Chapter 1 Initial collision
Midnight. Two college girls went out of their dormitory. Da Hui said that she felt cold. Yi Min touched her forehead gently, then said: you have a high fever, you'd better return to rest in bed.
After Da Hui was persuaded to go back to the dorm, Yi Min continued her walk to the playground alone. The boy's dorm was just beside the playground. Yi Min saw a person's silhouette over there. “Hello! Shi Quan. Da Hui has been sick all day long, she still has a high fever by now. I asked her to stay in the room.” She went to Shi Quan and explained to him in a low voice.
The College organized students’ patrol, 2 girls and 1 boy from one class formed one shift. Da Hui was ill, which gave Shi Quan and Yi Min 2 hours to get along with each other.
That was on June 23, 1961, exactly on the 11th day of the 5th month of the lunar calendar. The dim light in the night of the early summer was really beautiful, the moon has not filled a full circle yet. Altair* and Vega* separated by the Milky Way in the sky were crystal clear, looking at each other with tenderness and love. It was quiet all around the Mountain Si Min*, the intermittent gentle breeze came from the bamboo forest sent the delicate fragrance and the coll of the mountain and champaign. The mountains and villages rested, the school behind them felt asleep, the entire world just left them in this exhilarating but frightening dim light of the night.
*(Altair & Vega are star-crossed couple, their story is well-known in China. In Chinese traditional fairy tales, Altair was a peasant, he married Vega who was a daughter of the Jade Emperor came from the sky. Their love between mortal and immortal was not tolerant by the Queen Mother of the West – wife of the Jade Emperor, she pulled out her hairpin, thus forming the Milky Way between Altair and Vega. Vega must sit forever on one side of the river, sadly weaving on her loom, while Altairt watches her from afar and takes care of their two children (his flanking stars β and γ Aquilae or by their Chinese names Hè Gu 1 and Hè Gu 3). But once a year all the magpies in the world would take pity on them and fly up into heaven to form a bridge (鵲橋, "the bridge of magpies", Que Qiao) over the star Deneb in the Cygnus constellation so the lovers may be together for a single night, which is the seventh night of the seventh lunar month, the Qixi festival in China, also known as Magpie festival, it's also called Chinese Valentine's Day.)
A brook murmured down by the fence, the bright moon lighted the campus quietly. In the north part of campus, there was the playground full of hubbubs every morning and evening, at that moment nobody was there, only six pairs of basketball stands stood silently on the basketball court in the middle of the track. Shi Quan and Yi Min, who usually had no chance to take a walk together shoulder to shoulder, now, finally, they could walk together legitimately. They crossed the small drill ground where they did morning exercises* shoulder to shoulder, then walked along the trail downward and entered the big playground's track. They walked toward the east first, then turned westward after the curve and continued toward the northwest corner of the playground, where was the farthest from the students' dormitories. They did not talk for a long time, but they both knew very well that, this was the richest life moment. They had been classmates for one year, during this year they mutually attracted in the crowd. They transmitted their mutual admiration frequently by their looks and expressions, especially during evening free studies. A gasoline burner hung from the center of the ceiling of each classroom, the students put the desks in two big circles, Shi Quan and Yi Min sat beside each other. Their elbows and toes touched and bumped inevitably in the crowded classroom, sometimes accidentally, sometimes intentionally. This kind of happiness was understood only by themselves, which was impossible to be expressed by language in a crowd.
*(In China, every school organized this kind of morning physical exercise obligately.)
Now the crowd melted away, they were alone, they felt that the entire world was belong to them. Everything: the moon and the stars in the sky; that Chinese white poplars beside the playground; even the breeze gently brushed their cheeks; were appreciating them, were listening to their conversation.
The girl and the boy, who usually longed to speak to each other but could not find the chance, finally had the chance but became mutes, not knowing what to say.
When turning toward the west, they both turned their heads to look left as if by a prior agreement. There was a broad cobbled road between the dormitories, they saw nobody there. The glass windows of boys' dorms beside the playground, all opened, as two rows of large ears, listening to them. Shi Quan slowed down and felt behind Yi Min several meters. He had an anxiety which he never experienced before, because he had never taken a walk with a girl in such a silent dim moonlight at night. He looked at the view of her back: in the moonlight, she was in a white short-sleeve shirt, with a pair of french gray pants and white sneakers, fingers entwined in front of her chest. Shi Quan discovered astonishingly: at this moment, Yi Min looked like a beautiful, slim, graceful but discomposed sika, trying her first hoof on the prairie in the moonlight. Her slim but matured figure in the moonlight was more charming than in the classroom.
Finally, Shi Quan broke the silence by sighing: “I never thought that we could have a chance to spend such a pleasant evening.”
“How dare you say that!” Yi Min sounded a little bit angry, which prevented him from continuing. While both of them felt their own violent heartbeats, also a kind of unknown heatwave run over their bodies and warmed them up.
Shi Quan pleaded at once: “I didn't mean to, believe me. I meant that my life in the normal school might end soon, this year of college life was precious to me, because I went out of the mountain village, I saw the world outside my village, I recognized such good classmates of class 634, also I have made many friends such as you, De Min, Wen Tong and Da Hui. Next semester, probably life is getting more difficult, I shall not afford to continue my education. Now I could pass such a nice night alone with you, I really appreciate it.”
