River Town_ Two Years On The Yangtze Part 8

WHITE FLAT MOUNTAIN.

PAULOWNIA TREES BLOOM PURPLE AND WHITE along the lower slopes of White Flat Mountain. The trees' flowers are short-lived-next week they will begin to wither and fade-and the soft yellow of the rapeseed will soon be cut down from the hills. After that, the bright green ricebeds will disappear, moved and dispersed into the waiting muck of the paddies. Spring in Fuling does not arrive so much as it rushes through, a blur of changing colors. along the lower slopes of White Flat Mountain. The trees' flowers are short-lived-next week they will begin to wither and fade-and the soft yellow of the rapeseed will soon be cut down from the hills. After that, the bright green ricebeds will disappear, moved and dispersed into the waiting muck of the paddies. Spring in Fuling does not arrive so much as it rushes through, a blur of changing colors.

Today is April 5, Qing Ming, the Day of Pure Brightness. He Zhonggui and his family are taking the ferry across the Yangtze to White Flat Mountain. They are well dressed: the children in new clothes, the women in high heels, He Zhonggui in a checkered sports coat and a red paisley tie. They stand out from the other pa.s.sengers, most of whom are peasants returning from market with empty rattan baskets and blue pockets full of money.

He Zhonggui's parents were from peasant families on the mountain, and as a child he spent much time there, but now he rarely returns. He is the owner of a Fuling construction company, and there is little building to be done on the steep slopes of White Flat Mountain. But his parents are buried there, and the Day of Pure Brightness is a Chinese holiday of remembrance, of visits to rural graves in places like White Flat Mountain, where stone tombs stare silent and unblinking at the river valley and its breathless spring.

He Zhonggui is accompanied by a clan of fifteen people-aunts and uncles, cousins and nieces and nephews, ranging from old women in their sixties to a baby of fifteen months. The group disembarks on the northern bank and makes its way eastward along the Yangtze's rocky sh.o.r.e. Somewhere in the middle of the clan is Dai Mei, He Zhonggui's fourteen-year-old niece. She is a talker-a bundle of energy in brown corduroy overalls and short bobbed hair, chatting constantly as she bounces from stone to stone.

A few miles downstream, a slender white paG.o.da rises above the horizon, its distant shape shadowy and bright like a mirage in the late-morning mist. "Do you know why they built those?" Dai Mei asks. "They believed that a dragon was there, under the earth, and they believed that if they built the paG.o.da he would stay there. But if it ever falls down, the dragon will come out."

She pauses, looks up the hill, flicks her glossy black hair, and, like fourteen-year-old girls the world over, changes the topic with mind-numbing fluency. "My grandparents' tombs are up there. Some of the peasants are buried down here on the lower part, but most are up high. They wanted a place with good fengshui fengshui, and they thought it was better higher up. They chose the spots themselves. Often they asked a Daoist priest to help, and the priest told them whether a place had good fengshui fengshui or not. In fact, the priest only cheated them-it's just superst.i.tion. But even today many of the peasants still believe in or not. In fact, the priest only cheated them-it's just superst.i.tion. But even today many of the peasants still believe in fengshui fengshui, just like everybody used to. Our generation, though, doesn't believe in this kind of thing. We know it's jiade jiade, fake-it's only superst.i.tion. We believe in science, and we say things like that are feudal ideas."

Like many young Chinese, whose instinctive rejection of all things traditional has been more than amply complemented by school lessons, she uses "feudal" the way an American child would use "backward." One of her common refrains is that China is "too feudal," and on another occasion she complains vehemently about the older generation: "People in our China, especially people in their sixties and seventies, are very, very, very feudal! If you want to wear a short skirt, or a blouse that's like this on your shoulders, they'll say it's not proper. My mother isn't feudal-she wears short skirts, too, because she looks very young. But my father is very, very, very feudal! We call people like that Lao Fengjian Lao Fengjian-Old Feudal."

Today she keeps such ideas to herself. She says that she has no faith in fengshui fengshui or Buddhism, but she shrugs. "On a day like the Day of Pure Brightness," she says, "we'll do things the way our parents and the older people want us to do them. We'll go to our grandparents' tombs and pray and burn incense, and we'll act like we believe in all of it. But in our hearts we don't believe." or Buddhism, but she shrugs. "On a day like the Day of Pure Brightness," she says, "we'll do things the way our parents and the older people want us to do them. We'll go to our grandparents' tombs and pray and burn incense, and we'll act like we believe in all of it. But in our hearts we don't believe."

