Part 8 (1/2)
WHITE FLAT MOUNTAIN.
PAULOWNIA TREES BLOOM PURPLE AND WHITE along the lower slopes of White Flat Mountain. The trees' flowers are short-lived-next week they will begin to wither and fade-and the soft yellow of the rapeseed will soon be cut down from the hills. After that, the bright green ricebeds will disappear, moved and dispersed into the waiting muck of the paddies. Spring in Fuling does not arrive so much as it rushes through, a blur of changing colors. along the lower slopes of White Flat Mountain. The trees' flowers are short-lived-next week they will begin to wither and fade-and the soft yellow of the rapeseed will soon be cut down from the hills. After that, the bright green ricebeds will disappear, moved and dispersed into the waiting muck of the paddies. Spring in Fuling does not arrive so much as it rushes through, a blur of changing colors.
Today is April 5, Qing Ming, the Day of Pure Brightness. He Zhonggui and his family are taking the ferry across the Yangtze to White Flat Mountain. They are well dressed: the children in new clothes, the women in high heels, He Zhonggui in a checkered sports coat and a red paisley tie. They stand out from the other pa.s.sengers, most of whom are peasants returning from market with empty rattan baskets and blue pockets full of money.
He Zhonggui's parents were from peasant families on the mountain, and as a child he spent much time there, but now he rarely returns. He is the owner of a Fuling construction company, and there is little building to be done on the steep slopes of White Flat Mountain. But his parents are buried there, and the Day of Pure Brightness is a Chinese holiday of remembrance, of visits to rural graves in places like White Flat Mountain, where stone tombs stare silent and unblinking at the river valley and its breathless spring.
He Zhonggui is accompanied by a clan of fifteen people-aunts and uncles, cousins and nieces and nephews, ranging from old women in their sixties to a baby of fifteen months. The group disembarks on the northern bank and makes its way eastward along the Yangtze's rocky sh.o.r.e. Somewhere in the middle of the clan is Dai Mei, He Zhonggui's fourteen-year-old niece. She is a talker-a bundle of energy in brown corduroy overalls and short bobbed hair, chatting constantly as she bounces from stone to stone.
A few miles downstream, a slender white paG.o.da rises above the horizon, its distant shape shadowy and bright like a mirage in the late-morning mist. ”Do you know why they built those?” Dai Mei asks. ”They believed that a dragon was there, under the earth, and they believed that if they built the paG.o.da he would stay there. But if it ever falls down, the dragon will come out.”
She pauses, looks up the hill, flicks her glossy black hair, and, like fourteen-year-old girls the world over, changes the topic with mind-numbing fluency. ”My grandparents' tombs are up there. Some of the peasants are buried down here on the lower part, but most are up high. They wanted a place with good fengshui fengshui, and they thought it was better higher up. They chose the spots themselves. Often they asked a Daoist priest to help, and the priest told them whether a place had good fengshui fengshui or not. In fact, the priest only cheated them-it's just superst.i.tion. But even today many of the peasants still believe in or not. In fact, the priest only cheated them-it's just superst.i.tion. But even today many of the peasants still believe in fengshui fengshui, just like everybody used to. Our generation, though, doesn't believe in this kind of thing. We know it's jiade jiade, fake-it's only superst.i.tion. We believe in science, and we say things like that are feudal ideas.”
Like many young Chinese, whose instinctive rejection of all things traditional has been more than amply complemented by school lessons, she uses ”feudal” the way an American child would use ”backward.” One of her common refrains is that China is ”too feudal,” and on another occasion she complains vehemently about the older generation: ”People in our China, especially people in their sixties and seventies, are very, very, very feudal! If you want to wear a short skirt, or a blouse that's like this on your shoulders, they'll say it's not proper. My mother isn't feudal-she wears short skirts, too, because she looks very young. But my father is very, very, very feudal! We call people like that Lao Fengjian Lao Fengjian-Old Feudal.”
Today she keeps such ideas to herself. She says that she has no faith in fengshui fengshui or Buddhism, but she shrugs. ”On a day like the Day of Pure Brightness,” she says, ”we'll do things the way our parents and the older people want us to do them. We'll go to our grandparents' tombs and pray and burn incense, and we'll act like we believe in all of it. But in our hearts we don't believe.” or Buddhism, but she shrugs. ”On a day like the Day of Pure Brightness,” she says, ”we'll do things the way our parents and the older people want us to do them. We'll go to our grandparents' tombs and pray and burn incense, and we'll act like we believe in all of it. But in our hearts we don't believe.”
