City Gate, Open Up

by Bei Dao

  Spring Festival 1972, our whole family reunited in Beijing. I gave a draft of my poem “Hello, One Hundred Flowers Mountain” to my father to read. I didn’t foresee that he’d order me to burn it immediately, the line “Green sunbeams scatter and flee through the seams” really terrifying him. I could see the fear in his eyes, and with no other recourse, I obeyed his command. I decided right then to never show him another poem of mine again.

  10

  In 1972, my parents returned home from distant climes and transferred to the cadre school in Shahe, in Hebei, just outside of Beijing, where my mother worked in the infirmary; Shan Shan remained in the Xiangfan district in Hubei, working as a technician in a munitions factory.

  Father turned fifty that year, still full of youthful vigor, each day toiling away in the fields. My parents would come home to rest on the weekends; my little brother malingered around Beijing; our empty void of an abode suddenly seemed crowded again. My friends of the three religions and nine schools, a motley crew, shuttled in and out of our place, bewildering my father with their riot of flowers, particularly Peng Gang, Jiang Shiwei (the poet Mang Ke), and others of the avant-garde, who could be compared, more or less, to space aliens. Apart from Shi Kangcheng and Liu Yudeng, the others suffered the cold shoulder of a shut door. One mention of my father and their conditioned reflex would be to stick out their tongue.

  Peng Gang forged me a canvas of Isaac Levitan’s oil painting Lake and fixed it above my bed. Peng Gang’s interpretation of Levitan had no relation to the styles of nineteenth-century Russian painting, its accordatura transformed into burnt-ocher ash-grays, reminiscent of the half-crazed expression in his eyes. Indeed, his version served as an archetypal work of expressionism.

  In the small space of our house, Father paced back and forth like a lion in a cage, casting a sidelong glance at the painting each time he passed it; one could feel the trembling within him, caused by fear and anger, Peng Gang’s Levitan apparently distressing him deeply — plain proof that modernist aesthetics chafes against the patterns of the real world, creating friction. One night, Father finally exploded, and with a roar ordered me to take down the painting. I refused. He pulled it down from the wall and tore it with one stroke in half. By chance, right beside it hung an ink-and-wash portrait of my father that his younger brother Zhao Yannian had painted for him, and as courtesy demands reciprocity, I handily grabbed it and hurled it to the floor with feral ferocity, the picture frame shattering to pieces.

  Each time we fought, it usually ended the same way — him opening the door and shouting, “This is not your house, get out of my sight!” If I couldn’t get back to the construction site, I’d go to Shi Kangcheng’s or Liu Yu’s place and sleep on the floor; ultimately, my mother would appear as peacemaker, soothing me to come back home.

  Summer 1975: In a spasm of rage after another big fight with my father, I took a trip with Liu Yu to climb Wutai Mountain. Returning home ten days later, I found Shan Shan had come back, too, to mind some business in the city. Our brother-and-sister bond ran quite deep, and not wanting to worry her about any family dispute, I tried my best to conceal the situation. But during her stay, Father and I had another infuriating row. Deep in the night, while waiting for things to simmer down, Shan Shan and I stared at each other silently in the kitchen. She mournfully leaned against the wall; I stood over the sink, the faucet di di da da dripping, dripping.

  Life is a continuous picking up and dropping off — and inevitably a last time will come. The last time we dropped Shan Shan off, the trolleybus was so crowded and slow we only had ten minutes to spare by the time we reached the Beijing railway station. We charged onto the platform, somehow stuffed her luggage atop a crammed rack, the cars clanged, began to rock, and steadily, little by little, pushed forward as she waved from the train window — we had barely exchanged three sentences. Who could have known that it would be our final parting.

