The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature

(1911–1942)

Born to a wealthy landlord family in what she called “the easternmost and northernmost part of China,” Xiao Hong (real name Zhang Naiying) lost her mother at the age of nine, became alienated from her father, and fled from home while still a teenager. Attending middle school in Harbin, she cohabited with a local teacher, became pregnant, and then was abandoned by the man. The Japanese occupation of Manchuria forced her to flee to Qingdao, where at the age of twenty-three she wrote her first novel, The Field of Life and Death (1935). Her fiery and strained romance with Xiao Jun, a noted left-wing writer, remains the stuff of legend in Chinese literature. Living a bohemian life beset by male cruelty, unwanted pregnancies, and ill health, she died at the age of thirty in Hong Kong, where she had completed Tales of Hulan River, a semi-autobiographical novel of poetic nostalgia and acute sensibility about her birthplace, Hulan.

Tales of Hulan River (excerpt)

Hulan River

After the harsh winter has sealed up the land, the earth’s crust begins to crack and split. From south to north, from east to west; from a few feet to several yards in length; anywhere, anytime, the cracks run in every direction. As soon as harsh winter is upon the land, the earth’s crust opens up.

The severe winter weather splits the frozen earth.

Old men use whisk brooms to brush the ice off their beards the moment they enter their homes. “Oh, it’s cold out today!” they say. “The frozen ground has split open.”

A carter twirls his long whip as he drives his cart sixty or seventy li under the stars, then at the crack of dawn he strides into an inn, and the first thing he says to the innkeeper is: “What terrible weather. The cold is like a dagger.”

After he has gone into his room at the inn, removed his dogskin cap with earflaps, and smoked a pipeful of tobacco, he reaches out for a steamed bun; the back of his hand is a mass of cracked, chapped skin.

The skin on people’s hands is split open by the freezing cold. The man who sells cakes of bean curd is up at dawn to go out among the people’s homes and sell his product. If he carelessly sets down his square wooden tray full of bean curd it sticks to the ground, and he is unable to free it. It will have quickly frozen to the spot.

The old steamed-bun peddler lifts his wooden box filled with the steaming buns up onto his back, and at the first light of day he is out hawking on the street. After emerging from his house he walks along at a brisk pace shouting at the top of his voice. But before too long, layers of ice have formed on the bottoms of his shoes, and he walks as though he were treading on rolling and shifting eggs. The snow and ice have encrusted the soles of his shoes. He walks with an unsure step, and if he is not altogether careful he will slip and fall. In fact, he slips and falls despite all his caution. Falling down is the worst thing that can happen to him, for his wooden box crashes to the ground, and the buns come rolling out of the box, one on top of the other. A witness to the incident takes advantage of the old man’s inability to pick himself up and scoops up several of the buns, which he eats as he leaves the scene. By the time the old man has struggled to his feet, gathered up his steamed buns—ice, snow, and all—and put them back in the box, he counts them and discovers that some are missing. He understands at once and shouts to the man who is eating the buns but has still not left the scene: “Hey, the weather’s icy cold, the frozen ground’s all cracked, and my buns are all gone!”

Passersby laugh when they hear him say this. He then lifts the box up onto his back and walks off again, but the layers of ice on the soles of his shoes seem to have grown even thicker, and he finds the going more difficult than before. Drops of sweat begin to form on his back, his eyes become clouded with the frost, ice gathers in even greater quantity on his beard, and the earflaps and front of his tattered cap are frosting up with the vapor from his breath. The old man walks more and more slowly, his worries and fears causing him to tremble in alarm; he resembles someone on ice skates for the first time who has just been pushed out onto the rink by a friend.

A puppy is so freezing cold it yelps and cries night after night, whimpering as though its claws were being singed by flames.

The days grow even colder:

Water vats freeze and crack;

Wells are frozen solid;

Night snowstorms seal the people’s homes; they lie down at night to sleep, and when they get up in the morning they find they cannot open their doors.

Once the harsh winter season comes to the land everything undergoes a change: the skies turn ashen gray, as though a strong wind has blown through, leaving in its aftermath a turbid climate accompanied by a constant flurry of snowflakes whirling in the air. People on the road walk at a brisk pace as their breath turns to vapor in the wintry cold. Big carts pulled by teams of seven horses form a caravan in the open country, one following closely upon the other, lanterns flying, whips circling in the air under the starry night. After running two li the horses begin to sweat. They run a bit farther, and in the midst of all that snow and ice the men and horses are hot and lathered. The horses stop sweating only after the sun emerges and they are finally turned into their stalls. But the moment they stop sweating a layer of frost forms on their coats.

After the men and horses have eaten their fill they are off and running again. Here in the frigid zones there are few people; unlike the southern regions, where you need not travel far from one village to another, and where each township is near the next, here there is nothing but a blanket of snow as far as the eye can see. There is no neighboring village within the range of sight, and only by relying on the memories of those familiar with the roads can one know the direction to travel. The big carts with their seven-horse teams transport their loads of foodstuffs to one of the neighboring towns. Some have brought in soybeans to sell, others have brought sorghum. Then when they set out on their return trip they carry back with them oil, salt, and dry goods.

Hulan River is one of these small towns, not a very prosperous place at all. It has only two major streets, one running north and south and one running east and west, but the best-known place in town is the Crossroads, for it is the heart of the whole town. At the Crossroads there is a jewelry store, a yardage shop, an oil store, a salt store, a tea shop, a pharmacy, and the office of a foreign dentist. Above this dentist’s door there hangs a large shingle about the size of a rice-measuring basket, on which is painted a row of oversized teeth. The advertisement is hopelessly out of place in this small town, and the people who look at it cannot figure out just what it’s supposed to represent. That is because neither the oil store, the yardage shop, nor the salt store displays any kind of advertisement; above the door of the salt store, for example, only the word “salt” is written, and hanging above the door of the yardage shop are two curtains which are as old as the hills. The remainder of the signs are like the one at the pharmacy, which gives nothing more than the name of the bespectacled physician whose job it is to feel women’s pulses as they drape their arms across a small pillow. To illustrate: the physician’s name is Li Yung-ch’un, and the name of his pharmacy is simply “Li Yung-ch’un.” People rely on their memories, and even if Li Yung-ch’un were to take down his sign, the people would still know that he was there. Not only the townsfolk, but even the people from the countryside are more or less familiar with the streets of the town and what can be found there. No advertisement, no publicity is necessary. If people are in need of something, like cooking oil, some salt, or a piece of fabric, then they go inside and buy it. If they don’t need anything, then no matter how large a sign is hung outside, they won’t buy anything.

That dentist is a good case in point. When the people from the countryside spot those oversized teeth they stare at them in bewilderment, and there are often many people standing in front of the large sign looking up at it, unable to fathom its reason for being there. Even if one of them were standing there with a toothache, under no circumstances would he let that dentist, with her foreign methods, pull his tooth for him. Instead he would go over to the Li Yung-ch’un Pharmacy, buy two ounces of bitter herbs, take them home, and hold them in his mouth, and let that be the end of that! The teeth on that advertisement are simply too big; they are hard to figure out, and just a little bit frightening.

