Oracle Bones

by Peter Hessler

  The king, [reading the cracks], said: “There will perhaps be thunder.”

  The king, [reading the cracks], said: “Greatly auspicious.”

  Tonight there will be no disasters.

  THE ORACLE BONES appeared during a crisis that ran far deeper than politics or economics. By the early twentieth century, foreign armies had proved to be far more powerful than the Chinese, and foreign political systems were certainly more efficient. But some Chinese intellectuals believed that even history was a Western advantage. Westerners perceived change as natural: the pharaohs disappeared; Greece collapsed; Rome fell. Without the weight of a continuous history and the conservatism of Confucianism, Westerners seemed more likely to look ahead. And rather than being shortsighted—tonight there will be no disasters—the Western view of the future expected tangible, long-term progress.

  Western history was also more fluid. There had been key moments during which Europeans had transformed their culture through an infusion of ancient values half-familiar and half-foreign, like the Renaissance and the neoclassical Age of Enlightenment. Even archaeology fit neatly into the Western tradition of change. In nineteenth-century Europe, the new discipline of archaeology was dominated by the rising middle class, whose descriptions of ancient ages—from stone to bronze to iron—reflected a modern faith in material progress.

  In China, though, intellectuals looked back and saw nothing but more Chinese history. Emperors and dynasties, emperors and dynasties—the endless spiral of time. At the turn of the century, the culture suddenly felt suffocating, and radicals proposed doing away with almost everything traditional. In the early 1900s, one group of Chinese intellectuals called themselves the Doubting in Antiquity School, because they questioned the traditional historical texts that had been copied and studied repeatedly through the ages. To these skeptics, early “dynasties” such as the Xia and the Shang lacked evidence. The intellectuals perceived history as a trap—a set of hidebound traditions that had prevented China from modernizing.

  These doubters dismissed the oracle bones as forgeries. In response, the defenders of traditional Chinese culture worked hard to interpret the fragments, hoping to prove their authenticity. One of the most brilliant scholars was Wang Guowei, who used the oracle-bone inscriptions to perform a breakthrough reconstruction of the Shang royal genealogy. By studying the names found on the artifacts, and comparing them with classical histories, Wang proved that the books and the bones matched up. His work was a crucial step toward making the Shang truly historical—a culture that had left trustworthy documents.

  For Wang Guowei, the oracle bones represented only one element of an obsession with the past. He was a committed monarchist; he believed with all his heart that the Qing should regain power. This vision was shared by Puyi, the last emperor, who, after his abdication, had remained inside the Forbidden City. Within the vermillion walls, life functioned as if nothing had changed. Time was still marked by the imperial calendar, dated by Qing rule, and Puyi continued the traditional rituals. In 1923, he appointed Wang Guowei as Companion of the Southern Study, a position that involved the cataloging of palace treasures. For one year, Wang lived in this last fragment of empire, studying old paintings, dusty scrolls, and bronzes that had turned green with the centuries. In 1924, a warlord finally forced the “emperor” to abandon his palace. Less than three years later, realizing that the empire was gone forever, Wang Guowei drowned himself in the former summer palace of the Qing. After his death, a fellow scholar wrote a memorial:

  Whenever a culture is in decline, anyone who has received benefits from this culture will necessarily suffer. The more a person embodies this culture, the deeper will be his suffering.

  Later that decade, archaeology finally brought the doubters and the traditionalists together. The discipline had always appealed to skeptics, who pointed out that the oracle bones had not been “scientifically” excavated. Meanwhile, intellectuals all across China had been calling for the adoption of Western science and philosophy since the May Fourth Movement of 1919. Even the traditionalists supported archaeology, in the hope that excavations could uncover final proof of the Shang. In 1928, the newly founded Institute of History and Philology selected Anyang as the site of the first ever Chinese-organized archaeological dig.

