Yang Xianzhi was my neighbor when I was a child at Zhijiang Teachers’ College. It was probably around 1962. We lived in a row of one-story houses near the school entrance, beside the gymnasium at the eastern end of the campus. His family lived in the southernmost house, and mine was in the middle. I was five years old at the time, and he was one year older. There were several other children of school employees, and we were always playing together. Since Xianzhi and I were neighbors, we spent the most time with each other.
We loved playing in the gymnasium. It stood right across from our houses, about twenty meters away. It had originally been a temple. At one end was a round doorway, while the other end was open. Faint Buddhist paintings could still be seen on the walls. The building contained climbing ladders, climbing ropes, mats, parallel bars, horizontal bars, a vaulting horse, uneven bars, and other equipment. It was where the students took gymnastics classes.
Normally, no one supervised the place, so we could go in and practice whenever we wanted. We somersaulted, climbed ropes and ladders, chased one another, and played all sorts of games.
Xianzhi’s father, Yang Guoxing, was a teacher from neighboring Xinhuang County. He was in his thirties at the time and worked in academic administration at Zhijiang Teachers’ College. He had grown up in the countryside and most of his relatives still lived there.
His mother’s surname was Tang. She was an elementary-school teacher in her twenties and came from Zhijiang town. Her family home was on Xiaobei Street, just outside the school gate, about two hundred meters away. I heard that Teacher Tang had originally been a student at Zhijiang Teachers’ College. She had fallen in love with Teacher Yang, who was much older than she was, and they married after she graduated.
Teacher Tang was young, lively, and beautiful, with a lovely figure and a sweet voice. Whenever I happened to see her, she would greet me with a broad smile. I always felt close to her.
Perhaps because of their considerable age difference and their incompatible personalities, they argued frequently after they married. Sometimes, after a quarrel, she would return to her parents’ home and stay away for several days. I remember seeing her leave home with her luggage on several occasions.
Before long, Xianzhi started elementary school. He attended the affiliated elementary school next to Zhijiang Teachers’ College, also known as Lotus Pond Elementary School. At the time, I thought going to elementary school was something very important. Whenever Xianzhi told me about school, I listened with great interest.
We still played together after school. Besides the gymnasium, we liked playing beside the small pond next to it.
In winter, the pond would freeze. We liked using little sticks to push pieces of ice onto the bank and hold them in our hands. In spring, there were many tadpoles in the water. We came every day to watch them grow until they turned into little frogs.
In summer, duckweed floated on the surface, and frogs would occasionally leap from the grass along the bank into the pond. We liked finding a small, thin, flat piece of tile or stone and skimming it across the water. It would glide forward along the surface, sending up a series of increasingly dense circles until it finally lost momentum and sank. We competed to see whose stone could make the most rings.
What I remember most vividly was frog fishing, something we had learned from the adults. We would find a stick or bamboo pole a little over a meter long and tie a piece of string to one end. Then we would find a pumpkin blossom, pinch off a small piece, roll it into a lump about the size of a broad bean, and tie it to the other end of the string.
We would swing the pumpkin-blossom bait into the grass and gently shake the stick or bamboo pole. The yellow lump would bounce up and down among the grass. A frog, thinking it was an insect, would leap up and swallow it.
Before the frog realized what had happened, while it still had the pumpkin blossom firmly in its mouth, we would jerk the stick upward with one hand, lifting the frog out of the grass, and quickly grab it with the other.
Because there was no hook, as there is when fishing, even the slightest delay—or a failure to catch the frog in time—would allow it to release the bait and escape. Adults found it difficult enough; for us children it was even harder. I remember that we tried several times, but I cannot recall whether we ever actually caught a frog.
The following year, I also started school, while Xianzhi entered the second grade.
Not long after the autumn term began, one afternoon after school, we went to play beside the little pond again.
Suddenly, Xianzhi asked me, “Lewei, what is three times three?”
I thought for a moment. Three threes—weren’t those two threes? “It should be six,” I answered.
Xianzhi looked completely puzzled. “My teacher says three times three is nine, but my father says it’s six. I don’t know which of them is right.”
