by Li Cunxin
“What’s down there?” the frog above asked.
“We have everything down here. You name it. The streams, the undercurrent, the stars, the occasional moon, and we even get flying objects coming down from the sky sometimes,” the frog in the well answered.
The frog on the land sighed. “My friend, you live in a confined world. You haven’t seen what’s out here in the bigger world.” The frog below was very annoyed. “Don’t you tell me that you have a bigger world than ours! My world is big. We see and experience everything the world has to offer,” the well frog said.
“No, my friend. You can only see the world above you through the size of the well. The world up here is enormous. I wish I could show you how big it is,” the frog above replied.
The frog in the well was angry now. “I don’t believe you! You are telling me lies! I’m going to ask my dia.” He told his dia about his conversation with the frog on the land. “My son,” he said with a saddened heart, “your friend is right. I heard there is a much bigger world up there, with many more stars than we can see from here.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it earlier?” the little frog asked.
“What’s the use? Your destiny is down here in the well. There is no way you can get out of here,” the father frog replied.
The little frog said, “I can, I can get out of here. Let me show you!” He jumped and hopped, but the well was too deep and the land was too far above.
“No use, my son. I’ve tried all my life and so did your forefathers. Forget the world above. Be satisfied with what you have, or it will cause you such misery in life.”
“I want to get out, I want to see the big world above!” the little frog cried determinedly.
“No, my son. Accept fate. Learn to live with what is given,” his dia replied.
So the poor little frog spent his life trying to escape the dark, cold well. But he couldn’t. The big world above remained only a dream.
“Dia, are we in a well?” I asked.
He thought for a while. “Depends on how you look at it. If you look at where we are from heaven above, yes, we’re in a well. If you look at us from below, we’re not in a well. Will you call where we are heaven? No, definitely not,” he replied.
I thought about that poor frog in the well many times. I felt sad and frustrated. We were all trapped in a well too, and there was no way out.
So I would use my kite to send messages to the gods. I found refuge from the freezing wind in a ditch and I carried a pocketful of small paper strips. I wet both ends of the paper with my tongue and looped it around the string of the kite. The strong wind pushed my paper loop up toward the kite.
The wish I sent up with my first paper loop was for my niang’s happiness and long life. I told the gods that she was the kindest, most hardworking niang, but she was so poor and deserved better. I challenged the gods and said that if they really existed and were as powerful as people were telling me they were, then they should change my niang’s situation and grant her a happy life. Suddenly I would get angry with the gods for not being fair to my niang. Then I would become frightened, and beg them for forgiveness. After that, I would send a second wish, for my dia’s good health.
But my last wish was my most important of all. I looped a third piece of paper around the kite string, and wished to get out of the deep, dark well. I confessed to the gods all my inner feelings. I made my secret wish. I daydreamed about all the beautiful things in life that were not mine. I begged them for more food for my family. I begged the gods to get me out of the well so I could help my family. My imagination traveled far beyond the faraway kite into my own special land.
My messages to the gods often got stuck at the knots in the string along the way. I had to shake and jerk the string to get my messages past the knots. Sometimes I would have many messages stuck at different knots on the kite string, and often I was the last one to leave the freezing-cold fields on the Northern Hill. But the cold always gave in to my imagination. It was my imagination that kept my heart warm and my hopes alive.
4
THE SEVEN OF US
My brothers and I were like all other boys, fighting at times and getting on each other’s nerves. But the bond between us was strong: we were expected to love and care for each other, to be happy for each other’s achievements. The older brothers were expected to look after the younger ones and the younger ones to respect the older.
Our dia and his fourth brother grew up very close too, although my dia was nearly eight years younger. My fourth uncle and aunt could not have children, so out of love and compassion my parents agreed to let them adopt their third son. So, before he was two years old, my third brother, Cunmao, was given to my uncle and auntie a couple of houses away, and we always thought we were cousins.
It wasn’t until years later, when he was a teenager, that he found out the truth.
