Throwaway Daughter
Page 17
I wasn’t on the bus for long. I had promised Ah-miao I would return to say goodbye to him and his mother before I left for Canada. Although I had mixed feelings about it, I wanted to keep my word. I didn’t, though, expect to see a full house waiting for me. Everyone was there, Ah-miao, Qiu-xiang, Loyal, and his father. I still couldn’t bring myself to call Loyal my father or his father Grandfather. I had nothing but contempt for both of them.
Qiu-xiang was the one I felt sorry for, stuck with a husband she obviously didn’t like and a father-in-law she ignored when she wasn’t yelling at him. The only thing they all seemed to agree on was doting on Ah-miao, their precious boy.
I sat down to have tea with them one last time. Everyone was gloomy and quiet, a contrast to the conflict and abuse I had witnessed the first time I was there. When I stood up to leave, Old Chen went through the curtain into his room and came back with something in his hand.
He followed me out of the door. “Dong-mei, I want you to have this.”
I looked up into his watery eyes, then down at the passport-sized book in his hand. The red plastic cover was dusty and split at the corners, the gold-coloured characters on the front scuffed and almost illegible. But I managed to read the three most well known characters in the language: Chairman Mao. It was a copy of the famous “Little Red Book.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, confused by such a strange gift.
“I hope you will find a few minutes to read part of it,” he said. “I marked the place where the story of Old Man Yu Moves the Mountain begins. Read it, then you can throw the book away. I have no use for it any more.”
“All right,” I said. “I will.”
He held my gaze, and for a second I could see the man who used to be called Old Revolutionary Chen.
“Dong-mei,” he said again, looking me up and down as if he was memorizing my appearance. “I have been a fool.” Then he turned and walked back into the house.
I put the little book in my backpack. Ahmiao walked me down the path to the threshing ground, where he had parked his motorcycle. He insisted on giving me a ride into the city.
“I’m sorry my parents and grandfather weren’t more friendly,” he said. “It has nothing to do with you. Last night I gave them some bad news. They didn’t take it very well.”
I waited for him to go on. Around us, the cicadas kept up their loud, monotonous buzz. The odour of growing rice rose from the paddies, and the sun beat down like a hammer. Thinking of my encounter with Ms. Song in Shanghai, I half expected Ah-miao to ask for my help in going to Canada. Maybe his parents and grandfather didn’t like the idea.
“You see,” he began, “I plan to get married in a few months, during the Spring Festival.”
“Aren’t you a little young?” I asked tactlessly, remembering the rules set by the government. “You’re only eighteen!”
Ah-miao let out a laugh, revealing the gap where he had lost a tooth. “You foreigners read too much, Dong-mei. No one cares any more so long as you don’t ask the government for anything, like a piece of land to put up a house.”
“Oh. Then I guess your fiancée and you will move in with your parents and grandfather.”
“No. There is no room for us, not while my grandfather is still alive. But even if there was, Lian-hua and I have decided to set up our new household with her parents.”
“That would be bad news,” I said.
“You see, Lian-hua is their only child and …”
“And so are you. I thought the son always brings his wife to his family.” What I didn’t say was: Isn’t that what all the madness is about, wanting to have a son?
“Not any more, Half-sister. China is progressing. Forget about the old customs and traditions. Nowadays, it’s money that sets the rules, does the talking, and makes the decisions. Lian-hua’s family is richer than mine, way richer, and has potential to grow richer still. Her old man holds a high position in the commune, but that’s not where his money really comes from. Months ago, he bought two used turtle carts and began a local taxi service. The government encourages private enterprise, you know.”
“But you said he’s a Party official.”
“That works even better. Less red tape, more green lights to get things going. You get my point? Her father promised me that after we are married—in his house, of course, not mine—he is going to purchase a third cart and hire me as the driver, and eventually make me a partner. It means that I won’t have to work in the fields any more, but most of all, some day I will be making tons of money. My old man tried to start his own business many years ago, raising rabbits or something. He lost everything. He has no fire in his belly. In many ways, he seems older and weaker than Grandfather. I should have taken you to Lian-hua’s house in the Bao Family Village. It’s much bigger and fancier than mine, with balconies, wood floors, ceiling lights, and wall units, all first class. Even you would be impressed.”
