On the second floor we were shown down a long hall and into a small, dingy, single room with heavy shutters that let in only scraps of light. They would only open a few centimetres, so the room smelt dank from lack of ventilation. Still, it had a separate bathroom and here I deposited Errol, who was beginning to get restless and strain at the strings that confined his movement. The poor creature deserved better and so, perhaps a little unwisely given my lack of knowledge of goose recapture techniques, I elected to pour some water into the bath and release him.
Bad idea.
As soon as the shackles were off, so too was Errol. He jumped up on the edge of the bath and hissed ferociously. His wingspan was huge and that little room suddenly felt far too small for the two of us. Gingerly, keeping a reasonably safe distance from that sharp beak and irascible temper, I exited stage right and closed the door on those glaring yellow eyes. For a moment I leant my head against the wooden door and listened, hearing nothing at first, until there came the unmistakable noise of splashing.
Downstairs, on the wall of the hotel reception was a tourist map of the surrounding area and on that map, not far outside the village, a lake was marked.
I pointed to it and asked the manager how to get there.
‘Bus,’ he said. Then he pointed to another sheet of paper on the wall that listed the timetable and fares. This was apparently no ordinary lake but one of the area’s major scenic attractions.
‘What’s it called?’ I asked.
He said nothing, but jabbed a bony finger at a line of English writing at the bottom of the page.
I read it out loud: ‘Peaceful Lake of Mist Mountain.’
I thought of Errol, who was hopefully enjoying a leisurely swim in his bath. He’d had a tough time of late. Even if geese had as many lives as cats, then he must surely be perilously close to using up his entitlement. Perhaps he would have a better chance of survival in a place with such an enlightened name as Peaceful Lake of Mist Mountain. It might even be some kind of nature reserve — a wildlife sanctuary where he could live out the rest of his days in avian contentment.
I looked back at the manager, who was absent-mindedly brushing dandruff from his shoulders.
‘Two tickets please.’
SIXTEEN
BY NIGHT, THE MARKET STALLS HAD CLOSED AND BEEN REPLACED with a row of makeshift kitchens that did business under the light of a single line of fluorescent tubes. Surly folk stood around charcoal braziers, fanning the flames in order to roast skewered meat of unknown origin. I kept walking until a kitchen came into view that was selling a kind of noodle soup. The owner brought out a wooden stool for me and placed it beside a small table that rocked on the uneven cobblestones. She then produced a steaming bowl of hot liquid, which contained a few vegetables, thick strap-like noodles and some lumps of tofu. It was spicy and delicious, and smelt of fresh herbs and garlic.
Nearby was a bowl of water containing porcelain spoons that were for the exclusive use of her hungry patrons, as well as a bamboo cup filled with chopsticks. They looked cleaner, so I took a pair and, after wolfing down the noodles, slurped the watery soup direct from the bowl, leaving just a leafy green vegetable at the bottom. I pointed this out to the owner and asked if she had any more by saying ‘You mei-you’ in a way that I hoped imitated the correct rising and descending tones required in the Chinese language.
The owner was a rosy-cheeked Han Chinese woman of about 40, in brown slacks and white blouse, over which she wore a grease-stained apron. She looked at the contents of the bowl and, with hands on hips, barked out a command to the kitchen. Dutifully, her teenage son appeared from behind a screen with a large knife and approached the table.
‘You want more noodles?’ he asked in English.
‘Not noodles,’ I replied with a shake of my head. ‘I would like some of this.’ I pointed again to the leafy green vegetable at the bottom of the bowl, which looked a little like the bushy top of a celery plant.
The boy turned to his mother, said a few words and she sort of harrumphed and shrugged her shoulders. Once again the boy turned to me: ‘You want cooked?’
I replied that I wanted the vegetable raw.
‘It’s for my friend,’ I added.
This time the mother spoke: ‘Where your friend?’
I told her he was in the bathroom in the hotel across the road.
‘Is he sick?’ she asked.
‘Not really,’ I replied.
