Forbidden City

by William Bell

  He laughed and said, “Okay, Shan Da, I’ll try my best.”

  We went to a private banquet room on the fourth floor. It was a little room, with a huge round table covered with a white cloth. I was expecting the kind of Chinese food we got in Toronto — sweet-and-sour breaded chicken balls, barbecued pork, sweet and sour spare ribs, chow mein — stuff like that. Not here.

  As soon as we sat down Eddie and Dad started talking business. Eddie may have been a celebrity but he was making a crummy first impression on me. He bossed my dad around too much, giving him instructions every five seconds, as if Dad was his assistant or something, rather than a colleague. As far as I was concerned, without my dad, Eddie was just a voice. I tried to shut out his booming voice and talk to Lao Xu.

  I asked him what was on the dishes in the centre of the table. He pointed to them one at a time. “These are called cold dishes — sausage, chicken breasts, sliced cucumber in sweet sauce, diced cucumber in hot sauce, raw chopped Chinese cabbage with dark vinegar, and dried fish.”

  Great, I thought. What a thrill. Maybe the chicken will be okay.

  “And what are those black things?”

  “Preserved eggs. Try one.”

  I tried to use my chopsticks, but after a few minutes of trying to pick up the jelly-like strips of preserved egg, I gave up and used the fork. I should have stuck to the chopsticks. The egg felt like glue in my mouth.

  The waiters and waitresses started bringing in the hot courses. Each time a dish arrived the top would be removed with a flourish and the waiter would announce the name of it — in Chinese. We got deep-fried chicken, and chicken balls in oyster sauce. Two or three kinds of fish served on big oval platters — fish with the heads and tails still on and the eyes staring at you, daring you to eat. Slices of duck with crisp, fatty skin. Shrimps with hot red sauce that made my eyes water. Shredded pork with green pepper and black mushrooms. Beef bits with ginger and onions.

  I tried it all and liked most of it. While we ate, Lao Xu and I talked — or he did, mostly. Turns out he’s a history buff, too. He told me a few legends. Some of them were so funny I could hardly eat for laughing.

  All through the meal the waiters and waitresses would keep our glasses filled. I got orange pop but the three grownups had beer, sweet red wine that Dad said tasted like syrup you’d pour on ice cream, and, in tiny glasses, wine called Mao Tai that they used for toasting everything they could think of. After the first crack at the Mao Tai stuff Dad switched to beer.

  When we started eating I noticed that Lao Xu took the bones out of his mouth with his chopsticks and dropped them beside his plate. It looked pretty rude until I thought about it. There was no room on the tiny plate and, unless you liked the idea of tossing the bones onto the floor, nowhere else to put them. It wasn’t long before we all had a little pile of bones in front of us, like some kind of weird sacrifice.

  The only dish that really threw me was some black strips of something or other about two inches long, in a sauce. I popped one in my mouth and tried to chew it but it was like rubber without much taste.

  “It’s sea cucumber,” Lao Xu said. “A delicacy.”

  He went on to explain that the sea cucumber isn’t a plant. It’s a creature that swims — “Like this,” — and he moved his hand in the same motion a worm or snake would make. Then I realized he meant sea slug.

  I only had the one piece.

  Just when I thought my stomach would blow up from the pressure, one of the waitresses brought in a huge platter of jiao-zi — fat steaming dumplings stuffed with ground pork, cabbage, ginger, garlic, and spices. They were great.

  Then soup. Then ice cream. Then fruit.

  By the time we finished, I could hardly get out of my chair. Eddie was wobbling from too many toasts, Dad burped every few seconds. There was tons of uneaten food on the table. I said to Lao Xu we should take it with us, like we did at home.

  “No,” he answered, “that’s the Chinese way. The host must always offer much more food than the guest can eat. If there isn’t more than enough food he will lose face. So, Shan Da, whenever you go to a Chinese home, when you are finished eating and can eat no more, always leave some food on your plate and some beverage in your glass. Don’t empty your plate like you do in the West. Here, your host will always put something more on your plate to show his generosity.”

