China's Son

  The fourth day, I was late in coming to the field.

  “Where have you been?” Sen asked. “Come sit here by me. I've been losing too much money without you being here.” He ruffled my hair, threw me a whole pack of unopened cigarettes, and let me cut the cards for good luck. As I lit my first cigarette of the day, I smiled. It was very satisfying to be missed by these hooligans.

  That evening, after the four of them split their money, I went home, wrapped up some of Mom's sweet rice cakes, and shared them with my new friends. They fought like hungry dogs and ate with dirty hands.

  After they were done, they wiped their mouths with the corners of their jackets and ran their greasy hands through their unruly hair so that it would look shiny.

  “No matter how shiny your hair is, you still look ugly, Sen,” Mo Gong joked.

  “You look even worse,” Sen retorted, touching his hair.

  “Okay, okay, you both look ugly.” Siang laughed.

  They started hitting each other for fun. Yi grabbed my hair with his greasy hands and we started wrestling. Later, we took a stroll to the marketplace near the theater and used some of the gambling money to buy candies and more cigarettes. We laughed, talked, and joked until midnight. Then, reluctantly, I told them I had to go home. In my household, it was way beyond bedtime, even though it was still the New Year's holiday period. They pushed me around jokingly and Siang lifted me up to his shoulders. Then they said good-bye.

  I lay in bed and couldn't go to sleep for a long time. Their laughter, their faces, their way of saying things, and the way they had included me like a real friend replayed in my mind like a colorful film. They had never once mentioned that I was from a landlord's family. They called me “little punk” because I was three or four years younger, weighed twenty pounds less, and measured a head shorter. With them, I felt a freedom to say and do whatever I wanted without worrying that they might report me to the school authorities. My enemies at school looked conniving and petty in comparison. If they thought they were bad, wait till they saw these guys. I drifted off into a sound sleep, hoping tomorrow would come quickly.

  As the holiday came to an end, the seasonal gambling activities also died away, once all the New Year's money had been won, lost, and spent. The five of us began to hang out at their usual spots. Their favorite was the stone bridge where the Dong Jing River crossed our narrow street. The thoughtful architect had built a row of stone seats along the bridge, where we would sit in the evenings, chatting and watching townspeople come and go. Mo Gong and Sen would make rude comments to passing females, then laugh like a bunch of monkeys when the girls scolded them and called them ruffians who belonged in jail. My friends seemed to take pleasure in anything that stimulated them, and in making fools of themselves.

  Soon I came to know their personalities and the hierarchy that existed within the group. Sen, fifteen, was the lead dog. He had the brains and audacity. He was born the middle brother of five who fought one another at home every day. His dad worked for a bank in a faraway town near the salt factory along the coast, sent money home once a month, and visited every third month. His mom raised the five boys like a single parent. Each day she could be found chasing one of her unruly sons with a long wooden stick, cursing her ancestors for giving her these demons to torture her in this life. She was often busy in the fields doing farmwork, so Sen's elder brother would be in charge of cooking for the family. The cook often ate up most of the food, and whoever came home late got nothing.

  Once Sen was detained by the commune's police because someone had accused him of setting fire to a watchman's little hut. When the police came to notify his mother and ask her to take him home, she said, “He's not my son. Do whatever you want with him,” and shut the door in the cop's face. The poor officer, who was prepared to give a long lecture to the mother, left confused and disappointed. They let Sen out without a scratch.

  Mo Gong, also fifteen, distinguished himself by almost killing someone with a big knife when he was thirteen. Years later, the sheer size of the weapon still shocked people. He grew up in a family of entrepreneurs.

  His mom and dad secretly made shoes behind closed doors and sold them in the black market. Mo Gong was born a rough kid and couldn't stay out of trouble. His mouth said the wrong things and his hands were always out of control. He had an endless need to touch and hit things. No matter how hard his parents tried to discipline him, it never worked. They had hung him by the wrists, locked him up, and whipped him till his butt was red and swollen. He always went back to the old ways. He stole money from home to buy cigarettes, liquor, and food.