I had just started first grade and understood only addition, so I was just as confused as Xianzhi.
Whenever relatives from Teacher Yang’s rural hometown came to visit, they brought local specialties. The one I remember most vividly was ciba, a kind of sticky rice cake.
Ciba is a traditional local food. It is usually made from glutinous rice, though millet can also be used. First, the glutinous rice is soaked overnight and then steamed. Beeswax is melted in vegetable oil until the oil turns yellow. The mixture is used to coat the inside of a stone mortar about a foot and a half in diameter.
A basin of steamed glutinous rice is then poured into the mortar. Two people each take a wooden mallet with both ends coated in the yellow oil and alternately pound the rice until it becomes a sticky mass resembling dough.
Pounding such a large mass of glutinous rice requires excellent coordination. Even with the oil, the rice still sticks to the mallets, rather like taffy. When one person pulls up the mallet, the other must aim at the rice clinging to its bottom and strike it down, knocking the mallet free.
If the timing is wrong, the second person may strike the mallet itself—or, if too late, the sticky rice may be pulled out of the mortar along with it. The rice is extremely adhesive and requires great strength and concentration. Even outdoors in the twelfth lunar month, when the temperature might be several degrees below freezing, the people doing the pounding would become so hot that they could wear only thin clothes.
The pounded rice was placed on a door panel coated with oil. Using a thin hemp cord, they cut away the rice stuck to the mallets. They then divided it into fist-sized portions and pressed each one flat into a round shape. Once dried, these became ciba.
After the winter solstice, the cakes could be placed in a water jar filled with water and preserved until spring.
Around the Chinese New Year, whenever I visited Xianzhi’s home, Teacher Yang would always say, “Xianzhi, Lewei is here. Go get two ciba.”
Xianzhi would bring out two cakes, place the fire tongs over a charcoal brazier, and slowly roast the ciba on them. As the cakes heated, they gradually softened. After roasting for several minutes, he would turn them over until both sides were golden brown and slightly charred. The cakes would slowly puff up, eventually splitting their outer skins.
At that moment, the whole room would fill with an irresistible fragrance, and our mouths would water.
We ate the hot, fragrant ciba together and felt that we were enjoying the happiest and most delicious food in the world.
Besides glutinous-rice ciba, there was another kind made from millet. It was golden yellow, and when roasted, it smelled even better than the glutinous-rice version. But millet ciba was rare. Whenever Xianzhi’s family happened to roast some for me, I would remain happy for days.
The year before the Cultural Revolution began, Zhijiang Teachers’ College moved from town to Muyoupo at Qili Bridge. The site had once been the base of the Flying Tigers led by the American General Claire Lee Chennault during World War II. The college exchanged campuses with the former Zhijiang No. 2 Middle School.
Xianzhi and his father lived in a house on the slope near the airfield. His mother and younger sister still lived in town. My family lived lower down the slope, near the riverside road. Both houses had once been dormitories for members of the Flying Tigers.
Although we now lived a little farther apart, it did not prevent us from playing together.
Xianzhi’s father was very capable and an excellent cook. He prepared all the meals at home. Whenever the food was ready, he would walk to the high bank beside the house and shout:
“Xian—zhi! Dinner’s ready!”
His voice could be heard from very far away. As soon as Xianzhi heard it, he would run home from wherever we were playing.
Then the Cultural Revolution came and quickly disrupted everything.
When the school became covered with big-character posters, Xianzhi’s family moved away. My father was also denounced and pushed aside. Of the more than ten children who had once played together, one after another they all left. In the end, I was the only one remaining.
There were no children to play with, and no more good things to eat.
One day in the summer of 1968, I was required to go with the adults to the Zhijiang sports stadium to attend a mass rally of ten thousand people denouncing the “ox demons and snake spirits”—the people labeled as class enemies.
During the rally, Red Guards repeatedly went into the crowd to seize people, then dragged them onto the stage. A large placard was hung around each person’s neck, and the accused were pushed to the front of the stage to kneel while their sentences were announced.
