Written on Water, page 4
The vendors around here rarely sell any particularly fancy snacks. Nor have we ever lowered a basket out the window to the street to buy things from them. (Which reminds one of Violet Koo in the movie Nong ben chiqing [I’m a fool for you]. She makes a rope out of silk stockings, attaches a paper box to the end, and lowers it out the window to buy noodle soup. No real silk stockings could ever survive such an ordeal! In the current climate of rationing and “resource conservation,” this is a shocking extravagance that sets one’s pulse racing). Maybe we should try lowering a basket to the street. Every time we hear the vendor who sells stinky tofu coming down the street, we have to grab a bowl, race down six flights of steps, give chase down the street, and, having finally located our man several long blocks away and made our purchase, take the elevator back home. All this seems faintly ridiculous.
Our elevator man is a real character, well read and erudite, of rare cultivation, a man who keeps meticulous tabs on the comings and goings of each family in the building. He doesn’t approve of his son becoming a ticket collector on a streetcar because it’s not a sufficiently classy profession. On even the hottest of days, no matter how urgently someone is ringing the electric buzzer, he still insists on donning a neatly ironed silk vest over his sleeveless undershirt before emerging from his room. He refuses to operate the elevator for visitors who dress sloppily. His thinking may incline too much toward the outmoded ideals of the traditional gentry, but at least he thinks. True, he leaves his little room only to step into the little room of an elevator. One fears that his whole existence will be consumed shuttling back and forth between these two cells. As the elevator rises, layer after layer of darkness moves past the brass grillwork, patterned after the Chinese character for man (人). Brown darkness, rusty brown darkness, darkest darkness, and, set against these variations, the grizzled head of the elevator operator.
When he has a moment off, he goes to the back courtyard and cooks stir-fried dishes and griddle cakes on a little coal-burning stove. He taught us how to cook wild red rice: after the rice comes to a boil, kill the flame, and let it sit for ten minutes before continuing. What results is rice that is soft, cooked through, but not the least mushy or lacking in texture.
I once asked him to buy soy milk for us and gave him a used milk bottle for that purpose. After having made these purchases by proxy for two weeks, he rather matter-of-factly reported: “The bottle’s gone.” Whether it was broken or merely stolen, we didn’t know. A little later on, he brought us a slightly smaller bottle full of soy milk: “Oh? The bottle’s back?” He replied: “It’s back.” We could never ascertain whether this new bottle was meant to compensate us for the lost one or was merely on loan. These sorts of incidents have something of a socialistic tinge to them.
He invariably glances through the Xinwen bao (Daily news) before delivering it to our apartment every morning. He must read the tabloids rather more carefully, for we rarely get to see them before eleven or twelve noon. He doesn’t read the English, Japanese, German, or Russian papers, which is why, bright and early each morning, they are rolled up and stuck in the crook above everyone’s doorknobs.
No one steals the papers, but the metal facing over the doorbells was once pried off and taken away. There are actually two guards responsible for securing the front entrance. They are not twins, but they seem to share the same sawdusty yellow faces sticking out above button-down collars and sawdusty yellow knees sticking out between their shorts and the tops of their high socks. They doze on wicker chairs in front of the mailboxes during their shift. Whenever you want to check the mail, they block the way so that you must solicitously push your face close to theirs, as if to enquire whether their acne has shown any improvement lately.
