River Town_ Two Years On The Yangtze Part 19

"How much does a car cost?"

"It depends. Usually more than ten thousand dollars."

"So he must have a lot of extra money from his salary, especially since she works, too. In his letters he doesn't say very much about money."

"Well, I think they probably have expensive rent, you know. The living expenses in America are very high, especially in New York."

"His wife's father bought them a house. So probably they can save a lot of money, right?"

I wasn't exactly sure what they were getting at, but it seemed they were just curious to find out what the man's life was like in America. They asked how one acquired American citizenship, and they asked what it was like to teach in America. We talked a little about politics, and Mr. Xu asked me what I thought about the Taiwan issue.

Sitting there with the stack of envelopes, I couldn't have been thrown a more loaded question. I replied that I had never been to Taiwan and thus I didn't understand it.

"What do most Americans think about it?" he pressed.

"Most Americans also don't understand the problem very well. I think mostly they want things to be peaceful."

"They think Taiwan is a separate country from China, don't they?"

I was glad to see that at least we had shifted the p.r.o.nouns-whenever I was on uncertain ground I tried to make it "their America" rather than "my America." That was a small but crucial distinction, but still I found it difficult to respond to his question.

"Most Americans think Taiwan is like a separate country," I said. "It has its own government and economy. But Americans know the history and culture are the same as the mainland's. So maybe they think it should return to China, but only when the people in Taiwan are ready. Most Americans think this problem is much more complicated than Hong Kong."

My response seemed to satisfy him. I considered asking him about his brother, but I decided that it was safest to talk about it with Teacher Kong some other time. Instead I asked Mr. Xu what Fengdu had been like in the past.

"When Mao Zedong was the leader," he said, "everything was bad. We couldn't talk to a waiguoren waiguoren like you. In those times there wasn't any freedom and there were no rights at all. But after Deng Xiaoping started the Reform and Opening, then everything started to improve. Things are better now." like you. In those times there wasn't any freedom and there were no rights at all. But after Deng Xiaoping started the Reform and Opening, then everything started to improve. Things are better now."

It was similar to what I heard so often from people in Sichuan, although Mr. Xu's opinions on Mao were much more blunt. He had a poster of Deng Xiaoping in his apartment, hanging prominently above his television.

ON THE WAY ACROSS THE YANGTZE, Xu Hua told me that she knew how to drive an automobile. We were riding an old battered ferry to the southern bank, where they were constructing Fengdu's New Immigrant City. The conversation had been about some other topic when suddenly Xu Hua told me that she knew how to drive.

I had lived in Sichuan long enough to be impressed. "Is that for your job?"

"No," she said. "I studied it in my spare time."

"Just for fun?"

"Yes. It's my hobby."

"That must be very expensive. I know it's expensive in Fuling."

"It's much more expensive in Xiamen-it costs six thousand for the training course. But I think that someday I'll be able to buy a car, so I wanted to learn how to drive now. It's like your America-don't most people in America have cars?"

"Yes. Even students do-I bought one when I was in high school."

"You see? Here in our China the living standard is rising so quickly, and eventually the people will be able to have their own cars just like you do in your America."

The ferry wallowed slowly across the heart of the Yangtze. I had a brief but terrifying vision of Fuling's traffic in twenty years. Xu Hua kept talking.

"I want to go to your America," she said. "New York, especially. Maybe someday I'll go there on business for my company."

We were close to the sh.o.r.e now and I could see an enormous sign that had been erected for investors:

The Great River Will Be Diverted What Are You Waiting For?

The New City Open District Welcomes You

Three months earlier, the river had been diverted into a man-made channel beside the construction site of the future dam at Yichang. The diversion was the first tangible sign of progress on the dam, and it had been televised live all across China. I had watched part of the coverage, which turned the newly bent river into a celebration of nationalism: construction workers waved their hard hats and cheered while a military band played "Ode to the Motherland." President Jiang Zemin and other politicians gave speeches about the glories of modernization and the success of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. It was a foggy day and fireworks echoed through the misty hills.

But here in Fengdu the November celebration seemed far away. We disembarked and headed up the sandy bank, walking beside mustard tuber fields and piles of trash. We climbed to a row of peasant homes. The homes were poor and there was a heavy smell of night soil as we pa.s.sed. The path climbed steeply, winding between more flimsy huts. Xu Hua and the other women were dressed nicely, in high heels and bright clothes, and they moved slowly through the mud. At last we crested the hill, pa.s.sing through a final cl.u.s.ter of peasant homes, and spread before us was the entire new city of Fengdu, sprawling half-constructed in the mist.