FIREWORKS EXPLODE ON THE SUMMIT, the sound echoing back and forth across the river valley, and the family slowly climbs the slope of White Flat Mountain. They follow narrow switchbacks of rough stone steps; the pace slows; their breath comes in gasps. This is by far the steepest mountain in the Fuling area, and the only one that is actually something more than a hill-even Raise the Flag Mountain, with its staircases of rice paddies and crop terraces, is too gradual to be considered a true mountain.

Most of the south face of White Flat Mountain is too steep for terracing, and pines grow thick along its summit, above a rocky wall that falls away sheer for more than a hundred feet. This limestone cliff is possibly the origin of the mountain's name-although, like so many other names in this part of Sichuan, the truth has been lost in the past. Indeed, many locals say that the name is actually North Flat Mountain. In the local dialect both "white" and "north" are p.r.o.nounced the same way-bei-and the confusion is heightened by some Fuling maps using "North Flat Mountain" while others refer to "White Flat Mountain." In a region where literacy has only recently become common, names were spoken long before they were written down, and in the end the spoken word is still all that matters. You p.r.o.nounce it bei bei.

The family climbs to the east of the cliff wall, where the slope is more gradual, and after thirty minutes they come to the home of He Zhonggui's cousin. He is a peasant who lives above the mountain's initial rise, and everybody stops to rest here on the edge of his threshing platform, in the shade of the farmhouse's tiled eaves. For peasants, the threshing platform is the center of home life-this is where grain is threshed, spices are dried, vegetables are cut, grandchildren are raised, visitors are served tea. And this particular platform, perched high above the river, has a view whose magnificence quiets today's guests.

Below them is spread all the mountain's layered scenery, with all its textures and colors: the green terraced fields of wheat, split into neat rows; the plots of rapeseed, their buds a wild tangle of yellow glory; the soft-flowered paulownias, rising above gray-roofed houses; the great Yangtze glinting silver in the sun; and, across the river, the hazy paG.o.da shimmering slender and white in the distance. A light breeze brushes the nearby rows of young wheat. The temperature in the shade is perfect.

The peasant and his wife serve tea. The guests chat; the breeze blows. The tea cools. After a polite amount of time has been spent, the clan files out behind the house to the back fields, past a ma.s.sive old tomb.

n.o.body knows the name of the family that is buried here. "Qing Dynasty," the locals say, when asked when the tomb was built. But in Fuling this is the standard response to almost any question about old tombs, ancient houses, or other relics whose origins have been lost in the rush of the last century. "Qing Dynasty," the people always say knowingly. They realize it's a safe guess-the Qing ruled for nearly three centuries, from 1644 to 1911. Paradise Lost Paradise Lost is Qing Dynasty, and the American Revolution is Qing Dynasty, and the most recent Chicago Cubs World Championship is Qing Dynasty. When people in Fuling say Qing Dynasty, often what they seem to mean is: It's very old, but not as old as many other things. is Qing Dynasty, and the American Revolution is Qing Dynasty, and the most recent Chicago Cubs World Championship is Qing Dynasty. When people in Fuling say Qing Dynasty, often what they seem to mean is: It's very old, but not as old as many other things.

They know that this is a landlord's tomb, because it is easily five times the size of the other graves in the area. The tomb is fifteen feet high, set into the side of the mountain, and nine rows of corn have been planted on its earth-covered back. Nearby, a dark stand of bamboo rustles and creaks in the wind. Stone carvings decorate the tomb's face, and several figures have had their heads knocked off-vandalism, perhaps from the Cultural Revolution. And maybe this was also when the family name was removed. But most of the stone face is remarkably intact, and an inscription reads, in part: May the orchids and laurels give sweetness to your heartMay your descendants find successAnd may your soul be at peace.