Perhaps only women can fully appreciate the advantages of apartment life: the problem of hired help becomes much less pressing. The cost of living is high, and even if you can afford a maid, you have to prepare for her to be annoyed by your shortcomings. Domestic life is a relatively simple matter in an apartment. You can arrange for a company to come by once every two weeks and do a thorough cleaning, thus eliminating the need for hired help. Not having to have a maid is one of the best things in life. Leaving any notions of the ideal of equality aside, it’s terribly annoying, if not utterly ruinous in terms of one’s appetite, to have someone who has not yet eaten standing over you and watching as you eat at mealtimes, always at the ready to give you more rice. There are so many little chores that are inherently pleasurable to perform. If you can’t see eggplants growing in a garden, it’s almost as lovely to see them at the vegetable market: an intricate and glossy shade of purple next to the pale green of new peas, the ruby ripeness of peppers, and the golden yellow of gluten shining like soap bubbles in the sun. Every time one washes spinach and drops it into the wok, there are always one or two broken leaves stuck to the bottom of the bamboo basket, and no matter how hard you shake, they refuse to budge. In the light, the fresh emerald leaves displayed against the rectangular weave of the basket call to mind snow pea flowers on a trellis. And why must we call other things to mind at all? Isn’t the beauty of the basket itself sufficient? None of this is intended as a display of my fealty to the National Socialist Party and its efforts to coax women back into the kitchen.2 There is so little point in coaxing, and if one must coax, it would only be right to urge men into the kitchen for a visit as well. Obviously, when people who have hired a cook start to hang around the kitchen, they will be looked on with some distaste. We must be careful not to infringe upon the prerogatives of our betters.
Sometimes, one also feels rather acutely the bitterness of life without help. There were weevils in the rice crock, so I sprinkled white pepper inside: apparently weevils do not appreciate the pungent aroma, and you can remove the peppercorns before soaking the rice. I mistook the head of a fat weevil for a peppercorn and squeezed it between my fingers. Once I realized my mistake, I could not help letting out an appropriately dismayed squeal, dropping the pot, and running away. In fact, when I saw a snake in Hong Kong once, it was much the same. All I saw of that snake was his upper half, stretching to a height of nearly two feet, just after it had slithered from out of a hole. I was holding a stack of books as I walked rapidly down a hill when I came face to face with it. It gazed quietly at me and I gazed quietly back, and it was only after a long pause that I screamed, turned, and fled.
Speaking of insects, there are hardly any flies up on the sixth floor, but every so often a few mosquitoes do make an appearance. If they were endowed with the slightest bit of imagination, surely they would faint dead away upon flying to the window and looking down to the ground far below? Unfortunately, these mosquitoes are all too similar to the English in their indifference and self-satisfaction. Even in the jungles of Africa, an Englishman still wears tails to dinner.
An apartment is an ideal retreat from the world outside. Often, people who are weary of metropolitan life yearn for the quiet harmony of the countryside, longing for the day when they might retire to their old country home, keep bees, plant a few crops, and enjoy a well-earned rest. Little do they know that in the countryside the mere purchase of a half pound of smoked meat elicits storms of idle gossip, whereas in an apartment on the top floor, you can change clothes right in front of the window without anyone knowing the difference!
Even so, the secrets of everyday life must be made public at least once a year. In the summer, each and every family throws its doors wide and brings rattan chairs out into the hallway to take the breeze. Someone over there is talking on the telephone. The servant boy across the hall is ironing some clothes as he translates the telephone conversation into German for the benefit of his little master. There is a Russian man downstairs noisily giving Japanese lessons. The woman on the second floor seems to be locked in mortal combat with Beethoven, gritting her teeth as she repeatedly pummels the piano, against which a bicycle is precariously propped. Someone somewhere is making beef stew, and someone else simmering a Chinese herbal brew that counters indigestion.
Mankind is naturally inclined to mind other people’s business. Why shouldn’t we take the occasional stealthy glance at one another’s private lives, if the person being looked at suffers no real damage and the one who looks is afforded a moment of pleasure? In matters involving the provision and procurement of pleasure, there’s no need to be overly fussy. What, in the end, is there to fuss about? Misery endures, but life is short.
The kids in the building sometimes skate in the roof garden, and when they are in high spirits, the scraping sound of their motion back and forth can go from morning to evening, sounding like nothing so much as dishes rasping against each other or a sleeper steadily grinding his teeth, setting your own teeth on edge, like the sour little pips of a green pomegranate that drop to the ground with a flick of a finger. The foreign gentleman next door rushes furiously up the stairs to give them a piece of his mind. His wife warns: “They won’t understand what you’re saying, anyway. It’s a waste of time.” He balls his fists and rolls up his sleeves: “No matter. I’ll make them understand.” A few minutes later, he descends the stairs with the wind knocked out of his sails. The kids upstairs aren’t so young anymore, and they’re female, and they are pretty.
