A peek at The Three Inch Golden Lotus

Michael reminded me that The Three Inch Golden Lotus was translated by someone we knew. Had I read it? Not yet. My Chinese friend Xiao Kairong, himself an expert on translation, encouraged me to read it--a book that had made a big splash in China when Feng Jicai first published it.

Here's a peek. It's well worth a longer look, reading the whole thing. The narrator opens with this in "Some Idle Talk Before the Story":

"Some people say that a portion of Chinese history lies concealed in the bound feet of Chinese women. That's preposterous! These stunted human feet, three inches long, a bit longer than a cigarette, eternally suffocated in bindings--what could be hidden there except for the smell?"

Only a few pages away, we witness Granny sitting down on a stool, getting ready for a big job.

"With red, swollen eyes Fragrant Lotus begged, 'Granny, just one more day. Tomorrow. I promise you you, tomorrow!'

"Granny did not hear a word. Sitting facing Fragrant Lotus, she pulled the two roosters to the ground between her and her granddaughter. She held the necks of the roosters together and stepped on them with one foot. With her other foot she stepped on the roosters' feet. Her hands quickly plucked several clumps of feathers from the roosters' breasts, and with the cleaver she sliced the breasts open. Before the blood could begin to flow, Granny grabbed Fragrant Lotus' feet and pressed them--first one, then the other--into the roosters' stomachs. The hot, burning, sticky sensations and convulsions of the dying roosters so shocked Fragrant Lotus that she tried to pull her feet back. But Granny screamed madly, 'Don't move!'

"Fragrant Lotus had never heard such a tone frm Granny, and she froze. She just watched as Granny pressed her feet into the roosters. Granny's own feet stood hard on the two roosters to hold them down. Fragrant Lotus shuddered; the roosters heaved; and granny's arms and legs shook from exhaustion. They all trembled as one. As she pressed even harder, Granny's hips rose from the stool, and Fragrant Lotus feared Granny could not hold this position and might fall forward and crash into her. In a short while Granny relaxed her grip and pulled out Fragrant Lotus' feet. The roosters' blood flowed freely and her feet were covered with it, scarlet and sticky. Granny flung the two roosters aside; one stiffed and died immediately, the other flapped weakly toward its death. She pulled over a wooden basin, washed and dried her granddaughter's feet, and placed them on her knees. The binding was to begin. Fragrant Lotus was so confused she wondered whether she should cry or beg or throw a fit, but all she did was watch Granny, who grabbed her feet--first the right and then the left. She left the big toe alone, and she pressed the other four toes downward and back, at a slight angle, toward the arch. With a muted crack, the bones in the toes broke and gave way. Fragrant Lotus cried out, mostly in surprise. Granny had already shaken loose a roll of bandage and tied the four toes securely down. Fragrant Lotus saw the new shape of her feet, and even before she felt the pain, she began to cry."

This is only the beginning. In the days and weeks to come, more happens to those little feet.

But that Granny! And Fragrant Lotus herself! And a whole parade of colorful characters--wits and dolts, clowns and bores. Such liars and scholars and humble servants. And what stories flew around and about those bound feet--but what should we believe? And whom? Feng Jicai makes us wonder.

Later, Fragrant Lotus amazes us with feats that no Olympic athlete could pull off, all on her cigarette-sized feet. Schooled by Aunt Pan, she'd studied Yuan-dynasty wood-block print tables like this one . . . describing the standard measurements for a 2.9 inch foot. But don't let Aunt Pan's numbers frighten you . . . this story is anything but tedious and dull.

I wish I had known David Wakefield better before his untimely death. What a masterpiece, this translation.

Daytime stars

The assistant dean set his tea on the table and sighed, “I think I’m getting old. I don’t understand why they’re so critical,” referring to a mindset in Chinese youth that, in his mind, could be compared to the counter-culture in the West a half century ago. THAT comparison is worth unpacking, but his comment resonated with me for another reason, simply his feeling apart. He isn’t old, but he misses something. He no longer finds in the world around him something about a world he had known and loved.

In my case, it’s not that I don’t love the world I’m in—and that I don’t feel deeply connected to my beloveds at home. I feel new growth since the trauma of 2008. I no longer feel hopeless, on the outer edge of sanity. Even here in Beibei, far from home, there’s so much to savor and enjoy. I like it here. I’m happy. But. My existence is still radically altered—it’s somehow not the world I knew.

I don’t quite understand it. So it’s this I’ve come to wrestle with. So it’s not the world I knew? So what is here in this “other” world, one that was unknown to a younger me? What doors might I open here? What might I find here in this “other” place that the very sunniness of my previous existence blinded me to? What daytime stars didn’t I see—that maybe now I can?

Can I turn the not-ness of the moment—it’s not the pre-lapsarian world I once knew—into presence?

