by Jack Livings
“You realize you’ve distinguished yourself as both a sheep and a coward?” Slick Lips said. “At least put the fucking thing on.”
“I’m keeping my options open.”
Slick Lips picked up his phone and punched the keypad, mumbled into the headset. Across the floor Ai Ai stood up, receiver to his ear. He was wearing a suit and tie. He flipped me off. I shrugged. What was I supposed to do? I just wanted to keep my options open. I didn’t get much action from Slick Lips or Ai Ai the rest of the day. I was there until late, and they both left before me. Usually we’d wait for each other and grab dinner at Shintori or hit some dives in Sanlitun. I wasn’t hurt. I went to Shintori by myself.
Fine if they wanted to make me pay for my transgression. I deserved it. It’s why I liked them. The employees of Horizon Trading had about as much personality as traffic lights. Grinders. Optimists. Willing to do anything to get ahead. Good soldiers. Not Slick Lips and Ai Ai. They were bad attitudes and they expected the same of me.
On Thursday a BTV news crew showed up. They’d set up lights by Brother Kang’s office, and were doing live feeds to Happy Morning Beijing. All the flat-screens on the walls, usually tuned to the financial channels, showed Kang’s shiny face as he pontificated about the great Hanfu movement. The first time the camera swung across the trading floor to show the Hanfu army, I ducked. I don’t know why. It’s not like I knew anyone who would see the show and laugh at me. Everyone I knew worked at Horizon Trading. The next time the camera panned, I looked right at it.
That’s how I wound up being interviewed. When the lights went down, the reporter walked over.
“So you’re a holdout,” she said. She was thin and pretty and wasn’t wearing much makeup. I’d always thought TV reporters were caked in the stuff. Probably an idea I picked up from a movie when I was a kid.
“I don’t think I’m the only one,” I said.
“Do you see anyone else in a suit? Let’s talk on camera,” she said.
I hadn’t seen Slick Lips yet that morning. His chair was empty, and the reporter lowered herself into it, swiveled, leaned in, and held the microphone to her mouth. The cameraman hit the floodlight and I went momentarily blind.
“Rolling,” he said.
“What’s your name?” the reporter said, then pushed the microphone at my chin.
“Uh, Zhang Wei,” I said.
“Mr. Zhang, among a sea of Hanfu supporters, you’re one of the few who’ve opted not to take part. Could you explain your reasons?”
“Ah,” I said. “No reason, really. Ah. I just feel more comfortable like this, I guess.”
“Is it possible that you’re staging a quiet protest against the Hanfu movement in your office?” the reporter said.
“No, no. I’m just wearing my suit.”
“Do you consider yourself a bold supporter of our great nation?”
“Of course I do,” I said.
“But you’ve chosen to stand outside and observe your colleagues’ national pride without taking part yourself. You must feel that the Hanfu is overly nationalistic.”
“Ah, absolutely not. I’m a strong nationalist. A strong supporter,” I said.
“And yet you’ve chosen not to wear the Hanfu?”
“Ah,” I said. I was sweating, naturally. I couldn’t think. I reached down for my bag and opened it.
“What’s this?” she said.
I pulled out my Hanfu. “I was just waiting for an opportunity to put it on.”
The reporter looked up at the camera and made a cutting motion with her finger. The light went off.
“Thanks for your time,” she said, and extended her hand.
I took it. “Okay,” I said.
“We’ll follow up after you’ve changed,” she said.
“Ah. Oh, okay. I have a lot to do today,” I said.
“It’ll only take a second.”
“Right,” I said.
They moved off, the reporter calling, Sir! Sir! after one of the derivatives guys who’d made a hat of a paper cup with a chopstick jammed through it.
“Nicely done,” said a voice from behind me. I turned around. It was Ai Ai. Slick Lips was with him. They had on raincoats.
“Oh, there you are,” I said. “What’s up with those?” They were wearing old-style red star liberation caps. They took off their raincoats to reveal identical olive-green Zhongshan suits with brown belts, like it was 1967 and they were off to a struggle session. They had the red patches on the collars, and Slick Lips’s red armband read “Smash Running Dog Capitalists!” Copies of the Little Red Book peeked out of their chest pockets.