‘Why he no come eat?’
‘He’s a goose.’
At this point the conversation was beginning to become unnecessarily complicated. I just wanted any old lettuce or cabbage that would be fit for Errol to eat, so I got up and walked them both back to their kitchen area and pointed to some scraps that were littering the ground and asked if I could have those — uncooked, as they were, never mind the dressing, in a bag, if you please. They agreed, but I couldn’t be sure if they really just wanted me gone. Anyone who claims to keep a wild goose in his bath might have taken leave of his senses. Foreigners were known for their odd ways, but this was indeed strange. As I took the bag of scraps, I swear she leant forward a little to smell if I’d been drinking.
Being a source of mild amusement was by no means a new experience in China. In the more remote regions I could literally just stand in one place and soon gather an audience around me, often parents with their offspring in tow. It was like being an exhibit in a circus — like the guy with two heads or the incredibly hairy man. I imagined their comments to be something like: ‘Look at him, his feet are as big as Uncle Chen’s prize marrows and his skin is the colour of butter beans.’
In general, however, people were reasonably polite and I sensed that parents who were pointing me out to their child were merely giving them an introduction to the wider world, a sort of impromptu lesson in European anthropology. As a Westerner in the outer provinces I was a rare breed after all, one viewed only occasionally in a book perhaps or a movie, so the general reaction was still a mix of surprise and wonder. The bravest kids would come close enough to touch me and then run away if I glared at them. It was a bit of a game, which quite often ended with smiles and laughter or, occasionally, a fearful tear or two; then we would go our separate ways or, as sometimes happened, I’d be invited to share a meal with the family — part guest, part laboratory specimen.
Back in Qinghai province, near the dusty little town of Maduo, I had befriended a family of Han Chinese who considered themselves foreigners in those parts as well, Qinghai being predominantly Tibetan. Over dinner at a local restaurant we had bonded as foreigners, although, ironically, they seemed to feel more foreign, and therefore more uncomfortable, than I did. The father, who must have been only 150 centimetres tall in his shoes, was a cellphone-tower engineer and had just arrived on a two-year contract with his wife and seven-year-old son. His task was to manage a maintenance crew of burly Tibetans, whose job it was to keep other burly Tibetans from damaging the towers. These towers were believed by some to be listening devices, through which Beijing spied on the locals. Unable to tear them down, people would throw rocks at the antennas and damage the transmitters.
I asked if his job was more like that of a PR officer, in that he had to try to explain to the locals what the towers were really for. He agreed and said he’d stumbled on a unique ruse, which was to tell his team of Tibetans that the towers were emitting high-frequency signals that scared away wolves.
‘Are there any wolves in these parts,’ I asked, and he smiled knowingly and said, with obvious pleasure, ‘Not anymore.’
The end result was that the Tibetans had started to leave the towers alone, clearly fearing wolves more than they did central government.
As we’d sat there enjoying the meal, the man’s son had continually asked his mother questions about me, which she answered patiently. The father was a little embarrassed by this and told them both off. The mother replied that I couldn’t understand the conversation she was having with the boy in Mandarin, so I woul
dn’t mind. In all truth I hadn’t minded at all, partly because the boy was asking such interesting and frank questions of his mother and thereby providing me with an insight into how very young Chinese see the outside world. Amongst other things, he wanted to know why my nose was so big and why my arms were so hairy. I must have looked like an alien to him: big, bulbous and heavy compared to his slender-boned, elf-like father.
Back in the hotel, Errol had made an unholy mess of the bathroom, spreading feathers and goose poo all over the place. It stank to high heaven and he hissed when I switched on the light, so I ended up throwing the contents of the bag into the bath and leaving him to it in the darkness. In the morning, somehow I was going to have to tie him up again, and it wasn’t going to be easy. My goose-control experience was limited and I knew that the task would require either extreme ingenuity or good luck. In the end, when the sun came up and I’d managed a few fitful hours of sleep hatching a myriad of plans, I opted to employ the lace curtains from the window as a net, which I managed to throw over him to contain him. Then it was a matter of quickly trussing his wings and feet in the same way they’d been tied in the market. Once disabled, Errol became as meek as a lamb.
