Double Happiness: One Man's Tale of Love, Loss, and Wonder on the Long Roads of China

by Tony Brasunas

  “Yes,” she assents. “My husband is a—”

  SLAM! A stone gives way beneath me, and I slip. The edge of the Wall rushes up to meet me… The drinks crash around me. I’m clinging to the very edge of the crumbling Wall.

  “Be careful!” the drink lady scolds me. My heart pounding, I dust myself off and carefully stand up. I nod to her, watching her recover her sacks. She climbs on steadily, not slowing down, not appearing upset.

  We pass two more towers, and then the Wall disintegrates. It collapses to a mere path that threads its way through mounds of dilapidated orange stone. There are no rails, and we step slowly. Cathy removes her glasses to mop her brow. “Our sherpa,” she points to the lady. “She says the crumbly cliff up ahead is Wangjing, the highest part of the Wall around here, but it’s at least another hour to get there.” Colt and I smile at each other and shrug; Brad says he’s up for it.

  So we forge onward, upward. Silence envelops us like gauze. We can see for miles. I want to capture the experience entirely—the sounds of dislodged stones; the warmth in my thighs; the way the cool, gusting wind gently stings my lungs—but my camera just crops the magnificence, and the effort feels futile. This puny instrument captures only a small slice of the visual, I remember, shoving the thing back into my bag. It’s best to forget the future.

  The Wall folds back on itself to reach Wangjing, a peak that looks like a child’s drawing of the end of the Earth. The mountain, with the Wall along for the ride, goes up and up to a crumbly spire, then ends. We clamber up the grass and dirt and jutting stones, scrambling, grasping, pushing. Finally we reach it, the peak, Wangjing. It’s a marvelous summit. We see that the Earth does go on, on and on and on, a boundless kingdom of dimpled hills and wispy clouds. A grinning fool, I use the camera to capture what I can. And of course we buy refreshment from our clever barbarian vendor, our indomitable drink lady, our sherpa who knew us better than we knew ourselves. I uncap a fresh bottle of water, put it to my lips, and a river of joy runs over my parched tongue. In delight I witness my companions, these heroes who sighed and sweated along with me; and the Wall, slithering in midair, suspended between heaven and earth.

  Chapter 14

  Six-String Lăoshī

  知彼知己勝乃不殆

  Know the other, know thyself,

  And you will always succeed.

  —Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  September 29

  I survived. The horrible hospital saved me. Or something did. This strangeness I call “normal” has resumed. I teach and read and play guitar and live the now. It’s all so mellow and regular. And yet there’s something new: an impatience, as if my worries over dying were just myths, like Kung Fu masters and automaton students, and now I see through them. I want to experience the real China now, whatever it is. The Moon Festival holiday is next weekend, and I’m not going to travel with my fellow gwailo lăoshī down to Hong Kong. I plan to stay here alone and cook and wander the streets, to explore the alleys and find the places that beckon to me as if they’re waiting for me, as if my destiny will unfold only once I discover them.

  My students ramble into my classroom, fresh from afternoon basketball. I open my long black case, fit the strap around my back, and turn to face them. They applaud eagerly. In the ensuing moment of stillness, all twenty-eight pairs of eyes seem to shout in unison: We’re finally getting the real show!

  I strum my acoustic guitar, launching into John Denver’s “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane.” Before class I chalked up the lyrics, and so I proceed to belt out the whole song, verse-chorus-verse-chorus, and my audience watches as if hypnotized.

  Afterwards, I begin to go through the lyrics line by line, speaking slowly, asking for them to repeat after me. “All my bags are packed. I’m ready to go.”

  “No, just you again,” Donkey says, clapping again. “You again.”

  But before long, he and all but the shyest few pronounce the lyrics. “Kiss me, and smile for me.” I pucker my lips, kiss the air, and smile while gesturing to my heart. There are a dozen giggles. Finally, we hit it in concert, and it feels fantastic, a roomful of blue-and-white-clad boys and girls singing a love song.

