Wild Kids: Two Novels About Growing Up

I still have a perfect impression of the first time my sister came face-to-face with the perplexity of genetics. Grandma was holding her hand and they were walking three, maybe five, steps ahead of me. We were walking past the row of stores near the edge of the run-down juancun on our way to have some sesame paste. On the way, Grandma explained to my sister: this is a soy milk shop, they sell scallion pancakes and deep-fried twisted dough sticks; this is a hardware store, and they sell brooms, dustpans, and window screens. Over here is a barber shop, they sell heads—of course, they can’t really sell heads because then the person would have to die—so they have to settle for selling clumps of hair. This over here is…

“This is the place where your big brother’s life was saved.” Grandma stopped and pointed across the street to the building that doubled as Dr. Zhong’s clinic and pharmacy. “That doctor is actually a veterinarian, but he is nevertheless a brilliant physician.” Afterward Grandma shook her head as if she had recalled some fond memory. Letting out a sigh, she went into all the details about Dr. Zhong. She told us his wife was a Japanese with skin that was white and tender, and their daughters had the same ivory, delicate skin as their mother. She went on and on until she almost forgot that we had already passed the sesame-paste store.

“A dragon begets a dragon and a phoenix begets a phoenix,” Grandma said. “The son of a mouse also learns to dig holes—”

I cut her off. “Aren’t we going to eat sesame paste?”

Then my sister butted in to ask, “Then—can the daughter of a mouse also dig holes?”

As to whether or not we will be able to carry on anything that our ancestors began, I think we are all more than a bit curious. From my observations of this three-generation family, I can offer some modest discussion and analysis. The day my sister was born, Grandpa slipped and knocked out a front tooth. From then on, Grandpa would often unknowingly pout his upper lip downward in an attempt to cover up that leftover front tooth which, without the support of a partner to keep it straight, began to unscrupulously poke outward. This little habit of Grandpa’s was something he didn’t learn until later in life, so it had nothing to do with genetics. However, during the final day of Dad’s painting exhibition, I saw Dad’s face (to be more precise, Dad’s mouth) do the exact same thing. The network of nerves in the ten square centimeters around both my grandfather’s and my father’s mouths must have been almost identical. The brain delivered a message to the nervous system saying, “Cover up the front tooth, cover up the front tooth,” causing the skin in the upper lip area, which we commonly refer to as the philtrum, to nervously pucker over the bottom, just like a kissing fish.

When my father’s kissing-fish painting exhibition came to a close, it was a magnificent sight; in the bottom corner of the majority of his works was a red ribbon, which meant that Dad had done a pretty good job of making connections around town. Dad was standing before painting number 80 with a glass of champagne or vitamin soda (it was some kind of bubbly drink) in his hand, toasting all his admirers who came to flatter him. That old mistress of his, the woman painter, was all smiles as she stood behind a table or counter wearing a thin, jet-black shirt with embroidered flowers, a short black skirt, and a set of raven fishnet stockings. She was scanning the gallery in an attempt to figure out which chump might purchase the next painting. My sister and I were standing in a stationery shop across the way, separated by two glass doors. From time to time we would exchange a glance trying to determine the most suitable time for us to make our entrance into the gallery. We waited for a really long while, during which time I suddenly realized that my father could also pucker his upper lip like a kissing fish—this instantly brought heredity to mind.

Can facial expressions be inherited? Can actions be inherited? What about tone of voice, manner of speaking, and attitude—can they also be inherited? Or how about mood? Let’s take the example of happiness. Is it possible that happiness is the result of heredity? Also sadness—could sadness be the product of some gene different from the happiness gene? If those divination experts, fortune-tellers, and astrologers are able to provide right-on-the-money forecasts for the unknowable and unpredictable future of humanity, it is as if everything in the universe has been predetermined from the beginning. If this is the case, then I’m afraid the indignant resentment and coldness displayed by my sister and me at the gallery that day was already decided well before the great primordial explosion that created the world. So I can also tell you that the will for revenge is like this: it is already inherited before any incident calling for revenge occurs or any person deserving of revenge is even born. Before I tell you about this vengeful incident, let me say that any opinion I raise will not mean much; but if you definitely want to formulate your conclusion, it is perhaps best that I go back to talking about heredity.

