Year of the Earth Serpent Changing Colors. A Novel. E-Book

Hall Gardner

• Herausgeber: ibidem
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 767

Beschreibung

The whole Communist world is in the middle of a democratic revolution. Hall Gardner’s novel depicts the protests taking place prior to the June 1989 Tiananmen Square repression—a subject still taboo in China. Hired to teach English, Mylex H. Galvin records his experience in his “Anti-Marco Polo” journal after he meets expats from around the world, while trying to come to grips with the Chinese language, history, and politics. Galvin becomes disillusioned with the poverty and environmental destruction that he finds in China; his barefoot doctor heroes are not capable of treating AIDS; Chinese and African students clash in Nanjing—with no sense of international solidarity. As the democracy movement heats up, he is torn between the love of Tao Baiqing, a Daoist, and Mo Li, a student of English Lit, and unwittingly betrays the ties between the journalist, Hayford, and the democracy activist, Chia Pao-yu—accused of leaking “top secrets” to Hayford. As Galvin studies China’s relations with the Western world since Marco Polo, with emphasis on the “hundred years of humiliation,” he becomes haunted by nightmares of a “clash of civilizations” and warns against a coming Apocalyptic Color War between the Balding Eagle and the Chinese Dragon—as the latter transmogrifies from Red into shades of Red-Brown-Black.

Leseprobe

ibidem Press, Stuttgart

Table of Contents

Part I:

I. Shooting Stars 

Suzhou Creek 

Sin City 

Shanghai Lily 

Foreign Experts Dorm 

Ping Pong Diplomacy

Little Green Book 

The Scarlet Letter 

The Journalist 

Foreign Exchange

Kentucky Fried 

Summer Palace

Mother Courage

II. “Q’s” without “A’s”

Single Mystery

Café Contradictions

Five Vermin Six Parasites

Quest for Cathay

Chimerical Voices

III. The Prof. and the Atomic Butter Battle

A Pyramid of Skulls

T.V. Dinner Flashback

Goldfish

Strange Fruit

Carnyx War Horn

“The Revolution is Just Around the Corner”

The Art of Tea

Shoeless Doctors

Reporting Truth to Power

Juggling the Five Bizarre Creatures

IV. A Deep Drag

German Beer

Russian Vodka

Twelve-Tone Chords

Tale of the White Serpent

Drunken Ink

No Conception of Privacy

The Silkworm Factory Banquet

Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

Way to the Great Equilibrium

Sunday School Eschatology

Part II:

V. Dà Zì Bào (Big Character Posters)

River Elegy

MINZHU (Democracy and Freedom)

The Brave Intellectual

A Plate of Chicken Feet

Mending Nine Dragon Wall

Wild Game Taste

“Me…”

Just One Evening Scars the Soul

VI. Wetback Seeing Eye Dog

Smell of Garlic Cloves

A Free Agent

Like a Toupée, Just for Cover?

Lotus Foot Metamorphosis

VII. Sunflowers No Longer Turn to the Sun!!!

Rumors Kill!!!

Tears the Size of Bullets

Tie-Dyed in Blood

Part III:

VIII. The Secret Decree

Anonymous Letter

Hong Kong Escape

Silkworm Past and Futures

IX. Oval Office Options

More than Obsessed

Can’t Go Back

Apocalypse or Apocatastasis???

End of History

Return to Malcolm X Park 

X-Mas Tidings

Galvin versus Polo

The Year Comes to an Abrupt “End”

Personalized Deluge???

X. Post-Mortem: Mental Aliens

Year of the Water Tiger

Coda: When It Really All Began 

“What is dyed in blue becomes blue, what is dyed in yellow becomes yellow. When the silk is put in a different dye, its color becomes also different. Having been dipped in five times, it has changed its color five times. Therefore, dyeing should be done with great care. This is true not only with silk dyeing; even a country changes its color in response to its influences.”

—Mo Zi

 

Part I:

Quest for Cathay

I.

Shooting Stars 

For months he had anticipated this jubilant moment. This moment when the dull blue page of his U.S. passport would be stamped by animated red Chinese calligraphy. The moment of his long-awaited escape from the overly opulent Overworld to the overly impoverished Underworld. It was his long-awaited escape from the daily monotony of the D.C. Beltway to another Civilization on the opposite side of the planet. It was the chance of a lifetime to work alongside the Chinese people-in-revolution. His hope to experience another way of life…

Waving, swaying, shapes of Chinese characters… fluid and alive… danced before him with their own kinetic energy. He could see the artwork in each painstaking stroke. He could feel the laborious effort of the vivid calligraphy as it expressed hidden meanings and emotions. The moving forms and symbols represented places and times seemingly light years away from his own sub-urban sub-existence… 

It was with great conviction that he took his first unwavering steps onto Chinese soil—where he would pledge solidarity with the revolutionary goals of the People’s Republic. The Red Flags with 5 golden stars evoked memories of the historic victory that shook the entire world almost 40 years before. The larger Star symbolized the role of the Communist Party. The four smaller Stars symbolized the strong alliance of the workers and the peasants with the urban and national bourgeoisie....  

***

No bus service from the plane. Passengers had to traverse by foot the black tarmac sonorous with the blistering buzz of propeller craft and the ear-crushing roar of jets that soared upon take-off thousands of feet above the planet in radiant Oriental sunset glory…  

He stood in line for what seemed to be forever… chain-smoking his last pack of well-fumigated Made in USA cigarettes… Combing his fingers through his goatee he carefully tightened the black rubber band… tucked his raven black hair down behind his collar. He feared that its length might attract attention. In no way did he want anyone to suspect him of something that he had recently abandoned… 

No longer were there shadows around his intense blue eyes. No longer did his pupils dilate like flying saucers in outer space. No longer did he need to chew cloves and mint and spray cologne in a vain effort to cover the dank stench that clung to his clothes. After months of abstinence, he was able to bring himself… more or less… under self-control… 

***

He waited to present his visa at customs. It seemed like forever. Then, in a matter of a few exhilarating seconds, his passport was stamped… brusquely… with a heavy thud.  It was an even longer, but not unbearable, wait to find his backpack dumped upon the un-swept floor inside the airport building. Upon exiting customs, he saw his name… misspelled… in black letters on white cardboard… Glavin Mylx… The taxi driver then drove him to the legendary Peace Hotel. 

He asked for a pack of cigarettes. The robot-like concierge automatically handed him what was once dubbed “toasted” Lucky Strikes. He turned those down and pointed in the direction of Chinese-made cigarettes. Not understanding, the concierge fetched a pack of cattle-rustling Marlboros—cigarettes that had… once upon a time… been advertised as “mild as May”. He turned that pack down as well. 

The concierge looked bewildered. The strange-looking foreigner with a ponytail and goatee pointed his crooked finger once again. At last, the man understood and selected the homegrown Chinese brand, Chunghwa. The foreigner winked and… unexpectedly… flashed his white card and paid in RMB, the People’s Currency.

