Gold Mountain Blues

by Ling Zhang

  But then Yuen Cheong’s fortunes changed. It happened one market day in Tongzhi year eleven.

  He got up at the crack of dawn that day and killed a yearling pig. He had wanted to keep it until the end of the year and cure its meat but he could not wait. The family wok had seen not even a drop of lard for too long. The pig could not wait either—by now it was hardly more than skin and bones. When he had killed it, he set the head, tail and offal to one side and cut the body and legs up into several pieces to take to market. He hoped he could buy a few lotus seed paste cakes with the money; his younger son, Tak Sin, would be a year old the day after tomorrow. They could not afford a birthday banquet but at least they could share the pastries among the neighbours.

  Before he set off, his wife, Mrs. Mak, laid a few lotus leaves lightly over the meat to stop the flies getting at it. Then she lit an incense stick before the statue of the bodhisattva and prayed that the sun would not get hot too quickly; fresh pork could not stand too much sitting in the hot sun. As Yuen Cheong went to the doorway, he heard her grumbling: “It’s Red Hair’s mum’s sixtieth birthday and we’re invited to the dinner but my skirt’s full of moth holes.” She wanted him to buy her a piece of material with the pig money, and suddenly he felt a rush of anger. Putting down the shoulder pole, he rounded on his wife:

  “They’ve got family in Gold Mountain, but we haven’t, have we? All you do all day is try and keep up with the neighbours!”

  With a wail, Mrs. Mak slumped to the ground. Fong Tak Fat went to the door, grabbed the shoulder pole and thrust it firmly into his father’s hand. His father was still glowering but he put the pole back on his shoulder and walked out, sweat beading his forehead. Ah-Fat, as everyone called his older son, was a shrimp of a nine-year-old, a child whose body had not begun to fill out. He said little but he gazed at the world with piercing eyes. His father was secretly a little afraid of him.

  Shooing away some half-starved dogs, Yuen Cheong padded barefoot along the mud track out of the village. When he reached the river, he went down to the dried-up bed, where he could see that a puddle of water had collected in the crack between the rocks. Scooping up a handful, he washed his face. The little eddies distorted his reflection so that his eyes and nose appeared to jump off his face. He pursed up his thick, heavy lips as if he were going to smile, but then did not. The water ran down his forehead and gradually cooled him. His heart felt lighter. He knew why he had hit out at his wife, and it had nothing to do with her skirt. It was all to do with Red Hair.

  Red Hair was a distant cousin. He got his nickname because, with his high nose and deep-set eyes, he looked a bit like one of those White foreigners who were supposed to have reddish hair on their heads. By now, few people remembered his real name. As children, the pair of them used to catch fish and shrimps in the ponds, grope for loaches in the paddy fields and steal melons from other people’s melon patches. Red Hair was older by a few years, but he was a bit of an oaf. Yuen Cheong was the smarter of the two and bossed Red Hair around. That only changed when, a few years ago, Red Hair married an Au girl in the village who had a cousin in Gold Mountain. Then, somehow, he stumbled onto the boat and off he went too.

  There were lots of stories in the village about Red Hair in Gold Mountain. One went like this: he had gone to some remote mountains to pan for gold. The water he collected in a wooden bucket dried up under the fierce sun and he found solidified gold dust left. According to another story there was a plague in Gold Mountain a few years back. Red Hair stuffed his mouth with a thick cloth, carried corpses for the yeung fan3 and got a dollar a corpse. He also used to deliver gruel to the leprosy hospital for three coppers a bowl. People asked his mother whether these stories were true, but she just gave a smile and would not say yes or no. No one really knew what it was that Red Hair did in Gold Mountain, but they did know that he had made a lot of money and sent dollar letters home every month. In fact, every time his mother got one of these letters, she was on cloud nine. No one else cared one way or the other, but Yuen Cheong was furious. He knew Red Hair inside out. He was too stupid even to wipe his own arse properly.

  But Red Hair had become a rich man while Yuen Cheong still slaved away at that half-a-rice-bowl work.

