Ama Drölkar wasn’t at the meeting. Akhu Zöpa headed home, muttering to himself. “My god, even back in the Old Society and in the Cultural Revolution an old man like me was never expelled from the camp! Snub-nosed Sökyab, death’s too good for you! Not even a dog would eat that corpse. You …!” He was shaking so badly that he fell of the back of his yak and died.
FOUR
Sökyab took the cash from D— Camp and herded the donated rams to the monastery.
“Ah la la!” he announced upon his arrival. “The Dharma protectors look so alive! Old man Zöpa didn’t give any money for the building of the assembly hall, so he fell off his yak and died.”
“Well of course he did, of course he did,” said the monks. From then on, they would mention this to anyone they met: “Did you hear about what happened to old Zöpa?”
Alak Drong, the head of the monastery, praised Sökyab profusely for bringing in the donations by the deadline he had set. “How much can your camp put up for the building of the stupa?” the lama asked Sökyab.
“How much did the other camps say they’d give?”
“The lowest was thirty a head, the highest fifty a head.”
“Then I’ll commit to sixty,” said Sökyab without the slightest hesitation, and headed back to the camp to convene another meeting.
“Alak Drong has conferred great praise on our camp! Hmmm—yes.” Sökyab snorted a generous helping of snuff into his right nostril before continuing. “This spring they’re building a stupa. Hmmm—yes.” He snorted a smaller amount of snuff into his left nostril, and wiped his thumb on the inside of his chuba. He took out the notebook, so sticky with filth it looked like a used handkerchief, and opened it up. “So it’s sixty per person. In my family there are five people, five sixes is thirty, so that’s three hundred yuan …”
Seeing that everyone was whispering among themselves, he snapped the notebook shut and paused for a moment. “You all know how many people are in each of your families. Whoever doesn’t pay up by the time we move to the summer camp—well, getting kicked out of the camp is nothing. If you get on the wrong side of the Dharma protectors, then … I’m sure you all get the idea.” And with that the meeting was adjourned.
FIVE
One morning shortly after they had moved to the spring camp, Sökyab was riding his yak around and shouting like a man possessed. “Time to pay up! If you don’t pay up, you’ll be kicked out of the camp! If you don’t pay up you’ll be out there with them!” Spurring on his yak, he pointed toward the solitary tents of the Zöpa family (now named the Yarpel family, after the eldest son) and the Drölkar family. “If you don’t pay up then you’ll be out there with them!” Though he made eight or so rounds of the camp, only seven families emerged to offer their donations. Sökyab was enraged. “Enemies of the Dharma!” he screamed. “You’re all out of the camp!” And so the majority of the families were sent off in the direction of the Yarpel and Drölkar families.
Sökyab presented his roughly five thousand yuan to Alak Drong. “What the hell is this? That’s it?” he demanded, staring at Sökyab in disbelief.
“Most of the families didn’t give anything.” Sökyab heaved a sigh. “Of course you know how much I urged them.”
Alak Drong too heaved a sigh. “Yes indeed, the people of this degenerate era really are stingy. No piety at all. Noble Avalokiteśvara, how pitiful are the people of this degenerate era! So how much money can your camp put up for the assembly hall?”
“How much did the other camps say they’d put up?”
“Not counting the money for the pillars, one or two hundred a head.”
Sökyab despaired (his family too was now very low on money). “If I promised a lot now then I’d just be racking up the offenses. Those enemies of the Dharma won’t give a penny. But I can do my best to persuade them!”
“Then you’ve got to have the money by May.”
“Yes, of course.”
Returning to the camp, he paid a visit to the few remaining families that hadn’t been expelled. He told them about the importance of building the assembly hall, and how if they didn’t give a donation then being kicked out of the camp would be the least of their worries, that old man Zöpa is an example of what happens when you get on the wrong side of the Dharma protectors, and plenty more besides. Finally, he laid out his solemn conclusion: “So, this time, if you can’t get the money from the earth, get it from the sky. If anyone comes to me saying they haven’t got the money, I’ll have only one thing to say to them: when we move to the summer pasture, you’re out of the camp.”