  The scholars knew that the nation was at risk and time might be short. Officially, the Kuomintang ruled China, but there were threats everywhere: brutal warlords in the north, dedicated Communists in the interior, Japanese invaders in the northeast. Over the next decade, events moved quickly, and so did the Anyang digs. In 1928, exploratory excavations near the west bank of the Huan River uncovered 784 pieces of inscribed oracle bones. That same year, the Japanese assassinated a northern warlord, as part of their campaign to establish military control in Manchuria. The Kuomintang officially established their new capital in Nanjing, in part to avoid the chaos of the north. Under pressure from the Kuomintang, the young Mao Zedong fled to the Jiangxi Soviet, in the interior.

  And so it went, year by year. 1929: Archaeologists in Anyang excavate carved ivories, animal bones, and inscribed turtle shells. 1930: Communist forces occupy the city of Changsha for ten days. 1931: the Japanese complete their takeover of Manchuria. In Anyang, archaeologists discover the lower jaw of an elephant, as well as a whale scapula and vertebrae. They marvel at the whale; Anyang is hundreds of miles from the ocean. 1932: Puyi, the last Qing emperor, agrees to become the “chief executive” of the new state of Manchukuo—a puppet of the Japanese, a jiade emperor to be installed in a jiade imperial palace in Changchun. A year later, facing international criticism, the Japanese withdraw from the League of Nations.

  In 1934, archaeologists in Anyang discover four huge tombs, most likely belonging to Shang kings. Everywhere, they see signs of well-organized human sacrifice: neat rows of skulls, careful arrangements of headless skeletons. To the south, under pressure from the Kuomintang, Mao and the Communists abandon Jiangxi and set off on what will become known as the Long March. In 1935, the Anyang expedition musters the largest work crew in the short history of Chinese archaeology: five hundred peasants a day. That year, they open ten royal tombs and a thousand graves. More skeletons, more skulls. Bones and bronze. The Long March ends in Shaanxi province.

  In the next ten days there will be no disasters.

  Tonight there will be no disasters.

  THE ORACLE BONES span a period of less than two centuries, ending around 1045 B.C., and the inscriptions create a powerful sense of time. The Shang follow a rigid calendar, devoting specific days to the memory of specific ancestors. On these days, bones are cracked, sacrifices are made, and words are inscribed. Whenever important members of the royal lineage die, they acquire their own memorial days. The sacrificial calendar expands with every generation that passes. In a sense, it foreshadows what will happen three thousand years later, when Beijing is ruled by the Communists: a constant accumulation of sensitive days.

  During the Shang, the earlier-period inscriptions are more detailed. Often, they reflect Shang fears: the names of enemy tribes, descriptions of royal ailments, problems with crops and weather. The rituals involve a substantial bureaucracy, and the names of many different diviners can be found on the bones. Sometimes, a bone includes both a statement about the future and an inscription noting whether that statement came true.

  But such details become less common over time. On the later-period oracle bones, inscriptions tend to be simple and ritualistic: “In the next ten days there will be no disasters.” Even the script changes: whereas the early characters are large and irregular, the late inscriptions are compact and uniform. There is a sense that these rituals have become well honed over the generations. By the last Shang king, history is already long—he offers sacrifices to Shang Jia, the founder of the royal lineage, who is at least twenty-two generations distant. In the next ten days there will be no disasters. This particular statement is repeated over and over, like a mantra. In truth, the Shang must have been struggling
with enemies, because they were eventually conquered by a neighboring group known as the Zhou. But until the end, the inscriptions are regular; there’s no written evidence that the Shang civilization is under threat. In the next ten days there will be no disasters.

  IN 1936, THE spring excavation season in Anyang is scheduled to end on June 12. That final day, at four o’clock in the afternoon, excavators are surprised to find a large number of turtle shells in a pit that has been labeled H127. Within an hour and a half, they have uncovered an estimated three thousand fragments. The dig is led by a young archaeologist named Shih Chang-ju.

