Wuhan

by John Fletcher

  ‘You!’ roars Tian. ‘You!’

  Tian Boqi is large and well formed. A formidable man. The guard half swallows his cigarette and shouts out ‘Trouble!’

  By the time Tian reaches the girl two muscular and extremely unpleasant thugs stand between him and her. One draws a knife. I get between them and him.

  ‘Tian Boqi, there is nothing we can do. Do you want these gangsters to knife you? Your fists can do nothing against their knives. Get back.’

  By now several of his classmates have gathered about him, urging him to be cautious.

  He does not move.

  ‘Tian Boqi,’ I continue, ‘there is nothing you can do about this now. It is only when we have real political power that we can deal with atrocities like this.’

  Tian Boqi thinks for a moment. Then he looks round my head and at the two gangsters standing facing him. He points at them. In his finest and highest Han accent he pronounces:

  ‘I tell you this. When the revolution comes, when the true and decent working people of China seize power from the rats and vermin such as yourselves who rule us now, this is what will happen. You will be the first to be hung before the people of China. Because of what you have done to these children you will be hung so high the birds of the air will build nests in your hair and peck out your eyes to feed their young.’

  With that he pushes me away, turns around, and walks off. The rest of us follow obediently. The gangsters strike the distracted children to get them begging again. For the first time I realize there is something admirable in Tian Boqi. A decency and a real passion for righting wrongs. But why is he so angry?

  *

  I am taking them to a tent-like structure on the Bund where the famous Beijing drum singer Shanyaodan performs. I used to love his father’s performances when I was a child on the streets of Beijing and have watched several of his plays here in Wuhan. His superb technique alternates between beating and gently tapping and brushing his drum – it almost sings! – and incanting and reciting a dramatic narrative, usually of a historical, mythological nature. His performance flows with strong rhythms and rich images. Audiences rush into the worlds he creates.

  I speak sternly to my students before we go in. Say that this is one of China’s greatest artists. (A few guffaws.) That they must show respect. This is the theatre the Chinese people love, and we must learn from it. Tian Boqi just looks at me.

  We enter.

  Packed, silent, dark.

  Shanyaodan stands before us on a small stage. He holds a drum under one arm but does not look at it as he conjures all sort of sounds – from the harshest to the softest to the most subtle – from it. Instead he stares ahead of him, over the heads of his audience, into the distance., his face a mask of concentration, occasionally slipping into terror and tragedy or amusement.

  He tells the story of how the mighty warrior Zhang Fei stood alone and held the crooked timber bridge at Changban against Cao Cao’s whole army. China’s greatest leader Liu Bei had been forced to retreat by Cao Cao’s overwhelming numbers, but at Changban a sudden cavalry attack had split Liu Bei from his family, the civilians he had been protecting. Liu Bei was forced to retreat across the bridge, but first he sent his trusted lieutenant Zhao Yun to try and rescue his wife and only child. Until Zhao Yun returned, Zhang Fei, Liu Bei’s greatest warrior, swore to hold the bridge against all comers.

  Shanyaodan stares out beyond his audience. Face like stone, eyebrows raised, straight as arrows, eyes glaring.

  A sudden pandemonium from his drum.

  Silence.

  ‘He, Zhang Fei, stands mighty on the rough and crooked timbers of the bridge.

  The bridge sways and creaks. The wind sighs.

  In the distance the cries of women and children being massacred,

  defenceless people’s blood flying red in the air.

  In iron armour, handling his sword,

  Zhang Fei impatiently treads from side to side.

  No Zhao Yun, no wife or baby.

  Soldiers approach.

  Cavalrymen, archers, swordsman, spear men.

  Zhang Fei lets them. He will not budge one inch from his narrow bridge.

  Soldiers saunter up,

  amused that only one man will fight.

  Laugh, joke among themselves, call him out.

  Zhang ignores this. Still no sign of Zhao Yun, mother and child.

