adults are much trickier than us, don’t you think so?” He looked puzzled.
I was glad he didn’t categorize me as an adult.
“May I call you Sister Chen?”
“Of course,” I replied, feeling suddenly sympathetic.
Miao Yan didn’t show up on campus until the last week of the summer break. For a while I thought I would miss her so much that I wouldn’t be able to do anything except mope. But I survived, thanks to books, her dissertation, my violin, and teaching Ar Yu. Toward the end of the break I thought I would hate her so much that I wouldn’t want to speak to her anymore. But when I saw her I greeted her with boundless joy, forgetting all my misery, loneliness, and cursing.
She was only on campus for less than a week before telling me that she was going to Shenzhen for a one-month internship.
“Wow, that ’s great,” I said.
“It’s a private-owned company. I hope they can get my dossier from the university. Without the dossier I won’t be able to stay in Shenzhen.” She didn’t look as happy as I thought she should have. “It’s my last chance.”
“Of course, they can do that.”
“I wish you were our university’s chancellor.” She sighed. “Or, better yet, Minister of Education. It’s much more complicated than you might think. But I’ll try my best.”
“No pain, no gain. Isn’t that the old saying?”
She nodded but I could tell that her mind had drifted off. She left the next day, taking a big suitcase filled with her expensive suits.
I was now in my second year. With fewer mandatory classes I had more time for my own reading. I began to subscribe to Foreign Literature Review and became fascinated by modernism. I read whatever I could find—Eliot, Camus, Kafka, Beckett, Pound, Kerouac, and other authors my foreign literature professor wouldn’t discuss in class and my classmates didn’t know. The more philosophical and abstract the books were, the more interesting I found them. I was at the age when life seems meaningless unless constantly examined, evaluated, and adjusted.
On a warm day in early September I headed for West Five from the library. The sun hid behind clouds and tinted their edges. The breeze brushed my hair back behind my ears. From the speakers installed on lampposts came Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, then a girl’s gentle voice reading a poem from Tagore’s The Crescent Moon. The broadcast went off three times a day: fifteen minutes before the first class at eight in the morning, at lunchtime, and between five thirty and six thirty in the afternoon. Now it was lunchtime.
Wearing a short-sleeved white shirt, beige pants, and white plastic sandals, I held a thick, hard -backed copy of Dream of the Red Chamber over my chest. Last week the professor teaching the novels from the Ming and Qing Dynasties assigned us a few classic novels, including Dream of the Red Chamber. I had often tried to read it before I came to university but could never finish it. The conflicts between the feudalistic families seemed too intricate and out-of-reach to me. But I liked the poems in the book and even wrote a few in a similar style.
“Ming!” I heard someone yell from behind me.
It was Pingping. She was wearing an orange T-shirt with the university’s logo on it and a pair of green workout shorts. Seen from a distance, she looked like a big carrot. Before she reached me she jumped down from her old bike, which she had bought from one of her hometown acquaintances for ten yuan not long ago. The bike had rusty handlebars, severely scratched chrome trim, and no bell. When she was riding it, it shook all over, making weird sounds like those a desperate mouse might emit when caught in a trap. The girls in my class nicknamed it “ambulance” because when other bikers saw her coming they would stay as far from her as possible. A few months earlier she had bought a brand-new bike for two hundred yuan but it was stolen a week later. She reported it to the Security Department only to be told not to bother—there were too many cases like hers. “It’s a big university. There are all kinds of people here,” they said. After that she had sworn she’d never spend more than twenty yuan on a bike.
“Aha, you got the book!” Pingping stood in front of me. “I was just in the library, wondering who was so quick.”
“I read fast. You can have it in three days.” I smiled.
“Cool. It’ll take me at least two weeks to read such a difficult book.”
“Are you going to the gym?”
“Yes. I went there yesterday, too.” She showed me her leg. “Do you think it looks a little thicker
?” Knowing the answer herself, she lowered her skinny leg and sighed.
“What a change! You never used to go to the gym.”
“It’s different now. The men’s basketball team trains there every day for their big games. They all look so handsome. When they’re sweaty, they sometimes take off their tops. My, you should see that!”
