Ms. Ming's Guide to Civilization

by Jan Alexander

  “I can afford my own place,” she protested.

  “You’d get lonely,” Han said. “Anyway, the shared solar-battery powered taxis will take you anywhere you want to go.”

  “Please stay with us, Aunt Ming,” pleaded Bo Fu. The boy was nine now, and had shot up into a handsome, slender child. He still liked McDonald’s, but its new vegetable buffet was apparently proving to be just as popular as the Egg McMuffins had once been.

  Han’s home, Ming was gratified to see, was in a new compound known as a balance tower, a community of graceful residential and office buildings clustered around courtyards. He’d moved his office to an adjoining building. His routine, he told Ming, was to work until noon, then go to the indoor solarium, which housed a pool where he swam laps before lunch. While he was swimming the next day Ming strolled through the garden. Children’s laughter from a jungle gym and swing set filled the air.

  “Ming?” a voice called. She turned and saw Fanny, flushed and smiling, pushing a heavy girl in a swing. “This is my daughter,” Fanny enthused. “She’s in a nursery here, and I can take breaks to play with her.”

  “You look happy.”

  “Oh, Ming, I am. So very happy to have my daughter nearby. Tian went back to school, did you know? She’s studying to be a nutritionist.”

  “What about you?” Ming asked. “You’re still working for Han?”

  “Oh, I don’t care about fil-os-o-phee,” Fanny shrugged, and took her daughter’s hand. The three of them entered the solarium. Han was just finishing his swim. Toweling his wet hair and dangling goggles, he nodded at Fanny.

  “You can go shopping,” he said. Fanny and her daughter went off, and Han gestured to Ming to sit down at one of the café tables.

  “When business gets slow we send our staff shopping to ensure that money keeps circulating,” he explained to her. “Nowadays, we figure it scarcely matters so long as the money keeps getting made somewhere and moving around. When I look at a company now, I want to know how my investment can help them fuel the economy—”

  Yes, I know all about it, she forced herself not to say aloud.

  Han’s phone interrupted his lecture on the fundamentals of New China. He picked it up and spoke for a few minutes. “I’m just about to close a deal,” he told Ming. A waiter brought them lunch, zhajiangmian noodles with soybean paste.

  Ming nodded. All around them, men wrapped in towels were talking about “percentage” and “structure” with each other or on their phones.

  “Why be stuck in a stuffy office?” Han toyed with his chopsticks as if he were about to use them to write instructions on a whiteboard. “Swimming laps makes us more alert, more aware. I’ve found that when you contemplate the human element in a transaction, rather than just the spreadsheet, it’s better for all parties. A matter of paying attention to the ambiguities. If you’re spending in ways that help other businesses grow, prosperity spreads like a thriving bamboo weed. And what is it you occupy yourself with these days, little sister?”

  “I make time to write.”

  “Why does everyone think they have to write something? Bo Fu’s mother says she’s going to write a book.”

  “I should visit her.”

  “She’s living with a group of women who have left their husbands to find themselves. I told her, ‘Keep Bo and get your mind off yourself, like I do.’ You think my life is so perfect? I work, I swim, I visit my parents, I look after my son. I make money. I had a girlfriend but she decided some musician guy was more her type.”

  Han isn’t happy, Ming realized.

  “The air’s gotten cleaner, and my money helped do that,” he continued. “I suppose you think there’s supposed to be something more? Do you ever see Tom? Are you still fond of each other?”

  “Sure. He’s the only person I know who doesn’t pass judgment. But I like writing, he likes flying, I don’t think he’s the man I’m going to marry…”

  “You are married. Aren’t you?”

  “Oh…I dunno, what happens when you live apart for so long?”

  “You still have to make your separation official.” Han shook his head. “You’re an executive at Sunshine Finance and you don’t know how the laws work? What brings you to Beijing, anyway?”

  “Research,” Ming said, the first word that came to mind.

