Fortress Besieged (part4}
31Their son Hsiao-ch'eng said mischievously, "Hung-chien
is getting a close look at that Six Wen-wan. He's
thinking of marrying her to take Shu-ying's place."
Fang couldn't help from blurting out, "Don't talk
nonsense!" and barely managed to stop himself from
flinging the paper to the floor. Though he pre vented
his anger from showing on his face, his voice was
hoarse.
When the Chous saw his unsmiling countenance and his
pale face, they were a little bewildered. Then
suddenly exchanging glances with each other as though
they understood their son-in-law's state of mind, they
scolded their son Hsiao-ch'eng in unison, "You deserve
a spanking. Who told you to inter rupt when adults are
talking? Your brother Hung-chien just came back to
day. Of course, he's unhappy at the thoughts of your
sister. Your joking can go too far. From now on,
you're to keep your mouth shut. Hung-chien, we know
you have a kindly nature. Pay no attention to the
child's nonsense."
Fang Hung-chien again blushed crimson. Puffing out his
cheeks, Hsiao ch'eng thought resentfully, Don't you
put on! If you were any good, you'd never get married
for the rest of your life. I don't care about your
pen. You can just take it back.
When Fang returned to his room, he discovered
Shu-ying's picture was missing from the table. He
thought probably his mother-in-law, afraid that he'd
be reminded of Shu-ying by the picture and become too
grief-stricken, had come especially to remove it.
It had been only six or seven hours since he left the
ship, yet everything that had happened there seemed to
belong to another world. All his excite ment about
going ashore having evaporated, he felt small and
weak, thinking a job would be hard to find and romance
difficult to achieve. As he had pic tured it,
returning home after study abroad was like water on
the ground turning to vapor and rising to the sky,
then changing again to rain and re turning to the
earth, while the whole world looked on and talked
about it. His return home from thousands of miles away
hadn't raised a single fleck of froth on the sea of
his fellow countrymen. Now, thanks to all the blather~
spewing out of Chief-secretary Wang's pen, he had been
blown up into a big soap bubble, bright and colorful
while it lasted but gone at a single jab
Leaning against the window screen he gazed outside.
The stars filling the~ sky were dense and busy. They
remained completely still, yet watching them made him
think the sky was bustling noisily. The crescent moon
seemingly resembled a girl that is not yet full-grown
but already able to face the world unabashed. Its
light and contours were fresh and sharp, gradually
standing out against the night setting. The tiny
insects in the garden grass hummed and buzzed, engaged
in a nocturnal conversation. From somewhere a pack of
frogs croaked hoarsely, their mouths, lips, throats,
and tongues working in unison as though the sound
waves were being stewed over a fire until they
32
bubbled: "Brekekey Coky Coky," like the chorus in
Aristophanes' comedies, or of Yale University's
cheerleaders. A few fireflies gracefully passed to and
fro, not as if flying but as though floating in the
dense atmosphere. A dark area beyond the reach of
moonlight was suddenly lit up by a firefly's speck of
light, like a tiny greenish eye in the summer night.
This was the scene familiar to him before going
abroad; but now when he saw it, his heart suddenly con
tracted in pain, his eyes smarted on the verge of
tears, and then he understood life's beauty and
goodness and the joy of coming home. Such things as
the item in the Shanghai newspaper were no more worth
troubling over than the hum of insects outside the
screen. He sighed comfortably, then yawned broadly.
When he stepped off the train at his home district
station, his father, his youngest brother Feng-i, as
well as seven or eight uncles, cousins, and friends of
his father were all there on the platform to meet him.
He was quite dis mayed, and greeting each in turn
said, "On such a hot day as this, I've really imposed
on you too much." And observing how his father's beard
had grayed, he said, "Papa, you shouldn't have come!"
His father, Fang Tung-weng, handed him his folding
fan, saying, "You people in Western suits won't need
this antique, but it's better than fanning yourself
with a straw hat." When he saw his son had traveled
second class, he praised him. "Such a fine lad! He
came back on the boat in second class, so I thought
for sure he'd go first class on the train, but still
he went second class. He hasn't become haughty and
proud and changed his true nature. He already knows
how to conduct himself." Everyone echoed his praise.
They had jostled their way out of the ticket gate when
suddenly a man wearing blue glasses and a Western suit
caught hold of Fang Hung-chien and said, "Hold it,
please! We're taking a picture." Bewildered,
Hung-chien was just about to ask him what for, when he
heard the click of a camera, and the man in blue
glasses let go of his arm. There facing Hung-chien was
another man pointing a camera at him. Blue Glasses
pulled out his card, saying, "Did you return to China
yesterday, Dr. Fang?" The man with the camera came up
and he too pulled out his card. Hung-chien saw at a
glance that they were reporters from two local
newspapers in the district.
The reporters both said, "You must be tired from your
journey today, Dr. Fang. We'll come to your residence
tomorrow morning to learn more from you." They then
turned to pay their compliments to Mr. Fang and ac
compai~ied the Fangs and others out of the station.
Feng-i said laughingly to Hung-chien, "You've become a
celebrity in the district."
Though Hung-chien hated the way the reporters kept
calling him "Dr. Fang," which grated on his ears,
seeing people so respectfully regard him as a man of
importance made him swell up in mind and body and feel
truly great.