  I write lyrics to another classic on the board, “This Land is Your Land,” and we sing it all the way through. “From California to the Gulf Stream waters, this land was made for you and me.” I erase “California” and “New York Islands” and ask the students for places in China. At first they’re confused and suggest streets in Guangzhou, but soon they get it and name places like Tibet and the Great Wall. We sing the song for China. Finally, leaving behind every country’s imperialistic aspirations, we choose places and nations from around the world, and we sing for the whole planet. “From Argentina to the Japanese islands...” rings through the open windows and out over the soccer field, and I feel my chest hum with a new pleasure. We’re singing the same song, smiling the same smile, as if we’re all made of the same stuff.

  I’m teaching China to sing.

  I’m uplifting the nation.

  The bell buzzes, and the air goes silent. Most of the students dash out into the day, as always. Jrace and Winnie stop at the lectern. “You play really well, the guitar,” says Jrace. She giggles nervously.

  “Do you know Cantonese?” asks Winnie.

  I shake my head and sigh. “Not yet.”

  “Your Mandarin is so great,” murmurs Winnie.

  This confuses me. I haven’t spoken Mandarin in class since that first week.

  “Do you want to learn some Cantonese?” Jrace asks.

  I nod, and the girls proceed to teach me. “Thank you,” Jrace instructs. “Mgoi.”

  “Mgoi?” I ask.

  She corrects me, and I repeat after her.

  “Duo chieh,” Jrace says next. “This is also ‘thanks,’ but it means thanks for a gift.” I get that one too, and she applauds my pronunciation. “Try this one: ngo moi nei.” I repeat this phrase many times, but the girls keep asking me to say it again.

  Jrace smiles bashfully. “This means ‘I love you.’” She and Winnie laugh mischievously.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” Jrace asks.

  “No!” I laugh too.

  “I told you,” Winnie whispers to her.

  “Can we take another picture with you?” Jrace stands next to me, holding two fingers out in a V. I smile as Winnie snaps the camera.

  They rush out, leaving me alone to pack up my guitar.

  Out on the hallway, a bronze-skinned man with a crew cut awaits me. “Herro?” he greets me.

  “Hello.” I nod, locking up the classroom, mopping my forehead, preparing to meet another curious Guăngzhōurén.

  “I hear you play the guitar,” he says. “Very good!”

  “Thank you,” I take the compliment the American way. Then I try the Chinese way: “No, actually I play very badly and the students laugh at me.”

  “It is good,” he decides. “Maybe you can teach me.” He’s the picture of a healthy Chinese man: squat, robust, an easy smile, and a typical outfit of navy pants and buttoned white shirt. His only flaw seems to be a squinted left eye, as if in a permanent wink. A fraying black guitar case leans beside him. Why not? “Sure, come on,” I finally say, and motion him to follow me home.

  “Oh, I can’t today,” he stops. It seems odd, and I sense it’s a required formality. I insist, glancing at his guitar case, but he still shakes his head.

  “Just for a little while,” I repeat, and on this third entreaty, he concedes and follows along. The third time. He follows me to my dormitory, and I introduce him to Mr. Chen. He introduces himself as Li Song, a history teacher.

  “You’re a history teacher?” I ask, as I let him into our apartment. “Here, at Peizheng?”

  He nods.

  “You speak better English than the English teachers!”

  He lets out a humble chuckle as we take seats at the table and uncase our guitars. We take turns playing, listening, playing more. He finger-plucks a meanderin
g, exquisite classical melody; I play an REM song, attacking my steel-string with a heavy pick. We praise each other’s unfamiliar style. I get a sense that we could perform together. I show him some sheet music I brought—U2, Dave Matthews, Eric Clapton—and we attempt to play some tunes together. I strum the chords of U2’s “Running to Stand Still” while he plucks the vocal melody, and it sounds fantastic and bizarre, familiar yet almost atonal, since he can read music but doesn’t know the tune.

  Halfway through listening to an Eric Clapton song on CD, he suddenly bolts up. “Time to go, I prepare for class.”

  I hurriedly lend him Joshua Tree and Eric Clapton Unplugged—the CDs and the sheet music. “Thank you,” he says with a grin, respectfully accepting the materials with both hands. He stands with me for a moment, silently expressing appreciation, or perhaps its an apology for leaving so suddenly, and then he’s gone.

  Six days later, Li Song returns. His new favorite song is “Tears in Heaven,” and he and I play it together. He hums a bit of the melody, and I ask him to sing it now that he knows it. Without further ado he breaks into song, crooning with a rich voice that fills our little concrete home. He has a thick accent of course. “Would it be the same, if I saw you in heaven?” I pluck the strings, enjoying again the blending of our styles.