  The reputations of Sen and Mo Gong were so bad that whenever there was a theft or fire they were always the first suspects. Their alibis usually lacked credibility and they often ended up being blamed for what they didn't do. When that was the case, they got very angry with the people who had framed them, and added their names to their long revenge list. Pretty soon half the town was on that list. Sen and Mo Gong took their time getting their revenge—little things here and there, like a chicken missing or a plot of vegetables ruined. They never left any evidence behind. It was their way of venting their feelings of being constantly maligned.

  Siang became their friend by default. He was a goodlooking fourteen-year-old from a wealthy family. His grandfather was an old revolutionary who had helped the Communist army occupy Putien and now received a big salary for doing nothing. He had used some of that money to build a huge three-storied home. Siang's mother was a nurse in a nearby hospital, and his father was a cadre in charge of a shoe factory.

  Siang hated school and loved gambling. One year he lost so much money to Sen and Mo Gong that they were going to make him pay them back by stripping off his expensive clothes. He had begged for mercy and agreed to pay back the debt by buying them cigarettes for the next year. They became really good friends when Siang got kicked out by his parents and Mo Gong took him in. They slept in the same bed for a week before Siang got enough money to buy a ticket to go to Fuzhou to his grand-aunt, who was the president of the women's federation in the province of Fujian.

  That left Yi, a short fifteen-year-old, who had become a carpenter at the age of twelve. He had goldfish eyes and bow legs. His parents had died young, and his grandpa had sent him away to be an apprentice at the age of ten. Yi said the first thing he learned from his carpenter master was how to slice his tobacco leaves and roll them into perfect rolls.

  Another early carpentry lesson taught Yi how to chat nonstop while working, because it made one forget about the boredom and entertained others at the same time.

  Then Yi's master died suddenly and Yi was forced to leave his apprenticeship two years ahead of time. His grandpa brought him home and set up a shop for him at the back of the street; he had been in business ever since.

  He smoked bitter tobacco, drank strong tea constantly, and could go on chatting for hours without boring himself. He made all sorts of furniture for neighbors. But he was, after all, still a young boy, and his heart was out there on the street. Sen and Mo Gong often went to Yi's shop to swipe tobacco leaves when cash was low and the urge to smoke was clawing at them. In return, they had to keep the lonely carpenter company while he worked and endure listening to the same topics Yi had covered a hundred times before. But it wasn't a bad deal, really. When they were on the run from their parents or the law, Yi's humble workshop offered all they needed. It was out of the way in a back alley; tobacco leaves hung drying from the ceiling, liquor was kept nearby in Yi's toolbox, and food came from Grandpa's kitchen. They could even sleep on a worn blanket on the soft sawdust. On occasion, the shop was used as a gambling den. Yi spent more and more time with the gang and became a part-time carpenter and a full-time street kid.

  Friendship endured.

  Before I went back to school, I became an inseparable part of the now five-member gang. When school began, the group hung around the marketplace, harassed a few merchants, and bought candy and cigarettes. Then they climbed ov
er the low wall at the back of my school and whistled to signal their arrival. As soon as the bell rang, I ran to the designated spot, where they lifted me up and threatened to toss me in the pond. Jumping back over the low wall, we lit cigarettes and made our plans for the day.

  In school, I became sunnier and more confident. The results of last semester's countywide examination showed I was the best student in fourth grade, putting group one and La Shan's cronies to shame. In the hallways, the group one children still gave me dirty looks.

  Once, when I passed the son of the party chief, he said, “Grades mean nothing. You are still a landlord's son.” Then he laughed, showing his teeth like a vicious animal.

  My teacher, Mr. Lan, took me aside and told me the same thing.