Ever since I first arrived in China, this was what I had been expecting to find someday. All of the cities I had seen were to a large extent construction projects-even Yulin, the ancient city in northern Shaanxi province, had its share of scaffolding and building crews. Fuling changed every month: new buildings sprouted like a forest of fresh white tile and blue gla.s.s, and then a month later the buildings aged prematurely as coal stains started creeping down from the roofs. Everywhere in China, people were building; the cities were growing, changing ent.i.ties, more alive than the countryside; and I always imagined an entire nation rising at once, a China locked by scaffolding rather than the Great Wall.

And now in Fengdu that image had finally become reality: an entire city was being constructed literally before my eyes. There were streets, sidewalks, apartment buildings, businesses-all started; none finished. You could guess only vaguely where the new Fengdu was going, but mostly you could tell that it was going very quickly, and nothing would stop it. Indeed, if it was stopped at this moment, it would be completely worthless. Here in the forgotten heart of China I had found the perfect metaphor of the entire country's development.

Today there was little work being done and the construction site was quiet. But it wasn't empty-crowds of people had come across the river from Fengdu to see their new city. Most of them were well-dressed, the way Chinese looked when they went to spend a day at the park. The men wore neat suits and the high-heeled women stumbled over the rough dirt streets, giggling and splashing mud onto their stockings. They stared at the scaffolding and the enormous piles of dirt that bordered the intersections. The half-built streets bristled with propaganda signs:

The Development Relies on the Immigrants, the Immigrants Rely on the Development!

The People Build the Peoples City, If It Is Built Well, the City Will Serve the People!

We stopped on what would someday be the main street-Pingdu Road-and Xu Hua used her cell phone to call a friend in Xiamen and wish her a happy birthday. Among the new buildings there were still a half-dozen peasant homes, small and resolute in the shadow of their towering neighbors. Chickens wandered down side alleys. Potato fields were squeezed between the construction sites. A few graves still remained, their white tomb decorations hanging limp in the mist, paying homage to the ancestors who lay in the earth below this rising city.

The majority of the peasant homes had been removed and now the people lived in a couple of apartment buildings that had been nearly finished. The ex-peasants sat at tables in the middle of the construction site, drinking tea and playing mah-jongg. I asked Teacher Kong what the peasants would do now, and he said that most of them helped with construction work and waited for the factory jobs that would be given to them once the city was built. In the meantime, like the ex-peasants whom I had seen in the resettlement area behind Fuling Teachers College, they seemed perfectly content to drink tea and play mah-jongg while the city rose around them.

We took photographs in front of an enormous sign that showed the street plan for the new city. The two younger women liked my baseball cap, and they took turns wearing it for the pictures. Xu Lijia spent a roll of film there, mostly for photos of her sisters in cla.s.sic xiaojie xiaojie poses: shoulders pushed back, head angled seductively, a soft smile and flirty eyes. For all of the pictures they wore my dirty old Princeton cap. In the background was the sign and the scaffolding and the piles of dirt. We hiked back down to the ferry, through the potato fields and the thick river mist, and Teacher Kong asked, "So, what do you think of the New Immigrant City?" poses: shoulders pushed back, head angled seductively, a soft smile and flirty eyes. For all of the pictures they wore my dirty old Princeton cap. In the background was the sign and the scaffolding and the piles of dirt. We hiked back down to the ferry, through the potato fields and the thick river mist, and Teacher Kong asked, "So, what do you think of the New Immigrant City?"

In truth I had never before seen anything even remotely like it: an entire new city, dozens of dislocated peasants playing mah-jongg, future flood refugees strolling through the construction site as if it were a park. The question was unanswerable, and so I answered in the same way that I did to all questions of that sort.

"I think it's very good," I said.

BACK IN FENGDU we caught a cab on the docks. I was heading to the bus station, and we would drop off the women along the way. we caught a cab on the docks. I was heading to the bus station, and we would drop off the women along the way.

A Yangtze boat had just docked and there was a long line of cabs waiting to go to town. It had started to rain softly, which made the road slippery with mud. Cabs were honking madly. People scurried along the street, holding newspapers over their heads.