“You're going to suspend schooling? Why?” She became anxious.
“Not decided yet, it depends on if I can make enough money to afford the books and my living expenses in the summer vacation. During this term, De Min and Wen Tong used to catch small fish in the stream for me, and picked the grains of wheat left in the farmland, then cleaned and steamed them in the cafeteria for me to eat. I couldn't continue living like that.”
“Where are you going to make money in the summer? Can you?” Yi Min asked.
Shi Quan answered her truthfully:“There were much rain this year, water in the lace Si Min* raised quickly. Last Sunday I have gone to a new village on the east side of the lake, where many of the old houses were going to be removed, the tiles which the villagers just unroofed were flooded immediately, before they could have them transported. Now their new houses are all lack of tiles. The other materials like house beams made of wood were floating on the surface of water, which they can tie and pull to the bank, but these tiles were deep under the water, so they need a good skin diver to fish them out. Nowadays, no one has money, only those peasants in the reservoir areas do, because government paid them a considerable sum of compensation for their removal. I am good at diving and I'm able to get those tiles from the bottom of the lake. They'll pay me half cent per tile in cash. It's a good chance, I must take it. It happens that I can earn my next year's grain ration in this summer, to subsidize the insufficiency at present. I have already rented a boat, now all I am waiting for is the vacation.”
“Isn't it too dangerous?” She worried for him.
“Could a young guy like me make any money in a safe place?” His reply was a rhetorical question as well as a reason, an answer to her question.
“You'd better not go since you know the dangers.” Yi Min could not help to dissuade him.
“I have no choice but go for it. Otherwise, I won't even have a chance to study next semester.”
“Can I go with you to help?”
“Are you kidding? You wouldn't be able to endure that.”
“You have no confidence on me?”
“no, not because of that but, those are all heavy manual labor, you couldn't help. Furthermore, the others will gossip about it, and your mother is going to worry about you.”
“Nobody will know me! in vacation we won't meet any familiars.” He could see the courage in her face: “Mom is easy to convince, she is warm-hearted. For sure she'll agree if I tell her to help a schoolmate's education. Maybe she'll also come with me to have a look.”
“oh, really?”
“Of course! My mother had a hard time in her childhood, too.” She answered affirmatively.
Still, he shook his head:“thanks but...”
“but what?”
“I really do not want to get you involved into the trouble," his voice was getting lower and lower: “to let you suffer hardships. The summer sun will make you sunburned; clusters of mosquito fly in rural area; moreover, where do you live in the village?"
“Discuss with a girl there, maybe I can stay there with her? Could you help me on it?”
Shi Quan didn't answer right away, he didn't neither believe all these were true, nor did he hope so. He used to look for a job and work with his father during each previous vacation. This summer Yi Min intended to help him, but how could he accept?
“One school year has passed, what about continuing to finish the rest 2 years? All classmates came from different regions, were gathered together to study, after one year we were familiar with each other as sisters and brothers. If there's anyone was unable to go to school, all the others might feel bad. I hope that all classmates can graduate, especially you. It is said that you're the poorest one among all those classmates, how come? Why the situation of the other schoolmates from countryside was not as difficult as yours?” Yi Min changed the topic.
“I used to be taken care of by my father. But he passed away. I couldn't recall exactly that how many nights I couldn't get into sleep after his death, I was unable to get rid of the loneliness and helpless, I felt as though I was abandoned by the whole world.” Shi Quan bowed his head.
“How come your father passed away in a sudden?”
“In order to give me enough rice to eat, he exchanged all his rice coupons of communal kitchen* into rice, then he sent the rice to our college to me. Finally he was dead of starving himself! I was so careless! Afterwards, I heard from other villagers that, he was a big eater but had too little food, in his later days he became dropsy all over the body because of hunger! He was so hungry that he ate anything he could find. When weeding the fields, they saw him eating a raw river snail on the spot; and mussel caught when he cleaned his body after work in the river.” Shi Quan was too upset to continue.
*(Communal kitchen: The people's commune in the People's Republic of China, were formerly the highest of three administrative levels in rural areas during the period of 1958 to 1982-85 until they were replaced by townships. Communes, the largest collective units, were divided in turn into production brigades and production teams. The communes had governmental, political, and economic functions. In the commune, everything was shared. Private kitchens became redundant, and everything in the private kitchen, such as tables, chairs, cooking utensils and pans were all contributed to the communal kitchen. Private cooking was banned and replaced by communal dining. Everything originally owned by the households, private animals, stored grains and other food items were also contributed to the commune. They were put to different uses as assigned by the commune. All farming activities were to be centrally assigned by cadres every morning. Even money was outlawed in some places. Furthermore, family life was abolished; communal nurseries and homes for the elderly were established, and people were not allowed to eat with their families.)
After a long silence, he said disjointedly: “Since my childhood, I thought that my father would never die. He was a renowned stonemason in the mountain villages, who was a man as solidly built as a stone. Do stones on the mountain die? No, they stand there in complete silence for ten million years. It never crossed my mind that one day my father would die, but he did! Only after he died, I could understand that, he has passed his own life to me, his son!”
Yi Min figured out that he was suppressing gigantic sorrow: “Sorry for making you grieved!”