33
Now realizing the advantage of living in a small town,
he only wished he had put on a better suit and carried
a cane. With the big fan waving about in his hand and
his face bathed in sweat, the picture they had taken
could not pos sibly turn out very well.
When he got home and saw his mother and two
sisters-in-law, he distrib uted the gifts he had
brought back.
His mother said with a smile, "It takes going abroad
to learn such thought~ fulness. He even knows how to
buy things for women."
His father said, "P'eng-t'u mentioned a Miss Six over
the phone yesterday. What's that all about?"
"It's just someone who was on the same boat," said
Hung-chien crossly~ "There's nothing to it.
P'eng-t'u-he likes to talk a lot." He was about to up
braid his brother for spreading rumors, but caught
himself when he saw P'eng-t'u's wife was present.
His father said, "We'll have to work on your marriage.
Both of youx brothers were married long ago and have
children. Matchmakers have already suggested several
prospects, but you don't need disgusting old creatures
like us to make decisions for you. As for Six
Hung-yeh, he does have a bit of repu tation, and
apparently held a few government posts in his day-"
Hung-chien thought to himself, Why do charming girls
all have fathers? She can be hidden away all by
herself in one's heart to cuddle, but when he? father,
uncle, and brother are dragged along with her, the
girl stops being so cute and carefree and it's not so
easy to conceal her away in your heart any more. Her
charm has been mixed in with the dregs. Some people
talk about marriage as though it were homosexual love.
It's not the girl they fancy, but her old man or her
elder brother they admire.
"I don't approve," said his mother. "It's no good to
marry an official's daughter. She'll want you to wait
on her instead of waiting on you. Besides, a
daughter-in-law should come from the same village.
Girls from other districts are always a bit unsuited
in temperament. You won't be happy with her. This Miss
Six is a returned student, so she couldn't be very
young." The faces of his two sisters-in-law, who had
never graduated from high school and who had been born
and raised in that district, both bore an expression
of agree ment.
His father remarked, "She's not only studied abroad
but has a Ph.D. I'm afraid Hung-chien couldn't manage
her," as though Miss Six were some sort of hard object
like a brick which would take the stomach of an
ostrich or turkey to digest.
"Our Hung-chien has a Ph.D., too," protested his
mother. "He's not in ferior to her, so why isn't he a
match for her?"
Stroking his beard, his father said with a smile,
"Hung-chien, that's some thing your mother just
couldn't understand. Women who've done a little
34
book learning are the hardest of all to handle. The
man has to be a step above her, not an equal. That's
why a college graduate should marry a high school
graduate~ and a returned student should marry a
college graduate. As for a girl who has studied abroad
and received a Ph.D., no one but a foreigner would
dare marry her. Otherwise, the man would have to have
two doctor ates at least. I'm not mistaken about that,
am I, Hung-chien? It's the same idea as 'Marry a
daughter into a greater family than your own, but take
a wife from a lesser family than your own.'"
His mother said, "Of the girls suggested by the
go-betweens, the Hsus' second daughter is the best.
I'll show you her picture later."
The matter is taking a serious turn, thought
Hung-chien. All his life he had detested those modern
girls from small towns with outdated fashions and a
provincial cosmopolitanism. They were just like the
first Western suit made by a Chinese tailor with
everything copied from a foreigner's old clothes used
as a model down to the two square patches on the
sleeves and trouser legs. No need to protest now. In a
few days he would make his getaway to Shang hai.
His father also said that there would be many
receptions given in his honor, and with the weather so
hot, he should be careful not to stuff himself. He
must make courtesy calls to all family elders, for
which his father would let him take his rickshaw. When
the weather cooled off a little, his father would take
him to perform the rites at his grandfather's grave.
His mother said she would have the tailor come the
next day to fit him for a silk gown and pants, and for
the time being his brother Feng-i had two gowns and
could lend him one to wear when he went visiting.
For dinner that evening, his mother herself prepared
fried shredded eel, chicken wings in soy sauce, stewed
chicken with melon, and shrimps cooked in wine-all his
favorite local dishes. She picked out the best pieces
for his bowl, saying, "How terrible it must have been
for you, living abroad for four years with nothing to
eat!"
Everyone laughed and said she was at it again. If a
person ate nothing abroad, how could Hung-chien keep
from starving to death?
She said, "I can't understand how those foreign devils
stay alive! All that bread and milk. I couldn't eat
them if they gave them to me free."
Hung-chien suddenly felt that in this family
atmosphere the war was something unbelievable, just as
no one can think of ghosts in broad daylight. His
parents' hopes and plans left no room for any
unforeseen circumstances. Seeing them thus so firmly
in control of the future, he too took heart and
thought that maybe the situation in Shanghai would be
eased, and there would be no outbreak of hostilities.
And if there were, they could be brushed aside and
ignored.
When Fang Hung-chien rose from bed the next day, the
two reporters
35
had already arrived. When he saw the newspaper they
had brought along with the item, "Dr. Fang Returns
Home," and the full-length picture taken the day
before beside it, he felt so ashamed he couldn't bear
to look at it. Blue Glasses' hand gripping his right
shoulder showed clearly in the picture, added to
which, the side view of his own startled expression
made it look exactly like a photograph of someone
catching a thief.
