Once these solemn funeral rites were realized, the creditors fell like jackals upon the master’s possessions. They ravaged the sacred texts and the laboratory, pawed through the herbs, spoiled the medicinal preparations, destroyed his carefully crafted poems, carried off his furniture and art objects, trampled the beautiful garden, and auctioned off the ancient mansion. Only shortly before, Tao Chi’en had safely hidden the gold acupuncture needles, a case containing medical instruments and a few essential remedies, and a small amount of money he had been filching for the last three years, ever since his master had begun to lose his way in the barren landscape of senile dementia. It was not his intention to steal from the venerable zhong yi, whom he revered like a grandfather, but to use the money to feed him, because he saw the debts piling up and feared the future. The suicide had precipitated events, however, and Tao Chi’en found himself in possession of an unexpected bonanza. Taking those funds could cost him his head, for his would be a crime of inferior against superior, but he was sure that no one would know except the spirit of the deceased, who undoubtedly would have approved his action. Would he not prefer rewarding his faithful servant and disciple to paying one of the many debts he owed to ravenous creditors? With this modest treasure and a change of clean clothing, Tao Chi’en fled the city. It occurred to him, fleetingly, to return to the village of his birth, but he immediately discarded that plan. To his family, he would always be Fourth Son, he would owe submission and obedience to his older brothers. He would have to work for them, accept the wife they chose for him, and resign himself to lifelong poverty. Nothing called him in that direction, not even filial obligations to his father and his ancestors, which fell to his older brothers anyway. What he needed was to go somewhere far away, somewhere the long arm of Chinese justice could not reach. He was twenty years old, and he had one year left before he would have fulfilled the ten years of his servitude, and any one of the creditors could claim the right to use him as a slave for that time.
Tao Chi’en
Tao Chi’en took a sampan to Hong Kong with the intention of beginning a new life. Now he was a zhong yi, trained in traditional Chinese medicine by the finest master in Canton. He owed eternal gratitude to the spirits of his venerable ancestors, who had worked out his karma in such a glorious manner. The first thing he must do, he decided, was take a wife, for he was of an age, and more, to marry, and celibacy was too heavy a load. The absence of a wife was a sign of poverty that could not be hidden. He cherished the prospect of acquiring a delicate young woman with beautiful feet. Her “golden lilies” should not be more than three or four inches long, and should be plump and soft to the touch, like the feet of an infant of a few months. He was fascinated by the way a young girl walked on those minuscule feet, with short, very hesitant steps, as if she were always about to fall, hips thrown back and swaying like the reeds at the edge of the pond in his master’s garden. He detested large, muscular, and cold feet like those of a peasant woman. In his village, from afar, he had seen girls with bound feet, the pride of their families, who undoubtedly would marry them well, but only when he visited the prostitutes in Canton had he held two of those golden lilies in his hands and swooned in ecstasy over the tiny embroidered slippers that always covered them—necessarily, because for years and years the destroyed bones seeped a foul-smelling substance. After he touched such feet, he realized that their elegance was the fruit of constant pain, and that made them even more valuable. Then he properly appreciated the books in his master’s collection that were devoted to women’s feet, describing the five classes and eighteen different styles of golden lilies. His wife must also be very young, for beauty lasted but a brief time: it began sometime around the twelfth year and ended shortly after the woman reached twenty. These things his master had explained to him. It was not for nothing that the most celebrated heroines of Chinese literature always died at the precise moment of their greatest charm. Fortunate were those who departed this world before they were ruined by age and could still be remembered in the fullness of their fresh beauty. There were also practical reasons to prefer a nubile girl: she would give him male children and it would be easy to tame her nature and make her truly submissive. Nothing as disagreeable as a shrieking woman; he had seen some who spit at their husbands and children and slapped them about, even in the street in front of the neighbors. Such humiliation at the hands of a woman was the worst shame for a man. In the sampan that slowly carried him the ninety miles between Canton and Hong Kong, leaving his past life farther behind by the minute, Tao Chi’en dreamed of that girl, of the pleasure and the sons she would give him. Again and again he counted the money in his pocket, as if with abstract calculations he could make it grow, but it was clear that it would not stretch far enough for a wife of the quality he desired. Nevertheless, he was not content, however great his urgency, to settle for less and live the rest of his days with a wife who had large feet and a strong character.