As a consequence, although that dentist hung her shingle out for two or three years, precious few people ever went to her to have their teeth pulled. Eventually, most likely owing to her inability to make a living, the woman dentist had no recourse but to engage in midwifery on the side.

IN ADDITION TO the Crossroads, there are two other streets, one called Road Two East and the other called Road Two West. Both streets run from north to south, probably for five or six li. There is nothing much on these two streets worth noting—a few temples, several stands where flatcakes are sold, and a number of grain storehouses.

On Road Two East there is a fire mill standing in a spacious courtyard, a large chimney made of fine red brick rising high above it. I have heard that no one is allowed to enter the fire mill, for there are a great many knobs and gadgets inside which must not be touched. If someone did touch them, he might burn himself to death. Otherwise, why would it be called a fire mill? Because of the flames inside, the mill is reportedly run neither by horses nor donkeys—it is run by fire. Most folk wonder why the mill itself doesn’t go up in flames since only fire is used. They ponder this over and over, but are unable to come up with an answer, and the more they ponder it, the more confused they become, especially since they are not allowed to go inside and check things out for themselves. I’ve heard they even have a watchman at the door.

There are also two schools on Road Two East, one each at the southern and northern ends. They are both located in temples—one in the Dragon King Temple and one in the Temple of the Patriarch—and both are elementary schools.

The school located in the Dragon King Temple is for the study of raising silkworms, and is called the Agricultural School, while the one in the Temple of the Patriarch is just a regular elementary school with one advanced section added, and is called the Higher Elementary School.

Although the names used for these two schools vary, in fact the only real difference between them is that in the one they call the Agricultural School the silkworm pupae are fried in oil in the autumn, and the teachers there enjoy several sumptuous meals.

There are no silkworms to be eaten in the Higher Elementary School, where the students are definitely taller than those in the Agricultural School. The students in the Agricultural School begin their schoolwork by learning the characters for “man,” “hand,” “foot,” “knife,” and “yardstick,” and the oldest among them cannot be more than sixteen or seventeen years of age. But not so in the Higher Elementary School; there is a student there already twenty-four years old who is learning to play the foreign bugle and who has already taught in private schools out in the countryside for four or five years, but is only now himself attending the Higher Elementary School. Even the man who has been manager of a grain store for two years is a student at the school.

When this elementary school student writes a letter to his family he asks questions like: “Has Little Baldy’s eye infection gotten better?” Little Baldy is the nickname of his eldest son, who is eight. He doesn’t mention his second son or his daughters, because if he were to include all of them the letter would be much too long. Since he is already the father of a whole brood of children—the head of a family—whenever he sends a letter home he is mainly concerned with household matters: “Has the tenant Wang sent over his rent yet?” “Have the soybeans been sold?” “What is the present market situation?” and the like.

Students like him occupy a favored position in the class; the teacher must treat them with due respect, for if he drops his guard, this kind of student will often stand up, classical dictionary in hand, and stump the teacher with one of his questions. He will smugly point out that the teacher has used the wrong character in a phrase he has written on the board.

AS FOR ROAD TWO WEST, not only is it without a fire mill, it has but one school, a Muslim school situated in the Temple of the City God. With this exception, it is precisely like Road Two East, dusty and barren. When carts and horses pass over these roads they raise up clouds of dust, and whenever it rains the roads are covered with a layer of mud. There is an added feature on Road Two East: a five- or six-foot-deep quagmire. During dry periods the consistency of the mud inside is about that of gruel, but once it starts to rain the quagmire turns into a river. The people who live nearby suffer because of it: When they are splashed with its water, they come away covered with mud; and when the waters subside as the sun reappears in the clearing sky, hordes of mosquitoes emerge and fly around their homes. The longer the sun shines, the more homogenized the quagmire becomes, as though something were being refined in it; it’s just as though someone were trying to refine something inside it. If more than a month goes by without any rain, that big quagmire becomes even more homogenized in makeup. All the water having evaporated, the mud has turned black and has become stickier than the gummy residue on a gruel pot, stickier even than paste. It takes on the appearance of a big melting vat, gummy black with an oily glisten to it, and even flies and mosquitoes that swarm around stick to it as they land.

Swallows love water, and sometimes they imprudently fly down to the quagmire to skim their wings over the water. It is a dangerous maneuver, as they nearly fall victim to the quagmire, coming perilously close to being mired down in it. Quickly they fly away without a backward glance.

In the case of horses, however, the outcome is different: they invariably bog down in it, and even worse, they tumble down into the middle of the quagmire, where they roll about, struggling to free themselves. After a period of floundering they lie down, their energy exhausted, and the moment they do so they are in real danger of losing their lives. But this does not happen often, for few people are willing to run the risk of leading their horses or pulling their carts near this dangerous spot.

Most of the accidents occur during drought years or after two or three months without any rainfall, when the big quagmire is at its most dangerous. On the surface it would seem that the more rain there is, the worse the situation, for with the rain a veritable river of water is formed, nearly ten feet in depth. One would think this would make it especially perilous, since anyone who fell in would surely drown. But such is not the case. The people of this small town of Hulan River aren’t so stupid that they don’t know how brutal this pit can be, and no one would be so foolhardy as to try leading a horse past the quagmire at such times.

But if it hasn’t rained for three months the quagmire begins to dry up, until it is no more than two or three feet deep, and there will always be those hardy souls who will attempt to brave the dangers of driving a cart around it, or those with somewhat less courage who will watch others make their way past, then follow across themselves. One here, two there, and soon there are deep ruts along both sides of the quagmire formed by the passage of several carts. A late arrival spots the signs of previous passings, and this erstwhile coward, feeling more courageous than his intrepid predecessors, drives his cart straight ahead. How could he have known that the ground below him is uneven? Others had safely passed by, but his cart flips over.

The carter climbs out of the quagmire, looking like a mud-spattered apparition, then begins digging to free his horse from the mud, quickly making the sad discovery that it is mired down in the middle of the quagmire. There are people out on the road during all of this, and they come over to lend a helping hand.

These passersby can be divided into two types. Some are attired in traditional long gowns and short overjackets and are spotlessly clean. Apparently none of them will move a finger to assist in this drama because their hands are much too clean. Needless to say, they are members of the gentry class. They stand off to the side and observe the goings-on. When they see the horse trying to stand up they applaud and shout, “Oh! Oh!” several times. But then they see that the horse is unable to stand and falls back down, again they clap their hands and again they shout several times, “Oh! Oh!” But this time they are registering their displeasure. The excitement surrounding the horse’s attempts to stand and its inability to do so continues for some time, but in the end it cannot get to its feet and just lies there pitifully. By this time those who have only been watching the feverish activity conclude that this is about all that will happen, that nothing new will materialize, and they begin to disperse, each heading off to his home.

But let us return to the plight of the horse lying there. The passersby who are trying to free it are all common folk, some of the town’s onion peddlers, food sellers, till masons, carters, and other workers. They roll up their trouser cuffs, remove their shoes, and seeing no alternative, walk down into the quagmire with the hope that by pooling their strength they will be able to hoist the horse out. But they fail in their attempts, and by this time the horse’s breathing has become very faint. Growing frantic, they hasten to free the horse from its harness, releasing it from the cart on the assumption that the horse will be able to get up more easily once it is freed from that burden. But contrary to their expectations, the horse still cannot stand up. Its head is sticking up out of the mire, ears twitching, eyes shut, snorts of air coming from its nostrils.

