Riding the Iron Rooster

by Paul Theroux

  "I take it you're busy—lots of people coming to church."

  "Oh, yes. And there are five churches in Shanghai. They are always full on Sundays."

  He invited me to attend Mass, and out of politeness I said I might; but I knew I wouldn't. I had no business there: I was a heretic. And I was often annoyed by Westerners who, although they never went to church at home, would get the churchgoing bug in China, as an assertion of their difference or perhaps a reproach to the Chinese—as if religious freedom was the test of China's tolerance. Well, it was one test, of course, but it was exasperating to see the test administered by an American unbeliever. So I didn't go to church in China, but sometimes when I saw a bird in the grass I dropped to my knees and marveled it as it twitched there.

  A few days later, on one of my walks I came to People's Park, and as it was a Sunday, I decided to verify something that I had heard in Peking. It was said that in Beihei Park there, and in People's Park here in Shanghai, there was an area reserved for anyone who wanted to speak English. This proved to be a fact. They called it the English Corner, half an acre of Chinese gabbing in English under the trees. Originally it started when a few old men who still spoke prerevolutionary English (having gone to mission schools) met on Sundays in the park to talk so that their English wouldn't get rusty. And then they found themselves the object of attention, and they were consulted in a respectful way by Chinese youths who wanted to learn English. What began as a casual one-hour interval in 1979 had become by 1986 a full-day Sunday institution. The Chinese can be very ritualistic in these matters: no one decreed the formation of the English Corner. It just happened, and it has evolved very formally. English is the unofficial language of the new China.

  There were about two hundred Chinese in People's Park, and the way they stood and the sound of their English, made them seem like geese. Some were practicing or looking for friends, but many of them I discovered to be seeking advice about jobs that required English or applications to English-language universities. English speakers, in Shanghai as in no other Chinese city, comprised a sort of subculture.

  I met Leroy, who was twenty-four, and who had learned to speak English in People's Park. He had been at it for five years.

  "When I first came here in 1981 a man said to me, 'What is your name?' I couldn't tell him my name. I couldn't say anything in English. I was very frustrated. I decided to learn. I bought some books and I came along every Sunday."

  He spoke English well, but a question still nagged: What about his name? How long had be been Leroy?

  It was a simple explanation. As soon as his English improved, this young man, Li Ren, started to call himself Leroy. He said that English names had been regarded as bourgeois during the Mao era, but with the proliferation of English they had come back. There was usually an obvious choice. A girl called Zhenli might call herself Jenny, Zhulan would become Julian and Chen would probably decide upon John. Leroy had a friend Li Bing who chose the name Bingley and made himself sound like a Tory Member of Parliament. A student at Fudan University changed his name to Rambo, and over the next few months I met several Zeldas and a Ringo. I could not resist the conclusion that for these Chinese youths this was a way of distancing themselves from a culture that until recently had been intensely chauvinistic. It was also one in the eye for the Cultural Revolution if you went around calling yourself Bill and wearing a funny hat and sunglasses. Such people frequented the English Corner.

  Leroy earned 80 yuan a month as an engineer in a textile factory—he was a college graduate—but his aim was to be hired as a trainee anything at the new Sheraton Hotel, the Hua Ting, on the outskirts of Shanghai. There were thirty-one hotels in Shanghai, but the Sheraton Hua Ting was regarded as the choicest.

  "What are your chances of being hired?"

  "I have already been offered a job. I was one of twenty people chosen from four hundred applicants. But you know in China we cannot just quit our job. We have to get permission to resign or to change jobs. I could earn two hundred and fifty yuan a month at the Sheraton, but my boss won't release me."

  "That's terrible. Isn't there anything you can do about it?"

  "Well, he says he has a daughter-in-law who needs a job. He knows my father is a foreman. If my father can find that woman a job, then my boss will release me. If not, I have to stay."

  It was because of this problem that he had come today to the English Corner—to see some of his friends and ask their advice. So it was a sort of Agony Corner too.