I was feeding our hens that day with what little grain we could spare, when Cunmao stormed into our house. “Where is my seventh niang?” he shouted, which was what he called our niang.
“She is sewing on the kang,” I told him. He looked so strangely emotional that I quietly followed him, and listened.
“Why did you give me away? Why not one of the others?” I heard Cunmao demand angrily.
“This was decided even before you were born,” our niang replied gently. “You were not singled out. I love you just like my other sons.”
“I want to come back!” he said.
There was silence. “No, you can’t,” our niang said at last, her voice quivering.
“You’re my niang and I’m your third son. I want to come back!” I could hear his shaking voice. He was close to tears.
Our niang let out a long sigh. “I beg you to forget that I’m your real mother! Do you think this is easy for me to see you around every day? Go back and love your parents. Be good to them until they die. They love you like their real son. You’re luckier than your brothers. At least you have enough food to eat. Just look at how poor we are!”
“I’d rather be starving with you than living apart from you!” Cunmao said.
“What has been done is done. Your parents would be destroyed if I took you back now! I’ll always love you as one of my sons whether you’re living with us or not. But you must first love them and bear a son’s responsibilities toward them. You may then love us too if you desire.”
There was silence again. After a brief moment she said, “Come here.” And through the window I could see them hug each other, sobbing uncontrollably.
I ran away then, and hid in a cornfield. I couldn’t believe my third cousin was really one of my own brothers. My heart felt wretched. My eyes filled with tears, and from that moment on I regarded Cunmao as one of my real brothers. I stayed in that cornfield for the rest of the afternoon.
Cunmao’s pursuit of returning to his real family broke my parents’ hearts, as well as my uncle’s and aunt’s. But in the end Cunmao respected my parents’ position, and he remained a faithful son to my uncle and aunt. I could not imagine what emotional trauma he went through, though, especially as we lived so close.
My eldest brother, Cuncia, we called Big Brother. He was thirteen years older than I. I didn’t really know him when I was growing up, because I was only four years old when, in August 1965, he left for Tibet. The central government called for hundreds of thousands of young people to go to Tibet to help advance the government’s political agenda: they wanted people like my brother to influence Tibetan culture in the dominant Mandarin way. His journey to Tibet, riding buses, trains and horses, would have taken him more than a week. In his absence, my second brother, Cunyuan, took on the responsibilities of the eldest son. But Cunyuan wanted to be free and different. He too wanted to go to Tibet, but my parents refused. They needed his salary, and they were desperate for a daughter-in-law to help our niang with the domestic duties. So they arranged his marriage to a girl from our first auntie’s village. Our aunt told our parents that this girl was hardworking a
nd could cook, and would be a perfect match for Cunyuan. And now, under Chairman Mao, they could even meet each other before their wedding day to “talk about love.”
But Cunyuan was in love with a classmate instead. Her father was a county official. When she found out about the arranged marriage she immediately came to our house. “Uncle, Aunt,” she said to my parents, “I’ve known Cunyuan for nearly four years now. I love him and he loves me too! I beg you not to force him into marrying someone he doesn’t love.”
“Young girl,” my niang replied, “you’re too young to understand what love is or what is required. You don’t understand him. He is not worthy of you. There is no future working in the commune.”
“Aunt, I do know what love is! I will follow him to the end of the earth. I’m willing to eat only grass for food as long as I can be with him.”
“You don’t know our son’s temperament. You wouldn’t suit each other,” my dia replied.
“Please give us a chance! I know we’ll make each other happy.”
“You come from a different background to Cunyuan’s,” my dia added. “You won’t like our poor commune life.”
“Yes, I will! I’ll get used to it. I promise you I’ll be a faithful wife and a good daughter-in-law!”
But my parents felt strongly that this girl came from a family that was too good for us. Cunyuan needed someone who was sturdier, to rein him in. “You’re a beautiful girl and you will find a nice husband in the city one day. That’s where you belong. We hope you will understand our decision and leave our son alone,” my niang said.