Seeing this sad state of affairs, people from the neighborhood run over with ropes and levers. They use the ropes to secure the horse and the levers to pry it free. They bark out orders as though they were building a house or constructing a bridge, and finally they manage to lift the animal out. The horse is still alive, lying at the side of the road. While some individuals are pouring water over it and washing the mud off its face, there is a constant flow of people coming and going at the scene of the spectacle.

On the following day everyone is saying: “Another horse has drowned in the big quagmire!” As the story makes its rounds, although the horse is actually still alive, it is said to have died, for if the people didn’t say so, the awe in which they held that big quagmire would suffer.

It’s hard to say just how many carts flip over because of that big quagmire. Throughout the year, with the exception of the winter season when it is sealed up by the freezing weather, this big quagmire looks as though it has acquired a life of its own—it is alive. Its waters rise, then subside; now it has grown larger, in a few days it recedes again. An intimate bond between it and the people begins to form.

When the water is high, not only are horses and carts impeded, it is an obstacle even to pedestrians. Old men pass along its edge on trembling legs, children are scared out of their wits as they skirt around it.

Once the rain begins to fall, the water quickly fills the now-glistening quagmire, then overflows and covers the bases of neighboring walls. For people out on the street who approach this place, it is like being dealt a setback on the road of life. They are in for a struggle: sleeves are rolled up, teeth are ground tightly, all their energy is called forth; hands clutch at a wooden wall, hearts pound rapidly; keep your head clear, your eyes in focus . . . the battle is joined.

Why is it that this, of all walls, has to be so smooth and neatly built, as though its owners have every intention of not coming to anyone’s aid in this moment of distress? Regardless of how skillfully these pedestrians reach out, the wall offers them no succor; clawing here and groping there, they grab nothing but handfuls of air. Where in the world is there a mountain on which wood like this grows, so perfectly smooth and devoid of blemishes or knots?

After five or six minutes of struggling, the quagmire has been crossed. Needless to say, the person is by then covered with sweat and hot all over. Then comes the next individual, who must prepare himself for a dose of the same medicine. There are few choices available to him—about all he can do is grab hold here and clutch there, till after five or six minutes he too has crossed over. Then, once he is on the other side he feels revitalized, bursts out laughing, and looks back to the next person to cross, saying to him in the midst of his difficult struggle: “What’s the big deal? You can’t call yourself a hero unless you’ve faced a few dangers in your life!”

But that isn’t how it always goes—not all are revitalized; in fact, most people are so frightened that their faces are drained of color. There are some whose trembling legs are so rubbery after they have crossed the quagmire that they cannot walk for some time. For timid souls like this, even the successful negotiating of this dangerous stretch of road cannot dispel the mood of distress that has involuntarily settled upon them; their fluttering hearts seemingly put into motion by this big quagmire, they invariably cast a look behind them and size it up for a moment, looking as though they have something they want to say. But in the end they say nothing, and simply walk off.

ONE VERY RAINY DAY a young child fell into the quagmire and was rescued by a bean-curd peddler. Once they got him out they discovered he was the son of the principal of the Agricultural School. A lively discussion ensued. Someone said that it happened because the Agricultural School was located in the Dragon King Temple, which angered the venerable Dragon King. He claimed it was the Dragon King who caused the heavy downpour in order to drown the child.

Someone disagreed with him completely, saying that the cause of the incident rested with the father, for during his highly animated lectures in the classroom he had once said that the venerable Dragon King was not responsible for any rainfall, and for that matter, did not even exist. “Knowing how furious this would make the venerable Dragon King, you can imagine how he would find some way to vent his anger! So he grabbed hold of the son as a means of gaining retribution.”

Someone else said that the students at the school were so incorrigible that one had even climbed up onto the old Dragon King’s head and capped him with a straw hat. “What are the times coming to when a child who isn’t even dry behind the ears would dare to invite such tremendous calamities down upon himself? How could the old Dragon King not seek retribution? Mark my word, it’s not finished yet; don’t you get the idea that the venerable Dragon King is some kind of moron! Do you think he’d just let you off once you’ve provoked his anger? It’s not like dealing with a rickshaw boy or a vegetable peddler whom you can kick at will, then let him be on his way. This is the venerable Dragon King we’re talking about! Do you think that the venerable Dragon King is someone who can easily be pushed around?”

Then there was someone who said that the students at that school were truly undisciplined, and that with his own eyes he had once seen some of them in the main hall putting silkworms into the old Dragon King’s hands. “Now, just how do you think the old Dragon King could stand for something like that?”

Another person said that the schools were no good at all, and that anyone with children should on no account allow them to go to school, since they immediately lose respect for everyone and everything.

Someone remarked that he was going to the school to get his son and take him home—there would be no more school for him.

Someone else commented that the more the children study, the worse they become. “Take, for example, when their souls are frightened out of their bodies; the minute their mothers call for the souls to return, what do you think they say? They announce that this is nothing but superstition! Now, what in the world do you think they’ll be saying if they continue going to school?”

And so they talked, drifting further and further away from the original topic.

Before many days had passed, the big quagmire receded once again and pedestrians were soon passing along either side unimpeded. More days passed without any new rainfall, and the quagmire began to dry up, at which time carts and horses recommenced their crossings; then more overturned carts, more horses falling into it and thrashing around; again the ropes and levers appeared, again they were used to lift and drag the horses out. As the righted carts drove off, more followed: into the quagmire, and the lifting began anew.

HOW MANY CARTS and horses are extricated from this quagmire every year may never be known. But, you ask, does no one ever think of solving the problem by filling it in with dirt? No, not a single one.

AN ELDERLY MEMBER of the gentry once fell into the quagmire at high water. As soon as he crawled out he said: “This street is too narrow. When you have to pass by this water hazard there isn’t even room to walk. Why don’t the two families whose gardens are on either side take down their walls and open up some paths?”

As he was saying this, an old woman sitting in her garden on the other side of the wall chimed in with the comment that the walls could not be taken down, and that the best course of action would be to plant some trees; if a row of trees were planted alongside the wall, then when it rained the people could cross over by holding onto the trees.

SOME ADVISE TAKING down walls and some advise planting trees, but as for filling up the quagmire with dirt, there isn’t a single person who advocates that.

Many pigs meet their end by drowning in this quagmire; dogs are suffocated in the mud, cats too; chickens and ducks often lose their lives there as well. This is because the quagmire is covered with a layer of husks; the animals are unaware that there is a trap lying below, and once they realize that fact it is already too late. Whether they come on foot or by air, the instant they alight on the husk-covered mire they cannot free themselves. If it happens in the daytime there is still a chance that someone passing by might save them, but once night falls they are doomed. They struggle all alone until they exhaust their strength, then begin to sink gradually into the mire. If, on the contrary, they continue to struggle, they might sink even faster. Some even die there without sinking below the surface, but that’s the sort of thing that happens when the mud is gummier than usual.

What might happen then is that some cheap pork will suddenly appear in the marketplace, and everyone’s thoughts turn to the quagmire. “Has another pig drowned in that quagmire?” they ask.