He still felt the ringing in his ears. It was a dizziness now compounded by the incessant arterial pounding of his jet-lagged skull. Chain-smoking cancer sticks was the next best thing for him to relax….

***

Mr. Mylex H. Galvin had been invited to the People’s Republic as a guest worker by the True Friends of the East Wind (TFEW)—an American group which believed in the Revolutionary Cause of the People Republic. He was to teach English as a foreign language for two semesters starting in September with a potentially renewable contract. His package included a round-trip ticket, a brief visit to Shanghai before his journey to Beijing, a salary of roughly $100 a month in Foreign Exchange Currency (FEC), free room and board in a foreign experts’ dorm, plus the extra benefit of free Chinese civilization and language classes. 

Offered a “white card,” he was given the privilege to use the People’s Currency (RMB) instead of Foreign Exchange Currency (FEC)—the currency that most foreigners were required to use by law. With RMB, he could pay a much lower price than did the average tourist for most everyday Made in China products. There was no way he could refuse this golden opportunity! 

***

The giant color T.V. tube glowed… monotonously luminescent… in front of the pale pink walls of his hotel room. A pre-teen boy, his face and body distorted by the screen’s cathode ray vacuum tube, appeared on a stage. He was sporting a sparkling sequin cowboy outfit—complete with ten-gallon hat and a string necktie. The Chinese Billy the Kid not-so-unexpectedly drew his 6-shooter from out of his diamond studded leather holsters. He fired 6 bullets… Bang!!! Bang!!! Bang!!! Bang!!! Bang!!! Bang!!!... while simultaneously crooning in Chinese. Tipping his Stetson, he bowed for the audience to applaud…  

Galvin couldn’t believe his eyes or ears. The Wild West had made it to the People’s Republic! ‘Why would the Chinese people want to play, act, or even watch, such American-influenced kitsch?’ He switched off the TV without checking out the other channels, took off his navy-blue beret, scratched the thick white scar that had been so hastily sewn up by the nurse and that snaked through the back of his scalp, and tried to clear his aching head…  

In a moment of inspiration, he remembered the two-toned butterfly—with red speckles on the forewings and yellow speckles on the hindwings—that had greeted him as he first stepped onto the Chinese tarmac. He wanted to capture in a poem how the butterfly had appeared to flutter before the 5 golden shooting stars waving on China’s Red Flag… how his fleeting encounter with this beautiful and mysterious creature represented an open invitation for him to play a role in the casing and uncasing of China’s Colors… his opportunity to play a role in the People’s struggle….  

Yet almost as soon as he had jotted down a few lines of verse within the vibrant op-art spirals of his Anti-Marco Polo Travel Journal, he scratched the words out in frustration. Absolutely no inner moonlight madness revealed… 

Suzhou Creek 

Jet lag propelled him to lift off from the Peace Hotel very early the next morning. Few bicycles had braved the heavy traffic in the D.C. Cocaine and Murder Capital of the World. Here, however, in the car-less utopia of Shanghai there were thousands upon thousands of one-speeders with wide-rimmed tires. Almost all were uniformly black with tufted white deer tails and red reflectors. There were thousands dashing and darting and clanging by him. Everyone was physically attached to a two-wheeled vehicle… like an artificial third limb....  

The pulsing rhythms of the throng enveloped him wherever he went. The women wore black cotton shorts and black knee-high nylon stockings with a thin skin patch of thigh exposed. The men wore black jackets and pants—so slim they had no waists at all. Their hair appeared wild and unkempt or puffed out in a truly permanent perm—almost ghoulish. The people tap-danced down streets with metal-tipped heels… click… click… clicking…

***

He hadn’t even looked at his travel guide… taking pictures… jotting down notes. Along the route hundreds practiced Tai Chi in near silence at dawn with the sun and its rays arching their way through the fan-shaped leaves of ginkgo trees that had outlived the dinosaurs. Old women wore thick brown coats with straight gray haircuts chopped around the nape of their necks—as if a bowl had been placed on top of their heads. Old men were dressed in all black or iridescent blue. Young children tried to imitate the graceful movements of their elders….  

Each movement was a graceful and dignified dance of cranes. It was a dance that sought to control the breath and the body to achieve immortality… raising hands… strumming the lute… grasping the bird’s tail… single whip… the white crane spreading its wings… patting the horse… finding the needle at the bottom of the sea….  

Unlike classical Western dance the people did not leap into the energy of the air. Instead, they ground themselves into the energy of the earth. It was a philosophy of cycles…What expands now will ultimately shrink back in… What retreats now will later surge forward…  

‘Spartan simplicity. Healthy exercises for the masses who possess no hula hoops,’ thought Galvin with a chuckle, ‘No need for gimmicks and gadgets in a revolutionary society advancing.’ Subconsciously he began to imitate the graceful movements—but could not sustain his balance. He accidentally slipped and squashed a few ginkgo fruits beneath him. The air began to stink with a whiff of boiled eggs cracked open… His head spinning, he felt nauseous as if smelling vomit. What appeared to be so simple and graceful was, in fact, very strenuous...

***

He entered a very large building labeled in English, “Department Store No. 1”. Hundreds of Chinese were being swept in and up the steps around each of the floors… then down again, around, and around, and around… until swept out… out… out….  Even if he had wanted to, he was unable to stop himself… drawn as he was by the ebb and flow and riptides of the crowd… caught up in the currents, undertow, and countercurrents… wave after pounding wave dredged sand from the surf. It was if reality—and the evident materialist dreams of the Chinese people—had begun to merge… 

On display were kitchen goods, scarves, silken undergarments, black rabbit hats and gloves, men’s clothes, dresses and skirts, some shoes, many sheets, towels, and table clothes. He noticed nothing very fancy… no flashy advertising… no snobby perfumes or designer clothes… It was life without Louie Zitton (LZ), etc… life without Role-X’s and other time pieces perfectly designed and marketed for military officials and wealthy elites since the days of the Great War... Life without any fancy show-off items for globe-trotters to better identify themselves as members of the same prestigious club….

Nor were there any of those lesser-engineered creations of mass appetites that one would expect to purchase in a typical American shopping mall. No junk food… No Toasted Twinkies… just to mention one of many packaged junk foods and candies that were for sale in bloated sugary excess in the Land of the Free… 

No one bought a thing. The crowd just kept moving, gesticulating, laughing, pressing him on and on. So suddenly had he been swept in… twisted up and around. It was as if he were riding on a conveyor belt through a haunted house and just as suddenly spit out. And just as more and more people were being sucked into the vortex, he soon found himself thrown out onto the even more crowded street.  

On the outside he found himself staring at a lone mannequin. It was standing without expression in an almost empty space behind a smudged windowpane. Next to him in the glass reflection was a young woman with bright red lipstick on her full moon face. She seemed to be puckering her lips in silent craving in front of the mannequin’s bright red dress. Her skin was white and sensual as an orchid—without a blemish.

There was no way he would dare say something to her—even if he could. Unable to speak, he smiled…  She spun around and sped away…. 