By this point the girl was in tears. “Is there any chance for me to marry Cunyuan?” she asked weakly.
“No. He is engaged to someone else,” my dia said.
The girl covered her face with a handkerchief and flew out of our house. I can recall it vividly: I’d felt my heart throbbing. I’d wished my parents had given in. I never saw that girl again.
Cunyuan had many emotional fights with my parents over this girl. He resented our parents for arranging his marriage and his relationship with my parents suffered terribly.
I remember my fourth brother, Cunsang, could carry heavy grain sacks on his shoulder and could balance and push a heavily loaded cart with ease. He wasn’t the cleverest among us, but our niang always had a tender spot for him. She often blamed the accident he’d had as a baby, when the chairs crashed down on his head, for his poor school results. I loved my fourth brother: he was kind, honest and loving. He always smiled, and he was the only older brother of mine who didn’t mind me sitting beside him while he played his card games.
It was my fifth brother, Cunfar, who was the closest to me, however. We were two and a half years apart—and we fought over everything. I was notorious in the family for loving food, and if any food was missing they would always blame me first. Cunfar seized upon this and sometimes pilfered food and blamed me for it. But I loved him. He was my protector against the bullies, my partner in games and my rival in races.
Cunfar always won our wrestling matches because he was stronger than I. No matter how hard I tried, I’d still lose. But I was a faster runner. I’d make him mad by running away from him, calling him Cunfar instead of the more respectable “Wuga,” or Fifth Brother, which I was meant to use. He’d stop chasing me because he had asthma, and by the time he caught his breath I would be miles away. Then I’d make him even angrier by copying his coughs and his strange running style. He’d pick up stones to throw at me and swear to kill me ten times over if he ever caught me. “You’ll have a silver beard all the way to the floor by the time you catch me!” I’d call back.
Cunfar would often have severe coughs and asthma when we were growing up. My parents tried everything to cure him. Once we had to find a young rooster and feed it a mixture of millet and cooked toad. Twenty-four hours later my niang cooked the rooster and Cunfar had to eat everything, including the bones. I wanted to eat his rooster so badly that I stole some from him. I don’t know whether it was the toad or the rooster that worked, but a month later his asthma had gone.
So I grew up with my brothers, playing outside, under the sun, in the rain and even in the freezing winter—a wild street boy. Summer was my favorite time because I could play and run in the village and the countryside with nothing much on. Except in winter, I hardly ever wore any shoes for the first nine years of my life.
One day, late in the afternoon, the sun was setting and we were playing hide-and-seek. I was climbing on people’s walls and roofs, trying to find a good place to hide. I climbed over our six-foot-high stone wall, over our toilet, trying to get behind the three-foot clay pots where the pigs’ food was stored. One of the pots stored fermented millet waste and the other contained wheat shells from the soy sauce factory. But this day my foot slipped on the loose stones of the wall and I lost my balance. I fell headfirst, right into the pot of fermented millet waste. It was thick, gooey stuff and I was only about seven or eight years old and only just about a foot taller than the pot.
Our niang was busy cooking dinner, and my fourth brother was her wind-box pusher. By chance, Cunsang looked out and noticed the shadow of a pair of feet struggling upside down on the toilet wall. He immediately rushed to the pots and pulled me out. “What are you doing? You could have found a better place to die than the millet waste pot!” he said.
I was gasping for air, covered with the thick, gooey millet waste, seconds away from losing my life.
But nothing would stop our outdoor activities. The streets, the riverbank, the dam and the hilly fields were our playgrounds. We made our own spinning tops with carved wood and played games with marbles. Of course, we often had to help our dia too, working the small piece of land that the commune allocated to us. Sometimes we worked on it in the rain, trying to capture as much rainwater as possible. We used all the buckets and pots we had. In winter though, we didn’t have to help our dia on the land, because it was always frozen hard, and the fields were covered with snow. I loved playing in the snow. We built snowmen and had snowball fights, chasing each other wildly around in the thick, thick snow. Often we would fall on the uneven roads or fields. We would roam wild, for hours, in this white world, in the vast open space of the fields, with the snow still falling around us. We would return home covered with snow, sometimes with our clothes torn, our ears, noses, hands and feet bright red from the cold, and our bodies steaming with sweat under our quilted cotton clothes. More washing and mending for our niang.