FIREWORKS EXPLODE ON THE SUMMIT, the sound echoing back and forth across the river valley, and the family slowly climbs the slope of White Flat Mountain. They follow narrow switchbacks of rough stone steps; the pace slows; their breath comes in gasps. This is by far the steepest mountain in the Fuling area, and the only one that is actually something more than a hill-even Raise the Flag Mountain, with its staircases of rice paddies and crop terraces, is too gradual to be considered a true mountain.
Most of the south face of White Flat Mountain is too steep for terracing, and pines grow thick along its summit, above a rocky wall that falls away sheer for more than a hundred feet. This limestone cliff is possibly the origin of the mountain's name-although, like so many other names in this part of Sichuan, the truth has been lost in the past. Indeed, many locals say that the name is actually North Flat Mountain. In the local dialect both ”white” and ”north” are p.r.o.nounced the same way-bei-and the confusion is heightened by some Fuling maps using ”North Flat Mountain” while others refer to ”White Flat Mountain.” In a region where literacy has only recently become common, names were spoken long before they were written down, and in the end the spoken word is still all that matters. You p.r.o.nounce it bei bei.
The family climbs to the east of the cliff wall, where the slope is more gradual, and after thirty minutes they come to the home of He Zhonggui's cousin. He is a peasant who lives above the mountain's initial rise, and everybody stops to rest here on the edge of his thres.h.i.+ng platform, in the shade of the farmhouse's tiled eaves. For peasants, the thres.h.i.+ng platform is the center of home life-this is where grain is threshed, spices are dried, vegetables are cut, grandchildren are raised, visitors are served tea. And this particular platform, perched high above the river, has a view whose magnificence quiets today's guests.
Below them is spread all the mountain's layered scenery, with all its textures and colors: the green terraced fields of wheat, split into neat rows; the plots of rapeseed, their buds a wild tangle of yellow glory; the soft-flowered paulownias, rising above gray-roofed houses; the great Yangtze glinting silver in the sun; and, across the river, the hazy paG.o.da s.h.i.+mmering slender and white in the distance. A light breeze brushes the nearby rows of young wheat. The temperature in the shade is perfect.
The peasant and his wife serve tea. The guests chat; the breeze blows. The tea cools. After a polite amount of time has been spent, the clan files out behind the house to the back fields, past a ma.s.sive old tomb.
n.o.body knows the name of the family that is buried here. ”Qing Dynasty,” the locals say, when asked when the tomb was built. But in Fuling this is the standard response to almost any question about old tombs, ancient houses, or other relics whose origins have been lost in the rush of the last century. ”Qing Dynasty,” the people always say knowingly. They realize it's a safe guess-the Qing ruled for nearly three centuries, from 1644 to 1911. Paradise Lost Paradise Lost is Qing Dynasty, and the American Revolution is Qing Dynasty, and the most recent Chicago Cubs World Champions.h.i.+p is Qing Dynasty. When people in Fuling say Qing Dynasty, often what they seem to mean is: It's very old, but not as old as many other things. is Qing Dynasty, and the American Revolution is Qing Dynasty, and the most recent Chicago Cubs World Champions.h.i.+p is Qing Dynasty. When people in Fuling say Qing Dynasty, often what they seem to mean is: It's very old, but not as old as many other things.
They know that this is a landlord's tomb, because it is easily five times the size of the other graves in the area. The tomb is fifteen feet high, set into the side of the mountain, and nine rows of corn have been planted on its earth-covered back. Nearby, a dark stand of bamboo rustles and creaks in the wind. Stone carvings decorate the tomb's face, and several figures have had their heads knocked off-vandalism, perhaps from the Cultural Revolution. And maybe this was also when the family name was removed. But most of the stone face is remarkably intact, and an inscription reads, in part: May the orchids and laurels give sweetness to your heartMay your descendants find successAnd may your soul be at peace.
Looking at such a tomb, one can only imagine the typical fate of a landlord's descendants: the post-Liberation executions, exiles, struggle sessions, reeducation camps. Probably the scions of this landlord did not find the success he imagined-but this is only a guess. All that is certain is that the tomb has no name, and here in the bamboo's shade there are no orchids, and today on the Day of Pure Brightness there are no descendants paying their respects. Nearby, the family chatter as they offer paper money at the graves of He Zhonggui's father and uncle. But this ma.s.sive tomb has no offerings other than the young corn along its back, and all is silent except for the mysterious devotion of the wind among the creaking stalks of bamboo.
HE ZHONGGUI'S FATHER AND UNCLE are buried side by side, a pair of solid limestone tombs facing south and east toward the Yangtze and the world beyond. The visitors have walked single-file through wheat fields to the graves, careful not to trample the young green stalks, and now they light fat red candles and burn piles of paper money. are buried side by side, a pair of solid limestone tombs facing south and east toward the Yangtze and the world beyond. The visitors have walked single-file through wheat fields to the graves, careful not to trample the young green stalks, and now they light fat red candles and burn piles of paper money.
