Part 23 (1/2)

I DIDN'T MAKE IT TO LAST YEAR'S CAMPSITE. I spent too much time talking with people, and finally I pulled up short. But I found a good spot in the hills high above the Wu River, where I ate dinner and read Ted Williams's autobiography. I decided that I would read that book every spring for the rest of my life. He wasn't particularly happy happy whenever he went to work for the Red Sox, and I respected that. Also there was something distinctly American about his voice-the c.o.c.kiness and the earthy slang and the rhythms of his prose. And especially I liked the way the book began: ”I wanted to be the greatest hitter who ever lived....”

In the morning I broke camp early and caught a boat downriver. The water level was low and the limestone cliffs along the bank were white and clean-looking, streaked by diagonal grooves and cuts jutting up from the chalky green Wu. Fifteen feet above the waterline I could see the dark smudge on the rocks where the summer river would rise. It was Sunday and the boat was crowded with peasant children heading back to school. I stood at the stern and watched the white cliffs slip past in the mist, knowing that I would never see this part of the river again. That was my last spring in Fuling.

THE RIVER.

THE RIVER IS THE QUICKEST WAY out of Chongqing. The city has a new airport and a new expressway, and the railroad, although now aging, was a technological breakthrough when it was completed in 1952-the first great postwar achievement of Deng Xiaoping, acting as Mao's lieutenant in the southwest. But none of them has improved on the Yangtze. The trains are slow, and road traffic is bad, and, because of pollution and the river-valley fog, planes are often delayed. The convenience of the river has always been here, and in one form or another it always will be. out of Chongqing. The city has a new airport and a new expressway, and the railroad, although now aging, was a technological breakthrough when it was completed in 1952-the first great postwar achievement of Deng Xiaoping, acting as Mao's lieutenant in the southwest. But none of them has improved on the Yangtze. The trains are slow, and road traffic is bad, and, because of pollution and the river-valley fog, planes are often delayed. The convenience of the river has always been here, and in one form or another it always will be.

Today the Zhonghua Zhonghua, the six-o'clock slow boat, is preparing to leave Chongqing, and its pa.s.sengers are more than ready to go. It has been a stifling June day, the suns.h.i.+ne filtered hot and humid through the city's coal-tinted haze, and the travelers are tired and grumpy. Many of them are tourists; they have come from all across China, arriving on crowded trains and heartbroken old buses. Tempers have melted in the Sichuan heat. Ten minutes before departure, an argument breaks out between a pa.s.senger and a worker on the top deck.

The pa.s.senger is big, with a bull neck and short bristly hair and heavy useful hands. His eyes are tight black beads of anger in a round face that glistens with sweat. He is moneyed-this is obvious from his clothes, from his slick-s.h.i.+ned shoes and his silk s.h.i.+rt, and mostly it is obvious from his status as a tourist. Domestic tourism in China has boomed in the last decade, but still the average Chinese does not travel far simply for pleasure. Tourists like this man are part of a new cla.s.s, and often their money is tangible in the way it literally surrounds their persons: in the fine clothes that they wear, in the beepers and cell phones that are clipped to their belts, and, often, in the simple well-fed bulk of their bodies.

Money is the problem today; the pa.s.senger is not satisfied with the quality of his third-cla.s.s cabin. He purchased his ticket from a broker at Chongqing's Chaotianmen Docks, where he was promised a fine boat, and the Zhonghua Zhonghua-serviceable but worn, its decks grimy with river filth-is not a fine boat. The pa.s.senger has come a long way to see the Three Gorges, he says, and his ticket was not cheap. His slurred words are angry and in one meaty fist he grabs the worker's shoulder epaulet, holding the man close while speaking loudly in his face.

The worker is smaller, a young man in his late twenties who is too weak to pull himself free. He wears a dirty blue-and-white-striped uniform s.h.i.+rt, and speaking rapidly he tries to defend himself: he did not sell the tickets, he has no connection to the broker at Chaotianmen, and the pa.s.senger should not be so pushy. But by now a crowd has gathered, and their voices begin to rise in shared complaint, until at last the worker's superior arrives to rescue him.