For example, in my grandparents’ relationship you can find traces of the way my father used all types of knowledge to explore, understand, and torture my mother. When Grandpa declared Grandma a heretic and a Pharisee, my little sister was probably still in my mom’s womb developing her hands, feet, and comparatively large but useless brain. I was still suffering from my never-ending high fever and Grandpa was constantly worrying that the veterinarian was going to do something that would turn my feverish brain into that of a pig or some other animal. With a Bible in one hand and his reading glasses in the other, Grandpa blocked the doorway with his body. He sternly scolded Grandma as he tried to stop her: “Not only do you not go to church, repent your sins, or do anything good for society, but now you want to take the kid to that veterinarian! Do you realize that he married a Japanese? What’s so great about marrying a Japanese?”

Grandma pushed me back; then she herself took a step back and roared, “Are you going to let us go or not?”

She probably already knew that Grandpa wasn’t going to let us through, so right then and there she lifted her leg and kicked Grandpa in the shin. As soon as Grandpa teetered over his Bible fell, his glasses smashed to the ground, and a gap appeared in the doorway. Grandma turned around, grabbed hold of me, and with one motion picked me up on her shoulder and dashed out the door into the alleyway. I could hear Grandpa screaming from inside: “Heretic! You heretic! Pharisee!”

After my fever went down, my heretic grandmother started praying and attending church. For Grandma, believing in Christ was probably not much different from going to the temple to burn incense or thanking Buddha for answering her prayers. She also didn’t necessarily mind going to those church activities where a whole bunch of people would gather together to sing the sacred verses and exchange everyday life experiences and ideas. I don’t dare guess whether or not she was a devout believer, but even though her conversion was the result of my miraculous recovery, she shouldn’t have had to put up with Grandpa’s brazen accusations—even if Grandpa used only veiled implications to make them.

It happened on a spring Sunday morning. Grandpa was at the podium delivering a testimony; he was sermonizing on the twenty-fifth chapter of the Book of Sirach. He recited aloud a chapter from the holy book: “‘Any wound, but not a wound of the heart! Any wickedness, but not the wickedness of a woman! Any suffering, but not suffering from those who hate! And any vengeance, but not the vengeance of enemies! There is no venom worse than a snake’s venom, and no anger worse than a woman’s wrath.’” The second he got to this point I saw him cast a sidelong glance at Grandma. I followed his line of sight down to Grandma, who didn’t seem to look in the least bit offended. She just sat there absorbed and completely docile, nodding her head with her extremely amiable smile. It was as if she firmly believed every word Grandpa said.

I will never forget that image of Grandma. She was not only willing to be insulted, but also completely oblivious to the vindictiveness of the insult being directed at her. If I remember correctly, it was from that point on that I ceased any type of true prayer, and never again did I piously call out the name of God or Jesus Christ Our Lord. This is because I firmly believe that the words of God and Jesus Christ, as stated in the Bible, can be cut up into tiny slices, just like pork; then you add a bit of anger or maliciousness for seasoning and you can use them on any innocent old lady like Grandma.

My grandparents’ shouting match of a marriage has lasted half a century, and it will no doubt continue to endure. Perhaps the reason for this is complicated, or maybe it is simple; then again, it might just be the result of something I don’t understand. As I gradually grew older, I still could not forget Grandpa’s absurd and severe mocking of Grandma. At the same time I also began to develop the distinction between selfishness and razor-sharp jealousy of an adult male. On one occasion I raised the issue with Grandpa in private. I asked, “In the Bible it says, ‘There is no venom worse than a snake’s venom, and nothing worse than an angry woman.’ Just what chapter and section is that quote taken from?”

“‘… and no anger worse than a woman’s wrath.’” Grandpa started by correcting me and then, without even taking a moment to think about it, answered: “Chapter 25 of the Book of Sirach, somewhere around section 17 or 18.”

I went back and reread the passage in question and, studying it carefully, discovered that it was truly brimming with boundless meaning. In pointing out the evils of woman, besides licentiousness the passage naturally cites jealousy of other women, excess talk of the lips, as well as.… When I got to this point I couldn’t help but conjecture: the instant Grandpa deviously insulted Grandma in front of that crowd of people all those years ago, weren’t his lips doing a little excess talking? Wasn’t he jealous of that Dr. Zhong? Was this not the case? It was precisely because he had no outlet for his tangled array of insane and evil ideas that he was left with no choice but to tear apart and dismember those words from the Bible like he was slicing pork. He then fried up his meat recipe in a skillet called revenge and served it to the woman who was both his imaginary lover and his enemy.

