Hope you’d still remember the Chinese proverb on name, because the knowledge is pivotal for you to understand the tragedy of a species, or “genocide” if you happen to so into the term.
Pelodiscus sinensis, or wang’ba as it is known to all people in China, is indeed a curious animal. Like most other peoples around the world, Chinese eat fish, feathered flock, and mammals among all vertebrates. Reptile? Uh-uh. Nevertheless, poor wang’ba, like turkeys in the States, suffered from organized oppression for millennia, all because…
Chinese first met wang’ba when soon-to-be Emperor’s grand army crossed the Yangtze. A counselor was tasked to name every newfound animal and plant with a single new Chinese character (today you could still see these characters of Qin era on the front cover of a Japanese passport, for one). When he picked up the bizarre animal with both hands, he thought:
Now, which animal would not respect Emperor’s counselor! For others, they fled, begged for lives or food, or even paid homage (which I humbly accepted on behalf of the Emperor Himself). But YOU! You dare to look My Excellence right into the eyes with your pea-like peepers. Clearly gods had not endowed you with the most basic form of intelligence and courtesy, so I shall henceforth call you “shabby-stupid.” You may have a shell and claws, but your soft shell is nothing like those of the venerable tortoise family, who served our ancestral kings and wizards in their solemn, holy divinations. Your stupid snout just betrayed you. Haha! You are nothing but a mutated, retarded type of fish living in the ponds beyond Yangtze, and a “fish” part should be incorporated in your new name lest others be fooled.
As time went by, Chinese derived a two-character common name “armored fish” from the one-character proper name. Then mostly illiterate peasant invented the vulgar name wang’ba simply due to the similarity between the animal’s appearance and the characters (remember that Chinese characters, at least in Qin era, were carved on bamboo slips and had to be written from top to bottom, then from right to left). The egg of wang’ba, or wang’ba’dan, is nearly the most aggravated abusive remark in Chinese. A similar phrase in Japanese, bakayarou, means “stupid countryside simpleton who could not tell deer from horse,” while wang’ba’dan with all connotations of the cussword, stands for “bastard of a stupid cuckold who is not human, but a lowly reptile offspring predestined with the ill fate of crawling all day round like the Serpent.”
The worst day for wang’ba did not come until two millennia later, a business-savvy marathon coach invented and marketed a diet supplement. A busybody journalist soon unveiled that no wang’ba was harmed when producing the much-hyped supplement as it was no more than favored syrup, but the scam had already created a fad of butchering and consuming these poor animals all over China. Steam, boil, braise, stir-fry, fry, marinate, baijiu-marinate… You name it.
Pelodiscus sinensis, quiet, lovable, brave, and peace-loving as they are, react correspondingly following their eon-old wisdom—
They decide to bite off the nose, lip, or fingertip of any Chinese at the first opportunity.
As a kid, my world started at the Hood — three row of terraced shacks, four in each row. Each family occupied one shack, as grandpa, grandma, mom, and I lived in ours. More often than not, each of us had a unique background, but as citizens of a newborn socialist country, we were all equal and, to a certain extent, carefree and happy. We all spoke Jiangnanese, a close relative of Cantonese and a direct descendant of the Old Chinese spoken by our forefathers. Thanks to the conservation of all four original Chinese tones, we were able to recite millennia-old poems and proses with all the rhymes intact (mayhap Koreans today could still do that). We were like a one big family.
The morning in the Hood started with the worship. Mrs. Q, the enthusiastic, elected governess of our little community. She carefully carried out a huge portrait of Chairman Mao to the alley, which also served as the shared courtyard of the shacks. All of us would stand in two rows before the Chairman.
“Long live Chairman Mao!”
Led by Mrs. Q, we then cited the Little Red Book, told Chairman Mao our plans for the day and requested his permission in our minds, and sang The East is Red. The first Chinese satellite was launched with the sole purpose of letting the world hear this powerful song.
The ritual was repeated in the evening. The main difference was that in our minds we reflected and confessed before Chairman Mao, and this time we sang an even better song, Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman.