The pa.s.senger keeps his hold on the worker while directing his complaints to the superior, who makes the same excuses that have already been made, but he makes them with more confidence. For a few minutes the confrontation is at a standstill, but the crowd s.h.i.+fts restlessly, sensing a conclusion.

Finally the big man says, ”Do you have any second-cla.s.s cabins?” And as simply as that the dispute is resolved. Money is exchanged; the tourist and the supervisor shake hands. The big man pa.s.ses out cigarettes to everybody involved. The crowd disperses. The little man, his pride wounded, smoothes his crumpled epaulets and retreats to the rail of the deck with his ill-bought cigarette. n.o.body notices him-and then the Zhonghua Zhonghua sounds its horn and pushes away from the dock, and the argument is forgotten as the pa.s.sengers watch the city slip past, the boat floating out into the heart of the great wide Yangtze. sounds its horn and pushes away from the dock, and the argument is forgotten as the pa.s.sengers watch the city slip past, the boat floating out into the heart of the great wide Yangtze.

THREE MILES NORTH OF CHONGQING, the river abruptly turns east, the bend marked by a shrine to Buddha and an old weather-stained paG.o.da perched high above the water. The hills begin to rise-green rugged hills, falling away to blanched sheets of limestone stained by last year's high-water marks. Many of these slopes are too steep for factories or apartment buildings, and small farms become more common as the boat cruises east. The peasants' homes are simple: mud or brick walls topped by a gray tiled roof. Often they are shaded by cl.u.s.ters of banana trees. And all along the river are crop terraces, carved into the sloping hills where factories can find no foothold.

The scenery is quietly beautiful-not breathtaking, but mesmerizing in the gentle roughness of the hills and the broken regularity of the terraced fields. And just as quietly Chongqing has been left behind, and suddenly it is clear that everything in this landscape has been shaped by the steady power of the Yangtze.

For the river here has strength. Sometimes it widens to several hundred feet, and sometimes it is pinched close between steep hills, but always the current is powerful. The Yangtze carries snowmelt from the western mountains, and it has already been joined by most of its seven hundred tributaries, and so it slips quickly through the hills. Of the world's great rivers, only the Amazon pushes more water to the sea.

The sun is dropping now and a soft cooling breeze sweeps across the river. Most of the travelers stand on the Zhonghua Zhonghua's deck, watching the hills slip past. A cl.u.s.ter of Guangdong businessmen hold cell phones to their ears, chattering loudly in Cantonese. A young woman stands alone against the rail, her long black hair and short pink skirt flowing in the wind.

The air is clean now, with only a few wispy clouds scratched across the fading blue dome of the sky. The small fis.h.i.+ng sampans are starting to dock for the evening, and the Zhonghua Zhonghua pa.s.ses a group of children playing barefoot in the shallows. Corn stands high in the hills. The crop is two months old and it has just begun to ripen; the stalks are a fresh spring green but the tips are starting to fade toward gold. pa.s.ses a group of children playing barefoot in the shallows. Corn stands high in the hills. The crop is two months old and it has just begun to ripen; the stalks are a fresh spring green but the tips are starting to fade toward gold.

There is no rice growing on the riverbanks; the hills are too steep for that. Some of the slopes are too rocky for corn, but even in the roughest land there is always some sign of cultivation-at the least, a single patch of corn tucked into a break in the rock. The crop rows are vertical, running down the hillside, and they have been half-terraced and leveled as much as possible.

It is not an easy place to make a living. Even the most successful farms-the ones with two-story houses, large pig huts, big cement thres.h.i.+ng platforms, and a dozen corn plots carved into the hillside-even these farms speak of the difficulty of growing crops in such a landscape. Every terrace has been shaped by human effort, by successive generations of the same clan, by decades and perhaps centuries of work. All of it consisted of the simple labor of hands and feet and basic tools, and the terrain has been changed so gradually that the work of the peasants seems as inevitable as a force of nature-something as determined and powerful as the river itself. Human history sits heavily on the land, as it so often does in China.