Looking at such a tomb, one can only imagine the typical fate of a landlord's descendants: the post-Liberation executions, exiles, struggle sessions, reeducation camps. Probably the scions of this landlord did not find the success he imagined-but this is only a guess. All that is certain is that the tomb has no name, and here in the bamboo's shade there are no orchids, and today on the Day of Pure Brightness there are no descendants paying their respects. Nearby, the family chatter as they offer paper money at the graves of He Zhonggui's father and uncle. But this ma.s.sive tomb has no offerings other than the young corn along its back, and all is silent except for the mysterious devotion of the wind among the creaking stalks of bamboo.

HE ZHONGGUI'S FATHER AND UNCLE are buried side by side, a pair of solid limestone tombs facing south and east toward the Yangtze and the world beyond. The visitors have walked single-file through wheat fields to the graves, careful not to trample the young green stalks, and now they light fat red candles and burn piles of paper money. are buried side by side, a pair of solid limestone tombs facing south and east toward the Yangtze and the world beyond. The visitors have walked single-file through wheat fields to the graves, careful not to trample the young green stalks, and now they light fat red candles and burn piles of paper money.

The bills, which are in denominations of $800 million, say "Bank of Heaven" on the front. They are legal tender in the next world. The money crumples into black b.a.l.l.s of ash as the fire flickers and gasps. The candles dance in the Yangtze wind. Waves of heat come and go as the flames rise and fall.

The old women kowtow and pray before the burning money. After they finish, the children take their turns, urged on by their elders. They giggle and sloppily kowtow three times, kneeling on strips of paper so their trousers and dresses won't get dirty, and then they close their eyes and pray, sometimes aloud. "Please help me do well on my examinations," murmurs Dai Mei's cousin, a sixteen-year-old boy in gla.s.ses.

Afterward, the group files back through the wheat, but three young men stay behind. For most of the ritual they have hung back, tolerant but cool and uninterested; they are in their twenties, and the Day of Pure Brightness is not a young man's holiday. But now they clamber up and stand on the graves, holding cigarettes and long strands of fireworks, and then they light the fuses.

Ghosts and evil spirits scatter as the fireworks explode. The children clap and scream; the old people hold their ears and turn away. The young men remain calm-the fireworks erupt in a deafening roar, but each man holds the exploding string in hand until the flame leaps nearly to his fingers, and then, nonchalantly, he drops the strand and lights another. They do not plug their ears. They do not laugh or grimace. They make no expression at all; outwardly they are completely cool. But something in their eyes cannot be controlled, flashing with the sheer exhilaration of standing on the tomb while all the scenes and sounds of the holiday suddenly converge on this spot: the throbbing explosions, the heavy smell of gunpowder, the swirling dust and smoke and sunshine, the long streak of the Yangtze far below like a dragon basking in the sudden roar of the valley.

THE PROCESSION CONTINUES UP THE MOUNTAIN, past green rows of broad beans, past waist-high wheat, past another steep ridge of short terraces and winding stone paths. The Yangtze is still visible to the south. Fireworks echo in the distance. The family continues to the tomb of He Zhonggui's mother, who is buried farther up White Flat Mountain, in a plot a few minutes away from the grave of her husband. She died thirty years after him, and perhaps she had different ideas about the fengshui fengshui of the mountain. In those days it was not uncommon for a couple to be buried separately. of the mountain. In those days it was not uncommon for a couple to be buried separately.

A tablet on the front of her tomb is engraved with five large characters: Li Chengyu, Mother of He. Below this t.i.tle are two neat columns of names.

"See, those are her descendants," Dai Mei says, when she comes close to pay her respects. "The women are on the left and the men on the right. And there's my name!"

She reaches out and touches the very last name on the list. Between Dai Mei's name and the name of her grandmother are more than a dozen others. Some of them have also come today to pay their respects, while others live too far away. Still others have died themselves. But everybody has been accounted for on the tablet. Dai Mei runs her finger over the engraved strokes of her name, and then she says, simply, "That's me."

IN LATE AFTERNOON the family returns down the mountain. They have eaten lunch on another cousin's threshing platform, and now they take their time going home, stopping occasionally to enjoy the scenery. the family returns down the mountain. They have eaten lunch on another cousin's threshing platform, and now they take their time going home, stopping occasionally to enjoy the scenery.

