Forbidden City

by William Bell

  Lao Xu stopped and we pushed our bikes through a gate and into a courtyard about twice the size of a tennis court. We locked our bikes under a tree and crossed the courtyard to an old building. Inside was a darkened room, full of small round tables. A couple of dozen men sat around the tables smoking, drinking tea or beer, and talking. Some were playing Chinese chess on the paper “boards”, picking up the round pieces and slapping them down as they completed their moves.

  Lao Xu and I found an empty table at the end of the room, right beside a small dais. I sat down while Lao Xu went to a sort of bar and bought a couple of bottles of orange pop and some beer.

  Most of the men at the other tables kept their hats on, so I did, too. I hoped that in the dim lighting no one would see my blue eyes.

  “This is a kind of teahouse, Shan Da,” Lao Xu said in a voice so low I could hardly hear him. I knew he was talking low so we couldn’t be heard. Once the men heard foreign talk there’d be no end to the staring.

  “In old Beijing,” Lao Xu continued, “it was the custom for a lot of people to come to the neighbourhood teahouse and sit with their friends and talk. Not so much anymore, since most people have radio and TV. In this place they have storytellers, old men from the neighbourhood who tell tales from Chinese classical literature.”

  We sat for a while and gradually the tables filled up. None of the patrons looked to be less than forty years old.

  Three old guys came in and walked slowly up to the dais and stepped up. Each one carried a low stool and what I took to be some kind of musical instrument. One had a sort of guitar that Lao Xu told me was called a pipa. Every finger and the thumb of his left hand bore a white guitar pick. The second old man set up a little percussion set — gongs, small cymbals, and some wooden blocks.

  “And that’s an erhu,” Lao Xu said, pointing to the third man.

  “Means, two strings.”

  The third man had lowered himself carefully onto his stool. He held the erhu straight up and down, with the round part, about the size of a large pork-and-bean tin, on his thigh and the long neck, like a guitar’s, only much thinner, came up to his shoulder. In his right hand he held a bow, but this bow’s strings went between the erhu strings and the frame.

  I heard some rumbling of voices near the door and I turned to see a really old man hobble in. He was dressed in what looked like black pajamas, with strips of cloth wrapped around his ankles to hold the cuffs tight and a wider strip of cloth around his waist for a belt. He was totally bald, bent over, and he walked as if he was afraid his bones would break from the strain.

  He made it up to the little stage and sat down even more slowly and carefully than the erhu player. Someone put a tiny wooden table down beside the old man. Another person appeared with a white teacup with a lid on it and set it down on the table.

  The storyteller sat quietly, a thin gnarled hand on each knee, and closed his eyes. After a moment he nodded once. Then the music — if you could call it that — started up. The pipa was sort of normal but the erhu sounded like a violin with stomach flu, and the percussion went boing, boing, boing, tick, tock, clunk. It was the strangest collection of noises I’d ever heard.

  The weird sounds coming from the instruments were nothing compared to what came out of the old man’s thin mouth. You’d have sworn he had put a clothespin on his nose and then tried to imitate an angry little girl with tonsilitis. His high, reedy voice soared and dipped and quavered as he slowly moved one hand through the air while the other rested on his knee. He’d change hands when his voice changed pitch.

  “Tian xia da shi, fen jiu bi he, he jiu bi fen,” whined the old man, and from behind him came boing, boing, crash, tick, tick, tick, tock, tock.

  I didn’t pay too much attention to the noises after the first few seconds because I was trying to follow Lao Xu’s quiet interpretation.

  “The empire, long divided, must unite,” his soft voice floated from across the table, “long united, must divide. History teaches us this lesson.”

  The story had begun.

  “Day after day, week after week, the armies were encamped at the Red Cliffs of the mighty Yang-ze River. On the north bank, the endless ranks of the ambitious Cao Cao, whose greed sought to swallow down the house of Han. On the south, Sun Quan, ally of the noble Liu Bei, kinsman to the Han, who opposed Cao Cao as his oath in the peach tree garden demanded. Between them the wide swift Yang-ze River.