Blue Glasses, a man of great learning, said he had
long heard that Carle ton University was the most
famous institution of higher learning in the en tire
world, on a par with Tsing-hua University.1 The
reporter carrying the camera asked Hung-chien what
observations he had on the world situation and whether
a Sino-Japanese war would break out. Fang Hung-chien
finally managed to send them on their way, though not
before he had written
inscriptions: "The Mouthpiece of the People,"6 for
Blue Glasses' newspaper, and "The Mirror of Truth,"7
for Camera's newspaper.
Just as Hung-chien was about to go out visiting, his
father's old friend, Principal Lu of the district's
provincial high school, came to invite his father,
him, and his brother to breakfast the next morning at
a teahouse and later asked him to give a lecture to
the summer school students on "A Reevaluation of the
Influences of Western Civilization on Chinese
History." Hung-chien dreaded giving lectures and was
going to beg off on some pretext. Then to his chagrin
his father readily accepted the invitation for him. He
could only stifle a snort, in such hot weather, to
have to put on a long gown and vest, speak rubbish and
stink with sweat, if it isn't a living hell, what is
it? he thought. Educators sure have a different
mentality from ordinary people!
Mr. Fang, hoping his son would win praises for his
"scholarly family background," dug out from a chest
several volumes of string-bound Chinese texts, such as
Wen-tzu t'ang-chi,8 Kuei-ssu lei-kao,9 Ch'i-ching
lou-chi,'0 and T'an-ying lu,11 instructing Hung-chien
to look through them carefully for his lecture
material. Hung-chien read all afternoon with deep
interest, greatly broadening his knowledge. He learned
that the Chinese were square and hon est by nature, so
they said the sky was square. Foreigners were
roundabout and cunning and therefore maintained that
the earth was round; the heart of the Chinese was
located in the center, while a Westerner's heart
tilted slightly to the left. The opium imported from
the West was poisonous and should be banned. The
nature of the soil in China was mild, therefore opium
produced there would not be addictive. Syphilis, that
is, smallpox, came from the West, and so on. Such a
pity that while these items of information were all
very interesting, they could not be used in the
lecture. He would have to read something else. 12
That day after returning home from dinner at his
uncle's house with his eyes blurred from drink, he
flipped through four or five history textbooks and
worked up a draft of over one thousand words with a
couple of jokes
36
inserted. This kind of preparation did not tax his
brains any, though he did lose some blood to the
mosquitoes.
The next morning at the teahouse, after he had the
usual soup noodle- the fourth snack-dish to be served,
Principal Lu paid the bill and urged Hung chien to
start off. Each hurriedly took his long gown from the
waiter and de parted. Feng-i stayed with Mr. Fang for
a cup of tea.
The school auditorium was already filled with
students-over two hun dred boys and girls. Accompanied
to the stage by Principal Lii, Fang Hung chien felt
his whole body tingle and itch from having so many
eyes focused on him, and walking became difficult.
After he had seated himself on the stage, the haze
before his eyes lifted, and he noticed that those
sitting in the front row seemed to be the faculty. At
the recording secretary's desk set close to the stage
was a girl student, the waves of whose new permanent
were so stiff that they seemed to have been painted
on. Everyone in the auditorium was whispering back and
forth, appraising him with great curiosity. He silent
ly enjoined his cheeks, Don't blush! You mustn't turn
red! He regretted hav ing removed his sunglasses when
he entered. With two pieces of black glass in front of
his eyes, it would have seemed as though he too were
hidden in heavy darkness, and he would have felt less
embarrassed.
Principal Lii was already delivering his introduction.
Hung-chien hast ily reached into the pocket of his
gown to feel around for his lecture notes only to find
they were missing. He broke out in a nervous sweat.
Oh, no! he thought. How could I have lost something so
important? When I left the house I distinctly remember
putting them into the pocket of my gown. Ex cept for a
few opening sentences, he, in his fright, had
forgotten the rest of his speech. He searched his
memory for all he was worth, but it was like try ing
to hold water in a sieve. Once he grew panicky, he
couldn't focus his attention. His threads of thought
would get knotted up, then come loose. A few vague
facts remained, but it was like waiting for a person
in a busy place. You catch a glimpse of someone in the
crowd who looks like him, only to find he's gone when
you go over to get him. Just as his mind was playing
"hide-and-seek," Principal Lii bowed and asked him to
speak. This was fol lowed by a round of applause. He
had just stood up when he noticed Feng-i rushing into
the auditorium, breathless. Seeing that the lecture
had already begun, Feng-i found an empty seat and sat
down in despair. Hung-chien sud denly realized that as
he was leaving the teahouse, he had put on Feng-i's
gown by mistake. Both gowns belonged to Feng-i and
were of identical color and material. Such being the
case, he'd just have to screw up his courage, brace
himself, and spout some nonsense.
When the applause had died down, Fang Hung-chien
forced a smile and began, "Principal Lii, members of
the faculty, and students: Though your applause was
welbmeaning, it is actually quite unjustified.
Applause indicates
37
satisfaction with the speech. Now before I have even
begun, you have already applauded with satisfaction.
Why should I have to go on? You should all listen to
the lecture first, then clap a few times as you wish,
letting me leave the stage with dignity. Now that
you've clapped at the start, if my lecture can't live
up to such enthusiastic applause, it'll put me in the
embarrassing position of having been paid without
being able to deliver the goods."