  That afternoon, in Han’s guestroom, Ming began a new story. She brought back the character Mimi and had her living in Beijing—the old Beijing of toxic skies and limousines splashing beggars with black gutter water. Mimi earned her living as a high class escort until one night, in a hotel suite with a captain of industry, she discovered she had a superpower. Mimi could sing a bluesy tune, lulling the man into slumber, and whisper things as he slept that would alter his conscious mind. This influential man woke up dazed, full of existential questions about the purpose of his wealth.

  “Aunt Ming,” Bo Fu called, rapping on her door. She let him in, and he said, “Come with us! We’re going to the pavilion for dinner.”

  “I have some work to do,” Ming told him, depositing a kiss on his cheek. “I’m writing. Sometimes when you write it feeds your mind and that’s all you want.”

  “My mama’s writing too, but I like to eat,” Bo Fu giggled.

  She wrote into the night—not just the Mimi story, but also an e-mail to Charles Engelhorn: We met last year. I have a book of Du Fu’s poetry for you. Do you remember? Zoe Austin said you’re writing about New China. I just arrived in Beijing. Maybe I can be helpful?

  Charles Engelhorn’s reply came within the hour: I do remember. He suggested meeting at a café near Beijing University the following day.

  In the morning, en route to the café, she bought a fine leather-bound copy of Du Fu—since the copy she’d claimed to possess had been abandoned to Jeff’s clutter long ago—and explored a city born anew. Urban planners, architects, and engineers, their minds ignited, had constructed a frenzy of subterranean pedestrian passageways and wi-fi enabled stations where sleek hybrid vans departed to every part of the city at fifteen-minute increments. Private vehicles were banned. “A city for the new millennium,” the planners had boasted.

  Ming jostled with pedestrians walking elbow to elbow, beneath the welcome shade of the willow trees, circling around the occasional street comedian or ballet dancer.

  “It’s like a city of boulevardiers, flaneurs—the kind that are engaged in the study of humanity and how to live well in a post-capitalist world,” she said to Charles Engelhorn as they found seats in an expansive café with white walls and carved rosewood tables. A flute player provided soothing sound, and a fusion scent of wine, coffee, and mossy tea filled the air.

  “It’s nothing short of amazing,” he agreed. “Amazing that government and business leaders have not only dreamed up everything a city should be, but actually built it!”

  Glad you like my ingenuity. Just once before I die, can I stand on a big stage and say I did all this? His appreciation hit a chord in her heart though; there was something so eager about him, the gangly youth peering out beneath his crinkly middle-aged skin even though he’d aged, with grayer hair and an anguish in the way he moved. She stared for a moment at the blue veins in his hands and the conspicuous absence of his wedding ring.

  Ming ordered bean-paste buns for them both, while Charles idly stirred his green tea.

  “So,” he said, “have you worked on books before?”

  Odd question, she thought. “I write short stories, but someday—”

  He wasn’t really listening. “I want to discover the seeds, the roots of this transformation. I always assumed that if there was any entity that could implement mind control, it would be the Chinese government, but who ever imagined they’d do it this way? Makes you wonder… is this brainwashing or freedom? Is this an experiment that will abruptly end, leaving a repressive reactionary regime in its wake? Might the roots
be found in Confucian thought—?”

  “Confucius was a purist,” Ming couldn’t resist interjecting.

  “Perhaps it speaks to an ingrained guilt complex in Chinese corporate leaders. I want to talk to business and political leaders, to Civilizers, and to ordinary folks. Would you be willing to help with interviews? Zoe recommended you so I know you can do the job, if you want it.”

  “The—?” She stopped herself. Zoe had said tell him you heard he’s looking for help. And Ming had taken the bait. He wanted an academic handmaiden.

  “I’d want to obtain a variety of views, though I don’t usually do oral histories,” he was going on. “You were here when it all started, weren’t you? I am sure your life changed dramatically.”

  “Yes, I’m a writer, after all.”

  “Well, if you’d like the job, we can keep the hours flexible. The only thing that concerns me is that you haven’t been living in Beijing.”

  Zoe did this to me, sent me off to play this role. But I’ll be a double agent. That bit of adventure appealed to her, though she wondered how long she’d be able to play the innocent researcher.