  On the night of July 27, 1976, at the reception office at the main gate, I received a long-distance call. Shan Shan had disappeared while swimming to someone’s rescue. I rode my bike immediately to the telegraph building and cabled my father and little brother at the outskirts of the city with the news. In the zero-dark hours of the morning, the mountains shook and the earth trembled — what would become known as the Great Tangshan earthquake struck, killing hundreds of thousands of people. My father and brother returned home around midday; all the residents had gathered in the courtyard, including my mother, who stood in a stupor, already half crazed.

  My father and I decided to leave right away for Xiangfan. We hurried upstairs to pack. I followed closely behind him as he stumbled up, staggering, practically scrambling and tumbling all the way up to the fourth floor. His old tears fell freely as he murmured to himself. I impulsively embraced him and bitterly wept with him, promising from then on to never fight with him again.

  Too excruciating to recollect, the trip to Xiangfan passed like a journey to hell.

  During the two years that followed, troubled clouds and wretched mists hung over our family. I asked a fellow brother from the construction site, Chen Quanqing, to come perform some kuaibanshu (“quick clapper talks”), witty storytelling with bamboo-clapper accompaniment, for my parents, and won some laughs from them.

  But after two years of chronic depression, my mother developed an acute psychogenic psychosis. Each of us took turns caring for her.

  A mother, suffering the pain and sorrow of losing a daughter, reaches the edge of a complete psychological collapse; but then to reach further, to prevail over the illness, so much strength needed, so much willpower — Jinian took me hand in hand, picked me up, supported me so I could stand strong to face this test of life or death. Jinian often consoled me by saying that our daughter sacrificed herself to save someone else, one life saving another life. The root of life is impermanence, and life itself so precious, one must live on with steadfast tenacity, for one’s own life and the lives of others. (From my mother’s interview)

  11

  In 1979 the People’s Insurance Company of China opened for business again. My father transferred back from Min Jin, returning as the director of the domestic sales department. All day he flitted to and fro, tending to meetings, researching markets, the joys of being excessively busy. When I got married in the fall of 1980 and moved out of the house, my relationship with him noticeably improved.

  Ordinarily, with others so busy as well, we’d try to get together on certain weekends or over New Year’s and other holidays to eat, play mahjong, ramble on about this or that, yakking east to west. The decade of the 1980s was a white corridor connecting two nights — danger signs lurked here and there, shadows emerging from shadows, yet everyone seemed so full of hope, until we entered a night of even greater loss, of the people wholly lost.

  I left China in the spring of 1989. Two years later, my parents brought my daughter, Tiantian, to see me in Denmark. Mother broke her leg and could only walk with great difficulty, so my father and I took turns pushing her in a wheelchair. Father had retired the previous year and he looked old, his body shrunken, mouth full of false teeth; I imagine we both couldn’t stand the sight of each other. I still bickered with my father, but rarely fought, a state of affairs equivalent to a cold war. Whenever we went out on foot, I’d deliberately push my mother at a trot, leaving him far, far behind, then turning around I’d see his wisp of a figure too weak to stand up to a gust of wind, pity once again rising in my heart, and I’d slow my pace back down.

  Father became embroiled in a number of humorous situations abroad that made for amusing stories to tell friend and relatives back home. While in Denmark, Tian Tian’s pair of little parrots died, so Father took her to the pet shop to fill the vacancy. With the few words in English he could manage, he said to the shopkeeper, “One bird dead,” and nothing more, causing the shopkeeper to rub his head in perplexity. When I came home after teaching my class, I discovered three parrots
in the cage.

  One Sunday morning in Paris, Father went out alone with his video camera. A young lad approached him with generous cordiality, gesturing animatedly that he could take some footage of my father. Once the video camera landed in his hands, however, he took to his heels and ran off. Father pursued him closely, various passersby tried to cut him off and encircle him, the thief panicked and scurried into his own home. Some people called the police, who quickly arrived, found the perpetrator, and recovered the stolen item. The most interesting part of the story was that my father went to the police station to file a statement, not knowing a word of French, and yet miraculously a detailed, thorough account was successfully transcribed. It turned out that the video camera had been running the whole time, recording the entire course of events, from the wobbling earth to the thief’s gasps for breath. That year my father turned seventy-three.