  “Don't let your good grades get to you.” It soon dawned on me that it was a sin to have scored so high and to have focused attention on myself. Now, in addition to the usual scorn, there was jealousy. I could do nothing right. But it no longer bothered me as much. When classes were over, I would see my friends again and would forget all about school. I no longer stayed up nights, plotting and scheming. Han, Quei, and Wang were still hateful, but now they were only small annoyances, little buzzing flies.

  SEVEN

  In the early seventies, Ping-Pong became the rage of the country because Zhuan Zhe Don had won the World Cup championship for China. In PE class, instead of the regular running and jumping in the dirt field, we would sit in the classroom and listen to the live radio report of the World Cup match in progress. With each score gained by a Chinese player against a Western player, we pounded our tables and cheered. When the games were over, we all sang, “The eastern winds blow and the drums of war echo. In today's world, who is afraid of whom? We are not afraid of the Russian and American imperialists. It is they who are afraid of us.” The success of this Ping-Pong diplomacy made us swell like hotair balloons. We were finally winning something in the international arena.

  The school had a carpenter build two Ping-Pong tables. A stone slab served as a third table. During break, hundreds of kids crowded around the three tables and took turns playing. We played a three-point game.

  Good players could stay in a game for a long time. Bad players were thrown out as quickly as they came. I became so involved that even after school I practiced at home. Gradually, I turned into one of the better Ping-Pong players on campus.

  One weekend we heard that there was a new movie being shown twenty miles away from Yellow Stone in the capital city of Putien. That was a whopping distance of hills and valleys, especially if you had to wheel yourself around. The young tractor driver of our commune had seen it on one of his trips carrying fuel to the big city. A small crowd gathered around as he told everyone about how good it was. When he came to the description of the leading lady, he stopped, looked into our faces as if to prepare us for a shocker, then slowly made a few curves in the air with his hands and whistled.

  “Is she that beautiful?” someone whispered.

  The driver nodded. “Simply beyond words. Go see it.” We were sold.

  Sen took out his old bike, splashed it down with water, and sent a little boy to call me at home, respectfully keeping a distance from my strict mom.

  “Your friends sent the messenger to call you,” Mom said. He had apparently spilled our plans. “Be careful when you are in Putien. There is a lot of traffic there.” To my surprise and delight, Mom gave me half a yuan for the trip.

  Sen's bike was a museum piece. It rattled in places where it shouldn't have and was mute where it should have made noise. It was, nonetheless, mounted with a long backseat. There were five of us; we rode that bike the acrobatic way. One pedaled, two straddled the backseat, and one sat sideways on the handlebars, barely giving the pedaler room to see. The fifth passenger ran behind and helped push the heavy load uphill. Every two miles we changed seating arrangements so that both runner and pedaler would get a rest. It was pathetic to see the old bike groaning under all that weight, slogging through the rough, muddy road with almost flat tires.

  It took us a good three hours to reach Putien. We were covered with sweat and a layer of sand when we dismounted at the bridge, which looked like the entrance to the ancient city, and walked the rest of the way. Had a cop seen us, he would have thrown us off the bike for riding so dangerously in heavy traffic. He might even have taken the bike away, since Sen had never gotten a license for it.

  Soon we were in front of the county's largest movie theater, pride and excitement gripping our hearts. We stared at the tall iron fences, the thick columns, and the fashionably dressed young people wearing their long, greasy hair ducktail style and sporting skintight bell-bottom trousers.

  The girls wore colorful nylon skirts that flew above their creamy white knees as the sea wind whirled over the dusty ground. Since most women in China usually wore standard blue pants just like the men, this was a rare sight.

  “Mo Gong is a little lost for words here,” said Siang, the known cosmopolitan who had traveled far and often. He hit Mo Gong's head with the side of his hand.

  “Tell us who these angels are, Siang,” he said with his eyes glued to a particularly tall and leggy girl.

  Siang took a long draw on his cigarette, narrowed his eyes like an old sailor, and said, “Those are the children of Chinese families who came back after they were kicked out from places like the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia when those places turned against the Chinese. Those foreign countries were all anti-China. Can you imagine?