The road climbed steeply to the city, and the last stretch was too slick for the cabs. Four of them tried to accelerate up the rise, but their tires spun uselessly. One by one the cars drifted backward. Our driver gunned his engine and made it halfway up the hill before sliding back. He tried again.

After our third attempt, the women got out of the cab and walked up the hill into town. This time our driver started from farther back, working up a great deal of speed, but still his tires spun near the top and we didn't quite make it. The hill was very steep and smooth, and I found myself looking at the situation a.n.a.lytically and thinking of all the simple ways in which it could be improved. This was a very bad habit that nearly all foreigners fell into when they lived in China, and even after a year and a half I couldn't quite shake it.

I thought about how it wouldn't be difficult to regrade the hill, making it less steep, or they could wind the road across the slope of the bank. Probably the simplest solution would be to cut lateral grooves into the pavement, so tires would have something to grip when it rained. I considered all of these options and was engaged in choosing the best solution when suddenly I thought: Screw it. This entire city will be underwater in a few years. Who gives a d.a.m.n? They can build a new road in the new city across the new river.

On the fifth try we finally made it. I could smell the tires as the driver raced through town. At the station I shook Teacher Kong's hand, thanking him for his hospitality, and then I caught a bus back to Fuling. The road ran low alongside the river. It rained harder. All of the villages I pa.s.sed through were waiting patiently for the flood.

A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER I had cla.s.s with Teacher Kong and asked about his father-in-law, Mr. Xu. He explained that Mr. Xu's father had graduated from university in Wuhan, after which the Kuomintang had sent him to do radio work in Chengdu. That was in the 1940s, and eventually he was transferred to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. His wife and two young children stayed behind with relatives in Fengdu. The move wasn't permanent, and always Mr. Xu's father thought he would return to his family in Sichuan. I had cla.s.s with Teacher Kong and asked about his father-in-law, Mr. Xu. He explained that Mr. Xu's father had graduated from university in Wuhan, after which the Kuomintang had sent him to do radio work in Chengdu. That was in the 1940s, and eventually he was transferred to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. His wife and two young children stayed behind with relatives in Fengdu. The move wasn't permanent, and always Mr. Xu's father thought he would return to his family in Sichuan.

But after 1949, when the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan, the family was divided for good. They couldn't even exchange letters, and Mr. Xu, who was a young child in Fengdu, started a long lifetime of helpless bad luck.

"After Liberation their life was very hard," Teacher Kong explained. "His mother starved to death in the early years, because things were so bad in the countryside. The children barely survived, and once they started school they had many problems with persecution, because their father was in Taiwan. During the Cultural Revolution they were labeled Pantu Pantu, 'Traitors,' and Tewu Tewu, 'Special Agents'-spies, really. At that time there were the Nine Black Categories-do you know about those? There were Landlords, Rich Peasants, Counter-Revolutionaries, Bad Elements, Rightists, Traitors, Special Agents, Capitalist Roaders, and the Old Stinking Ninth, who were intellectuals. You and I would be the Old Stinking Ninth-sometimes even now teachers like us will call each other that, as a joke.

"The two children didn't suffer much violence, but they were persecuted. Mostly it meant they didn't have opportunities. If they wanted to study past middle school, or get a good job in a factory, they had no chance. And during the political meetings everybody criticized them, even though they had hardly known their father.

"After Reform and Opening, Mr. Xu started sending letters to Taiwan to see if his father was still alive. Sometime after 1980, he found him-until then he didn't even know if his father was dead or not. They started corresponding, and in 1988 his father returned to the mainland to visit for the first time. He had a good job in Taipei with the telegraph company-he was basically the same rank as a high cadre is here on the mainland. He had remarried after Taiwan was split, and he had other children, including the son who is now in America.

"After China-Taiwan relations started to improve, the government began to give jobs to people like my wife's father, because they had been persecuted. This was a way to improve relations. So in 1988, Mr. Xu was given a job in the electric plant. But of course by that time he had already had a very hard life. Even today he doesn't like to talk about the Cultural Revolution."

I thought of the old man in Fengdu with his stack of envelopes. So often my experiences in Sichuan were like that-I brushed against people just long enough to gain the slightest sense of the dizzying past that had made them what they were today. It was impossible to grasp all of the varied forces that had affected Mr. Xu's life and would continue to affect him in the future-the war, the Taiwan split, the Cultural Revolution; the dammed river and the new city; his pretty daughter in Xiamen with her cell phone and driving lessons. How could one person experience all of that, helpless from start to finish, and remain sane?