  All that food made us sleepy. Lao Xu went home, Eddie fell into bed, Dad crashed on the couch with one of my novels, and I started writing in my journal. But I’m going to bed, too. It’s about ten o’clock, and dark out. Ten in the morning in Toronto. My friends will be finishing up first class — French. I wonder if my body will ever adjust to Beijing time.

  All the history I took in school seems like a pile of dust next to what I saw today. I mean, I walked on the Great Wall of China! I was in an emperor’s tomb — over five hundred years buried in the ground! The emperor, not me.

  Lao Xu is amazing. The guy seems to know everything about China. He rattles off information like a computer, complete with quotations from Chinese classical literature and Chairman Mao Ze-dong, the man who ran China until he died in 1976. And Lao Xu makes it all interesting. When I told him I was a military history nut he told me that his father had been a soldier who fought in the Red Army when he was seventeen and died fighting the war against the Japanese. Lao Xu’s father had participated in the Long March, one of the greatest feats in military history, where a hundred thousand Communists had retreated twelve thousand, five hundred klicks from Fujian Province in southern China to the west as far as Tibet, then far north to Yanan, fighting Nationalist soldiers and local war-lords almost the whole way. By the time Mao Ze-dong led them into Yanan — more than a year after the retreat had begun — there were only about ten thousand of them left.

  “Many of the men who run China now, the men high up in the Communist Party, are men who were on the Long March,” Lao Xu told me. “They are getting pretty old now, some in their eighties. But they refuse to retire.”

  Lao Xu practically worships the PLA, the People’s Liberation Army, which is what the Red Army has been called since Liberation in 1949. He calls them “a true people’s army” and says that whenever there is a flood or other natural disaster the PLA will be there, helping the people. They don’t wear a lot of fancy ribbons and braids and stuff on their uniforms. The only way you can tell an officer is to count the number of pockets on his coat. Officers have four, enlisted men two.

  By the time we got back to the hotel it was late afternoon, so Lao Xu said goodbye to me in the parking lot and went to get his bike in the bicycle parking area. There were hundreds of bikes there, and how he found his among all those Flying Pigeons and Phoenixes, almost all of them black, I don’t know.

  I wished in a way that his dad was still alive so I could talk to him about the Long March. What an adventure!

  Dad and Eddie were sitting in the office talking when I got in.

  “How’s the Foreign Devil tourist?” Eddie asked around the stem of his pipe. He was watering his flowers carefully, caressing the leaves as he worked his way along the windowsill.

  “Tired,” I answered as I tossed my pack onto the couch and opened the little fridge, hoping to find a bottle of orange pop there. I was beginning to like the stuff.

  “Have a good day?” Dad asked. “Get some good shots?”

  I swear my dad sees the entire world through a lens. I plopped down on the couch, heaved a big sigh, and took a long drink. The sweet icy pop numbed my throat as it went down.

  “Yeah, I think so, Dad. The wall was great. Fantastic. Unbelievable.”

  Dad laughed. “So, what are you saying? Did you like it or not? How about the Ping Tombs?”

  “Ming, Dad. The tomb was okay, if you like cold dark tunnels and stairs and crowds and piles of dishes and stuff. You should have come with us.”

  His blue eyes darted a look at Eddie. “Oh, well, I was too busy. Lots to do.”

  “Did Lao Xu go home?” Eddie as
ked, lowering himself into a chair. “I wanted him to do something for me before he left.”

  “He’s gone, Eddie. Dad, does he ever know his history! He makes Mr. Bronowski look like an amateur.”

  “Really?” Dad said. “What’s his background, Eddie?”

  “Lao Xu? He’s a Master of Arts. Went to Beijing University, I think. Wrote a few books, too.”

  “Then what’s he doing working for you?” I cut in, realizing after I asked that my question probably wasn’t too polite.

  “Because in China you don’t choose where you’re going to work, Alex. When Lao Xu graduated he was assigned to the Foreign Ministry. A few years ago, when China opened up to foreigners, they put him to work with correspondents because he speaks excellent English and pretty good French.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense.” I thought of my school again. “He should be teaching history.”

