by Yunte Huang
But though that is the opinion of some, there are still many others who are envious of this grand house, which is so indisputably fine, elegant, peaceful and quiet (complete silence reigns), neat and tidy, with no trace of disorder. The slave girls and maidservants are fashioned exactly like those in this world; the chickens, dogs, pigs, and horses too are just like those in this world. Everything in this world can also be found in the netherworld: people eat noodles in this world, and in the netherworld they eat them too; people have carriages to ride in this world, and in the netherworld they also ride them; the netherworld is just like this world—the two are exactly alike.
That is, of course, except for the big quagmire on Road Two East. Everything desirable is there; undesirable things are simply not necessary.
5
These are the objects that the ornament shops on Road Two East produce. The displayed handiwork is both dignified-looking and eye-catching, but the inside of the shop is a mass of confusion. Shredded paper is everywhere; there are rods and sticks all in a heap; crushed boxes and a welter of cans, paint jars, paste dishes, thin string, and heavy cord abound. A person could easily trip just walking through the shop, with its constant activity of chopping and tying as flies dart back and forth in the air.
When making paper human figures, the first to be fashioned is the head; once it has been pasted together it is hung on a wall along with other heads—men’s and women’s—until it is taken down to be used. All that is needed then is to put it atop a torso made of rods and sticks on which some clothes have been added, and you have the figure of a human being. By cutting out white paper hair and pasting it all over a sticklike papier-mâché horse, you have a handsome steed.
The people who make their living this way are all extremely coarse and ugly men. They may know how to fashion a groom or a carriage driver, and how to make up women and young girls, but they pay not the slightest attention to their own appearance. Long scraggly hair, short bristly hair, twisted mouths, crooked eyes, bare feet and legs; it is hard to believe that such splendid and dazzlingly beautiful lifelike human figures could have been created by those hands.
Their daily fare is coarse vegetables and coarse rice, they are dressed in tattered clothes, and they make their beds among piles of carriages, horses, human figures, and heads. Their lives seemingly are bitter ones, though they actually just muddle their way through, day by day, the year round, exchanging their unlined jackets for padded coats with each seasonal change.
Birth, old age, sickness, death—each is met with a stoic absence of expression. They are born and grow in accordance with nature’s dictates. If they are meant not to grow old, then so be it.
OLD AGE—GETTING OLD has no effect on them at all: when their eyesight fails they stop looking at things, when their hearing fades they stop listening, when their teeth fall out they swallow things whole, and when they can no longer move about they lie flat on their backs. What else can they do? Anyone who grows old deserves exactly what he gets!
Sickness—among people whose diet consists of a random assortment of grains, who is there who does not fall prey to illness?
Death—this, on the other hand, is a sad and mournful affair. When a father dies, his sons weep; when a son dies, his mother weeps; when a brother dies, the whole family weeps; and when a son’s wife dies, her family comes to weep.
After crying for one, or perhaps even three days, they must then go to the outskirts of town, dig a hole, and bury the person. After the burial the surviving family members still have to make their way back home and carry on their daily routine. When it’s time to eat, they eat; when it’s time to sleep, they sleep. Outsiders are unable to tell that this family is now bereft of a father or has just lost an elder brother. The members of that particular family even fail to lock themselves in their home each day and wail. The only expression of the grief they feel in their hearts is joining the stream of people who go to visit the graves on the various festivals each year as prescribed by local custom. During the Qingming Festival—the time for visiting ancestral graves—each family prepares incense and candles and sets out for the family grave site. At the heads of some of the graves the earth has settled and formed a small pit, while others have several small holes in them. The people cast glances at one another, are moved to sighing, then light the incense and pour the wine. If the survivor is a close relative, such as a son, a daughter, or a parent, then they will let forth a fit of wailing, the broken rhythm of which makes it sound as though they were reading a written composition or chanting a long poem. When their incantation is finished they rise to their feet, brush the dirt from their behinds, and join the procession of returning people as they leave the grave sites and reenter the town.
When they return to their homes in the town they must carry on life as before; all year round there is firewood, rice, oil, and salt to worry about, and there is clothing to starch and mend. From morning till evening they are busy without respite. Nighttime finds them exhausted, and they are asleep as soon as they lie down on the k’ang. They dream neither of mournful nor of happy events as they sleep, but merely grind their teeth and snore, passing the night like every other night.
If someone were to ask them what man lives for, they would not be confounded by the question, but would state unhesitatingly, directly, and unequivocally: “Man lives to eat food and wear clothes.” If they were then asked about death, they would say: “When a man dies that’s the end of it.”
Consequently, no one has ever seen one of those ornament craftsmen fashion an underworld home for himself during his lifetime; more than likely he doesn’t much believe in the netherworld. And even if there were such a place, he would probably open an ornament shop when he got there; worse luck, he’d doubtless have to rent a place to open the shop.
