POW! 30
Father and Mother woke up early in the morning on the day the United Meatpacking Plant formally opened for business and got Jiaojiao and me out of bed. I knew this was a day of great importance for Slaughterhouse Village, for my parents and for Lao Lan.
When the Wise Monk purses his lips, a vapid smile forms on his face, which must mean that he has seen the same scene and heard the same words as me. Then again, that smile may have nothing to do with what I saw and heard and may simply be a reflection of his thoughts and whatever he finds funny. But one way or other, let's you and me, Wise Monk, enter a scene of greater splendour. The street beyond the gate of Lan Laoda's mansion is crowded with luxury automobiles, whose drivers are being respectfully directed to parking spots by a gatekeeper in a green uniform and spotless white gloves. The brightly lit foyer is packed with gorgeous women, high-ranking officials and wealthy men. The women are resplendent in evening dresses, like a flower garden in a riot of competing colours. The men are wearing expensive Western suits, all but one old man—supported by a pair of jewelled women—who is wearing a tailored Chinese robe. His long white goatee shimmies, the mystique of an immortal. An enormous scroll with the golden character , for longevity, hangs in the great room; an array of birthday gifts is stacked atop a long table beneath the scroll, beside a basket overflowing with pink-lipped peaches of immortality. Placed strategically about the room are vases full of camellias. Lan Laoda wears a flashy white suit and red bow tie; his thinning hair is neatly combed and his face is glowing. A group of gorgeously dressed women rushes up, like a bevy of little birds—chirping, laughing and planting kisses on his cheeks until they are covered with lipstick. Now truly red-faced, he walks up to the goateed old man and bows deeply: ‘Patron, your nominal son wishes you a long life.’ The old man taps him on the knee with his cane and enjoys a hearty laugh. ‘How old are you now, my boy?’ The old man's voice is as melodic as a brass gong. ‘Patron,’ Lan Laoda replies modestly, ‘I've managed to reach the age of fifty.’ ‘You've grown up,’ the old man says emotionally, ‘you're a man, and I don't need to worry about you any longer.’ ‘Patron, please don't say things like that,’ pleads Lan Laoda. ‘Without you to worry about me, I'd lose the pillar of my existence.’ ‘Aren't you the crafty one, young Lan!’ laughs the old man. ‘An official career is not in your future, young Lan, but riches are. And you'll be lucky in love.’ Pointing his cane at the beautiful women swarming behind Lan Laoda, he asks: ‘Are they all your lovers?’ ‘They are all loving aunts who watch over me,’ replies Lan Laoda with a smile. ‘I'm too old,’ says the old man, his voice heavy with emotion. ‘The spirit's willing but the flesh is weak. You take good care of them, for my sake.’ ‘Don't you worry, Patron, satisfying them is something I'm committed to.’ ‘We're not satisfied, not even a little!’ the women complain coquettishly. ‘In the old days,’ the old man remembers with a smile, ‘the emperor had women in three palaces and six chambers, a harem totalling seventy-two concubines, but you've outdone that, young Lan.’ ‘I owe it all to my Patron,’ replies Lan Laoda. ‘Have you mastered the martial skills I taught you?’ the old man asks him. Lan Laoda backs up a few steps and says: ‘You tell me, Patron.’ Seated on the carpet, he slowly folds his body into itself until his head is hidden in his crotch, his arse sticks up in the air, like the rump of a young colt, and his mouth is touching his penis. ‘Excellent!’ the old man exclaims as he taps the ground with his cane. ‘Excellent!’ echoes the crowd. The women, likely recalling some intimacy, cover their mouths, blush and giggle. A few in the crowd react with open-mouthed guffaws. ‘Young Lan,’ says the old man, sighing, ‘you have gathered all the city's flowers in a single night and I can do nothing but touch their pretty hands.’ And his eyes brim over with tears. The emcee, who is standing beside Lan Laoda, shouts: ‘Strike up the band and let the dancing begin!’ The musicians, waiting patiently in the corner, begin to play—cheerful, light-hearted music followed first by lilting melodies and then by passionate numbers. Lan Laoda takes turns dancing with members of his female entourage while the most seductive among them winds up in the arms of the old man, who shuffles his feet so slightly it looks more like scratching an itch than dancing.