“You are fucking kidding me,” I said.
“Promote Mao Zedong thought!” Slick Lips screamed. I’m not exaggerating when I say every head on the trading floor turned his way. The cameraman’s spotlight swung around, too, illuminating the two revolutionaries, casting long shadows behind them.
Ai Ai pulled out his copy of Mao’s Quotations and, holding it aloft in a perfect revolutionary pose, screamed, “Let one hundred flowers bloom! Drive out the old and bring forth the new!” The veins in his neck bulged. His eyes were wild.
I thought the reporter was going to kill herself trying to get back across the office. Brother Kang tried to insinuate himself between her and the end of our row, but she dropped her shoulder and plowed through him. “Hey!” he said. His beard had come loose and was dangling from one ear. “You can’t film that!”
It was too late. She was in Slick Lips’s face with the microphone.
“Sir, are you an employee of Horizon Trading?”
“A proud worker, comrade,” he shouted. Comrade, being slang for gay, got the Hanfu guys around me snickering.
“Why aren’t you wearing robes like everyone else?” the reporter asked.
“The Hanfu lifestylers are puppets of the Japanese government!” Slick Lips said.
The reporter leaned in closer. “You say the Hanfu lifestyle is a plot by the Japanese government?”
The guys next to me stopped snickering. One of them said, “Hey, now, that’s unnecessary.”
Slick Lips answered the reporter. “My comrade and I are following Chairman Mao’s instructions to seek truth from facts. True patriotism is rooted in liberation, not the imperial lifestyle! The Hanfu lifestyle is inauthentic. The Japanese wear the same robes, they just call them kimono! We’ve heard that the Japanese fully approve of the Hanfu lifestyle!” He looked around the trading floor. “Anyone who supports the imperial way of life is an imperialist!”
“Shut up,” someone yelled weakly from the direction of corporate bonds.
The reporter was beginning to piece it together. I could see it in her posture. “Ah. You’re some of the famous angry youth?”
Ai Ai took this one. “We don’t adhere to any platform except Chairman Mao’s. We reject the imperialist jingoism of Hanfu. We follow the teachings of the Great Helmsman.”
“What do you hope to accomplish with your mode of dress?” she asked.
“We intend to stage a thought revolution!” Slick Lips screamed. “Who’s with us?” He was waving his Little Red Book again. “Who will reject outmoded thought?” he shouted. It seemed louder this time, probably because it was directed at me.
I was still holding the rumpled Hanfu on my lap. I looked down at it, mostly to avoid my friend’s eyes. The reporter took care of that.
“Mr. Zhang, you remain undecided. Who will you join?” she said. The microphone was under my mouth. I made a laughing sound.
“I don’t think anyone really cares which side I join,” I said.
“Your colleague cares,” she said.
“Well, I don’t know,” I said. “I’d have to hear both sides’ arguments,” I mumbled into my chest.
“Would you consider a debate?” the reporter said, holding the microphone to Slick Lips’s face.
“Ready and waiting,” Slick Lips said, saluting.
“Who will debate the Hanfu side, then?” the report
er said, looking around dramatically. She really knew what she was doing. “Mister Kang, what about you? You’re the leader of the Hanfu movement at Horizon Trading.”
The camera was on Brother Kang. “We’re not going to have a debate about this,” he yelled, throwing his hands up at the absurdity of such an idea. The reporter and the cameraman scrambled over to him. “I won’t address it. These employees are just trying to stir up trouble. Horizon Trading does not sanction dressing up like Red Guards.”
“Horizon Trading only sanctions the Hanfu style of dress?” the reporter said.
“Horizon Trading doesn’t sanction anything!” Brother Kang said. “We’ve chosen to show our national pride by wearing the Hanfu, and that’s it.”
“So it’s your personal choice to wear the Hanfu? It’s not company policy?”
“That’s right. Personal choice,” Brother Kang said, shaking his head and waving away any doubts.