The audience roared with laughter. The recording
secretary was also smiling as her pen flew across the
paper. Fang Hung-chien hesitated. What should he say
next? He still remembered a few of the points and
views put forth in the string-bound texts, but as for
the history textbooks he had skimmed through after
dinner, there wasn't even a trace left. Those con
founded textbooks! it's amazing that I could have
learned all that stuff for examinations when I was a
student! Ah, now I have it! At least it's better than
nothing. "As for the influence of Western civilization
on Chinese his tory, you can find that in any history
textbook. There's no need for me to repeat it. You all
know that the first time China officially came in
contact with European thought was in the middle of the
Ming dynasty . For this reason Catholics
always refer to this period as the Chinese
Renaissance. Actually, the science brought by the
Catholic priests of the Ming dynasty is now out of
date, while the religion they brought has never been
up to date. In the last several hundred years of
overseas communication, there are only two items from
the West which have been lasting in Chinese society as
a whole. One is opium, and the other is syphilis.
These are what the Ming dy nasty assimilated of
Western civilization."
Most of the audience laughed, a small number gasped in
astonishment, and a few of the teachers scowled. The
recording-secretary's face flushed crimson, and her
pen stopped, as if by hearing Fang Hung-chien's last
remark her virgin ears had lost their chastity in
front of the audience. Principal Lii uttered a warning
cough behind Hung-chien. By this time Fang Hung-chien
was just like a man getting out of bed on a cold
winter morning. Having managed after the greatest of
efforts to hop from the covers, he just has to bear
the cold long enough to dress. There was no backing
out now.
"Opium was originally called 'foreign tobacco'-"
Hung-chien noticed one of the teachers, who seemed to
be an old instructor of Chinese, fanning himself and
shaking his head, and he quickly added, "'Foreign'
refers, of course, to the 'Western Ocean' of 'Cheng
Ho's Voyages to the Western Ocean,'13 for according to
the Ta-Ming hui-tien,14 opium was an article of
tribute from Siam and Java. But in the earliest
literary work in Europe, Homer's Odyssey"-the old
man's bald pate seemed to be overwhelmed by that last
foreign word-"there appears what is said to be this
very thing. As. for syphilis"-Principal Lii coughed
several times in succession-"it is without doubt an
imported commodity from the West. Schopenhauer has
said that
syphilitic sores were the most distinctive feature of
modern European civiliza tion. If you have not had the
opportunity to read the original, you can very easily
read Hsii Chih-mo's'1 translation of the French novel
Candide to learn something about the origins of
syphilis. The disease was brought by Western ers after
the Cheng-te period of the Ming dynasty.16 The ill
effects of these two things were of course unlimited,
but, nonetheless, one cannot dismiss them out of hand.
Opium inspired many works of literature. Whereas
ancient poets sought inspiration from wine, modern
European and American poets all find inspiration in
opium. Syphilis transmits idiocy, insanity, and
deformity by heredity, but it is also said that it is
capable of stimulating genius. For example-"
At this point Principal Lu coughed himself hoarse.
When Hung-chien had finished speaking, and while the
clapping in the audience was still going strong,
Principal Lii, with a long face and a hoarse voice,
said a few words of thanks: "Today we have had the
honor of hearing Dr. Fang tell us several novel views.
We have found it highiy interesting. Dr. Fang is the
son of an old friend of mine. I watched him grow up
and I know how much he enjoys telling jokes. It is
very hot today, so he has intentionally made his
lecture humorous. I hope in the future we will have
the opportunity to hear his ear nest and solemn
discourse. But I'd like to tell Dr. Fang that our
school li brary is filled with the spirit of the New
Life Movement.17 It certainly has no French novels-"
With this he struck the air with his hand.
Hung-chien was too embarrassed even to look at the
audience.
Before the day was over many people had learned that
Fang's son, just returned from study abroad, publicly
advocated smoking opium and visiting brothels. When
this came to Mr. Fang's ears, he did not realize it
was the result of his having instructed his son to
look through the string-bound texts. Though he did not
approve of what his son said, he could not very well
get angry over it. The fighting at Wusung on August
13, 193 7,18 occurred soon afterwards and Fang
Hung-chien's prank was mentioned no more. Those in
terested in making him their son-in-law, however,
could not forget his lecture, and they assumed he had
led a life of profligacy while abroad. If they went to
the Matchmaker's Temple at West Lake to draw lots
before the idols, they would probably end up with
tally number four, which read, "That this man should
have this disease. ."~ Such a young man would never do
as a son-in-law. One after another they deferred
discussion of marriage on the grounds that the times
were unstable and asked the Fangs for the return of
their daughters' pictures and horoscopes. Extremely
disheartened by it all, Mrs. Fang could not get the
Hsiis' second daughter off her mind. Hung-chien,
however, was quite unperturbed.
Now that fighting had broken out, Mr. Fang, a
prominent squire in the village, was in charge of
local security matters. Remembering the "January
38 39
28th Incident"20 when the district had not suffered
enemy bombing, the in habitants of the district
assumed that this too was nothing important and were
not particularly alarmed.