  Eddie nodded. “I agree. I’m sure he does, too. But things don’t work that way here.”

  “Why doesn’t he quit this job and apply for something he wants?”

  “Because you can’t do that here, Alex. Chinese don’t have the right to choose where they work. Even if he arranged a job teaching at a high school or university, his present work unit would only have to say no and that would be it.”

  I took another swig of the pop, emptying the bottle. “Okay, why can’t he just tell them to go to — why doesn’t he just leave.”

  “Do you know about hu kou?” Eddie asked as he sat down.

  I shook my head.

  Dad said, “Never heard of it.”

  Eddie sat back in his armchair and relit his pipe. “Hu kou is a sort of census and residence card mixed together. Every family has a green residence book. Kids are in the father’s book. To get your ration coupons — a lot of food here is rationed, like rice, cooking oil, meat, milk, and more — you have to show your hu kou. No green book, no coupons.”

  “I think I’m beginning to see,” Dad said.

  “Yep. If you tell your boss — your leader, they call him or her — to stick his job in his ear, and you quit and go to another job, he refuses to transfer your hu kou.”

  “He can do that?” I asked angrily.

  “Your leader has tremendous power over your life, Alex. In lots of things, not just your job. Hu kou is also the way the government controls population movement. For instance, if you live in the country on a farm and you want to move into the city, you can’t. The Public Security Bureau won’t accept your hu kou. So you have to stay where you are. Otherwise, millions of people would move into the cities, which are already overcrowded.”

  I let all this soak in for a minute. I could see the part about the population. There were well over a billion people in China. But the stuff about the jobs sounded stupid to me.

  “Anyway,” I said, “it’s too bad. Lao Xu is a terrific guy. I really like him.”

  “Yeah,” Dad said, “me too.”

  Eddie smiled a cold smile. “Yep, Lao Xu is the nicest spy you’d ever want to meet.”

  “Spy?” I almost shouted. “What do you mean?”

  Eddie took a big swallow of beer and shifted in his chair. “Well, part of Lao Xu’s job is to keep his superiors up to date on our activities. As a matter of fact,” he laughed, “if one of us sneezes, the Party boss says Bless you. Or would, if she weren’t officially an atheist.”

  “Come on, Eddie,” I complained. “Stop talking in riddles.”

  “Alex, you know that Lao Xu’s job is to assist me and your dad as an interpreter, right?” And you know he helps us if we want to arrange an interview with someone, or dig up some background for a story. For instance, tomorrow morning we’re going to the Citi building — you’ve seen it, it’s down past the Friendship Store — to do a little piece on a new joint venture between China and another wine industry in France. Well, Lao Xu made the connections and got approval from the government to set it up.”

  “Approval? Why do you need approval?”

  “Because it’s a government project. Remember, this is a centralized communist state. The government doesn’t have to talk to the CBC about its plans to do business with French grape-growers. This isn’t Canada, where the government officials are responsible to the citizens because the citizens elected them. Political power here belongs to a very few, very old men. The Chinese government can do whatever it pleases, including send us all home tomorrow if it wants. Lao Xu is also arranging for us to cover Gorbachev’s visit. We’ll do our interviews, write our copy, then take the tapes down to CBS or CNN and ask them nicely if we can use their satellite feed to send the video to Toronto. But that satellite feed is set up by the Chinese government especially for the state visit, and they can pull the plug anytime.

  “Lao Xu wears a couple of hats, Alex. He’s assigned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help us. And he’s good. He has lots of contacts and he gets us stuff that helps us keep ahead of a lot of the other news agencies. But part of his job is reporting back to his superiors on all our activities.”

  “But what’s to report? I mean, you’re not doing anything wrong or illegal. What do they care?”