But He Zhonggui has no great love for the land. To most outsiders, the fields seem beautiful and romantic, but his parents lived here, and the mountain represents a hard life that he is happy and proud to have left behind. He stops to rest halfway down the hillside, and staring out at the Yangtze he speaks softly. "I grew up in the city," he says. "Not here in the countryside. But we were still poor; my father worked on the docks. At fifteen, I went to work, too. I went all alone, and I worked in construction. I was just a common worker. I was the same age as her."

He points at Dai Mei, and for a moment it seems that he will continue the story, but he falls silent. He is not a great talker, and perhaps the tale has already been told too many times.

In any case, its trajectory is clear. It can be seen in everything about him-his clothes, his confidence, his cellular phone, which has rung several times during today's rituals. And the tale can also be seen in his home, a three-story building that he has constructed in the heart of downtown Fuling. All of the residents are his relatives-a daughter on this floor, a brother on that landing, another brother in between. The apartments are ranged around an open-air courtyard, and the family members can easily call out to each other across floors. The apartments themselves are s.p.a.cious and equipped with top-of-the-line VCD players and karaoke machines. The ceilings are decorated with faux-jeweled light fixtures, baroque patterns of plaster detail, and velvet tapestries of deep red and purple. From the roof, which has a green fish pond and an orange tree, one can look over Fuling's tiled roofs to the Yangtze River and the fields of White Flat Mountain.

There are very few private cars in Fuling, but He Zhonggui owns a brand-new Red Flag sedan. He likes to point out that this is the same type of car that transported Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. He Zhonggui drives the car himself, and later today he will drive it slowly and lovingly across town to the East River district. He will drive past an apartment building that he recently constructed, which he will point out with quiet pride. It is a ma.s.sive uptown building of white tile and blue gla.s.s, the same kind of structure that is springing up without distinction all over China. The car will slow as it pa.s.ses the building, and He Zhonggui will turn on the air-conditioning and ask, "Is it cool enough back there?"

But this is later. First he leads his clan back down the twisted stone path of White Flat Mountain, and at its foot he buys ice cream for everybody as they wait for the ferry. They eat their ice cream on the pebbled sh.o.r.e of the Yangtze. Above them, the mountain grows quiet; today's fireworks are finished. A breeze runs east through the valley. The paG.o.da is clear now in the afternoon sun. The family finishes their ice cream, and, laughing, they wash their hands in the spring river.

CHAPTER SIX.

Storm IN THE BEGINNING OF MAY there was a fire high in the mountains east of Fuling. For weeks it had been hot-hot and hazy, bright blurry days with temperatures in the nineties. Ribbons of dust hung above the unpaved roads behind campus, and the air was heavy with the heat. Everybody told me that the spring rains had been too infrequent, and then the fire broke out on Two Views Mountain. there was a fire high in the mountains east of Fuling. For weeks it had been hot-hot and hazy, bright blurry days with temperatures in the nineties. Ribbons of dust hung above the unpaved roads behind campus, and the air was heavy with the heat. Everybody told me that the spring rains had been too infrequent, and then the fire broke out on Two Views Mountain.

The mountain was the highest in the area; from its summit on a clear day you could see both Fuling and Fengdu. There were forests up there, as well as small farms, and the fire burned out of control. n.o.body knew how it had started. There was a hot dry wind coming off the Yangtze and it swept the flames across the mountain.

On the first night of the fire they took fifty student volunteers from the college to fight it, and the following morning another two hundred went. From my balcony I watched the second group gather in the front plaza. All of them were boys, dressed in their military training uniforms, and they laughed and chattered excitedly as they waited to leave. Buses took the volunteers away and the campus was quiet again.

That day the sun was a hot dull disk in the sky and smoke filtered down from the mountains. I could smell it from my balcony. Many of the boys were gone from my cla.s.ses, and as the day pa.s.sed I wondered how they were doing up on Two Views Mountain. The girls were distracted and cla.s.ses did not go well.

Later I was studying in my bedroom when I saw black clouds fill the western sky across the Wu River. A sudden wind began to blow papers off my desk. I closed the window and took my laundry off the line, and then I went through my apartment and fastened all the windows and doors. The storm was close now, swelling dark behind the city, and I could hardly shut my living-room windows against the force of the wind.

