Waste Tide

by Chen Qiufan

  You’re both lucky and unlucky. Scott felt rather powerless. The man was lucky because the maximum force the arm could generate was only 520 newtons. If the robot had been an industrial model, the man’s head would have turned into tofu pudding long ago. The man was also unlucky because due to its use in bomb disposal, the arm was made with a special, hardened alloy. Regular tools couldn’t even make a dent in it.

  “Make way, make way!” The crowd parted at the noise, and two men carrying a plasma cutting torch over their shoulders came into the shed. One of them, seeing Kaizong holding the victim’s shoulder, gave him a grateful look, and then glanced at Scott suspiciously.

  That’s useless, Scott thought. In fact, it will make things worse. But he said nothing and stood to the side.

  The plasma cutting torch emitted a light blue arc. As the arc struck the joints of the robot claw, there was a hissing noise. As impurities were incinerated, the light shifted through different colors. The cut in the metal turned black, then red, then white. Everyone seemed to glimpse hope and held their breaths. They stood on their tiptoes but also didn’t dare to come too close.

  The man caught in the claw began to thrash harder, and pitiful, keening screams tore from his throat.

  Metal conducts heat really well. Scott turned his head away.

  The man’s hair began to burn. Shining, translucent blisters appeared over his scalp, quickly burst, and blood bubbled out. The men operating the plasma cutter scrambled to stop and looked for wet rags to put out the fire. White smoke rose along with the smell of burning flesh and then dispersed among the crowd. Some held their noses; others began to vomit.

  Oh dear God. Scott knew that at this point, the only solution was to connect to the Spirit Claw through the proprietary interface and issue it the commands to shut down the servomotors. But he didn’t have the tools and didn’t know if this robot’s command-processing module was still functioning. So all he could do was to pray for the batteries to run out as soon as possible.

  Kaizong and another man struggled to hold the wounded man down. Kaizong felt the body under him gradually weakening as though some unknown substance was silently draining away. The thrashing ceased. He let go. The man did not move.

  The robot claw loosened with a loud bang. Everyone jumped. Then the man’s crushed head drooped to the ground.

  Scott gazed at the crowd in front of him, at the waste people’s expressions: a combination of helplessness, numbness, fright, and excitement. He saw Director Lin’s disgust and Kaizong’s shock. He seemed to even see himself, a pale white face hovering incongruously among the yellow faces. What expression was on that face he could not see clearly: it was too blurry.

  Scott Brandle could no longer avoid thinking of a snippet of Italian: Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate.

  The last line in the warning carved above the gate of Hell.

  2

  Partway through a pile of colorful but boring snapshots of daily life and commonplace scenery, Chen Kaizong’s eyes lingered on a black-and-white photograph. He found it difficult to believe this was the work of a child.

  The photograph had been taken near the recycling workshops, an area that the child’s parents, Silicon Isle natives, must have warned him repeatedly not to enter. In front of a chaotic heap of junk, a waste person sat, holding half of a prosthetic limb. The hair and the clothes made it impossible to tell the person’s gender. On the youthful face was a strange expression: he or she did not look into the camera, but instead gazed somewhere off-frame, deep in thought.

  A rare, beautiful image. Kaizong closed the album of the best student photographs and looked out at the exercise grounds.

  The children had been exposed to the blazing sun for two hours already. Their faces were bright red and sweat poured off their heads. Below their squinting eyes were deep shadows. Like worms, they constantly wriggled, shifting their center of gravity from foot to foot, scratching at the forehead or wiping away sweat, but they strained to minimize their movements to avoid drawing the attention of the teachers.

  The principal on the dais continued to make his impassioned speech, describing how basic education would change Silicon Isle’s future. Two high-powered cabinet-style air-conditioning units stood at each end of the dais, and the cold air they emitted immediately turned into white mist, drifting like clouds over the VIPs seated under the red parasols.

  Enough. Kaizong leaned over and whispered in Scott’s ear. Scott lifted his eyebrows and whispered back. Kaizong got up and walked over to Director Lin. More whispers. Director Lin frowned, thought for a moment, wrote something on a slip of paper, and asked an usher to hand the note to the principal.