The journey to the lake by minibus was a meandering trip, through lush green paddy fields and orchards of kumquats drenched by recent rain, up into mountains cloaked by mist until a steep valley came into view, and then down a rutted track to the water’s edge. The other passengers were a young Chinese couple on holiday with their small child, and two girls in their mid-twenties. The girls carried small, colourful daypacks emblazoned with the female rabbit cartoon character called Miffy. They also had Miffy shirts and Miffy diaries in which they wrote things down with Miffy pens.
‘You know Dick Bruna?’ I asked, referring to the artist who had invented the character in the 1950s.
But they didn’t and so that ended the conversation. Errol was of far greater interest to them, however. They were no doubt curious as to what the Westerner was doing on the bus with a goose tied up with string and swaddled in a cheap plastic bag, and they took many photographs of Errol and me until our bus creaked to a stop in a car park surrounded by lush vegetation. There was a trail off to the left that circumnavigated the lake and the family quickly disappeared down it. The two girls followed soon after, so that, aside from the bus driver, Errol and I were alone. The driver perched on a rock, smoking a cigarette, as he watched me carry Errol down to the lake’s edge. I thought I should say a few meaningful words to mark the moment, but I couldn’t think of any. So, in the end, I simply untied Errol from his string and rubber bands and set him free.
First, he fell over. Then, unsteadily, he picked himself up, stretched his wings and honked noisily, sniffing the air somewhat cautiously. Possibly stunned not to find himself on a chopping block, Errol was taking his time to sample his newfound liberty. But, within a few minutes, either the blood had returned to his wingtips or he’d decided enough was enough. He had one last go at biting me then launched himself into the air and flew away, low across the lake. It felt good, I have to admit.
From over my shoulder came a cough. The driver stood nearby, stamping out his cigarette on the rough ground. He then lifted his head towards the fast-disappearing goose as if to say, ‘What’s all this about?’
I was in the process of trying to think up a suitable reply, using my limited Chinese, when he spoke in clear English.
‘I have seen a lot of things, but that is a first. Most foreigners buy trinkets, but you — you buy a nice fat goose and then let him go.’
The driver whistled and shook his head in bewilderment, then opened his pack of Camel cigarettes and offered me one. I shook my head.
‘Suit yourself,’ he replied with a shrug, before pulling one out and tapping the end thoughtfully on the back of the packet.
‘Your English is very good,’ I said, quietly thrilled to have found someone so proficient this far off the beaten track. It struck me I could learn a lot from him.
He introduced himself as Chou and described how he’d grown up from the age of 17 in Hong Kong, working in tourism for 20-odd years before China regained the territory in 1997, ending 150 years of British colonial rule. It was a sad day, he said, when the Union Jack came down and was replaced by the red-and-yellow flag of the People’s Republic of China.
‘But what a party,’ he said quietly.
The day of the handover it had teemed down with rain, but that had not deterred the millions of Hong Kong residents from coming out to watch all the pomp and ceremony the best of British could muster, including the Prince of Wales in full regalia. As grey army trucks filled with Chinese soldiers, standing as stiff and resolute as statues, came rumbling down through the New Territories towards Kowloon, my driver had helped organise the 25,000 fireworks that were launched from barges in the harbour into the night sky. The explosions were so fierce people in the outlying districts thought a war had started. After each salvo was fired, the barges dropped a foot into the water so that those on the decks were briefly suspended in mid-air. Then, without further ado, the royal yacht Britannia had steamed out of Hong Kong harbour one last time, flanked by her flotilla of British Navy ships and by fireboats that saluted her by spraying great arcs of water. A century and a half after having taken Hong Kong by force during the First Opium War in 1841, when Britain responded to the Chinese government’s seizure of 1,210 tonnes of opium by sinking almost its entire navy, she quietly handed back the so-called last prize of the Empire.