Once the word is out, those who are fast on their feet lose no time in running to their neighbors with the news: “Hurry over and get some cheap pork. Hurry, hurry, before it’s all gone.”

After it is bought and brought home, a closer look reveals that there seems to be something wrong with it. Why is the meat all dark and discolored? Maybe this pork is infected. But on second thought, how could it really be infected? No, it must have been a pig that drowned in the quagmire. So then family after family sautés, fries, steams, boils, and then eats this cheap pork. But though they eat it, they feel always that it doesn’t have a fragrant enough aroma, and they fear that it might have been infected after all. But then they think: “Infected pork would be unpalatable, so this must be from a pig that drowned in the quagmire!”

Actually, only one or two pigs drown each year in the quagmire, perhaps three, and some years not a single one. How the residents manage to eat the meat of a drowned pig so often is hard to imagine, and I’m afraid only the Dragon King knows the answer.

Though the people who eat the meat say it is from a pig drowned in the quagmire, there are still those who get sick from it, and those unfortunates are ready with their opinions: “Even if the pork was from a drowned pig, it still shouldn’t have been sold in the marketplace; meat from animals that have died isn’t fresh, and the revenue office isn’t doing its job if it allows meat like this to be sold on the street in broad daylight!”

Those who do not become ill are of a different opinion: “That’s what you say, but you’re letting your suspicions get the best of you. If you’d just eat it and not give it another thought, everything would be all right. Look at the rest of us; we ate it too, so how come we’re not sick?”

Now and then a child lacking in common sense will tell people that his mother wouldn’t allow him to eat the pork since it was infected. No one likes this kind of child. Everyone gives him hard looks and accuses him of speaking nonsense.

For example, a child says that the pork is definitely infected—this he tells a neighbor right in front of his mother. There is little reaction from the neighbor who hears him say this, but the mother’s face immediately turns beet-red. She reaches out and smacks him.

But he is a stubborn child, and he keeps saying: “The pork is infected! The pork is infected!”

His mother, feeling terribly embarrassed, picks up a poker that is lying by the door and strikes him on the shoulder, sending him crying into the house. As he enters the room he sees his maternal grandmother sitting on the edge of the k’ang, so he runs into her arms. “Grannie,” he sobs, “wasn’t that pork you ate infected? Mama just hit me.”

Now, this maternal grandmother wants to comfort the poor abused child, but just then she looks up to see the wet nurse of the Li family who shares the compound standing in the doorway looking at her. So she lifts up the back of the child’s shirttail and begins spanking him loudly on the behind. “Whoever saw a child as small as you speaking such utter nonsense!” she exclaims. She continues spanking him until the wet nurse walks away with the Lis’ child in her arms. The spanked child is by then screaming and crying uncontrollably, so hard that no one can make heads or tails of his shouts of “infected pork this” and “infected pork that.”

IN ALL, THIS QUAGMIRE brings two benefits to the residents of the area: The first is that the overturned carts and horses and the drowned chickens and ducks always produce a lot of excitement, which keeps the inhabitants buzzing for some time and gives them something to while away the hours.

The second is in relation to the matter of pork. Were there no quagmire, how could they have their infected pork? Naturally, they might still eat it, but how are they to explain it away? If they simply admit they are eating infected pork, it would be too unsanitary for words, but with the presence of the quagmire their problem is solved: infected pork becomes the meat of drowned pigs, which means that when they buy the meat, not only is it economical, but there are no sanitation problems either.

Besides the special attraction of the big quagmire, there is little else to be seen on Road Two East: one or two grain mills, a few bean-curd shops, a weaving mill or two, and perhaps one or two dyeing establishments. These are all operated by people who quietly do their own work there, bringing no enjoyment to the local inhabitants, and are thus unworthy of any discussion. When the sun sets these people go to bed, and when the sun rises they get up and begin their work. Throughout the year—warm spring with its blooming flowers, autumn with its rains, and winter with its snows—they simply follow the seasonal changes as they go from padded coats to unlined jackets. The cycle of birth, old age, sickness, and death governs their lives as they silently manage their affairs.

Take, for example, Widow Wang, who sells bean sprouts at the southern end of Road Two East. She erected a long pole above her house on top of which she hangs a battered old basket. The pole is so tall it is nearly on a level with the iron bell at the top of the Dragon King Temple. On windy days the clang-clang of the bell above the temple can be heard, and although Widow Wang’s battered basket does not ring, it nonetheless makes its presence known by waving back and forth in the wind.

Year in and year out that is how it goes, and year in and year out Widow Wang sells her bean sprouts, passing her days tranquilly and uneventfully at an unhurried pace.

But one summer day her only son went down to the river to bathe, and he fell in and drowned. This incident caused a sensation and was the talk of the town for a while, but before many days had passed the talk died away. Not only Widow Wang’s neighbors and others who lived nearby, but even her friends and relatives soon forgot all about it.

As for Widow Wang herself, even though this caused her to lose her mind, she still retained her ability to sell bean sprouts, and she continued as before to live an uneventful and quiet life. Occasionally someone would steal her bean sprouts, at which time she would be overcome by a fit of wailing on the street or on the steps of the temple, though it would soon pass, and she would return to her uneventful existence.

Whenever neighbors or other passersby witnessed the scene of her crying on the temple steps, their hearts would be momentarily touched by a slight feeling of compassion, but only for a brief moment.

THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE who are given to lumping together misfits of all kinds, such as the insane and the slow-witted, and treating them identically.

There are unfortunates in every district, in every county, and in every village: the tumorous, the blind, the insane, the slow-witted. There are many such people in our little town of Hulan River, but the local inhabitants have apparently heard and seen so much of them that their presence does not seem the least bit unusual. If, unhappily, they encounter one of them on the temple steps or inside a gateway alcove, they feel a momentary pang of compassion for that particular individual, but it is quickly supplanted by the rationalization that mankind has untold numbers of such people. They then turn their glances away and walk rapidly past the person. Once in a while someone stops there, but he is just one of those who, like children with short memories, would throw stones at the insane or willfully lead the blind into the water-filled ditch nearby.

The unfortunates are beggars, one and all. At least that’s the way it is in the town of Hulan River. The people there treat the beggars in a most ordinary fashion. A pack of dogs are barking at something outside the door; the master of the house shouts out: “What are those animals barking at?”

“They’re barking at a beggar,” the servant answers.

Once said, the affair is ended. It is obvious that the life of a beggar is not worth a second thought.

The madwoman who sells bean sprouts cannot forget her grief even in her madness, and every few days she goes to wail at the steps of the temple; but once her crying has ended, she invariably returns home to eat, to sleep, and to sell her bean sprouts. As ever, she returns to her quiet existence.

A calamity also struck the dyer’s shop: Two young apprentices were fighting over a woman on the street, when one of them pushed the other into the dyeing vat and drowned him. We need not concern ourselves here with the one who died, but as for the survivor, he was sent to jail with a life sentence.

Yet this affair too was disposed of silently and without a ripple. Two or three years later, whenever people mentioned the incident they discussed it as they would the famous confrontation between the heroic general Yueh Fei and the evil prime minister Ch’in K’uai, as something that had occurred in the long-distant past.