One game I especially liked was “fighting on the one-legged horse.” We’d divide into two groups. Everybody had to hop on one leg and try to knock their opponent off balance with the other bent knee. If you were knocked down you were out. We usually played it on hills to make it more difficult. Another game we played used an empty can or half of a used corncob as the “object.” Every player had a bamboo stick. The middle player had to use his stick to push the object back into a hole, but any player could strike the object and hit it away. Sometimes both the object and the bamboo sticks would be flying frantically at each other and the game would become dangerous. We liked using an empty can as the object much more than the corncob because of the noise the metal made, but we didn’t often have that luxury.
One Sunday, in the middle of a summer drought, my brothers and I had just finished helping our dia carry buckets of water to the yam crops. The earth was dry and the ground was cracked. We were sweating and the hot sun burned our skin, so our dia allowed us to go to the dam nearby to cool down. I was the fastest runner, and when I got there some of the older boys of the village were already swimming and splashing in the middle of the dam. The water level was low. The other boys were treading water, so it looked like they were standing and, without thinking, I dived in. I had never learned to swim, and I panicked when I couldn’t touch the bottom. Every time I tried to yell for help, I would swallow some water, my head going up and down, up and down. Luckily, one of my cousins was with the group of older boys and he noticed me struggling an
d quickly swam to me and pulled me out of the water. A minute later I would have drowned.
On another hot day that summer, a popsicle seller rode his bicycle into our village. This was a rare treat! Several of my friends had money to buy popsicles, so I ran to my niang and asked her for three fen.
“I don’t have a single fen,” she replied.
I knew it was true. She never had any money.
I ran to my grandmother’s house. Na-na, our dia’s mother, was eighty-four years old by then. We loved our na-na. She often shared treats with us. She had no teeth left, so she could only eat soft food and she often asked us to peel her apples or pears so she could scrape them with a spoon, and she would let us eat the skin and the leftovers. Her eyesight was bad and she was hard of hearing: many times she got us all mixed up, calling us the wrong name. Zhang guan li dai, we called it: putting Zhang’s hat on Li. She often complained that things were not as good as in her era. She disliked the chaos and change caused by Mao’s Cultural Revolution. She used to save her falling hair, twirl it into a little ball, and exchange it for money or sometimes sewing needles. She just might have a few spare fen, I thought.
“Na-na, would you like a popsicle?” I didn’t want to ask her for the three fen too bluntly.
“No, they are too cold for me. I haven’t had a popsicle for years,” she replied.
“Niang doesn’t have three fen for me to buy a popsicle,” I said. “My dia has the money. Can you lend me three fen?” I asked, and quickly added, “All my friends have bought popsicles!”
Na-na searched around, but had no change, only a one-yuan note.
“I would be happy to take a yuan if you could spare it. I’ll pay you back later! I promise!”
She thought this was very funny, me having the audacity to borrow one whole yuan, and saying I could possibly pay her back. “Ah, one yuan!” She laughed and laughed. I was sure that if she’d had any teeth she would have laughed them off. But she ended up giving me the yuan anyway and I kept my promise. Of course I only used three fen, which I repaid a few days later. I picked up as much scrap metal and gathered as much hair as I could and sold it to the commune scrap-shop for a few fen a time. When I had saved ten fen, I would change them into a note and hide them between different pages of my copy of Chairman Mao’s Red Book. After I’d paid Na-na back, I surprised my niang by producing the rest of my savings to buy some bean curd, which she loved. She questioned me at first—she thought I had stolen the money from my dia.