I STARTED TO date Teacher Wang, whose full name was Wang Hui. Fate wanted me to, I thought, so I succumbed to it.
We rarely saw each other in the daytime. He got off work earlier and always waited for me at his rear window, through which he could see me standing on the top of the stairs to my attic. When I turned toward him, he would wave to me, smiling shyly. When I went to his room, he didn’t speak much, but he would lift the lid of his rice cooker and show me the dinner he had made. With the door shut and curtains down, it was easy for me to start dreaming. Was this what I had been looking for all my life: a bowl of rice, a few bok choy leaves, flickering candles, and a hand on my shoulder?
But the next morning, the warmth would disappear. I avoided being seen with him on the street. The thought of being his girlfriend in public made every inch of my skin itch. His body felt real and warm, but when I lay next to him my mind rarely had a moment of peace. I was torn. I could not bear to think of a dismal future with him in this deserted town. I didn’t want people to think I had chosen such a poor man.
“How do you picture your future?” I asked Wang one day when I saw him flipping the pages of a book titled Introduction to Programming.
“I don’t know. It sucks here, but what can I do?” He shrugged.
“Why are you reading that book, then?” I asked curiously, some hope rising in my mind. Perhaps he wanted to get out of this town too.
“My cousin is working in a joint venture in southern China. He sent me this book and told me to study English. He says computers and English are really hot down there right now.”
My body tingled with excitement. His cousin was in southern China, one of the few economic special zones in the country, where foreign investors flooded in with money to build factories, where the boldest Chinese headed for brand-new futures. If Wang Hui and I were going to stay together, I knew both of us couldn’t be teachers all our lives. Maybe it would be better if Wang Hui joined the gold rush. Maybe his cousin could help.
“Are you thinking of going there someday?” I sounded him out nervously, praying to hear a positive answer. I hoped my boyfriend was an ambitious man who didn’t want to waste his life in this small town.
“I don’t know. Give up teaching?” He shrugged again. “I don’t know if I can find a job there.”
I replied tentatively. “No, maybe you should go. A man shouldn’t be stuck here forever.”
He scratched his head and didn’t say anything.
We didn’t talk about it again for weeks, but I couldn’t get southern China out of my mind. All I could think about was “jumping in the ocean,” a phrase newly coined to describe people giving up governmental jobs and joining the free market. Since 1949, when New China was founded, every governmental worker had been guaranteed an unbreakable iron bowl into which the government put just enough food to keep your stomach full. Most people chose to stay on the dry land, with their bowls. You might find gold and silver in the ocean; but if you couldn’t swim, you would be lost. But the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that I would rather drown in the roaring waves of the South than let time slowly and painfully suck the life out of me in this town.
A few weeks later, I shared my thoughts with Wang Hui.
“Go to the South. I’ll join you later,” I said confidently.
He sounded doubtful. “Are you sure you’ll come? Teaching is a pretty good job for a girl. Besides, will the school let you go? I am different. I’m a man, and my school is much more flexible.”
“Yes, I promise I’ll join you later. I am not going to stay here forever. Go and see if your cousin can get you a job at his company. I’ll meet you there, and we’ll build a future together,” I encouraged him. I believed every word I said. By conventional standards, Wang was the ideal husband, good-looking, poised, and easygoing, and if he could succeed financially, he would be perfect. I was thrilled by the possibilities.
Wang Hui took my words to heart and arranged to leave for the South. At the end of the fall semester in December, it was time for him to go. Unfortunately, my mother visited me on the very day of his departure. When he appeared on my threshold, my mother was sitting on my bed wagging her tongue as usual. He stayed at the door and said good-bye. My mother looked at him suspiciously. He waved his hand once and smiled weakly before turning around and going downstairs. I pushed all my sad feelings aside. I wanted to remain calm and normal in front of my mother. I instinctively hid every emotion from her.
“Who is he?” she asked, getting up to clean my gas stove.
“Just a teacher at the school,” I answered nonchalantly.
“Are you dating him?”
“No!” I said.
She clearly didn’t believe me. She continued to vigorously scrub the stove, but soon she couldn’t keep quiet. “I know you’re dating him,” she said.
I didn’t respond.
“A teacher,” she scoffed. “What does he have besides his own penis?”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Mama! He is leaving for the South. Come on. I am not dating him. I wouldn’t date a teacher.”
“Learn a lesson from me, Juanjuan. Date any man, just not a poor and incompetent man like your father,” my mother said.
“Mama, have some confidence in me. I won’t,” I replied impatiently. I had faith in Wang Hui. I was certain he would build a warm nest for us in the South.
Wang Hui had come into my life and left in just five short months. I was alone again. My attic no longer had any scandalous visitors. I had no friends and lived like a hermit. But I felt calmer, since I had a future to look forward to.
In February I received a postcard from Wang Hui, on which he had handwritten a poem to me:
Raindrops fall onto the banana leaves outside my window. When I wake up, my tears are all over the pillow.
A rush of sweetness mixed with relief swept through me. He was safe, and I was sure he would have found a job by then. I knew nothing could stop me from going to the South. My imagination had already flown me there. In my mind, I’d already touched the green banana leaves. Now I just needed to find a way out of the school.
By then, Principal Chen had left the school, and a new principal from out of town had been in the role for a semester. In April, I volunteered to write a long glorification letter about the new principal, which I read aloud in the town’s committee meeting on electing outstanding leaders. My actions scored major points for the principal’s political career. At the end of the semester, bringing a couple of cases of nourishment drinks, I visited his house one night. After rounds of sincere begging, I finally got his nod.