***

An hour or so later he found himself in Old Shanghai. He learned from his guidebook that he had… randomly… walked to the Yu Yuan Gardens and he stood before the Temple of the City Gods. It was the area once owned by the wealthy families of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Shaped like 5 petal flowers the pavilions overlooked the miniature lakes… the bridges… the eccentric rock gardens. The piles of gray and white stones were said to be like isles in the middle of a river… or like turtles in a stream… or like tigers crouching… or like clouds floating in the sky…  

‘Only the Chinese,’ he avowed, ‘could fathom the meaning of these odd-shaped prehistoric molecules now surreally amalgamated outside of their formerly earthly environment.’

***

That afternoon he ambled along Zhongsan Road toward Huangpu Park to where the Huangpu River meets Suzhou creek. It was the birthplace of Shanghai. Hundreds of illegible notes scribbled with his ballpoint pen had already begun to smear almost immediately upon contact with the blue-lined pages of his Anti-Marco Polo diary. He must have snapped dozens of unfocused photos with his bulky 35mm camera… Had he correctly connected and wound the filmstrip?  

***

In the middle of a park, two men in plain gray pants and white-short sleeve shirts sat… serendipitously… on the far ends of a bench. Both were clutching mysterious looking boxes hidden under navy blue cloth covers that they carried carefully over the dirt paths that curled before piles of bleached stone water sculptures. Each placed the two [covered objects] between them. Simultaneously, they undraped the covers. Within the hand-carved [wooden cages] two tiny matching yellow canaries began to extend their crumpled feathers and sing melodiously through their orange beaks.  

Without even an audible exchange of whispers the men stared out in opposite directions into the lonely unfulfilled longing of the sky. Not even a visible glance of friendship… totally passive... in pure meditating silence… 

An elderly woman gripped her thick wooden cane straight out before her and strutted like a mandarin duck as she approached the other seniors dressed in streaked and tattered clothes. All had assembled on chairs in the park. Much younger women and men—proudly dressed in long white aprons, caps and gowns like desert Bedouin robes—consulted each individual as they waited patiently with their backs held straight. One tall man dug the wax out of a man’s ears with what looked like a slender dandelion puff. Others checked eyes and throats and teeth and heartbeat. These must be the barefoot doctors!  

***

A charcoal flavored steampermeated his nostrils and then enticed him over to the food stand. With a tiny craving in his stomach… with an urge to taste something exotic… he trudged up to the Pied Piper in the stained white smock who was barbecuing in a tiny hole in the wall—his steamy music drawing together all the creatures of the village… 

Like a child he pointed to two puffy buns that were encased in a circular bamboo steamer… He handed a one RMB bill over to the chef who then returned some coins that felt like play money. Galvin had never tasted any form of Asian steamed buns and nibbled hastily on the rubbery white dough that was stuffed with chopped pork… spiced with sliced ginger and what he guessed were scallions… Delicious!...

The hot juice oozed out and stained his shirt—without him even noticing. His Chinese-English dictionary had told him that ròu meant meat or flesh, among other things, depending on its pronunciation… bāo could mean bun… or report… or even treasure… In translation these ròubāo were truly a delight… a precious treasure! 

***

Wide-bodied barges plowed through the old Suzhou Creek… once called the Wusong River. Upon water that appeared as thick as motor oil the spectral light refracted rainbow mutations of color over the realm where dwells the pánlóng coiled Dragon-Chimera who tries, generally without success, to control the flow of all time from beneath the water’s surface.

This was the birthplace… the foundations… the very life source… of Shanghai… A great city that was only just beginning to rebuild itself to its former grandeur…. Three shifts day-and-night… Huge buildings, framed in bamboo scaffolding, were rising rapidly under both sun- and moon- light… The landscapers drew their white feng shui strings taut across the muddy grounds and examined the yin/yang of the entire area…

Workers—sweating and grimacing like long-horned water buffalo with yokes tied to their necks—hauled heavy barrels or bricks or planks on two wheeled carts… One dressed in radiant blue workwear ran down a hill with a heavy load and pressed his heels into the grime… The cart soon toppled tossing him a few feet into the air and then down… into the not-so-good earth… These model Chinese workers were working such long hours that they were unable to sleep or rest during the day after their grueling nightshifts.

***

Shanghai’s Suzhou Creek was the mirror image of NYC’s old Gowanus Canal. And the Shanghai skyline, Galvin thought, was a genetic imitation of the Gotham Melting Pot through which flowed that utterly black River of Styx—that perverse and inhuman liquid life force that had spontaneously generated the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center, 40 Wall Street, Citicorp Center, Rockefeller Plaza, Trump Tower, and many other skyscrapers from its underworld source and upward into the smoke of chiaroscuro clouds… 

And much like the “symphonic stink” of the old Gowanus Canal as refracted through Thomas Wolfe’s wanderlust lenses, Suzhou Creek was cunningly compacted with innumerable separate and adverse putrefactions, plastic sacks and cups, urine and feces, rotten cabbage, solvents and pesticides, among other chemical and viral concoctions that followed the lethargic flow of carcasses of salted chickens and their black one-hundred to one-thousand-year old pídàneggs… whichever of the two—the chicken or the embryo—actually came first out of the original amniotic mystery… out of the Immense, Unfathomable, Whatever, Whenever, Wherever, However…

Sin City 

With its Art Deco and Gothic style architecture, its milk yellow granite walls, its white Carrara marble and pointed copper-sheathed roof, the world-famous Peace Hotel, once called Cathay Hotel, appeared frozen in time. Many influential Westerners had lodged there when Shanghai… then known as Sin City… had truly dazzled the planet as one of the world’s great fashion centers—and as an amusement park for the rich and famous. Shanghai had once been a magnificent city where Ocean Devils—those big-nosed foreigners—gathered in all their cosmopolitan glory…. 

It had been a crowning achievement when the Cathay Hotel surpassed the Astor House as one of the few air-conditioned “places to be” in the entire world. That achievement took place during the epoch of F. Scott and the ‘phrenic’ Zelda in Paris. That was when the Cathay Hotel’s Jazz was the most ecstatic in days of Swing… when its Art Deco blazed the path of post-World War I modernity… when the Hotel itself and its wild high society flappers were truly unrestrained… when the whole Shanghai experience was the most aesthetically… the most erotically… a-go-go … The jazziest party capital on the entire planet. 

The year was 1929 to be precise… the Year of the Great Depression… the Year of the Earth Serpent...