  After I had settled for a while in California, my parents came to stay with me on two separate visits. Life in rural America was boring to the extreme. Being so busy with work, I could only take them out on the occasional excursion, giving them intermittent relief from the tedium. At some point in the 1980s, my status and role in relation to my father reversed — from that point on he listened to my advice and almost always followed it, or at least his mouth said yes even if his heart rebuffed. We had never been equals, and from time to time I’ve felt a deep desire to be his friend, to express the true feelings in my heart, and so on, but have found it impossible to do so.

  In truth, within the heart of many Chinese-blooded men resides a little tyrant who plays a complicated role: In society, the little tyrant is essentially a magistrate’s servant, a docile subject, true to the menial tasks at hand and never crosses Lei Chi River for the capital, taking not one pace over the fixed boundary; but then, once rich his face changes, and he treats rivals and commoners with vicious cruelty, something particularly apparent with each successive generation of political rebels, the key being to switch smoothly, no need for a period of transition. In the family, the little tyrant rules by force, with no equals to speak of, neither wife nor child, to the degree that the master of the house has everyone in the palm of his hand.

  Until I became a father, I didn’t realize that this tyrant consciousness arose from the bloodline, from the depths of civilization, deep-rooted, ingrained; it would be difficult for even a renegade outlaw like me to escape it. Looking back on the paternal life-road my father walked, I can recognize my own footprints, step by step blindly following, crisscrossing, coinciding — this discovery shocked me to the core.

  The end of 1999 neared, the arrival of the rumored apocalypse at hand. Driving back home from San Francisco, night deepening, moon gigantic and round, glowing with golden light, surely a sign of the end of days. Father sat in the back, blabbering to himself, “How did I live to such a great age . . . each life has its fated span, right?”

  I remember a spring day when I was nine and Father took me to Beihai Park to play. On the road home the gloaming surrounded us, a slight chill in the air of the seasonal thaw. We strolled along the edge of the lake and exited through the back gate. After two or three hundred meters, my father’s steps slowed, he scanned the people drifting by, and suddenly turned to me and said, “All the people around us here, a hundred years from now, everyone will be gone, us included.” I froze, then raised my head to look at my father; his glasses glinted and a hint of a jeering grin exposed itself.

  12

  On December 2, 2001, I took an American Airlines flight from San Francisco to Beijing and experienced the pleasures of special treatment upon my arrival — the welcoming committee, the sleek black sedan.

  When my father saw me from his sickbed, he burst into tears like a child. I sat beside him and held his hand firmly, not knowing how to console him. With quick-witted resourcefulness, I whipped out the new digital camera I had bought for him, ready to let technological fetishism work its comforting, calming magic. But his left hand could no longer obey his commands, and the camera sat idle.

  Father had kidney cancer and hepatitis B, plus suffered paralysis of the left side of his body. He could only shuffle along with excruciating effort, while his mind remained sharp. He needed a walker to use the bathroom. I encouraged him, trying to convince him that persevering with his physical therapy would lead to his recovery.

  Each day I’d visit relatives, meet up with friends, come home in the evening to be with my father, sit by his bedside, pour some red wine into a glass that he’d sip with a straw, reveling a bit in this drunken world. When he took out his false teeth, his cheeks sank into two pits, gaze vacant. He told me that he had asked the doctor if being cremated hurts or not. His attempt at confronting death with humor.

  Before my father died I was able to obtain official permission for three visits from the state, each visit lasting no longer than a month. Owing to the fierce tenaciousness of his conscious will to survive, he crossed one critical pass to the next, until half a year later he experienced a total breakdown and needed heavy medication to keep going. The second blood clot in his brain destroyed his verbal abilities, an unimaginable torment for a person like him with the gift of the gab. His voice couldn’t come out, so he used his finger to write on my hand while making otherworldly yi yi yi ya ya ya chirping sounds.

