Waste Tide

by Chen Qiufan

  She had come to expect Kaizong every day, to depend on his visits. The other girls mocked her for it. But as their friendship deepened, Mimi felt an inversely growing sense of panic: what if he just stopped showing up one day?

  She knew what she was really scared of. She was terrified that she wasn’t attracted to Chen Kaizong, the person; rather, she was attracted to his refined manner of dress, his excessively proper Modern Standard Mandarin that sounded odd to her ears, his learning—everything mysterious and exotic that he represented. She was afraid that all these had, together, formed in her mind an idealized illusion of first love, even leading to an unrealistic fantasy that she herself was equally special in his eyes, equally unique and singular.

  She recalled her one experience of having a crush on a boy. It was when she was still going to the school in the town near her village. There was a boy in the class next door, lanky and handsome like a character out of manga. Mimi would slow down deliberately every time she passed by his classroom so that she could look at him for a few more seconds. Sometimes, the boy happened to be looking outside and their eyes would meet, and her heart would leap like a tiny rabbit. Is he looking at me? What does he think? Does he find me pretty? Will we get along well?

  The fantasies tortured her, and eventually she had to ask a classmate to find out from him what he thought of her. The boy’s confused gaze showed that he had no idea even who Mimi was, and her meticulously crafted plans were shattered in an instant.

  She told herself then that she would never let herself be deluded by such fantasies again. Never. When Kaizong had jokingly referred to Mimi’s boyish haircut, for an instant, she had almost impulsively decided to disregard the advice of her mother and grow her hair out for him until it was even with her shoulders, maybe even down to her waist, even though such a decision would bring her endless trouble, just like it had when she had lived at home.

  But in the next second, Mimi had answered him coldly, “It’s my hair. I don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks.”

  Today, though, she had waited more than an hour already, but there was still no Kaizong at that familiar, dirty intersection.

  The sense of having been forsaken rose in her heart—a rather ridiculous feeling, she chided herself. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, struggling to shake off the anxiety that buzzed around her like mosquitoes. She knew what she needed. Halcyon Days.

  She had to go find Brother Wen.

  4

  Luo Jincheng stood on the rooftop deck and faced the ocean. The sea breeze came through the open pattern in the parapet, bringing with it the smell of change.

  Unlike the houses of the other natives, whose windows were covered with antitheft metal grilles so that the inhabitants only saw a sky cut into pieces by a regular grid, the Luo mansion was built on a cliff next to the sea to take advantage of the rugged and steep terrain. With the additional security provided by chipped dogs and closed-circuit TV cameras, Luo got to enjoy the uninterrupted, open view. He could see all the way to the busy harbor of Shantou, and when the weather was good, he could even see the Shantou Bay Bridge spanning the ocean like a strand of spider silk.

  If the Chen clan had really gotten into the same boat with TerraGreen Recycling, then the situation was growing complicated. Three years ago, the collapse in international steel and copper prices had struck the Chen clan hard. The Luo and Lin clans had taken advantage of the opportunity and stolen away numerous highly profitable supply sources from the Chen clan. The two families had even conspired with buyers to artificially lower prices in an attempt to bury the Chen clan completely, but members of the Chen clan had rallied and pooled their resources and efforts to ride out the crisis. It appeared now that the Chens intended to collude with these foreigners in a plot to rise up and regain the power lost to the two other clans.

  Knifeboy had returned with a report that the Chen clan had intercepted the waste girl named Mimi, and someone from TerraGreen Recycling was even involved.

  But why are they going to so much trouble for a waste girl?

  Luo Jincheng pondered the question from every angle but could see no answer. He was certain that Zixin’s illness was still a secret. The lohsingpua belonged to the Luo clan and wouldn’t be so stupid as to leak the news, and in any event, this didn’t seem like Chen Xianyun’s style, unless there was some other secret about the girl. Luo Jincheng told Knifeboy to not act rashly in Chen territory, but if a second opportunity should present itself, he must not fail again.

  There was no deep enmity between him and the Chen clan. For him, what happened between the two clans was only ordinary commercial competition, but as soon as foreigners were involved, the matter was different, regardless of whether the foreigners were white-skinned or yellow-skinned. He didn’t trust them, and the mistrust went deep into his bones.

  Luo Jincheng had visited many countries around the world, and even tried to live in Melbourne for a while, but in the end, he had returned to Silicon Isle. He had never managed to feel comfortable in front of those Westerners who acted almost pathologically polite; he couldn’t get used to waiting for the light to change to cross the street, couldn’t get used to saying “excuse me” for every little thing, couldn’t get used to the strange smiles that were so friendly yet so false. When they heard that he was from China, their faces broke into exaggerated wonder: Oh, how quickly China’s economy is growing! How much the Chinese can buy! And, every time, I love Chinese food!

  At first, Luo Jincheng treated these as just meaningless expressions of courtesy, but then he saw the protesters in the streets of Melbourne, and he finally understood that the “praise” for China disguised terror and disgust. At the time, he didn’t know enough English to understand the protesters’ signs, but the meaning of the burning Chinese flags was unmistakable. The Australians thought the Chinese had bid up the prices of the local real estate and taken away their jobs, and cheap Chinese exports had decimated local manufacturing. They compared the Chinese to locusts who robbed the Australians of their resources and accumulated unbelievable wealth without giving anything back to public welfare and disadvantaged groups.