***

His map pointed him in the direction of the former residence of Sun Yat-sen. In that two-storey house with a white façade… that was unfortunately not open to visit… the first President of the Chinese Republic had lived from 1918-1924. It was here that Sun had worked on his doctrine of the Three Principles of the People: Nationalism, Democracy, and People’s Livelihood… as explained in precise detail in Galvin’s textbook, China’s Exploitation by the West Since the Era of Marco Polo, by Dr. Woodward B. Intellow, Ph.D.1

There were those who thought Sun Yat-sen’s ideas were crazy. The Three Principles had raised many questions: ‘What did Sun mean by Nationalism in a country that possessed some 57 ethnic groups who were ruled by the vast Han majority in a country that was further divided by rival regional warlords?’ ‘What did he mean by Democracy (or “rights of the people”) in a former empire that had been ruled by the prepubescent whims of 29 emperors under the age of 10?’ And the big question of the Cold War: ‘What did People’s Livelihood mean in the ideological battle between Capitalism and Socialism?’2All branches of the new democratic government were to be held responsible to the People’s Congress. Or so had been promised…

Both Mao Ze Dong—leading the “international” Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—and Chiang Kai-shek—leading the “nationalist” Kuomintang (KMT)—had claimed to be the heirs of Sun Yat-sen. Yet despite their alliance in 1923, they and other revolutionaries, such as Chen Jiongming, who supported a multiparty system of governance and who violently opposed Sun’s efforts to centralize power,3 quarreled over the precise meaning of each of the three principles. For his part, Mao was enraged when Sun, just before his death in 1925, had picked the bourgeois nationalist Chiang Kai-chek—instead of him—to lead the Nanjing-based KMT movement—which Sun had already begun to centralize Soviet style.

Not only had there been no firm agreement among the Chinese revolutionaries as to precisely what form of democratic governance that China should take, but the Western Democracies, the British Union Jack and America’s Old Glory, could not agree as to which of the competing Chinese revolutionary movements and leaders to support. Uncle Sam tended to support Sun Yat-sen before Chiang Kai-chek took his place—yet the British Bulldog initially opposed Sun Yat-sen due to his anti-colonialist alliance with Mao and due to the fear that Sun might want to supplant British-controlled Hong Kong with Canton (Guangzhou) as a new center of international trade.

One could have at least hoped that mature democracies—like loving parents—would help nurture fledgling democracies in their nest. This was definitely not the case for China.

***

Galvin had only just begun to reflect upon these questions and others that have remained unanswered even to this day—questions that if ever sufficiently answered—could help better explain what had passed, was passing, and even what could come, in Chinese history, politics, and culture. Such unanswered questions directly and indirectly impact how the Chinese Revolution would be remembered, interpreted, misinterpreted, and then re-interpreted… Questions and issues most likely to be forgotten once again…

While partisan groups often clash over symbols and colors, the roots of clashes among differing partisans—but also within the same partisan group—often have more to do with differences over petty political details and tactics than with the broader ideological visions and strategies promulgated by those with foresight—or those who, at least claim, to foresee a better future ahead.

For disputes over ideas, values, if not dreams, often intensify in clashes over petty details… such disputes can become like a massive whirlpool which self-generates amid waves surging from differing directions and variegated temperatures. Not only can the vortex of the spinning efflux intensify the hatred between already self-described and self-determined enemies—but it can also rip apart and drown close relations between allies, friends and lovers alike.

These often ignored, forgotten or repressed debates over the form that Chinese governance should take, such as ‘Parliamentary rule? Or single Party control?’—plus questions involving ‘regional decentralization versus centralization’, and ‘power sharing vs majority rule’, among many lesser concerns, provide a wider framework for what might be possible in the future. And such forgotten or ignored debates over what might only appear to be petty or obscure issues in contemporary terms can thus reveal, if carefully exposed, how the past can rise to the surface of the present like intricate bubbles of fine champagne to enliven and rejuvenate the present and future—even if those ideas and concepts were never implemented at the time when they were first proposed. Or else, and more ominously, they can reveal how the past can float upward to the present like a putrefied corpse submerged.

***

It was in Sin City in 1927 where Chiang Kai-shek moved to pre-empt Mao’s challenge to his leadership. Chiang hired the drug-pushing mafia Triad, the Green Gang, led by Big-eared Tu and the pockmarked Huang to do the dirty work. In fear of Red Terror, White Terror would be bloody, very bloody…

Galvin could envision the Shanghai metal workers of the arsenal demonstrating… their movement followed by the anger of the dock and railway men…  The general strike had prevented the weapons of the Merchants of Death from being manufactured and delivered. Thousands of spinning-mill workers swarmed onto the streets… standing… squatting… lying on the sidewalk in protest.  All risked their lives for freedom… Their long vertical banners cried out for justice… 

No more employment of children under eight!!!

Right to sit down for women-workers!!!

12-hour working day NOW!!!

—HUNGER—

***

Until 1936 Sin City was the “in” place for Global Elites. The International Hotel was the place where Charlie Chaplin met the gorgeous movie star, Hu Die, the Empress Butterfly. That was just after the closet gypsy—who refused to admit his Romany roots—had made his classic film satire of mass production society, Modern Times. And that was way before the anti-fascist anti-Hitler Chaplin was accused of “un-American activities” and banned from entering the Land of the Free in 1952—and just before Chaplin hosted a banquet for the Chinese foreign minister, Zhou Enlai, at his chic Manoir de Ban estate, in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland in 1954. 

The Sin City spectacle both fascinated and appalled wealthy visitors from all over the planet where mink stole, Golden Fleece, Bentley and Rolls Royce, wealth sprouted high in the sky right next to the underworld squalor of opium dens and gurgling hookah houses where nightspots such as the eclectic European baroque style Great World Entertainment Center, with its 20,000 visitors a day, had rapidly overtaken the old comatose lady tea houses of the more established classes and clans…   

Fan tan tables the size of crap games glistened with shiny white buttons… Crackling firecrackers gyrated in exploding emotions... Double jointed acrobats flipped up and down streets… Shadowy peep shows glowed in the back alleyways… Magicians directed goldfish in aquariums with magnets implanted in their red and gold stomachs… Sing song girls chirped like canaries on almost every street corner... Pure white Russian Swans from Vladivostok… escapees from the Civil War and Communist dictatorship… caroused dangerously enticing in Sin City cabarets… along streets such as Bloody Alley (Rue Chu-Pao-San)… With Revolution in the background, Sex, Dope and Jazz were omnipresent… 

On August 14, 1937, tragedy struck… Chinese aircraft dropped two bombs between the Cathay and Palace Hotels on Nanking Road—also striking the Great World Entertainment Center. On that “Bloody Saturday”up to 2000 people were killed or wounded. It was the end of the Sin City party. The “Great World” bombs were either aimed at the armed Imperial Japanese cruiser Izumo docked near the Shanghai International Settlement and failed to reach their target… or accidentally dropped by damaged Chinese aircraft… or else dropped—accidentally on purpose—on the international community living there in the hope to draw the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes into the Asian Apocalypse that was to come…

***

Galvin’s knew his brief visit was superficial. He was only just beginning to learn about the former wildlife of Sin City and the Cathay Hotel—and the great history of China in general. It was through reading Dr. Intellow’s tome that he began to comprehend the horrors of what had taken place during what the Chinese Communist Party called the “Hundred Years of Humiliation”—the roughly 100-year period that was initiated by the Opium Wars and that ended in 1949—after Mao raised the Red Flag over the Chinese Mainland. 