Suddenly, I heard someone shout from the stage:
“Bring up the escaped rich peasant Yang Guoxing!”
Soon I saw Teacher Yang being pulled out of the crowd by several Red Guards. Amid the chants of “Down with the escaped rich peasant Yang Guoxing!” he was dragged onto the stage. A placard reading “Escaped Rich Peasant Yang Guoxing” was hung around his neck, and he was pushed to the front to kneel in a row with the other “ox demons and snake spirits.”
Through the loudspeakers, the Red Guards announced:
“Send the escaped rich peasant Yang Guoxing back to his native place!”
Then they raised their fists and shouted:
“Down with the escaped rich peasant Yang Guoxing!”
The crowd below repeated the chant:
“Down with the escaped rich peasant Yang Guoxing!”
I had seen many people seized and sent away on the spot like this, but seeing Teacher Yang treated in that manner still shocked me deeply.
How could such a good man be a bad person? He had always been kind to Xianzhi and to me. He gave me ciba every time I visited. Why should he be sent back to the countryside?
There were so many people at the rally that I did not know whether Xianzhi was there. If he was, how could he have endured seeing his father treated that way?
Xianzhi’s parents had never been well suited to each other. His mother was young, beautiful, outgoing, and lively; his father was honest, kind, quiet, and reserved. They divorced during the Cultural Revolution.
I never learned exactly when they divorced—whether it was before or after Teacher Yang was sent back to his native village. By then, the family had already moved away, and Xianzhi never mentioned the matter.
I knew that he and his younger sister went with their mother to attend the middle school at Longping Commune on the western side of the river, but I never saw them again.
Later, I heard that his mother had remarried. Her new husband was a young and handsome deputy secretary of the commune. After that, I heard nothing more about them.
From the third grade until I graduated from high school, I never saw Xianzhi again.
In the spring of 1975, after graduating from high school, I was sent down to Shui Kuan Commune, more than thirty miles from town. To travel from town to the educated-youth settlement at the commune tea plantation, we had to pass through Qili Bridge, where the monument commemorating Japan’s surrender had once stood.
By then, the monument had been smashed. No one talked about it, so we had no idea that an event of worldwide significance had once taken place there.
We had to cross the Wushui River by ferry at Qili Bridge, then go through Sifangyuan on the opposite bank and cross Yanqiao Commune before reaching our settlement at the Shui Kuan Commune tea plantation.
Once, after returning from home to the settlement, I took the ferry at Qili Bridge and was astonished to find the ferryman familiar. I looked more closely.
Wasn’t that Xianzhi?
We had not seen each other for seven or eight years. We had both grown from children into young men. We were delighted and surprised to meet again. Since the ferry was crowded, however, I did not feel comfortable asking him too many questions.
When we parted, he insisted on refusing my fare.
On another occasion, I happened to cross the river while he was on duty. He told me that the dining hall was serving braised pork for dinner and asked me to wait until he finished work so we could eat together.
It was already after four o’clock. I sat on the grass beside the river, watching the slow-moving water as I waited for him to finish his shift.
In those days, we could not afford to eat meat even once every two weeks. Having braised pork for dinner was like celebrating the New Year.
After work, he went to the kitchen and bought his portion of braised pork, along with a small vegetable dish. The two of us shared the meat in his room, just as we had once shared ciba. For a moment, I felt that I had returned to childhood.
During dinner, he told me that he had come to work there after graduating from middle school. I had heard that his stepfather was the secretary of the commune.
Being a ferryman was not considered a particularly desirable job, but at that time there were almost no opportunities for formal employment. Ferry workers were paid by the state, with a guaranteed livelihood. The work was also easier than being an educated youth.
His father had already been reinstated and was teaching at Zhijiang No. 2 Middle School. Xianzhi said that he occasionally went to visit him.
Before the Spring Festival in January 1976, I received eighty pounds of glutinous rice from the production team. After milling it into more than sixty pounds of glutinous rice, I went to Granny Luo’s house at the tea plantation and had it made into ciba.
On my way back to town, I passed the Qili Bridge ferry crossing and planned to give some ciba to Xianzhi. Unfortunately, he was not there that day, so I could not deliver it.
