To Live
Table of Contents
TO LIVE
When I was ten years younger than I am now, I had the carefree
job of going to the countryside to collect popular folk songs. That
year, for the entire summer, I was like a sparrow soaring recklessly. I would wander amid the village houses and the open country, which was full of cicadas and flooded with sunlight. I had a
special affection for that bitter tea that farmers brew. There
would always be a bucket of just that kind of tea under a tree by
the ridge between the fields, and without a second thought I
would ladle out enough to fill my tea-stained bowl. Once I’d filled
it to the brim, I’d start bullshitting with some of the male workers.
The girls would whisper among themselves and then stifle their
chuckles as I’d swagger o f. I once spent a whole afternoon talking
with an old man who kept a melon patch. I ate more melons that
day than I ever had in my life. When I stood up to leave, I suddenly realized that I had as much difficulty walking as a pregnant
woman. Later that day, I sat on the porch with a woman who had
already become a grandmother. As she weaved a pair of straw
sandals she sang “Ten Month Pregnancy” for me. What I loved
most was sitting before the peasants’ houses just as dusk fell. As
the sun’s rays came down through the delicate branches, I would
watch the peasants pour well water onto the ground, cooling the
hot dust and sand. Holding the fan they passed over to me, I
would try the pickled vegetables, which always tasted like salt. I
would watch the girls and talk with the men.
I wore a wide-brimmed straw hat on my head and a pair of
slippers on my feet. A towel hung down from my belt behind me;
I made it look like a tail patting me on the butt as I walked. All
day my mouth was wide open as I yawned, strolling aimlessly
through the narrow trails that wove between the fields. My slippers made a funny sound, “ba da ba da,” as the dust along the
trail went flying upward. It was as if a truck had sped by.
I’d wander all over the place, not even remembering which villages I’d been to and which I hadn’t. As I’d approach the next
country village, I’d often hear the children yelling, “Hey, that
guy who always yawns is back!”
And so the people in the village knew that the man who told
dirty stories and sang sad songs had come back again. Actually I
learned all those dirty stories and sad songs from them. I knew
everything that interested them, and naturally this was also what
interested me. I once came across an old man with a bloody nose
and a swollen face sitting atop the ridge crying. His sadness filled
his entire body. When he saw me coming he looked up, and his
weeping grew louder. I asked him who beat him like this, and,
scraping the mud off his pants with his fingernail, he told me with
anger that it was that ungrateful son of his. When I asked him
why, he kept beating around the bush but wouldn’t explain. I
immediately surmised that the old man must have been putting
the moves on his daughter-in-law. Then on another occasion, I
was hurrying on my way at night when the glow of my flashlight
fell upon a pair of naked bodies beside a pond. One was pressing
against the other. When I shined my light on them, except for a
hand scratching a thigh, the two bodies lay absolutely still. I
quickly turned off my light and got out of there. One afternoon during the height of the farming season, hoping to get a drink of water,
I walked into a house whose doors had been left wide open. A man
wearing shorts and looking quite flustered stopped me and led me
outside to a well. He eagerly hoisted up a bucket of water for me
from the well, then like a rat scurried back into his house. These
were all common occurrences, almost as common as the folk songs I
heard. When I gazed at the green earth that surrounded me, I came
closer to understanding why the crops here grew so vigorously.
That summer I almost fell in love. I met an enchanting young
girl, and even today her dark complexion glitters and radiates
before my eyes. When I saw her, her pants were cuffed up high as
she sat on the grass beside the river. Watching over a flock of
large, plump ducks, she held a bamboo pole to prod them and
keep them together. This timid sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girl
spent a scorching afternoon with me. Every time she smiled she
would lower her head in embarrassment. I noticed how she
secretly rolled her pants back down and hid her bare feet in the
thick grass. That afternoon I spoke endlessly and irresponsibly of
my plans to take her away to see the world. She was both frightened and pleased. At the time I was in quite high spirits and very
sincere about what I said. During that short time with her, I was
overcome by a bliss that extended throughout my body and
soul—never once did I stop to think about tomorrow. Only later
when her three brothers, each of whom was built like an ox,
approached, did I start to get scared. I felt the best thing for me
to do would be to get out of there—the faster the better—that is,
unless I wanted to end up
really
marrying their little sister.
It was just as summer arrived that I met an old man named
Fugui. That afternoon I made my way over to a tall tree with lush
foliage to get some relief from the blistering sun. The cotton in the
fields had already been harvested. A few women wearing scarves
were collecting the cotton stalks—every now and then their asses
would wiggle as they removed the mud from the stalk roots. I
took off my straw hat and, reaching for the towel behind me,
wiped the sweat from my face. Next to me there was a pond,
which had turned golden under the radiance of the sun. As I sat
against the tree trunk facing the pond, I suddenly felt like I
needed a nap. I lay down on the grass under the shade of the tree.
Covering my face with my straw hat and using my backpack as a
pillow, I closed my eyes.