In the two Opium Wars (from 1839-42 and from 1856-60), the British Bulldog ruthlessly vanquished the Yellow Dragon in demanding the right to “free trade,” the right of British citizens not to be punished by Chinese laws, and the privilege of the East India Company to push Opium to China’s inhabitants. John Bull-dog’s profiteers were able to enrich themselves beyond belief with the silver and opium and tea that was fetched by the loyal service of Indian and Chinese coolie (kǔlì) labor throughout Queen Victoria’s global empire. Given such unbelievable profits—minus the heavy publicly subsidized costs of war and empire—it was accordingly not surprising that Yellow Dragon’s official pleas to the Queen to end the Opium Trade went unheeded.

What the Chinese had called the “devil’s ship”—the Iron Clad Nemesis—that had been launched by the Secret Committee of the East India Co. and “admirably adapted” for smuggling under a privateer’s letter of marque—was the secret weapon of the first Opium War.4 It was the weapon that bombarded the Yellow Dragon’s coastline with the rocket’s red glare—and that sank some 70 Chinese junks in smooth sailing all the way from Hong Kong to Shanghai… before sailing up the Yangtze River to Nanjing… along the ancient cradle of Chinese civilization…  The long-haired Manchu mandarins of the Qing empire were then forced to kowtow to Perfidious Albion in the Treaty of Nanjing on August 29, 1842 by ceding Hong Kong—which, after additional negotiations, was promised to be returned to China’s control in 1997.

‘God damn the Pusher man… What a monster… Not a naturalman… And so too the honorable John Bull-dog!!!…’ cynically reflected Galvin in a vain attempt to whistle the lyrics of the rock group, Steppenwolf. He wondered ‘how many fans had actually read that book by Herman Hesse’? 

***

The “Hundred Years of Humiliation” began to wind down once Japan’s Red Sun Rising withdrew its Samurai from China—but only after the two B-29 Super-fortresses, the Enola Gay and Bockscar, dropped the thin man “Little Boy” and pumpkin-shaped “Fat Man” onto the unsuspecting populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945—indifferently unleashing the drums of atomic Lei Gongthunder and the fury of mirrored flashes of Leizilightning. Humanity had now become “collateral damage” in the new nuclear war strategy—in the words of the pilot of the Super-fortress, the Enola Gay.

For the Drunken Japanese Demon King (Shuten-dōji), the A-Bomb was a living hell. The Divine Kamikaze winds had protected the Nipponese islands against Kublai Khan’s two raids that failed so miserably—after hundreds of Mongol Yuan Dynasty ships were sunk in the first raid in 1274 during the days of Marco Polo’s wonderfully auspicious visit that began in 1271. Yet those same Divine Kamikaze winds failed miserably in August 1945 to save the land of Samurai warmongers. And even after suffering the first Atomic Fire and Brimstone blast on that first fatal day of August 6th, the Japanese Seppuku still urged the population to resist—calling for bushido—Death before Surrender!!!—before Fat Man smashed and burned Nagasaki on August 9th.

By contrast, for the Chinese, the A-bomb was a savior—a celestial liberator who freed China from the horrific Unit 731 military occupation.5 All of China celebrated the radioactive aurora borealisthat had led the Japanese Demon King to capitulate… The Chinese people were, at least momentarily, able to dance… ecstatic… in the streets beneath the heavenly flashes of old-fashioned Chinese-invented gunpowder fireworks to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy!!!—that is,before Mao came to power…

Once the troops of Japan’s Red Sun Rising withdrew, China’s “Hundred Years of Humiliation” would soon come to an end—at least in accord with the Party line. By 1949, Mao’s forces were able to press the forces of Chiang Kai-chek’s Republican Flag, with its Blue Sky, White Sun, and a Wholly Red Earth symbols, into a hasty retreat onto Taiwan.

The Communist Party then rolled up its sleeves to clean up the mainland. Drug Dealers and Opium addicts were eradicated from the emaciated Zombie streets of Sin City. And the haughty, rarely visible, Honorable East India Co. Lords of the Realm—those who had once strutted across the Silk Road in black bowler caps with their ivory-headed canes holding their decrepit bodies straight up in search of Cathay basement bargains with support of the mafia Triads—fled China as soon as they could. And many of those same honorable Ocean Devils… once offshore…. would plot revenge against Mao and his Cronies for decades to come…

***

That evening the revolving doors of the Peace Hotel squeaked open to the outside world upon hinges in desperate need of oiling. Hardly a streetlamp was flickering. The passers-by were hugging the shadows close to the walls of the cityscape. The shadows appeared to swallow everyone alive—as if they were entering the wide-open mouth of a giant whale.  

Galvin found himself meandering… aimlessly… until a white light caught his eye… Like space junk drawn to the sun in the midnight darkness he was attracted magnetically to the brightly lit window of a building that looked like a post office. Leaping up to grab the ledge he pressed his feet into the bricks below and stretched his neck like a crane to peer inside…  

There he saw a group of men and women in pure white gowns. All were staring at what looked like an operating table piled high with letters and packages beneath glaring spotlights. Some of the women looked like nurses busily preparing the utensils for surgery. Others looked as if they were bent over bleached laundry with hot irons. All appeared to steaming letters instead of ironing clothes.  

Suddenly, an extremely angry man, also dressed in a spotless all-white smock, his black framed glasses reflecting rainbows in the bright lights, dashed up to the window. Flapping his skinny arms like soup noodles, his thick black eyebrows appeared to pop from his forehead with his lips and mouth contorted in anger. He clenched his fists as if he was about to strike Galvin through the windowpane. In a panic, Galvin jumped down from the ledge—as if he were obeying orders from a drill sergeant… and ran.

Galvin turned a corner and entered a small, dimly lit bar. There, panting, he found himself surrounded by the former dive-bombing self-sacrificial Kamikazes in their navy-blue dandruff-shouldered polyester suits. These visitors from the neighboring Nipponese archipelago had untied their self-strung nooses and were huddling at a good distance away from the few Chinese men and the one woman present at the bar… when they began to wail their hearts out…  

Off-key, they sang along with each Karaoke bouncing ball line of English-language pop verse that dribbled… lyrical… across the tinsel screen... not at all certain of the exact meaning of what they were crooning in pidgin English, “Girl, would die for you luv… Shan-greeee-la… Shan-greeee-laaaa…”  

How frustrated these not-so-young navy-blue business suits appeared to be as they ventured through mainland China when the Red Dragon was just beginning to open its doors to trade and investment. How these men longed to return across the East China Sea to once again thrust down their pink throats thin slices of Okinawa sashimi spiked with a pungent mash of green-radish wasabi root: The world-renowned promise of human health and longevity!