  He had the nervous attentiveness of a person who is self-taught and still learning. He said he was interested in Africa.

  I wondered how up-to-date he was on Africa, so I asked him the new name of the Republic of Upper Volta.

  "Burkina Faso," he said.

  "What's the capital?"

  "Ouagadougou."

  "Very good!"

  He said he had a lot of catching up to do, because he had spent so much time during the Cultural Revolution doing useless things. 1 asked him to be specific.

  "School was suspended most of the time. But sometimes there were classes. We would go to school and criticize this one. Then we would criticize that one. We criticized Confucius. We criticized Laozi [Lao-tzu]. We criticized the teacher. If a teacher was bad we called them bourgeois and made them write confessions. Then we went home. It was a waste of time. But I didn't take it seriously."

  I tried to picture a schoolroom full of red-hatted little beasts and brats menacing their teacher. It was very easy to imagine. And of course "criticize" in Chinese is a euphemism for many things. A women in the English Department at Fudan University walked with a cane as a result of criticism by Red Guards—she was kicked and beaten for advocating the reading of the bourgeois feudalist William Shakespeare. But times had changed. This same woman had just been a faculty adviser on a student production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Shanghai Shakespeare Festival in the spring of 1986.

  The advantage for a Chinese person in learning English is that he can circumvent a great deal of official obstruction. Many books that are banned in Chinese are available in English. Leroy said that he had read 1984 and Animal Farm. I expressed surprise because Professor Dong had told me Orwell was neican, restricted. But Leroy didn't know this—didn't even know there were Chinese translations, because the translations were banned.

  "What do you think of 1984?" I asked.

  "It is like China today. Like certain parts. Like Tibet. And it is like Shanghai sometimes."

  I said I thought the book was about fear and uncertainty, but when I pressed him for examples he became evasive, and not wishing to interrogate him I let the matter drop. He knew about the erotic classic Jin Ping Mei but did not know it was available to scholars or indeed that the book was circulated. For him, the book was part of the oral tradition, a lot of raunchy stories that people whispered to each other.

  I asked him what changes in Shanghai had made the greatest impression on him. He said the difference in the way people dressed was the most obvious one, but that people's attitudes had also greatly altered—in thinking for themselves and in their expectations. He said I should see the free market and especially the sort of money-making work that people now did at home, such as tailoring, mending pots, fixing washtubs. And giving lessons: English lessons, music lessons, or dressmaking lessons. For 20 yuan you could be taught to sew by an established tailor—that was the going rate for about two months of twice-weekly lessons. There had never been any reason to learn to make clothes before because everyone wore the same factory-made clothes—the one blue cotton suit.

  "But the biggest difference is that we can all get jobs now. In the past if you didn't have a job you stayed at home. The government gave you nothing, and you had to take money from your parents. Now everyone can find something to do. There is plenty of work."

  I wished him well in pursuit of the job at the Sheraton, and I continued walking to test what he had said about people working at home. It seemed to be true that most people we
re toiling away at something or other to earn extra money—sewing, making pots, mending shoes, fixing umbrellas, selling homemade clothes. This sort of free-lancing was unheard of until about 1980. And the free market was also brisk, with small traders hawking vegetables, eggs, pet food, clocks, old watches, used eyeglasses, and birds they had snared.

  A bloody revenge movie was showing in Shanghai. It was called Mister Legless and the hero of the title was shown on a poster in a wheelchair blowing the head off the man who had maimed him. Chinese were milling around and fighting for tickets, which they said were very scarce. All movies were popular and violent ones the most popular of all—Rambo had recently been shown to packed movie houses all over China.

  An old man with a red armband was denouncing someone on the sidewalk, and when I inquired I discovered this man to be parr of the Anti-Spitting Brigade—there was a widespread campaign against spitting going on. I approved of that, but Chinese spitting is not half as bad as Chinese throat clearing: the hoick that can be heard for fifty yards and that sounds like the suction on a monsoon drain. After that, the spitting itself is rather an anticlimax.