The bills, which are in denominations of $800 million, say ”Bank of Heaven” on the front. They are legal tender in the next world. The money crumples into black b.a.l.l.s of ash as the fire flickers and gasps. The candles dance in the Yangtze wind. Waves of heat come and go as the flames rise and fall.
The old women kowtow and pray before the burning money. After they finish, the children take their turns, urged on by their elders. They giggle and sloppily kowtow three times, kneeling on strips of paper so their trousers and dresses won't get dirty, and then they close their eyes and pray, sometimes aloud. ”Please help me do well on my examinations,” murmurs Dai Mei's cousin, a sixteen-year-old boy in gla.s.ses.
Afterward, the group files back through the wheat, but three young men stay behind. For most of the ritual they have hung back, tolerant but cool and uninterested; they are in their twenties, and the Day of Pure Brightness is not a young man's holiday. But now they clamber up and stand on the graves, holding cigarettes and long strands of fireworks, and then they light the fuses.
Ghosts and evil spirits scatter as the fireworks explode. The children clap and scream; the old people hold their ears and turn away. The young men remain calm-the fireworks erupt in a deafening roar, but each man holds the exploding string in hand until the flame leaps nearly to his fingers, and then, nonchalantly, he drops the strand and lights another. They do not plug their ears. They do not laugh or grimace. They make no expression at all; outwardly they are completely cool. But something in their eyes cannot be controlled, flas.h.i.+ng with the sheer exhilaration of standing on the tomb while all the scenes and sounds of the holiday suddenly converge on this spot: the throbbing explosions, the heavy smell of gunpowder, the swirling dust and smoke and suns.h.i.+ne, the long streak of the Yangtze far below like a dragon basking in the sudden roar of the valley.
THE PROCESSION CONTINUES UP THE MOUNTAIN, past green rows of broad beans, past waist-high wheat, past another steep ridge of short terraces and winding stone paths. The Yangtze is still visible to the south. Fireworks echo in the distance. The family continues to the tomb of He Zhonggui's mother, who is buried farther up White Flat Mountain, in a plot a few minutes away from the grave of her husband. She died thirty years after him, and perhaps she had different ideas about the fengshui fengshui of the mountain. In those days it was not uncommon for a couple to be buried separately. of the mountain. In those days it was not uncommon for a couple to be buried separately.
A tablet on the front of her tomb is engraved with five large characters: Li Chengyu, Mother of He. Below this t.i.tle are two neat columns of names.
”See, those are her descendants,” Dai Mei says, when she comes close to pay her respects. ”The women are on the left and the men on the right. And there's my name!”
She reaches out and touches the very last name on the list. Between Dai Mei's name and the name of her grandmother are more than a dozen others. Some of them have also come today to pay their respects, while others live too far away. Still others have died themselves. But everybody has been accounted for on the tablet. Dai Mei runs her finger over the engraved strokes of her name, and then she says, simply, ”That's me.”
IN LATE AFTERNOON the family returns down the mountain. They have eaten lunch on another cousin's thres.h.i.+ng platform, and now they take their time going home, stopping occasionally to enjoy the scenery. the family returns down the mountain. They have eaten lunch on another cousin's thres.h.i.+ng platform, and now they take their time going home, stopping occasionally to enjoy the scenery.
But He Zhonggui has no great love for the land. To most outsiders, the fields seem beautiful and romantic, but his parents lived here, and the mountain represents a hard life that he is happy and proud to have left behind. He stops to rest halfway down the hillside, and staring out at the Yangtze he speaks softly. ”I grew up in the city,” he says. ”Not here in the countryside. But we were still poor; my father worked on the docks. At fifteen, I went to work, too. I went all alone, and I worked in construction. I was just a common worker. I was the same age as her.”
He points at Dai Mei, and for a moment it seems that he will continue the story, but he falls silent. He is not a great talker, and perhaps the tale has already been told too many times.
In any case, its trajectory is clear. It can be seen in everything about him-his clothes, his confidence, his cellular phone, which has rung several times during today's rituals. And the tale can also be seen in his home, a three-story building that he has constructed in the heart of downtown Fuling. All of the residents are his relatives-a daughter on this floor, a brother on that landing, another brother in between. The apartments are ranged around an open-air courtyard, and the family members can easily call out to each other across floors. The apartments themselves are s.p.a.cious and equipped with top-of-the-line VCD players and karaoke machines. The ceilings are decorated with faux-jeweled light fixtures, baroque patterns of plaster detail, and velvet tapestries of deep red and purple. From the roof, which has a green fish pond and an orange tree, one can look over Fuling's tiled roofs to the Yangtze River and the fields of White Flat Mountain.