The sun sets. The sky glows orange, the hills darken, the round ball of the sun sends a bright band of light skipping along the boat's wake. And then, behind the western hills, the sun sets.

IN A THIRD-CLa.s.s CABIN a young man and woman arrange their luggage on the floor. They could be eighteen years old or they could be thirty; like many young Chinese, they simply look young. There are eight berths in the cabin, stacked in bunks of two. An old woman sitting on a lower bunk asks the couple if the last two beds are theirs. a young man and woman arrange their luggage on the floor. They could be eighteen years old or they could be thirty; like many young Chinese, they simply look young. There are eight berths in the cabin, stacked in bunks of two. An old woman sitting on a lower bunk asks the couple if the last two beds are theirs.

”We're sharing a berth,” the young woman says. ”We were just married.”

There is nothing unusual about pa.s.sengers sharing beds, but the young woman's husband reddens in embarra.s.sment. The woman, pretty with short bobbed hair, smiles and touches his shoulder.

The two women talk politely for a while. They ask each other if they have eaten, and where they are going, and what they were doing in Chongqing. The married couple is returning home to Yichang, the old woman to Wuhan, and none of them has anything good to say about Chongqing.

”It's very backward,” says the old woman, shaking her head. ”The people's salaries are too low, the cost of living too high.”

The young woman agrees, remarking that the Chongqing transportation is inconvenient, and that the city is not as good as Yichang.

Her husband says nothing. He helps his wife slip off her shoes, and then he climbs into bed beside her. By the light of the cabin he reads a magazine while she dozes. The bunk is less than three feet wide but they lounge comfortably.

The nighttime river is peaceful. The summer stars are out tonight; the Big Dipper glows steady above the gently rocking boat, and a quarter-moon hangs bright in the southern sky. The Yangtze is black except for the lights that streak across its water. By now there are few homes along the banks, and even fewer with their lights on. Most of the light comes from the river-from the low strips of sandstone along sh.o.r.e, faintly luminescent in the evening, and from the dinghies and the sh.o.r.e markers. Red lights blink on the south side of the river, green on the north; the night boats pa.s.s between, their searchlights sweeping silently across the water.

At night there are no hydrofoils, no fis.h.i.+ng boats, no two-man sampans. Occasionally the Zhonghua Zhonghua pa.s.ses a long flat bank where the smaller boats have docked for the night, pulled onto sh.o.r.e next to bamboo shacks whose windows glow warmly-makes.h.i.+ft restaurants, hotels, mah-jongg parlors. The barge traffic has all but stopped. pa.s.ses a long flat bank where the smaller boats have docked for the night, pulled onto sh.o.r.e next to bamboo shacks whose windows glow warmly-makes.h.i.+ft restaurants, hotels, mah-jongg parlors. The barge traffic has all but stopped.

Most of the other boats on the river are big pa.s.senger s.h.i.+ps that pa.s.s like floating islands of light. Some have come upstream all the way from Shanghai, traveling through the flats of Anhui province, past the lakes of Hubei, the factories of Wuhan, the cliffs of the Three Gorges, and now, a few hours outside of Chongqing, they are nearly home.

After a while the young woman wakes up. She s.h.i.+fts in the bunk, drawing close to her husband. ”Ni s.h.i.+ shei?” ”Ni s.h.i.+ shei?” she says softly, playfully. ”Who are you?” she says softly, playfully. ”Who are you?”

Her husband murmurs something in response and she laughs quietly. The door to the cabin is open, and outside there is the steady hum of the motor and the gentle sound of the river slapping against the hull of the boat. ”Who are you?” the woman whispers again. ”Who are you?”

FEW Pa.s.sENGERS DISEMBARK AT FULING. Most are going another two days through the Gorges to Yichang, or three nights to Wuhan. And so Fuling appears like a break in a dream-the quiet river, the cabins full of travelers drifting off to sleep, the lights of the city rising from the blackness of the Yangtze.