But I remembered the poster of Deng Xiaoping above his television, and I remembered the way he had grimaced while drinking the bad French wine that his daughter had brought from Xiamen. It was clear that he didn't like the taste of the wine, but he knew that it was an expensive and prestigious part of the celebration, and thus he drank it dutifully until his gla.s.s was empty. Afterward his daughter refilled the gla.s.s. He drank that, too.

NEAR THE END OF VACATION I was involved in a public argument on Gaosuntang, the main uptown intersection in Fuling. It happened out of the blue, and it was by far the most serious dispute I had ever been involved in. I was involved in a public argument on Gaosuntang, the main uptown intersection in Fuling. It happened out of the blue, and it was by far the most serious dispute I had ever been involved in.

Often in the evenings I ate there during the holiday, because I had gotten to know a few of the regulars who worked the sidewalk. Zhang Longhua was my main friend; during the day he sold cigarettes and ran a pay phone, and at night he peddled kebabs from a barbecue stand. He was a friendly, even-tempered man, and I had noticed that the regulars tended to defer to him. Occasionally there were disputes out there at night-sometimes between customers and salesmen, but more commonly between the vendors, who had staked out certain spheres of influence on the busy sidewalk. At night the walk was crowded and a barbecue man like Mr. Zhang could clear fifty yuan on a good night. Last year he had sold kebabs down in Shenzhen, but he returned to Fuling because the overhead was lower.

Once I saw two barbecue xiaojies xiaojies engage in a vicious turf fight, the kind that started with cursing and graduated to hair-pulling, growing increasingly violent until finally they were screaming and tearing at each other's clothes while a crowd gathered. The strange thing was that both of the women worked barbecue stands with men whom I a.s.sumed were their husbands or boyfriends, and yet these men stood by pa.s.sively during the fight. They seemed embarra.s.sed, or stunned; one of them kept his attention on the grill and fiddled with the coals as if nothing was happening. The other man simply watched dumbly. At last Mr. Zhang stepped in and stopped the fight, but by then the shirt of one of the women had been badly torn and she stood there in her bra, cursing and spitting, until finally somebody led her home. After she was gone her husband stayed behind, quietly working his grill. engage in a vicious turf fight, the kind that started with cursing and graduated to hair-pulling, growing increasingly violent until finally they were screaming and tearing at each other's clothes while a crowd gathered. The strange thing was that both of the women worked barbecue stands with men whom I a.s.sumed were their husbands or boyfriends, and yet these men stood by pa.s.sively during the fight. They seemed embarra.s.sed, or stunned; one of them kept his attention on the grill and fiddled with the coals as if nothing was happening. The other man simply watched dumbly. At last Mr. Zhang stepped in and stopped the fight, but by then the shirt of one of the women had been badly torn and she stood there in her bra, cursing and spitting, until finally somebody led her home. After she was gone her husband stayed behind, quietly working his grill.

That sort of fight was unusual; most nights the regulars got along well and supported each other if there were difficulties. I liked this aspect of Gaosuntang-there was a sense of community, with Mr. Zhang at the center, and by knowing him I came to meet the other vendors. One of them was a ten-year-old shoeshine girl who had dropped out of elementary school because her family couldn't afford the fees. I never knew how to react to that; often I had my shoes shined in town, and sometimes I figured that I might as well give the girl my business. Other nights I decided that it was horrible to have your shoes shined by a ten-year-old elementary school dropout, so I went to somebody else instead. Like many aspects of my life in Fuling, it was inconsistent and I never could figure out what was the right thing to do.

One night near the end of the holiday I ordered five kebabs from Mr. Zhang, who invited me to sit on his stool, as he always did. A few of the other vendors came over to chat, as well as a number of pa.s.sersby who stopped to stare at the waiguoren waiguoren.

After a while the attention died down. I finished the kebabs and sat there reading the Chongqing Evening Times Chongqing Evening Times. I felt somebody come close, and then he leaned forward and shouted "Hahh-lloooo!" in my face. He shouted as loudly as he could, and after that he laughed. I didn't look up-there was no reason to acknowledge people like that.

I felt him move away and I a.s.sumed that he had left; usually the people who hara.s.sed me were best handled by being ignored. But a moment later he returned, grabbing one of the sausages from Mr. Zhang's barbecue stand. He shoved the sausage past my newspaper and into my face. "Chi! Chi! Chi!" he shouted. "Eat! Eat! Eat!"

