The Pidgin Warrior

by Tianyi Zhang

  “We…we… Ah… All of you, look, this man…”

  “They’re trouble from the day they’re born! Troublemakers! Swine! Wretches! Bastards! Bad elements! Just one look at them and you can tell that they’re criminals in the making! What could they possibly…”

  As Liu Zhao was delivering this tirade of curses, he noticed that his coat was covered in ash, as he focused on patting it off.

  The people who had come to watch the commotion looked at the clothes of Shi Zhaochang and Liu Zhao—their clothes were about the same as the crowd’s, so they immediately knew their western-dressed friends couldn’t be in the wrong. They looked at Hou Changchun, “Just one look at them and you can tell…”

  “Asking for donations is one thing, but to attack someone?!”

  “Those two! Arguing with those… It’s not worth the trouble!”

  “Iffn’ya fight ‘n’ win that’s one thing, but ya lose and get the worst of it, ain’t worth it, yeah?”

  “Yeah!” A middle-aged man drawled out in a Wuxi accent. Everyone stared at him.

  “Let’s beat it!” giggled a kid, before sticking out his tongue and slipping away.

  The policeman sighed and with unexpected friendliness, told Hou Changchun and his people they could leave.

  “Ok, ok, ok. Go somewhere else to ask for donations.”

  Everyone knew that there wasn’t going to be a show worth watching, so they left one by one.

  After that, Liu Zhao and Shi Zhaochang headed to the street. Liu Zhao puffed out his chest and kept his mouth shut tight. Shi Zhaochang was in a bad temper: Thinking back on the discussion with The Woman Warrior of National Salvation, thinking back on the donation for building that platform for refining immortality pills at Mount Kunlun, thinking back just then at those Evil men. He remembered some Shanghainese curses and set about using them.

  “It’s just beyond the pale! Dunce! Whoreson! Evil! Conmen! Bastards!”

  9

  The Secret of Spending Money in Fighting For Justice

  Liu Zhao often came to see Shi Zhaochang. This time he had changed his tie: it was now purple with light green dots. He twice invited Shi Zhaochang to eat dough noodle soup with him, and took him to the Campaign Against the Barbarians Fund Committee. His plan was to get Shi Zhaochang to donate a thousand or two.

  Shi Zhaochang’s face reddened. “I don’t have any money. Father’s the only one with money.”

  “Uncle Shi has donated already,” Liu Zhao brought his hands together with great curtesy. “You do have money. You have your bank passbook in your hand, for you to use as you please. I know that.”

  What a disaster! Who told him that?

  How could he know if someone didn’t tell him? He just told Shi Zhaochang about the importance of the Campaign Against the Barbarians and that the entire nation had to donate a bit to the cause. The people in the Campaign Against the Barbarians Fund Committee were extremely patriotic, and everyone worked hard. As he went on talking he took out a Garrick and gave it to Shi Zhaochang, and then from a folder he took out an organization chart of the Campaign Against the Barbarians Fund Committee to let Shi Zhaochang look over.

  “This is our organization chart. We have a lot of patriotic activities.”

  With a heavy draw on the cigarette, Shi Zhaochang took the folder. On the cover was written again, “The Imprint of Le Lezhai, Doctor of Literature.” It was quite thick, and on one hundred twenty pound paper, around five hundred pages for the whole book. Foreign bound. Rounded gilt spine.

  He couldn’t read it all at once, so Liu Zhao flipped through to the organization chart for him, and with an oddly graceful gesture, he pointed with his right hand to the top of the chart:

  “Now, that’s the standing committee: that’s the highest. It’s got… Underneath is split into five ministries. Under the ministries are the offices. Under the offices are, uh, this section and that section belong to the offices. Under the sections, they’re divided into units. And there are two other committees—they aren’t considered cadres. Ah, this line here comes down here, they’re directly subordinate to the standing committee… All told there are only six hundred staff, we never have enough people… Expenses are heavy, but we can’t ask the government for funding, and we can’t ask the ordinary people for money. We are…”

  He stopped. When he started again it was with less focus. He quickly smoked several cigarettes. Then he jumped up and concluded:

  “So there is only one way out for our people: we must focus on the Campaign Against Barbarians Fund. We must campaign against the barbarians. Exterminate all the savages! Must conquer… conquer… conquer these…”

  He hadn’t finished his conquering when a servant-looking person came to stand in the doorway and announce:

  “Mr. Liu, Office Director Le asks to see you.”