Heads thrown back, the group swallowed… simultaneously… in a single gulp, a shot of fermented sorghum and rose petals. It was what the Chinese often called “rice wine” or méiguīlù jiǔ—a sour liquor that tasted much harsher than the sacred fermented Nihonshu rice wine that became known as Saké outside of Japan… “Gambei!!Bottoms up!!!” For men’s blurry eyes only: The prized pearly mammary glands magnified in 3-D of a creamy white cherry-cheeked flower-in-hair geisha girl beckoned… erotically… from within the vitrified bubble at the bottom of each shot glass… 

***

He returned to the Peace Hotel bar. The clarinet, sax, bass guitar, and drum kit of a veterans’ Jazz quartet sizzled to the sound of bamboo rutes on a snare drum... the chic cymbals… chck… chck… chcking… Not a fan of traditional Jazz, Galvin joked to himself, ‘these old guys must have never ceased snorting their gig since the roaring ‘20s’!’ He listened politely for a few minutes.

In his not-so-incredible ignorance tainted with red-colored spectacles, Galvin was not aware that the Party had once labeled Jazz—an American import—as “yellow” or “pornographic” or “reactionary” music—much as the Nazi Germans had called Jazz “degenerate” (although still loving it). Under Mao, playing Jazz became a crime that could send musicians to the countryside for rehabilitation—and even to the Laodong Gaizao (or Lao Gai for short) prison camps.

Galvin had no clue that the Peace Hotel had just re-invited a few of those once purged musicians—those who were evidently still alive and well—to re-play their once repressed—and now out-of-fashion Jazz—in the late 1980s. Was it a form of atonement?

Shanghai Lily 

Galvin had opted to take the slow train voyage to Beijing by “hard seat” instead of taking a comfortable “soft seat”—euphemisms for “second” and “first” class tickets. He could have purchased a hard seat with his “white card” provided by the TFEW—but honestly believed he could better experience the ways of the everyday people… the poor and illiterate… the tired and hungry masses… the very arms and legs, liver, kidney, spleen, muscles and heart… of China itself… In no way did he want to be seen as a Yankee Doodle Dandy—as an elitist, liberal, two-faced hypocrite in its original meaning. 

In a very crowded car, with no foreigners, everyone seemed to be staring at him as if he were a freak from a Great World Entertainment sideshow. The air was thick with tobacco fumes before the coal-fueled train began to pick up speed. Instinctively… he lit up like a lighthouse in the smog and took a deep drag with the cigarette smoke ironically camouflaging the all-pervasive stench of grimy floors, sweaty bodies, filthy socks, and CH, CO2, SO2, NO, NO2, Pb, O3, PM2.5, CnH2n+2m, Mg3Si2O5(OH)4—that had infiltrated the air along with the natural scents of ginger, onion, and garlic, and who knows what kind of viruses, bacteria, etc.  

It was a compartment full with those who slept in the aisle or who stood up the whole way—alongside those who may not have possessed any ticket at all… those who looked as if they had never eaten a full meal in their lives… those who wore baggy clothes that draped over their skeletal frames… those who huddled next to striped Red&White&Blue plastic zipper sacks stuffed with food and a few pots and pans—what seemed to be all of their possessions. With travel bags used as pillows, there were no sheets or blankets. 

He found himself stepping over children who crouched beside their parents with deeply grooved cheeks… children who never blinked as they squat in utter silence before him… children whose soft brown eyes stared motionless even as flies landed on their cheeks…. Both the old and young alike were staring directly at him in sadness from the shadows … at this foreigner… at this wai guo ren… this Big Nose… this Ocean Devil… who had entered the crowded wagon of their depressed lives to take a hard seat or no seat when the other haughty foreigners took the more comfortable places…

Yet he was a stranger who said and did nothing… absolutely nothing…. for he could not speak to them… Nor they to him. Even if he could manage to mutter a few words of Mandarin, he could never say anything meaningful. Without a word or emotion… they could only stare at him. Not a sound… trembling… only hunger and fear on their lips….

As Galvin closed his eyes, their penetrating stares burned into his conscientious consciousness like a woodcut searing deep into his brain cells. He may have believed that he possessed the best intentions—but there was absolutely nothing he could tell or offer them. To be politically correct, he had to admit that, as an individual who had never engaged in any form of physical labor, nor suffered any form of hunger or physical need, there was no way that he could truly relate to them.

And among these forlorn people—among the hundreds of millions of migrant workers and homeless who barely survived in a Communist society that did not even admit the reality of their presence—there was probably at least one of Victor Hugo’s gamin or street urchins who dreamed of stabbing Galvin in the back so as to gain at least something, anything… money… a watch… jewelry… his kidneys… his liver… even his heart—if he or she had had the back alley chance to partake in the illicit revenge of an antipodal Robin Hood…

***

As the train rattled and rocked back and forth, Galvin stepped from one of the swaying wagons to the next and nearly tripped in the narrow passage as he began to check out the soft seats where the foreign tourists hung out. He soon entered an old wagon with the unpolished and corroded wooden beams of a colonial décor… and tulip-shaped lampshades. The whole theatre scene was lit up by the afternoon sun rays that beamed down through the parting clouds and through the dusty faded flowered curtains. He felt as if he had stepped onto the set of the fading 1937 celluloid film reel, Shanghai Express. Every piece of the décor was in dire need of restoration. 

Absurd music accompanied this Grade C movie remake. A sing-song aria rasped over the train’s shoddy speaker system. Syrupy sounds crooned in one moment and wailed in the next… warbling dulcet tones swung from sweet to sour and back again… string and percussion instruments twanged in the background. These sugary tones lingered among the roof beams before climbing up to the passing clouds. It was certain that the people stranded in the daily comings and goings of the planet earth could envision stars over all the sky…. 

The sounds and voices seemed so sappy… so sentimental. It would take a quite a while before he could accustom himself to China’s popular music. He had begun to realize that there was not much in everyday Chinese culture that appeared to be anything like the society-in-permanent-revolution that he had expected to uncover in his Trotsky frame of mind… 

And strangely enough, many of the sounds seemed to be coming from the purple throat of what he later learned was the Fenghuang Phoenix-Chimera—a creature with the face of a swallow, the beak of a rooster, the breast of a goose, the down of a duck, the neck of a snake, the scales of a reptile, the back of a tortoise, and the hindquarters of a stag. It was a creature that he had just seen pictured on a mural on the back wall of a soft seat train car…. Its head symbolized the sky; its eyes, the sun; its back, the moon; its wings, the wind; its feet, the earth; and its tail, the planets…. Its fish-like tail was streaked with the 5 sacred colors…

Such Strange Creatures were everywhere in China. They looked down from the roof tops. They were pictured on walls, on floors, on ceilngs, on ceramics, on tombstones. There were so many that they could be found creeping out of the brush. Before genetically modified organisms and seeds for agro-industry came into vogue, the Chinese were not only obsessed with reptiles but with a whole menagerie of Mutant Beasts that were not at all pure reptiles—but Chimeras made up of the different body parts of diverse creatures.

The Fenghuang Phoenix was just one of many bizarre mutants that not even Dr. Victor Frankenstein could have imagined… And just one of many Chimeras that would haunt Galvin’s nightmares…

***

Two American women were chit-chatting in the aisle… unconsciously… talking extremely loudly. They had left their baggage behind them to go to the dining car. And as is usual for American tourists abroad, they were ignoring everyone around them—as if they were the center of the galaxy. 