  As Yuen Cheong carried the pork meat to market that day he had no idea of the extraordinary turn his life was going to take. Fate had something completely different in store for the simple, impecunious slaughterman— and his family were to find themselves transported from a life of abject poverty to the heights of riches along with him.

  Yuen Cheong meandered on his way and finally arrived in town—to find all quiet and hardly anyone around. This being a market day, the streets should have been jammed with people so tightly packed that they stepped on each other’s toes. He eventually came upon a couple of hawkers, and discovered that the town had been attacked by bandits the night before. They had swept through the house of one of the richest families like a hurricane, plundering and killing two people. Government troops were now patrolling the town but its inhabitants were too frightened to stir out of doors.

  Yuen Cheong had come all this way and could not turn back now, so he put down his shoulder pole and sat down at the roadside to try his luck. By midday he had sold only one trotter and one piece of tenderloin. The sun rose high above his head and the shrilling of the cicadas drilled holes in his eardrums. In the wicker baskets, the meat gradually turned pale and sweaty. Yuen Cheong cursed furiously at the lousy hand fate had dealt him. If only he had known, he would have salted down the pig meat. That way, the meat and the lard could have flavoured their meals for a few more months.

  A moment later a couple of swarthy fellows dressed in short jackets appeared. They ran frantically down the street and thrust a bag into his hands. “Look after this carefully, brother, and don’t move from this spot,” said one in low tones. “We’ll be back for it in a few hours—and we’ll make it worth your while.” Yuen Cheong had sharp eyes and he could see the weapons bulging at their waists. He said nothing but began to tremble like a leaf. As he watched them dart into a nearby alleyway, he felt something warm trickling down his thighs—he had wet his trousers.

  Yuen Cheong hugged the heavy bag to himself and waited at the roadside until the sun dipped down towards the horizon, the night wind got up and the few market-goers dispersed. Still those fellows did not come back. He looked carefully around, then surreptitiously pulled a corner of the bag loose and peeked inside. What he saw made him go weak at the knees and his eyes glaze over.

  The bag was neatly stacked with gold ingots.

  He chucked the bag into his basket and covered it with the meat wrapped in lotus leaves. He put the heavy carrying pole on his shoulder, pulled his bamboo hat down low over his eyes and crept away into a side street.

  It was almost midnight by the time he got home. The three children were asleep and only his wife waited up for him. She sat on a stool by the stove airing her feet. Since water was now so scarce, she could only wash her feet every couple of weeks. This was quite a business—just unwinding the wrapping cloths took a long time. The women of Spur-On Village always worked alongside their menfolk in the fields, so most of them had feet of a natural size. But Mrs. Mak was from San Wui Village and her feet had been bound from the age of five. As she aired her feet, she embroidered the edging for a woman’s hat which she would sell in the market. It was black with tiny pink oleanders around the brim. To save on oil, Mrs. Mak had trimmed the lamp till the flame was pea-sized. She frowned over her work but could hardly see the needle in her hand. Hearing the dog bark, she threw the embroidery down and hobbled on the tips of her bare feet to open the door.

  Yuen Cheong came in pouring with sweat. His wife’s foot bindings lay curled on the stool like a sloughed snakeskin and the air was thick with a fetid smell. He held his nose before giving an almighty sneeze. Then he put down the carrying pole and slumped to the floor, staring straight ahead of him. His wife looked searchingly at him, but he said nothing.

>   She could see that little of the meat had been sold, and guessed that Yuen Cheong was tired and angry. She ought to offer some words of comfort but did not dare open her mouth. Finally, she went into their room and brought out a towel for her husband to wipe the sweat from his face.

  “Tomorrow, I’ll send my younger brother to Canton to buy a skirt for you,” Yuen Cheong said feebly, rolling his eyes.

  It took only half a day for Yuen Cheong to go from being a poverty-stricken nobody to a stupendously wealthy member of the Fong clan. Then it took his family another half-dozen years to slide back into poverty again.