The island of Hong Kong appeared suddenly before his eyes, with its profile of mountains and green vegetation, emerging like a siren from the indigo waters of the China Sea. As soon as his light boat docked in the port, Tao Chi’en noted the presence of the despised foreigners. He had seen a few of them before, but at a distance; now he saw them so near that had he dared he could have touched them to test whether those huge, graceless creatures were truly human. With amazement, he discovered that many of the fan wey had red or yellow hair, pale eyes, and skin the color of boiled lobsters. He thought the women very ugly; they were wearing hats bedecked with feathers and flowers, perhaps trying to cover that diabolical hair. They were dressed in an extraordinary fashion, in stiff clothing that bound their bodies tightly. He supposed that was why they moved like automatons and did not greet each other with friendly bows; they passed by stiff as poles, not looking at anyone, suffering the summer heat in their uncomfortable clothing. There were a dozen European ships in the port, surrounded by thousands of Asian boats of all sizes and colors. In the streets he saw a few carriages driven by uniformed men, lost among the many vehicles propelled by humans: litters, palanquins, handbarrows, and porters simply carrying their fare on their backs. The smell of fish came like a slap, reminding him that he was hungry. First he must locate a place to eat, which he would know by its long strips of yellow silk.
Tao Chi’en ate like a prince in a restaurant crowded with people talking and laughing at the tops of their voices, an unmistakable sign of contentment and good digestion, where he savored the delicate dishes that had long been forgotten in the house of his master. The zhong yi had been a great gourmet during his lifetime and had prided himself on having had the best cooks in Canton in his service, but during his latter years he had lived on green tea and rice with a few shreds of vegetables. At the time Tao Chi’en had escaped his servitude, he was as thin as any of the countless people in Hong Kong who suffered from tuberculosis. This was his first decent meal in a very long time, and the onslaught of tastes, aromas, and textures was ecstasy. He ended the feast with the pleasure of a pipe. He went outside floating and laughing aloud, like a madman: he had never felt so filled with enthusiasm and good luck. He breathed in the air about him, so reminiscent of Canton, and decided that it would be easy to conquer that city just as nine years earlier he had conquered the other one. First he would look for the market and the district of the healers and herbalists, where he would find a place to live and offer his professional services. Then he would consider the matter of the woman with the tiny feet.
That very afternoon, Tao Chi’en found lodging in the attic of a large house divided into compartments that housed one family per room, a veritable anthill. His room, a dark tunnel a meter wide by three meters long, windowless, dark, and hot, trapped the fumes from the cooking and chamber pots of the other renters, mixed with the unmistakable stench of general filth. Compared to his master’s refined home it was like living in a rat hole, but he remembered that his parents’ home had been even poorer. As an unmarried man he did not need more
space or luxury, he decided, only a corner where he could put his pallet and few belongings. Later, when he married, he would look for an appropriate dwelling where he could prepare his medicines, attend his patients, and be served by his wife as was fitting. For the moment, while he established contacts indispensable to his work, this space at least gave him a roof and a bit of privacy. He left his things and went to bathe, shave the front of his skull, and rebraid his queue. As soon as he was presentable, he left to look for a gaming house, determined to double his capital in the least possible time and get started along the path of success.