“Are these employees,” the reporter said, pointing at Ai Ai and Slick Lips, “allowed to make personal choices about their wardrobe?”
The Hanfu guy sitting next to me leaned back and, without taking his eyes off Brother Kang, whispered, “She’s very clever. No wonder you looked like such an ass on camera.”
“I see what you’re doing,” Brother Kang said to her. “No more questions. No more questions.”
“Just a few more questions. We’re almost finished,” the reporter said.
“No, no, no.” Brother Kang was swiping at the camera, and the cameraman was dodging and weaving like a cobra to avoid his grasp. “Turn it off. Interview’s over,” Kang said, waving his hand in front of the lens, the sleeve of his blue robe flying about. His beard had fallen off completely.
“Fine. We’ve got enough,” the reporter said. “Let’s go.” As the light went out, Brother Kang made a last lunge for the camera, and this time got the square lens hood in his hand. There followed a struggle over possession of the camera, and Kang appeared to be winning, but at the last moment he seemed to feel he’d proved his point, and he shoved the thing away and started ordering people around.
“Back to work! Phones, people!” he said. “Someone have security escort this woman from the premises.”
Behind me, Ai Ai said, “I hate him a little more every day.”
I turned around and made a plaintive, agreeable face. He ignored me.
“You two! In my office!” Kang shouted at him and Slick Lips. They made a show of moving as slowly as possible across the trading floor, and Slick Lips leaned against the office’s glass wall once they were inside. Kang slammed the door and started yelling. He went on for about ten minutes, and then it got quiet. When the perpetrators were released, Ai Ai looked like he needed a transfusion. Slick Lips, naturally, looked like he’d been napping on the beach. Ai Ai went to his desk and collapsed into his chair. His head disappeared behind his terminals. Slick Lips came over to his own desk, put his cotton-shoed feet up on the keyboard, and yawned.
“Nice move. Been a pleasure working with you,” the Hanfu guy between us said. He’d taken over the chair to observe the debate and didn’t appear to be going anywhere.
“I’ll be your boss by the time this is all over, dummy,” Slick Lips said.
“He didn’t fire you?” I said.
“Who are you, again?” Slick Lips said.
“Come on. What was I supposed to do?” I said.
“Maybe we’ll give you a second chance if you swear an oath to the Chairman,” Slick Lips said.
“How are you still here?” the Hanfu guy said, shaking his head like he’d just seen a bear riding a bicycle.
“I threatened to sue,” Slick Lips said. “Brother Kang can’t dictate my lifestyle choices. Article Thirty-five. Freedom of speech.”
“Article Thirty-five of what?” the Hanfu guy said.
“The Constitution.” Slick Lips gave me a look like, Can you believe this guy? “I’m persuasive. Plus, I told him that if he tried to get rid of us, I’d go straight to Boss Zhou and tell him Kang was trying to suppress our nationalistic expressions.”
“So you’re going to keep wearing that getup?” the Hanfu guy said.
“Look at it this way. If there’s going to be a battle over who’s got more Chinese pride, I want to be on the side that destroyed feudalism and liberated the peasants, not the side that oppressed the masses. I’m just saying, if it weren’t for the Red Guards, we wouldn’t be here today,” Slick Lips said.
“Yeah. Maybe so,” the guy said, nodding and doing his best to look thoughtful.
“Maybe so?” Slick Lips said. “You think you’d be wearing gel in your hair and silk boxers? You’d be dragging a plow while some landlord beat you with a cane. Forget about this stuff.” He tugged at the guy’s silk robes.
By the next morning, Slick Lips had lobbied every employee on the floor. His pitch came down to a simple notion: What would best impress Boss Zhou? Pretty much anyone could wear a Hanfu. It took real balls to put on the Red Guard uniform. Between the malcontents, those who held grudges against Brother Kang, and the spineless bastards like myself who would always do whatever necessary to cover their own backsides, he’d convinced a band of about fifty to switch allegiances. I, being a unique species of spineless bastard, arrived at work with a Hanfu in my bag and a Red Guard uniform wrapped in brown paper under my arm. This wasn’t valiant behavior, but I wanted to survive, and that meant playing the odds. I’d called my doorman the day before and had him run out to the market at Fuchengmen to buy one. He gouged the hell out of me, but I deserved it.