  With the money which had dropped into his hands, Yuen Cheong bought up neighbouring fields and built a residential compound with three entrance courtyards on one of them. He had a low opinion of the village bricklayer, so instead sent for a master bricklayer from Fujian, and paid through the nose for it. The walls were of pure red brick, the tiles were glazed green, and the ground was covered with large grey-black flagstones. Each courtyard was laid out in exactly the same way, with an open paved area, main hall, side hall, east chamber and west chamber. Guests were received and offered tea in the main hall, while the side hall was the study. Fong Yuen Cheong could hardly read, but he knew the value of literacy and wanted his sons to be well read. The second and third courtyards were to be used by his sons when they grew up and married. For this reason, they each had a side entrance so that if by any chance the wives did not get along, they could use their own gates. Yuen Cheong had it all worked out.

  Spur-On villagers had seen little of the world and had never seen courtyard residence like this before. Compared with the houses built by the Gold Mountain workers for their families, this was rather more stylish. When the Fongs moved in, the villagers gathered in droves to watch as Yuen Cheong and his children set off firecrackers, sending the village chickens and dogs into a frenzy. Red Hair’s mother was among the bystanders, standing silently on the far edge of the crowd.

  The Fongs’ land was rented out to tenant farmers, but Yuen Cheong continued to butcher pigs and cows—not for the offal or for cash, but to keep his hand in. He found that if he stayed at home for days on end, he would wake up in the night to a swishing noise coming from his knives hanging on the wall. He would get up the next morning and go house to house asking if anyone needed butchering done. He looked so restless that the villagers would even give him their chickens and ducks for slaughter, and he was happy to oblige them.

  The Fongs’ compound now housed half a dozen farm labourers, manservants and maids, and Mrs. Mak did not have to worry herself about either the heavy work in the fields or the housework. But Mrs. Mak had spent a lifetime working too and could not rest now. So every day she taught her daughter Ah-Tou how to sew and embroider, in preparation for the time when she would make a good marriage. Her younger son, Ah-Sin, was a toddler and spent his days chasing the chickens and scrapping with dogs in the courtyards. Her oldest son, Ah-Fat, went to a tutor school every day.

  There was a teacher named Mr. Ding, in Spur-On Village itself. He was from neither of the two village clans, but had moved in with his Au family in-laws on marriage (only the most indigent men did that). He knew the classics, and spent his time writing letters for the villagers, and painting couplets for them to hang beside their doors at the Chinese New Year or when there was a death in the family. He also taught a few of the village children to read and write. But Yuen Cheong felt the pedantic old stick was not worthy to teach his son, and asked around for a suitable teacher in the township. Mr. Auyung Ming was found. He was an erudite young man who was well versed in the classics. He had also studied Western subjects with a Christian priest in the city of Canton, and taught both kinds of learning at the tutor school he set up in the township. In fact, he was only interested in teaching the exceptional students and rejected any child who might be a bit slow. To reinforce this message, the school fees were set very high. This was just what Yuen Cheong wanted for his son, and he got a friend to take the boy along for an interview. Mr. Auyung looked him up and down, and said simply: “What a shame.” After that, every day, come rain or shine, Ah-Fat walked the dozen or so li to attend Mr. Auyung’s lessons.

  Life burned brightly for Yuen Cheong in those days—the way a pile of brushwood thrown together goes up with a whoosh when a favourable wind happens along. But the fire burned hotly, and extinguished itself too soon.

  The reason was Yuen Cheong’s addiction to opium.

  Fong Yuen Cheong smoked his opium in the most refined way. The main hall in the first courtyard of his residence was turned into his smoking room. It had a four-panelled screen covered with embroidered animals, birds, fish and flowers in the Suzhou style. All the furnishings—couch, chest and table—were of carved rosewood. Yuen Cheong’s pipe was made of Burmese ivory and he smoked the highest-grade raw opium exported by the East India Company.

  Mrs. Mak became expert in attending to her husband when he smoked. Just before the craving came on, she would prepare the pipe so that the opium bubbled up ready for her to put it into his hand. She had learned just the right height for the pillow, the right angle for the footstool, and the choice and arrangement of the snacks. As soon as he lay down on the couch, five little dishes would be artfully laid out on the table ready for him. Jerky strips, char siu pork buns, and various cakes made of green beans, sesame or lotus paste were the usual fare, together with a cup of milk. His smoking implements were rubbed until they glistened and were laid out neatly in the chest until the time came for them to be used.

