by Lao She
‘You saw teachers being butchered, but it ought not to surprise you, for it is only the inevitable consequence of an educational system that has no notion of the importance of character and decency. Since the teachers are totally devoid of integrity, can one expect the students who follow in their footsteps to be any different? This general lack of character, both inside and outside of the educational institutions, has a still worse consequence: it prods our people into taking a backward leap of tens of thousands of years, back to the cannibalism of antiquity. The progress of our species is exceedingly slow, but our retrogression is lightning fast; for as soon as people lose their self-respect, they will revert to barbarism with amazing rapidity. Moreover, we’ve been at this regressive kind of education for over two hundred years now!
‘Every day of the last two centuries has seen the heads of our schools fighting each other. The teachers have constantly been at each other’s throats. And the students have either been fighting among themselves or against their teachers and principals. Fighting has brutalised them, and every fight that they have engaged in has added just that much more to the barbarity that they have been cultivating within themselves. And thus, now it is a very common occurrence to see students butchering teachers, professors, chancellors and principals. However, it would be foolish of you to entertain feelings of compassion for our principals and teachers. You see, our education moves in cycles. The students whom you saw will one day themselves become teachers and principals and then it will be their turn to be victims. Luckily the addition to the educational system of a few more potential victims doesn’t make any difference to society anyway, for no one pays any attention to who’s killing who inside the schools in the first place.
‘In a society as dark as ours it seems that people, like little animals, instinctively start sniffing to the right and clawing to the left as soon as they are born in the hopes of finding something to eat. Even as children, they’ll put forth every last ounce of energy to grab the tiniest advantage or profit. And then comes the day when they’re old enough to attend school where, as luck would have it, they come into contact with teachers and principals like the ones that you’ve seen. It’s very much like a pack of cubs encountering another pack of old and hungry wolves. They’re bound to try out their claws and teeth. The possibility of obtaining the most minute personal advantage is enough to fire up that residue of barbarity in them inherited from their most primitive ancestors. Thus a single book or reverie leaf is enough to result in corpses being strewn all over the countryside.
‘Engaging in student movements is a natural manifestation of the ardour of youth and can certainly be forgiven; but our student movements cannot be explained as simply as all that. Our young hopefuls usually find some pretext for starting a riot, and then they pull down houses and destroy everything in sight. When it’s all over, they take the bricks and the choicest of the debris back to their own homes, brimming over with satisfaction at having got a little something for nothing. And their parents are usually as pleased as they are. Since the family property has been augmented by a few bricks and sticks, they consider that their children’s participation in the student movement was not in vain. Thus the students go looking for opportunities to destroy things so that they can cart the more worthwhile debris back home. Nor are their principals and teachers any better: they’ll steal anything they have a chance to.
‘Chancellors of universities, principals, faculty members and students – from top to bottom, they all deserve to die. The fact that the students murder their principals and teachers is a kind of divine retribution; and the fact that the students will someday be murdered once they have become principals and teachers themselves is another manifestation of poetic justice. This then is our system of education. You must admit that an educational system capable of turning people into animals certainly cannot be counted as totally devoid of all accomplishment!’
Young Scorpion laughed.
OF SCHOLARS OLD AND NEW
SINCE YOUNG Scorpion was a pessimist anyway, I had to take much of what he said with a grain of salt. And yet, with my own eyes I had seen teachers and principals being butchered, and students being graduated on their first day at school. Therefore, no matter how much I might suspect the validity of what he said, I had no real basis upon which to challenge his statements. The only thing I could do was gather more evidence from still another direction.
‘Aren’t there any scholars in Cat Country, then?’ I asked.
‘You bet your sweet life there are! Truckloads!’ I could tell that Young Scorpion was getting ready to have some more fun. As I had expected, he continued his speech without allowing me time to ask my next question.