  “I went to high school and university here,” The co-head of Sunshine Finance and author of minor acclaim, was suddenly pleading for the job. “I can introduce you to plenty of people. You might even want to meet my family—we’ve got the old guard and a financier and me, a Civilizer.” Besides, you’re a convenient cover for me to stay here a while and inspect the world I’ve designed.

  “You know, you have quite the mysterious smile,” Charles murmured, almost without thinking.

  Just call me Mysteries-of-the-Orient Ming. Would you like me to seduce you?

  Before she started the minimum-wage undercover job two days later, she finished the Mimi story, carving a trail of powerful men who tell their underlings, “I don’t need to hoard my earnings because money is a bamboo weed, here’s a cutting for you and for you and for you.”

  Poor Charles. She was going to have to lead him down a path of theories with no conclusion. The thought made her feel protective of him all over again, somehow.

  She led him, first, to visit Wu Xia, Han’s ex-wife, in a neighborhood of villas dedicated to cooperative feminist living. Wu Xia, her hair now long and her face serene, took them on a tour of the compound, showing them the common kitchen and nursery, and a starkly bare room with mirrored walls and floor. “When we have our women’s sessions, we take our clothes off in here,” Wu Xia confided with a giggle. Charles flushed.

  “Our group has read some of your erotic stories, Ming, in our effort to rid ourselves of inhibition. We examine ourselves, our minds, and our bodies. I care about Han, but I can’t be married to a man who holds everything inside. One morning, I suddenly realized that being a good wife and mother, agreeing with everything Han says, just isn’t enough. He didn’t really love me, you know. You can tell him I said that. When I find myself, I’ll be ready to find my true soul mate.”

  I know too much, and if I find true love I’ll always harbor secrets, it occurred to Ming.

  In the weeks that followed, she accompanied Charles to meetings with professors and minor government officials. “The consensus is that the seeds grew from a century of being open to whatever revolutionary thought works best,” Charles pondered late one afternoon. “Can you type up the notes under that theme?” Ming had a sudden urge to throw her arms around him and tell him everything, but she stopped herself. They were in his Beijing University visiting faculty apartment, a place that had become familiar to her by then. Someday, she was sure, they were going to find their way to the bedroom.

  It happened in May. Han and Bo Fu were away with the boy’s class for a father-son weekend of rock-climbing, fishing, and paintball at the Baihe River. Charles had an invitation that Friday night to a party celebrating Ma Fu Gang, the recipient of a prestigious literary prize for his stylistic novel about life among the Americans and their “primitive addiction to paychecks.” Ming had known Ma Fu Gang in New York. He had been one of her roommates in the basement apartment. He used to read his political poetry aloud late at night and distract her from studying. Once, he’d thrown one of Ming’s MBA textbooks across the room, then told her that only a bourgeoisie fool would study business when she could be learning anarchy right here in this hovel they all called home.

  Charles and Ming stopped at a bookstore before the party to buy a copy of Ma’s new book; Ming was sure the great literary prizewinner would have humiliating words for any guest who couldn’t quote a line or two.

  “You haven’t read it yet?” the bookstore clerk asked, casting Ming a look that made her feel like a bumpkin from Sichuan. “It’s being called the definitive work on the dystopic horror that China could have been. But frankly, I find him a tad predictable on the plight of the starving artist.”

  “Why does everyone in New China think they’re a literary critic?” Charles asked. “We’ve got to look into that.”

  Fu Gang lived in the Summer Palace, the most magnificent building in Beijing, the former playground of emperors set on the placid Kunming Lake. Charles and Ming arrived early—Fu Gang had promised that his assistant would provide a pre-party tour of the quarters that now housed the country’s most famous Civilizers.

  They met Fu Gang’s assistant beneath an archway that had no number, but like the entrances to each of a dozen courtyards was delineated by the shapes carved out in the stone, this one had a circle, a bottle shape, a crescent, and a dragon tongue. The assistant was a willowy young woman who strode on silver stilettos. She ushered them through a courtyard with lilacs in bloom, to an expansive room with a polished granite floor. They could hear the strains of a cellist and pianist rehearsing somewhere within.