I turned off the lights and put new batteries in my flashlight. I went out to my gla.s.sed-in kitchen balcony just as the rain was starting. It fell in sharp diagonal streaks, the wind growing even stronger, and the branches of the trees bent angrily. Across the courtyard, the windows of the teaching building shattered as they blew shut, and the students shouted and screamed. They always yelled in excitement whenever the big storms came, and sometimes they forgot to fasten the windows. In spring the landings were often full of broken gla.s.s from the storms.

I heard more gla.s.s shattering down in the East River district, where people scurried across the streets. On the western flank of Raise the Flag Mountain there was a sudden blue flash, followed by an explosion, and then all the lights in Fuling went out.

I watched the storm from my balcony. Clouds rolled in low over the mountains and the rain fell harder. The sky darkened and then suddenly flared white, as if somebody had scratched an enormous match against the quick-moving clouds. A tangle of lightning illuminated the peak of White Flat Mountain. For an instant the summit loomed high above the Yangtze, frozen in the electric flash, but then the mountain disappeared as thunder rang through the angry sky. Soon the rain brought a mist over the rivers, until at last the Yangtze was invisible and the Wu was only a flat streak of gray that blended smoothly into the unknown horizon.

After half an hour the heavy storm was finished. The hills looked green again; the dust and smoke had been rinsed from the air. It rained lightly throughout the evening. The next day my students returned from the hills, and it turned out that the storm had put out the fire before they even made it to the mountain. But the trip had been a break from the routine, and they were just as excited to return as they had been to leave.

TWO WEEKS LATER, the college had a three-day track meet in the new stadium that had been constructed in the shadow of Raise the Flag Mountain. Most Chinese schools had sports days in the spring, but ours was especially big that year because of the new athletic complex, and because Hong Kong would return in a month and a half.

Everything that semester had to do with Hong Kong, just as everything in the fall had been related to the Long March. There was a spring examination contest about Hong Kong's economics, and the Party Members wore special Hong Kong pins that distinguished them from the other students. A "Welcome Back Hong Kong" sign decorated the entrance to the library, and every day they changed the numbers to show how many days it was until the colony returned to the Motherland. Sometimes I asked my students how many days were left, and they always knew the exact number.

They spent weeks preparing for the track meet. The serious athletes trained on the old athletic grounds beside the cafeteria, and everybody practiced for the parade that would precede the event. The boys worked on their goose-step military marches while the girls prepared elaborate flag dances, and during their Sunday-night political meetings they sang songs about Hong Kong.

The opening ceremonies for the compet.i.tion were held in a downpour. The Hong Kong banners drooped sadly, and the brightly colored helium balloons refused to rise. But the celebration continued: the students, more than a thousand of them, slogged grimly along the muddy track, and they wore tight faces as they did their dances in the pouring rain. Nearly all of the spectators left, and the cadres, who huddled under the overhang in the center of the stands, shivered as they reviewed the marching. Next week all of my cla.s.ses were full of coughs and sniffles.

The athletic compet.i.tions were postponed for two days, and then the weather improved and the meet went off without a hitch. Cla.s.ses were canceled, and the students were seated around the stadium according to department. It was a serious compet.i.tion. All of the girls' events over four hundred meters in length ended in every single compet.i.tor collapsing at the finish, and before their races the runners carefully recruited groups of friends to carry them away after it was over. In a way it was touching, like a soldier writing a farewell note home before going into battle. A girl would give her friends clear instructions, and then after the race she would collapse in their arms and be carried out of the stadium gates, gasping and crying-exit stage right, a curious form of Sichuan opera. In the boys' races it was less common, but still about a quarter of the runners collapsed at the finish. Friends helped the boys to the department aid tables, where they were given hot tea and Magnificent Sound cigarettes. After five minutes they were fine.

I was scheduled to run the 1500 meters, the 5000 meters, and the 4100-meter relay. Faculty members had their own teams, and there were special races for the retired teachers, who ran hard but never collapsed at the finish. Because I had won the Fuling road race, I was entered in the student compet.i.tion, and this spectacle-the foreign teacher going head to head against the students-was enough to work the crowd into a frenzy. They pressed close along the finish area, until only the first two lanes were open, and my own students lined the backstretch. Huang Xiaoqiang, the owner of the noodle restaurant where I usually ate lunch, came onto campus with his son to cheer for me.