  Eddie took another swallow of beer, then puffed furiously to get his stove going again. “They care because we’re foreigners. Foreigners are not trusted here — or in any country where there is no freedom. Number two, your dad and I are journalists from a country that has freedom of the press. We’re used to writing and broadcasting and” — he nodded to my dad — “photographing what we want. Here, the news is managed totally. The Chinese have a cynical but true saying. In the People’s Daily — that’s the official Party newspaper, like Pravda in Russia — in the People’s Daily only the date is the truth. And it’s like that with all the local newspapers, like Beijing Ri Bao or Guan Min Ri Bao. They’re all run by the state. Get the picture?”

  I nodded slowly.

  “If the Central Committee wanted, it could shut down all foreign correspondents in a day or two. Lao Xu is the government’s link to us and to what we’re doing.”

  I had a sinking feeling in my gut. I felt hurt and angry and stupid. I felt betrayed. The guy who I thought really liked me, who was becoming my friend, was an informer. Was he taking me around to tourist spots and talking to me just to get information on me and my dad and Eddie for a file? And yet at the same time I was a little bugged at Eddie for telling me. He seemed to enjoy it.

  My mind quickly replayed my trip to the wall and the tombs. I tried to remember things Lao Xu had asked me. There wasn’t much — just stuff about school. I had done most of the asking. Then I tried to recall things I had told him. Something kept returning to my mind. It was the way he laughed. That ironic laugh. It was quiet and short, but you couldn’t mistake it. The laugh said, “This isn’t the way things ought to be, but that’s life.” It wasn’t a spy’s laugh.

  But what did I know about spies?

  Eddie heaved himself out of his chair. His slippers slapped as he padded across the rug and got another beer from the fridge. He poured some into Dad’s glass before topping up his own.

  “Try not to be too hard on Lao Xu, Alex,” Dad said. “He likes you. I know he does. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t take you around like he did today. That’s not part of his job.”

  As Eddie lowered himself into his chair he said, “Maybe so. But part of his job is reporting on us. You can be sure that everything he knows about you and especially your dad is on file with the Public Security Bureau. Each one of us has a dossier.”

  He laughed cynically. “If it makes you feel any better, someone is also reporting on him.”

  It didn’t. Maybe Lao Xu and I could still be friends, but now I knew there would always be a wall between us.

  Today I felt really down. I don’t know, maybe it was just jet lag or something but I got homesick. I wished I could sleep in my own water bed in my own room, listen to my tunes on the stereo in our living room, maybe have a fire going, call up my friends on the phone — an
d eat real food.

  I only brought six novels with me and I’m into the second already. Where will I get stuff to read? And there’s nothing on TV here. The only program in English that I can find is a really lame show that comes from England called Follow Me. It’s supposed to teach English. They say things like “Do you really have your own lorry? Smashing!” or “Who is in the loo?” and fascinating stuff like that.

  The most frustrating thing is that I can’t really do anything because I can’t speak Chinese. As soon as I step outside this boring hotel I’m isolated — totally. I can’t shop or anything unless Lao Xu comes with me to translate. He’s really good about that and he helps a lot, but it’s kind of a pain to stand in the middle of a store getting stared at by a couple of dozen Chinese while Lao Xu and a salesperson rap on about me like I’m a total retard or I’m invisible.

  In our hotel suite everybody but me has work to do. Eddie keeps giving me these I’m Busy And You’re In My Way looks.

  And Dad. He’s in his element, buzzing around, humming to himself like he was totally demented, having a great time. This morning, when he thought I had left the suite, he said to Eddie that if it was up to him he’d live here for a year, no problem. Now I’m afraid he’ll want to stay for longer. I hope he’s not planning to go back on our deal. I can hang in for as long as we planned, but after that I’m out of here. Even if I have to go back alone.

  I got up at around nine this morning, which is practically the middle of the day in China. I heard Dad, Eddie, and Lao Xu in the office, so I slipped into the bathroom, showered and returned to the bedroom without disturbing them. I didn’t really want to talk to Lao Xu this morning. I could hear the word processor keys clicking in the background while Lao Xu yelled into the telephone, shouting “Wei!” every few seconds.