Talking about his father, Shi Quan felt sorrowful but proud of him. After a while, he opened his chatterbox:
“My father was a Manchu, he was a teenager when Japanese devil invaded in Northeast of China. The whole family was bombed to death, only him was survived from the explosion. He fled alone from calamity to the south, at the same time making a living on his mason workmanship. He continued and continued to the south, till Wuhu city in An'hui province. Right at the end of that year, Nanjing fell into enemy's hands, sandbag walls were built all over the Wuhu city. One midnight, he crossed the Yangtze River on a canoe to the north shore of the river. At the dawn, right at the moment when he landed, he saw nine airplanes in the sky, three of them in a form of a small triangle, three small triangles formed a big triangle. They flew along the Yangtze River to the west, as a dagger stabbing into the heart of China. They arrived above Wuhu city, they circled, dived and bombed. Thereupon the city became a sea of flame, immediately. Lying on the dike, he saw with his own eyes that thousands of citizens rushed to the Yangtze River, struggling in the conflagration and the water, desperately. My father dared not to go toward east, nor north or south, therefore he walked to west along the dike. He fled hither and yon for several years, begged and worked for food, crossed half of China, then arrived at Heart Stone Gully. He settled down in this village, he even built a thatched hut and got married.”
“My mother passed away when I was a baby, I don't remember her at all. There wasn't any intellectual in Heart Stone Gully, I can be one, thanks to my dad's workmanship. Before the liberation, a gentleman Mr. Zhang Qing Yu, nickname “Rich Quickly”, donated and built a “Zhang Village Elementary School” in his home village after he made lots of money in Shanghai. All those children whose family name was Zhang, had the right to study there free of charge. Because my father was a mason during the school construction, I became one of the students there.
“After the liberation, every child could go to school. I registered for our normal school after my junior middle school, because there is no tuition fees for normal school students, on the contrarily, we can have little subsidiary.”
“The 1st president of Zhang Village Elementary School, Mme Chen Bo Yi, was a versatile female university graduate. I remembered very well, she came in spring. She sent us to chop willow twigs for planting, just after a few days of her arrival. That time I was a little boy, and I dropped my hatchet unwarily into the river. Three boys of my group took off the clothes, dived to get it out from the river in turn. One dived, the other came out to sun bathe. That was early April, around Tomb Sweeping solar periods*(5th of 24 solar periods in one year), the river water was bone-piercing, we three little chaps were shivering with cold. Mme Chan was afraid and she felt sorry for us, she taught us not to take such kind of risks anymore. Therefore she always invite us to play in her suite.”
“Wasn't it the confidence trick as Huang Gai* had played?” Yi Min bantered him.
*(Huang Gai was a military general for the Kingdom of Wu during the Three Kingdoms era of China. He was renowned as a hardened combat veteran who loyally served three Sun Family lords throughout his lifetime.
The famous ruse of self-injury to win confidence was played by Huang Gai and Zhou Yu before the battle of red cliffs in 208. Huang Gai proposed a plan to Zhou Yu, in which he pretended to surrender to Cao Cao. To win Cao Cao's confidence, Zhou Yu beat Huang Gai violently. Huang Gai pretended to be angry and sent word to Cao Cao claiming that he wished to defect. At the beginning of the battle, Cao Cao trusted Huang and let him infiltrated to Cao Cao's ships, when Huang set his own ship on fire before jumping into the Yangtze River. Many of Cao Cao's ships were destroyed and Cao Cao was forced to flee back to his base.)
“Huang Gai did deliberately, but we did naturally. Can a kid be so scheming?” Shi Quan explained.
“Then?”
“President Chen had a lot of books, she taught us Chinese, music, as well as arts. She widened our knowledge. That time, she also taught us English. I started to learn English from then on. She gave me a dictionary and many books on my graduate day of elementary school, 2 among which were original works in English.
“I heard that you were translating them in Chinese?”
“Yes, I do it as an exercise, it can not be called a real translation.”
“What books?”
“One was written by a British missionary, Arthur Evan Moule in April, 1891, entitled “New China and Old”.”
“What is it about?”
“The author described his personal recollections and observations of 30 years, began from 1862, in Ningbo, Yuyao areas in China. It attracted me a lot.”
“Did it? Could you tell me more?”
“I just started the translation, it is too long for me to finish because of lack of time and energy. Let me recite a short story to you.”
“As you wish.”
“It's an interesting story in another book entitled “Short Story International”.”
*Here the story was written originally in English, Shi Quan translated into Chinese and recite to Yi Min.
“What's it about?”
“The title is ”Lifting the Veil”.”
“Can you recite it?”
“I'll try.”
Hence, Shi Quan started the recitation:
Lifting the Veil
BY DAVID LAMBOURNE
It was late afternoon when the chairman of our Bangkok based company gave me a last minute assignment: I would leave the next day to accompany an important Chinese businessman to tourist sites in northern Thailand.
Silently fuming, I stared at my cluttered desk. The stacks of paper testified to a huge backlog of work, even though I had been putting in seven-day weeks. How will I ever get caught up? I wondered.