The other runners were excited about competing against the waiguoren waiguoren and they started too fast, the roar of the spectators in their ears. But from the beginning I could tell that it was a different crowd from the January road race; I heard voices calling my own name, both in English and Chinese, and the English department students cheered as I steadily came from behind. I won both races easily, and at the end of the 1500, when my students gathered to greet me at the finish, I felt more like a member of the department than a and they started too fast, the roar of the spectators in their ears. But from the beginning I could tell that it was a different crowd from the January road race; I heard voices calling my own name, both in English and Chinese, and the English department students cheered as I steadily came from behind. I won both races easily, and at the end of the 1500, when my students gathered to greet me at the finish, I felt more like a member of the department than a waiguoren waiguoren. It was the same way in the sprint relay, in which the distance was too short to give me an advantage and I ran the second leg without distinction. Party Secretary Zhang anch.o.r.ed our faculty team, sprinting past the Chinese department in the homestretch, and all of the English students cheered madly. Afterward the four of us posed for pictures with Raise the Flag Mountain in the background, and Party Secretary Zheng beamed and lit a cigarette.

But during the 5000 meters the physical education students in the crowd started taunting me, shouting "Hahlllooo!" and "Yangguizi!" "Yangguizi!" as I went by. as I went by. Yangguizi Yangguizi meant "foreign devil," and they quieted down after some of my students scolded them, but I still heard their mocking cries, and in response I put my head down and ran hard for the last mile. It was unnecessary to do that-I was already winning and I could feel a cold coming on. But I couldn't help it; in a race that was the only way I would ever react to being taunted. meant "foreign devil," and they quieted down after some of my students scolded them, but I still heard their mocking cries, and in response I put my head down and ran hard for the last mile. It was unnecessary to do that-I was already winning and I could feel a cold coming on. But I couldn't help it; in a race that was the only way I would ever react to being taunted.

I returned home to discover that I had a fever of 102 degrees. I realized how foolish it had been to run the 5000 meters hard, and I saw that there was nothing much good about competing in events like that. I was too compet.i.tive and the locals were even worse; no matter how much things improved, inevitably it seemed to come down to me against everybody else. I decided that it was more enjoyable to watch than to run, and after that I never raced again.

ALL THROUGH THE COURSE OF THAT SEMESTER, my health grew steadily worse. A few times I ran a fever, but mostly I was developing chronic sinus problems from the pollution, and I was always on antibiotics. It was a strange time, because despite the health problems I had never been so satisfied with life in Fuling. I was growing comfortable in the city, and I was starting to make friends who spoke no English. My Chinese life was developing and now I sensed that in the second year everything would be better.

Even my cla.s.ses with Teacher Liao had become markedly less tense. It was as if our Opium Wars had allowed each of us to see the other clearly, albeit in very brief flashes of contrary opinions, but the honesty of these viewpoints seemed to matter more than their substance. To some degree I knew where she stood-she had definite suspicions about waiguoren waiguoren and their views on China, but she was open enough to make these suspicions clear. Increasingly I was inclined to see this as a welcome change from the English department cadres, who smiled and treated me kindly but never dropped their guard. Teacher Liao at least respected me enough to provide glimpses of her viewpoints, and I sensed that she saw me in a similar light-a and their views on China, but she was open enough to make these suspicions clear. Increasingly I was inclined to see this as a welcome change from the English department cadres, who smiled and treated me kindly but never dropped their guard. Teacher Liao at least respected me enough to provide glimpses of her viewpoints, and I sensed that she saw me in a similar light-a waiguoren waiguoren who didn't always respect China but was at least willing to talk about it. Our Opium Wars didn't end in victory or loss; rather they quietly slipped away, and increasingly I enjoyed my cla.s.ses. who didn't always respect China but was at least willing to talk about it. Our Opium Wars didn't end in victory or loss; rather they quietly slipped away, and increasingly I enjoyed my cla.s.ses.

But at the same time part of me was starting to wear thin, both physically and psychologically, and I knew that I needed time away from the pressures of living in a small place like Fuling. Adam was the same way, and as the semester wound down there was something grim about the way we pushed onward. The term was scheduled to end just after Hong Kong returned to China, on midnight of June 30, and after that we would be free to travel and study Chinese.