  Every morning during my time with him I’d cook a few dishes and pack them into insulated containers to bring to room 304 at the hospital, where I’d spoon-feed him each bite. I wanted to speak to him so much, but it would only stir up his emotions, make him agitated not being able to reply, cause him even more pain. Every time I returned and saw the helpless expression in his eyes and his stiff, rigid tongue, it felt as if a knife pierced my heart.

  On January 11, 2003, a Saturday, I arrived at room 304 around ten in the morning as usual. I was supposed to fly back to the States the next day. Around midday, I finished feeding him lunch and helped him shave with an electric razor. We all knew the final moment had arrived. His tongue flopped frantically in his mouth, until suddenly, a few distinct words spilled out: “I love you.” I embraced him: “Baba, I love you too.” As far back as my memory allows, this was the first and last time we ever spoke to each other in this way.

  Early the next morning, on my way to the airport, I had originally intended to stop by to say good-bye once more, but there wasn’t enough time. I sat in my seat in the cabin, the velvety soft voice of the stewardess came over the intercom, soon the plane would take off. I turned toward Beijing City, toward the place where Father would be, and offered a silent prayer.

  * * *

  *Bing Xin (1900–1999): May Fourth poet and writer also known for her war memoirs as a soldier, as well as her essays, fiction, translations, and, most popular today, her children’s books. In 1997, the Bing Xin Literature Museum opened in the coastal city of Fuzhou. — Tr.

  † Oblique reference to an “open letter” student protestors addressed to Deng Xiaoping during the Tiananmen protests in 1989. Bei Dao initiated the letter, which was signed by thirty-three intellectuals, including Bing Xin.—Tr.

  Father on the San Francisco Bay, 1997

  Translator’s acknowledgments

  My eternal thanks and gratitude to Maria Lauper at the Foundation OMINA–Freundeshilfe for an initial grant in support of this translation. And to Amy Stolls and the National Endowment for the Arts for their vital, incredible backing of this project. Their generosity translated into free time to translate this book. For a translator to receive such a gift is equivalent to living a dream — a dream of the humanities.

  Thanks to Bei Dao for entrusting me with the keys to his beautiful city, and to Eliot Weinberger for his encouraging feedback on an early sample of the work. Gan Qi’s assistance on many fronts, along with her good humor and patience, guided this book to completion. Discussions of various questions and passages with Zhang Yanping were invaluable — thank you! And a deep thanks
to Barbara Epler, president of New Directions, who believed in this project from the start and made it shine, and to the rest of the ND staff, particularly Erik Rieselbach for designing the beautiful cover. Thanks also to Eileen Baumgartner for tending to the interior design with such care, and to Karla Eoff for her meticulous reading of the proof. Lastly, my thanks to Yunte Huang for including a chapter of City Gate in his anthology The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature (W. W. Norton & Company, 2016) and to Chloe Garcia Roberts and the editors at the Harvard Review for publishing a chapter in their journal.

  About the author

  Bei Dao, the pen name of Zhao Zhenkai, was born in Beijing in 1949. He is one of contemporary China’s most distinguished poets and the cofounder of the pivotal underground literary journal Today. He has received numerous international awards for his work, including the Cikada Prize in Sweden, the Golden Wreath Award in Macedonia, the Aragana Poetry Prize in Morocco, the Jeanette Schocken Literary Prize in Germany, and the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award; he is also an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2009 Bei Dao attained U.S. citizenship, and he is currently Professor of Humanities in the Centre for East Asian Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

  In addition to City Gate, Open Up, New Directions publishes eight books by Bei Dao: At The Sky’s Edge: Poems 1991–1996, The August Sleepwalker, Forms of Distance, Midnight’s Gate, Old Snow, The Rose of Time: New and Selected Poems, Unlock, and Waves.