  Mrs. Mak was distressed to see the family fortune dissipate in the smoke from the opium pipe, but she had her own way of calculating the losses and gains. Her husband had been a vigorous and energetic man who would not stay put at home, and who spent his time eating and drinking and getting into fights. It was far better that he should be tied to the house by an opium pipe. She knew too that if she did not attend to his needs, he might go and buy himself a concubine and get her to attend to him instead. That was what men did when they had enough money.

  Once his urge for a smoke was satisfied, Yuen Cheong became the mildest of men. He was not yet thirty years old, but when he smiled, there was a touch of an old man’s benevolence in his expression. He spoke gently and even with a touch of wit. He liked his wife to parade around in front of him in the clothes and finery he bought her in Canton. Sometimes this was in front of the servants, in the opium-smoking room. At other times, it was when they were in their bedroom; then he would shut the doors and windows and would use more than his eyes. Mrs. Mak minced around in an attempt to evade his groping hands, her face flushed just like in the heady days when they were young.

  Not only were the jagged edges of Yuen Cheong’s once-fiery temper rubbed smooth by the opium—so too were the rough edges of the wide world. He was at ease with the world and it with him. As his twinkling gaze swept over everyone around him, he had no idea that, thousands of li away, the Empress Dowager in Beijing’s Forbidden City was desperately shoring up what remained of the Qing Empire after the onslaught by Western armies. He also had no idea that, much closer to home, his tenant farmers and household servants were stealthily nibbling away at his family’s property like so many hungry mice.

  When he had had his fill of opium, Yuen Cheong would make his eldest son sit beside him and, breaking off a piece of sesame or green bean cake, put it into Ah-Fat’s hand. “And what did Mr. Auyung teach you today, son? Did you practise your calligraphy?” He had seen straightaway that his eldest was a quick learner. Maybe one day his son might pass the Imperial examinations. He racked his brains to see if he could remember any Cantonese operas in which a slaughterman’s son passed the Imperial examinations creditably enough to achieve an audience with the Son of Heaven in the Golden Carriage Palace—but could not think of any.

  Looking at the smoking equipment scattered around the opium couch, Ah-Fat said nothing but his eyebrows drew together in a worried frown. His father was used to this expression on his son
’s face; since the moment he was born, the boy had seemed grown up. Yuen Cheong soaked a piece of beef jerky in the milk to soften it and stuffed it into Ah-Fat’s mouth, saying gently: “Isn’t Daddy good to you then, son?”

  Ah-Fat swallowed the morsel before it choked him: “Mr. Auyung says foreigners sell us opium to break our spirit,” he said. “If the spirit of the people is broken, then the country is broken too.” Now it was his father who could think of nothing to say. After a few minutes, he ruffled his son’s head. “How many years has your old dad got left then? After that, it’ll be you the family depends on. So long as you don’t smoke, you can save the family. I’ll be passing the responsibility on to you sooner or later.”

  Ah-Fat sighed: “Mr. Auyung says, if the young Emperor can break free of the Dowager and ascend the throne, he can use his knowledge of the West and work out a way to contain the Western powers.…” but his father quickly put his hand over his son’s mouth. “Isn’t he afraid of losing his head, saying things like that?” he cried. “Us ordinary folk shouldn’t meddle in politics. I just want you to look after your family.”

  But circumstances put a premature end to all Fong Yuen Cheong’s plans for his son’s future. Six years after he so unexpectedly came into his fortune, he overdosed on opium and died on his couch. In retrospect, he was lucky to die when he did. Even if he had not, it might still have been his last smoke. By the time he died, almost all the Fongs’ land had been sold, and the family’s remaining valuable jewellery had been pawned. All that was left was his stone-flagged residence—and the queues of creditors waiting at the gates.

  That was how Fong Tak Fat, aged fifteen, became head of the household in the space of a night.