I had first sensed the magnitude of Hong Kong's return during the first term, when I asked one of my third-year cla.s.ses to write about the happiest day of their lives. Most of them responded as I had expected-they described the day when they received their admission notice to the college. Don, who was from a particularly poor part of the Fengdu countryside, wrote: On that day, I got up very early. As soon as I had breakfast, I went to the post office very quickly. I was very eager to see my score of entering college. The postman saw me coming toward him, so he shouted at me, "congratulations! This is your admission book." I caught it from his hand. I lifted it above my head. I shouted without consciousness, "I have succeeded at last!" At that time my happy tears came out of my eyes. This is the result that I worked hard for fifteen years. During fifteen years, I had studied very hard all the time. As a son of farmer, I wanted to go out of the countryside. It is the only way that I study harder than the people in city or town. I didn't disappoint the heavy expectation my parents and relatives had given. It was a turning point in my life. I can enter college to study a lot of knowledge. Thirty-first August 1994, I will never forget you. You are my happiest day of my life. You are what I got with my sweat and blood.

Probably three-quarters of the responses were of this sort, and they made for pleasant reading: I saw the way that education was making a difference in my students' lives, and I was a small part of that process. But I was less inspired by the two students who wrote that the happiest day of their lives hadn't happened yet, because it would be when Hong Kong returned to China. One of them, whose English name was Peace, wrote: I'm sure that the day of July 1st, 1997 is my happiest day. On that day all of us Chinese will be cheerful and happy. Because the day of July 1st 1997 is very especial day for us. Hong Kong will be restored to China on that day, this shows accomplishment of the great cause of reunification in China. All of us know that the return of Hong Kong to the motherland and China's resumption of the exercise of sovereignity are a firm position and are not negotiable. Of course, I am happiest on that day.

As the semester progressed, I was struck by how all of the political cla.s.ses and special events had made the return of Hong Kong a personal event in the lives of my students. Ostensibly, of course, my subject matter had nothing to do with Chinese politics, but it was inevitable that occasionally we drifted in that direction. For literature cla.s.s we studied Kate Chopin's short story "Desiree's Baby," which led us into discussions about racism. We talked about the situation of blacks in America, and the issue of interracial marriage, and the students asked me if there were any prejudices and stereotypes about Chinese people in America. I told them that current stereotypes often had to do with Chinese-Americans being overserious students, but I mentioned that in the nineteenth century many Westerners had believed that the Chinese were weak and incompetent.

"Why was that?" one of the students asked.

"Well, I guess it was because of the Opium Wars," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"You know what happened in the Opium Wars," I said. "At that time, China wasn't a very powerful nation, and it wasn't difficult for the foreign countries to defeat the Chinese armies. As a result, many of the foreigners believed that the Chinese people were weak. This idea changed later, of course, but at that time it was a common prejudice."

After I spoke there was silence and the students stared at their desks. That was always what happened when you broke a taboo-there was an instant hush and you found yourself looking at forty-five circles of black hair as the students dropped their heads. They had done the same thing a week earlier, during another discussion on racism, when I had said gently that I thought racism and xenophobia were problems everywhere, even in China.

"There is no prejudice or racism in China," Wendy said quickly, and I could see that she was offended. She was one of the best students, as well as one of the most patriotic.

"I don't think it's that simple," I said. "Why is it that people often shout at Mr. Meier and me when we go to Fuling City?"

"They are being friendly," Wendy said. "They just want to talk with you, but they aren't educated. They aren't trying to be rude."

"Sometimes I've had children throw things at me," I said. "That doesn't seem very friendly."

"They are only children!"

"But their parents just laughed and did nothing to stop them," I said. "I'm not saying that this is such a terrible thing, but I don't think racism and bad behavior toward foreigners are issues only in America. These problems could be improved in China as well."

The students dropped their heads and there was an uncomfortable silence. I realized that this was something we couldn't talk about, and quickly I changed the subject back to "Desiree's Baby" and American racism. As a foreign teacher you learned to respond to the moments when the heads bowed, and mostly you learned that it was impossible to criticize China in any way. But I was still surprised to see that a week later my reference to the Opium Wars touched this same sensitivity.