6
In the town of Hulan River, besides Road Two East, Road Two West, and the Crossroads, there remain only a number of small lanes. There is even less worth noting on these small byways; one finds precious few of the little stalls where flatcakes and dough twists are made and sold, and even the tiny stands that sell red and green candy balls are mainly located where the lanes give out onto the road—few find their way into the lanes themselves. The people who live on these small lanes seldom see a casual stroller. They hear and see less than other people, and as a result they pass their lonely days behind closed doors. They live in broken-down huts, buy two pecks of beans, which they salt and cook to go with their rice, and there goes another year. The people who live on these small lanes are isolated and lonely.
A peddler carrying a basket of flatcakes hawking his product at the eastern end of the lane can be heard at the western end. Although the people inside the houses don’t care to buy, whenever he stops at their gates they poke their heads out to take a look, and may on occasion even ask a price or ask whether or not the glazed or fried dough twists still sell for the same price as before.
Every once in a while someone will walk over and lift up the piece of cloth that covers the basket, as though she were a potential customer, then pick one out and feel to see if it’s still hot. After she has felt it she puts it right back, and the peddler is not the least bit angry. He simply picks up his basket and carries it to the next house.
The lady of this second house has nothing in particular to do, so she too opens up the basket and feels around for a while. But she also touches them without buying any.
When the peddler reaches the third house, a potential customer is there waiting for him. Out from the house comes a woman in her thirties who has just gotten up from a nap. Her hair is done up in a bun on top of her head, and probably because it isn’t particularly neat, she has covered it with a black hairnet and fastened it on with several hairpins. But having just slept on it, not only is her hair all disheveled, even the hairpins have worked their way out, so that the bun atop her head looks as though it has been shot full of darts. She walks out of her house in high spirits, throwing the door open and virtually
bursting through the doorway. Five children follow in her wake, each one of them in high spirits; as they emerge they look every bit like a platoon marching in a column.
The first one, a girl of twelve or thirteen, reaches in and picks out one of the dough twists. It is about the length of a bamboo chopstick, and sells for fifty coppers. Having the quickest eye among them, she has selected not only the biggest one in the basket, but the only one in that size category.
The second child, a boy, chooses one that sells for twenty coppers.
The third child also chooses one that sells for twenty coppers; he too is a boy.
After looking them all over, the fourth child has no alternative but to choose one that sells for twenty coppers; and he too is a boy.
Then it is the fifth child’s turn. There is no way of telling if this one is a boy or a girl—no hair on the head, an earring hanging from one ear, skinny as a dry willow branch, but with a large, protruding belly, it looks to be about five years old. The child sticks out its hands, which are far blacker than any of the other four children’s—the hands of the other four are filthy black, all right, but at least they still look like human hands and not some other strange objects. Only this child’s hands are indistinguishable. Shall we call them hands? Or what shall we call them? I guess we can call them anything we like. They are a mottled mixture of blacks and grays, darks and lights, so that looking at them, like viewing layers of floating clouds, can be a most interesting pastime.
The child sticks its hands into the basket to choose one of the fried dough twists, nearly each of which is touched and felt in the process, until the entire basket is soon a jumble. Although the basket is fairly large, not many dough twists had been put inside it to begin with: besides the single big one, there were only ten or so of the smaller ones. After this child has turned them all over, the ones that remain are strewn throughout the basket, while the child’s black hands are now covered with oil as well as being filthy, and virtually glisten like shiny ebony.
Finally the child cries out: “I want a big one.”
A fight then erupts by the front door.
The child is a fast runner, and takes out after its elder sister. Its two elder brothers also take off running, both of them easily outdistancing this smallest child. The elder sister, holding the largest dough twist in her hand, is unimaginably faster on her feet than the small child, and in an instant she has already found a spot where there is a break in the wall and has jumped through; the others follow her and disappear on the other side. By the time all the others have followed her past the wall, she has already jumped back across and is running around the courtyard like a whirlwind.
The smallest child—the one of indeterminate sex—cannot catch up with the others and has long since fallen behind, screaming and crying. Now and then, while the elder sister is being held fast by her two brothers, the child runs over and tries to snatch the dough twist out of her hand, but after several misses falls behind again, screaming and crying.
As for their mother, though she looks imposing, actually she cannot control the children without using her hands, and so seeing how things are going, with no end in sight, she enters the house, picks up a steel poker, and chases after her children. But unhappily for her, there is a small mud puddle in her yard where the pigs wallow, and she falls smack into the middle of it, the poker flying from her hand and sailing some five feet or so away.
With that this little drama has reached its climax and every person watching the commotion is in stitches, delighted with the whole affair. Even the peddler is completely engrossed in what is going on, and when the woman plops down into the mud puddle and splashes muck all over, he nearly lets his basket fall to the ground. He is so tickled he has forgotten all about the basket in his hands.
The children, naturally, have long since disappeared from sight. By the time the mother gets them all rounded up she has regained her imposing parental airs. She has each of them kneel on the ground facing the sun so that they form a line, then has them surrender up their dough twists.