Meanwhile the dyer’s shop remains at its original location, and even the big vat in which the young man drowned is quite possibly still in use to this day. The bolts of cloth that come from that dye shop still turn up in villages and towns far and near. The blue cloth is used to make padded cotton pants and jackets, which the men wear in the winter to ward off the severe cold, while the red cloth is used to make bright red gowns for the eighteen- and nineteen-year-old girls for their wedding days.

In short, though someone had drowned in the dyer’s shop on such and such a day during such and such a month and year, the rest of the world goes on just as before without the slightest change.

Then there was the calamity that struck the bean-curd shop: During a fight between two of the employees the donkey that turned the mill suffered a broken leg. Since it was only a donkey, there wasn’t much to be said on that score, but a woman lost her sight as a result of crying over the donkey (it turned out to be the mother of the one who had struck the donkey), so the episode could not simply be overlooked.

Then there was the paper mill in which a bastard child was starved to death. But since it was a newborn baby, the incident didn’t amount to much, and nothing more need be said about it.

Then too on Road Two East there are a few ornament shops, which are there to serve the dead.

After a person dies his soul goes down to the netherworld, and the living, fearing that in that other world the dear departed will have no domicile to live in, no clothes to wear, and no horse to ride, have these things made of paper, then burn them for his benefit; the townspeop1e believe that all manner of things exist in the netherworld.

On display are grand objects like money-spewing animals, treasure-gathering basins, and great gold and silver mountains; smaller things like slave girls, maidservants, cooks in the kitchen, and attendants who care for the pigs; and even smaller things like flower vases, tea services, chickens, ducks, geese, and dogs. There are even parrots on the window ledges.

These things are enormously pleasing to the eye. There is a courtyard surrounded by a garden wall, the top of which is covered with gold-colored glazed tiles. Just inside the courtyard is the principal house with five main rooms and three side rooms, all topped with green- and red-brick tiles; the windows are bright, the furniture spotless, and the air fresh and clean as can be. Flower pots are arranged one after another on the flower racks; there are cassias, pure-white lilies, purslanes, September chrysanthemums, and all are in bloom. No one can tell what season it is—is it summer or is it autumn?—since inexplicably the flowers of the purslanes and the chrysanthemums are standing side by side; perhaps there is no division into spring, summer, autumn, and winter in the netherworld. But this need not concern us.

Then there is the cook in his kitchen, vivid and lifelike; he is a thousand times cleaner than a true-to-life cook. He has a white cap on his head and a white apron girding his body as he stands there preparing noodles. No sooner has lunchtime arrived than the noodles have been cooked, and lunch is about to be served.

In the courtyard a groom stands beside a big white horse, which is so large and so tall that it looks to be an Arabian; it stands erect and majestic, and if there were to be a rider seated upon it, there is every reason to believe it could outrun a train. I’m sure that not even the general here in the town of Hulan River has ever ridden such a steed.

Off to one side there is a carriage and a big mule. The mule is black and shiny, and its eyes, which have been made out of eggshells, remain stationary. There is a particularly fetching little mule with eyeballs as large as the big mule’s standing alongside it.

The carriage, with its silver-colored wheels, is decorated in especially beautiful colors. The curtain across the front is rolled halfway up so that people can see the interior of the carriage, which is all red and sports a bright red cushion. The driver perched on the running board, his face beaming with proud smiles, is dressed in magnificent attire, with a purple sash girding his waist over a blue embroidered fancy gown, and black satin shoes with snow-white soles on his feet. (After putting on these shoes he probably drove the carriage over without taking a single step on the ground.) The cap he is wearing is red with a black brim. His head is raised as though he were disdainful of everything, and the more the people look at him, the less he resembles a carriage driver—he looks more like a bridegroom.

Two or three roosters and seven or eight hens are in the courtyard peacefully eating grain without making a sound, and even the ducks are not making those quacking noises that so annoy people. A dog is crouching next to the door of the master’s quarters, maintaining a motionless vigil.

All of the bystanders looking on comment favorably, every one of them voicing his praise. The poor look at it and experience a feeling that it must be better to be dead than alive.

The main room is furnished with window curtains, four-poster bed frames, tables, chairs, and benches. Everything is complete to the last detail.

There is also a steward of the house who is figuring accounts on his abacus; beside him is an open ledger in which is written:

“Twenty-two catties of wine owed by the northern distillery.

“Wang Family of East Village yesterday borrowed 2,000 catties of rice.

“Ni Jen-tzu of White Flag Hamlet yesterday sent land rent of 4,300 coppers.”

Below these lines is written the date: “April twenty-eighth.”

This page constitutes the running accounts for the twenty-seventh of April; the accounts for the twenty-eighth have evidently not yet been entered. A look at this ledger shows that there is no haphazard accounting of debts in the netherworld, and that there is a special type of individual whose job it is to manage these accounts. It also goes without saying that the master of this grand house is a landlord.

Everything in the compound is complete to the last detail and is very fine. The only thing missing is the master of the compound, a discovery which seems puzzling: could there be no master of such a fine compound? This is certainly bewildering.

When they have looked more closely the people sense that there is something unusual about the compound: How is it that the slave girls and maidservants, the carriage drivers and the groom, all have a piece of white paper across their chests on which their names are written? The name of the carriage driver whose good looks give him the appearance of a bridegroom is:

“Long Whip.”

The groom’s name is: “Fleet of Foot.”

The name of the slave girl who is holding a water pipe in her left hand and an embroidered napkin in her right is:

“Virtuous Obedience.”

The other’s name is: “Fortuitous Peace.”

The man who is figuring accounts is named: “Wizard of Reckoning.”

The name of the maid who is spraying the flowers with water is: “Flower Sister.”

A closer look reveals that even the big white horse has a name; the name tag on his rump shows that he is called:

“Thousand-Li Steed.”

As for the others—the mules, the dogs, the chickens, and the ducks—they are nameless.

The cook who is making noodles in the kitchen is called “Old Wang,” and the strip of paper on which his name is written flaps to and fro with each gust of wind.

This is all rather strange: the master of the compound doesn’t even recognize his own servants and has to hang name tags around their necks! This point cannot but confuse and bewilder people; maybe this world of ours is better than the netherworld after all!

But though that is the opinion of some, there are still many others who are envious of this grand house, which is so indisputably fine, elegant, peaceful and quiet (complete silence reigns), neat and tidy, with no trace of disorder. The slave girls and maidservants are fashioned exactly like those in this world; the chickens, dogs, pigs, and horses too are just like those in this world. Everything in this world can also be found in the netherworld: people eat noodles in this world, and in the netherworld they eat them too; people have carriages to ride in this world, and in the netherworld they also ride them; the netherworld is just like this world—the two are exactly alike.

That is, of course, except for the big quagmire on Road Two East. Everything desirable is there; undesirable things are simply not necessary.

These are the objects that the ornament shops on Road Two East produce. The displayed handiwork is both dignified-looking and eye-catching, but the inside of the shop is a mass of confusion. Shredded paper is everywhere; there are rods and sticks all in a heap; crushed boxes and a welter of cans, paint jars, paste dishes, thin string, and heavy cord abound. A person could easily trip just walking through the shop, with its constant activity of chopping and tying as flies dart back and forth in the air.