SIX
When D— Camp moved to its summer pasture, it consisted solely of the tent of the Sökyab family; everyone else had been “kicked out of the camp.” At first he refused to speak to anyone at all, and they refused to speak to him. There’s nothing wrong with one person refusing to speak to everyone else, but everyone else refusing to speak to just one person, well, that’s a truly unbearable state of affairs. Sökyab, unable to take it any longer, jumped on his yak and rode around calling out, “Everyone come back to the camp! Everyone come back to the camp!” But no one paid him the least bit of attention.
Sökyab took his complaint to the township government. “I’ve been kicked out of the camp,” he informed them.
“How can a thing like that happen in this day and age? Impossible.”
Sökyab took his complaint to the county government. “I’ve been kicked out of the camp,” he informed them.
“Impossible. Seems like there’s something wrong with your brain. Get yourself to the hospital.”
It seemed like there really was something wrong with his brain. He spent the whole day riding around madly from door to door shouting, “Come back to the camp! Whoever doesn’t come back to the camp will be kicked out of the camp!” In the end his yak’s tongue was sticking out of its mouth by a whole foot and a mixture of blood and sweat dripped off its back. No matter how much he whipped it, it wouldn’t move an inch.
SEVEN
“Everyone come back to the camp!” The next day, and for many days after, Sökyab continued to run about shouting, “Come back to the camp! Whoever doesn’t come back to the camp will be kicked out of the camp!”
“Eh, snub-nosed Sökyab really has gone nuts.”
“Completely nuts. What a shame.”
“A real shame. Even more so for his wife and kids.”
“Well, what’s past is past,” said Yarpel. “As long as you don’t object, I think we should do something about it.”
“…”
The masses are indeed compassionate. Everyone invited him to come back to the camp, and his family was restored to the community. They sent Sökyab to the hospital to receive psychiatric care, and he is turning back into a normal person. As long as that “old affliction” doesn’t flare up again …
2
PISS AND PRIDE
It was almost the end of the ninth month in the Tibetan calendar, but it was still hot in the city, on top of which his fur jacket was a bit too thick, making him sweat profusely and feel an unbearable thirst. He really regretted that he hadn’t worn something lighter yesterday. When he thought about it, though, there wasn’t much he could have done, since when he’d left the house the previous morning it was raining and snowing, and a cold wind was blowing—not exactly “home sweet home.” Fortunately, he didn’t have to go too far before he came across a place selling tea and other drinks beneath a big multicolored parasol. He drank several cups of tea in succession, then continued to roam the shops looking for the radio his neighbors had asked him to get.
He had no idea how far he’d walked, but when he turned to look he could see the college building where his son went to school—the one decorated with the eight auspicious signs—standing out clearly among the other tall buildings like the moon amid the stars. This gave him some comfort, and he kept going.
After a while he felt the need to take a piss, and he remembered what his son had said to him: “If
nature calls, you have to go to the public toilet. There are lots of them on the main roads. If you pee any old place, then getting a fine would be the least of our worries—you’d be harming the reputation of our nationality.” He looked around, but nowhere was there a building resembling this “public toilet” he had in mind, so he kept going.
He saw a few men go into a building, then emerge shortly after, doing up their trousers as they went. Could this be the public toilet? he wondered. But this building was even nicer than the dorms at his son’s university, and when he approached the doorway he was met by a drifting aroma of incense. No way, he thought, and decided not to go in.
By this point his bladder was on the verge of bursting. He stopped a passerby and said, “Arok, buddy, ah …” then made some gestures with his hands (he wasn’t a mute, but he didn’t know Chinese, so what else could he do?). “You’re the aluo, not me!” the man replied in Chinese and stormed off.1
“Eh, I wish I knew some Chinese,” he mumbled to himself. He scanned the area until his gaze finally fell on the secluded corner he was after, but immediately he remembered “the reputation of our nationality” and forced himself to hold it in.