  “Zhu Ge-liang was adviser to Liu Bei. He had come down from his retreat in a mountain monastery to help Liu Bei defeat Cao Cao. But resourceful Zhu Ge-liang had many enemies, among them one of Sun Quan’s military advisers, Zhou Yu. Zhou Yu hated Zhu Ge-liang so much that he decided to kill him.”

  While the cymbals clashed dramatically and the fingers of the pipa player and the erhu player raced up and down the strings, Lao Xu took a long drink of beer.

  “Zhou Yu wanted to trick Zhu Ge-liang so he could cut off his head without criticism, and he thought long and hard for a plan. Finally he came up with an idea. He called Zhu Ge-liang to his quarters, welcomed him, and gave him a feast. After they had eaten and drunk, Zhou Yu began to talk of the war and the upcoming battle that would decide the fate of all.

  “Zhou Yu: I highly esteem your valuable counsel, Zhu Ge-liang. Most of my experience in warfare has been on land, in the mountains. What type of weapon do you think best for river fighting?

  “Zhu Ge-liang: For naval warfare, the bow and arrow are best.

  “Zhou Yu: Ah, what a pity. I had wanted to attack Cao Cao soon, but I do not have sufficient arrows to wage war against the superior numbers of Cao Cao. I am certain there is no one under heaven who could supply us with enough arrows in time.”

  Zhou Yu waited in silence, certain that the pride of Zhu Ge-liang would speak.

  “Zhu Ge-liang: I think I may be able to help, General.

  “Zhou Yu: I have the highest admiration for your august self, sir, and for your prowess in war. But the Feng Shui man has advised that we must do battle within ten days, or we shall lose the war. I am certain that no one under heaven could make ten thousand arrows in ten days.

  “Zhu Ge-liang: I can supply you with ten thousand arrows. He smiled, took a sip of rice wine, and spoke again: And I can do it in three days.

  “Zhou Yu smiled inwardly at the rashness of Zhu Ge-liang. As he talked, he pretended to admire Zhu Ge-liang while casting doubt upon his promise. Finally Zhu Ge-liang signed an oath saying that if he didn’t supply Zhou Yu with ten thousand arrows in three days, he would give Zhou Yu his head.”

  I took advantage of another burst of bongs and clashes to ask Lao Xu, “What’s feng shui?”

  Lao Xu took another swallow of beer. Interpretation is thirsty work. “No one in those days would make any major decision, none, without first consulting a — what’s the word? — a sort of astrologer who would consult his charts and interpret signs and give you the luckiest date for what you were planning to do. He was called Feng Shui Xian Sheng — Mr. Wind and Water.”

  The ancient storyteller’s right hand began to float in the air before his eyes as his reedy voice began again.

  “On the first day, Zhu Ge-liang obtained twenty river ships, each with a crew of thirty men. Then he ordered one hundred and twenty wagon loads of straw and eighty bolts of black cloth. Zhu Ge-liang met with the crews and gave them instructions. Then he looked at the sky and shook his head and went away.

  “Zhou Yu’s spies reported this activity to Zhou Yu, who demanded: How many arrows has he gathered?

  “The spies answered: None. He has not even called for bamboo, varnish, feathers and glue.

  “Zhou Yu threw back his head and laughed and said: In two days I will have his head.

  “On the second day, Zhu Ge-liang returned to his twenty ships. The crews were busy. One-third of them stretched the black cloth on the decks of the ships along the gunwales, then tied the cloth to posts to form walls. Meanwhile, two-thirds of the men were making hundreds of straw men. In the a
fternoon of the second day, the crew placed the straw men on the ships, lining them up behind the cloth walls that ran down the sides of the ships.

  “Zhu Ge-liang looked at the sky at the end of the day’s work. He shook his head and went away.

  “Zhou Yu’s spies reported to him again.

  “Zhou Yu: How many arrows?

  “None.

  “Again he laughed and exulted that he would soon have Zhu Ge-liang’s head.

  “On the morning of the third day the fog lay on the river so thick that it was as if the sun had lost its power, and so dense that a man standing at the stern of a ship could not see the bow.

  “Zhu Ge-liang was at the riverbank early. He smiled to himself. He ordered the men to tie the boats together, stem to stern, and they set out onto the broad swift Yang-ze. The twenty boats made a long line as the crew rowed upstream through the fog, towards Cao Cao’s camp.