  One soldier, emboldened, brags before his fellows, swaggers up.

  “Are you mighty Liu Bei’s entire army?

  The only soldier that will fight for him?

  Scram!”

  In Zhang Fei’s red face, surrounded by black hair and black beard and black eyebrows,

  furious demons spasm in his cheeks,

  rage eats his soul…’

  The drum thunders.

  ‘…he roars as man has never roared before,

  a roar so overpowering it sweeps all before it.

  The single braggart and all his tittering friends and fellows are smashed off their feet, tumble, plummet back into a jumble of bodies fifty yards before the bridge.’

  At this, cries break out among the audience, groans and sighs and murmurs of wonderment. One of the student giggles.

  Shanyaodan speaks over them.

  ‘Slowly the skittled terrified soldiers rise, reassemble themselves,

  turn towards Zhang Fei.

  Now they know they face a true opponent.

  Still no sign of mother or baby or brave Zhao Yun.

  His enemies murmur among themselves, take formation, as one charge.

  Arrows, spears, swords axes arrows fly and smash and flash in the air,

  arms and limbs and torsos fly in the air and scatter on the ground and into the water around the bridge,

  screams and shouts and curses and groans.

  Only Zhang Fei is unmoved,

  silent and calm

  he sheathes his sword,

  hums his favourite tune

  like a farmer scything his hay,

  a baker pummeling his dough,

  a shepherd counting his flock.

  Then, in the distance, Zhang Fei sights brave Zhao Yun,

  a baby tied to his back

  but no mother,

  galloping hard for the bridge.’

  My ill-mannered students have started to talk among themselves. Audience members look at them. Like the true professional Shanyaodan raises his game.

  ‘The soldiers turn,

  see the approaching horseman,

  turn to face and kill him.

  But at this exact second – not having moved an inch from his position until now –

  suddenly Zhang Fei launches himself from the crooked timbered bridge

  and falls on the backs of his enemies

  – cutting and slicing and severing and maiming

  the enemies of China,

  the enemies of justice and compassion and hope

  – as across the bridge gallops Zhao Yun and his royal infant

  followed by Zhang Fei

  (unmolested by his shattered foes)

  calmly retreating, always facing his enemy,

  smashing one bridge timber after the next as he steps backwards.

  On dry land he raises his sword and resounds in victory.

  Brave Zhang Fei!’

  There are shouts of joy. Screams of emotion and ecstasy and release from the audience.

  Shanyaodan stands motionless, emotionless before them. Swiftly he bows and retreats behind a curtain.

  I look at my students. Unmoved, dismissive of everything they have seen. Some gurn, others giggle. None do anything to hide their contempt. Which provokes angry comments from audience members who are leaving. One even accuses Tian Boqi of being a ‘Japanese traitor!’ Tian Boqi stares at him as if he’s mad. Then shouts after him accusing him of being ‘an ignorant peasant’.

  I tell him to shut up.

  He says he won’t. ‘Why did he accuse me of being a Japanese traitor?’
/>
  ‘Because, with your mockery and rudeness, you ridiculed an anti-Japanese play.’

  ‘How was that load of feudal garbage and warlord posturing an anti-Japanese play?’

  I look at them standing in the now empty theatre. They are all, in their youthful way, so literal, so intellectually muscle-bound, inbred in their thought.

  ‘Didn’t you think that when Zhang Fei held the bridge so heroically he was actually defending Wuhan against the Japanese? That the baby he was holding the bridge to rescue was in fact the infant China, the new China?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘Well, that’s what the audience thought, however stupid. That was why there was such emotion. That’s why your laughter and levity caused such upset.’

  ‘They need plain undistorted truths and dialectics – not reactionary medieval gobbledygook.’

  ‘Tian Boqi,’ I ask him, ‘have you ever wondered why in China there are more temples dedicated to Zhang Fei or Zhuge Liang than to Confucius himself?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I haven’t! All temples should be burnt down!’