Four hours have pa.s.sed since Chongqing. Lights cl.u.s.ter on the banks: homes, factories, cars. A newly constructed bridge slips overhead. The boat's loudspeakers crackle, announcing that Fuling is the next stop, and then the dream of the river is over and the city comes into view.

The heart of Fuling is built up around a cove in the river. From the broad arc of this cove the city rises on steep hills like a curtain patchworked with lights-the weak lights of shopkeepers' lamps, the flas.h.i.+ng beams of motocab headlights, the steady yellow squares of windows-and this well-lit curtain falls and flickers above the black water of the Yangtze. The Zhonghua Zhonghua moves toward the sh.o.r.e, its horn booming, gradually bringing the dock closer. The boat draws southward until it is out of the main current of the river, until the great force of the Yangtze has been left behind, and then it docks. moves toward the sh.o.r.e, its horn booming, gradually bringing the dock closer. The boat draws southward until it is out of the main current of the river, until the great force of the Yangtze has been left behind, and then it docks.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Upstream IN LITERATURE CLa.s.s for that last semester we studied Was.h.i.+ngton Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, Jack London, Robert Frost, and Langston Hughes, and then for the last unit I a.s.signed Amy Tan and some Chinese-American poets. The literature came at the students from far away-Rip Van Winkle and the jumping frog and Hughes's distant rivers-but then suddenly we were watching the end of the for that last semester we studied Was.h.i.+ngton Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, Jack London, Robert Frost, and Langston Hughes, and then for the last unit I a.s.signed Amy Tan and some Chinese-American poets. The literature came at the students from far away-Rip Van Winkle and the jumping frog and Hughes's distant rivers-but then suddenly we were watching the end of the Joy Luck Club Joy Luck Club movie, when the Chinese-American narrator comes to China and meets her sisters. It was the first time that China truly entered my literature cla.s.s; the students had performed Shakespeare with Chinese Characteristics, and they had written about Robin Hood coming to China, but these had only been ways of putting foreign literature into familiar contexts. Now we were really here: the narrator was embracing her long-lost sisters, and all of the girls in my cla.s.s were crying, and most of the boys were trying hard not to. movie, when the Chinese-American narrator comes to China and meets her sisters. It was the first time that China truly entered my literature cla.s.s; the students had performed Shakespeare with Chinese Characteristics, and they had written about Robin Hood coming to China, but these had only been ways of putting foreign literature into familiar contexts. Now we were really here: the narrator was embracing her long-lost sisters, and all of the girls in my cla.s.s were crying, and most of the boys were trying hard not to.

Afterward I asked them to write about their families, describing their parents' and grandparents' lives. One student, a girl named Dina, wrote a poem: Looking Back at My AncestorsA weak woman,Sitting in a shabby hutSpinning yarn again and againShe can't go outAs she was fettered by feudalism deeplyIn 1921The CPC was foundedMy grandmother went out for revolutionTo Shanghai, to ChongqingMost of our country had her track.My mother, a young womanDuring the Great Cultural RevolutionActed as a Red GuardDenied all the advanced thingCalling Long Live Chairman Mao.

Many of them, like Linda, wrote about life in the countryside: My great grandmother was born of a poor family. She had to be as a servant for a landlord. She suffered a lot. She doesn't have enough food to feed in, and doesn't have enough clothes to shelter from cold. She was treated unfairly by her master.Also, my grandmother's situation didn't improve much. Her feet were also banded with great pain. She had given five children's birth. Unfortunately, three of them dided of hunger. This made my grandmother very sad. She cried and cried for three days. And what was worse her husband dided of illness. She became a widow for thirty years through hards.h.i.+p and difficulties.My mother's life was a little better than them, since she was born just when the New China was born. My mother was not very tall, but she was very kind and beautiful. She treated us tenderly. Of course, her life was not very satisfactory at all. She had to make a living by hard work. She went out on cold days for getting gra.s.s for pigs; carried coal from far away for heat; and she stayed up sewing for us. She contributed her life to her family.