  “Office Director Le wants to see me? Ah… Brother Zhaochang have a seat, I’ll be right…”

  Shi Zhaochang sat alone smoking and looking around. He thought about the finances: Whose pocketbook were this Campaign Against the Foreigners Fund Committee’s huge expenses coming out of? Mr. Liu Liu and those people?

  “Enthusiasm is all good, but it’s of no use! Just look!”

  He stood up. He recalled the Passing Through Earth incantation The Supreme Ultimate Master taught him, but he couldn’t remember the third phrase.

  “Have to put in a little effort,” he said to himself.

  He had studied all sorts of magic. All he had left was to study Spitting Blades. Ha! Just think! In just a few days, he and Thirteenth Sister…… The image of The Woman Warrior of National Salvation flashed in his mind and there was an ache in the pit of his heart.

  He ambled out the door.

  “Fuck it. Anyway it’s all fate. If she is on the Path of Evil, then I won’t be easy on her. If she is Good, then things can be done with her… with her…”

  There was a sudden burst of laughter from the opposite office.

  What? Did they know what was in Shi Zhaochang’s heart?—He had to hear what they were talking about.

  “Of course Old Ren is doing well here as a seventh rank section worker: This month he took in seven hundred dollars, and there’s the bonus. Where could a secretary have it more comfortable than here?”

  “But this month is a good month.”

  “Good month? This doesn’t even count as a good month. We’ll get another five hundred-some thousand in Campaign Against the Barbarians donations from the South Seas, and then…”

  “Is it really that much?”

  “Of course.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “How can you doubt it? I’ve seen the telegrams.”

  “Um, then with the bonus, every one of us will have—two and seven, fourteen, six and six, thirty-six, and then another thousand…”

  “So you have to send Miss He to the Nichang store to have some clothes made.”

  “And there’s more good news.”

  After this there was silence, as if the reporter of good news wanted to keep the listener in suspense.

  Shi Zhaochang moved closer to the office door, not letting out even the sound of his breath, to hear the ‘good news’ from inside the office.

  It was this:

  “Committeeman Liu and them were worried that we didn’t have a regular fee while they are asking the entire nation to donate to the Campaign Against the Barbarians fund every month. All the staff in the organization have their donation taken out of their pay, it’s taken out according to their salary, ten or twenty percent. The students all over the nation put in a little too. It all gets collected right here.”

  “It’s so clever, then… Ah, we need to raise salaries.”

  “We would have to get the government to agree to that, you think they’d be willing?”

  “We represent the public will of the cit
izens of the nation, of course the government would have to agree… That way we would have a regular income. Otherwise, uh, when we run into a bad month, we won’t be able to scrape up a penny. A soon as we get a regular income, then we won’t have to worry about anything. Each and every month would be set, and Old Chu can have clothes made for Miss He every month.”

  More peals of laughter.

  “This is an excellent plan. The staff salaries here at the Campaign Against the Barbarian Fund Committee can go up. That’s number one. Number two, if we, for example, have a really good month, like, if the overseas Chinese donate a few hundred thousand or a million, then more bonuses. Naturally, we on the committees are enthusiastic: Utterly upright and candid, the finances are completely open.”

  “Long live the Campaign Against the Barbarian Fund Committee!”

  “If the Campaign Against the Barbarian Fund Committee can survive forever, I’ll never have to work a day more in my life!”

  Silence for a while.

  “Right, Old Chu, how did that thing I asked you about last time go?”