  “As a writer, Ma likes it quiet,” the assistant murmured, invoking his name as if he were a god. “His chambers are back there.” She pointed a silver-tipped finger. “Those are all closed-off residences, you understand. But I can show you a model apartment. So you’re a professor? Are you looking for accommodation here?”

  “In my dreams,” said Charles.

  The assistant pressed her thumb against a brass circle on a door and it swung open. They stepped over a traditional Chinese threshold, raised to trip evil spirits if they tried to glide through, into a hushed room with blackwood floors, perfect lacquer furniture, fine art, and white silk upholstery. The apartment smelled of spring blossoms.

  An empty side room featured a vast glass door that slid open to a patch of manicured woodland, with a view of rolling hills beyond.

  “That, of course,” said the assistant, “is the creation room. Every apartment has one.”

  “I want to live here,” Ming declared.

  “These apartments used to be reserved for the very wealthy, but money isn’t what makes the world a better place. Art holds that honor, and artists now live here so they can better focus on the colors, sounds, and words that describe what humanity most needs to know about itself,” the assistant recited.

  A familiar soliloquy; Ming had written those words, more or less.

  “You’d have to be a very accomplished artist to qualify,” the assistant continued. “And it’s always conditional—if you stop being productive you have to move.”

  “That clerk in the bookstore thinks Ma’s work is predictable,” Ming muttered to Charles as they made their way to the grand hall where the party was just beginning.

  “Well, maybe someday you will live here,” said Charles.

  “Why not? I invented New China, after all.”

  He laughed.

  They walked through carved doors into a vast room with mosaic floors and gilt molding. A string quartet played, and a number of guests were dancing. A long way from the nights Ma Fu Gang had read his poetry from a perch on his cot, with springs that rattled any time he moved, Ming thought.

  Lean men in silk tee shirts and well-toned women
in sequined cocktail dresses chattered in both Chinese and English, with a thousand different upper-class accents. Everyone seemed to be holding poses, like sculptures on exhibition.

  “What earth-shaking advances did you create today, darling?” a green-eyed man asked Ming, his gaze drawn to her cleavage. A wave of chatter and head-turning announced the arrival of Fu Gang, who entered amidst his entourage. “Oh, there’s the artist of the moment. But his book will be passé when mine comes out, and, as his friend, I’m going to have to tell him so,” the man remarked.

  Ming strode over to Fu Gang and threw her arms around him.

  “Hello,” the artist of the moment said, startled. He had more flesh on his frame now, with love handles that stretched the seams on his shirt to the point of unraveling; or perhaps the shirt was intentionally frayed, along with the pre-cut hole that showed off a bat tattoo on his left tricep. Fu Gang’s hair hung about his ears in spikes, and he dangled an herbal cigarette stump between his thumb and forefinger.

  “I’m Ming Cheng—remember the bad old days in the basement dorm at NYU?”

  “Oh, of course, Ming. My ex-girlfriend used to read your blog. Not my thing, of course, that porno chick lit genre.”

  “Must have been a long-ago girlfriend. You had a great description in your book of the highway in Jersey City.”

  “Great? Now there’s an all-encompassing chick lit word. As in ‘great cock,’ I suppose.”

  A reed-thin woman in a copper dress blew Fu Gang an air kiss in the general vicinity of his cheek.

  “Hello, darling,” he responded. “This is…”

  “Hello, I’m Xiao Ming Cheng.”

  “Ming does a racy blog.”

  “Yes,” the woman said. “I’ve heard of you. The writer from the small town—what was it called, Sunny Town?—nobody visits anymore because it’s become a tourist cliché.”

  “Bad girl, you’ve hurt her feelings,” Fu Gang fake-berated. “I was at your gallery yesterday, darling, and I wondered what possessed you to start carrying Wong Qi Yan? He’s a banal would-be wit, really, that sunflower with Van Gogh’s ear embedded in the crevices? Simple-minded.”