There are very few private cars in Fuling, but He Zhonggui owns a brand-new Red Flag sedan. He likes to point out that this is the same type of car that transported Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. He Zhonggui drives the car himself, and later today he will drive it slowly and lovingly across town to the East River district. He will drive past an apartment building that he recently constructed, which he will point out with quiet pride. It is a ma.s.sive uptown building of white tile and blue gla.s.s, the same kind of structure that is springing up without distinction all over China. The car will slow as it pa.s.ses the building, and He Zhonggui will turn on the air-conditioning and ask, ”Is it cool enough back there?”
But this is later. First he leads his clan back down the twisted stone path of White Flat Mountain, and at its foot he buys ice cream for everybody as they wait for the ferry. They eat their ice cream on the pebbled sh.o.r.e of the Yangtze. Above them, the mountain grows quiet; today's fireworks are finished. A breeze runs east through the valley. The paG.o.da is clear now in the afternoon sun. The family finishes their ice cream, and, laughing, they wash their hands in the spring river.
CHAPTER SIX.
Storm IN THE BEGINNING OF MAY there was a fire high in the mountains east of Fuling. For weeks it had been hot-hot and hazy, bright blurry days with temperatures in the nineties. Ribbons of dust hung above the unpaved roads behind campus, and the air was heavy with the heat. Everybody told me that the spring rains had been too infrequent, and then the fire broke out on Two Views Mountain. there was a fire high in the mountains east of Fuling. For weeks it had been hot-hot and hazy, bright blurry days with temperatures in the nineties. Ribbons of dust hung above the unpaved roads behind campus, and the air was heavy with the heat. Everybody told me that the spring rains had been too infrequent, and then the fire broke out on Two Views Mountain.
The mountain was the highest in the area; from its summit on a clear day you could see both Fuling and Fengdu. There were forests up there, as well as small farms, and the fire burned out of control. n.o.body knew how it had started. There was a hot dry wind coming off the Yangtze and it swept the flames across the mountain.
On the first night of the fire they took fifty student volunteers from the college to fight it, and the following morning another two hundred went. From my balcony I watched the second group gather in the front plaza. All of them were boys, dressed in their military training uniforms, and they laughed and chattered excitedly as they waited to leave. Buses took the volunteers away and the campus was quiet again.
That day the sun was a hot dull disk in the sky and smoke filtered down from the mountains. I could smell it from my balcony. Many of the boys were gone from my cla.s.ses, and as the day pa.s.sed I wondered how they were doing up on Two Views Mountain. The girls were distracted and cla.s.ses did not go well.
Later I was studying in my bedroom when I saw black clouds fill the western sky across the Wu River. A sudden wind began to blow papers off my desk. I closed the window and took my laundry off the line, and then I went through my apartment and fastened all the windows and doors. The storm was close now, swelling dark behind the city, and I could hardly shut my living-room windows against the force of the wind.
I turned off the lights and put new batteries in my flashlight. I went out to my gla.s.sed-in kitchen balcony just as the rain was starting. It fell in sharp diagonal streaks, the wind growing even stronger, and the branches of the trees bent angrily. Across the courtyard, the windows of the teaching building shattered as they blew shut, and the students shouted and screamed. They always yelled in excitement whenever the big storms came, and sometimes they forgot to fasten the windows. In spring the landings were often full of broken gla.s.s from the storms.
I heard more gla.s.s shattering down in the East River district, where people scurried across the streets. On the western flank of Raise the Flag Mountain there was a sudden blue flash, followed by an explosion, and then all the lights in Fuling went out.
I watched the storm from my balcony. Clouds rolled in low over the mountains and the rain fell harder. The sky darkened and then suddenly flared white, as if somebody had scratched an enormous match against the quick-moving clouds. A tangle of lightning illuminated the peak of White Flat Mountain. For an instant the summit loomed high above the Yangtze, frozen in the electric flash, but then the mountain disappeared as thunder rang through the angry sky. Soon the rain brought a mist over the rivers, until at last the Yangtze was invisible and the Wu was only a flat streak of gray that blended smoothly into the unknown horizon.
After half an hour the heavy storm was finished. The hills looked green again; the dust and smoke had been rinsed from the air. It rained lightly throughout the evening. The next day my students returned from the hills, and it turned out that the storm had put out the fire before they even made it to the mountain. But the trip had been a break from the routine, and they were just as excited to return as they had been to leave.
TWO WEEKS LATER, the college had a three-day track meet in the new stadium that had been constructed in the shadow of Raise the Flag Mountain. Most Chinese schools had sports days in the spring, but ours was especially big that year because of the new athletic complex, and because Hong Kong would return in a month and a half.