Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk Read online

  “In the beginning was Pan Gu,

  Born of primeval void...”

  Everything needed had been carried to the boat. The noise and bustle at home had turned to silence. The morning sun shone on the western wall. The weather was clear and fine. Mother, the servants, my nanny Mama Chang or Ah Chang—none of them could rescue me. They had to wait in silence till I had learned my lesson and could recite it. In the utter stillness it seemed as if iron pincers would thrust out from my head to seize that “Born of primeval void” and all the other lines. And I could hear my voice quaver as I read desperately on, quaver like a cricket's chirping on a late autumn night.

  Everybody was waiting. The sun had risen even higher.

  Suddenly I felt a surge of confidence. I stood up, picked up the book, and went to my father's study to recite all those lines in one breath. I recited as if in a dream.

  “Good. You may go.” Father nodded his head as he spoke.

  At once everyone sprang into action, breaking into smiles as we set out for the harbour. A servant carried me high as if to congratulate me on my success as he strode ahead of the rest.

  I was not as happy as they were, though. After the boat cast off, the riverside scenery, the cakes in the hamper, the bustle of the fair when we reached Dongguan Village—none of these seemed to me very interesting.

  Now everything else is forgotten, vanished without a trace. Only my recitation from the Rhymed History is as clear in my mind as if it happened yesterday.

  Even now, when I think of it, I still wonder why my father made me learn a lesson by heart at a time like that.

  May 25

  ■ Wu Chang or Life-Is-Transient

  If the gods who parade at temple fairs have power of life and death—no, this is wrongly put, for all gods in China seem able to kill men at will—if their task rather, like that of the guardian deity of a city or the Emperor of the East Mountain, is to control human fate, in their retinue you will find some unusual figures: ghostly attendants, the ghostly king, and Wu Chang or Life-Is-Transient.

  These spirits are usually impersonated by stout fellows or country folk. The ghostly attendants and their king wear red and green and go barefoot, while on their blue faces are painted fish scales—perhaps the scales of a dragon or some other creature—I am not quite clear on this point. The ghostly attendants carry steel tridents with rings attached which clang when shaken; and the ghostly king carries a small tiger-head tally. According to tradition, the king should walk with one foot; but since after all he is simply a countryman, even though he has painted his face with the scales of a fish or some other creature, he still has to walk with two feet. Hence spectators are not much impressed by these ghosts and pay scant attention to them, with the exception of some devout old women and their grandchildren, who treat all spirits with proper trepidation and reverence in order that none of them may feel left out.

  As for the rest of us—I believe I am speaking for others as well as myself—what we most enjoy watching is Wu Chang. Not only is he lively and full of fun; the mere fact of his being completely in while among that gaudy throng makes him stand out like a stork in a flock of fowls. A distant glimpse of his tall white paper hat and his tattered palm-leaf fan makes everyone feel pleasantly excited.

  Of all spirits he is the nearest and dearest to men, and we often come across him. In the temple to the guardian deity of a city or the Emperor of the East Mountain, for example, behind the main hall is a dark room called the Court of Hell; and barely perceptible through the gloom are the images of ghosts: one who died by hanging, one who fell to his death, one who was killed by a tiger, one who expired in the examination cell... but the long white figure you see as you enter is Wu Chang. Though I once paid a visit to the Court of Hell, I was much too timid then to take a good look. I have heard that he carries an iron chain in one hand, because he is the summoner of dead men's spirits. Tradition has that the Court of Hell in the temple of the Emperor of the East Mountain in Fanjiang was strangely constructed with a movable plank just inside the threshold. When you entered and stepped on one end of his plank, Wu Chang would fly over from the other end and throw his iron chain neatly round your neck; but after a man had been frightened to death in this way they nailed the plank down. Even in my young days it no longer moved.