In less than two hours at fan-tan, Tao Chi’en lost all his money; he did not lose his medical instruments only because he had not thought to bring them. The shouting in the gaming hall was so thunderous that bets were made by signaling through the dense tobacco smoke. Fan-tan was a simple game: it consisted of a handful of counters underneath a cup. Bets were taken, the chips counted out four at a time, and the person who guessed how many were left—one, two, three, or none—won. Tao Chi’en could scarcely follow the hands of the man who threw the chips and counted them. It seemed to him that he had been cheated, but to accuse the banker in public would have been an offense so grave that were he in error he would have paid with his life. Every day in Canton, the bodies of insolent losers were picked up in the area of the gaming houses; it would be no different in Hong Kong. Tao returned to his tunnel in the attic and threw himself down on his mat and wept like a baby, thinking of the switchings he had received at the hands of his former acupuncture master. His despair lasted until the following morning, when he recognized his impatience and his arrogance with abysmal clarity. Then he burst out laughing, grateful for the lesson, convinced that the mischievous spirit of his master had presented it to teach him something more. He had been awakened in total darkness by the noise of the house and the street. It was late morning, but no natural light reached his hole. Groping in the dark, he put on his only change of clean clothing. He was still laughing as he took his medical kit and set out for the market. In the tattoo artists’ shops, covered from top to bottom with pieces of cloth and paper exhibiting their patterns, one could choose from among thousands of designs, from discreet flowers in indigo-blue ink to fantastic five-color dragons whose unfolded wings and fiery breath could decorate the entire back of a husky man. He spent half an hour bargaining and finally made a deal with an artist willing to trade a modest tattoo for a tonic to flush the liver. In less than ten minutes, he had tattooed on the back of his right hand, the hand he used for making bets, the word “No” in simple and elegant characters.
“If you like the tonic, recommend my services to your friends,” Tao Chi’en requested.
“If you like my tattoo, do the same,” the artist replied.
Tao Chi’en always claimed that that tattoo brought him luck. He went from the shop into the hurly-burly of the market, pushing and elbowing his way through the narrow alleyways seething with humanity. He did not see a single foreigner, and the market looked exactly like the one in Canton. The noise was like a roaring waterfall: vendors crying the merits of their merchandise and clients bargaining at the top of their lungs in the midst of a deafening riot of caged birds and whimpering animals awaiting their turn for the blade. The pestilence of sweat, live and dead animals, excrement and garbage, spices, opium, street kitchens—all the products and creatures of earth, air, and sea—was so thick you could rub it between your fingers. He saw a woman selling crabs. She took them live from a sack, boiled them a few minutes in a pot of water the murky consistency of the bottom of the sea, dipped them out with a slotted spoon, doused them with soy sauce, and served them to passing customers on a piece of paper. The woman’s hands were covered with warts. Tao Chi’en negotiated a month’s lunches in exchange for treating her skin.
“Ah. I see you like crabs very much,” she said.
“I detest them, but I will eat them as a penitence so I never forget a lesson I must remember forever.”
“And if at the end of a month I am not cured, who will give me back the crabs you have eaten?”
“If at the end of the month you have your warts, my reputation is ruined. Who will buy my medicines then?” Tao smiled.
“Very well.”
And so began Tao’s new life in Hong Kong as a free man. In two or three days the inflammation faded and the tattoo appeared as a clean design of blue veins. All that month, as he went from stand to stand in the market offering his professional services, he ate only once a day, always boiled crabs, and lost so much weight he could stick a coin between his ribs. Every creature he put into his mouth, conquering his revulsion, made him smile, thinking of his master, who liked crabs as little as he. The woman’s warts disappeared in twenty-six days and she gratefully spread the good news around the neighborhood. She offered Tao a second month of crabs if he would cure her cataracts, but he believed he had suffered enough punishment and could grant himself the luxury of never tasting a crab again for the rest of his life. At night he dragged back to his hole, exhausted, counted his money by candlelight, hid it under a floorboard, and then warmed water on the charcoal brazier to endure his hunger with tea. From time to time, if he began to feel weak in the knees or in his resolve, he bought a scoop of rice, a bit of sugar, or a pipe of opium, which he savored slowly, grateful that there were gifts in the world as dazzling as the consolation of rice, the sweetness of sugar, and the perfect dreams of opium. He spent money on nothing but rent, English classes, shaving his foreskull, and having his change of clothes laundered because he did not want to go about like a beggar. His teacher had always dressed like a mandarin. “Good appearance is a sign of civility, a zhong yi is not the same as a country healer. The poorer the patient, the richer your clothing should be, out of respect,” he had taught his pupil. Gradually Tao’s reputation spread, first among the people in the market and their families, then through the port, where he treated sailors for injuries from brawls, scurvy, venereal chancres, and delirium tremens.