Early the next morning I met a polite and elegant man wearing fine clothes. After a one-hour flight, we spent the day visiting attractions along with hundreds of other tourists, most of them overloaded with cameras and souvenirs. I remember feeling disdain for this collection of ogling humanity.
That evening my Chinese companion and I climbed into a minibus to go to dinner and a show, one which I had attended many times before. While he chatted with other tourists, I exchanged polite conversation in the darkness with a man seated in front of me, a Belgian who spoke fluent English. I wondered why he held his head motionless at an odd angle, as though he were in meditation. The truth struck me when I saw the pale-colored cane beside him. He was blind.
The man told me he had lost his sight in an accident when he was a teen-ager. But this did not prevent him from traveling alone. Now in his late 60s, he had mastered the skill of sightless tourism, using his remaining four senses to create pictures in his mind.
Turning to face me, he slowly extended a hand which, like a soft animal, explored the contours of my face. Behind me someone switched on a light, and I could see his luxuriant silvery hair and strong, craggy face. His eyes lay misted and deep in their sockets. “Could I please sit beside you at the dinner?” he asked. “And I’d love it if you’d describe a little of what you see.”
“I'd be happy to .” I replied.
My guest walked ahead toward the restaurant with new-found friends. The blind man and I followed, caught up in a long string of tourists. My hand cupped his elbow to steer him, but he stepped forward unfalteringly, his shoulders squared, his head high, as though he were guiding me.
We found a table close to the stage. As we waited for our drinks, the blind man said, “The music seems out of tune to our Western ears, but it has charm. Please describe the musicians.”
I hadn’t noticed the five men performing at the side of the stage as a prelude to the show. They’re seated cross-legged, dressed in loose white cotton shirts and baggy black trousers with bright-red sashes. Three are young, one middle-aged and one elderly. One beats a small drum, another plucks a wooden stringed instrument ,and the other three have smaller, cello-like pieces they play with a bow.”
He smiled. “And these small instruments are made of …?”
I looked again. “Wood…but the spherical sound box is fashioned out of a whole coconut shell,” I said, suppressing my surprise.
As the lights dimmed, the blind man asked, “what do our fellow tourists look like?”
“All nationalities, colors, shapes and sizes,” I whispered. “Very few are neatly or tastefully dressed.”
As I lowered my voice further and spoke close to his ear, the blind man leaned his head eagerly toward me . I had never before been listened to with such rapt intensity.
“Very close to us is an elderly Japanese woman, whose profile is partially lit from the stage,” I said. “Just beyond her a blond Scandinavian boy about five, with a cute turned-up nose, is leaning forward, creating a second illuminated profile just below hers. They’re motionless, waiting for the performance to start. It’s the perfect lining portrait of childhood and old age, of Europe and Asia.”
“Yes, yes, I see them,” the blind man said quietly, smiling.
A curtain at the back of the stage opened. Six girls in their early teen appeared, and I described their sarong-like silk skirts, white blouses with shoulder sashes, and gold-colored head-dresses like small crowns, with flexible points that moved in rhythm with the dance. “on their fingertips are golden fingernails perhaps four inches long,” I told the blind man. “The nails accentuate each elegant movement of their hands. It’s a delightful effect.”
He smiled and nodded. “How wonderful- I would love to touch one of those fingernails.”
When the first performance ended, I excused myself and went to talk to the theater manager. Upon returning, I told my companion, “You’ve been invited backstage.”
A few minutes later he was standing next to one of the dancers, her little crowned head hardly reaching his chest. She timidly extended both hands toward him, the metal fingernails glinting in the overhead light. His hands, four times as large, reached out slowly and clasped them as though they were cradling two tiny exotic birds. As he felt the smooth, curving sharpness of the metal tips, the girl stood quite still, gazing up into his face with an expression of awe. A jump formed in my throat.
As the evening progressed, the more I observed and was rewarded with excited nods of the head, the more I discovered: colors, patterns and designs of local costumes; the texture of skin under soft lights; the movement of long, black Asian hair as elegant heads angled to the music; the intense expressions of the musicians as they played; even the flashing white smile of our waitress in the half-darkness.
Back at the hotel lobby, with my Chinese guest still in the company of others, the blind man extended a large hand, which gripped mine warmly. It remained there for a moment, then traveled to my elbow and shoulder. Heads turned in surprise as the cane fell with a clatter to the marble floor. He made no attempt to retrieve it, but instead pulled me toward him and hugged me tightly. “How beautifully you saw everything for me,” he whispered. “I can never thank you enough.”
Later the realization struck me. I should have thanked him. I was the one who had been blind. He had helped me lift the veil that grows so quickly over our eyes in this hectic world, and to see all those things I’d failed to marvel at before.
About a week after our trip, the chairman summoned me to his office and told me he had received a call from the Chinese executive, who expressed great satisfaction with the trip. “Well done,” the chairman said, smiling. “I knew you could do the magic.”
I was not able to tell him that the magic had been done to me.
“Very instructive! Could you show me your translation when you have spare time? I can't imagine that you did your translation in suffering so much pains and hardships!”
“That's only read comprehension, I wrote down what I'd understood. There are implications, argots and puns in English too, just as in Chinese. Those are more difficult, sometimes I had to conjecture. Whether they conformed to the author's original idea, I'm not sure. For me, it's only an exercise, or kinda self-admiration more than a real translation. I like to do this sort of thankless tasks, of which I think has something to do with music. Poetry and music are all belongs to those arduous but fruitless things, their only advantage is to heal the sorrows. When you are absorbed in them, you ignore the reality. De Min is a good example, he lost his father long time ago.