  At this moment the curtain is drawn back again and Shanyaodan, his make-up removed, steps softly into the theatre.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he addresses us, ‘especially you young gentlemen,’ he continues to my writers, bowing towards them, ‘I am so honoured to have performed before you.’

  Having attended several of his performances I had asked Shanyaodan if he would honour my students with a brief talk on the art of acting, of how to ‘read’ an audience as you perform before them so that you can adjust your performance and the script’s meaning to please and intrigue and persuade them. Subtle skills vital to both acting and propaganda.

  I address Shanyaodan.

  ‘Revered master,’ I say, ‘thank you for the great performance we have just witnessed. I note that, since your previous performance, you have added more pointed barbs against our enemy and more patriotic pieces to please your audience.’

  He bows to me, then turns to address my students. I stand behind him and glare at them. I so rarely glare that it seems, if only momentarily, to shock them into good behaviour. Perhaps I should glare more often.

  ‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘I noticed, as I performed, that when my hero behaved selflessly – for the common good – or when he insulted or defeated his enemies – this led to greater involvement and emotion in my audience. So that I started to add to them. Be more flagrant in my contempt for the enemy, more daring and courageous in my hero’s deeds and words. The audience reactions to this signalled to me they demanded even more. As an actor I am here to serve my audience. That is the actor’s duty. The fact that I, as a Chinese man, fully share their anger at the Japanese and their emotions for my country are beside the point. I must express to them their feelings and desires.’

  ‘Perhaps you could tell us more about how you read your audience?’

  ‘As an actor, at every moment, you must watch, sense, ride your audience. Know precisely what they’re thinking, what they’re needing. You must continually trim and alter your performance, adapt your script, watch for every reaction and sigh. An audience controls, leads their actor.’

  My class are not listening to him. Without being actually impolite they are looking elsewhere, scratching, even yawning. Of course Shanyaodan, the consummate actor, is immediately aware of this. His beautiful baritone starts to become a bit strained, nervous even. Partly it’s the insecurity which all elder men feel when they are addressing youth. But also he senses that his mellifluous actorly voice is starting to feel insincere, superficial to them.

  I see it is time to end this. I thank him heartily for his time, the wisdom of his talk, of the importance always of targeting your voice and your script towards your audiences’ feelings and aspirations, so that, by engaging them, you can attract them to your meanings and your objectives. Shanyaodan bows and disappears once more behind his curtain. I herd my writers outside onto the Bund.

  Coolies struggle past beneath their loads, mothers argue, market traders shout, a gaggle of students push past denouncing Germany’s recent threats against Austria. All of this passes my group by. They are already huddled in deep ideological dissection.

  Chou Taofen slides onto the dance floor first.

  ‘Massification,’ he pronounces, ‘that play was total massification. A blind imitation of old forms. It capitulated to all the most reactionary social and political evils in China.’

  Zou Feng follows seamlessly on.

  ‘Our revolutionary drama must,’ he demands, ‘create mass revolutionary consciousness, form new art forms and contents, speak a new and pure language that all can understand.’

  Tian Boqi turns directly at me. From his towering height glowers down on my insignificance and, ice in his immaculate Han accent, addresses me.

  ‘You showed us your cowardly and grovelling reactionary character earlier when you refused to allow me to beat the criminals who had so grievously wounded that poor little girl beggar.’

  He continues.

  ‘And now you bring us to this farce. We are serious writers. We have a revolution to engineer. Get out of our way, old man.’

  Which leaves me, actually, with only one last card to play. I inform the group that I have decided that one of their plays must be performed. Publicly. Before an actual peasant audience. In an actual village. They have three days to prepare and rehearse it. Tian Boqi’s play will be the one to be performed.