  If you want to take a good look at him, you will find his picture in the Records of the Jade Calendar. It may not be in the abridged version, but in the complete version you are sure to find it. He is wearing deep mourning and straw sandals, with a straw belt round his waist and a string of paper money round his neck. He holds the tattered palm-leaf fan, a chain and an abacus; his shoulders are slightly hunched, his hair is dishevelled; and his eyebrows and eyes tilt down at the sides like the Chinese character 八 (ba). He wears a peaked, rectangular hat, which, reckoned in proportion to the portrait as a whole, must be about two feet high. In front of the hat, where relicts old and young of the Qing Dynasty would fasten a pearl or jewel on their melonshaped caps, is the vertical inscription: Good luck to you! According to another version, the words are: So you are here too. This is the same phrase sometimes found on the horizontal tablet over the Court of the Venerable Bao. Whether Wu Chang wrote these words on his hat himself or the King of Hell wrote them for him I have not yet been able to ascertain in the course of my researches.

  In the Jade Calendar can also be found Life-Is-Transient's opposite number, a ghost similarly equipped whose name is Death-Is-Predestined. He also appears in temple fairs, where he is wrongly known as Death-IsTransient. Since his face and clothes are black, nobody cares to look at him. He too appears in the Court of Hell, where he stands facing the wall with a funereal air about him—a genuine case of “knocking against the wall.” All who come in to worship and burn incense are supposed to rub his back, and this is said to rid you of bad luck. I rubbed his back too when I was small, but I never seem to have been free of bad luck. Perhaps if I hadn't rubbed it my luck would have been still worse. This again I have not yet been able to ascertain in the course of my researches.

  I have made no study of the canons of Hinayana Buddhism, but I hear that in Indian Buddhist lore you have the god Yama and the ox-headed devil, both of whom reign in hell. As for Mr. Transient, who summons spirits, his origin cannot be traced to ancient times, yet the saying “life is transient” is a common one. I suppose once this concept reached China, it was personified. So Wu Chang is actually a Chinese invention.

  But why is everyone pleasantly excited to see him?

  When a great scholar or famous man appears anywhere, he has only to flourish his pen to make the place a “model county.” At the end of the Han Dynasty Yu Fan praised my native place; but that after all was too long ago, for later this county gave birth to the notorious “Shaoxing pettifoggers.” Of course, not all of us—old and young, men and women—are pettifoggers in Shaoxing. We have quite a few other “low types” too. And you cannot expect these low types to express themselves in such wonderful gibberish as this: “We are traversing a narrow and dangerous path, with a vast and boundless marsh-land on the left and a vast and boundless desert on the right, while our goal in front looms darkly through the mist.” Yet in some instinctive way they see their path very clearly to that darkly looming goal: betrothal, marriage, rearing children, and death. Of course, I am speaking here of my native place only. The case must be quite different in model counties. Many of them—I mean the low types of my unworthy county—have lived and suffered, been slandered and blackmailed so long that they know that in this world of men there is only one association which upholds justice, and even that looms darkly; inevitably, then, they look forward to the nether regions. Most people consider themselves unjustly treated. In real life “upright gentlemen” can fool no one. And if you ask ignorant folk they will tell you without reflection: Fair judgements are given in hell!

  Of course, when you think of its pleasures life seems worth living; but when you think of its sorrows Wu Chang may not be unwelcome.
High or low, rich or poor alike, we must all appear empty-handed before the King of Hell, who will right all wrongs and punish evil-doers. Even low types sometimes stop to reflect: What sort of life have I led? Have I “leapt into midair” ?Have I “stabbed other people in the back”? In Wu Chang's hand is a big abacus, and no amount of superior airs will do a man any good. We demand undiluted justice from others, yet even in the infernal regions we hope to find some mercy for ourselves. But when all is said, this is hell. And the King of Hell, the ox-headed devil, and the horse-faced devil invented by the Chinese are all working away at one job and honestly administer justice, though they have published no significant articles in the papers. Before becoming ghosts, honest people, when thinking of the future, have to search for fragments of mercy in the sum total of justice and to them Mr. Life-Is-Transient appears rather lovable. “One chooses the greater profit and the lesser evil.” This is what our ancient philosopher Mo Di preached.