Speaking of public-spiritedness and morality, we cannot really claim to be any better than anyone else. We sweep the dust on our balcony down to the balcony below us without the slightest hesitation. “Oh, they’ve put their carpet out to dry on the railing. It would be such a shame to dirty it. Let’s wait until they take it back in before we sweep.” One kind thought such as this, and a glimmering halo materializes around one’s head. This, then, is our not so very thorough sense of ethics.
BUGLE MUSIC FROM THE NIGHT BARRACKS
Ten o’clock at night, and I am reading a book by lamplight when the bugle in the army barracks near my home starts to play a familiar melody. A few simple musical phrases, slowly rising and then descending, with a purity of heart altogether rare in this vast crucible of a city.
I say, “They’re playing the bugle again, Auntie. Didn’t you hear it?” My aunt says, “I wasn’t paying attention.” I am afraid of hearing that bugle every night, because I am the only one who ever listens to it.
I say, “Oh, they’re playing again.” But for some unknown reason, this time the sound is very soft, as slight as a strand of silk, breaking off several times before once again picking up the thread. This time, I don’t even ask my aunt whether she has heard it. I begin to doubt whether there really is a bugle at all or if this is merely a memory of something I’ve heard. Above and beyond my sense of desolation, I feel frightened.
But then I hear someone outside whistling loud and clear, picking up and following the bugle’s melody as he goes along. I spring to my feet, full of joy and empathy, and rush over to the window. Yet I have no desire to know who it is, whether it’s coming from an apartment upstairs or down below or from a passerby on the street.
Foreigners (1).
(1) The English;
(2) the Germans;
(3) the French.
Foreigners (2).
(1) A poor foreigner;
(2) “An English lady, no matter what calamity she encounters, be it serious or inconsequential, will always tell you, ‘Remain calm, my dear’”;
(3) “Today, we are very fortunate to have the honor of . . .”;
(4) a pale, feminine Caucasian man;
(5) a little bird;
(6) “Steadfastly hold to a positive attitude.”
Foreigners (3).
(1) A Western lady;
(2) a crazed artist;
(3) a ballet dancer;
(4) a Japanese dandy;
(5) a girl named Yukiko.
“WHAT IS ESSENTIAL IS THAT NAMES BE RIGHT”
I myself have an unbearably vulgar name, am well aware of the fact, and have no plans to change it. Even so, I remain extremely interested in people’s names.1
To give someone a name is a simple and small-scale act of creation. When the patriarch of days gone by would sit in winter with his feet propped up on a foot-warming brazier, smoking a water pipe, and pick out a name for a newly arrived grandson, his word was all. If the boy was called Guang-mei (Brighten the Threshold), he would end up doing his best to redound honor on the gates of the family house. If he was called Zuyin (Ancestral Privilege) or Chengzu (Indebted to the Ancestors), he would be compelled to frequently remember his forebears. If he was called Hesheng (Lotus Born), his life would take on something of the coloring of a pond in June. Characters in novels aside, there aren’t many people whose names adequately describe what they are like in reality (and often the opposite is the case and the name represents something they need or lack—nine of ten poor people have names like Jingui [Gold Precious], Ah Fu [Richie], Dayou [Have a Lot]). But no matter how or in what manner, names inevitably become entangled with appearance and character in the process of creating a complete impression of a person. And this is why naming is a kind of creation.
I like to give people names, even though I have yet to have an opportunity to do so. It seems that only parents and schoolmasters in the countryside have this right. Besides these, we must also include venerable gentlemen and grand dames who buy servant girls and dancehall madams who procure young women. Such a shame that these people are so sloppy in their execution of these duties, since they rely entirely on precedent: little kids are invariably called Maotou (Kid), Er Maotou (Kid Number Two), San Maotou (Kid the Third); servant girls become Ruyi (As You Wish); and taxi dancers are given foreign-sounding names like Manna.