Mother's persistence worked: Father put on his grey suit and, with her help, knotted a red tie. The colour reminded me uncomfortably of blood gushing from the throats of butchered animals. I'd rather he wore another but I kept that to myself. To be perfectly honest, Mother wasn't much good at knotting the tie. Lao Lan had made the actual knot and now she merely pushed it up under Father's chin and tightened it. He stretched his neck out and shut his eyes, like a strung-up goose. ‘Who the hell invented this stuff?’ I heard him grumble.
‘Stop complaining,’ Mother said. ‘You're going to have to get used to this. From now on there'll be many occasions when you have to wear a tie. Just look at Lao Lan.’
‘There's no comparison. He's the chairman and general manager.’ Father's voice sounded strange.
‘You're the plant manager,’ Mother reminded him.
‘Plant manager? I'm just another worker.’
‘You really need to change the way you look at things,’ Mother said. ‘Times like this, you change or you get left behind. Again, look at Lao Lan, the perennial bellwether. A few years back, during the ‘age of independents’, he was the first to get rich in the butcher trade. Not only that, he helped the village get rich too. And just when the independent butchers began to get a bad name, he founded the United Meatpacking Plant. We've done well by keeping up with him.’
‘I can't help seeing myself play-acting like a monkey in a cap,’ Father remarked glumly. ‘And this outfit makes it worse.’
‘What am I going to do with you?’ Mother said. ‘Like I said, learn from Lao Lan.’
‘He's a monkey in a cap too, as I see it.’
‘Who isn't? And that includes your friend Lao Han. No more than a few months back, wasn't he only a no-account mess cook? But then he put on a uniform and turned into a hypocrite.’
‘Niang's right,’ I said, thinking it was time I said something. ‘The old saying “A man's known by his clothes, a horse by its saddle” got it right. As soon as you put on a suit, you became a peasant-turned-entrepreneur.’
‘These days there are more of those than fleas on a dog,’ Father said. ‘Xiaotong, I want you and Jiaojiao to study hard so you can leave this place and get a decent job out there somewhere.’
‘I've been meaning to talk to you about that, Dieh. I want to quit school.’
‘What?’ He grew very stern. ‘Just what do you plan to do?’
‘I want to work at the meatpacking plant.’
‘What's there for you to do?’ he said unhappily. ‘For years it was me who kept you from going to school. Now you must cherish this opportunity if you're to have any hope for a decent future. Don't throw your life away like I did. No, go to school and work hard. Education is the path to success. Everything else will lead you astray.’
‘I don't agree with you, Dieh! First, I don't think you threw your life away. Second, I don't believe that education is the only path to success. Third, and most importantly, I don't think I can learn anything useful in school. My teacher doesn't know as much as I do.’
‘I don't care,’ he insisted, ‘I want you to stick it out for a few years.’
‘Dieh, I have strong feelings for meat. And I can help you with lots of things at the plant. I can hear the meat speak to me. Did you know that it's a living organism? I can see it wave to me with all its little hands.’
Father stared at me, as if he'd been strung up by his tie. Then he and Mother exchanged looks. I knew they thought I must be losing my mind. I'd assumed that Father, if not Mother, would understand my feelings. He, at least, had a vivid imagination. But, no. His imagination, it seemed, had dried up.
Mother walked up and rubbed my head, both to show her concern and to to see if I had fever. If I did, then she knew that what she'd heard was wild talk, deliriu
m. But I wasn't running a fever, I was absolutely all right. There was nothing wrong with me or my mind, not a thing.
‘Xiaotong,’ she said, ‘don't be silly. You have to go to school. I was so obsessed with money all this while that I never stopped to think about your education. But now I understand that the world offers many things more valuable than money. So do as we say and go to school. You may not want to listen to your father and me, but you'll listen to Lao Lan, won't you? It was he who made us realize that you and your sister belong in school.’