When making paper human figures, the first to be fashioned is the head; once it has been pasted together it is hung on a wall along with other heads—men’s and women’s—until it is taken down to be used. All that is needed then is to put it atop a torso made of rods and sticks on which some clothes have been added, and you have the figure of a human being. By cutting out white paper hair and pasting it all over a sticklike papier-mâché horse, you have a handsome steed.

The people who make their living this way are all extremely coarse and ugly men. They may know how to fashion a groom or a carriage driver, and how to make up women and young girls, but they pay not the slightest attention to their own appearance. Long scraggly hair, short bristly hair, twisted mouths, crooked eyes, bare feet and legs; it is hard to believe that such splendid and dazzlingly beautiful lifelike human figures could have been created by those hands.

Their daily fare is coarse vegetables and coarse rice, they are dressed in tattered clothes, and they make their beds among piles of carriages, horses, human figures, and heads. Their lives seemingly are bitter ones, though they actually just muddle their way through, day by day, the year round, exchanging their unlined jackets for padded coats with each seasonal change.

Birth, old age, sickness, death—each is met with a stoic absence of expression. They are born and grow in accordance with nature’s dictates. If they are meant not to grow old, then so be it.

OLD AGE—GETTING OLD has no effect on them at all: when their eyesight fails they stop looking at things, when their hearing fades they stop listening, when their teeth fall out they swallow things whole, and when they can no longer move about they lie flat on their backs. What else can they do? Anyone who grows old deserves exactly what he gets!

Sickness—among people whose diet consists of a random assortment of grains, who is there who does not fall prey to illness?

Death—this, on the other hand, is a sad and mournful affair. When a father dies, his sons weep; when a son dies, his mother weeps; when a brother dies, the whole family weeps; and when a son’s wife dies, her family comes to weep.

After crying for one, or perhaps even three days, they must then go to the outskirts of town, dig a hole, and bury the person. After the burial the surviving family members still have to make their way back home and carry on their daily routine. When it’s time to eat, they eat; when it’s time to sleep, they sleep. Outsiders are unable to tell that this family is now bereft of a father or has just lost an elder brother. The members of that particular family even fail to lock themselves in their home each day and wail. The only expression of the grief they feel in their hearts is joining the stream of people who go to visit the graves on the various festivals each year as prescribed by local custom. During the Qingming Festival—the time for visiting ancestral graves—each family prepares incense and candles and sets out for the family grave site. At the heads of some of the graves the earth has settled and formed a small pit, while others have several small holes in them. The people cast glances at one another, are moved to sighing, then light the incense and pour the wine. If the survivor is a close relative, such as a son, a daughter, or a parent, then they will let forth a fit of wailing, the broken rhythm of which makes it sound as though they were reading a written composition or chanting a long poem. When their incantation is finished they rise to their feet, brush the dirt from their behinds, and join the procession of returning people as they leave the grave sites and reenter the town.

When they return to their homes in the town they must carry on life as before; all year round there is firewood, rice, oil, and salt to worry about, and there is clothing to starch and mend. From morning till evening they are busy without respite. Nighttime finds them exhausted, and they are asleep as soon as they lie down on the k’ang. They dream neither of mournful nor of happy events as they sleep, but merely grind their teeth and snore, passing the night like every other night.

If someone were to ask them what man lives for, they would not be confounded by the question, but would state unhesitatingly, directly, and unequivocally: “Man lives to eat food and wear clothes.” If they were then asked about death, they would say: “When a man dies that’s the end of it.”

Consequently, no one has ever seen one of those ornament craftsmen fashion an underworld home for himself during his lifetime; more than likely he doesn’t much believe in the netherworld. And even if there were such a place, he would probably open an ornament shop when he got there; worse luck, he’d doubtless have to rent a place to open the shop.

In the town of Hulan River, besides Road Two East, Road Two West, and the Crossroads, there remain only a number of small lanes. There is even less worth noting on these small byways; one finds precious few of the little stalls where flatcakes and dough twists are made and sold, and even the tiny stands that sell red and green candy balls are mainly located where the lanes give out onto the road—few find their way into the lanes themselves. The people who live on these small lanes seldom see a casual stroller. They hear and see less than other people, and as a result they pass their lonely days behind closed doors. They live in broken-down huts, buy two pecks of beans, which they salt and cook to go with their rice, and there goes another year. The people who live on these small lanes are isolated and lonely.

A peddler carrying a basket of flatcakes hawking his product at the eastern end of the lane can be heard at the western end. Although the people inside the houses don’t care to buy, whenever he stops at their gates they poke their heads out to take a look, and may on occasion even ask a price or ask whether or not the glazed or fried dough twists still sell for the same price as before.

Every once in a while someone will walk over and lift up the piece of cloth that covers the basket, as though she were a potential customer, then pick one out and feel to see if it’s still hot. After she has felt it she puts it right back, and the peddler is not the least bit angry. He simply picks up his basket and carries it to the next house.

The lady of this second house has nothing in particular to do, so she too opens up the basket and feels around for a while. But she also touches them without buying any.

When the peddler reaches the third house, a potential customer is there waiting for him. Out from the house comes a woman in her thirties who has just gotten up from a nap. Her hair is done up in a bun on top of her head, and probably because it isn’t particularly neat, she has covered it with a black hairnet and fastened it on with several hairpins. But having just slept on it, not only is her hair all disheveled, even the hairpins have worked their way out, so that the bun atop her head looks as though it has been shot full of darts. She walks out of her house in high spirits, throwing the door open and virtually bursting through the doorway. Five children follow in her wake, each one of them in high spirits; as they emerge they look every bit like a platoon marching in a column.

The first one, a girl of twelve or thirteen, reaches in and picks out one of the dough twists. It is about the length of a bamboo chopstick, and sells for fifty coppers. Having the quickest eye among them, she has selected not only the biggest one in the basket, but the only one in that size category.

The second child, a boy, chooses one that sells for twenty coppers.

The third child also chooses one that sells for twenty coppers; he too is a boy.

After looking them all over, the fourth child has no alternative but to choose one that sells for twenty coppers; and he too is a boy.

Then it is the fifth child’s turn. There is no way of telling if this one is a boy or a girl—no hair on the head, an earring hanging from one ear, skinny as a dry willow branch, but with a large, protruding belly, it looks to be about five years old. The child sticks out its hands, which are far blacker than any of the other four children’s—the hands of the other four are filthy black, all right, but at least they still look like human hands and not some other strange objects. Only this child’s hands are indistinguishable. Shall we call them hands? Or what shall we call them? I guess we can call them anything we like. They are a mottled mixture of blacks and grays, darks and lights, so that looking at them, like viewing layers of floating clouds, can be a most interesting pastime.

The child sticks its hands into the basket to choose one of the fried dough twists, nearly each of which is touched and felt in the process, until the entire basket is soon a jumble. Although the basket is fairly large, not many dough twists had been put inside it to begin with: besides the single big one, there were only ten or so of the smaller ones. After this child has turned them all over, the ones that remain are strewn throughout the basket, while the child’s black hands are now covered with oil as well as being filthy, and virtually glisten like shiny ebony.

Finally the child cries out: “I want a big one.”

A fight then erupts by the front door.