It was especially odd considering that earlier in the semester, during our unit on "Rip Van Winkle," they had shown no sensitivity whatsoever with regard to more recent periods in Chinese history. My a.s.signment had been to perform skits about a Chinese Rip Van Winkle; each group had to write and perform a story from a different period. One of them was about a Chinese man who had gone to sleep in 1930 and woken up in 1950, and another spanned 1948 to 1968, and so on. Among the seven groups it was a capsule of twentieth-century Chinese history, and I was especially curious to see how the group a.s.signed to the Cultural Revolution would depict such a painful period.

In their skit, Rip was played by Aumur, an owlish boy with thick gla.s.ses and short black hair. He woke up confused, and soon the other students in the group, who were Red Guards, put a dunce cap on his head. They wrapped a CAPITALIST ROADER sign around his neck, and they tied his hands behind his back. Roughly they forced him to his knees before the cla.s.s. The Red Guards crowded around and then the struggle session began.

"Why aren't you a Red Guard?" one of the girls shouted at him.

"What's a Red Guard?" Aumur asked, confused.

"You know what a Red Guard is! Why are you a Capitalist Roader?"

"I don't know what you are talking about. What's a Capitalist Roader? My name is Rip Van Winkle and I'm a loyal soldier in the Kuomintang army."

"What did you say?"

"I'm a loyal soldier in Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang army. I'm just a poor man-"

"A Counter-Revolutionary! He's a Counter-Revolutionary!"

"My name is Rip Van Winkle and I'm just a-"

"Shut your mouth!" the girl screamed. "Now you will do the airplane!"

Two of them forced him to a standing position, pulling his arms back. The other students beat spoons against metal bowls and shouted as they marched back and forth. I watched from the back of the room, hoping desperately that Dean Fu wouldn't happen to walk past my cla.s.s and poke his head inside. I didn't want to explain how "Rip Van Winkle" had taken us to this point.

The strangest part was that the cla.s.s loved it-by far it was the most popular of all the skits, and the audience cheered and laughed. This wasn't at all what I had expected; I had thought that they would find a way to perform a tactful skit that avoided the uglier aspects of that period, because I knew that many of the students had parents who had suffered during the Cultural Revolution. But I never would have guessed it from watching them; n.o.body seemed upset, and the skit was as hilarious as A Midsummer Night's Dream A Midsummer Night's Dream or any other comedy. It was similar to what the Chinese writer Lu Xun once remarked: "People with good memories are liable to be crushed by the weight of suffering. Only those with bad memories, the fittest to survive, can live on." or any other comedy. It was similar to what the Chinese writer Lu Xun once remarked: "People with good memories are liable to be crushed by the weight of suffering. Only those with bad memories, the fittest to survive, can live on."

But my students' memories weren't uniformly bad. Although they joked about the Cultural Revolution, they were incredibly sensitive about the Opium Wars. I knew that part of this sensitivity stemmed from my being a foreigner, but there was also a degree to which time had been turned around in their eyes, until events of the mid-1800s were more immediate and unresolved than the struggles of their parents' generation. Chinese history books deemphasized the Cultural Revolution, and the issue of Mao Zedong's excesses was neatly handled by Deng Xiaoping's judgment that the Chairman had been 70 percent correct and 30 percent wrong. These were numbers that everybody seemed to know, and they had an almost talismanic ability to simplify the past. During conversations, I sometimes nonchalantly mentioned that Mao had been 67 percent correct, just to see what sort of reaction I would get. Invariably the listener corrected me immediately. It made the Cultural Revolution seem incredibly distant, a question of statistics: the lifetime batting average of Mao Zedong.

In contrast, nothing was simple about the Opium Wars, which seemed far heavier in the minds of my students. All year long they had been drilled on the shamefulness of that history, and the return of Hong Kong was portrayed as a redemption that would have a real impact on their lives. In contrast, the student protests of 1989 were the most distant event of all, because as far as my students were concerned the violence had never happened. They had been forced to undergo tedious military training as a direct result of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, and yet some of these Sichuanese students were so patriotic that the return of Hong Kong would be the happiest day of their lives.