“Perhaps.” Yi Min answered absent-minded, she was wondering about Shi Quan's grain ration:”How many rice can you have each month?”
“I can have 9 kilo per month this year, the rumor says that from next year on, I can only have 3.5 kg, furthermore, I must carry the rice from my far-away communal kitchen to college. Therefore, I don't think I can come to school next semester. I do envy you urban residents, never till the land, but never be hard up(suffer the famine). Different individuals are incomparable, if we compare, we'll be filled with angers because of unfairness!”
“The peasants grow crops themselves, why they get less rice? It was said there was natural calamity, but we urban residents don't know too much about it. What kind of disaster caused such a national famine?” Yi Min said a bit indignantly.
Shi Quan waffled, showed his hesitation.
The more he acted like that, the more he aroused Yi Min's curiousness:”What are you hiding? Is there any story you can't tell me?”
“Yes!” Shi Quan affirmed.
“Why not?”
“......”
“Because you don't trust me?”
“No,”
“Then what's that for?”
“I'm afraid that what I thought and said was wrong!”
“Now only two of us are here, so, even what you thought was wrong, you still can discuss it with me, so I can think of it, too. Believe me, I won't say to anyone else. We can pull a hook*!” She extended her right hand to him.
*(Pull a hook: Chinese: La Gou, it's a gesture of promise, especially between kids or lovers. 2 persons hook their little fingers, turn the thumb and stick their thumbs together, to make a promise and keep it forever.)
First time, a girl and a boy, curved their little fingers and pulled a hook gently, under the curtain of night.
Shi Quan's mind was full of those strange stories happened in the countryside, what he could tell nobody before, that night he aired the grievance as a rural resident (peasant) to Yi Min.
“There was serious natural calamity, indeed. In 1956 in Zhejiang province, as I knew, un unprecedented typhoon destroyed most of the houses in the countryside, those thatched cottage like ours were even eradicated, several stone memorials, which stood for centuries in the town, were also blew into broken and topped down by the gale, which indicated that such a violent typhoon did not occur for hundreds of years. Along with the typhoon, there were floods, too. Our agricultural production was greatly affected. In 1959, we faced another crop failures: in summer harvest season, it rained continuously in two months, which made us not able to harvest the early rice, finally it rot in the fields. Some of the wet rice were collected by the peasants in the rain and stored in the warehouse, couldn't be dried without the sunshine. At the end, some of it mildewed, the others sprouted. Then the members of the People's Commune built a big stove with flagstones, tried to dry the rice on the flagstone over the fire, day and night. Although it was a good idea, but the capacity was limited, it could only dry a small part. Moreover, the quality of rice dried by fire couldn't meet the requirement, because some of it was well-cooked, the rest half-cooked, became yellow rice. If burned too long, the flagstones burst, too. In this case, grains fell into the fire, half of them became puffed rice, the others were burn into black charcoal. We suffered heavy losses, of course the scarcity of food happened!”
“You have gone through all these?”
“Yes, we students in vacation were on duty too, replenishing the straws at night in front of the big stove.”
Shi Quan continued:”However, besides the nature disasters, the Great Chinese Famine was also resulted by artificial factors. Among which there was a most absurd example named “50 thousands kg productivity per-acre”. I don't know which “extremely intelligent” leader* once had a dream, in his dream, the paddy field was able to yield 50,000 kg grains per acre. We peasants were ordered to achieve this target in his dream. How?
1st of all, deep plowing. The field was dug up to 2 feet, excavated the immature soil underneath and filled with loamy soil transported from other fields.
2Nd, concentrating manure. Besides collecting all organic manure in the whole village, the members of the People's Commune were required to catch toads everywhere in the evening. The toads caught were put put in a big iron pot, boiled thoroughly and were applied as animal manure in those particular “50 thousands kg acre” fields.
3Rd, close planting. The rice seedlings were transplanted one adjoining another and can not be denser, there were no interval between them. Thus the rice seedlings were insufficient for planting, then we were ordered to took the plants from other ordinary paddy fields, by separating each root of seedling into 2 parts equally, and planted half in those particular “50 thousands kg acre”.
4th, The sunlight. Every villager was told to brought his own mirror to the border of the paddy, to reflect the sunlight back to the middle of the field.
5Th, Be well aired. All the grain blowers* in the village were moved to the ridges between fields, each blower equipped several young guys to run it. During the daytime, they rotated the handle to blow the air to the paddy continuously, even at night, they were set on duty in turn.”
*(An old wooden machine, if put the grains inside, rotate the handle, it separate the empty or bad grains from good ones by blowing.)
The outcome was evident. At the beginning, thanks to plenty of fertilizer, the seedlings grew well. However, several days later, they became yellow, started to wilt and turned into piles of straws in the field.
Besides above, there were more ridiculous examples like the tractor road. Long before seeing a contour of tractors, the broad roads were built among the paddy fields. We didn't even have plenty of fields formerly, those useless track roads, the failed “50 thousands kg acre” fields ruined our limited fields, how could we be feed after all these?