I believe no one in the Hood, except my dad, seriously perused the Little Red Book. Nevertheless, we carried it around to heal the sick and ward off the evil. Anyhow, we had already memorized some of Chairman Mao‘s quotes by heart, which continue to benefit us for the rest of our lives.
My happiest moments in the Hood happened during the Chinese New Year, a thousand-year-old tradition that has been honored till this very day (I don’t know anything about the so-called “Lunar New Year,” you can either celebrate the Chinese festival and enjoy the day along with your family, or be free and do whatever you want). For the dinner on the New Year’s Eve, grandma would prepare a table of delicacies: chicken, duck, fish, egg, dried silver and black fish, pig entrails and appendages (stomach, kidney, tongue, liver). After dinner, I rushed out to the alley to meet my pals, and together we lit all those firecrackers and fireworks freely distributed by the employers of mom and other parents. By the time I returned home, a red envelope containing a brand new 5 yuan bill would be placed under my pillow.
Everyday life, on the other hand, wasn’t easy according to modern standards as every life essential was produced and distributed (a.k.a. rationed) by the state. I really enjoyed porridge mixed with a spoon of granulated sugar or soy sauce, not to mention the boiled eggs dipped in soy sauce (grandma also cooked these personally, which cost one dime each). Scrambled egg was not an economic option, as the primary source of oil available to us was limited lard obtained by dry-heating fat-rich pork in a wok. Though once or twice in a year, mom would purchase one pound of plum-blossom-shaped cake with golden, crispy crust for around three yuan, just to reward my good behavior. Wang’ba, like eggs, did not require any rationing coupon. Mr. B, along with few other men, enjoyed wang’ba soup in particular. Rows of wang’ba shells basking in the sun on the roof of his shack was a marvel to be witnessed. Dried shells could be sold and eventually made into so-called mosquito incense, which was another necessity in Jiangnan to fend off the biohazard of hot summer nights.
Mom brought home 60 yuan each month, dad sent her 30 yuan per month and sent his mother 15 yuan. The younger sister of mom sent 5 yuan to grandpa every month.
Following Chairman Mao‘s instruction on promoting the traditional Chinese medicine for the mass, the young me developed a penchant for herb cultivation. Utilizing a punctured plastic washing basin placed above the self-constructed makeshift kitchen before the shack, I planted traditional herbs like xue’san’qi (root of Rheum likiangense Sam., related to rhubarb), qi’ye’yi’zhi’hua (Paris polyphylla), and tian’san’qi (Panax notoginseng, related to ginseng). Later on, I tilled a tiny field around the shack and started quite an ambitious project of luffa growing. When it rained, the youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Q would drop by and the two of us would play the Manchurian game of shagai/gachuha. As no astragalus of ruminants’ ankle was available to us, we used table tennis ball and pieces of so-called “land battle chess” instead. I also had other fun activities, such as crafting window grilles with scissors and red paper, lamps with “Long Live Chairman Mao” using the hard rind of watermelons. Completely disregarding the occasional brusque rejections, I always begged guests for a test drive of their bicycles, which would be not unlike today’s Harley bikes in the minds of young Chinese boys living in 1960s.
It would be shameful to admit, but as you can see, one side effect of using plank walls to separate individual shack units was that there was no audio or visual privacy at all. Did not know better at the time, I committed the sins of a peeping Tom and violated the rights of my neighbors next door, the Q’s and the L’s.
Adults also had their ways of having fun. Besides singing, Mom collected wearable Chairman Mao badges, and carefully placed hundreds of these in a couple of handmade cardboard cases mimicking Little Red Books. Dad read newspapers and watched movies. Grandpa kept some pigeons (pigeons knew to feed themselves in nearby fields, an extremely clever one could even lure pigeons kept by others to our home, which were soon to be cooked and brought onto the dinner table) and listened to Peking opera on the radio, which was the sole home appliance at the time. Other than cooking wang’ba soup and other culinary feats, watching and listening to revolutionary opera, watching and even engaging in pi’dou, neighbors developed all sorts of passions. Mr. Q, the husband of Mrs. Q, turned out to be an avid fisherman who went by the nickname “Trickster,” as he often failed to honor his gambling debts. Gambling used to be a popular social activity for males and upper-class females in the Old China. The New China purges gambling as a major vice, but almost every male (except dad, maybe) waged a few yuan during a game of poker or mahjong and the police had to let it slide.