  Back at the English Corner in the park—which had a festive club-like atmosphere—I met Doctor Qin, who told me he was a psychiatrist.

  I said I had been under the impression that there were no psychiatrists in China—certainly no universities had departments of psychology. And were there mental hospitals?

  "Five years ago psychiatry was permitted—that was when I began studying," Doctor Qin said. "Before then there was no mental care. If someone had symptoms and was referred he was treated with acupuncture."

  "Can you treat depression and schizophrenia with acupuncture?"

  "No. And yet there were many cases. We see them all the time at the Shanghai Medical Center, where I practice. We have a famous medical system now, and there are eminent Chinese psychiatrists. They are old men who studied in Germany and the United States."

  "How do you treat your patients?"

  "We use drugs—medicine—and we talk to them. There are not many violent cases, but we have many depressives. That seems to be a Chinese problem. And about seventy percent of our patients are schizophrenics. Doctors in factories refer people to us, and we treat them."

  I asked him whether he got many cases of paranoia.

  "Not many. It is very rare in China. I only know of three such cases at the clinic."

  "In the United States a paranoid person often thinks he's George Washington, and in other places paranoiacs says they're Hitler or Napoleon. Who does a Chinese paranoiac with a delusion of grandeur claim to be?"

  'The emperor. Chairman Mao. Or God."

  As I was talking to Doctor Qin a man approached me and said, "You speak German?"

  "Ja wohl," I said, and babbled a little to please him. He spoke German very well and said that he had learned it as a messenger in the German consulate in Shanghai in the 1930s.

  A little crowd had gathered around us. "Speak English!" someone said, and another bewildered Chinese said, "What language are you speaking—is that French?" Soon there were about twenty people listening to this man speaking German.

  "If you want to stay here you must speak English," an officious Chinese man said, and took hold of the old man.

  To calm matters, I asked the man his name. He said he was Mr. Zeng and he asked me to guess his age. I said, "About seventy."

  "I was born in 1906," Mr. Zeng said. "I remember my father saying, 'The Emperor is on the throne.' He also told me about the old woman behind him"—the dowager empress—"that evil old woman."

  "How do you manage to stay so young looking, Mr. Zeng?"

  "It is easy. My father said, 'Never smoke opium' and I never did. At that time, everyone smoked it and they became very unhealthy. But I was strong—strong lungs." He puffed out his chest and then exhaled. "And I had another good reason. If I smoked opium my father would have beaten me on the backside."

  I said, "You've lived through almost the whole of the twentieth century. What was the best period you've seen?"

  "The best was just after Liberation. That was wonderful. Everyone was happy. There was peace."

  "Is that the reason—because there was peace?"

  "Not only that. I had two daughters. Before Liberation, girls were regarded as worthless—everyone wanted sons. But after Liberation I didn't have to worry, and my daughters didn't have to be ashamed anymore. Shall I tell you about my wife?"

  "Please do," I said. Mr. Zeng had an impish and old-fashioned way of speaking, and the crowd of Chinese listeners leaned forward to catch what he said.

  "About a year after I was born my parents decided that I was to marry a certain girl from the village. When I was twenty-three I finally married her. She was the most wonderful wife a man could have—the best cook. She made noodles. She made fish balls. She made the best dumplings. I can still taste those delicious dumplings." He licked his lips, and the watching Chinese laughed. He was aware that he was the center of attention, but he did not lose his poise. "She was my best friend! Shall I show you her picture?"

  I said I would like to see it, and Mr. Zeng reached down and fossicked in his plastic bag—he had a bottle of Chinese rice wine and a pile of cookies; a comb; some pills; a blackened banana and a smudged newspaper. The crowd of onlookers pushed their heads forward as he searched for the picture.