‘I don't want to go either,’ protested Jiaojiao. ‘The meat speaks to me too, and waves to me with all its little hands. And sings, and has feet. Its hands and feet are like kittens’ paws, clawing and moving…’ She gestured in the air as she tried to demonstrate how the meat moved before.
I was impressed by her vivid imagination. Only four, and from a different mother, but our hearts beat in unison. I'd never mentioned that meat spoke to me or that it had hands, but she knew what I meant and gave me the support I needed.
Frightened by our strange talk of meat, our parents could only stare at us blankly. If the phone hadn't rung at that moment they'd have stood there all day, still staring. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that we'd had a telephone installed, though it was for internal use only and controlled by a switchboard at the village headquarters. Still, it was a telephone, one that connected our house with Lao Lan's and the houses of several local cadres. Mother moved to answer it.
I knew it was Lao Lan.
‘Lao Lan wants us to go to the plant right away,’ she said to Father after hanging up. ‘People from the county propaganda office are bringing along representatives from the provincial TV station and some newspaper reporters. We're to entertain them till he gets there.’
Father adjusted the knot in his tie, then swivelled his neck up and down and from side to side. ‘Xiaotong,’ he said hoarsely, ‘and Jiaojiao, we'll talk more tonight. But you're both going to school. Xiaotong, I want you to set a good example for your sister.’
‘Not today,’ I said, ‘no one's going to school today. It's too big a day, a day of celebration, and we'd be the biggest fools if we spent it in school.’
‘I expect big things from you two,’ Mother said as she touched up her hair in the mirror.
‘And that's what you'll get,’ I said. ‘But going to school is not one of them.’
‘Not one of them,’ echoed Jiaojiao.
POW! 31
‘Bring it out! Bring it out so I can see it!’ A man whose forehead looks like shiny porcelain stands in the yard barking commands to his underlings. He's clearly not a happy man. His smartly dressed assistants echo his command like parrots: ‘Bring it out! Bring it out so Governor Xu can see it!’ Wise Monk, that's the provincial lieutenant governor. It's customary in official circles for his subordinates to call him Governor. The four paint-spattered labourers run out from behind a large tree and enter the temple at a crouch. They pass by us and stop in front of the idol. Without exchanging a word, not even a glance, they work together to lay the Meat God on the floor. I hear the Meat God giggle like a child being tickled. They tie yesterday's ropes under its neck and feet, slip the two shoulder poles under the ropes, crouch to lift the poles and, with a shout—four voices at once—straighten up and gently carry their load outside. The Meat God's giggles get louder as it jiggles, loud enough, I think, for the people in the yard—Lieutenant Governor Xu and his underlings—to hear. Can you hear, Wise Monk? Outside, the Meat God lies on the ground. Then the ropes are removed. ‘Stand it up, stand it up!’ shouts a Party cadre with a full head of hair from behind the lieutenant governor. That's the local mayor, Wise Monk. He and Lao Lan are thick as thieves; some people say they're sworn brothers. The four labourers try to lift the idol by the neck but all they accomplish is to slide it along the ground by its feet. It doesn't want to stand. It's clearly being naughty, the sort of thing I did as a boy. The mayor glares at the men behind him, displeased but unwilling to throw a tantrum in front of the lieutenant governor. That look is not lost on his subordinates, who rush to lend a hand. While some keep the feet from moving, the others line up behind the straining labourers and push. Far from a smooth operation, the giggling idol is nevertheless manoeuvred into an upright position. The lieutenant governor takes a few steps back and squints at it. It's impossible to decipher the enigmatic look on his face. The mayor and his entourage have their eyes on the lieutenant governor but without making it obvious. His scrutiny complete, the man steps up and pokes the Meat God in the belly, extracting shrieks of laughter. Next, he jumps up to rub the idol's head, just as a gust of wind raises havoc with his own few