It was fine to engage in one’s pastime, on the condition that it wouldn’t piss others off. Mr. A Sr was the doorman of the Railway Hospital. Mr. A Jr was an art teacher in Railway Elementary School. One day the duo drank some cheap baijiu and started a protracted debate on the political alignment of socialist citizens, from 9 pm to 5 am.
“The kids of landlords, counter-revolutionists, and rich farmers are doomed to follow the suit. The kids of proletariats, penniless-poor-average farmers, and workers are destined to be just and kind and carry over the red banner.”
“What nonsense! Anyone reads the Little Red Book and absorbs Chairman Mao‘s words shall become new men and women of the Socialist Republic. The Book simply has such magnificent power!”
On the following day, everyone, my mom included, gathered before their shack and gave them a good scolding. After all, people had day jobs to do for the country, six days in a row. Only thanks to Mrs. Q, the situation eventually got under control.
(Spoiler warning: Stop reading the following passages if you are eating or drinking!)
The primary shared public facility of the Hood would be the public toilet. According to the norm of civilized society in the 21st century, this might well be the most unbearable aspect of life. The public toilet, or an expanded outhouse, did not have any tap water or water-flushing device. Residents had to bring their own old newspaper for cleansing purpose. Human waste was periodically removed by the sanitation services.
A science book series I read as a teen covered the ammonia reaction, which happens when urine mixes with feces. This was actually the intended result to reduce bacteria and parasites, but obviously not good for nose and eyes. Flies, mosquitos, and maggots were commonplace, as people learned to peacefully coexist with them.
The public toilet shouldered certain functions of an ancient Roman plaza, where folks exchanged gossips and opinions. The son of Master Y, known as “Fatty,” often picked the time window to join my dad in the toilet. He flattered him with the guile of a sly fox (or the son of a member of the Chinese Communist Party?), and eventually proposed the humblest request of “borrowing” (the word means confiscating in the context, as any lent item in the Hood was considered a gift) my soldering iron. Dad had no option but to comply.
Later on, during another summer blackout, I took a leak in the public toilet. Fatty inadvertently became my unfortunate victim.
(Spoiler ends)
The L’s lived to the east, with two boys and one girl. Mr. L was a construction worker for the Railway. For many nights, he asked his younger son to recite paragraphs in Chinese textbook. The poor kid had a few problems with pronunciation, due to the fact that his mother hailed from Hunan, like Chairman Mao, and only spoke Changsha dialect.
“Ren’min (people)!”
“Yin’min (adulterous hooligans)!”
Instantly, Mr. L slapped him in the face. Seeing the disagreeable sight, Mrs. L yelled, in Changsha dialect, “You fucker[s] and whore[s]! Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap till he dies!” (Hey! Don’t you think I’d confess all the beatings I had taken in my own book?!)
Fatty had a crush on the girl. He visited her almost every evening to court her and make out. As the size of the room was limited, they had to sit on the king-sized bed. It was the time when Fatty discovered that the kid and younger brother of her girlfriend had taken the liberty to “borrow” his toothbrush and toothpaste. “A small price to pay [for hanging out with my sister], don’t you agree?”
There was nothing sensational for the Q’s. In general, the Hooders willingly shared what they had (especially foodstuff) with each other. But whenever I could not find the young generation of Q’s in the alleys, I’d return home and watch them relishing pastries, mostly from Shanghai.
And the death of the father of Mr. Q the Trickster (btw, I was known as the “Troublemaker” of the Hood…) came as a huge shock. It was New Year’s Eve (not Chinese New Year), I saw the Trickster was feeding big sweet dumplings with black sesame filling to the octogenarian. “Duh.” The old man choked. One hour later, a USSR-imported 3-wheel motorcycle came unceremoniously to deliver the body for cremation.
Mr. B, the famed wang’ba connoisseur, had a father who used to serve as the head of Xiaoshan Railway Station in ROC era and was branded as a “historical counter-revolutionist.” He had a longtime feud with Mr. C over the hygiene issues related to pigeon dropping, and even the intervention of Mrs. Q failed. One day, Mr. B was overjoyed to tell everyone he met about the incident of Mr. C, as you may expect, all were curious to learn about it.