  The loudspeaker fell silent, relieving the audience from the feedback whistles caused by the principal’s overanimated enunciation. The principal then hastily concluded his remarks. Everyone applauded enthusiastically, bringing an end to the honored guests’ visit.

  “Mr. Brandle, are you all right?” the principal asked in heavily accented English.

  “I’m fine, just a bit of a headache. Maybe it’s the air-conditioning. Thank you.”

  “What’s on your itinerary for the afternoon?”

  “I’m probably going to cancel everything. I have some work I need to deal with.”

  Kaizong understood that this last statement was intended for him. He had complained earlier—not hoping anything would come from it—that though he had been back in Silicon Isle for a whole week, he hadn’t had a chance to pay a visit to any of his relatives. Though in terms of degrees of relatedness, he and the other members of the Chen clan only shared a great-great-great-great-grandfather.

  So the trip to Kaizong’s alma mater ended in this delicate and awkward mood.

  Since the trip to Xialong Village, Kaizong had become extremely interested in his boss. Google didn’t turn up anything that he hadn’t already known from Scott’s résumé. There was nothing suspicious. He had to settle on the guess that Scott Brandle’s combat skills were learned during the two years when he was in the army, but many more mysteries about Scott bothered him.

  Kaizong really was starting to get a headache. He was no longer used to the air here, the stench, the noise, and the pervasive lack of order. He couldn’t understand the young men in the streets who applied polyimide OLED body film to their bared shoulders so that the electrical currents flowing through their muscles could power the colorful display of flowing text and images. In America, that kind of body film technology was generally used as a diagnostic tool for monitoring patients’ bio signs. But here, it had become a part of the street culture of status display.

  He couldn’t explain to Scott that the character pu that the young men exhibited on their shoulders didn’t stand for putong, the Mandarin word for “common,” but was pronounced in the second tone in the Silicon Isle topolect and meant fuck.

  The Silicon Isle of his memory was poor but lively and hopeful. People were friendly and helped each other. Back then, the water in the ponds was clear and the air smelled of the salty sea. On the beach one could pick shells and crabs. A dog was just a dog, and the only things that crawled on the ground were caterpillars. Today, however, everything was unfamiliar, strange, as though there were a deep gulf in his brain: on this side, reality; on the other side, memory out of reach.

  Kaizong remembered what his father had said when he informed the old man that he was going back to Silicon Isle: “Yes, you should go. That’s your homeland. But remember: don’t get too close. You’ll see more clearly that way.”

  He had once thought his father’s words mere useless aphorisms.

  * * *

  Kaizong realized that the middle-aged man standing in front of him, with his high brow ridge, angular nose, and a hint of gentleness at the corners of his lips, looked surprisingly like his father, even though they were only related distantly.

  Chen Xianyun, who as a young man had once been Kaizong’s father’s business partner, was now the Chen clan’s executive director. His
position in the clan was second only to the clan head, and when it came to the daily affairs of the family and the business, his word was effectively law.

  Out of habit, Kaizong opened his arms, anticipating a hug, but this relative whom he did not know quite how to address had already extended a strong hand.

  “Uncle Chen, I hope you’re well.” Awkwardly, Kaizong repositioned his arms to shake hands. “My father has often mentioned you to me, and I’m really glad I finally got to meet you.”

  “Ha! I trust your parents are well?”

  “They are both healthy. Thank you for asking. They’re thinking of coming back for a visit sometime next year.”

  “Good, very good. Why don’t you have lunch with me? Given it’s a holiday, there’s lots of good things to eat.”

  Kaizong had long noticed the delicious smells wafting out of the kitchen. He was getting sick of eating at restaurants every day and yearned for a home-cooked meal. Gratefully, he accepted Chen Xianyun’s invitation.