  There were loud gasps and hisses of disgust as Mr. Zeng brought out the picture. He flourished it—it was a corpse in a coffin, a small, pale head among some ruffles of satin; some wilted flowers; an incense burner; the withered face of the dead woman.

  "She was a good wife," Mr. Zeng said proudly, and he smiled at the picture, and when he showed it around, the Chinese made faces and began to leave.

  This business about girls being equal was disputed by other people I met in Shanghai, and it is obvious that Chinese society is dominated by males. With the one-child policy—and severe penalties for people who have more than one—the preference is for a boy. There was no shortage of whisperers who told of the large number of girl infants who were drowned like unwanted kittens, or strangled at birth, and infanticide was said to be very common. But these atrocities are difficult to substantiate. It is much more likely that determining the sex of the fetus before birth has led to a dramatic rise in abortions—1 was unsuccessful in getting abortion statistics, but the figures are very high. Any woman can get an abortion at any time: it is regarded as a patriotic duty. I would bet that more female fetuses are aborted than male ones, and when I put this supposition to Chinese in Shanghai they said it was likely.

  Sang Ye, the coauthor of Chinese Lives, had told me in Peking that when I got to Shanghai I must definitely visit the industrial suburb of Min Hong, about fifteen miles outside the city.

  "It will be a revelation to you as a traveler," he said. "In Min Hong the peasants from very rural areas have been turned into factory workers. They are people who are used to living in huts, and now they live in high-rise apartments. The problem is with their habits. They are not used to flushing toilets. They keep their chickens and ducks in their rooms with them."

  He painted a picture of Dogpatch in a tower block: stinking toilets, livestock in the corridors, pitchforks propped against the walls, pigs wandering up and down the stairs.

  "And they have not abandoned other peasant customs," he said. "Every night before dinner it is usual for a villager to stroll around to see what his relatives are going to eat. But this is hard to do in an apartment house. That's why the elevator operator goes out of his mind every day, as people get into the elevator and go from floor to floor checking on their relatives."

  He finished by saying, "Min Hong is an interesting mess, and no tourist ever goes there."

  That was all I needed to encourage me: I could already see the pigs and chickens, and those unspeakable toilets. I went out to Min Hong one day. I was disappointed by the apartment houses. None of them was higher than six stories, and as it is a law in China that on
ly apartment houses higher than six stories need elevators, the elevator story was erroneous. And it was a big nondescript township—about 30,000 people: a power plant, factories, shops, a little market. Where were the pigs and ducks?

  I prowled around the fairly ordinary lanes behind the houses and saw nothing remarkable. There were cyclists and pedestrians, people going to and from their jobs, to and from school, shoppers, old men gasping on stairs, people thinking: What is this foreigner looking at?

  A man I met said that there was a joint venture in progress, making toys—"Matchbox cars." Not very interesting. A cosmetics factory. I tried not to yawn. Pepsi-Cola was thinking of opening a bottling plant.

  I said, "I've heard the apartments are unusual."

  He seemed bewildered but he said that if I wanted to look at one I could look at his.

  That was typical Chinese hospitality. Very early in my trip I found they were unfailingly friendly and unsuspicious. This was particularly so in outlying areas: they were eager to talk, proud of their families, curious to know my reaction to the changes in China, and they were fairly open. And they hadn't the slightest idea who I was.

  "Go right in," the man said.

  It was a two-room flat, smelling of vegetables. There was also a big hallway, a bathroom and a kitchen. Five adults and two children lived here. These people, originally from up the line at Wuxi, had come here in 1959 when Min Hong was established.

  They worked locally. All five adults—two men, three women—had jobs. There were two beds in each room, and dressers and chairs, and a table, a television. The flat was very neat; and there were potted plants on the windowsills. There were no books.

  When I remarked on the television set, they turned it on and got a cowboy movie—Gregory Peck and Olivia de Havilland, speaking Chinese. We watched it for a while, and they gave me tea and we talked about Min Hong.

  "I was told that some people here in Min Hong keep chickens and ducks."