After he had been home for a week, Fang Hung-chien
felt as if he had not left home at all; his four years
abroad were like water running over a lotus leaf
leaving no trace behind. The people he met after his
return were the same ones of four years ago, still
doing and saying what they had done and said four
years ago. There was not even one person among all his
acquaint ances who had died off. Only his wet nurse,
who always used to say she would wait till he got
married and had a son, then come look after him, was
now ill and bedridden. As far as he was concerned, he
had not missed the village during those four years at
all. Not a single tear or sigh could the village fetch
from the wandering son upon his return.
On the sixth day after the outbreak of the xvar, when
Japanese planes bombed for the first time and
destroyed the train station, everyone at last realized
that the war had really reached them and many fled
with their fami lies to the countryside. Later, the
planes kept coming in much the same man ner as the
peerless beauty whose "one glance could conquer a city
and whose second glance could vanquish an empire."21
Mr. Chou wired Hung-chien urging him to come to
Shanghai as soon as possible before all communications
were suspended and he himself was stranded at home.
Feeling that under the circumstances his son should
leave home and look for job possibilities, Mr. Fang
let him go.
What happened during the next four months, from the
retreat from Shanghai to the fall of Nanking, should
be recorded in history, as Friedrich von Logau22 put
it, with a bayonet dipped in the ink of fresh blood
upon the paper made from the skin of the enemy.
Despondently, Fang Hung-chien read dozens of
newspapers and listened to just as many radio
broadcasts daily. Exhausted hope, as though sifting
sand for gold, tried to find some crack in the news in
which to revive itself. His brother P'eng-t'u and he
guessed that their house had already been destroyed
and didn't know what had happened to their family.
At the end of the lunar year, they finally heard some
news of them. Mr. Fang's friends and relatives in
Shanghai contributed money to help them get out and
rented a house for them in the foreign concessions.
The family re united amidst much weeping. Mr. Fang and
Feng-i were clamoring to buy shoes and socks. While en
route in a small boat, they met two deserting sol
diers. They took Mr. Fang's wallet; and as they were
about to make off, they forced both father and son to
take off their wool socks and cotton shoes and
exchange them for their own stinking cotton socks and
tattered canvas shoes. The whole Fang family had
traveled on empty-handed. Only a sum of two or three
thousand dollars in paper currency sewn in Mrs. Fang's
padded cotton
jacket had gone undetected by the two soldiers. The
businessmen living in Shanghai who were from the same
village, having long respected Mr. Fang's reputation,
gave him a considerable sum of money so that once
again he was able to maintain a household.
Seeing how crowded it was in the small house,
Hung-chien decided to stay on at the Chous, dropping
in on his parents every second or third day to pay his
respects. Every time he went home he heard them talk
about all the frightening and amusing experiences they
had had during their escape. Their narrative and
descriptive skills seemed to improve with each
retelling, while Hung-chien's attention and sympathy
decreased slightly after each hearing. Since Mr. Fang
had rejected the offers of Japanese collaborators in
his home district, he could no longer return home; yet
the government had given him no recognition, making
him feel that, while he loved his country, his country
did not love him. He felt the same resentment as a
young widow who, despite maintaining a chaste
widowhood, finds no favor with her parents-in-law.
Hung-chien was very bored at the Golden Touch Bank,
and since there were few opportunities in Shanghai, he
considered going into the unoccupied in terior23 as
soon as he had a chance.
The lunar New Year arrived. The well-to-do in the
concessions of Shang hai felt that they had suffered
enough alarm for their country. Since the country
hadn't fallen, they found no need to play the part of
survivors, and once again started up the usual bustle
and activities of the New Year.
One day Mrs. Chou told Hung-chien that someone was
making a match for him with the daughter of a Mr.
Chang with whom Hung-chien and Man ager Chou had once
sat at the same table at a social gathering. According
to Mrs. Chou, the Changs had asked for Hung-chien's
horoscope and requested a fortuneteller to match it
with Miss Chang's. The forecast for the couple was A
union made in heaven, full of great fortune and
prosperity."
Hung-chien asked with a smile, "You mean in a
cosmopolitan place like Shanghai, people still ask
fortunetellers to determine a marriage?"
Mrs. Chou replied that one could not but believe in
fate, and since Mr. Chang had invited him over for
dinner, it wouldn't hurt to meet his daughter.
Hung-chien, who held to some of the principles typical
of the prewar scholar class,24 remembering that this
Mr. Chang was a comprador in an American firm, wanted
nothing to do with such a vulgarian. But then he
reflected, hadn't he himself, from the time he went
abroad until now, been using a philistine's money? 25
At any rate one visit could do no harm. Whether he
decided to get married or not depended entirely on
whether or not he took a liking to the girl. No one
could force him. So he agreed to go for dinner.
Mr. Chang was from the coastal area of Chekiang. His
given name was Chi-min, but he preferred people to
call him Jimmy ~26 For over twenty years he had worked
for an American firm, the Stars and Stripes Company,
rising
41
from a clerk to become a comprador, and he had amassed
a sizable fortune. He had but one daughter and had not
spared any expense in her upbringing. She had acquired
all the foreign skills and ways that the church
schools could teach or instill, and all the foreign
hairstyles and makeup that beauty salons and
hairdressers could create. She was just eighteen and
had not yet graduated from high school, but Mr. and
Mrs. Chang, who held to the traditional view of their
hometown, thought that a girl was old by the time she
was twenty, and if she passed this age still unwed,
she could only be put in a museum of old relics to be
viewed with nostalgia.