The most farcical practice was called “Eat to full for free”, that was indeed kinda puff ourselves up to our own cost, which had a whitewashed slogan: “Step into communism in advance”. After the summer harvest and sowing in 1959, Heart Stone Gully located in the north feet of the mountains Si Ming, as the entire rural China, suddenly became “better-off”*. Nobody cared about how much grain we had in the barn, the communal kitchen supplied everyone to full, Three meals a day and they were served when eight people gathered together around a table. Bounds were set to dishes but not to the rice.
This policy saved villagers from worries. As soldiers, male and female members of commune began and terminated their work by the signals of a bugle, They didn't need to cook for themselves.
Actually, their kitchen ranges were already destroyed; their chimneys were pushed over; their pots and cauldrons were donated as “scrap iron” to the backyard steel furnaces*, the grains cropped were all stored in the communal barn**. Without rice, firewood, stove and pot in their own kitchen, who could cook?
*(Backyard Steel Furnaces: during the Great Leap Forward campaign (1958-1961) which aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform China from a primarily agrarian economy by peasants farmers into a modern communist society through the process of agriculturalization and industrialization, as a consequence, those rural backyard steel furnaces were encouraged to established in every commune. Huge effort of peasants was made to produce steel and iron from those “scrap” metal.)
**(refer to Communal Kitchen in page 11)
Food? Don't worry, several “50000 kg grains acre” were innovated in Heart Stone Gully that summer, which were predicted to yield several hundred thousands kg in the autumn. Till then, grains would be so abundant that the warehouse would be too small to store them. Too feed hundreds of people, would be a piece of cake!
In fact the peasants had an idea of the grains left in the communal barn, they also knew clearly how long this “eat to full” folly could last. They dared not to say it out but kept doubts in mind*, the hopeless future dampened their enthusiasm of working, most of them were present at the spot pretending working. Like in the summer harvest and sowing season, each night the red lanterns were hung everywhere in the fields, as if everybody was busy working even at night. But in fact, most of the peasants were sleeping on straws, those awake were pedaling the empty thresher in turn, deceiving the communal cadre by the sound. Hence the early rice in the field were not collected and late rice seedlings were not transplanted. For how many days can this “communism” last? This “eat till full for free” policy was implemented only around 2 months or so, the grain stored in communal granary was sure enough eaten up, communal kitchen had no more rice to cook. The countrywide Great Famine broke out, which explained that our case in Heart Stone Gully was not a special one!”
*(They dared not to say because they were forced to experienced many various propaganda campaigns and they were afraid to be criticized, be struggled and isolated as those people they saw before.)
“I see! As a matter of fact, that's the case!” Yi Min know nothing about the countryside life before, she was like just waking from a dream:”how to resolve the situation?”
“How is a peasant able to know?” Shi Quan answered.
Either of them were able to find the solution. They could only walked forward silently to carry out their current main task – patrol in the school, in keeping a certain distance between them.
Their Normal School was built on a geomantic (feng shui) and treasured site. To the north of it, there was a wide brook, though which the water from Si Ming Mountains flew into Si Ming Lake. To the northeast of the school, there was another stream met the brook at the northwest corner of the school, the personnel and students all lived in the bosom of these two rivers who surrounded their school.
Indeed, The aura of a place always come from and carry by the water. Two brooks met here, even brought a music-like rhyme to the school. They also kept the peddle roads clean without dusts and moistened the trees and grasses to be emerald.
In the summer evening, students could go out from the east gate to the bank of streams. Over the stream, there was a bridge called “East Gate Bridge” by students. To the south of the bridge, there stood an ancient nature-bestowed camphor tree, it had been an excellent oil-painting model of students as well of teachers, because of its curved thick tranches and its straight tall and vital trunk. Many large oil paintings hung in the school studio displayed its varied and graceful postures from different angles under kinds of water shadings with divers lightings in all seasons.
The stream left behind it a crescent deep pool at each of its turning points. The depth of those pools varied, while each one was limpid to the bottom, which visualized the fish swimming in it. At the pool, lots of students usually sat there watching the fish after school. Now and then, a pebble was thrown into the water and scared the swarm of fish away to the underneath of the rocks. While only several seconds after, those bold ones observed the situation with their heads appeared behind the rock, so long as they did not detect any more danger, they recommenced to play in the water care freely.
Along each side of the stream, there were wide pebbled beaches. Merely in the rainy season as spring and summer, the stream would widen to the border of the beaches. Thus they were much more longer dry than submerged. The beaches were bushy and weedy, on the top of some bushes hung some hays, who indicated the highest water level of the latest mountain torrent.
The water's elegance is not only for appreciation but also for enjoying in. Most boys born in the south (of Yangtze River) knew swimming. After sunset, they used to swimming with their underpants in a deep pool far from the bridge and the road. While girl students could do nothing but standing on the bridge, looking away from them casually, in their monotone but neat dress.
Only in the real dog days, the school would allow students to go swimming in Si Ming Lake which is far away from school, in turn of the grade. Under the lake there had been a broad road and terraced fields on its both sides, now the road and field were under the water. The fields became a flat swimming pool and the road became the boundary to separate male and female swimmers. But the boundary was much more wider than the original road, nobody dared to cross even to be close to it, which include not only their bodies but also their sights.