  We invite him to stay for dinner and insist three times before he accedes. Instead of our customary wok full of vegetables, Byron prepares Western cuisine for our guest: He browns potatoes, sautés onions, and fries actual omelets from a cache of eighty eggs we received as a gift from the school administration. When we all sit down, Li Song cranes to look under the omelet on his plate, forking it onto its side. “Are you vegetarians?” he asks.

  “No, we’re just nervous about cooking meat at home.” Byron makes broad hand gestures as he often does when speaking with Chinese people. “I don’t want to poison us.”

  “Do you eat meat with most meals?” I ask Li Song as we all dig in.

  “Often, yes,” he replies. “I usually like to eat meat.”

  “What kinds of meat?”

  “My wife and I eat pig and cow sometimes, and some other things.”

  “What else?” I press him. “Do you eat dog?”

  “Hmm?” he says, and I can’t tell if it’s his permanent wink or genuine confusion.

  “Dog,” I say louder. “Gŏu. Do you eat gŏu?”

  “Oh, yes,” he says thoughtfully. “Sometimes. It’s not our favorite.”

  “Any other kinds of meat?” Byron asks. “Cat? Rabbit? Raccoon?”

  “Yes. I don’t know ‘ladoon’?”

  “Rac-coon,” Byron enunciates, holding his hands a couple feet apart. “A little guy about this big, with black rings around his eyes.” He encircles his eyes with his thumbs and forefingers. “They’re stealthy, like big dogs.”

  “It lives in the forest,” I add.

  “Oh yes, I know it, it’s very smart.” Li Song smiles. “I don’t think I’ve eaten it before.”

  “It’s tasty,” Byron says.

  “Have you eaten snake?” Li Song asks. “It’s delicious and healthy.”

  “Yes, we had snake,” I sigh. “And turtle. With the Peizheng teachers and Principal Wu.”

  “Yes, snake is good, healthy,” Li Song says. “I also like ass.”

  “Ass?” Byron chokes on his toast.

  “Yes,” Li Song says. “Ass is a good taste. Very good.”

  “How good?” I ask. “I mean, how often do you eat it?”

  “Maybe once a month I eat the ass.”

  “I’ve never had it,” I admit, stifling a laugh with difficulty. “How do you eat the ass?”

  “Many ways, you can try it. Ass is popular in China.”

  Byron eyes Li Song seriously. “In America it’s hard to get good ass.”

  “Very delicious,” Li Song nods.

  Byron asks, “Does your wife like ass too?”

  “My wife really likes the ass,” he nods calmly. “Maybe her favorite. It’s a treat.”

  “A treat?” I manage.

  “Well,” Byron grins. “All we have left here is toast and potatoes.”

  A torrid afternoon sun blazes through the windows of my classroom. I strum my guitar, and the teenagers scream out: “West Virginia! Mountain momma! Take me home! Country roads!” We belt out the chorus three extra times. Looking at them, I try to ignore the fact that most of them are just mouthing the syllables, imitating others, probably missing where one word ends and the next begins. After the song, I quiz them on the words, and sure enough, they haven’t learned a thing. But they do want to keep singing.

  “Take me home,” bellows Sandoh, interrupting me. “Take me home!”

  Fat chance, I’m thinking. The bell rings, sparking their customary chaotic exodus. Mrs. Yuan stops all four of us gwailo lăoshī on the ground floor. “Peizheng is very proud!” she gushes. “You are our best foreign teachers. Ever!” She returns the passports we surrendered to her the day we arrived, and at long last there are actual visas stamped inside. We’re now legally here, big noses in the Middle Kingdom. But there’s something else on her mind, and she doesn’t waste time. “Maybe you would like to sing. At a wedding?”

  “Sing?” Paige’s eyes widen.

  “Yes, maybe you can sing a Chinese song of love?” She turns a sidelong glance at me. “I hear Tony is very talented.”

  “All of us?” Paige asks.

  “OK?” Mrs. Yuan nods. “Maybe you will do very well.” The word maybe, we’ve realized, is how she signifies an order. “It is an important wedding in Guangzhou,” she continues. “Principal Wu and I will attend. You will represent Peizheng! You will be famous! Peizheng is very proud.” She hurries off, leaving the four of us staring at each other.