Mrs. Chang was very strict in her choice of a
son-in-law, and though many people had proposed
matches, none of them had made it. One of these was
the son of a well-to-do businessman and a returned
student to boot. Mrs. Chang was favorably impressed
with him and held high hopes for a marriage, but after
one dinner, she never mentioned the matter again.
During the meal they began talking about the fact that
because of the war the concessions were under a
blockade and vegetables were hard to get. Mrs. Chang
turned to the son of the well-to-do businessman and
said, "With so many people in your family, the daily
cost for food must be quite high, I should think."
He replied that he was not quite sure, but thought it
was so much money per day.
Mrs. Chang exclaimed, "Then your cook must be both
honest and re sourceful. Our family isn't half as
large as yours, yet our cook spends the same amount
every day!"
He was quite pleased at hearing this, but after dinner
was over and he had left, Mrs. Chang said, "That
family lives on peanuts! They spend so lit tle on food
a day! Since my daughter is used to comfort, she
couldn't take such hardship!" The question of marriage
was dropped at this point.
After a few deliberations, the husband and wife
decided that they could never rest easy about marrying
their precious daughter into another family. It would
be far better to adopt a son-in-law into their own.27
The day Mr. Chang met Hung-chien at the party he
mentioned him later at home, saying he found him well
qualified: the family background and qualifications
were quite good. Furthermore, since he was now already
living at the home of his nominal father-in-law
without ever having actually become his son-in-law,
taking him into the family would be as easy as turning
the palm. What made it even better was that since the
Fangs had lost so much in the war, they couldn't put
on any of the presumptuous airs of a country squire,
and the son- in-law would live submissively at the
Changs. In the end, Mrs. Chang wanted Hung-chien to
dine with them, so she could take a look at him.
Since Mr. Chang had invited him to come early for a
chat, Fang Hung chien went over in the afternoon right
after work at the bank. Along the way he passed a
foreign fur goods store where he saw in the window a
Western-
42
style fur overcoat. It was on sale at only $400 during
New Year's. He had always wanted an overcoat like that
but had never dared buy one when he was studying
abroad. In London, for instance, a man who wore such
an over coat but did not own a private car, unless he
looked like a Jewish usurer or a Negro boxer, would be
suspected of being a circus performer, or else a pimp
who ran a brothel. It was only in Vienna that fur
coats were commonly worn, and ready-made fur linings
were sold to travelers to line their coats. After
returning to China, he had seen many people wearing
fur, and now he was even more stirred by the display
in the window. After some calculations, however, he
could only heave a sigh. His $100 salary at the bank
was already considered handsome and ample spending
money, and since his father-in-law was providing both
room and board and he didn't have to pay a cent, how
could he ask Mr. Chou for money to buy a luxury item?
He had dutifully presented forty of the sixty-odd
pounds left after his return home to his father to buy
furniture. The rest had been converted into a little
over $400. It would hardly do to sink all his money at
once into that coat. In a time of national austerity,
one had to economize in everything, and since the
weather would be warming up soon, he might as well
forget it.
When he arrived at the Changs, Mr. Chang gave him a
hearty welcome, "Hello, Dr. Fang! Haven't seen you for
a long time!"
Mr. Chang was used to dealing with foreigners and his
speech had a spe cial characteristic-perhaps in a
foreign firm, the YMCA, the Rotary Club, or other such
places, this was nothing unusual-he liked to sprinkle
his Chinese with meaningless English expressions. It
wasn't that he had new ideas, which were difficult to
express in Chinese and required the use of English.
The Eng lish words inlaid in his speech could not thus
be compared with the gold teeth inlaid in one's mouth,
since gol'l teeth are not only decorative but
functional as well. A better comparison would be with
the bits of meat stuck between the teeth-they show
that one has had a good meal but are otherwise
useless. He imitated the American accent down to the
slightest inflection, though maybe the nasal sound was
a little overdone, sounding more like a Chinese with a
cold and a stuffy nose, rather than an American
speaking. The way he said "Very well" sounded just
like a dog growling-" Vurry wul." A pity the Romans
never had a chance to hear it, for otherwise the Latin
poet Persius would not have been the only one to say
that "r" was a nasal in the dog's alphabet (sonat hic
de nare canina litera).
As Mr. Chang shook hands with Hung-chien, he asked him
if he had to go downtown every day. When the
pleasantries were over, Hung-chien no ticed a glass
cupboard filled with bowls, jars, and plates and
asked, "Do you collect porcelain, Mr. Chang?"
"Sure! Have a look-see." Mr. Chang opened the cupboard
and invited Hung-chien to inspect them. Hung-chien
picked up a few pieces and noticed
43
they were all marked with such reign periods as
"Ch'eng-hua," "Hsiian-te," or "K'ang-hsi."28 Unable to
tell whether they were genuine or fake, he merely
said, "These must be quite valuable."
"Sure! Worth quite a lot of money, plenty of dough.
Besides, these things aren't like calligraphy or
paintings. If you buy calligraphy or paintings which
turn out to be fakes, they aren't worth a cent. They
just amount to wastepaper. If the porcelain is fake,
at least it can hold food. Sometimes I invite foreign
friends over for dinner and use this big K'ang-hsi
'underglaze-blue-and-col ored ware' plate for a salad
dish. They all think the ancient colors and odor make
the food taste a little old time."