  You cannot see Wu Chang's charm from the clay figure in the temple or the printed picture in the book. The best way is to see him in the opera. And ordinary opera will not do: it must be the Great Drama or Maudgalyayana Drama. Zhang Dai has described in his Reminiscences what a fine spectacle the Maudgalyayana Drama was when it took two to three days to stage the whole play. It was already not nearly so grand in my young days, but just like an ordinary Great Drama, starting in the evening and ending at dawn the next day. Such operas were performed to honour the gods and avert calamities, and each one had an evil-doer who met his end at dawn, when the cup of his sins was full and the King of Hell issued a warrant for his arrest. This was the point at which Wu Chang appeared on the stage.

  I remember sitting in a boat below such a stage, with the audience in a different mood from usual. Generally, as the night wore on the crowd grew listless, but at this point they showed fresh interest. Wu Chang's tall paper hat which had been hanging in one corner of the stage was now carried inside, and the musicians took up a peculiar instrument and prepared to blow it lustily. This instrument looked like a trumpet, being long and slender, seven or eight feet in length; and it must have been a favourite with ghosts, for it was played only when there were ghosts on the stage. When you blew it, it blared: Nhatu, nhatu, nhatututuu! And we called it the Maudgalyayana trumpet.

  As the crowd watched eagerly for the fall of the evil-doer, Wu Chang made his appearance. His dress was simpler than in the paintings, and he had neither chain nor abacus; he was simply an uncouth fellow all in white, with white face, red lips and knitted jet-black eyebrows, making it hard to tell whether he was laughing or crying. Upon his entrance he had to sneeze a hundred and eight times and break wind a hundred and eight times before introducing himself. I am sorry I cannot remember all he said, but one passage went something like this:

  “..............

  The King of Hell issued a warrant

  And ordered me to arrest the scabby head next door.

  When I asked who he was, I found he was my cousin's son.

  His illness? Typhoid and dysentery.

  His doctor? The son of Chen Nianyi at Xiafang Bridge.

  His medicine? Aconite, hyssop and cinnamon.

  The first dose brought on a cold sweat,

  At the second his legs stretched stark;

  I said: His mother is weeping piteously,

  Why not restore him to life for a little while?

  But the king accused me of accepting a bribe;

  He had me bound and given forty strokes!...”

  Chen Nianyi was a famous doctor in Shaoxing, described as an immortal in the novel Suppressing the Bandits by Yu Zhonghua. But his son does not seem so brilliant in his job.

  The King of Hell also does not cut too good a figure in this description, doubting Wu Chang's honesty as he did. Still, the fact that he detected that Wu Chang's nephew had “come to life for a little while” shows him not to fall short of a “just and intelligent god.” However, the punishment left our Wu Chang with an ineradicable sense of injustice. As he spoke of it he brows even more and, firmly grasping his tattered palm-leaf fan, his head hanging, he started to dance like a duck swimming in the water.

  Nhatu, nhatu, nhatu-nhatu-nhatututuu! The Maudgalyayana trumpet also wailed on in protest against this unendurable wrong.

  So Wu Chang made up his mind:

  “Now I shall let no man off,

  Not though he is behind a wall of bronze or iron,

  Not though he is a kinsman of the emperor!...”

  “Though he has resentment in his heart, he does not blame the unexpected blow.” He shows no mercy now. But only against his will, as a result of the King of Hell's reprimand. Of all the ghosts, he is the only one with any human feeling. If we don't become ghosts, well and good; if we do, he will naturally be the only one with whom we can be on relatively close terms.

  I still remember distinctly how in my hometown, together with “low types,” I often enjoyed watching this ghostly yet human, just yet merciful, intimidating yet lovable Wu Chang. We enjoyed too the grief or laughter on his face, the bravado and the quips that fell from his lips.