The heavy breasted California blonde related her story: 

“I mean, I had no other choice!” 

“You mean you actually went inside!” 

“There were no barriers between the seats.”  

“No way, no walls!”  

“And when I got up, they were all staring…” 

With no barriers between the seats of the Shanghai public toilet dozens of eyes must have… spontaneously… twisted towards the L.A. chick as her buxom body, with a swimmer’s broad shoulders and arms, sprung upward after she had raised her shiny silken panties… Made in China. 

***

Certainly, the Shanghai public toilet was not something anyone really wanted to discuss or write about. Going into the public toilet—as crude and disgusting as it is to speak about—was nevertheless a potent never-to-be-forgotten experience that most foreigners hoped to avoid at all costs—unless impelled by force majeure…  

The omnipresent stench—the heavy pollution of the air and water—were unfortunately the immediate concerns that came to the minds of almost every foreigner and of every lover of China when they first visited the country. These things simply could not be ignored—even if many tried to pretend they did not exist. Apologists would try to dismiss these waste disposal issues as inevitable. The country—after suffering years of imperialism—was trying, it was argued, to develop as rapidly as possible to feed its ever-growing population. Yet the question nevertheless arises… How was it possible that such a major public health issue was not fully addressed?

In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo had observed that the Chinese were the first to figure out the real value of manure—that excrement was worth far more than its weight in gold: “Not a Chinese peasant goes to town without bringing back with him, at the two extremities of his bamboo pole, two full buckets of what we designate as filth.” And much as Hugo had observed, Parisian public toilets and sewers, with cicatrices on the pavements and scars on the walls, were remnants of an old world that was waiting with impatience for a new world to be born. So too the Shanghai sewage system was likewise waiting for a new world to be born.

***

Galvin snickered—trying not to let on that he was eavesdropping. The woman’s predicament instantly reminded him of the story about Big Nose—an unsightly kid—who had sold sheets of toilet paper that he had borrowed on loan to all who entered/exited the Shanghai public facilities in pre-Maoist times—a story that he had read in Spring Silkworms by Mao Dun—a book given to him by Mother Courage, the editor of the TFEW’s East Wind Weekly, who had just arrived in the People’s Republic to help prepare the group’s stay.

Galvin wondered: ‘What would Big Nose have thought if he had the chance to gaze at one of those truly blonde Russian goddesses who had deserted Lenin’s 1917 Revolution in the Year of the Red Fire Serpent and who had the misfortune of entering his olfactory cesspool—like this pudgy imitation of Shanghai Lily?’ 

He checked the L.A. chick over. Her shoulder length pyrite curls and plaid knee-high skirt did make her look, at least from behind, a little like a slinky Marlene Dietrich—although much too hefty in the calves and cellulite thighs to play Shanghai Lily even without her face covered in a veil and a cigarette in her delicate hand. And there was no way that she would be able to dress up to the chic standards of Mademoiselle Alix—the French fashion designer who had once outfitted Dietrich and many of the world’s elite in crayon et encre de chine… the woman who had designed costumes for Jean Giraudoux's famous 1935 play, The Trojan War Will Not Take Place…

These must be concerns, Galvin gathered, of the super wealthy classes during the Swing era—when the Astor and Cathay hotels were à la modeamong the global à gogo elites in Shanghai—when the revolutionary spirit was stirring underground... 

“Don’t you find respectable people very dull” was Shanghai Lily’s famous line that he still remembered from the film.He took a deep drag and then blew a wide smoke ring through the air before aiming a metallic bullet through its center… Another bull’s eye… Lost in thought, the chit-chatting over-aged American cherubs—who seemed to relish the not-always-discreet, nor appreciative, stares of the Chinese in the car—sauntered by him to the dining car without taking a second glance. He assumed the two had not noticed him. 

***

The steam engine whistled its way… smoking through the countryside from Shanghai to Beijing. Galvin stared out into the fields… The rear end of a stone sculpture of an ancient horse with Chinese characters… indecipherable… carved onto its white flank revealed itself… unexpectedly… amid uncut brush… It was a work of art that had… proudly… endured the Millennia against the odds. A pond reflected a lotus plant… its arching leaves circled in an impressionist infinity of moiré patterns.... rippling. A field worker’s bare feet and toes stuck out of the mud. Bending over, the woman flashed a yellow crescent moon at the passing train…  

It was here… upon tiny mounds of earth adorned by brightly colored rings of paper flowers… that the ashes of the children of the First Emperor… the Yellow Emperor Huang-Di and his four wives… were first metamorphosed into jade. 

Foreign Experts Dorm 

“Room: feng shui, feng shui!!! Best room in house!!!” Mr. Sure asserted—the deep grooves of a heavily traveled bicycle path engraved into his cheeks. He was taking Galvin on a tour of the dorm for foreign experts where he would be staying near the Beijing International Center for Translation and Interpretation. The room was small and plain. A paint-chipped window looked over a bleak, coal-stained, piss-stench alleyway. Fortunately, the window let in the limited glow of the morning sunrise. And what did Mr. Sure mean by feng shui??? Galvin presumed it meant that the room’s strategic position and wind energy would somehow enhance his luck and status. It was as if Mr. Sure wanted to dress him up as a yuppie executive yearning to climb up the corporate ladder… Nothing doing! 

According to Mr. Sure, the autumn season would be heavenly at least until mid-November. Overnight the weather would then… expectedly but suddenly… turn bitter, cold, icy. The average Chinese had no system of heating—unless they lived in areas in the northern section of Beijing where the weather could become as cold as liquid nitrogen. Mr. Sure never ceased from forewarning Galvin of that fact: “Win-ter… miz-er-a-ble… Si-beer-ian temp-raa-ture! Win-dow let sun in, stay warm, so pre-pare you, in half-No-vem-ber,” he cautioned. “And in spring, heav-y sand of Go-bee desert, blown by heav-ee wind, guó fēng, pierce eye… Beee-ware!”

***

His name, Mr. “Shi” sounded in Beiwa… the deep Beijing accent… much like Mr. “Sure.” At least that’s how Galvin’s untrained barbarian ears had heard it. The word ‘shi’ could mean either ‘ten,’ or else ‘solid,’ ‘true,’ or ‘real’. It all depended upon the inflection of one of the four Mandarin tones. Perfect: Mr. Shi was really “sure”—of everything.

Each day Mr. Sure and Mr. Galvin would go through the same Marx Brothers routine in Chinese: “Ni hao?” “Ni hao ma?” Then, singing together: “Hen Hao!... Hao! Hao!... Hao!” (Very good!) After that, without a flaw, Mr. Sure’s heavy accent would sound out the long-haired foreigner’s adopted Chinese name. He would speak in both English and Chinese, “How are you today, Mr. My-lex Gal-vin, Mr. Gāo Mai Li?” 