  “Now they live on a farm especially set aside for them by the government with a special supply store. They're rich people, with rich relatives back in their home countries who send them money monthly. A postman covering that area said that at the New Year he had to carry money to the farm in large canvas sacks.” The five of us stood there admiring the youthful crowd as they rode around on fancy scooters, their girlfriends holding on to their waists. It didn't seem too bad a fate.

  By the time we got to the theater, it was filled with smoke and the hallways were packed with people holding standingroom tickets. Kids hung from the windows trying to get a better view. On the platform stood a wide screen, with loudspeakers on either side. There were even children sitting behind the screen, looking up. They were going to watch the movie in reverse. We had to push and shove to get other viewers off our seats in the last row against the wall.

  The place smelled like sweat and felt like an oven, but it was well worth all the trouble we'd been through to get there. The plot of the movie was run-of-the-mill Cultural Revolution stuff. The story took place in a seaside village. A landlord was plotting against the local Communist party, whose leader was the gorgeous goddess of curvy contours. In the end, the landlord was trashed and the good guys won.

  Throughout the movie, I could hear Mo Gong and Sen ooh and ah with each close-up of the star. Siang was so drawn into the plot and carried away by the beautiful goddess that he forgot to smoke and almost burned his fingers.

  We got home at nine in the evening, hungry and tired. Mom had cooked a pot of delicious noodles with vegetables and had kept it warm for me. With her approval, I took it to Yi's workshop and shared it with my buddies. First there was surprise that my mom had allowed me to do this; then there was a fight among my hungry friends to scoop up portions into their bowls. We slurped those long noodles silently. When we put down our chopsticks, full and relaxed, a warm feeling of being together like a family swept over us. We celebrated the good time with loud and long burps, laughing until our stomachs hurt.

  Though we sat in a humble mud hut with a flickering kerosene light, it felt as if we had the whole world within our hearts.

  EIGHT

  “Open your schoolbag,” Teacher Lan demanded.

  “Why, Teacher? There are only books in it,” I protested, sensing the eyes of Han, Quei, Wang, and the rest of the class searing into my back like the hot summer sun.

  “Someone saw you smoking outside school,” Teacher Lan said. “I th
ink you've got cigarettes in your bag.” I held on to my bag and shot a long, cold stare at Han, who sat with his feet on his desk, smiling acknowledgment. His cronies flanked him, grinning and showing their unbrushed teeth.

  Teacher Lan snatched the bag from my hand. At the bottom lay an unopened pack of Flying Horse. I'd used the half yuan Mom had given me to buy them from Liang, the cigarette merchant, on my way to school. I had planned to share them with my friends over a good story at Yi's workshop.

  “What is this?” Teacher Lan waved the pack in front of the whole class. “I helped you come back to school and make all that progress and now you want to throw away everything you have achieved. You are very stupid. You do not realize how people around here think of you. Some of them still want to throw you out of school. You just gave them good reason, and to tell you the truth, I am beginning to see their point.

  “Those hoodlums will drag you down to the bottom again, even lower. Do you realize that? To the bottom.” He threw the cigarettes on the floor, spat on them, and stomped them with his feet until they were totally crushed.

  I had never seen the mellow, awkward Mr. Lan so forceful or so angry before, and I was shocked. He knew everything about my friends and me. I felt torn with pain at having our wonderful friendship trashed in front of my classmates and enemies. My head was becoming numb and my temples throbbed, but this time, instead of the old fear, I felt anger, anger at my enemies, who still picked on me at every opportunity, whose mission in life seemed to be my complete destruction.

  They were ignorant of the beautiful, honest friendship those “hoodlums” offered me and would never be able to fathom the depth of our devotion to each other. Nor could Teacher Lan. He did not know how terrible school had been for me for so many years. I wanted to yell back at him and make him understand, but he had gone back to his podium, opened his book. Class had begun.