  The Wu Chang in temple fairs was somewhat different from the one on the stage. He went through certain motions but did not speak, and tagged after a sort of clown who carried a plate of food, wanting to eat but denied food by the latter. There were two additional characters as well—what “upright gentlemen” call the “spouse and offspring.” All “low types have this common failing: they like to do to others as they would be done by. Hence they will not allow even a ghost to be lonely, but pair all ghosts and deities off. And Wu Chang was no exception. His better half was a handsome though rather countrified woman called Sister-in-Law Wu Chang. Judging by this mode of address, Wu Chang must belong to our own generation, so no wonder he gives himself no professorial airs. Then there was a boy in a smaller tall hat and smaller white clothes. Though only a child, his shoulders were already slightly hunched while the tips of his eyebrows drooped. Obviously he was Master Wu Chang, yet everyone called him Ah-ling and showed him little respect—perhaps because he was Sister-in-Law Wu Chang's son by a former husband. In case, though, how could he look so like Wu Chang? Well, the ways of ghosts and spirits are hard to fathom, and we shall simply have to leave it at that. As for why Wu Chang had no children of his own, by this year that is easy to explain. Spirits can foresee the future. He must have feared that if he had many children those liable to gossip would try to prove in devious way that he had accepted Russian roubles. So he not only studies birth control but practises it as well.

  The scene with the food is called “The Send Off.” Because Wu Chang is the summoner of spirits, the relatives of anyone who dies have to give him a farewell feast. As for not allowing him to eat, this is just a bit of fun in the temple fairs and not the case in fact. But everyone likes to have a bit of fun with Wu Chang, because he is so frank, outspoken and human. If you want a true friend, you will find few better than him.

  Some say he is a man who goes to the spirit world, in other words, a human being whose spirit serves in hell while he is asleep. That is why he looks so human. I remember a man who lived in a cottage not far from my home, who claimed to be an “ambulant Wu Chang,” outside whose door incense and candles were often burnt. I noticed, though, he had an unusually ghostly expression. Could it be that when he became a ghost in the nether regions his expression became more human? Well, the ways of ghosts and spirits are hard to fathom, and we shall simply have to leave it at that.

  June 23

  ■ From Hundred-Plant Garden to Three-Flavour Study

  Behind our house was a great garden known in our family as Hundred-Plant Garden. It has long since been sold, together with the house, to the descendants of Zhu Xi; and the last time I saw it, already seven or eight years ago. I am pretty sure there were only weeds growing there. But in my childhood it was my paradise.

  I need not speak of the green vegetable plots, the slippery stone coping round the well, the tall h
oney-locust tree, or the purple mulberries. Nor need I speak of the long shrilling of the cicadas among the leaves, the fat wasps couched in the flowering rape, or the nimble skylarks who suddenly soared straight up from the grass to the sky. Just the foot of the low mud wall around the garden was a source of unfailing interest. Here field crickets droned away while house crickets chirped merrily. Turning over a broken brick, you might find a centipede. There were stink-beetles as well, and if you pressed a finger on their backs they emitted puffs of vapour from their rear orifices. Milkwort interwove with climbing fig which had fruit shaped like the calyx of a lotus, while the milkwort had swollen tubers. Folk said that some of these had human shapes and if you ate them you would become immortal, so I kept on pulling them up. By uprooting one I pulled out those next to it, and in this way destroyed part of the mud wall, but I never found a tuber shaped like a man. If you were not afraid of thorns you could pick raspberries too, like clusters of little coral beads, sweet yet tart, with a much finer colour and flavour than mulberries.

  I did not venture into the long grass, because a huge brown snake was said to inhabit the garden.

  Mama Chang had told me a story:

  Once upon a time a scholar was staying in an old temple to study. One evening while enjoying the cool of the courtyard he heard someone call his name. Responding he looked round and saw, over the wall, the head of a beautiful woman. She smiled, then disappeared. He was very pleased, till the old monk who came to chat with him each evening discovered what had happened. Detecting an evil influence on his face, he declared that the scholar must have seen the Beautiful-Woman Snake—a monster with a human head and snake's body who was able to call a man's name. If he answered, the snake would come that night to devour him.