‘From one point of view, an abundance of scholars is a mark of cultural distinction; and yet, if you look at it another way, it’s also a symptom of cultural decline. It all depends upon how you define “scholar”. But rather than having me define “scholar” for you, perhaps it will be better if I tempt some of them in so that you can get a good look at them.’
‘You mean invite a few of them in, don’t you?’ I corrected the verb.
‘I mean just what I said. I’ll tempt some of them in; if I invited them, they wouldn’t come. You’re not familiar with the personality traits of Cat Country scholars yet, but stick around a while and you’ll see what I mean. Revery, go and call a few of them in. You can tell them that I’ll pass out reverie leaves when they get here. Why don’t you have Star, Blossom, and some of the other girls go with you. Then you can split up and each of you can go and catch a few.’
Revery went out tittering.
There didn’t seem to be anything worth asking about in the interim, and I settled back to wait for the arrival of the scholars. Young Scorpion brought out some reverie leaves and we had a leisurely chew. Out of the corner of my eye, I detected just the trace of a devilish smile of anticipation on Young Scorpion’s face.
Having delivered the ‘invitations’ to the scholars, Revery, Star, Blossom and the other girls came back to announce that the scholars would soon be along. The girls then sat down, making a circle of which I was the centre. They stared at me as if they wanted to speak, but didn’t quite dare.
‘Be careful,’ Young Scorpion said with a smile, ‘you are about to be cross-examined.’
‘We would like to ask about a few things, if you wouldn’t mind,’ one of the girls said.
‘Fine. But I ought to warn you that I don’t know a great deal about female things,’ I said, imitating the smile and tone of voice that Young Scorpion used in addressing them.
‘Tell us what Earth women are like,’ they all asked as if with a single voice.
I felt relieved, for I knew that I could give them a fairly entertaining answer. ‘Well, let’s see . . . our women all rub powder on their faces,’ (they all ‘Oh-ed!’ at that), ‘and arrange their hair to make it look as beautiful as possible. Some wear it long; some short; some comb it into a parting; and still others comb it straight back. And every blessed one of them uses perfume and aromatic oils.’ As they looked at each other’s very, very short hair, their mouths all dropped wide open; then they closed them again in unison, seeming utterly disappointed.
‘They dangle pearls and other precious stones from their ears so that when they walk these little baubles swing to and fro in a most pleasing manner.’ They all began to feel their tiny cat-ears set towards the backs of their skulls, and one of them – I think it was Blossom – seemed so disappointed that she would have liked to wrench her ears right off her pretty little head. ‘Earth women wear very pretty clothes. It’s rather curious, for although they have beautiful clothes, they’re always devising ways to expose a little more of their flesh. The charming result of all this is that they’re partially hidden and partially exposed at the same time. They’re really much more interesting looking than women like you who go completely nude all the time.’ I had decided to tease them a bit.
‘By going stark naked, you reveal only the be
auty of the flesh; and when you come to think of it, one colour – even flesh colour – gets a bit monotonous after a while. By wearing clothes of different hues, our Earth women are able to look colourful and varied at the same time. That’s the reason that, although they are not really opposed to going nude, they continue to wear some scrap of clothing even in the hottest month of summer.
‘What’s more, our Earth women all wear shoes made of leather and brocaded satin that have raised heels. They stud the toes with pearls and embroider flowers on the heels. Does that sound pretty to you?’ I waited for a reply, but there was no reaction. They just sat there, their mouths all forming large zeros. ‘In antiquity our women sometimes bound their feet until they’d get them as tiny as this.’ I brought my thumb and forefinger together to give them an idea of the size. ‘But nobody binds a girl’s feet any more. Now we’ve changed to . . .’