By the time I showed up, arguments had already broken out between the Hanfu and the Red Guards, little gangs throwing around high-minded language and political slogans, people who worked long hours in close quarters finally given a forum in which to settle old scores, air petty betrayals and hurt feelings. Alliances formed over many beers were put asunder. It appeared that the derivatives desk had split right down the middle, and they were shouting unintelligibly at each other, shoving, behaving in a generally Paleolithic manner. It was impossible to hear anything but yelling. I slid into my chair and tried to look like I was working too hard to get involved.
Then Slick Lips climbed up on a desk in a corner of the trading floor and rallied the Red Guard faction. They formed up and started chanting slogans against the class enemies at Horizon Trading Company, stamping their feet and clapping their hands. “The counterrevolution cannot smash us! Smash the counterrevolution!”
Brother Kang, not to be outdone by this pack of screw-ups, took to the squawk box and announced that the Hanfu lifestylers were to gather outside his office.
I peeked over the top of my terminal. Empty seats. I looked behind me. More empty seats. My row was vacant. There wasn’t anyone left. Everyone had chosen a side.
I saw Ai Ai jogging over, a Little Red Book in his hand.
“What’s in here?” he said, nudging the brown package with his toe.
“Laundry,” I said.
“Liar,” he said. “You’ve got a uniform in there. Show me what’s inside.”
“It’s nothing. It’s a blanket.”
Ai Ai made a play for the package but I kicked it deeper under the desk. If he wanted it, he’d have to go spelunking.
“Come on! Join the costume party. I know you’ve got that Hanfu stashed somewhere around here, too,” he said, rifling through my file drawers, slamming them closed when he saw they were empty except for napkins and orphaned chopsticks.
“I think I’m better off staying neutral,” I said. “This has gotten out of control. Carry on without me. I have calls to make.”
“Oh, no. I had to decide which way to go, and you do, too. You can’t pass. In or out.” Ai Ai took my arm and pulled. “There’s no neutral.”
Brother Kang came striding over, his robes flapping.
“Wei,” he said, “why are you sitting out here like a rock in the sea?”
“He’s about to join us,” Ai Ai said, tugging on my arm again, t
his time with meaning, like a kid trying to pull a root out of the ground. “He was just about to unwrap his uniform.”
“You’re joining them?” Brother Kang said. He sounded hurt.
“I’d prefer to stay neutral,” I said, yanking my arm back.
“How can you take them seriously?” Brother Kang said. He calmed himself. “I think I understand. You don’t want to abandon your friends. It’s an honorable position. It’s exactly the sort of honorable position a follower of the Hanfu path would take. But don’t make a mistake. You’ve always been careful. That’s what I like about you. Weigh potential outcomes and do the right thing.”
What a salesman. Brother Kang had never spoken to me with such decency. Even at the archery ceremony, he’d been officious and distant. I’d bought lunch and snacks and he’d never offered to reimburse me.
Some of the Hanfu faction had drifted over to see what was going on. Behind them, a few of the derivatives traders were angling for a better look. The Red Guards had stopped chanting.
I tapped my screens. “Wouldn’t it be easier if I stayed on the desk here? Someone ought to be getting some work done.”
“Collective decisions are the essence of high morale,” Brother Kang said. “We’re nurturing the life of the firm.”
“What life of the firm?” Ai Ai said. “We’re done for. This place is a grease stain on your fat ass!”
“You’re a rotten egg!” Brother Kang said.
No one talked that way anymore, but it was just the sort of thing Brother Kang would say. Some of the Hanfu crew started laughing.
“Shut up!” Brother Kang shouted.
“There he is,” Ai Ai said, slapping his legs. “There’s the Brother Kang we know. You fucking bully. You fat pig flopping around in the mud.”