In 1977, the national college entrance examination was restored. Because we were working as substitute teachers, the production brigade refused to let us return to town to prepare for the examination.
Finally, after school one Saturday in late October, the three of us educated-youth teachers decided to resign. We left a note and set off for town.
It was already after five o’clock, and the county seat was more than fifty miles away. Soon after we started, darkness fell.
When we reached the Qili Bridge ferry crossing, it was already after nine. The ferry service stopped at nine.
Facing the pitch-black river and the empty ferry, we were at a loss about what to do.
Then I remembered Xianzhi.
I walked to the little house where the ferrymen rested and shouted:
“Xianzhi! Xianzhi! Are you there?”
As luck would have it, he was on duty that night. When he heard my voice, he immediately got up. After learning about our situation, he said nothing more. He took us to the ferry, untied the rope, helped us onto the boat, and ferried us across the river in the darkness.
After Xianzhi’s father was reinstated, he remarried. His wife’s surname was Liu, and she was a doctor. The two of them were very compatible and deeply devoted to each other. Xianzhi sometimes went to visit them.
After I graduated from university in 1982, I was assigned to work in Changsha.
In 1990, the work unit where Xianzhi was employed in Huaihua sent him to a university in Changsha for a year of further study. At the time, I was working for the Hunan Commodity Inspection Bureau and had been married only a short while.
During the holidays, I invited him to dinner, and I also visited him at his school. He was always smiling, speaking softly, and never hurried or agitated.
Yet I sensed that his father’s misfortune during the Cultural Revolution, along with his parents’ divorce when he was very young, had affected him deeply and left him with emotional wounds. Perhaps years of depression caused him to lose his hair while he was only in his early thirties. His classmates at the school where he studied called him “Old Yang.”
We once introduced him to a young woman. Their relationship seemed promising for a while, but in the end it did not work out. Perhaps the woman was concerned about living in different places, or perhaps she met someone whose circumstances were more favorable.
Later, when I returned to Zhijiang and saw Teacher Yang, we talked about Xianzhi. Teacher Yang said with some guilt:
“It was our divorce that cast a shadow over him and made him lose confidence in marriage.”
But I felt that Xianzhi was still making an effort to find a partner. He did not seem opposed to love or marriage, and I believed there was still hope.
Sure enough, two years later he found a suitable woman, married her, and started a family.
In 2015, when I returned to China to visit my parents, I went to see Teacher Yang. He was living in the teachers’ residential building at Zhijiang No. 2 Middle School. He was already in his eighties, but he and Doctor Liu were still living together.
Their home was simple and clean, with a quiet atmosphere of books and learning. He was in good health, looked well, and remained mentally sharp. He was very happy to see me, and we talked for a long time.
Two days later, Xianzhi made a special trip from Huaihua to Zhijiang to visit me and my parents. His father must have told him that I had come to see his father and stepmother.
Xianzhi still had the same smiling face. He looked healthy and cheerful. I learned that his own child had grown up and gone to university. I was genuinely happy for him.
I also found time to visit my elementary-school teacher at Lotus Pond Elementary School, but the teacher was not there. As I was leaving, I ran into Xianzhi’s mother, Teacher Tang, beside the building. She was in her seventies.
We had not seen each other for many years, and I could hardly recognize her. She thought I looked familiar, too, but she did not recognize me. Just then, Xianzhi’s younger sister, Xianying, returned from outside. She recognized me immediately and invited me to their home.
I heard that Teacher Tang and her husband had been separated for many years. She was now living with Xianying in the teachers’ dormitory at Lotus Pond Elementary School.
The room was somewhat untidy. Teacher Tang had gained weight, did not look very well, and seemed rather unkempt. Her thoughts were not as clear as they once had been.
When I used to visit Xianzhi’s home, Teacher Yang was almost always the only one there, so I had never been very close to her. She had not expected this unannounced visitor and had made no preparations to receive me. After chatting for a while, I left.
Xianzhi still visited both of his parents. He was a deeply filial son.
Written in 2017
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