I let him talk. I couldn’t help but feel awkward hearing him brag about someone else’s wealth and the advantage that marriage to Lian-hua would bring. It was so practical, not to mention in bad taste. Back home, where marriage was concerned, everything was love and passion. But here, it was power and opportunity.
That explained the sombre mood after I had arrived at Ah-miao’s house. It wasn’t bad news for the Chen family; it was a catastrophe. Ah-miao’s plan wasn’t just reversing centuries of tradition. I tried to keep a smile off my face, conscious of the irony. The boy child the Chens had done so much to get was going to leave them and join his in-laws in another village. I recalled an old Chinese expression I had learned in Frank’s class, something about fetching water in a bamboo basket.
“They wanted me to find another girl,” Ahmiao went on, not noticing my smile. “But they forget, it’s hard to find a wife, a suitable one especially. Young men outnumber women by a big margin. On the cross-talk show, a radio comedy, they make jokes about China having the world’s biggest crop of frustrated bachelors. In the old days, men who were rich and powerful had more than one wife. I guess in order to solve the problem in the future a woman will have to take in a few husbands! The whole thing is crazy, isn’t it?”
No wonder, I thought, in a place where some fetuses are aborted as soon as the mother finds out by ultrasound that they’re female. Or baby girls are taken care of in one way or another after they’re born.
On the plane, over the Pacific Ocean, I opened the “Little Red Book” to the page Old Chen had marked for me. “Old Man Yu Moves the Mountain” was part of a speech made by Mao Ze-dong at the Seventh Central Committee Meeting of the Party, whatever that was, on June 11, 1945. Mao referred to a fable that told of an old farmer who lived in north China. Two high mountains stood in front of his house, between him and his fields. One was called Mount Tai, the other Mount Wang-wo, and the old man decided to move them with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. The fable’s moral was that determination and faith and time would enable a person to conquer obstacles that appeared to be insurmountable.
Mao was still a hero to some people in China. I had seen his portrait hanging in a couple of houses in Poplar Tree Village. Now, Ahmiao had told me, Deng Xiao-ping was the hero. But on the plane, with the red book in my hands, I remembered a TV show I had seen, some history documentary that my dad insisted I watch with him. It was about the war in Vietnam. There was a lot of footage on the last hours in Saigon, when the Americans were withdrawing and evacuating their embassy. Helicopters swept in one after another while the Viet Cong assaulted the walls. It was much more terrifying than any war movie, because it was real.
In one shot, a Vietnamese woman ran towards an already heavily laden helicopter that hovered several feet off the ground, ready to rise out of the machine-gun fire into the smoke-filled sky. In her arms was a baby. Just as the plane began to lift off, she reached the open doorway and thrust the baby into the arms of an American man inside. The helicopter shot up like an elevator car and the woman fell to the ground in a sea of smoke and fire. Th
e terror in her eyes couldn’t be described as she stood up in the swirling dust, arms at her sides, face turned to the sky as her baby disappeared from view. There was no word on what had happened to either of them.
My dad had tears in his eyes when the program was over. And I had tears in mine when I dropped the little red book into the trash bag when the flight attendant came around. Old Man Yu, Mao, and the others who made the revolution were abstractions to me. I have met one hero in my life. Her name is Chun-mei, and she is my mother.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank Meg Taylor for her contribution to this project, Shaun Oakey for the copy edit, and John Pearce, as always, for his support and guidance. Thanks also to the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.
ALSO BY TING-XING YE
WHITE LILY
Nearly a century ago, deep in the centre of the Forbidden City, China’s last emperor reigned from his dragon throne. Although he was only a boy, the imperial decrees issued in his name echoed in every corner of the country. Each man had to shave his head and wear a single pigtail to symbolize his submission to the emperor, and every woman was second in importance to the men in her family. Women were obedient to their fathers and brothers, and later to the husbands in their arranged marriages. Certainly no woman was encouraged to attend school or show any independence.
Into this world White Lily was born. She had a happy childhood, running, playing, and laughing, until, at the age of four, she was forced to undergo the painful procedure of foot binding required for all females of her social class.
But White Lily has her heart set on more than a traditional role in society. Together, she and her beloved elder brother devise a plan that will allow White Lily’s feet and mind to grow.
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THROWAWAY DAUGHTER
Seal Books/published by arrangement with Doubleday Canada
Doubleday Canada edition published 2003
Seal Books edition published April 2004
eISBN: 978-0-385-67350-1
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