  “What thing?”

  “Ah ha! Have you forgotten?”

  “Oh, you want to get in the Hunger Strike of the Famous National Salvation Group, that’s it, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No way, no way, no way! Mr. Liu Liu got upset: ‘He wants in, he wants in.’ How can we have so many “elite” people around? There need to be qualifications here. How can people just stumble in—putting their names right next to the names of the elite, they don’t rank! He also said, “I’m giving up food like this for the good of the nation. I wish I weren’t elite. What’s so great about dough noodle soup? All of you non-elite people just love to go on hunger strikes! There are many ways to save the nation, and the best is to do your all in donating to the Campaign Against the Barbarians.” After all that, how could I mention it?”

  After a while, they went back to talking about the Campaign Against the Barbarian Fund.

  Shi Zhaochang was at a loss. His thoughts about the Campaign Against the Barbarian Fund Committee were spinning around in his head, and he just couldn’t think it through.

  “So is this Evil or Good?”

  That evening Mr. Liu Liu sent a message to invite Shi Zhaochang to have dough noodle soup and some drinks, but Shi Zhaochang resolutely declined to go out. Liu Zhao followed him and tried to make a donation.

  “Bother Zhaochang, you still haven’t donated to the Campaign Against the Barbarian Fund. Surely you don’t think our people are already destroyed?”

  “How did you know about my money? Who told you?”

  “I just knew it. It’s the ethnic essence of my people. Shi Zhaochang, just donate a couple of thousand.”

  Then the words came awkwardly:

  “I have to… I have to… This… I don’t have any… I, Shi Zhaochang, spend money in the fight for justice, I am… But I must… I am considering…”

  Shi Zhaochang wanted to complain about his father: It had to be him that told Liu Zhao. His father and Liu Zhao were ganging up on him.

  Actually, Mister Shi Boxiong didn’t have that idea at all. He had only mentioned Shi Zhaochang’s savings in detail to Mrs. Shi. Mrs. Shi rather unfairly told this to Mrs. Liu. Mrs. Liu comforted Mrs Shi, but joked about it to her son Liu Zhao:

  “Why don’t you ask Young Master Shi to donate some?”

  That’s how Liu Zhao knew.

  Now warriors don’t care about lucre, but you still want to get your money’s worth. “Money doesn’t come easy,” Shi Zhaochang remembered his father often said. Shi Zhaochang’s grandfather toiled his entire life as an official before he was able to buy that land. Till his dying day, you couldn’t say he carelessly spent a single penny. His father was his father’s true son, always bringing this up: using this method, in one year, he could take in eight hundred piculs of grain, and the next year he would have sixteen hundred piculs. One dollar this month becomes two the next month.

  There was a method in this. The Elder Shi Boxiang added a lot of land to his holdings. And he left some in cash: A banker encouraged him to do this, “Land can’t be relied on now.” How true! Now they couldn’t go back home. Everything they wore and ate, depended entirely on the interest from that cash.

  “You must remember,” the Elder Mr. Shi said to Shi Zhaochang, “the only reason we have what we have today is all because of one word: ‘thrift.’”

  The Elder Mr. Shi then talked about the method to spending:

  “You have to understand: the only thing that is most important in this world is property. In spending money, you have to think about whether there is benefit or not: if you spend a dollar, you are a dollar in debt—can you make that back? How much is the return on your money, all these things you must carefully consider, consider over and over again. For example, inviting people to dinner… inviting… inviting can’t be done casually: To invite once gains one invitation’s worth of use… That is all to say, at every last moment, you must be thinking about the return on your money…”

  At this the old man smiled and wiped those few strands of beard with a folded handkerchief. He had the secret and wonderful method of making money from his ancestors. He himself felt he could serve as the minister of finance. He had to pass down this method to his children. He talked again about the marvels of compound interest. Ah, not a hint of carelessness in this expert, this father.