  “By noon, Zhu Ge-liang’s ships were opposite Cao Cao’s camp. The noise and the din of the thousands upon thousands of soldiers told Zhu Ge-liang he had arrived, for even at noonday the sun did not penetrate the heavy fog. Zhu Ge-liang ordered the ships to form a line, bows to the west, sterns to the east. Then he told the crew to beat on their drums and shout to make as much noise as a navy a thousand times as strong.”

  The old storyteller paused and his hand returned to his knee as the instruments made some dramatic plunks and bangs and whines. I looked around the smoky room. Every face was turned to the old man who was sitting there in old-fashioned clothes, telling a story that was written more than six hundred years ago and which described events that had taken place eleven hundred years before that. The old man sat still as a stone, looking off into nowhere. This must have been the way people were entertained in the days when almost no one could read. I was trying to decide if this was better than TV when one of those wrinkled hands rose like a bird off a thin black knee and began to move gracefully in the air.

  “In the camp of Cao Cao, half-a-million strong, the soldiers heard the pounding of the drums out in the river and the clamour of voices rolling out of the fog. Quickly they sent an urgent message to Cao Cao.

  “Cao Cao was wary. He thought that Sun Quan was using the fog as cover for a full attack. He gave orders. Thousands of bowmen rushed to line up along the riverbank several ranks deep with their braced longbows and metre-long arrows. The riverbank seemed to bristle with cocked arrows as the archers awaited to order to shoot.

  “Soon the air sang with the twang of bowstrings and the hiss of flying arrows as rank after rank of bowmen loosed their shafts and the fog above the river rained bamboo arrows onto the ships. The arrows pierced the cloth walls, struck the straw men, and stuck there, or buried their points fast into the ships’ hulls. When the ships and straw men were thick with arrows, Zhu Ge-liang ordered the crew to turn the boats around.

  “As the line of boats turned in the current and took up the new position, the fog thinned enough for Cao Cao to make out the shapes of the ships. He redoubled his efforts. Out on the broad swift Yangt-ze the pounding of the drums kept up, the shouts of the crew continued, and the arrows skimmed through the fog towards those ships, seeking the enemy who were not there.

  “In the late afternoon, the fog began to thin further when a breeze from the west sprang up. Zhu Ge-liang ordered the boats to withdraw downstream, but not until the whole crew shouted in unison, “Thank you for lending us your arrows, Cao Cao. You can be sure we will return them soon!”

  Boing, boing, boing, crash, crash, tick, tick, tock, tock. The old wrinkled hands returned to the thin black knees as the men at the tables around Lao Xu and me laughed and nodded, lit up fresh cigarettes and began to talk again. Most of them ignored the musicians and the storyteller as the old men left the dais and filed slowly out of the room.

  I was trying to decide whether I liked that story better than the Long March and I decided that I did. I’m not sure why. Maybe simply because it was older — about 1,700 years older!

  I think it was at that moment that I really understood how long Chinese history stretched back, and how many wars there had been. Sun Zi’s The Art of War was written about 500 BC. The edition I had contained both Sun Zi’s words and commentary by — guess who? Cao Cao, the enemy general on the story I just heard. Cao Cao had written his comments about 750 years later. And there I was in an old teahouse tonight, listening to it all.

  Lao Xu cut in on my thought. “That story gives us an expression that you will often hear in Chinese, Shan Da. Cao chuan jie jian. Its literal meaning is ‘Straw boat borrow arrows’, but the idea is that you use your opponent’s strengths against him.”

  He sighed, “In China, our greatest strength is the people. But so often in our history, we fight among ourselves.”

  As we rode home through the chilly evening we passed Tian An Men Square. The flowers piled on and around the Monument to the People’s Heroes in memory of Hu Yao-bang were still there.

  So were the police.

  What a tough morning in class today. Teacher Huang really went after me. I’m getting lazy with my tones, he said. It bugged me, especially since I knew he was right. I’ve been spending all my time looking around the city. But what the heck, I’m only learning Chinese for fun. He seems to think I want to be a diplomat.