  What he appreciated most weren’t the dishes full of meat or fish, but a kind of pastry he hadn’t had in years: cakes made with wild cekêgcao, an herb.3 The grass was first boiled into a stock and mixed with lard and sticky rice flour into dough. Then, the dough was filled with a mixture of bean paste, glutinous rice, peanuts, shrimp, and pork. Next, heart-shaped cakes were pressed from the dough with wooden molds. Steamed on a bed of fresh bamboo or banana leaves, the finished cakes were endowed with a unique herbal fragrance. The people of Silicon Isle made them only on special occasions, such as big holidays.

  Kaizong and Uncle Chen continued to talk, and before he knew it, Kaizong had already consumed three cekêgcao cakes, washing them down with cups of ganghu tea.4 Thanks to the digestive aid from the tea, the greasy cakes didn’t feel heavy in Kaizong’s stomach.

  Uncle Chen seemed in very good spirits as well and asked Kaizong a series of questions about life abroad. He nodded from time to time at Kaizong’s answers but never expressed any opinion.

  Gradually, Kaizong realized that this clan leader was deliberately avoiding the subject of TerraGreen Recycling’s plans for Silicon Isle. Kaizong became curious: he very much wanted to know what this powerful clan, connected to him by blood, thought about the project.

  “Uncle Chen—” He hesitated and chose his words carefully. “—I’m very interested in your opinion concerning the proposed recycling industrial park.…”

  Anticipating the question, Chen Xianyun smiled. He put down his chopsticks and asked a question of his own.

  “Kaizong, you study history, right? Can you help me analyze this puzzle: it’s almost the middle of the twenty-first century, and yet, why have we maintained this primitive system of clans?”

  Kaizong was at a loss. He had read about the clan system of his home in books, of course, but he had never experienced life in the clans: a collective life that was born thousands of years ago in patrilineal societies; rooted in an economy of family farms; based upon a shared family name, shared ancestors, shared clan shrine, and even shared property; regulated by clan laws; and reinforced through all the members worshiping together and being buried together.

  “I’m guessing”—he scrambled for an answer—“that it’s because the clan system has evolved to adapt to the modern world. The contemporary clan is more like a joint-stock company. All the members are shareholders, and they participate in the profits of the whole in accordance with their positions. All clan members follow the same set of internal regulations and possess the same company culture. Of course, since all members share the same family name and the same ancestors, there’s more of a sense of identity with the joint enterprise, which makes management easier.” Kaizong poured another cup of tea for Uncle Chen.

  “Very well said. People can tell right away that you’ve studied abroad. But you haven’t touched upon the most key point.” Chen Xianyun put his index and middle fingers together, curled them slightly, and tapped the tabletop—a gesture indicating thanks.

  “It’s about a sense of security,” Uncle Chen continued. “If a man is robbed or beaten up, a company employing him has no obligations to help him. Could he seek the aid of the law? If he’s lucky, maybe it will work. But when all the legitimate paths are ineffectual, the only people he can count on are the people in his clan.

  “Or you can look at the problem another way: as long as you belong to a powerful clan, anyone who wants to mess with you must understand that the cost for doing so may far exceed the gains.”

  I guess all those rumors about how the people of Silicon Isle behave like gangsters are not without basis, Kaizong thought. He wanted to argue, though. “But we now live in a society based on the rule of law.”

  “Haha!” Uncle Chen’s laugh was gentle, and he looked at the young man with pity and affection. “Remember, from the beginning of history till now, we have had only one society: a society based on the law of the jungle.”

  Kaizong wanted to bring up more evidence for his position, but he knew, deep down, that Uncle Chen had a better handle on the truth. It wasn’t a truth written down in books, but something rooted deeply in the soil, tested by blood and fire.

  “Getting back to your question,” Uncle Chen said. “What I think about the proposal isn’t very important. What matters is how everyone feels. If everyone feels the same way, then whatever I think doesn’t matter.” He stood up and patted Kaizong on the shoulders. “I want to remind you: you’re one of us. As long as you stay within the Chen clan’s territory, I can guarantee you’ll be safe. But when you go over to the Luo clan’s territory, be very careful.

