The Handsome Monk and Other Stories

by Tsering Dondrup

  Shoot, so now, as you can see, I’m living through hell on earth, neither a man nor a demon. What’s worse is, even if I die, the thing I really can’t take is that my wife too … if the next lives really do exist, then may I be born in all of them as sheep, yaks, and pigs under her butcher’s knife! And my two daughters—they can’t even show their faces in public, let alone find a man and get married. Now my family line is finished. I’ve become the enemy—the murderer, even—of my own family line.… I’ve made up my mind to do everything I can not to think about all this anymore. As it happens, the pain doesn’t give you the chance to do much thinking anyway. But sometimes I can’t help but be reminded of it all, and it torments me even more than before.

  Shoot, it wasn’t until later, when I met AIDS volunteers like yourself, that I found out Tibet is full of AIDS victims just like me, and what’s more the number is getting bigger and bigger. So that’s why I’ve told you everything and held absolutely nothing back. My goal is for people not to follow in my footsteps. I hope that you’ll put out what I’ve said here just like I told it to you. Shoot, sorry, I’m really tired now. I don’t even have the energy to speak. Sorry …

  Notes

  1. The patient referred to here as “I” died suddenly two weeks to the day after I interviewed him. A year after that his wife also died.

  2. I have substituted “XX” for place names, personal names, etc.

  3. I have here translated into Tibetan the many Chinese words, such as gongtou (boss), that my interview subject made liberal use of in his speech.

  WEATHERHEAD BOOKS ON ASIA

  WEATHERHEAD EAST ASIAN INSTITUTE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

  LITERATURE

  DAVID DER-WEI WANG, EDITOR

  Kim Sowŏl, Azaleas: A Book of Poems, translated by David McCann (2007)

  Wang Anyi, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai, translated by Michael Berry with Susan Chan Egan (2008)

  Ch’oe Yun, There a Petal Silently Falls: Three Stories by Ch’oe Yun, translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (2008)

  Inoue Yasushi, The Blue Wolf: A Novel of the Life of Chinggis Khan, translated by Joshua A. Fogel (2009)

  Anonymous, Courtesans and Opium: Romantic Illusions of the Fool of Yangzhou, translated by Patrick Hanan (2009)

  Cao Naiqian, There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night, translated by John Balcom (2009)

  Park Wan-suh, Who Ate Up All the Shinga? An Autobiographical Novel, translated by Yu Young-nan and Stephen J. Epstein (2009)

  Yi T’aejun, Eastern Sentiments, translated by Janet Poole (2009)

  Hwang Sunwŏn, Lost Souls: Stories, translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (2009)

  Kim Sŏk-pŏm, The Curious Tale of Mandogi’s Ghost, translated by Cindi Textor (2010)

  The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama, edited by Xiaomei Chen (2011)

  Qian Zhongshu, Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays, edited by Christopher G. Rea, translated by Dennis T. Hu, Nathan K. Mao, Yiran Mao, Christopher G. Rea, and Philip F. Williams (2011)

  Dung Kai-cheung, Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City, translated by Dung Kai-cheung, Anders Hansson, and Bonnie S. McDougall (2012)

  O Chŏnghŭi, River of Fire and Other Stories, translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (2012)

  Endō Shūsaku, Kiku’s Prayer: A Novel, translated by Van Gessel (2013)

  Li Rui, Trees Without Wind: A Novel, translated by John Balcom (2013)

  Abe Kōbō, The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō, edited, translated, and with an introduction by Richard F. Calichman (2013)

  Zhu Wen, The Matchmaker, the Apprentice, and the Football Fan: More Stories of China, translated by Julia Lovell (2013)

  The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama, Abridged Edition, edited by Xiaomei Chen (2013)

  Natsume Sōseki, Light and Dark, translated by John Nathan (2013)

  Seirai Yūichi, Ground Zero, Nagasaki: Stories, translated by Paul Warham (2015)

  Hideo Furukawa, Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure: A Tale That Begins with Fukushima, translated by Doug Slaymaker with Akiko Takenaka (2016)

  Abe Kōbō, Beasts Head for Home: A Novel, translated by Richard F. Calichman (2017)

  Yi Mun-yol, Meeting with My Brother: A Novella, translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl with Yoosup Chang (2017)

  Ch’ae Manshik, Sunset: A Ch’ae Manshik Reader, edited and translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (2017)

  Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, In Black and White: A Novel, translated by Phyllis I. Lyons (2018)

  Yi T’aejun, Dust and Other Stories, translated by Janet Poole (2018)

  HISTORY, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE

  CAROL GLUCK, EDITOR

  Takeuchi Yoshimi, What Is Modernity? Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi, edited and translated, with an introduction, by Richard F. Calichman (2005)

  Contemporary Japanese Thought, edited and translated by Richard F. Calichman (2005)

  Overcoming Modernity, edited and translated by Richard F. Calichman (2008)

  Natsume Sōseki, Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings, edited and translated by Michael Bourdaghs, Atsuko Ueda, and Joseph A. Murphy (2009)

  Kojin Karatani, History and Repetition, edited by Seiji M. Lippit (2012)

  The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory, edited by Lydia H. Liu, Rebecca E. Karl, and Dorothy Ko (2013)

  Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Grassroots Fascism: The War Experience of the Japanese People, translated by Ethan Mark (2015)