The large school was wholly fenced by weaved bamboo. In the south of it, there was a green lawn near the south gate entrance, with a cobbled path laced by green boxwood in its middle. Comparing with the vigorous and boorish landscape of Si Ming Mountain nearby, this elegant, pretty and noble place was just as a wrought bonsai, burst out its artificial meticulosity. Towards the middle of the school, after a row of single-story house, a carpet of flowers appeared on both sides of the cobbled path. Rose, geranium, cockscomb, mimosa...Green, red, yellow, purple, scattered and organized naturally and harmoniously. Especially the two trellis at the entrance of teacher's office, they were thickly covered by olive-green leaves of wisteria. Many new buds extended above the leaves probing new spaces for their new life.
More inside was the core of the school – south-facing two-stairs education building. A classroom outstood to the south, at both ends of its east and west wings, which concaved the whole building if looking down from the sky. It's shape made it so stable that, the new students who saw it at the first sight, all felt that it had struck roots deep into the earth. An aisle facing to the entrance went thought the building. A girdle of green tall trees round the building, the main avenue were divided into two roads just in front of the building, one to east the other to west. They went around the building and continued to north till the playground. On both sides of east road, there were the teachers' office, one chemical lab, one physical lab, a big copper bell, the school handy men's dorm, the school clinic and students' dorms. One music classroom, one piano room, the teachers' dorms, dining room (it's also the auditorium) , the big well and kitchen were arranged along the west road. The entire school was hidden under thick woods, it was extraordinarily peaceful, at the same time it was full of vitality.
The dining room, music classroom, the piano room, the students' dorms, the education building, all these were so lively at the daytime, at this moment they were quietly immersed in the dim light of night. The woods were silent, too; even birdies were sleeping soundly, the entire school was extremely quiet as a dreamland.
Yi Min and Shi Quan were strolling in this dreamland. Each one walked along one border of the road, dared not to approach the other one, as if afraid being attracted together by a magnetic force in case that they walked a little bit closer. Once in a while, Yi Min picked a leaf down, tore it into pieces carelessly. Then picked another one, shredded again.
The liked the silent night, they also liked rambling in the dreamland slowly. Even if the time congested suddenly at this moment, they had to walk on and on, they would love to.
Even Yi Min herself, she didn't know why she admired this young mason from rural village? Moreover, he was an orphan who had no enough food to feed himself. Perhaps because his sturdy body was full of fervor, maybe because his music and poetry intruded into her dreams frequently. He was a complete riddle who had evoked her unprecedented curiosity.
It is human nature to approach and try to understand the enigmas.
She was too familiar to her contemporaries in their county prefectural yard, and she also knew very well the urban students. They couldn't live without their town, without their families. They were much more childish than same-aged rural kids, contact with them was like playing with younger brothers. The nearer a man was to the city, the market and the money, the deeper he felt into degenerate, stupid and vicious abyss, also the farther he was from the nature, the music and the poetry. They were emaciated, thin and short with sloping shoulders. They couldn't shoulder two small buckets of water.
Now, this boy walking beside her, he carried his subsistence on his own shoulder, he also carried his own poor family. His lovely music and poetry were as his name – mountain rock and spring water – not only rough and natural, but also sincere and simple. His shoulders were thick, had both edges and corners. His face was square with a full forehead, showing the spirit of landscape just after a shower. He is a real man.
She remembered that their first meet was at Yu Yao* bus station, in the morning on the 1st of September, in 1960. At that time he had not caught her attention. But after they arrived at school, they happened to be not only in the same class, but also in the same study group. Thus Yi Min noticed him. She discovered that this boy was as black as a piece of coal just being dug out from a mine, while as solid as a stone statue. Such a boy brought with him an anthology of Heine's poetry. Although his face was so black that distinguished even discorded him from the students, she couldn't help to peek at him. At the same time Yi Min found that he was observing her, too.
*(Yu Yao: A city in Zhe Jiang province in the east of China, near Hang Zhou city, not far from Shanghai.)
There were students teasing him by asking: “what make your face so square? And why your skin is so black?” He replied lightly:”My family had been stonemason for generations. Have you observed stonemasons? Their face are all black and square. Their faced are exposed in the sunshine everyday, and they use heavy hammers to shape the stones all the time. Each thump drew their strength not only from their arms, but also from their eyes and teeth. “ With his fists and teeth tightly clenched, he demonstrated how a stonemason worked in front of the class:”Thus the bones and muscles of their jaws are so well-developed to become square.” His words rocked the whole classroom with laughters. Since then, Yi Min started to pay extra attention to this classmate self-professing as a stonemason, she took his square face not as an ugliness but an attraction, just like his swarthiness. To her, it was kinda natural handsomeness of the manly strength.
He never courted her, while she knew that he loved her. A girl's intuition wouldn't mistaken it. Since they entered the normal school, he was never able to take his eyes off her as long as he had the chance. He never left a spot before her, when she was presented. He was so vigorous all the time, freely displaying his instincts and aptitudes everywhere. Drawing, Suona*, vocal mimicries, swimming, talking cheerfully and humorously...and so on. No one could tell that was a boy came from countryside at all, nor could he be identified as a son of stonemason. Occasionally, he revealed a little bit sadness from his eyes. But that was related to his poverty and helpless, which consisted to his clothes and could not represent his prolific inherence.