The child is a fast runner, and takes out after its elder sister. Its two elder brothers also take off running, both of them easily outdistancing this smallest child. The elder sister, holding the largest dough twist in her hand, is unimaginably faster on her feet than the small child, and in an instant she has already found a spot where there is a break in the wall and has jumped through; the others follow her and disappear on the other side. By the time all the others have followed her past the wall, she has already jumped back across and is running around the courtyard like a whirlwind.

The smallest child—the one of indeterminate sex—cannot catch up with the others and has long since fallen behind, screaming and crying. Now and then, while the elder sister is being held fast by her two brothers, the child runs over and tries to snatch the dough twist out of her hand, but after several misses falls behind again, screaming and crying.

As for their mother, though she looks imposing, actually she cannot control the children without using her hands, and so seeing how things are going, with no end in sight, she enters the house, picks up a steel poker, and chases after her children. But unhappily for her, there is a small mud puddle in her yard where the pigs wallow, and she falls smack into the middle of it, the poker flying from her hand and sailing some five feet or so away.

With that this little drama has reached its climax and every person watching the commotion is in stitches, delighted with the whole affair. Even the peddler is completely engrossed in what is going on, and when the woman plops down into the mud puddle and splashes muck all over, he nearly lets his basket fall to the ground. He is so tickled he has forgotten all about the basket in his hands.

The children, naturally, have long since disappeared from sight. By the time the mother gets them all rounded up she has regained her imposing parental airs. She has each of them kneel on the ground facing the sun so that they form a line, then has them surrender up their dough twists.

Little remains of the eldest child’s dough twist—it was broken up in all the commotion.

The third child has eaten all of his.

The second one has a tiny bit left.

Only the fourth one still has his clenched in his hand.

As for the fifth child, well, it never had one to begin with.

The whole chaotic episode ends with a shouting match between the peddler and the woman, after which he picks up his basket and walks over to the next house to try to make another sale. The argument between the two of them is over the woman’s wanting to return the dough twist that the fourth child had been holding on to all that time. The peddler flatly refuses to take it back, and the woman is just as determined to return it to him. The end result is that she pays for three dough twists and drives the peddler with his basket out of her yard.

Nothing more need be said about the five children who were forced to kneel on the ground because of those dough twists, and as for the remainder of the dough twists that had been taken into the lane to be handled and felt by nearly everyone, they are then carried over into the next lane and eventually sold.

A toothless old woman buys one of them and carries it back wrapped in a piece of paper, saying: “This dough twist is certainly clean, all nice and oily.” Then she calls out to her grandchild to hurry on over.

The peddler, seeing how pleased the old lady is, says to her: “It’s just come from the pan, still nice and warm!”

In the afternoon, after the dough-twist peddler has passed by, a seller of rice pudding may come by, and like the other peddlers, his shouts from one end of the lane can be heard at the other end. People who want to buy his product bring along a small ceramic bowl, while others who are not interested in buying just sit inside their homes; as soon as they hear his shouts they know it is time to begin cooking dinner, since throughout the summer this peddler comes when the sun is setting in the west. He comes at the same time every day, like clockwork, between the hours of four and five. One would think that his sole occupation is bringing rice pudding to sell in this particular lane, and that he is not about to jeopardize his punctual appearance there in order to sell to one or two additional homes in another lane. By the time the rice-pudding peddler has gone, the sky is nearly dark.

Once the sun begins to set in the west the peddler of odds and ends, who announces his presence with a wooden rattle, no longer enters the lanes to peddle his wares. In fact, he does no more business on the quieter roadways either, but merely shoulders his load and makes his way home along the main streets.

The pottery seller has by then closed shop for the day.

The scavengers and rag collectors also head for home.

The only one to come out at this time is the bean-curd peddler.

At dinnertime some scallions and bean paste make for a tasty meal, but a piece of bean curd to go along with it adds a pleasant finishing touch, requiring at least two additional bowlfuls of corn-and-bean gruel. The people eat a lot at each sitting, and that is only natural; add a little hot-pepper oil and a touch of bean sauce to the bean curd and the meal is greatly enhanced. Just a little piece of bean curd on the end of the chopsticks can last a half bowlful of gruel, and soon after the chopsticks have broken off another chunk of bean curd, a full bowlful of gruel has disappeared. Two extra bowlfuls are consumed because of the addition of the bean curd, but that doesn’t mean the person has overeaten; someone who has never tasted bean curd cannot know what a delightful flavor it has.

It is for this reason that the arrival of the bean-curd peddler is so warmly welcomed by everyone—men, women, young, and old alike. When they open their doors, there are smiles everywhere, and though nothing is said, a sort of mutual affinity quietly develops between buyer and seller. It is as though the bean-curd peddler were saying: “I have some fine bean curd here.”

And it is as though the customer were answering: “Your bean curd doesn’t seem half bad.”

Those who cannot afford to buy the bean curd are particularly envious of the bean-curd peddler. The moment they hear the sound of his shouts down the lane drawing near they are sorely tempted; wouldn’t it be nice to be able to have a piece of bean curd with a little green pepper and some scallions!

But though they think the same thought day in and day out, they never quite manage to buy a piece, and each time the bean-curd peddler comes, all his presence does for these people is confront them with an unrealizable temptation. These people, for whom temptation calls, just cannot make the decision to buy, so they merely eat a few extra mouthfuls of hot peppers, after which their foreheads are bathed in perspiration. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, they dream, if a person could just open his own bean-curd shop? Then he could eat bean curd anytime he felt like it!

And sure enough, when one of their sons gets to be about five years of age, if he is asked: “What do you want to do when you grow up?”

He will answer: “I want to open a bean-curd shop.” It is obvious that he has hopes of realizing his father’s unfulfilled ambition.

The fondness these people have for this marvelous dish called bean curd sometimes goes even beyond this; there are those who would even lead their families into bankruptcy over it. There is a story about the head of a household who came to just such a decision, saying: “I’m going for broke; I’ll buy myself a piece of bean curd!” In the classical language, the words “going for broke” would be the equivalent of giving up one’s all for charity, but in modern speech most people would just say: “I’m wiped out!”

Once the bean-curd peddler packs up and heads for home, the affairs of another day have come to an end.

Every family sits down to its evening meal, then after they have finished, some stay up to watch the sunset, while the others simply lie down on their k’angs and go to sleep.

The sunsets in this place are beautiful to behold. There is a local expression here, “fire clouds”; if you say “sunset,” no one will understand you, but if you say “fire clouds,” even a three-year-old child will point up to the western sky with a shout of delight.

Right after the evening meal the “fire clouds” come. The children’s faces all reflect a red glow, while the big white dog turns red, red roosters become golden ones, and black hens become a dark purple. An old man feeding his pigs leans against the base of a wall and chuckles as he sees his two white pigs turn into little golden ones. He is about to say: “I’ll be damned, even you have changed,” when a man out for a refreshing evening stroll walks by him and comments: “Old man, you are sure to live to a ripe old age, with your golden beard!”

The clouds burn their way in the sky from the west to the east, a glowing red, as though the sky had caught fire.

The variations of the “fire clouds” here are many: one moment they are a glowing red; a moment later they become a clear gold; then half purple, half yellow; and then a blend of gray and white. Grape gray, pear yellow, eggplant purple—all of these colors appear in the sky. Every imaginable color is there, some that words cannot describe and others that you would swear you have never seen before.