“Best if I just get back quick as possible,” he thought, turning around and picking up his pace. Soon he was half trotting half running, and then he broke into a full-blown sprint. This was the first time since he’d turned forty or fifty that he’d run like a kid, full tilt. Unfortunately, a sudden unbearable pressure doubled him up, and he was left clutching his crotch as he supported himself with each heavy step forward.
The building decorated with the eight auspicious signs seemed so close—how come he still hadn’t gotten there yet? Before his eyes all was grassland, where anywhere you turned there were countless places you could piss to your heart’s content, completely worry free. Oh what a wonderful thing it is, to take a carefree piss!
The tall buildings in front of him began to wave back and forth.
“Ah, I can’t hold it anymore!” He came to a halt, but then he thought of the previous evening when his son’s college friends were talking about how every time someone from their hometown came to the city they committed some “faux pas” or other, and he thought about the angry and pained expressions on each of their faces. I can see why the youngsters get mad. I mustn’t bring shame on the next generation, he thought, and like a wounded man filled with resentment he clenched his jaw, bit his lip, and continued to drive himself onward. Finally, he arrived at the main gate of the college building decorated with the eight auspicious signs. When he regained consciousness, he couldn’t remember what had happened after that point. In any case, he’d collapsed the second he walked into his son’s dorm.
When he woke up he was surrounded by his son and his son’s college friends. There was a piss stain on his crotch, and he looked up at his son, filled with embarrassment and remorse. “Your dad has brought shame on you,” he said. His son, his expression somewhere between tearful and delighted, replied, “Don’t worry, Dad. You didn’t harm our national pride in public—I couldn’t be more grateful.”
* * *
1. Arok (friend, buddy) is a common term of greeting in Tibetan. Aluo, its approximate pronunciation in Chinese, is a derogatory term used by Han Chinese to refer to Tibetans.
3
RALO
PART I
One
Setting down this blank page before me to write the story of Ralo is not a pleasant task. As soon as I think of him, that thick yellow snot hanging from his nose starts to wave back and forth before my eyes.
Ever since Ralo came into this world, his mother was the only family he’d ever known. When he learned how to talk, some cruel men from the camp would have a laugh by asking him who his dad was. As far as Ralo was concerned, this was a question he had to put to his mother.
“Mom, who’s my dad?”
“Don’t ever mention that word again.” His mom dealt him a slap and then squeezed him tightly to her breast. Before long, however, a man began to appear at their house in the evenings. Later on he started to visit during the day too, and eventually he simply moved in with them. “Ralo, my darling, this is your dad,” his mother lovingly informed him. But, unlike the other dads in the camp, this man never gave his son a single sweet or a single kiss. On top of this, whenever Ralo came near him, he would recoil in disgust: “Hey! Look at that snot—get away from me.” Ralo’s snot was like running water: as soon as he wiped it away, it came flowing right back. “His brains are dripping out again,” his mom always said.
Before Ralo knew it he was fourteen years old, but the snot hanging from his nose was even thicker and longer than before. By this time all the other kids his age could ride a horse and shoot a bow and arrow. He was the only one who still didn’t dare ride a tame horse on his own—he had to ride in the saddle with his mother instead. “Ralo, you riding in your mom’s lap again?” the others would tease him.
One morning the family was preparing to move to their winter camp. As Ralo clung to the guide rope of the yak that his stepfather was loading up, the animal started. “Hold on tight!” his stepfather said.
With a line of snot running from his nose into his mouth, Ralo grit his teeth, bit his lip, and clung to the yak for dear life.
“Oh ya! It’s always better to have a man than a dog,” said his stepfather with satisfaction. “Hold on tight, hold—” but before he could finish, the yak reared again and Ralo was tossed facedown on the ground, losing his grip on the guide rope. The old yak bolted like a thing possessed, causing the saddle to slip down to its belly. The family possessions were scattered everywhere and trampled beyond salvation.