The next day, I signed my name on the contract of Shen Juanjuan vs. Hope Middle School. I was given my freedom for three years, during which the school would not only take my paycheck issued by the government every month, but also expect me to pay an annual fee of five thousand yuan. If I chose to return within three years, my teaching position would still be available, as well as the benefits of a governmental worker.
Five thousand yuan was equivalent to my whole yearly salary and year-end bonus as a teacher. I would have to earn at least double this amount in order to survive. How? I had no idea, and I didn’t care.
My last day of teaching ended with me flicking the chalk dust off my clothes and walking out of the classroom with nothing: not my teaching notes, not my lunch box, not my pointer. The cement walkway outside the school entrance was no longer narrow and dull; it was a colorful, wide rainbow to the world beyond the sky. I skipped down the walkway. I was free. I couldn’t believe it—I was free! I was going to leave this town, this trap that I had been in for the last three years, and I was sure I would never miss anything about it.
I did very little packing. After purchasing an airline ticket and sending Wang Hui a telegram, I spent the rest of the day dancing excitedly about my room like a lunatic.
The next day, I caught a bus to the Shen Hamlet. I knew that it would be almost impossible, but I still wanted to try to step over another stumbling block—my family. I wanted their support.
“Are you out of your mind?” my mother said as soon as I told her that I had signed the contract. “What are you going to do now?” she questioned me sourly.
“I’m going to the South,” I said.
“The South? Only businessmen and hookers go there! What are you going to do there?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Did that son of a bitch ask you to go?” She meant Wang Hui.
“No, this has nothing to do with him,” I said instantly.
My father looked like he wanted to eat me alive. “What’s wrong with you?” he howled. “Are you sick of being a teacher? Go plant some rice with me tomorrow, then.”
That evening, Honor and Small Uncle came to the house. Surrounded by my whole family, I sank into the wicker chair, telling myself to be strong.
“You know that every girl wants to be a teacher. It’s the most stable position for a girl like you. Do you remember how tough it was for you to go to college and become a teacher? For so many generations, our ancestors have worked in the fields, have always been peasants, and now that you’re a teacher, a government worker, you throw it all away. Why?” Small Uncle said patiently.
“There’s no future as a teacher. I’ll be poor forever. I want to fight. I want to try at least once in my life.” I wasn’t sure if he could understand, but I tried to explain.
“Well, the girl at least has courage and ambition,” Honor said. “Maybe it’s not a bad thing, you know. Women have advantages in the business world. There is a woman in my circle; she gets the best cocoon silk from the dealer every time.”
My mother and father both glowered at him.
“Stop it!” my mother shrieked. “If she doesn’t sleep with those guys, can she get the best silk every time? A woman can’t do anything in this society unless she whores herself.” Then she started to weep. “Are you crazy?” she said to me. “What the hell are you thinking? The South is a dump. Go back to the school tomorrow. I’ll go beg the principal to ignore the contract and take you back.”
“It’s too late. I already bought the ticket.” I threw the words out as toughly as I could, to extinguish her last hope. Sure enough, she cried even louder.
“What about your residence? What about your dossier? Everybody has to have one to live. Your dossier will still be in Ba Jin. You’ll have no identity in the South. You’ll be a person with no history,” Small Uncle warned me solemnly.
“I don’t care.” Deep down, I longed to be a person with no history.
The reasoning and arguing continued for another four hours, all the way until midnight. I curled myself into a ball in the wicker chair, feeling like a hedgehog, resistant to all its predators. The only person who didn’t join in was Spring, who just sat and listened. Perhaps she was the only person who understood why I wanted to throw away my past.
Finally Small Uncle gave a deep sigh and left. My father, who had been sitting like a simmering volcano all night, gave me an ultimatum. “If you walk out of this house tomorrow, you are no longer a Shen. Don’t ever come back.”
I wanted to yell that I had never felt like a Shen in the first place. I wanted to cry to him, Dad, do you have any idea how much I suffered during my three years in that small town? Of course, I was as silent as a sculpture. I didn’t want to come back to this hateful house anyway.
The next morning was drizzly. I walked downstairs and saw my mother sitting on the stool behind the stove. Her eyes were puffy like two apricots. She must have been crying the entire night. I avoided looking at her. The last thing I wanted to do right then was get sentimental.
I lifted my bag off the ground and walked toward the door.
“Are you still going?”
I kept walking without turning around.
“Wait,” she pleaded, weeping. “At least have a bowl of congee before you go.”
I told myself not to look back. She followed me out the door.
The path from the front of the house to the main road was muddy. I put the bag on my shoulder and walked quickly in the rain. My mother ran behind me.
“Please, Juanjuan, don’t go.” Her broken sobs floated to me over the sound of the rain. “Don’t go!”
I told myself to hold back my tears. I ran faster. I jumped onto a passing bus as soon as I reached the asphalt road. I looked out of the window as we pulled away and saw my crying mother limping on the muddy countryside road in the rain, waving her hand to me.
Three hours later, I boarded a Shanghai Eastern Airlines plane in Hongqiao Airport. The destination was the city of Guangzhou, the hub of southern China. It was my first time on an airplane. I sat on the plush chair next to the window, feeling numb. The sweet, soft voice of the flight attendant coming over the intercom was mere background noise.
The plane started to move slowly and then cruised down the runway. Then it accelerated. My eardrums popped, and I woke up from my trance. I looked out of the window and realized that the plane was taking off.
From now on, I told myself, I would no longer mourn my past. I would not loathe, degrade, or abuse myself any more.
Like the Monkey King from the epic Journey to the West, I was born from a crack in a rock, and with sunshine, rain, and dew it was I who had brought myself up. Now I was a person without family, history, or identity.