Before I had finished my sentence, they all asked with a single voice, ‘Why have you stopped binding them? Why? That’s a stupid thing to do. Such tiny feet must have been very cute, and then to set off such cute little feet with pearls set in the toe of the shoe – that must have been exquisite!’ It seemed that they were all genuinely worked-up over the painful custom’s falling into disuse – and I felt that I’d better calm them down. ‘Don’t rush things! I haven’t finished yet. All right, they quit binding their feet, right? But then they all started wearing high heels! The toe of the shoe is here,’ I pointed to the tip of my nose, ‘but the bottom of the woman’s heel is way up here.’ I pointed at the top of my head. ‘Just think, they can add five inches to their height and twist the bones of their feet out of shape to boot! Better yet, sometimes they even have to lean against walls just to walk; and if a heel breaks off, they have to limp along like hobbled horses!’ They all seemed to feel much better now. But as they sat around me there on the floor and came to admire the women of Earth, the more disappointed they became with themselves.As I finished my disquisition on shoes, I noticed that they had all slipped their feet out of sight under their buttocks.
I waited for them to ask me more questions, but it seemed that my description of high-heeled shoes had cast them under a spell. Then suddenly they all burst forth in another flurry of questions.
‘How high are the heels?’
‘You said they have flowers on them, right?’
‘Don’t the heels make a click-clack noise when the women walk?’
‘How do the bones get twisted out of shape? Does it happen naturally because the women wear such shoes, or must the bones first be bent awry before such shoes can be worn?’
‘Can you make shoes of human skin as well as animal hide?’
‘What kinds of flowers do you embroider on them? What colours do you use?’
I could see that had I been a shoemaker, my fortune would have been assured. I was just about to tell them how, in addition to learning to wear high heels, our Earth women have also learned how to take jobs, but just at that point the scholars came in.
‘Revery,’ said Young Scorpion, ‘go and prepare some reverie leaf juice.’ Then he addressed Blossom and the other girls. ‘Why don’t you go somewhere else to continue your discussion of high heels?’
One after another, eight scholars came through the door, bowed towards Young Scorpion and then sat on the floor. With upturned faces, they all sat staring at the ceiling. Not one of them deigned to acknowledge my presence with so much as a glance.
Revery brought in the juice, and after they’d all had a good leisurely drink, they seemed even less inclined to notice me. Actually, it was all to the good that they ignored me, for it gave me an opportunity to observe them closely. They were all extremely thin and exceedingly dirty. There was a satchelful of dirt in each of the little ears perched on the backs of their heads, and suds of saliva had collected at the corners of their mouths. Their movements were very slow, even slower and stealthier than Old Scorpion’s by quite a degree.
The power of the juice had begun to reach down to the roots of their being. They opened their eyes wide and stared at the ceiling again. Suddenly, one of them began speaking.
‘Am I not the foremost scholar in all of Cat Country?’ His eyes quickly swept all around and even seemed to pause on me a bit.
The other seven had all been aroused to movement by his question. Some scratched their heads, some gritted their teeth, and others stuck their fingers in their noses. Then they said in unison, ‘You? The foremost? Even if you threw in your father – and your grandfather for that matter – the three generations of you would still all be bastards!’
I was sure that they were about to come to blows, but much to my surprise the scholar who had arrogated first place unto himself began to laugh. Perhaps he has grown accustomed to being abused, I thought to myself.
‘My grandfather, my father and myself have been studying astronomy now for three generations. Who do the rest of you think you are anyway to feel qualified to criticise such an eminent family of astronomers?
The foreigners have to use all sorts of gadgets and mirrors when they do research in astronomy, but it’s been our tradition for generations to use the unaided eye. The unaided eye, gentlemen, the unaided eye! How can the foreigners compare to us? Moreover, we pay attention to discovering the relationship between the stars in the sky above and good and bad fortune in the world of men below! Are the foreign astronomers capable of that? And as for being foremost scholar, let me tell you that while I was observing astronomical phenomena last night, the Star of Scholarship appeared over my head! Now if I’m not the foremost scholar in all the land, I’d like to know who is!’
Young Scorpion laughed and said, ‘If I’d been standing outside with you last night, couldn’t I say that the Star of Scholarship had appeared over my head too?’