“You’re angry at the yak, but it’s the horse that gets the whip,” as the saying goes. The stepfather charged over in a fit of rage and screamed, “You useless little snot! Can’t even hold onto a yak properly!” With that he delivered two hard slaps to Ralo’s face, causing the snot on the boy’s chin to drip down to his chest. “Don’t you dare hit my son!” called out his mother, running over to them. “If you lay a finger on my son again … you won’t have a home here anymore!”
“Ha! The only reason I stayed here in the first place was that I felt sorry for the two of you. I’m leaving.” And his stepfather did indeed set off on his way.
“Don’t let Dad leave …”
“Shut your dog mouth! What dad?” His mom slapped him and held him to her breast. Both mother and son burst into tears.
How many people there are in this world! But apart from his mother, Ralo didn’t have a single relative, just as his mother had no one apart from Ralo. And yet, the Lord of Death had not the slightest bit of compassion for the two of them. Like a wolf pouncing into a flock of sheep, he came to pluck Ralo’s mother from the multitudes of the world and lead her into the next life. Though Ralo and his mother had no family but each other, when the others in the camp heard about his mother’s death, there wasn’t a single dry eye. No doubt, this was out of compassion for Ralo.
Two
In the summer of the year that Ralo’s mother died, a few decent folks from the camp got together and decided to send Ralo off to board at the district primary school. In reality, this was not so much in order for him to learn to read and write as it was to put a roof over his head.
As it happened, I started school that same year, so Ralo and I became classmates. But Ralo was five years older than I—in fact, he was older than everyone else in the class.
At first, Ralo was a great student. He memorized the thirty letters of the alphabet before any of the other students in the class, causing the teacher to declare, “Everyone should learn from Ralo.” However, a few days later when the teacher asked us to write each letter on the board, Ralo couldn’t even write the first one, reducing the class to hysterics. “No one should learn from Ralo,” the teacher said.
“No one should learn from Ralo.” This phrase spread throughout the school.
It turned out that we really shouldn’t learn
from Ralo. By the time we moved up to the next grade, Ralo still couldn’t write the alphabet, so he was terrible at his studies; he had snot constantly dripping from his nose, so his hygiene was terrible; and he was always smoking, so he was terrible at following the rules. In the end, he was held back. But as far as Ralo was concerned, none of this was anything to be worried about because there was no one who would reproach him for it. The main things Ralo cared about were where he would stay for the summer holidays and how he was going to get cigarettes once all the teachers and students had gone home. As it was, Ralo got all his cigarettes in exchange for cleaning the teachers’ houses, washing clothes and getting food for the older students, and subbing for his classmates when it was their turn to tidy up the classroom.
Students from nomad areas had a bad habit of not coming back on time for the start of the term. At the end of the summer and winter holidays there was often a delay of five or six days before classes could begin in earnest. Ralo, however, never once took leave to go back home, and moreover he always arrived at school before the new term even began. On this point, everyone really should have learned from Ralo.
A few fights are always going to break out in any school, and ours was no exception. Some of the troublemakers would deliberately shout, “No one should learn from Ralo!” within his earshot. Ralo would chase them madly, but if one stopped to face him and looked like he was up for a fight, Ralo would say, “Teacher said I’m not allowed to fight,” and like that his nerve would be gone. But as soon as the boy turned to leave, Ralo would pursue him once again, butting him with his shoulder and demanding to know, “Why shouldn’t you learn from me?” One day, a student seven years younger than Ralo shoved him to the ground and jumped on his back. “Look how fast my horse is!” the boy yelled, bouncing on Ralo and pretending to ride him. “Ah—Teacher …” cried Ralo, his flowing tears mixing with his snot, which in turn glued together with the dirt on his face. No matter how much he bucked, he couldn’t shake the boy. From that point on, everyone knew that Ralo might be big physically, but he didn’t have an ounce of strength. And so the bullies multiplied.
The Handsome Monk and Other Stories Page 3