There were two things in particular that could anger me quickly in Fuling. One was any sort of physical violation-somebody shoving, or grabbing at me, or pushing past rudely. The other was when people treated me like an animal, grunting or gesturing bluntly because they a.s.sumed that the waiguoren waiguoren was very slow and couldn't speak Chinese. The man with the sausage had successfully touched both of these sensitivities at once, and my customary pa.s.sivity disappeared immediately. was very slow and couldn't speak Chinese. The man with the sausage had successfully touched both of these sensitivities at once, and my customary pa.s.sivity disappeared immediately.

I stood up quickly and knocked the sausage out of his hand. He was a small man in his late thirties, and he moved back, surprised. I stepped forward. "Why are you bothering me?" I asked. He stuttered, fumbling for words. I took my hand and placed it even with the top of his head, and then I drew it back, level. It came to my chin.

You are much smaller than me," I said. "You should not bother people who are bigger. Next time I'll fix you."

He took another step backward and I sat down again. The people around us had become quiet. For the first time I looked carefully at the man and saw that he was trouble. There was a mean look in his eyes and clearly he was poor. He gathered himself to speak.

"I have friends who are bigger than you," he said.

"I'd like to meet them," I said.

"They're just up the street."

"Go get your friends," I said. "I'll stay here and wait for you. Go-blow away." It was a common insult and a few of the people laughed. The little man didn't move.

He said something else, angrily, which I didn't understand. Mr. Zhang came over, and I asked him if the man was his friend.

"No," said Mr. Zhang. "He shines shoes. He has no culture. You do not want to bother with him."

"I wonder what kind of little thing he is," I said. It was another common insult in Sichuan, to ask a person what kind of thing he was. I should not have been baiting him further but for some reason I couldn't stop. Logically I knew that the scene was absurd-as the big man of the dialogue I weighed in at all of 135 pounds, and the five-footer was threatening to go get his big friends.

But nevertheless there was a serious air to the confrontation, and already I was sensing that to both of us it meant more than a simple exchange of insults. The man was poor, and in my leisure he undoubtedly saw money and the scorn that comes with it. For a year and a half I had been different, and in his small-mindedness I recognized the worst of the hate and fear that I had dealt with in Fuling. It was an unfortunate conjunction of sensitivities, but now the trouble had already started and I was unwilling to back down. "Go, small friend," I said. "Go find your big friends."

The people laughed, which made him angrier. Mr. Zhang looked worried and told the man to leave, but he refused. He stood there ten feet from me, staring furiously.

I turned back to Mr. Zhang and talked with him as if nothing had happened. A few minutes pa.s.sed, and the people went back to their routines. Still the little man was there, glaring. One of the regular hot pot women chatted with me while I held her baby son. The ten-year-old shoeshine girl came over to see the baby, and on the way back to her stand she insulted the man.

"Shenjingbing!" she shouted. "Crazy man! You're a crazy man! Don't give trouble to the waiguoren waiguoren!"

I looked at the little man and saw that he was growing angrier. Partly it was the girl taunting him, but mostly he was galled by the way that the people were making such a fuss over me-giving me their stools, handing me their babies. I tried to sympathize with him; he worked his shoeshine stand alone, hustling for everything he got, and then the waiguoren waiguoren with the big salary sat there comfortably, eating barbecue and chatting with the people. with the big salary sat there comfortably, eating barbecue and chatting with the people.

He spoke again. Behind his eyes whatever he was thinking had hardened into a little bead of hatred.

"We Chinese don't need this kind of waiguoren waiguoren" he said, loudly. "Why do we let waiguoren like this come to our country? Look at how rude he is, insulting me like that. We don't need this kind of waiguoren waiguoren in our home." in our home."

I knew then that I was capable of matching almost any hatred that he could find. I would not start a fight, but if he struck me I would retaliate. The person that he had angered was somebody I myself didn't really know, because that person had never existed at home. Part of what Sichuan had changed about me was that in many ways I was more patient and tolerant than before, but there was also another part that had neither tolerance nor patience for more abuse of this sort. I spoke to the crowd.

"You Chinese don't need that kind of Chinese," I said. "This kind of person gives you a bad reputation. When I go home I'll tell people that nearly all Chinese are very friendly, like all of you here, but I'll say that sometimes there is a man like this who hates waiguoren waiguoren. He's the one who is rude, and he bothered me for no reason at all. He started the trouble."