Within the space of five seconds a horse is formed in the sky with its head facing south and its tail pointing west; the horse is kneeling, looking as though it is waiting for someone to climb up onto its back before it will stand up. Nothing much changes within the next second, but two or three seconds later the horse has gotten bigger, its legs have spread out, and its neck has elongated . . . but there is no longer any tail to be seen. And then, just when the people watching from below are trying to locate the tail, the horse disappears from sight.

Suddenly a big dog appears, a ferocious animal that is running ahead of what looks like several little puppies. They run and they run, and before long the puppies have run from sight; then the big dog disappears.

A great lion is then formed, looking exactly like one of the stone lions in front of the Temple of the Immortal Matron. It is about the same size, and it too is crouching, looking very powerful and dominant as it calmly crouches there. It appears contemptuous of all around it, not deigning to look at anything. The people search the sky, and before they know it something else has caught their eye. Now they are in a predicament—since they cannot be looking at something to the east and something to the west at the same time—and so they watch the lion come to ruin. A shift of the eyes, a lowering of the head, and the objects in the sky undergo a transformation. But now as you search for yet something else, you could look until you go blind before finding a single thing. The great lion can no longer be seen, nor is there anything else to be found—not even, for example, a monkey, which is certainly no match for the glimpse of a great lion.

For a brief moment the sky gives the illusion of forming this object or that, but in fact there are no distinguishable shapes; there is nothing anymore. It is then that the people lower their heads and rub their eyes, or perhaps just rest them for a moment before taking another look. But the “fire clouds” in the sky do not often wait around to satisfy the children below who are so fond of them, and in this short space of time they are gone.

The drowsy children return home to their rooms and go to sleep. Some are so tired they cannot make it to their beds, but fall asleep lying across their elder sister’s legs or in the arms of their grandmother. The grandmother has a horsehair fly swatter, which she flicks in the air to keep the bugs and mosquitoes away. She does not know that her grandchild has fallen asleep, but thinks he is still awake.

“You get down and play; Grandma’s legs are falling asleep.” She gives the child a push, but he is fast asleep.

By this time the “fire clouds” have disappeared without a trace. All the people in every family get up and go to their rooms to sleep for the night after closing the windows and doors.

Even in July it is not particularly hot in Hulan River, and at night the people cover themselves with thin quilts as they sleep.

As night falls and crows fly by, the voices of the few children who are not yet asleep can be heard through the windows as they call out:

Raven, raven, working the grain-threshing floor;
Two pecks for you, not a tiny bit more.

The flocks of crows that cover the sky with their shouts of caw-caw fly over this town from one end to the other. It is said that after they have flown over the southern bank of the Hulan River they roost in a big wooded area. The following morning they are up in the air flying again.

As summer leads into autumn the crows fly by every evening, but just where these large flocks of birds fly to, the children don’t really know, and the adults have little to say to them on the subject. All the children know about them is embodied in their little ditty:

Raven, raven, working the grain-threshing floor;
Two pecks for you, not a tiny bit more.

Just why they want to give the crows two pecks of grain doesn’t seem to make much sense.

After the crows have flown over, the day has truly come to an end.

The evening star climbs in the sky, shining brightly there like a little brass nugget.

The Milky Way and the moon also make their appearance.

Bats fly into the night.

All things that come out with the sun have now turned in for the night. The people are all asleep, as are the pigs, horses, cows, and sheep; the swallows and butterflies have gone to roost. Not a single blossom on the morning glories at the bases of the houses remains open—there are the closed buds of new blossoms, and the curled-up petals of the old. The closed buds are preparing to greet the morning sun of the following day, while the curled petals that have already greeted yesterday’s sun are about to fall.

Most stars follow the moon’s ascent in the sky, while the evening star is like her advance foot soldier, preceding her by a few steps.

As night falls the croaking of frogs begins to emerge from rivers, streams, and marshes. The sounds of chirping insects come from foliage in the courtyards, from the large fields outside the city, from potted flowers, and from the graveyard.

This is what the summer nights are like when there is no rain or wind, night after night.

Summer passes very quickly, and autumn has arrived. There are few changes as summer leads into autumn, except that the nights turn cooler and everyone must sleep under a quilt at night. Farmers are busy during the day with the harvest, and at night their more frequent dreams are of gathering in the sorghum.

During the month of September the women are kept busy starching clothes, and removing the covers and fluffing the matted cotton of their quilts. From morning till night every street and lane resounds with the hollow twang of their mallets on the fluffing bows. When their fluffing work is finished, the quilts are recovered, just in time for the arrival of winter.

Winter brings the snows.

Throughout the seasons the people must put up with wind, frost, rain, and snow; they are beset by the frost and soaked by the rain. When the big winds come they fill the air with swirling sand and pebbles, almost arrogantly. In winter the ground freezes and cracks, rivers are frozen over, and as the weather turns even colder the ice on the river splits with resounding cracks. The winter cold freezes off people’s ears, splits open their noses, chaps their hands and feet. But this is just nature’s way of putting on airs of importance, and the common fo1k can’t do a thing about it.

This is how the people of Hulan River are: when winter comes they put on their padded clothes, and when summer arrives they change into their unlined jackets, as mechanically as getting up when the sun rises and going to bed when it sets.

Their fingers, which are chapped and cracked in the winter, heal naturally by the time summer arrives. For those that don’t heal by themselves, there is always the Li Yung-ch’un Pharmacy, where the people can buy two ounces of saffron, steep it, and rub the solution on their hands. Sometimes they rub it on until their fingers turn blood-red without any sign of healing, or the swelling may even get progressively worse. In such cases they go back to the Li Yung-ch’un Pharmacy, though this time rather than purchasing saffron, they buy a plaster instead. They take it home, heat it over a fire until it becomes gummy, then stick it on the frostbite sore. This plaster is really wonderful, since it doesn’t cause the least bit of inconvenience when it is stuck on. Carters can still drive their carts, housewives can still prepare food.

It is really terrific that this plaster is sticky and gummy; it will not wash off in water, thereby allowing women to wash clothes with it on if they have to. And even if it does rub off, they can always heat it once more over a fire and stick it back on. Once applied it stays on for half a month.

The people of Hulan River value things in terms of strength and durability, so that something as durable as this plaster is perfectly suited to their nature. Even if it is applied for two weeks and the hand remains unhealed, the plaster is, after all, durable, and the money paid for it has not been spent in vain.

They go back and buy another, and another, and yet another, but the swelling on the hand grows worse and worse. For people who cannot afford the plasters, they can pick up the ones others have used and discarded and stick them on their own sores. Since the final outcome is always unpredictable, why not just muddle through the best one can!

Spring, summer, autumn, winter—the seasonal cycle continues inexorably, and always has since the beginning of time. Wind, frost, rain, snow; those who can bear up under these forces manage to get by; those who cannot must seek a natural solution. This natural solution is not so very good, for these people are quietly and wordlessly taken from this life and this world.

Those who have not yet been taken away are left at the mercy of the wind, the frost, the rain, and the snow . . . as always.

(Translated by Howard Goldblatt)