I don’t want to deceive you, so let me admit, I have done the same thing. Since I began writing, I have also learned the art of slicing pork. I take people’s experiences, words, my own impressions, illusions, and those tidbits of knowledge that appear to be brimming with wisdom and scramble them together. Then I chop and fry, presenting a dish brimming with hidden anger and malice. It is a meat dish: a Holy Communion saturated in jealousy. There is no need for me to say that my cooking skill was inherited from my grandfather. Actually its origin is much earlier; you could even trace it back to the beginning of the universe.

The direct cause for my life occurred on a certain day in the middle of August, 1965. It was on that day that sexual desire, impassioned by a lust for knowledge, inspired a multitude of sperm to ejaculate into my mother’s body. And thus I inherited the unbroken chain of two families and more than eight generations of carnivorous flesh and blood. More than ten years later, my mother became a vegetarian and my parents’ marriage began to lose its taste. He already had another sexual partner, plus he could no longer enjoy his favorite meat dishes at home, and so he had no choice but to start torturing Mom.

I’ve never known just how he thought this scheme up. It is probable that before I caught on to him he had been at it for quite some time. But I must admit one thing: Dad really knew how to take advantage of his vast knowledge to keep the pleasure in his marriage going, at least for himself. At the time I was already in middle school; my kid sister was still playing it easy in kindergarten. I had my own radio with a set of two speakers, each as big as a lunchbox; people called it a bookshelf boom box. Just before the incident occurred, my sister took my speaker cable and another bunch of multicolored cords and wrapped them all up into what looked like a wool ball, then drew a pair of chopsticks in and out. Of course I realized that she was imitating Grandma knitting, but I slapped that four-or five-year-old Grandma anyway. She burst out crying, wailing so loud that she shook the aluminum door and windows. But you know, if both parents are home and the kids are fighting and there is absolutely no reaction after three minutes of shrieking by the youngest child, you know that in the house there is an even greater evil being perpetrated. It was my kid sister who first hushed up and, while still shuddering with quiet sobs, began to concentrate her attention on intently listening. I noticed it immediately after her; coming from outside the room, there was wave after wave of talking that sounded like heavy rain tapping on the window on a summer afternoon. My intuition told me that it was a secret, a secret like an incantation.

I softly unlocked the door so their voices would come through a bit clearer.

“Is it the case or not?” my father demanded several times. I opened the crack in the door a bit wider. I gazed down along the wall to see Dad’s silhouette in the corner of the short hallway. He was slightly stooped over with his head facing right, and the living-room floor lamp emitted a golden ring of light that illuminated the distinct edges of his profile. He was looking at Mom. The outline of Mom’s body was black, with only the left side of her expressionless face exposed. Between my father’s intermittent words, I could hear the sound of her sobbing. Then my sister suddenly called out from behind me: “Ma—” No one paid any attention to her. I turned and signaled for her to be quiet by placing my index finger over my lips, but she apparently thought this was some sort of game. “Mom! Big brother—is peeping,” she said.

The person truly doing the peeping was my father. His was so absorbed in his peeping that he didn’t even hear my sister’s shouts. He continued to interrogate Mom: “Why do you want to deny it? What good is denying it? And even if you admit it, what is the big deal? Sooner or later you have to face the facts! Is it the case or not?”

“I’m not,” my mother softly answered as the shadow of her head violently shook.

“Denying it won’t change the objective reality, so why do you want to deny it? Come on, tell me the answer and then we can move on.” My father extended his arm and grabbed hold of Mom’s hand, then one word at a time he asked: “Why—do—you—want—to—deny—it?”

“All I’m asking is why—do—you—want—to—resist?”

“Speak! Why do you want to resist?”

“I’m… afraid!”

“That’s it, you’re afraid! Fear!” Dad patted Mom on the shoulder and gently said, “Okay, we’ll stop here for today. We will continue next week.”

At that moment I shot my head up to check out the calendar hanging on the back of the door. It was Thursday, my father’s regular day off. From then on, every Thursday I would always keep one ear open for his movements. This went on for seven weeks, until my mother finally admitted what my father wanted her to confess: that she had a serious mental problem.

For many years later, up until the day that my sister and I stood in the stationery shop, we had been planning our scheme, waiting for the proper time to carry it out. As our scheme was just getting off the ground, Mom was probably just entering into her artificially induced sleep. That morning when my sister and I left the sanatorium a stiff nurse with a facial tic told us, “From now on your mother will eat, sleep, and have her shots and medicine all at the proper times—that way it will be easier to keep her from imagining things.” If what that nurse said was correct, at that moment my mother had just taken a package of medicine containing red-white capsules and a light blue tablet and was now deep into her afternoon dream. Even now, I still cannot help but believe that our father, taking advantage of Mom’s inability to resist, spared no effort in talking her into insanity.