This “me” of ten years before lay down amid the leaves and
long grass and slept for two whole hours. During this time a few
ants crawled up my leg, but even in my deep sleep my finger
accurately flicked them o f. I felt as if I had come to a shore, and
the echoing shouts of an old man poling a bamboo raft seemed to
reach my ears from far away. I awakened from my dream, and
the voice calling out was actually crisp and clear. After I turned
around I saw an old man in one of the nearby fields patiently trying to coax an old ox into working.
The ox, probably already exhausted from plowing the field,
stubbornly lowered his head and refused to move. The bare-chested old man leaned on the plough behind his beast, seemingly frustrated by the ox’s attitude. I heard his bright voice say
to the ox, “Oxen plough the fields, dogs watch over the house,
monks beg for alms, chickens call at the break of day and women
do the weaving. Have you ever heard of an ox that didn’t plough
the land? This is a truth that has been with us since ancient
times. Come on, let’s go.”
The weary old ox, after hearing the old man’s lesson, raised his
head as if admitting his mistake. Pulling the plow, he began to
move forward.
I noticed the old man’s back was just as black as the ox’s. Even
though the pair had already entered the twilight of their lives,
they still managed to noisily plough the rugged land, the earth
breaking up like a wave crashing on the shore. Afterward I heard
the old man’s hoarse yet moving voice sing an old folk song. First
he sang a long introductory melody, then came two lines of verse:
The emperor beckons me; he wants me to marry his daughter. The road to the capital is long and distant; I don’t want her.
Because the journey is long, he is unwilling to be the emperor’s
son-in-law. The way the old man seemed to relish his own cleverness made me burst out laughing. The ox seemed to be slowing
up, so the old man once again began to urge him on, “Erxi,
Youqing, come on, let’s not be lazy. Jiazhen and Fengxia are
doing a good job. Hell, even Kugen does okay.”
Just how many different names can one ox have? My curiosity
got the better of me, and I walked over to the edge of the field. As
I approached the old man I asked him, “How many names does
this ox have?”
The old man, using the plow to support himself, straightened
up. After looking me over he asked, “You a city boy?”
“Uh huh,” I nodded.
The old man seemed pleased with himself. “I could tell right
away.”
“Just how many names does this ox have?” I repeated.
“He’s got only one,” the old man replied. “He’s called Fugui.”
“But just now you called him a whole bunch of names.”
“Oh . . .” The old man smiled and gestured cryptically for
me to move closer. As I neared him it seemed as if he wanted
to say something but stopped. When he saw the ox raise its
head, he gave him a reprimand, “No eavesdropping! Lower your
head!”
The ox did lower his head, and then the old man whispered to
me, “I’m afraid he’ll discover he’s the only one working the field,
so I call out some other names to fool him. If he hears that there
are other oxen around working the fields, he’ll work harder and
won’t feel so depressed.”
Seeing the old man’s dark face smiling in the sunlight was
quite moving. The wrinkles on his face moved about happily.
They were caked with mud, just like the small dirt trails that ran
through the fields.
Afterward the old man and I sat down under that lush tree.
And on that bright afternoon, he began to tell me about himself.
Forty years ago my dad would often stroll back and forth across this land. He would be wearing a black silk outfit and would always have his hands clasped behind his back. Just as he went out, he’d tell my mother, “I’m going out to take a walk around the property.”
The moment the workers saw Dad strolling around his land they would hold their hoes with both hands and respectfully call out, “Master.”
When my dad went into the city, all the city people would call him “sir.” My dad was of very high social status, but every time he squatted down to take a shit he was just like a poor man. He never liked relieving himself in the house on the chamber pot next to the bed. Just like the animals, he liked shitting out in the open. Every day as dusk would near, dad would let out a belch— the sound was almost exactly the same as that croaking sound that frogs make. Then he would step outside and slowly walk toward the manure vat.
When he got there he’d be annoyed that the side of the vat was dirty. He’d raise his leg and climb up, squatting on top. My dad was old and his shit was getting older with him; it was harder and harder to force out. Our whole family would hear his grunting and groaning coming all the way from the vat.
For decades my dad always shit like this. When he got to be over sixty he was still able to climb up there and squat for a long time. His legs had as much strength as the talons of an eagle. My dad liked to watch the sky gradually change color until the darkness enveloped his farmland. When my daughter, Fengxia, was three or four she would often run out to the edge of the village to watch grandpa taking a shit. Dad was really old by then. When he squatted up on the manure vat his legs would tremble a bit, and Fengxia would ask him, “Grandpa, why are you shaking?”
“It’s just the wind blowing,” Dad would reply.
At the time our family circumstances had yet to take a turn for the worse. Our family had over one hundred
mu
1
of land. The land from here all the way to the factory’s chimney over there was owned by my family. Near and far, my father and I were
known as the old and young rich masters. When we walked, the sound our shoes made was like the sound of coins clanking against each other. My wife, Jiazhen, was the daughter of the owner of the rice store in the city. She was also born into a rich family. A wealthy woman marries a wealthy man—it’s like piling all the money up. The sound of money pouring down on top of money—it’s been forty years since I’ve heard that sound.