A chef working in the restaurant car for a lifetime, Mr. C used to serve a couple of man-in-blacks decades ago. Naturally he did what he could to earn their favor, and the MIBs were so happy that they invited this “young gentleman” to their “organization.” Mr. C could not write, so an MIB kindly filled the application form for him and asked him to leave a fingerprint in lieu of signature or stamp. This was how Mr. C ended up as a special agent of the National Bureau of Investigation and Statistics (Military Commission), the intelligence services of the Republic of China Army (ROCA).
However, Mr. C had long forgotten this trivial matter as he never received any stipend from NBIS. As a matter of fact, he attended the daily afternoon pi’dou in the front square of the Railway Station. Pi’dou was the informal, public court intended to unveil, humiliate, correct, and intimidate counter-revolutionists, righties, landlords, etc. But for average crowd, it was a de-facto live action reality show.
Mr. C was sitting in his usual front row seat. The person in charge of pi’dou, the chairman of the revolutionary committee, suddenly slapped the desk with all the might he could muster.
“Bring forward the undercover NBIS agent, C!”
We then witnessed zao’fan’pai, the self-proclaimed “active revolutionists,” sealed all windows of Mr. C’s shack with posters declaring his crimes, making the residence practically unlivable in the heat of the summer. Mr. C returned home from the labor camp after two years.
Mr. X used to be a ROCA medic, who happened to treat the Generalissimo (allegedly the greatest counter-revolutionist of all time) on Mountain Lu. Consequently, his son lost the electrician job at the Railway Locomotive Depot.
One day, grandpa came across an old acquaintance, Hairdresser Lu. He used to be the proprietor of the famous White Rose Salon in Jiangnan and personally served the Generalissimo. Hairdresser Lu instantly ran away like a rabbit.
Mrs. W, a housewife, was killing a hen. “I shall kill you like how Liu Hulan (a young female revolutionary martyr died to protect local CCP partisans) was killed.” She was instantly reported to the revolutionary committee. The next day, a shame parade was orchestrated for her to walk around in the Hood with a huge plate “Attacking the Martyr Liu Hulan” before her chest.
Mr. Z, a landlord of ROC, was cherished for his calligraphy accomplishments. Everyone in the Hood asked him to write revolutionary slogans on red paper to be displayed inside our own shacks for guests to see. Eventually, Mr. Z decided to write one for himself.
“Do forget the class struggle!”
The price of negligence of writing the character “not” was that he turned from a “historical counter-revolutionist” into counter-revolutionist.
My old high school lies to the west of the Hood. On the east side, there used to be a poultry farm. As some sorts of perk reserved only for the local community, the farm would hold sales of chicken intestine from time to time. Mom and other Hood housewives flocked to make the unrationed but limited purchase, with all the excitement of a Black Friday.
Once, the L’s bought several pounds of chicken entrails from the farm. As everyone could not wait to enjoy the delicacy, all adults and children immediately started to wash the entrails in a gigantic basin in the alley-courtyard around 6 pm. Without further ado, Mrs. L began to cook the hastily washed, mouth-watering meat dish, and everyone finally dug in at 9 pm.
By midnight, there was quite a ruckus, yelling, cussing, crying, lamenting, and shattering of porcelain plates. A good Samaritan from the Hood (Mr. A Sr?) got up and walked half a mile to make the life-saving call to the Railway Hospital. The siren of ambulance finally joined the commotion, and it ended when everyone was sent away,
Acute salmonellosis, maybe?
Jiangnan suffered from a pandemic of meningitis or brain fever. A couple of acquaintances in the hood contracted it as well, including the eldest daughter of Mr. A Sr. She never fully recovers.
I met Miss A on the avenue, who showed off her new watch like a peacock. Half-jokingly, I asked her what time it was. Miss A stared at her watch, worn upside down, for minutes before she gave up.
“You can see for yourself!”
“Why wear a watch if you could not tell the time?”
“Every fine lass or lad rides watch and wears bike nowadays.”