Galvin would reply in good humor: “Give me ten, Mr. Sure, give me ten!” Then he’d slap the hands of this stolid Chinaman who would, in turn, chuckle, “Kě yi!!! Kě yi!!!” (OK!!! OK!!!)

Mr. Sure appeared to strongly dislike many of the other foreigners; yet he seemed to like Galvin. Despite the language barrier they appeared to get along. A pompous person, with a splotchy brownish-red face, Mr. Sure was sure he was very important. He was the ubiquitous concierge who watched… carefully and loyally… all the comings and goings of the foreign experts. 

***

Mandarin was full of homonyms and word plays. The meaning depended upon the tone in which the word was pronounced. In a dipping tone, mămeant ‘horse.’ In an even tone, mā meant ‘mother’. In a rising tone, má meant ‘hemp’. Or in a falling tone, mà meant ‘scold.’ 

After a few weeks of study, Galvin tried to impress Mr. Sure… lightheartedly… with his limited understanding of the Chinese vocabulary by showing ways he thought he could play with the four meanings of “ma” in the four tones: “A stampeding mă (horse) should not be confused with a mà mā (scolding mother) after smoking raw má (hemp).” At least he tried to make a joke—a rare event for Galvin. And Mr. Sure laughed… “Hen Hao!”—even if it was not certain that he understood what Galvin was trying to say.

Foreigners generally had names chosen for them according to their sound—that is, the sound according to Chinese ears. Galvin’s last name—with surname listed first in respect for one’s clan—had been transliterated by Mother Courage into a single syllable family name: Gāo, for Galvin, meant “dignified” or “tall” or “superior quality”. His first name, My-lex, became two-syllables: Mài meant stride or step and Li, meant force. Gāo Mài meant exuberant. Gāo Mài Li accordingly meant “dignified forceful or exuberant stride”.  In effect, he pondered… more or less subconsciously… that his new Chinese name should, at a minimum, imply “superior quality”—as being “humble” was not really one of his strengths, although he would have liked others to believe otherwise. Many of the names pinned on foreigners made absolutely no sense and sounded ludicrous to the Chinese. Fortunately, Mother Courage did not arbitrarily assign him a blatantly absurd moniker!!!

It was in adopting his new name that Mr. Mylex H. Galvin began his metamorphosis into his new identity of Gāo Mài Li—a transformation that would splinter his soul between the conflicting bipolar global visions of Gāo and Galvin… or Gāo/Galvin… or G/G for short…

Ping Pong Diplomacy

The people’s bus cost almost nothing to ride. G/G merely had to bend forward, fold his arms like a football tackle, and rush forward. The bus… deeply bruised and battered… rattled and shook… shook and rattled… rattled… shook and rattled… [Jammed-packed] there was not a seat inside—everyone was squashed together. Unbelievable! One time he saw the driver’s buddy climb in through the window and squeeze out again as there was no other way to enter/ exit. The passengers were all standing amid the rusty tools, containers of oil and gas, and dirty rags. It looked like the bus driver had to carry his own repair shop in case of breakdown.

Stepping off was equally hazardous. Every time G/G tried to exit at random, he had to press onward through the pack—and then leap to the pavement. Beware! It was “duck and cover” the moment that he heard the raspy clearing of a mucous charcoal-dusted throat...

***

G/G’s wanderlust was incurable. Every day was an adventure. One evening he came upon an apartment complex. Bright spotlights swayed to and fro in the breeze and illuminated street-side billiard tables. Some guys beckoned him over… waving their hands and fingers... 

At first, he shook his head ‘No’ and smiled—he wasn’t sure if he should mix with everyday people. He thought his presence as a foreigner might raise some eyebrows. It took a little bit of coaxing before he decided to join in. The cue stick was warped. The scratched tablecloth [covered by a plastic sheet when not in use] had rocky lumps that diverted the cue ball and the rest of the balls. There was literally no straight shooting in this game… 

In his own… and very limited… sense of generosity, G/G offered the group his pack of his Chunghwa “Love Our China” cigarettes—with a picture of Tiananmen Square on the pack. Sharing cigarettes, he thought, was a way to break down barriers, to meet the people, a way to make the lungs glow… iridescent… with human warmth… a way to friendship. And in Galvin’s mind, it was much better to smoke locally… to smoke Chinese brands… rather than infect his body and that of others with addictive nicotine and the chemically induced and doctored appetites of American cigarette companies.

“No have Lucky Strike?” … “No have Mar-bor-wo… mannnn?” they queried… laughing. Certainly, they were puzzled as to why a foreigner would offer them Chinese cigarettes. G/G nodded, “No! Sorry! No!” He then replied “No” in his own brand of pidgin Chinese, “Bu shi!”  Inhaling deeply, he blew out a series of brown gold smoke rings and then shot… unexpectedly… a pulsing bullet through the center of each ring… Bull’s eye!!! The impact on the group was instant and ecstatic: “Hen hao!!!” (“Very good!”)

In no way did he consider himself a pool shark. Nevertheless, he managed a combination shot knocking in the yellow No.1 before the cue ball incredibly tapped the red No.3 right inside the right-side pocket. He came very close to winning before throwing the game… accidentally or maybe accidentally on purpose… by scratching the black 8-ball… They stuttered the only English words they knew, “Amer-ee-can, OK, OK!” “be-ry goooood!”. Then it was over: “goood-byyye!!!”

***

One afternoon he was drawn like a curious canine to a different street game—a table tennis match. He might be able to take on the Chinese street players in billiards—but ping-pong was out of the question. Some of the world’s best players had learned on warped concrete tables with red brick nets! 

What was even weirder was the strange way the Chinese held their paddles. They did not grip the handle the way he was taught with his full hand. Instead, they gripped the racket with their thumb and forefinger with the handle pointed upward with the rest of their fingers on the backside. And they played with such agility that they could slap the ball in unexpected directions… and with the speed of light….

In a weird twist of fate, the Chinese had become the most adept players of table tennis in the world. They had originally learned the Victorian game with its awkwardly prejudiced Chinese-sounding name from the Western settlements of Japan and Korea at the turn of the 20th century. As Intellow pointed out, one would have thought the Chinese had invented “ping pong”—and not flatulent British beans and toast aristocrats!

Despite its western roots, Mao had made table tennis China’s national sport in the 1950s. Twenty years later, “ping pong diplomacy” became historically significant for both China (Zhōngguó) and America (Měiguó). In 1971, a match between American and Chinese table tennis players was set up that was intended to ameliorate the love-hate relationship and the perverse geo-pornographic disputes between the Balding Eagle and the Red Dragon.

The trade off—sought by the dynamic duo of “Tricky Dick” Nixon and Henry “B-52” Kissinger—was to promise to lift the U.S. embargo on China—if Beijing would, in turn, help end the Vietnam War. The ultimate goal was to put an end to the U.S.-China Cold War by means of an ambiguous U.S. promise not to support Taiwan’s independence from the Red Dragon—a promise that, in the long term, raise the fears of Taiwan’s Blue Magpie that Old Glory would not necessarily defend the island, if needed, as promised.