  One thing about school in China, it sure is different. And most of the differences I don’t particularly like. I already wrote that school runs six days a week. There’s no discussion in class and you sit in your seat for the whole morning except for a ten minute break. In the Chinese schools you have to do exercises in the break, but in our school you get the whole ten minutes for yourself. Big deal.

  Teachers here are revered. No one challenges them, even on an opinion, and of course no one even dreams of talking back. My teacher is called Huang Lao Shi. Huang means “yellow”. Lao Shi means “teacher”. That’s the form of address for men and women teachers. It sounds pretty funny to a Canadian. I wonder if Chinese kids have nicknames for their teachers, like Death Breath McKay, my geography teacher in grade nine. The guy could kill a crowd at one hundred metres. The Chinese government could have used him to clear out Tian An Men Square the other day.

  Old Huang’s okay I guess, even though he got on my case this morning, telling me my pronunciation was bu hao, not good.

  I got home at the usual time to find Dad and Eddie working away. Which means that they were sitting in the armchairs talking and taking notes, planning stuff. Which means Eddie was giving out a lot of orders. Gorbachev’s visit is coming up and all the news hounds in the city are working like mad. Sometimes I think they complicate things too much.

  Shortly after lunch Lao Xu rushed in, looking nervous. He held up a newspaper and started talking really fast.

  Eddie calmed him down. I stayed in the room, worried, because I thought maybe something bad had happened to him personally.

  “It’s the editorial in Ren Min Ri Bao,” Lao Xu said.

  That’s the People’s Daily newspaper, the official mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party.

  Eddie fired up the word processor and sat ready to take notes. He showed no interest in Lao Xu’s feelings.

  Dad said softly, “Sit down, Lao Xu. Take your time. What’s up?”

  For such an excitable guy, Dad can be a real calmer-downer when someone is hyper. It’s himself he can’t control sometimes.

  Lao Xu twisted the paper in his hands. While he talked, Eddie typed.

  “The editorial attacks the students who demonstrated in Tian An Men Square on the fifteenth. It says that the students are — here, let me read it — ‘promoting chaos’.”

  Dad did his What’s The Big Deal frown. I certainly didn’t get it. Eddie kept typing, which meant that he did get it.

  “I didn’t see anything bad when I was there, did you, Dad?” I said.

  Lao Xu answered for him. “You couldn’t read the posters and banners, Shan Da. A few of them called for more democracy and an end to corruption i
n the government.”

  “More democracy!” Eddie snorted. “You have to have some to have more!”

  “I’m afraid,” Lao Xu continued, his voice anxious, “that things will deteriorate. Please don’t put that in your report, Eddie.”

  “Don’t worry, Lao Xu. That’s conjecture anyway.”

  “Why?” Dad asked. “Forgive me, Lao Xu, but I guess it’s too complicated for me.”

  “Ted, I’m afraid maybe the students will get more and more militant. You know how young people can be. The government will have to get more harsh, because if there are demonstrations when the premier arrives the government will lose face.” He ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair. “I think this editorial is a warning.”

  I left the room to pack up my gear for my daily bike tour. It all seemed pretty strange to me, getting worried about a newspaper article.

  One thing I thought about though as I said goodbye and left: If Lao Xu was a spy who reported on all three of us to the Party, why would he come to us and voice his fears? He was upset, I could tell that. Nobody is that good an actor. Was it all a trick? And if it was, what was the point?

  Ever seen a million people before? All in one place, I mean? And on a hot sunny day? Well, I have. I saw them today in Tian An Men Square. It was a scary sight, I’ll tell you. And awesome. A million heads of black hair. Two million brown eyes.

  When I left for school Chang An Avenue was more crowded than usual, but when I got back after lunch — I had a big hamburger at the Jian Guo Hotel — the avenue was practically clogged.

  I put together my pack of electronic goodies. I found Dad’s note in the usual place, on my desk. It said that according to the news on TV this morning, there were already fifty thousand students in the square protesting against yesterday’s editorial, the one that Lao Xu had been worried about. Apparently it made the student organizers angry to be called “elements of chaos”, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Anyway, the note said that there were hundreds of thousands of citizens protesting in support of the students, who continued to call for democracy and to criticize corruption in the government. Dad’s note finished up. And the amazing thing is, the Beijing TV station is allowed to broadcast this!