Fang Hung-chien said, "I'm sure you have a good eye.
You wouldn't ever buy a fake."
Mr. Chang laughed heartily and said, "I don't know
anything about pe riod designs. I'm too busy to have
time to sit down and study it. But I have a hunch when
I see something, and a sudden-what d'y ou
call?-inspiration comes to me. Then I buy it and it
turns out to be quite OK. Those antique dealers all
respect me. I always say to them, 'Don't try to fool
me with fakes. Oh yeah, Mr. Chang here is no sucker.
Don't think you can cheat me!'" He closed the cupboard
and said, "Oh, headache," then pressed an electric
bell to summon the servant.
Puzzled, Hung-chien asked quickly, "Aren't you feeling
well, Mr. Chang?"
Mr. Chang looked at Hung-chien in astonishment and
said, "Who's not feeling well? You? Me? Why, I feel
fine!"
"Didn't you say you had a headache?" asked Hung-chien.
Mr. Chang roared with laughter. At the same time he
instructed the maid who entered, "Go and tell my wife
and daughter the guest is here. Ask them to come out.
Make it snappy!" At this he snapped his fingers.
Turning to Hung-chien, he said with a laugh,
"'Headache' is an American expression for 'wife,' not
'pain in head!' I guess you haven't been to the
States!"
Just as Fang Hung-chien was feeling ashamed of his
ignorance, Mrs. Chang and Miss Chang came out. Mr.
Chang introduced them to Hung-chien. Mrs. Chang was a
portly woman of forty or more with the dainty little
for eign name of "Tessie." Miss Chang was a tall girl
of eighteen with a fresh complexion, trim-fitting
clothes, and a figure which promised to be just as
ample as the capital in her father's foreign company.
Hung-chien did not quite catch her name. It sounded
like Wo-Ni-Ta (I-You-He). He guessed that it was
either "Anita" or "Juanita." Her parents called her
"Nita" for short. Mrs. Chang spoke Shanghainese better
than her husband, but her native accent often showed
through like an undersized jacket that doesn't cover
up the gown underneath. Mrs. Chang was a Buddhist and
said that she recited the "Goddess of Mercy Chant"29
ten times a day to beg the Bodhissattva to
44
protect China's army in its fight for victory. This
chant, she said, was very efficacious. When the
fighting in Shanghai was at its worst, Mr. Chang had
gone to the export company to work while she stayed at
home reciting incan tations and, sure enough, Mr.
Chang had come through without being hit by any stray
bullets.
Hung-chien thought to himself, Mrs. Chang enjoys the
latest gadgets of Western science and yet she still
holds to such beliefs, sitting in the living room
heated by hot water pipes to recite Buddhist chants.
Apparently "West ern learning for practical
application; Chinese learning as a base" was not so
hard to implement after all.
Miss Chang and Hung-chien had little to talk about, so
he could only ask her which movies she liked best. Two
guests arrived next, both of whom were Mr. Chang's
sworn brothers.30 One of them, Ch'en Shih-p'ing, held
a high po sition in the Euro-American Tobacco Company.
Everyone called him Z. B., like the abbreviation in
German for the words, "for example," zum Beispiel. The
other, Ting Na-sheng, whose foreign name was not
Tennyson, the poet, but Nelson, the admiral, worked in
a British steamship company. Mrs. Chang said that
since there were enough people for a game of mahjong,
why not play eight rounds3' before dinner? Fang
Hung-chien was quite an amateur at gambling, and since
he had little money with him, didn't care to join in.
He would have preferred to chat with Miss Chang, but
unable to withstand Mrs. Chang's repeated prodding, he
finally agreed to play. Contrary to his expec tations,
by the end of the fourth round, he alone had won over
a hundred dollars. He suddenly thought that if his
luck held out, there was hope for the fur coat yet. By
this time he had completely forgotten the French
superstition he had told Mr. Sun on the boat. All he
wanted was to win money. At the end of the eighth
round, Fang Hung-chien had won nearly three hundred
dollars. The three other players, Mrs. Chang, "For
Example," and "Admiral Nelson," all stood up and got
ready to eat without paying a cent or mentioning a
word about paying. Hung-chien reminded them with the
remark, "How lucky I've been today. I've never won so
much money before."
As though waking from a dream, Mrs. Chang said, "Why,
how stupid of us! We haven't settled with Mr. Fang
yet. Mr. Ch'en, Mr. Ting, let me pay him, and we can
settle it among ourselves later on." She then opened
her purse and handed the notes over to Hung-chien,
counting them out one by one.
They had Western food. "Admiral Nelson," who was a
Christian, rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling and
thanked God for bestowing the food be fore he sat
down. Because he had won so much money, Fang
Hung-chien was full of talk and banter. After the meal
everyone sat about smoking and drink ing coffee. He
noticed a little bookcase next to the sofa and
supposed it con tained Miss Chang's reading material.
Besides a big stack of West Wind and Reader's Digest
in the original, there was an unannotated, small-type
edition
45
of The Complete Works of Shakespeare in the original,
the Bible, interior Decorating, a reprint of The
Biography of Madame Curie, Teach Yourself Photography,
My Country and My People [by Lin Yutang I, and other
im mortal classics, as well as an anthology of a dozen
screen plays, one of which, needless to say, was Gone
with the Wind.