  “Why don’t you relax a bit? This evening I’ll bring you to see the celebrations for the Ghost Festival. It will be a lot of fun!”

  Kaizong, now deep in thought, didn’t respond to the invitation.

  He was remembering a scene from two years ago.

  On the campus of Boston University, next to the Charles River, he was in a class on world history taught by Professor Toby Jameson. The old man, with his head of white hair that made him look like Colonel Sanders, asked, “Who can give me an example of globalization?”

  The young man he called on stuttered for a while before picking up a half-eaten hamburger and said, “Mickey D’s.”

  The whole class laughed.

  “Very good,” said Professor Jameson. “That answer is better than you might realize.

  “This isn’t just a cliché from a list: McDonald’s, Nike, Hollywood films, Android phones … No, when you walk into a McDonald’s and order a meal for five ninety-five, what do you get? Potatoes from the Andes, corn from Mexico, black pepper from India, coffee from Ethiopia, chicken from China, and of course, America’s unique contribution: Coca-Cola.

  “Now do you understand what I’m getting at? Globalization is not something new. It’s a trend that has been going on for hundreds, thousands of years. You can see it through the Age of Exploration, through commerce, through writing and religion, through insects, migratory birds and wind, even through bacteria and viruses. But the problem is that we’ve never achieved consensus, never tried to build a fair system so that everyone would benefit. Instead, we’ve engaged in a perpetual cycle of looting, exploitation, and forceful extraction: from the Amazon, from Africa, from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Antarctica, even outer space.

  “In this age of globalization, there are no permanent winners. Whatever you’ve obtained, you’ll lose someday, and you’ll have to pay it back with interest.”

  The professor struck the podium loudly, like a judge slamming down his gavel. “Class dismissed.”

  Kaizong returned to the present. The reality was that TerraGreen Recycling wanted to present the inhabitants of this peninsula with a technological solution to counteract the negative effects of globalization, to save them from this living hell. But the answer the residents gave was: “No, we’d rather live with trash and waste.”

  Fucking crazy.

  His frustration didn’t come from the project alo
ne. Kaizong was well aware of the idealized expectations he had built up for this trip home.

  For the longest time, there was a gap in Kaizong’s memory that covered the transition between his childhood in Silicon Isle and going to school in America. It was as if two film reels had been forcefully edited together in a montage, consciously or otherwise, jumping over the time in between.

  It was an intense feeling of confusion. He was a child uprooted from his familiar environment, away from his family and friends, and deposited unceremoniously into a strange world, where the language of his childhood was replaced with incomprehensible, odd syllables, where all he could see was strangers of other races who looked different from himself. He couldn’t read, couldn’t write, couldn’t sleep well, couldn’t eat well—even his sense of time and place became disrupted, and he would need almost twenty minutes after waking up to remember where he was. During that half year, Kaizong—now called “Caesar”—followed his parents as they moved from city to city in search of a place to settle down. He had neither the opportunity nor the courage to converse with strangers.

  He even stopped speaking with his parents.

  The anxiety didn’t let up until he was in college, but he continued to feel not fully integrated into the American society around him. He was unlike the ABCs—the American-born Chinese—and he was also unlike the Chinese students who had completed high school in China before coming to America for college. No matter how hard he worked, no matter how he excelled, an invisible wall divided him from the entire world. Kaizong/Caesar felt himself a creature caught in the space between parallel worlds, unable to find a place where he belonged. In the end, he chose to major in history, a world separated from reality by time; he felt safer there.

  When he saw the job listing offered by TerraGreen Recycling, he had clicked “Apply” without any hesitation, compelled by a desire he had long suppressed. He yearned to return to his home, to return to the world where he had once belonged, to speak his own topolect, to eat the food of his childhood, to see the familiar land and sea. He believed that he could use his intellect and knowledge to introduce TerraGreen Recycling’s superior technology and management experience, and make his contribution to the betterment of his homeland. He believed that the effort would allow him to feel that sense of belonging, to recover that sense of being present in the world, and even, he hoped, to repair the growing estrangement between himself and his parents.