strands of hair. The loose comb-over slips over his ear and hangs there comically, like a little braid. Then the mayor's head of thick black hair slides off his head like a rat's nest and, landing on the ground, rolls at the mercy of the wind. The men behind him are evenly split between those who look on, mouths agape, and those who cover their mouths to stifle a laugh. A coughing spell is the concealment tactic of choice. But none of this gets past the watchful eye of the mayor's secretary, who will make a list of those who laughed and place it on his boss’ desk that evening. A quick-witted middle-aged employee runs down the mayor's fleeing hairpiece at a speed that belies his age. Its red-faced owner doesn't know what to do. At the same time, the lieutenant governor lays his errant swatch of hair back in place, eyes the mayor's patchy scalp and jokes: ‘You and I are brothers in adversity, Mayor Hu.’ The mayor rubs his scalp. ‘My wife's idea,’ he says with a little laugh. ‘Hair doesn't grow on clever heads,’ observes the lieutenant governor. The fleet-footed employee hands the hairpiece back to the mayor, who throws it away. ‘Out of my sight, damn you. I'm no movie star!’ ‘Eight out of ten movie stars and TV hosts wear toupees, you know,’ says the helpful junior. ‘Only a bald mayor truly looks the part,’ adds the mayor by way of encouragement. ‘Thank you, Governor,’ responds the now-pacified and radiant mayor. ‘Won't you please share your thoughts with me?’ ‘No, I think this is fine. Many of our comrades are too conservative. There's nothing wrong with a Meat God and a Meat God Temple. They have rich implications and lasting appeal.’ His comment is met with applause, the mayor taking the lead, continuing for a full three minutes despite attempts by the lieutenant governor to end it. ‘We must be bold,’ he continues, ‘give rein to our imagination. In my view, there should be no restrictions on things that benefit the people.’ He points to the inscribed board above the decrepit little temple entrance. ‘Take this Wutong Temple,’ he says. ‘I think it should be restored. A local gazetteer I looked at last night indicated that this little temple once thrived with many pilgrims, up until the Republican era, when a local official handed down an order that people were no longer permitted to worship here. That was the beginning of the temple's decline. Paying respects to the Wutong Spirit shows that the masses yearn for a healthy, happy sex life, and what's wrong with that? Allocate some funds and refurbish it while you're building the Meat God Temple. Here you have two bright spots that will boost the economic development of the twin cities, so don't let other provinces come in and steal your thunder.’ The mayor steps up with a glass of fifty-year-old Maotai: ‘Governor Xu,’ he says, ‘I toast you on behalf of the twin cities!’ To which the senior official replies: ‘Didn't you just do that?’ ‘No,’ replies the mayor, ‘that was on behalf of the people of the city in gratitude for approving the construction of a Meat God Temple and the refurbishing of the Wutong Temple. Now on behalf of the people of the city, I want to thank you ahead of time for personally writing the words for the board.’ ‘I wouldn't dare try,’ responds the lieutenant governor. ‘But Governor Xu, you are a famous calligrapher and the authority who has approved the Meat God Temple. If you don't inscribe the words, the temple won't be built.’ ‘Now you're driving the duck onto its perch,’ says the lieutenant governor. A local Party man rises: ‘Governor Xu, people feel that you ought to be a professional calligrapher, not a governor. If you'd chosen ca
lligraphy for a career, you'd be a millionaire many times over.’ The mayor carries on the train of thought: ‘Now you see why we are resorting to well-meaning extortion to get you to honour us with your writing.’ The lieutenant governor blushes; he wavers. ‘For Wu Song, warrior hero of Mt Liang, the more he drank the greater his bravery. For me, the more I drink the greater my vitality. Calligraphy, ah, calligraphy, the essence of a man's vitality. Bring me brush and ink.’ The lieutenant governor takes a large-handled writing brush, dips it into a thick, inky mixture, holds his breath, and, in the wake of one magical sweep, three large, wildly haughty characters—, Meat God Temple—leap onto the paper.