  A year later, Shih and the others will leave Anyang for good. In December of 1937, the Japanese will take the capital of Nanjing, massacring tens of thousands of civilians. The Kuomintang will flee to the interior, eventually establishing a temporary capital in the Yangtze River city of Chongqing. And the archaeologists will become refugees, moving most of the important artifacts that they have found in Anyang. By train and boat, truck and cart, they will transport the ancient treasures across the country. Eventually, after the defeat of the Japanese, and after the rise of the Communists, the Kuomintang will flee once more, this time to Taiwan. Many of the archaeologists will follow, taking the oracle bones and other artifacts with them.

  But in June of 1936, all of that remains in the future. The scene appears in an account written by Shih Chang-ju:

  Naturally we postponed the work for one more day, anticipating that the extra time would be sufficient for the completion and clearance of the contents of this amazing archive! But, indeed, facts are stranger than fiction. The actual pleasure of discovery far exceeded our anticipations! The contents of H127 were, unlike the other underground deposits, found to be by no means mixed and disorderly; on the contrary they had been accumulated in an orderly fashion, so it became obvious that a new method of excavation and recording was needed.

  For four days and nights, archaeologists and peasants excavate the mass of shells and dirt. It weighs three tons and contains more than seventeen thousand fragments—by far, the largest single collection of oracle bones that has ever been discovered. There is no road; the crew uses iron straps to fasten the massive artifact to thick wooden planks. They carry it to the railroad station; a train whisks it to Nanjing. Shih Chang-ju’s description notes another detail:

  A human skeleton was also found accompanying these documented antiquities.

  7

  At Night You’re Not Lonely

  August 26, 2000

  EVERY WEEKNIGHT, AFTER CURFEW, EMILY LISTENED TO THE RADIO program before falling asleep. In the jewelry factory, she shared a dormitory suite with four other women, and all of them sat together on Emily’s bed, their attention tuned to a single radio. Because they were secretaries, they received better lodging than the assembly-line workers, who were housed ten to a room. But all of the women listened to the same show on Shenzhen Radio. It was called At Night You’re Not Lonely, and each evening there were an estimated one million listeners. The host, Hu Xiaomei, was perhaps the most famous woman in the Overnight City.

  From the perspective of Emily and her co-workers, Hu Xiaomei was a shadowy figure. Some details of the radio-show host’s life had been published in Shenzhen magazine profiles: she was in her late twenties, and she had originally come to Shenzhen as a factory worker. She was not tall, and she was not stunningly beautiful. She was not married. She rarely spoke about her personal life, and when she did, her comments tended to be oblique. There were just enough details for a careful listener like Emily to come to certain conclusions. “I can tell that a rich man had loved her,” Emily once told me. “She might have thought about it, but in the end she didn’t stay with him. And even though it would have been more comfortable to be with him, she decided to rely on herself. If she hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t have the success that she has today.”

  Although she rarely spoke in detail about her own life, Hu Xiaomei had a gift for talking about the experiences of others. At Night You’re Not Lonely was a phone-in show; many callers were migrants who used a telephone in their factory dormitory. Some talked about work troubles, or problems with their families, but the vast majority discussed affairs of the heart. A caller might be worried about a lover back in the village, or she might talk about a bad breakup. Sometimes, a person called multiple times, her story stretching across a full week. In a city where the dorm rooms often looked the same, and factory schedules were rigid, the radio stories had endless variety. The most unusual ones caught the attention of Emily and her co-workers: “There was one woman in her thirties who called and said that she had many one-night loves. She would meet a man in a bar and go home with him. She wanted to stop doing this; she wanted to find a stable relationship. But she just hadn’t found it yet. Hu Xiaomei didn’t criticize her for it. She just listened.”