Little remains of the eldest child’s dough twist—it was broken up in all the commotion.
The third child has eaten all of his.
The second one has a tiny bit left.
Only the fourth one still has his clenched in his hand.
As for the fifth child, well, it never had one to begin with.
The whole chaotic episode ends with a shouting match between the peddler and the woman, after which he picks up his basket and walks over to the next house to try to make another sale. The argument between the two of them is over the woman’s wanting to return the dough twist that the fourth child had been holding on to all that time. The peddler flatly refuses to take it back, and the woman is just as determined to return it to him. The end result is that she pays for three dough twists and drives the peddler with his basket out of her yard.
Nothing more need be said about the five children who were forced to kneel on the ground because of those dough twists, and as for the remainder of the dough twists that had been taken into the lane to be handled and felt by nearly everyone, they are then carried over into the next lane and eventually sold.
A toothless old woman buys one of them and carries it back wrapped in a piece of paper, saying: “This dough twist is certainly clean, all nice and oily.” Then she calls out to her grandchild to hurry on over.
The peddler, seeing how pleased the old lady is, says to her: “It’s just come from the pan, still nice and warm!”
7
In the afternoon, after the dough-twist peddler has passed by, a seller of rice pudding may come by, and like the other peddlers, his shouts from one end of the lane can be heard at the other end. People who want to buy his product bring along a small ceramic bowl, while others who are not interested in buying just sit inside their homes; as soon as they hear his shouts they know it is time to begin cooking dinner, since throughout the summer this peddler comes when the sun is setting in the west. He comes at the same time every day, like clockwork, between the hours of four and five. One would think that his sole occupation is bringing rice pudding to sell in this particular lane, and that he is not about to jeopardize his punctual appearance there in order to sell to one or two additional homes in another lane. By the time the rice-pudding peddler has gone, the sky is nearly dark.
Once the sun begins to set in the west the peddler of odds and ends, who announces his presence with a wooden rattle, no longer enters the lanes to peddle his wares. In fact, he does no more business on the quieter roadways either, but merely shoulders his load and makes his way home along the main streets.
The pottery seller has by then closed shop for the day.
The scavengers and rag collectors also head for home.
The only one to come out at this time is the bean-curd peddler.
At dinnertime some scallions and bean paste make for a tasty meal, but a piece of bean curd to go along with it adds a pleasant finishing touch, requiring at least two additional bowlfuls of corn-and-bean gruel. The people eat a lot at each sitting, and that is only natural; add a little hot-pepper oil and a touch of bean sauce to the bean curd and the meal is greatly enhanced. Just a little piece of bean curd on the end of the chopsticks can last a half bowlful of gruel, and soon after the chopsticks have broken off another chunk of bean curd, a full bowlful of gruel has disappeared. Two extra bowlfuls are consumed because of the addition of the bean curd, but that doesn’t mean the person has overeaten; someone who has never tasted bean curd cannot know what a delightful flavor it has.
It is for this reason that the arrival of the bean-curd peddler is so warmly welcomed by everyone—men, women, young, and old alike. When they open their doors, there are smiles everywhere, and though nothing is said, a sort of mutual affinity quietly develops between buyer and seller. It is as though the bean-curd peddler were saying: “I have some fine bean curd here.”
And it is as though the customer were answering: “Your bean cu
rd doesn’t seem half bad.”
Those who cannot afford to buy the bean curd are particularly envious of the bean-curd peddler. The moment they hear the sound of his shouts down the lane drawing near they are sorely tempted; wouldn’t it be nice to be able to have a piece of bean curd with a little green pepper and some scallions!
But though they think the same thought day in and day out, they never quite manage to buy a piece, and each time the bean-curd peddler comes, all his presence does for these people is confront them with an unrealizable temptation. These people, for whom temptation calls, just cannot make the decision to buy, so they merely eat a few extra mouthfuls of hot peppers, after which their foreheads are bathed in perspiration. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, they dream, if a person could just open his own bean-curd shop? Then he could eat bean curd anytime he felt like it!
And sure enough, when one of their sons gets to be about five years of age, if he is asked: “What do you want to do when you grow up?”
He will answer: “I want to open a bean-curd shop.” It is obvious that he has hopes of realizing his father’s unfulfilled ambition.
The fondness these people have for this marvelous dish called bean curd sometimes goes even beyond this; there are those who would even lead their families into bankruptcy over it. There is a story about the head of a household who came to just such a decision, saying: “I’m going for broke; I’ll buy myself a piece of bean curd!” In the classical language, the words “going for broke” would be the equivalent of giving up one’s all for charity, but in modern speech most people would just say: “I’m wiped out!”
8
Once the bean-curd peddler packs up and heads for home, the affairs of another day have come to an end.
Every family sits down to its evening meal, then after they have finished, some stay up to watch the sunset, while the others simply lie down on their k’angs and go to sleep.