There was one small blue volume with the title in gilt
letters on the spine:
How to Gain a Husband and Keep Him. Hung-chien could
not resist taking it out and skimming through it. He
came across a paragraph which read:
"You must be sweet and gentle to the man in order to
leave a good impression deep in his heart. Girls,
never forget always to have a bright smile on your
face." As he read this, the smile transferred itself
from the book to his own face. When he looked again at
the cover, he noticed the author was a woman and
wondered if she were married. She should have written
"Mrs. So-and-So," then the book would have obviously
been the voice of experience. At this thought his
smile broadened. Raising his head, he suddenly noticed
Miss Chang's gaze on him and hastily replaced the book
and wiped the smile from his face.
"For Example" asked Miss Chang to play the piano, and
they all echoed the request in unison. When Miss Chang
had finished playing, in order to rectify the
misunderstanding which had caused his smile,
Hung-chien was first to say "Wonderful," and called
for an encore. He stayed for a while longer, then said
goodbye. Halfway home in the rickshaw, he remembered
the title of the book and burst out laughing. Husbands
are women's careers. Not having a husband is like
being unemployed, so she has to hold tightly to her
"rice bowl."32 Well, 1 don't happen to want any woman
to take me as her "rice bowl" after reading that book.
I'd rather have them scorn me and call me a "rice
bucket."x3 Miss Wo-Ni-Ta, we just weren't meant to
"raise the bowl to the eyebrows."34 I hope some other
lucky guy falls in love with you. At this thought
Hung-chien stamped his foot and laughed loudly.
Pretending the moon in the sky was Miss Chang, he
waved goodbye to her. Suspecting he was drunk, the
rickshaw puller turned his head and asked him to keep
still, for it was hard to pull the rickshaw.
After all the guests had left, Mrs. Chang said, "That
Fang fellow isn't suitable. He's too small-minded and
values money too highly. He showed his true colors the
moment I tested him. He acted as if he were afraid we
weren't going to pay him off. Isn't that funny?"
Mr. Chang said, "German goods don't measure up to
American ones. Some doctor! He's supposed to have
studied in England, but he didn't even understand a
lot of the English I spoke. After the first World War,
Germany fell behind. All the latest designs of cars,
airplanes, typewriters, and cameras are American made.
I don't care for returned students from Europe."
"Nita, what do you think of that Fang fellow?" asked
Mrs. Chang.
Miss Chang, who could not forgive Fang Hung-chien for
his smile while reading the book, replied simply,
"He's obnoxious! Did you see the way he ate? Does he
look like someone who's ever been abroad! When he
drank his soup, he dipped his bread in it! And when he
ate the roast chicken, instead of using a fork and
knife, he picked a leg up with his fingers! I saw it
all with my own eyes. Huh! What kind of manners is
that? If Miss Prym, our eti quette teacher, ever saw
that, she'd certainly call him a piggy-wiggy!"
When the affair of marriage with the Changs came to
naught, Mrs. Chou was greatly disappointed. But when
Fang Hung-chien was young he was brought up on the
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Tale of the
Marshes, Monkey,35 and other such children's
literature that were not in line with basic
educational principles for children. He was born too
soon to have had the good fortune to take up such fine
books as Snow White and Pinocchio. He remembered the
famous saying from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms,
"A wife is like a suit of clothes," and of course
clothes also meant the same as wife. He now had
himself a new fur coat. The loss of a wife or two
wasn't about to worry him.
46
47
S
PERHAPS BECAUSE so many people had died in the war,
the unspent life energy of all those who had died in
vain merged into the vital force of spring. The
weather that spring was especially beautiful. Stirred
by the invigorating spring, men, like infants cutting
their teeth, somehow itched painfully from the budding
of new life. A boomtown, Shanghai had no scenic spots
in which spring might rest its feet. In the parks and
lawns the grass and trees were like the wild beasts
confined in iron cages at the zoo-restricted and
lonely; there simply was no place for spring to
release its full splendor. Lodged only in the minds
and bodies of men, spring brought an upsurge of
illnesses and infections, adulteries, drunken
brawlings, and pregnancies. Since the wartime
population needed replenish ment, pregnancies were a
good sign. But according to Mrs. Chou, children born
in that year were really the souls of all those who
had died prematurely in the war hurrying to be reborn
so that they could live out the allotted years of
their lives. Consequently, she believed, they wouldn't
live long.
For the last few days, Fang Hung-chien had been drowsy
during the day but wide awake at night. When he woke
up at dawn and heard the birds chirping in the trees
outside his window, for no reason at all he felt
happy, full of inexplicable expectations. Also his
heart seemed to have become lighter, giddy, floating,
but it was an empty joy. Like the balloon released by
a child, it would rise no more than a few feet and
then burst into nothing, leaving only an indefinable
sense of loss and disappointment. He was restless and
eager for action and yet lethargic. He was like willow
catkins floating about in the spring breeze, too light
and too powerless to fly far. He felt this indecisive
and confused state of mind was exactly like the mood
evoked in the spring time poetry1 describing the
longings of maidens secluded in their chambers.
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