  “One dollar becoming two, that added dollar is interest. Wealthy men throughout the world have all relied on return on investment to become wealthy: For example, that Zhang from Tongzhou who came in first in the exams, or that English oil king, that steel king…”

  “The oil king and the steel king are French, not English.”

  “Not English?” The old man wasn’t happy at being interrupted

  “Eh, doesn’t matter, the point is they all relied on this: Compound Interest. I’ll give you another example: Worshiping the Buddha and praying to the gods. Hmph. There’s huge return there. You spend a dollar to buy a silver ingot, spend another dollar to buy a joss stick. That’s two dollars all told now. You pray for the bodhisattva to watch over you and make you rich—for example, to make a hundred dollars. That’s a ninety-eight dollar return. If you go to the altar and pray for Lu Yan to be your master, I am… That is… oh, oh, oh.. eh?”

  Needless to say, it was all return on investment.

  “For food and clothes now, you never want to use the capital, you understand?... Zhaochang, tell me: If you don’t use capital, what do you use?”

  “Interest.”

  “Ai! That’s right! That’s right!” Father slapped the desk then pulled Shi Zhaochang over to pat him on the back. “That’s right! That’s right! Use the interest. Ai, that’s right! Capital can be used up. But even when using the interest, you can’t use it blindly: Interest can also bring more interest, don’t you know.”

  When Shi Zhaochang was a little older, The Elder Mr. Shi told him that “return on investment” could be explained in many ways.

  “For example, if you donate a hundred dollars to disaster relief, is it not the case that that hundred dollars has no return? And even the principal cannot be regained. But in this there is principal and interest! But it is not in money, but in reputation. And there are times when it builds face to spend money. Understood? Reputation and face are very important: with reputation and face, days go by much more smoothly. This is an extraordinarily large return on investment. For example, I… For example, I… I am now…”

  What he stuttered out was this: spending money leads to reputation and face. To have reputation and face makes it easier to move about in society. The wealthiest people are the most active in society.

  What Shi Zhaochang understood of this secret method of his ancestors was this:

  “Spending money must have a benefit, that’s it, right papa?”
<
br />   “Right! You can understand it just like that. It’s no wonder the fortune teller says that you will be a great hero! Even great heroes have to spend money.”

  “Even great heroes have to spend money.” That was how Shi Zhaochang spent money. But if the Campaign Against the Foreigners Fund Committee was such a useless thing, any money set out wouldn’t bring anything back. There were many things to spend money on: The Supreme Ultimate Master—there was a big outlay.

  “Of all the things about being a warrior, this is the only awkward one,” he thought.

  Why did that rule have to be set down! Spending money in fighting for justice!

  But that outlay for his Master, that was necessary.

  But he only gave a hundred dollars, he had to wait for the rest. It seemed that he was waiting for his master to teach him a bit of the Dao, and then he would pay off the rest. The Supreme Ultimate Master was very upset:

  “Disciple! Third Disciple Bowen came to Shanghai yesterday with a payment. The altar on Kunlun Mountain is…”

  “I’ll get it tomorrow or the day after. These past few days, the banks… The banks have been so… I went, I went… go…”

  Every morning he went to The Supreme Ultimate Master’s to train for two hours. He couldn’t avoid paying. But that money—One more day in the bank was one more day worth of interest!

  The Supreme Ultimate Master at the Altar Hall of the Three Teachings, not far from the bank where Shi Zhaochang had his money. Every time he walked past the door of the bank, his heart would start pounding for some unknown reason.

  “I should just pick a day to give him that three thousand nine hundred dollars,” he debated with himself. Three thousand nine hundred dollars!

  On the ninth day of training, Shi Zhaochang wrote a check and gave it to his master. He wanted to ask his master for a receipt, but didn’t know how to bring it up.

  The Supreme Ultimate Master stuffed the check in his pocket with complete disregard and took Shi Zhaochang to another room to impart Daoist Arts. Only the master and disciple were in the room. The door was securely bolted so that a third party couldn’t see or hear. It was like this every day.