Nearly all of the papers were like that, and I found that I could not grade them-not even a check in the corner. There was nothing about them that I could touch, and some of them I could hardly read, because they were so poignant. In the end I couldn't bring myself to return the stories, and so I kept them, simply telling the students that everybody had done a good job.

Their writings made me think about the future as much as the past. I saw the steady quiet struggle that had taken the students to where they were now, and for the next generation it would probably look much the same. I imagined Linda's own daughter as a young woman-perhaps a college student with a life that was a notch better than her mother's. And I imagined her writing, ”My mother was not very tall, but she was very kind and beautiful....”

AFTER CLa.s.s I often walked in the countryside behind campus. I had stopped running and it was pleasant to walk-everything had slowed down; I could talk with the peasants and watch them do their work. Often they asked if I knew the I often walked in the countryside behind campus. I had stopped running and it was pleasant to walk-everything had slowed down; I could talk with the peasants and watch them do their work. Often they asked if I knew the waiguoren waiguoren who ran in the hills, and I told them that it was something I no longer did, which seemed to relieve them. There had never been any point to charging up Raise the Flag Mountain. who ran in the hills, and I told them that it was something I no longer did, which seemed to relieve them. There had never been any point to charging up Raise the Flag Mountain.

In the evenings and on weekends I followed my city routines. Sunday mornings had been refined to perfection-church, the priest, the blacksmiths, the teahouse, and then I ordered dumplings from a restaurant across the street from the South Mountain Gate Park. The dumplings were the best in Fuling and usually I started eating at eleven o'clock sharp, when the twelve-piece bra.s.s band began to play in the park. The band was hired almost every Sunday morning for weddings, because a good wedding attracted as much attention as possible-there was big face in that. The band played ”Auld Lang Syne” and ”Oh Come All Ye Faithful” and sure enough the stick-stick soldiers always came faithfully, gawking at the bride as she arrived in bright makeup and a full dress.

At the restaurant I usually took one particular seat where I could lean back against the wall and look out at the street and the park. Once the weather turned warm, the parade of everyday life on the sidewalk was even better than the band-peasants with their baskets, families with their children, young couples out for a stroll, old women with umbrellas held against the suns.h.i.+ne.

During the week I often visited Gao Ming and Ma Fulai, two friends whom I had met in the park during the Spring Festival. Gao Ming was an artist; he was twenty-six years old and a few years earlier he had graduated from the Sichuan Inst.i.tute of Fine Arts. He was quite gifted-his apartment was full of fine oil paintings that he had done in school, mostly in a European style. He owned his own business in Fuling, and his company specialized in ma.s.sive sheets of frosted gla.s.s upon which he painted and etched flowers, bamboo groves, panda bears, and other Chinese motifs. Generally the gla.s.s was set into dividers and walls of expensive restaurants and apartments, and Gao Ming was particularly good at this kind of work, which meant that his sheets of frosted gla.s.s were particularly tacky. This was no fault of his; he simply painted what people asked him to paint, and usually they asked him to cram as many shapes and colors as possible onto a sheet of frosted gla.s.s.

His clientele was the Fuling rich, and sometimes I accompanied him as he went to their apartments to make deliveries or take orders. Every rich person in the city seemed to decorate in precisely the same way, with certain objects that were universally accepted in Fuling as signs of wealth: Gao Ming's style of gla.s.swork, ornate ceiling lights surrounded by baroque constructions of plaster and velvet, odd wooden trellises that were covered with plastic vines and grapes. Another common decoration was an enormous wooden watch that hung on the wall as a clock. And of course they always had top-of-the-line televisions, VCD players, and karaoke machines. These people were what you would call nouveaux riches nouveaux riches in other countries, but in Fuling such a term was meaningless unless you kept track by the minute. There were no in other countries, but in Fuling such a term was meaningless unless you kept track by the minute. There were no vieux riches vieux riches and I didn't blame them for showing off what they finally had. and I didn't blame them for showing off what they finally had.