Catholic priests and Protestant pastors also give babies names when they’re baptized (this must be one of the most compelling of their duties), but they never seem to stray very far from the common round of George, Mary, and Elizabeth. I once compiled two or three hundred commonly used English names for girls, and I’m afraid that my list pretty much exhausts the possibilities, even if there are a few that I left out. Customs are handed down, and names are inevitably selected from folkloric traditions and religious history, to the point where one runs everywhere into people with the same names—what a bore! There’s an old joke: someone flips through the entire Bible in search of a relatively distinctive name. He triumphantly informs his pastor that he’s decided on a name no one else has ever used before: Satan.
As for Chinese people, we have all of Wang Yunwu’s great big dictionary of Chinese in which to search for just a couple of characters to represent ourselves.2 With such an abundance of choices, it seems unforgivable that there are some people who are willing to let themselves be called things like Xiuzhen (Precious) and Zijing (Quiet).
Appropriate names need be neither novel, nor erudite, nor dignified. What is important is that they create a clear image that resonates with a person’s identity. When I read the newspaper, I like looking through the classified ads, sports pages, and lists of recipients of scholarships and small business loans, because I will usually find some good names there. Chai Feng-ying (Firewood Phoenix Flower) and Mao Yi-jian (Frugal Thatch), for instance. Can’t you see the flesh-and-blood figures just waiting to emerge from behind the names? One need hardly mention Mao Yi-jian’s miserable penury. Chai Feng-ying not only sounds like the epitome of the proverbial “precious daughter of a humble home”; her name sounds like it has a story just wriggling to get out, a folksy tale of a beautiful girl rising above her station. I would love to write a story in the near future in which Chai Feng-ying is the heroine.
Some people say that a name is merely a cipher, without any intrinsic significance. But those who make this argument in print are themselves writing under the imprint of their own carefully crafted pen names. Of course, this is a natural impulse. Who among us does not desire to distinguish himself from the crowd? Even if we lived in an idealized future world in which every citizen was assigned a number like a prisoner and there were no names beyond the numbers themselves, each number would still inescapably take on its own distinct connotation. Three and seven are smartly handsome numbers, while two clearly comes off as rather staid. In Zhang Henshui’s Qinhuai shijia (The house of Qinhuai) the mischievous girl is called Xiaochun (Little Spring), while Erchun (Second Spring) is her modest and retiring sister. In Ye shen chen (Deep is the night), there is the virtuous Ding Erhe (Second Harmony Ding) and the cautiously conventional Second Miss Tian.3
Although a movement to promote the use of signs instead of names could never be pushed through to successful conclusion, it is not an entirely unreasonable notion given the excessive complexity of Chinese names. As soon as your feet hit the ground, you are given a pet name. In the past, pet names were chosen with great care, unlike the perfunctory sorts of endearments common today, such as Nannan (Girlie) and Baobao (Baby). For the vast majority of girls, the pet name is the only name they will ever get. Since they are never going to go to school anyway, there is little use giving them an impressive “school name,” and once they marry they will immediately lose whatever sense of identity they might once have had, becoming merely Miss Zhang née Li or the like. Everything about a woman should carry with it a touch of mystery, and for this reason, a woman’s pet name is never given out lightly. In the boudoir poetry of women writers, we can see that a newlywed groom who openly calls out the bride’s childhood name is seen as being rather remiss and his lapse deserving of a pouting reproach.
Little boys write out their school names in painstakingly neat characters on their first character primers. If a boy should grow up to be an official, this name then becomes an official title, the invocation of which will be restricted to superiors in the bureaucracy, parents, and teachers. He also has a more informal “style name” for use by friends and relatives belonging to the same generation as himself. There is also a third name that is kept in reserve but never used. These literary sobriquets are relatively free of restriction. Such a name can be changed in honor of the purchase of a particularly fine antique. It can be changed after moving house. It can be changed when he becomes wildly infatuated with an actress and wants to make the liaison public. If names are meant to suggest states of mind, why shouldn’t they shift at any time or any place in accordance with someone’s ever-changing moods?
