Ah, life was really tough for average folks during those days, especially poor peasants. If you tell this to the young people today they would never believe you. In my home village, for example, many peasants didn’t even have a decent change of clothes. In the summer they had only one pair of shorts which they could wear to go anywhere. If they had to travel far, they would plan carefully so that they would not be away from home for two consecutive days. On hot summer days folks would sweat so much that shorts had to be washed everyday, yet they had only one pair.
Young peasant Zhang Xiang, for instance, ran into an embarrassing situation on account of this fact of life during those days.
One day he came back rather late in the evening from attending a relative’s wedding. He had just taken a bath, changed, and started to cool off when someone from the Production Brigade came and told him to go in town and pick up a supply of chemical fertilizer. During those days, fertilizer was rationed and was very precious. If you didn’t go and claim them in time, it would mean giving them up automatically.
Gazing at the newly-washed shorts on the bamboo pole, Zhang Xiang was at a loss what to do. If they had told him earlier, he wouldn’t have washed this one and only pair of shorts of his. After agonizing over it for a while he decided to go to town no matter what. He would leave soon after midnight so he could travel naked under cover of darkness. As to the shorts, well, they would hang on his carrying pole and by the time he reached town, over ten li from the village, they should be all dry. Then, he would put them on.
Having thus made up his mind, Zhang Xiang went to bed. When he woke up, he stepped outside to check the weather. The sky was lit with stars and a crescent moon. From somewhere came a cool breeze, too. Delighted, Zhang put the shorts on the pole and got on his way. Naked.
All seemed quiet under the night sky. For a long while as Zhang Xiang hurried along, he didn’t encounter a soul. Faint stars shining on the mountainous path, a gentle cool breeze in the air, he hummed jovially and quickened his pace. Before long the crescent moon sank in the west, the stars vanished, and the eastern sky showed a fish-belly paleness. Sensing that he was close to town, Zhang Xiang stopped to put on the shorts. It was then that he discovered, to his horror, that the shorts were gone.
Devastated, Zhang Xiang dropped down and sat his naked butt on the ground. He had to think fast. Going into town like this would never do. Retracing his steps along his ten-li trek to look for the shorts wouldn’t do, either. Who knows where on earth he had lost them! He was ready to cry, but crying wouldn’t do any good. He had to find a way out of this fix fast. Just then, through the haze of early morning he saw a few houses near the road. An idea flashed across his mind. He knew that in the summer, peasants usually hung their washing outside to dry. So he sneaked off the road, grabbed the first pair of shorts he saw from a clothes line outside a house, ran flying back to the road, and put them on with quivering hands.
As day broke, more pedestrians appeared on the road. At the sight of Zhang Xiang they all turned and burst out laughing. The young man was puzzled: What is going on? Then he lowered his head and looked at himself. His face reddened as if on fire. The shorts he had stolen were a woman’s with floral patterns.
(2003)