It was then that my sister nodded her chin, signaling that something was up. I turned my head and, through two glass doors, I saw my father explaining work number 80 in the exhibition to some distinguished guest in a three-piece suit. The raven-clothed woman artist held her original position, but her actions—her actions underwent some changes that gave my sister and me a feeling of both shock and familiarity. She was wiping the surface of that table or counter with a thin piece of tissue. After she finished, her high-heeled shoes carried her around the crowd of people to the corner of the gallery, where she threw her piece of tissue into the garbage. Then, smiling and greeting people along the way, she went back to where she was, pulled out another piece of tissue, and went back to wiping that countertop.

At this moment my sister’s face went blank (mine probably did as well), and we both verified one thing. This woman artist was doing something exactly the same as our mother. I’m not referring to that minor, almost unnoticeable cleaning disorder—I’m referring to the fact that she was tempting my father to drive her into insanity.

Is it possible that madness is hereditary? The majority of the normal people I have come in contact with would all probably attribute insanity to one’s ancestors. During their weekly Thursday heart-to-heart sessions, my father, on several dozen occasions, also told my mother, “Think for a second about your condition, not just about your own past experience, but think about your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. Could your cleaning disorder be hereditary?”

Mom’s normal reaction was to shake her head. I later estimated that she actually enjoyed sitting there quietly shaking her head with tears streaming down her face. It was a form of encouragement that could inspire my father to continue exploring, understanding, and torturing her. Mom inspired Dad enough for him to affirm that here was indeed a human soul that needed treatment, needed salvation, needed HIM.

“Do you want some more time to think it over? You don’t want to rush to deny anything—of course, you also don’t want to admit anything too quickly either.” That is what my father would say further on into the game. By then he had gone bananas over the Book of Changes, Lao Tzu, and acupuncture, and he also used these tools to increase Mom’s dependence on him, on his endless caring, and on his words. My father explained the classics to her, gave her acupuncture treatment, and later showed her all kinds of maps and took her on an imaginary tour of the world. And then he asked her, “Do you feel any better?”

Mom would smile, sigh, shake her head, and go back to wiping the table and chairs, washing clothes, and mopping the floor. She would wash clean anything in her sight that could be cleaned.

By the time the woman artist threw away her third piece of tissue, my father was already giving his speech. He first thanked the senior administrator at his newspaper and all those who love and support the art of painting, and then he thanked the woman artist. My sister and I quickly walked over to the entrance of the stationery store and pushed open the glass door. With two giant steps, we flew down the hallway, pulled open the glass gallery door, and appeared unexpectedly in front of our father, who was in the middle of his speech. He smiled happily, and with a completely predictable gesture raised his arm to welcome my sister, who was making her way to the front of the gallery.

“Of course, I also want to thank my children. I’m truly ecstatic that they were able to make it. My son, perhaps you all know, is a young writer. My daughter, she is an aspiring sculptor. Honestly speaking, I’m quite proud. Could it be that it’s in our family’s genes?”

Amid the applause and laughter, my sister grabbed hold of the microphone and showed off that winsome smile. “Thank you, Dad,” she said. “I think this a rare opportunity, and I’d like to take this moment to introduce my own work.”

Dad once again took the lead, being the first to applaud, and this time even the woman artist began to liven up a bit and started to clap. She couldn’t applaud too loudly, however, because she still had a piece of tissue in her hand.

“The name of my piece is I Just Aborted a Child. The reason for this work is twofold. First, I’m not that certain just who the child’s father is; and second, I’m not too comfortable with my own genes. My mother is insane—just today she was admitted to a sanatorium. I suspect that a genetic background like this can’t be all that good. Thank you!”

My sister was laughing throughout her speech. Her laughter left the hundred-plus elegantly dressed public figures in attendance at a loss to determine whether her speech was real or a joke. Only my father, standing beside my sister, only he was left stupefied, with his eyes emitting a dull confused luster. However, his long-held power of controlling the dialogue did not instantly fall apart—at least he remembered to take the microphone back. Then, holding the microphone like an obsessed singer, he pathetically muttered three useless but terribly honest words: “Are you crazy?”