‘The words of His Highness, Young Scorpion, are absolutely correct!’ said the astronomer, bowing to the superior wisdom of his young ruler.
‘The words of His Highness are absolutely correct!’ the other seven chimed in.
For what seemed like ages nobody said anything.
‘Speak!’ Young Scorpion ordered.
One of them stood up. ‘Am I not the foremost scholar in all of Cat Country?’ His eyes, too, made a quick sweep in all directions. “Can astronomy even be counted as scholarship in the first place? Everyone knows that it can’t. In order to take up any kind of study, you must first be able to recognise our written characters. Therefore, philology is the only branch of learning worthy of the name. I’ve been studying philology for thirty years. Thirty years! Who among you can possibly have the gall to dispute my position as first scholar? Who?’
‘Ah, go blow it out of your arse!’ they all suggested in unison.
However, the philologist was not, it seemed, as easygoing as the astronomer. He grabbed hold of a historian and yelled, ‘Who do you think you’re talking to anyway! First of all, pay me back what you owe me! Did you or did you not once borrow a reverie leaf from me? If you don’t pay me back immediately, then I’ll twist your head clean off your shoulders, or else I’m not the foremost scholar!’
‘I borrowed a reverie leaf from you? I, a world-renowned historian, borrowed a reverie leaf from the likes of you? Let go of me! Don’t get my arm dirty!’
‘So you think you can eat a man’s reverie leaves and then just forget about it, do you? Well, we’ll see about that. Just wait until I finish my Comprehensive Discussions of Philology and see if your surname is to be found in it. As the foremost philologist of all Cat Country, I shall proclaim to the rest of the planet that the character used to write your surname is not to be found in the written characters of archaic Felinese. Wait and see if I don’t!’
At this point the historian seemed genuinely concerned, and began to plead with Young Scorpion. ‘Your Highness, Your Highness, hurry up and give me a reverie leaf so that I can pay him back. Although I am the foremost scholar and historian in Cat Country, as Your Highness well knows, scholars don’t have any money. Si
nce I am indigent, perhaps at sometime I actually did borrow a reverie leaf from the bastard. I don’t really remember. Speaking of reverie leaves, Your Highness, there’s something else that I just have to bring up. Please put in a word for us with His Old Highness, your father, and ask him to distribute some more reverie leaves to the scholars. It doesn’t matter so much when ordinary people are without reverie leaves, but when we who are scholars are without them – especially me, the foremost scholar – then how are we to pursue our scholarly activities?
‘You see, Your Highness, only recently I have been engaged in further research on the methods of punishments employed in antiquity, and I have established beyond all doubt that the ancients used to skin people alive. I shall present you with an article on this in the near future with the humble request that you pass it on to your father. Ask him to pass it on to the emperor when he’s through with it so that his Imperial Highness may revive this fascinating, and culturally rooted, mode of punishment. Should I not be counted as foremost scholar of the realm on the basis of this discovery alone?’ He turned to the philologist. ‘What do you think you are anyway, you mere philologist. History is the only genuine discipline.’
‘And is history written with characters or isn’t it? Give me back that reverie leaf that you owe me!’ the philologist said.
Young Scorpion had Revery give a reverie leaf to the historian. The latter tore it in two and handed half of it over to the philologist. ‘All right I’ll pay you back, although I really shouldn’t.’
The philologist accepted the half and then said through gritted teeth, ‘You’ve short-changed me by half. All right, it’ll be a wonder if I don’t make off with your old woman after such treatment. You just wait and see!’
The words ‘old woman’ seemed to make the rest of the scholars unusually excited. They all addressed Scorpion in chorus, ‘Your Highness! Your Highness! Why should it be that we scholars are only allowed one wife apiece so that we have to get excited and talk about stealing other people’s old women? We are scholars, Your Highness. We bring honour upon the whole nation. We preserve and pass on the learning of our ancestors unto our children, grandchildren, and the posterity of the nation for ten thousand generations to come. Why shouldn’t each of us have three wives at least?’