I think I can—with intention, with desire, with a little mind over matter. But I’m waiting for the feeling to catch up, the feeling of being fully human, fully alive, fully present.

www.space.com


With debts to Wendell Berry

Coloring the panda red

Haixia wanted to celebrate International Women's Day by walking down to the Jialing River. I didn't realize she planned to take a swim, but then Haixia has never been one to shy away from jumping in and making ripples. She's unafraid of chilly water.

One path was closed to us, so we walked along sewer pipes, past the riverside gardens nestled along a tiny tributary to get there.

Once there, we saw the rocks sprinkled with Beibei residents, most still wearing down coats, some doing laundry at the water's edge, bamboo baskets behind them. Haixia changed clothes under her cape, discreet but in full view. Her daughter tells me the capes are common--everyone has one, men and women.

Tough as she is, Haixia wasn't about to jump in without warming up. Who cares if the other revelers think it's strange? Her daughter "Ariel" looked on, while reminiscing aloud about a picture of a panda she ("Ariel") had colored in school. That picture had brought her to tears when her primary school teacher had reprimanded her for coloring the panda red. "Ariel" had had no black crayon, so her mother had encouraged her to pick another color--why not red? After all, there are red pandas. The teacher  had scolded "Ariel" for insulting China's national symbol and  also for failing to follow directions.

Haixia thought differently, fitting enough for a woman who could be the poster person for International Women's Day--which by the way is an official holiday in many communist countries. Doing her push ups on the rocks, she didn't look to me like the sixty-something newly retired professor that she is.

She stepped gingerly into the water and then suddenly swooped off and away, creating soft ripples.

Heading back the other way, we passed by the riverboats, reminding me a bit of home. I often think of the similarities: Just as the Missouri River flows into the Mississippi at St. Louis, the Jialing flows into the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) at Chongqing. My old college town Columbia is upriver on (almost)  the Missouri, just as my new college town Beibei is upriver on the Jialing.

Hospitality

"Hospitality" isn't the first word to pop into mind whenever I find myself tilting my head just enough to look past one of the unbroken stares regularly directed my way.  I might be balancing myself in the aisle of a crowded bus, I might be dodging the street sweepers on Tiansheng Road, I might be passing three arm-in-arm college students, whose six eyes all fix on me as their conversation goes unabated. I might even be perching on one of those ubiquitous foot-high, blue plastic stools in a crowded little restaurant.

I was in just such a place eating dumplings with "Angel" when an older woman stopped by our table.  She stood, transfixed, and stared at me for a good ten minutes, not moving on until the waiter came to take my money.

But those are strangers, and strangers who might not be particularly accustomed to seeing foreigners in western China. Bring on someone with a connection, even the slightest of connections, and I can tell you a different story.

Students, for example: the one who went an hour out of her way to help me mail my ballot, another who went to great trouble to help me find a wifi connection, my own students who regularly do the kindest things. One just brought me many pounds of smoked pork,  all home prepared; another whose mother (thinking we have things in common) just sent me some homemade red wine with an invitation to visit in the faraway northeast; and two others gave me long-stemmed roses for "Girl's Day" today because I'm a girl at heart.

University faculty and staff, for example: Xiao Kairong, among other teaching colleagues, and Peng ChuanZhong, among Peace Corps support staff--I could go on. Short little Mrs. Niu, who carried a ladder all the way down the hill to my apartment and up four flights of stairs to read my electric meter. (Now that I've caught her doing that, I can spare her the trouble in the future--but the thing is she was trying to spare me trouble.) Before Spring Festival, she invited another foreign teacher and me to join her family for a delicious homecoming dinner for her daughter. Dinner is the wrong word--it was a feast. Any Chinese hostess plies the guest with more delicious food than even a Patton could possibly eat, but this was very special. And it was one of many feasts with this family, and this family is just one of many Chinese families that have been equally hospitable.

For example, last night, the dean treated all of the foreign teachers to another banquet at a most regal, upscale restaurant--one of many banquets he has hosted on our behalf. He made the rounds, toasting each and every single one of us. I didn't count the dishes, but each dish was a masterpiece, and there were scores of them. Scores. Professor Mu sitting next to me thought I'd like to try one dish that had whizzed by too fast on the lazy Susan, and as is not uncommon, she served me with her chopsticks.  When all was done, she linked arms in the Chinese way and we left the chandeliered room.

For whatever reason, the university decided to upgrade my furniture. It's certainly not what a Peace Corps volunteer would expect. New windows, doors, drapes, wardrobe, bed, desk, end tables, stool, couch, coffee table, more. ( The pieces are immense. And, Mary, there's a new mattress.)

I wonder how the typical Chinese visitor feels when living abroad.