After six months, Tao Chi’en had a faithful clientele and had begun to prosper. He moved to a room with a window, furnished it with a large bed, which he would use when he married, a chair, and an English desk. He also bought a few items of clothing; for years he had wanted to dress well. He had made up his mind to learn English because it hadn’t taken long to learn where the power lay. A handful of British controlled Hong Kong, made the laws and administered them, and commanded the course of commerce and politics. The fan wey lived in exclusive neighborhoods and had dealings with wealthy Chinese only to do business, always in English. The remaining masses shared the same space and time, but it was as if they did not exist. China’s most refined products flowed through Hong Kong directly to the drawing rooms of a Europe fascinated with that centuries-old, remote culture. Chinoiserie was the rage. Silk caused a furor in the fashion world; one could not be without graceful bridges with little lanterns and weeping willows imitating the marvelous secret gardens of Peking; pagoda rooftops ornamented summer houses; and dragon and cherry blossom motifs were repeated ad nauseum in decor. There was no English mansion without an Oriental drawing room with its Coromandel screen, its collection of porcelains and ivories, its fans embroidered by childish hands in the forbidden stitch, its imperial canaries in carved cages. The ships that carried those treasures to Europe did not return empty; they brought opium from India to sell as contraband, and trinkets that devastated small local industries. The Chinese had to compete with the English, Dutch, French, and North Americans to do business in their own country. But the greatest disaster was opium. It had been used in China for centuries as a diversion and for medicinal purposes, but when the English flooded the market it became an uncontrollable evil. It attacked all sectors of the society, weakening it, causing it to crumble like stale bread.
At first the Chinese looked on the foreigners with scorn and disgust, with the great superiority of those who feel they are the only truly civilized beings in the universe, but in the space
of a few years they learned to respect and fear them. As for the Europeans, they were imbued with the same concept of racial superiority, sure of their role as heralds of civilization in a land of dirty, ugly, weak, noisy, corrupt, and savage people who ate cats and snakes and killed their own children at birth. Few were aware that the Chinese had known writing a thousand years before they had. While businessmen were imposing a culture of drugs and violence, missionaries were evangelizing. Christianity must be propagated at any cost; it was the one true faith, and the fact that Confucius had lived fifteen hundred years before Christ was insignificant. The British considered the Chinese barely human, but they intended to save their souls and rewarded conversions with rice. The new Christians would consume their ration of divine bribery and move on to the next church to be converted all over again, amused by the mania of the fan wey for preaching their beliefs as if they were unique. For the practical and tolerant Chinese, spirituality was closer to philosophy than to religion; it was a question of ethics, never dogma.
Tao Chi’en took lessons from a compatriot who spoke a soupy English devoid of consonants but wrote it with absolute correctness. Compared to Chinese characters, the European alphabet had an enchanting simplicity, and after five weeks Tao Chi’en could read the British newspapers without stumbling over the letters, although every fifth word he had to look up in the dictionary. He spent hours every night studying. He missed his venerable master, who had marked him forever with a thirst for knowledge as persistent as the drunk’s thirst for alcohol or the ambitious man’s thirst for power. He no longer had his mentor’s library or his inexhaustible fount of experience; he could not run to him to ask for advice or to discuss a patient’s symptoms; he lacked a guide, he felt like an orphan. Since his mentor’s death he had not written or read poetry, had not taken the time to admire nature, to meditate, or to observe the daily rites and ceremonies that had previously enriched his life. He felt filled with noise inside; he longed for the void of silence and solitude his master had taught him to cultivate as life’s most precious gift. In the practice of his office he was learning about the complex nature of humankind, the emotional differences between men and women, the illnesses treatable with remedies and those that also required the magic of the right words, but he had no one to share those experiences with. The dream of buying a wife and having a family was always in his mind, but misty and tenuous, like a beautiful landscape painted on silk; in contrast, his wish to acquire books, to study and find other masters willing to help him along the road of knowledge was turning into an obsession.