*(Suona: a trumpet-like wind instrument)
After patrolling the entire school, they returned to the playground. Till then Shi Quan dared to say:”I really wish that I could study, draw, sing and write poems free of worries, just as you urban students. But, I must make my living first. Much less, I was born as such a big eater.”
“Therefore, I should go to help you in summer vacation! It won't matter that I don't swim, I'll sit on the boat, help you to drag the rope or so. In case that any danger approached, you'll have a helper.”
Yi Min insisted once again to help him in the summer, it was certainly not a hypocritical polite formula.
Shi Quan fell silent. He was feeling weepy. He was moved by her honesty and kindness, he was dissolved by Yi Min's pour love. Words were on the tip of his tongue, but he was unable to say. If he opened his mouth to make a tiny sound, he would burst into tears.
“Let me have a try! Don't look down upon me from the door-crack*. Furthermore, I haven't discussed with my mom yet, I'll only go if she agrees.”
*(Look at a person from the door-crack – take him as crushed flat: It was a truncated witticism in Chinese, which means underestimated the person, or look down upon him.)
“If only she doesn't agree!... If only she does!” Shi Quan's mouth was shut tightly, while his heart was importuning loudly. At last, he nodded his head slowly and lightly.
Though either one courted to the other, two hearts loving each other couldn't be confined. It wasn't their illusion that something new sprouted between them, that was on spout of new relationship which they never had had before with anyone else.
They poured out their hearts thuswise, not daring look the other in the eyes, as if the other one would disappear because of the gaze. The moonlight and the starlights happened to render them an opportunity to express their secretest feelings. The night was so dim, so was their love. Those stars twinkled in the clean sky in early summer, were just like their two hearts beating violently.
The roars of stream water dashed into the bamboo fence recklessly, made a detour around a row of tall poplar, then caught their conversation away with it gently. The limpid transparent sky at night was so immense and boundless, the Milky Way traversed the sky diagonally. The moon moved to the west gradually and the stars became brighter and brighter.
“Several days ago, Mrs. Du solicited contributions for you in our dorms. Girls all donated rice coupons(or grain ration?) . She told us that your father just passed away, and you became the most straitened student in our class.” Said Yi Min.
“Mrs. Du gave me 18kg rice coupons, said that were contributed by all the classmates. She persisted me in taking them, I was awkward but what should I do?” This intimate topic made Shi Quan a little uncomfortable.
They approached each other more and more closer, they spoke more and more softly.
“Time is almost up, let's go to have a look at the clock.” Said Yi Min.
They went to the educational building, a big clock was hung on it. Half an hour had passed, they must hurry up to call next shift of patrol students in relevant dorms, otherwise...
Just then, Yi Min turned to Shi Quan, held his hand in a sudden and put a pack of rice coupons prepared in advance into his palm:”When all the girls donated their rice coupons to you, I dared not to contribute too much. Those (coupons) was prepared for you for several days, today I was happy to have the opportunity to give you, they maybe helpful. Take them, don't decline!”
“I really can't accept anything else! Indeed!” She Quan intended to return them to her, but, Yi Min had withdrawn her hand, could he pull it back?
In the moonlight, he couldn't see the expressions on her face. Actually he wasn't brave enough to look at her. He just could feel her warm-heartedness blowing to his face.
Yi Min's heart was like in combustion, it was brightened, showing an unusual beauty. At the same time, Shi Quan's heart was fried in sugar, it was trembling, fully melting. His strong arms became weak, his flexible tongue could not emit a sound. He did hope that his present poverty wouldn't be replaced by any kind of luxuriousness.
He took out a half-length photo he pre-prepared from his pocket, handed to Yi Min:”I don't know if I can come to school again next term. Please keep this photo of mine as a souvenir.”
Yi Min accepted it quietly, without saying a word. She didn't look at it, either. But she felt that the photo in her hand was too heavy to carry. Both the picture and the touch of their fingertips were kept in her hand.
As if they had a prior arrangement before they met, they both prepared their gifts. At this time they were released because they had handed their gifts to their lover in the dim light of night, as if they had accomplished an earthshaking task, they were so excited as to jump up.
Yi Min waved her hand to Shi Quan, left in a hurry with her head lowered.
It was the richest two hours in Shi Quan's life since he was born. Moreover, it was in a midnight, with a girl whom he admired very much, they got along with each other so intimate and natural, unrestrained. Although they had sat together for one year, one in front the other; although they could look at each other clearly in the bright classroom, without coy or evasive; all their conversation in one year add together was less than these two hours. Furthermore, the understanding between their hearts and the gentle collision of their soul make Shi Quan excited endlessly. He was reluctant to return to his dorm, he only wished the time could slow down, even stop at the moment. Although Yi Min already disappeared at the corner, Shi Quan turned back to the playground of happiness, walking over and over on the trail. He couldn't bear to watching such a happy time becoming a history, a memory, a shadow dissipating gradually.
A stream of spring water was to gush. It accumulated before, that day it was opened.
He knew that the girl for next shift would come soon, while he didn't awaken the boy.