“No wonder you’re there.”
“That’s why I’m wearing bright clothes—so they can see me. You never know when you’ll hit the lottery.” She wiped the sweat from her forehead and grinned.
Though Pingping and I weren’t good friends, I had begun to like her more and more because she was optimistic and so full of energy.
“Where is Donghua?” I asked.
“That workaholic! She has to finish knitting a long list of stuff for her unborn nephew. Finally her sister-in-law is pregnant with a boy.”
“Don’t her brother and his wife have two girls already?”
“No one really follows the one-child-per-family policy in their village. They ’d rather be homeless than not have a boy in the family. The more boys, the merrier. Even Donghua thinks so. I ’d be curious to know how all these men are going to find a wife someday. According to my prediction—” She stopped and tilted her head. “Listen! Something interesting on the speaker.”
I listened. It was a male voice: “…leaders from the Education Ministry. We welcome and look forward to their inspection. To make our university a first-rate university nationally and internationally, it’s critical to build a healthy and positive environment for our students. For a university student, it’s as important to achieve excellence in your major as it is to have the correct attitude toward life and the world. Studying science and arts should be combined with cultivating socialistic ideology…” His voice was stern, like the news announcers from China Central Television in Beijing.
“What’s interesting about that? Don’t they say that every day?” I said.
“I heard it’s a little different this time. There ’s a nationwide competition among universities for the Top Ten Campus Award. It seems our university is really serious about it. I read in the university newspaper that many new rules will be enforced.”
“Like what?”
“Like smoking is prohibited, lovers can’t hug or kiss or even hold hands in public, and girls can’t wear revealing clothes or makeup. Oh, yes, and we have to keep our rooms tidy every day. The Student Association will inspect all the dorms frequently. Poor Donghua, she really has to do something about her mess. Anyway, we’ll have to wait and see.” She got on her bike, one hand holding the handlebar. “I have to go now. The basketball team will finish training soon.”
“Good luck!” I said.
I listened to more of the announcement on my way back to the dorm. The broadcaster’s serious voice was alarming, contrasting with the relaxing scenery of such a beautiful early autumn day. I took out my radio and tuned in to a classical music channel. Mozart’s Magic Flute instantly filled the air.
A lot of students were gathered around the poster board as I passed. Some looked indignant. They must have been reading the new rules. I noticed that the once-crowded lawn was completely empty. A middle-aged man wearing an orange vest and a cap stood on the edge of the lawn, a small flag in his hand and a whistle in his mouth. He must have been employed by the university to prohibit people from walking on the lawn, so it would be at its best when the inspectors arrived.
Though I thought it ridiculous to try to enforce these rules, I didn’t think they would affect me much. I didn’t smoke or wear makeup or have a boyfriend. To me, life would be just as it had been. Also, I didn’t believe that the university would act on the rules—we were old enough and should have the freedom to do what we liked.
The inspectors from the Education Ministry arrived a week later. By now not only was the lawn closed but a guard post had been set up at the main entrance—visitors had to register when they came in and sign out when they left. Street sweeping had increased from once to twice a day. The day before the inspectors arrived, the cleaners even came to West Five to wash the hallways and stairs with detergent.
The Student Association checked the dorms frequently, so we had to keep our rooms tidy at all times. During the day we took down our mosquito nets and folded our blankets into a square, as soldiers do. We also bought a few bottles of air freshener to make the room smell better. These days Donghua often complained about not remembering where she had hidden her belongings. “I’m missing a sock. Anyone seen it?” she would ask, a bare foot high in the air.
A group of uniformed workers from the Security Department patrolled the campus and would stop students who were smoking, or wore makeup, or broke any of the other new rules. They would threaten to report these students to their departments—as one of the punishments, they had to write a letter of apology to the university and read it aloud in front of their class. More seriously, a permanent record was included in their dossiers so that they would have trouble getting a good job when graduating. In the evenings, these security workers would raid the woods where lovers liked to go. Once, as I was walking back to West Five, I saw them in a half-circle, quietly approaching the woods along the roadside, their torches off. When they were close, they suddenly turned on the torches and shouted, “Freeze!” More than a dozen students, boys and girls, fled. Some unlucky ones were caught. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed that it was happening at a university. My heart sank, seeing the university treating students like criminals.