  SELFISH CHINESE! their signs read, and bloody red crosses were painted over the signs.

  Like a pedestrian who had been frightened out of his wits in the middle of the night by a bowl of “oil fire” smashed against the wall, Luo Jincheng bought a ticket back to China the next day. He gave up the idea of emigrating abroad, but began to study English. He hired an expensive tutor and read English newspapers every day. Eventually, wielding his heavily accented English, he even managed to negotiate with foreign business partners.

  Luo understood, of course, that he wasn’t motivated so much by a sentiment of ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world as by the lack of a sense of security. He wanted to apply the adage of “know your enemy” to the battlefield of business and be in control of the situation, instead of relying on an interpreter. However, what had really raised his alarm was an unexpected visit from a distant relative.

  Most of the Silicon Isle natives had overseas relatives. Refugees of the wars of the twentieth century and the disturbances caused by mass Communist movements had smuggled themselves to Hong Kong and thence to Southeast Asia, where they settled. However, they continued to speak the language of their homeland and yearned for the sights of the old country. Those who managed to prosper sometimes returned to Silicon Isle to visit relatives and to invest in businesses, and the locals called them huêngkêh11—overseas guests.

  A cousin of Luo Jincheng’s father had emigrated overseas with his family on the eve of the Second World War and settled in the Philip pines. After the reforms by Deng Xiaoping in China, the cousin had brought his children to visit Silicon Isle a few times, and Luo Jincheng had eaten with him at the same table each time. However, that was the extent of their interactions.

  Thus, when Luo Jincheng saw his second cousin—the son of his father’s cousin—waiting for him, alone, on the chair by the eight-imm
ortal table,12 he knew that the second cousin had come for help.

  After exchanging a few pleasantries, Luo Jincheng smiled. Tell me what you need plainly. We’re family.

  The cousin awkwardly caressed the maroon-colored rosewood armrest, and then, after some hesitation, forced himself to speak. Eighty.

  Luo Jincheng was momentarily stunned. He knew that his cousin’s father’s business in the Philippines had always done well, and this number should have been well within their resources. Drugs? Gambling? His mind worked furiously. When local families saw a fall in fortune, the cause was usually one of these two. If his cousin’s father was addicted to gambling, then it might be like throwing money into a bottomless pit. However, Luo Jincheng knew that his cousin’s family had provided his own family with a lot of aid when they were in desperate straits, and he fully intended to repay the debt.

  I’ll give you a hundred. He didn’t ask for specifics. It wasn’t his business, and he was afraid that if he knew the details, it might entangle him even deeper in the web of obligations.

  The corners of his cousin’s mouth spasmed a few times, but in the end all he said was Thank you. For natives of Silicon Isle, having to ask to borrow money was utterly humiliating.

  After his cousin left for home, Luo Jincheng found a long, handwritten letter that said everything that the cousin couldn’t say in person. His cousin had used pen and paper to substitute for tongue and lips because, one, he was afraid that he would be overcome by emotion, and two, he didn’t want to burden Luo Jincheng. When Luo Jincheng found out the truth, he regretted the unkind thoughts he had harbored toward the cousin.

  Everything had started with the coming of an American company in the Philippines. They bribed officials in Manila and got the approval to invest and build an environmentally friendly rubber-recycling processing center. The existing rubber-processing factories were forcefully shut down. The rubber factory that belonged to Luo Jincheng’s cousin and his father was shuttered, their capital frozen, their machinery confiscated, and their workers sent away. As the legal representative of the business, his cousin’s father was arrested and jailed, and the family was slammed with an astronomical fine for the sin of “long-term environmental pollution.”

  Some segments of the local population seized the opportunity to erupt into the latest round of the long regional tradition of anti-Chinese pogroms and riots. They smashed and burned and looted stores owned by the ethnic Chinese and threatened Chinese families with violence. They had long coveted the wealth accumulated by these industrious outsiders, and now, they had a chance to carry out their robbery and brutality under the guise of “law” and “environmental protection” without restraint.

  Luo Jincheng’s cousin had come to beg for money so he could pay the government the ransom needed to get his father out of jail, and then the whole family planned to flee from that land teetering on the edge of hell.

  The world is grand, his cousin had written at the end of the letter. But is there anywhere we can be truly safe? That final question mark had seemed to Luo Jincheng infused with forlorn desolation.

  After that, Luo Jincheng never received any further news of his cousin’s family. All attempts to contact them rippled away into nothingness like clay figurines tossed into the sea. He dreamed of that distant land he had never set foot on, trekking through the dense tropical jungle until he saw the houses set on fire and black pillars of smoke rising into the sky, and the smoke and fire coalesced into hallucinatory versions of his relatives. He awoke distraught, but could only pray to the Buddha for their safety. He regretted not giving his cousin more money or asking more questions.

  But what could I have done?

  Luo Jincheng shook his head. This was not the first time something like this had happened to the Chinese, and it wouldn’t be the last.