  “A wedding?” laughs Byron. “Tony, did you get us into this?”

  “I… don’t think so...”

  “Last week was the clothing factory,” Paige shakes her head. “Now this? Singing at a wedding?”

  Lauren smiles. “Who knows. Hey, do you two manly gwailo want to cook dinner at our place tonight? We have the ingredients for ‘Guangzhou Spaghetti.’”

  Up for a break from eggs and stir-fries, Byron and I leave campus with them and turn down an alley towards their apartment.

  “Sometimes we’re allowed to say no, right?” I shake my head. “I mean, ‘No! I’m not doing that!’ Sing at a wedding? No!”

  “Why don’t you just have us all sing ‘This Land is Your Land’?” Paige jabs.

  I spot a Jianlibao soda can on the street and kick it. “Maybe I should bring my guitar.”

  “Seriously, why does it have to be us?” Lauren asks.

  “‘Maybe you will represent Peizheng,’” Paige parrots Mrs. Yuan.

  “Peizheng is our dānweì,” Byron explains. “Our work unit. We got the gift over the holday—all the eggs—because we’re now loyal members of our dānweì. Remember? Now it’s our duty to do our part. ‘To uplift the nation.’”

  Lauren ponders this a moment. “It might be fun,” she says. I catch her eye, and she smiles.

  “No, it’s going to be ‘look and laugh at the foreigners,’” Paige rolls her eyes. “We make fools of ourselves, everyone laughs, and then we’re done. It’s lame, but you just suck it up and deal.”

  We reach a quiet residential alley, climb a flight of stairs to their place, and enter. Inside, we melt. Their air conditioning feels impossibly luxurious, and the coolness sifts through my pores, awakening visceral memories of comfort and pleasure. My eyes pass languorously over their wooden sofa and linoleum floor. “How did you guys get the palace when we got the prison cell?”

  “The boys were naughty last year, remember?” says Lauren. “Zach got the Asian Cravin’.”

  There’s a knock on the door, and Mr. Guo, the wiry teacher who sat beside me at the snake banquet, pays a visit. He must have heard us come in. “I am writing an English textbook,” he utters in his nasally voice. “Maybe you can help with the t
ranslating?” He uses the killer maybe too. We agree, and we work with him for fifteen minutes, fixing countless awkward sentences and erroneous, often hilarious, vocabulary choices.

  “Translating?” Lauren cries when he finally leaves. “How about writing? That’s the third day in a row!”

  Paige mocks Mr. Guo’s snorting tone: “Maybe you will write my book for me. Maybe you will do my bidding—forever!” Then she inserts her own voice: “Maybe I will never see you again.”

  “Maybe we should hang a sign on our door,” Lauren sighs. “‘Foreigners Available.’”

  A few short days later, available again, the four of us climb to the third floor of Classroom Tower B, where we are to begin training to sing a Chinese song of love. A lively melody dances down the outdoor hallway toward us. We step into a dusty room where a man is playing a dilapidated upright piano. He turns and greets us. “Herro!”

  It’s Li Song! He grins, welcoming us, his left eye doing its permanent wink.

  Paige and Lauren introduce themselves.

  “Your song is Aobao Xianghui,” Li Song says. “A famous Chinese love song, very traditional. Everyone at the wedding will already know it. But it is one of the most difficult to sing.” He explains its composition: First is a woman’s part, where a lover beseeches her beloved to return; next the man sings, pining for the woman; finally, the lovers are united and sing together in harmony.

  Li Song’s hands return to the piano and he coaxes an attractive minor-key ballad from the faux ebony and ivory. I watch his fingers as Paige and Lauren jump right in and learn the woman’s part; soon they have the melody down and are practicing their pronunciation.

  Li Song turns to us and plays the man’s part. Byron and I fumble through the lower register like cows in a crowded pasture.

  Li Song stops. “Are you going to sing the notes?”

  “We weren’t?” Byron asks, as we glance at each other. Paige translates the lyrics for us, bit by bit: “Return, my love, even if it never rains again, even if the flowers no longer open.” She smiles. “Don’t worry guys. Everyone will already know the song—they’ll love it when you look like asses.”