Feeling powerless and frustrated, I turned to books. At the time I was obsessed with Ulysses. Out of its intricate and obscure sentences, from those fabricated figures and plots, I sought the significance of my existence and the meaning of the universe. I was in a dark and desperate mood when I was immersed in that book.
While the campaign was going on, I spent a lot of time in the Central Library so I wouldn’t be disturbed by it. It was the biggest library on the campus, a five-story rectangular building roofed with red slate. Its ten spacious study rooms could hold more than three thousand students.
I soon found my favorite seat in Room One on the first floor. It had six big windows all looking out over a row of eucalyptus trees, and only one door, opening to a poorly lit hallway. On the other side of the hallway was the reference room where rare publications and documents were kept. I often used the reference room when I was working on Miao Yan’s dissertation. In Room One there were sixteen rows of desks and my favorite seat was in the first row, next to the first window. There were only two chairs near the seat, one across the desk, the other on the right. Both chairs had broken legs and so were always empty. The library staff hadn’t bothered to replace them.
Miao Yan was in good spirits when she returned from Shenzhen in mid October. The company in Shenzhen had promised her that they would talk with the university about her dossier. By then, the inspectors from the Education Ministry had left. Soon after they left, the security guard at the main entrance and the uniformed workers disappeared, the lawn reopened, and the long waiting line outside West Five reformed. Everything went back to normal.
I didn’t tell Miao Yan about my frustration with the campaign but she seemed to have detected it from my unusually taciturn manner—she must have heard about the campaign when she was in Shenzhen. She came to see me almost daily. Only she could pull me out of my imaginary literary world and make me laugh. I accepted her, admired her, worshiped her—even her vanity and materialism—wholeheartedly. When she had time for me, we would go by bus to coffee bars downtown, chatting there for hours over one drink or loitering on the street aimlessly to kill time. One week in late October she visited me at least twice a day, as if I was the only person she knew on the whole campus and in the whole city of Guangzhou. And I, like a dying plant in the desert, longed to see Miao Yan as such a plant would long for water.
My first publication in a literary magazine came at the end of October. It was the poem that Miao Y
an had read in the university newspaper when we first met. Though I had been published in the university newspaper before, I couldn’t contain my excitement when I opened the letter, and went to see Miao Yan immediately. She happened to be in her room that day, filling out some forms the company in Shenzhen had sent her as part of the background review package. Since she had returned from her internship she had been attending her classes regularly and had even begun to take notes. When I saw her, she was frowning at the paperwork on her desk.
I almost stammered when I told her the good news.
“That’s great! Let’s go to Shamian Island to celebrate! I need fresh air, too.” She pushed aside her paperwork.
She always liked to go to Shamian Island and said it was the most beautiful place in Guangzhou. She knew where each foreign embassy was situated and how many statues stood along the beach.
We took Bus 208 to Shamian. The dim sum restaurant we had planned to go to had a two-hour queue. “We’ll eat something fast for now, then come back for evening tea,” Miao Yan suggested. Having lived in Guangzhou for more than a year by that stage, I knew that “evening tea” was actually a dim sum meal. Old Cantonese people eat five meals a day: morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and evening tea, though for dim sum they typically order only two items.
After much debate, we ended up eating yang rou pao mo, a dish of hand-broken bread in mutton broth, most popular in northern China.
“A friend of mine in Shenzhen likes this dish a lot,” Miao Yan said after the meal, applying new lipstick with her compact in her hand.
“Who is this friend?”
“It’s not important. I don’t see him much myself.”
I wondered if this person was the same as the one who had read Fortress Besieged. I wanted to ask but she stopped me by saying, “Don’t ask more.”
We walked past the European-style mansions and rows of luxuriant banyan trees, their aerial roots hanging from out-spread limbs like an old man’s beard. Every few steps there were bronze statues. One was of a Chinese girl and a Western girl greeting each other in their own traditional ways. Miao Yan stood next to the Western girl, mimicking her while I played the Chinese girl, folding my hands together at the waist and bending my knees.