  *

  Hu Lan-shih had spent quite a lot of time worrying about what sort of clothes she should wear to her first meeting of the important government committee she’d so suddenly, so unexpectedly been appointed to. Not that she had that many different clothes to choose from. In fact she didn’t have any. Just the ones she stood up in – her white blouse and black trousers. Spider Girl had very kindly washed them the night before and sewn up some tears in their fabric. But some of the blood stains Hu’d got from dressing the soldiers’ wounds had proved impossible to remove. ‘Well,’ thought Hu to herself, ‘I will present myself to these grand people as I am. And they can make of me what they want.’

  She and Spider Girl were promenading slowly along the Bund – Spider Girl to do her daily shopping, Hu to attend her first meeting.

  Hu was simultaneously fretting and trying to calm herself for the strange ritual she was about to undergo. A high government committee! She walked along in uncharacteristic self-absorption. Spider Girl took her silence to conclude she was in love. That she was probably going through a difficult phase with her lover. Spider Girl wanted to know all about it.

  Hu denied she was in love.

  This denial only confirmed Spider Girl’s suspicions.

  ‘If you’re having difficulties with him I can recommend a really good witch. Just take her some hair or fingernail clippings and he’ll be round your finger in an instant. And she’s not expensive. I can introduce you to her.’

  ‘Spider Girl, I am not in love. With anyone!’

  Spider Girl could see Hu was too upset to talk about it so she recommended a pick-me-up potion that was on sale at a close-by stall and then went off to the food market to do her own shopping.

  Hu returned to her preoccupations. If Agnes Smedley and Li Dequan, who Hu trusted implicitly, and Shi Liang and Madame Chiang, who Hu did not trust at all, all thought she could be of some use on this committee, if it could help people, lots of people, then she had to do it.

  So she dutifully continued on her journey and arrived at the entrance to a great government building where the meeting was to be held.

  She looked up at its many storeys towering above her. There were two guards on the door. She showed them her letter of introduction. They let her through. Into a great long corridor with high, high ceilings. A young official greeted her. He smiled, wasn’t for a second taken aback by her primitive clothes, and shook her hand vigorously in a most un-Chinese fashion. He led her up staircases and down corridors until at last they arriv
ed at the committee room. It was large enough to fit a farmhouse in.

  The tables were set in a sort of square, with the chairs set outside the square so that the committee members all faced each other. Proceedings were overseen by a chairman who sat on an elevated dais surrounded by heraldic flags and carvings. The meeting looked as though it had been going on for several hundred years. One man was standing behind his table and speaking in a long, boring voice. No one was listening to him. A group had gathered at the foot of the chairman’s dais and were laughing sycophantically at his jokes. Two other groups had assembled on opposite sides of the table square. Each was whispering conspiratorially among themselves and looking furtively over their shoulders at the group opposite. Every so often one member of the group standing on the inside of the tables would scurry quickly over to the other group and hostile whisperings and murmurs would be exchanged before the individual scurried back.

  This was not a meeting as Hu remembered them from her trade union days in Shanghai. Then everyone was crammed into a tiny room around a small table with a few people sat down and everyone else jammed up against the walls. People spoke swiftly, curtly, to the point. Others stood outside guarding them against sudden and violent attacks from the secret police or company thugs. People were taken away from these meetings and shot.

  The young official showed Hu to her seat – where sharpened pencils and writing paper had already been laid on the table before her – and was about to hurry off to join the lackeys at the feet of the chairman when Hu asked him what the meeting was about and to explain how she went about being recognized by the chair so she could speak? The young man said it was already arranged for her to speak and she would be called soon. He was just about to hurry off when Hu repeated – ‘Yes, but what is this meeting about?’

  ‘Ah,’ said the clerk, looking momentarily flummoxed, ‘someone said housing – I think.’

  He was off. Hu sat there. The standing man continued his long, lonely speech in his monotonous voice. No one listened to him. Except Hu. Hu thought that by listening to him she might finally be able to discover what the meeting was about. Eventually she managed to work out it was indeed about the housing crisis.