  It’s fate. Cold comfort, but it was all he had.

  And now, the Americans were standing on the soil of Silicon Isle, repeating their exploits in Manila. Luo Jincheng had done his research and knew that TerraGreen Recycling wasn’t involved in the Philippines, but he was certain that all these companies were the same. The Chen clan was now closest to the Americans, while the Lin clan had still not clearly expressed an opinion about the foreigners’ proposal because of their special relationship with the government; yet, Director Lin Yiyu was working so actively with the Americans that Luo had to be suspicious. The future of Silicon Isle wavered like the path of a typhoon, and he could not tell where it was headed.

  It has been almost half a year since the heads of the three clans sat down together for dim sum, Luo Jincheng realized, and he recalled the taste of the hakau served by the Rong family restaurant. Before pouring tea for others, one had to have a firm grip on the teapot—this was a lesson he had to remember.

  Like last time, when he had been played by that migrant whelp named Li Wen.

  * * *

  Mimi still remembered that distant summer afternoon a year ago, when the air had been stale, humid, hot, like sticky tentacles that wrapped themselves tightly around everyone. Brother Wen asked her where she wanted the film applied. She thought a bit, turned around, and pointed to the skin on the back of her neck, below the prominences of the first few vertebrae.

  “Here.”

  Brother Wen was confused. “Everybody wants the film in the most eye-catching places. Why do you want to stick it where even you can’t see it?”

  “Others want thrills, but I’m looking for peace.”

  Wen adjusted her body film to act in the way she wanted. Unlike others’, her film would light up with a golden mi—the character in her name—when her muscles were completely relaxed. Most of the time, the upside-down triangular piece of film, like undeveloped camera film, remained dim and dark.

  She didn’t fully understand her own motivation. Was it just to show she was different from the others? Not entirely. She couldn’t control the state of tension life on Silicon Isle had caused in her; even while sleeping, she could feel twinges of pain from her stiff back. Mimi had to constantly remind herself to adjust her breathing to relax her body. She didn’t even fully understand the source of the tension: perhaps it was the unfamiliar surroundings; perhaps it was the enmity of the natives, which everyone around her returned; perhaps it was the malicious looks from the local hooligans.

  “Maybe you need this more,” Brother Wen said.

  Mimi had seen the device he held out to her before: a pair of augmented-reality glasses. Most people here possessed a pair. They said that folks in the cities had long ago abandoned such outdated equipment and shifted to contact lenses, which were far lighter and more flexible, or even had surgery so that images could be directly projected onto their retinas. However, the waste people here could only afford secondhand goods, and augmented reality meant something different to them than to the residents of modern big cities with unrestricted bitrates. There, for a few hundred yuan a month, one could access any information compatible with the individual’s level of access: weather, traffic, impulse shopping, price comparison, simulation games, immersive movies, social media—even tapping into the view of your husband’s augmented gear in some exotic locale on business, as long as he didn’t object.

  None of these trendy uses meant anything for the waste people. They didn’t have the yuan to spare, and they had no need for more junk information—they had plenty of garbage to process on a daily basis already.

  Silver, dome-shaped ear cups pressed against Mimi’s temporal bones; the contact sensors within were capable of reading Mimi’s brain waves, and, with the aid of a basic chip, convert them into simple instructions. A thin and light curved lens made of carbon nanostructures connected the ear cups and crossed over her slender nose like an arched bridge, the argon ion plating refracting a faint indigo glow.

  After further adjustments, the glasses were able to recognize basic patterns in Mimi’s brain waves. Brother Wen grinned.

  “Look at that. Only my little sister can look so pretty wearing som
ething like this.”

  He took out a small black box, pulled a wire out of it and attached it to the glasses. After about half a minute, he detached the wire. “It’s done downloading. Newbies should start with Halcyon Days.” After hesitating for a moment, he added, “Promise me that if you want more of these, always come to me. I can’t keep you away from all temptation, but at least I can try to protect you from irreversible harm.”

  Mimi nodded, having no idea what to expect next. A kind of white noise filled the ear cups, but she could just make out a set rhythm in it; without any warning, she was struck with a bout of dizziness, as though she were in the midst of an 8.0 magnitude earthquake. Brother Wen supported her and helped her sit on the ground; she looked at him, uncomprehending. The dizziness persisted, but seemed to change as well.

  The world, seen through the glasses, took on a sepia tone, as though bathed in a sunset, but subtler; the outlines and edges of everything blurred a bit and sparkled; a powerful emotional torrent surged out of her heart, as though a long-buried underground spring had been tapped. Abruptly, she understood that she was experiencing the taste of nostalgia.

  Although the rational part of her mind knew that she was still in Silicon Isle, everything around her had changed to be filled with the flavor of yesteryear, as if two points in space-time had been folded and merged into one. The sky, the trees, the earth, and even the trash seemed to have been given new life, radiating a warm, lovely feeling. Mimi even felt that her mother was right next to her, holding her—somehow she was once again a child—and caressing her; she could smell the faint fragrance of her mother, like bamboo leaves. There was no more anxiety, no more tension; she wanted to immerse herself in this hallucinatory sensation forever.