‘But,’ Chou said softly, ‘the Chinese fireworks display the next day was even greater. If there is one thing the Chinese know how to do, it is fireworks.’
I thought it was interesting that he referred to the Chinese as if he were not one of them, and when I quizzed him about whether he thought of himself as being British he laughed.
‘Of course not,’ he replied. ‘I am Hong Kongese.’
Therein lay the truth, that Hong Kong saw itself as superior to mainland China, a separate region deserving of special rank and democratic privileges, few of which were accorded to it by the Communist Party rulers after the handover. Their promises of a ‘Hong Kong ruled by Hong Kong’ were soon found to be little more than a form of crowd control, a way of appeasing the masses as the new owners dug in and took over. Not surprisingly, these events were watched closely by the people of Taiwan, another territory that China had long been wooing to rejoin the motherland without losing any of its political sovereignty. However, Taiwan’s answer had always been a polite refusal, followed by an immediate memo to its military to bolster its forces, just to be on the safe side.
Post 1997, Chou’s new employers had come down from Beijing and everything had changed. State-operated tourism was not at all his kind of thing, so he’d packed it in and started driving buses in Jiangxi province.
‘Now I own the buses,’ he said with an entrepreneurial smile. I noticed a little gold glinting in that grin too, and so reasoned that business had probably been quite good to him. It turned out he had three small coaches that ferried tourists to and from the lake, mostly Han Chinese who came to stretch their legs and visit a famous grotto on the far side. Mao was said to have sheltered in it when he was on the run from the Nationalists, but it was better known for a natural spring that bubbled up out of its floor. This was said to promise long life, prosperity and healthy offspring to those who drank from it.
‘Do you believe it?’ I queried.
He shrugged his shoulders again. ‘Well, it worked for Mao Tse-tung didn’t it?’
‘Long life, yes. Prosperity, maybe. But what about his children?’ I asked, steering the conversation purposefully.
‘Mao was the father of China,’ he said. ‘I don’t think he had much time for his own children.’
Chou angled his head and blew a puff of smoke skywards through the corner of his mouth. He then said something that stopped me in my tracks.
‘You know the story of his first son, Mao An Hong?’
‘It’s the reason I’m here talking to you now,’ I replied.
‘How’s that?’ he asked, suddenly quite serious.
‘I’m looking for him,’ I said.
‘Why? Does he owe you money?’
I laughed. ‘No, not at all. It’s purely out of curiosity. I came here to search for some answers.’
‘In that case,’ he replied. ‘This is your lucky day.’
Chou gestured for me to follow him back to the minibus and, when we got there, he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a thick notebook filled with writing. On a blank page he scribbled a name and a phone number, then he tore out the page and handed it to me.
‘This is my friend; he’s a journalist. Like you he went looking for Mao An Hong. He wrote an article about it for his newspaper, but after it was printed he got into trouble — a lot of trouble. The authorities . . .’ he said ominously, pausing to look at me before finishing, ‘. . . if you know what I mean.’
Apparently, the piece of paper in my hand bore the name and phone number of the man who had first sprung to light back in Chengdu, when Dale, the friendly American academic, had gone through his university’s files for me. It seemed incredible in a country this size that such a random meeting could result in such a connection, but I wasn’t about to question my good fortune. In fact I was rejoicing in it when the driver tapped the page.
‘He’s south of here, in Ruijin. You’d better hurry though,’ he warned.
‘Why?’
‘He has the cancer. I haven’t seen or heard from him in months. For all I know he might already be dead.’
From across the lake came the sound of two gunshots that echoed back and forth against the hillsides for so long that it sounded like a battle was being waged between forces on either side. Immediately I thought of Errol and wondered if he was safe. And sure enough, when the Miffy twins turned up an hour later, along with the young couple dragging their tired and screaming toddler, they were followed by a lone hunter with a shotgun in his hand and a limp white bird slung over one shoulder.
A Boy of China Page 17