  In Emily’s view, that was the most remarkable thing about the radio host. “She doesn’t make blanket judgments. She looks at each caller’s specific situation and then decides.” Hu Xiaomei could be sharply critical, and she wasn’t afraid to give specific advice, but she also knew when it was best to stay quiet. The host had a full, smoky voice, and she spoke slowly. She never got angry or frustrated. Many of the calls were of a certain type: young women asked for advice about whether they should live with their boyfriends before marriage. In the interior of China, this usually wasn’t an option, because family pressure was so intense. But young people in Shenzhen had more freedom to make these decisions, as long as they weren’t limited by the dormitory curfews. Whenever somebody called with a question about living together, Emily and her co-workers listened carefully. “Most traditional people say that you shouldn’t do this. But if the person seems mature enough, and if she’s considered the issues, then Hu Xiaomei says it’s fine to live together.”

  By the end of 1999, Emily had worked at the jewelry factory for two years. At twenty-three, she was the oldest woman in her department. Over time, she had learned to understand the factory’s social dynamics: the relations between different workers, the nature of the Taiwanese owner. He still pursued the pretty women who worked at the plant, and everybody knew that he often hired prostitutes. But the man was weak, and Emily could see it. She wasn’t afraid of him.

  During her second year, all of the workers from Hunan province banded together to demand higher wages. In the factory world, regional links were powerful; workers provided introductions for new arrivals from their hometowns, and sometimes an entire assembly-line staff might come from a single village. On the work floor, they could speak in their dialect and nobody else would understand. Some managers avoided hiring too many people from one place. When Emily had looked for jobs, she occasionally saw notices: NO SICHUANESE WORKERS NEED APPLY, or NO APPLICANTS FROM JIANGXI.

  At her factory, there were twenty Hunanese workers; most were men, and several were related. All of them worked on the production floor, where the unskilled laborers earned as little as twelve cents an hour. They made an acceptable wage only when an urgent order arrived, kicking off an overtime period.

  Quietly, the Hunanese planned for a couple of weeks, and then all of them requested leave on the same day. Most claimed an urgent family crisis. They brought their formal request letters to Emily’s office, and she passed them on to the Taiwanese boss, who didn’t know what to do. Production would stop if all the Hunanese left.

  The boss went to his neighbor for advice. Next door, at another jewelry factory, the Taiwanese owner was a more capable man who understood the migrant mentality. He came to Emily’s plant and met with the Hunanese. At first, he listened to the men’s complaints and established who were the leaders. After that, he spent some time criticizing the group for their actions. Finally, in private, he offered raises to the Hunanese leaders, as well as to their relatives.

  Everybody went back to work. Some of the laborers still made twelve cents an hour. Steadily, over the next year, the boss fired certain workers, and he was careful about replacing t
hose who left on their own, until finally the factory did not have a single male laborer from Hunan province.

  THE TURNOVER WAS also high among the secretaries. All of them had some education, and there were so many things for a women in her twenties to think about: whether she wanted to get married and have a child, whether she wanted to return home. She might search for a new job or even go into business herself. Emily’s letters often described movement and opportunity:

  Lulu may quit her job and start her own business in near future. Her one-person company’s name will be Qian Qian Jewelry, Inc. Luyun is waiting for the coming of the day when she is above everyone except for the boss. It comes when all the other old stuff (Lulu and me) leave. Other than the three of us, there is another girl in the office named He Jinhua working as an accountant. She may not stay long as her family will help her find a job and a husband in Hunan province.

  Luyun was a mystery to Emily. In the beginning, Emily’s letters had described the woman as “very kind,” but slowly her opinion changed. She sensed that Luyun did subtle things to undermine her colleagues, and she curried favor with the boss, despite often criticizing him behind his back. After a year, Emily wondered what Luyun really cared about. The woman seemed entirely alone with her schemes.

  One night, lying in bed in the dormitory, Emily found herself listening particularly closely to a caller on Hu Xiaomei’s radio show. That week, the woman called back several times, and slowly Emily realized why this particular voice was so fascinating. It reminded her of Luyun: