第2章 Water Village

1

Nestled in fields, deep in the countryside, there is a village named Water Village, meaning "Seeping waters". Mountains enclose it on four sides, rising in array, some close, others far in the distance. Right at the front of the village, there is an exquisite wooden house, one storey high, five rooms, and one small shed attached to the main building at each end. The wooden walls are treated with tung oil, which from a distance appears as a deep black lacquer, but from up close you can see red flush through the black. Every few years, a new layer is added. Then, as time passes, the thin tung oil coat cracks, and becomes threaded with fine-lined patterns, so that it starts to look like amber.

According to folklore, a tile-maker's skill resides in the craftsmanship of the corners of their tiles, while a carpenter's skill can be judged by the quality of their stools, specifically the feet of their stools. In fact, country people have a long string of similar standards for judging craftsmanship, mostly relating to feet and corners.

Any traveler passing through the area is certain to see this big wooden house, eyes drawn to its roof tiles, which never fail to draw a sigh of admiration from those passers-by who know what they are looking at. Because they understand, good tiles on the outside must mean good, upstanding people living inside. As a jingle of countryman goes, a plasterer's skill can be leveled by the craftsmanship of their walls, while a failor's skill is mirrored in the footprints of their thread in the clothes.

The tiles curl up ever so slightly over the eaves of the roof, so that the house looks like an eagle that has just come in to land. The gable ends of the roof ridgeline peck at the sky, like beaks of baby birds waiting for food from the mouths of parents, their beauty born of nimble hands and a craftsman's inspiration.

The hands that made these tiles so lovely belong to the owner of the house, a man named You Yu. In the village, most people just called him Grandpa Yu, at least, those who were two generations or younger than him did so. This is common practice in close-knit communities throughout China. Grandpa Yu was a carpenter, though he was also a capable tile-maker, as well as a tradesman-painter. In carpentry, there is fine carpentry, and rough carpentry. Fine carpentry means making furniture, while rough carpentry means building houses. Although carpenters usually stick exclusively to either fine or rough, Grandpa Yu could, and did, do both. Once the furniture is made, it's the tradesman-painter's job to decorate it, usually with patterns of flowers or birds and animals that are considered auspicious. But their work doesn't end there - they also must be able to carve. In Water Village, people have different names for coffins, such as retirement homes, thousand - year homes, long-life wood vessels, and so on. These days, there isn't so much demand for handmade furniture, because people can go to the city and buy what they need ready-made. This also means there's no longer much need for tradesman-painters. And so, the only work left for Grandpa Yu was the carving and painting of coffins.

According to Water Village custom, it is the daughter's job to prepare grave clothes for her parents, while the son for his part must make all the coffins his family elders require. Grandpa Yu didn't follow this convention. When he was sixty years old he took the making of his own coffin, and his wife's, into his own hands. It's not that his children were unfilial, exactly. On the contrary, they had done very well in life, and that was why they couldn't carry out the customary duties. His two sons had both left China, for good. One was in America, the other in Germany. His daughter was a little closer - in Hong Kong, with the man she married.

The son in America was named Wangtuo, and the one in Germany Fatuo. They no doubt had other names in America and Germany, but in Water Village, they were Wangtuo and Fatuo. The daughter's name was Qiaozhen, but in Water Village people called her Qiao'er. Somehow, Grandpa Yu's life paths brought him some extra standing in the village, even though they didn't follow the traditional routes to reflected parental pride - which normally was either to get a job as a government official, or simply make lots of money.

When they couldn't come home for New Year or any of the other festivals, Grandpa Yu did receive visits from strangers who arrived in the cars from the county town and introduced themselves as friends of his children. The other villagers couldn't bear to watch, at least, those who were adults and had their own families. Drying their eyes, they would laugh, and make gentle fun of their own children:

"Aren't we lucky to have such good children, staying home every day and looking after your old mum and dad! It's a good thing you didn't do well at school like Grandpa Yu's kids - you might have studied your way out of the country and forgotten about us like they did!"

The children took part in these jokes too:

"You're right. We are your biggest blessing - without us you'd have to carve your own retirement homes!"

Grandpa Yu made his coffin of camphorwood. Originally, he'd planned to use the wood to make furniture for his children, but then they left, leaving him with a shed full of camphorwood. So, he made his coffin big and thick. His wife, Grandma Yu, died of a sudden illness before the thought of making her own grave clothes ever occurred to her. So, the Yus' next - door neighbor, Grandma Hui, offered up her own grave clothes. The year after that, Grandma Hui's husband died. The dead man had been very close with Grandpa Yu. They are practically brothers, though they are at most distant relatives, inevitable when families live for generations in the same small place and don't leave. Although the Huis had no daughter, Grandpa Hui's grave clothes were already taken care of, thanks to his wife who had planned ahead and made them herself. They did have a son, Qiangtuo, but he had failed to make a coffin in time. Though the coffin wasn't ready, he did have a well - prepared excuse - he hadn't even finished building his own house yet, so how was he supposed to find money for a coffin? Then, he asked his parents why they were in such a hurry to die.

Word got out, and Qiangtuo's negligence became a hot topic of discussion in the village. Everyone agreed he was a swine.

In the countryside, people build houses in much the same way that swallows build their nests - a mouthful of mud, then a mouthful of straw, and so on. But Qiangtuo's house was just an empty brick shell. Furniture, windows, even doors all seemed a long way in the future. He had to wait. Grandma Hui didn't blame him. She just wished he would show a little more compassion when he spoke. His rough manner and way of talking hurt Grandma Hui embarrassed in the village. Grandpa Yu knew the situation. He called Qiangtuo over to his house, and told him to take his camphorwood coffin and let You Hui have it. And so, Grandpa Hui was laid to rest in Grandpa Yu's retirement home. The whole village congratulated him on his great good fortune. Such a beautiful coffin!

2

The village is named Water Village. That much, the villagers knew. But nobody was quite sure where the name came from. Of course, there are records of these things, in the county annals. But to find them, you would have to go to the city and dig through books. And the people of Water Village have little time to spend on thinking about such immaterial things. They chose to let their days pass like clouds floating by at leisure. But there was one person in the village who liked to ponder the finer details of things. That was Grandpa Yu. His children all agreed that he was exceptional. If he'd just had a bit more education when he was younger, he surely could have been someone.

He was a versatik man in the village. Not only was he skilled in all kinds of crafts, he was also an excellent and thorough farmer. He also grew flowers and trees, many different kinds, all around his house. He grew peonies, crab - apples, cape jasmine, regular jasmine, yulan magnolias, chrysanthemums, and so on. The flowers all had their own season, so his house was kept in unending bloom. The villagers liked to joke about this. To them, Grandpa Yu seemed very strange - he only grew flowers and flowering trees near his house, and planted his vegetables and other food far away up the mountain. His house looked out towards high slopes, which he had to climb whenever he wanted to go harvest food. And that is what he did, early in the morning, slowly, carrying two bamboo baskets with a pole over his shoulder, full of pig or chicken manure. By his side, a big, happy black dog. The dog would run ahead, fast as the wind, then stop suddenly, and turn to watch Grandpa Yu, torn between wanting to wait for him and wanting to press ahead on quick feet. Her body was like a strong, bent bow, always ready to be released and fly.

Grandpa Yu would shout up to her:

"Go on, don't bother waiting for me, just go and run, you mad dog!"

The dog would shake her tail to show she understood, flex her long body ready, and fly ahead up the mountain.

There was thick fir tree forest up there on the slopes, where fir mushrooms grew in the spring and autumn shade. The firs only began to thin out a little on the lower slopes, about thirty feet from the foot of the mountain. That was where Grandpa Yu had his vegetable plots.

He took his time getting up the hill. The dog reached the top long before he did. Then, she would come running back down to meet him and bounce backwards up the slope again, facing him, willing him to go faster, trying to give him some of her own overflowing energy.

"You old good - for - nothing, what are you going to pull me up the hill?"

The dog listened, tilted her head to one side and wagged her tail, her eyes bright with understanding.

While Grandpa Yu worked his plot, spreading manure or weeding with his hoe, he would sometimes talk with the black dog.

"If you were a person, you'd be an enchantress for sure, a real vixen!"

Her body was long like a sword - bean, her fur was bright like water shining darkly, and her mouth was deep red, as if by lip - stick. There were dozens of dogs in Water Village, many of them her offspring, but she was the only one that was black - the others were all either yellow, grey, or spotted. Her mothering days were over now, after eight or nine years of annual litters, but she still galloped around the place like a fresh young maid, seeking attention wherever she could find it. Grandpa Yu liked to tease her for her flirtations:

"What's got into you! You've already had the last of your pups, what do you think people will say if they see you like this? You've got your good name to think about!"

This story starts right in the middle of cabbage planting season. Grandpa Yu was already several steps ahead - his cabbages had been in the ground half a month and tender leaves were already unfolding tiny crinkles as they grew. His garlic was making good progress - if a chopstick were stuck in the earth to measure their height, their thick papery red stems would reach about halfway up. The chili peppers would soon be overdue for harvest. In a couple of days, the chili tree would be picked clean, uprooted, and its empty berth replanted with a cabbage. The villagers have a name for this kind of chili - torn - up - tree chili. Grandpa Yu had a slightly different name for it - parting - gift - garden chili, which was inspired by one of several books about artisanal painting that he read as a young man. The chilies are delicious either quick - fried or drum - roasted with beans.

Grandpa Yu moved slowly around his vegetable plots, tidying up and rearranging things here and there. Realizing he hadn't talked with the black dog for a while, he wondered where she'd got to. Looking around, he saw her sitting at the edge of the slope, gazing down at the village below. From above, Water Village looked like a boat, though no one realized that until someone came from the county town and drew a map of the village some twenty years previously. Grandpa Yu's big wooden house was at the prow of the boat, facing north. To the east of the village was the River Xu, and further east, far in the distance, looming mountains, visible only as a dark grey outline, murky contours. To the south, the mountains rose taller and taller. Somewhere in those southern mountains the crystal spring headwaters of the River Xu bubbled up in a rocky cavern. The northern mountains were gentle; at least, the ones visible from the village. Beneath them, the River Xu flowed past huge orchards of mandarin oranges, where the county town was. To the west of the village, the mountains were close. That is where the ancestors of Water Village are buried, in secluded tombs at a place called Mound of Ultimate Peace.

The people of Water Village are typically very honest about their mortality, which gives them a longer perspective on grudges and people preoccupied with winning power and position over others. They are quick to put such people back in their place with a choice word or two:

"You must think you're something special, huh? You'll be heading to the Mound of Ultimate Peace one day too, you know!"

Just the thought of their inevitable burying - place tends to take the hot air out of people.

The River Xu is contained by good, wide banks of rich blue - black sand and soil. This bank - land is fertile all year round, supporting swathes of willow interspersed with mandarin orange trees. Among the trees, the villagers grew watermelon and sugarcane, rich pickings for roving bands of village children. For them, the river bank was all - seasons paradise - from mid - autumn to winter, oranges are ripe and sugarcane is sweet. There is an art to steal sugarcane, perfected by children. The stalk must be stamped into the ground before you snap it, so that the sand can muffle the sharp crack. Young orange - thieves wrapped their hands with dry grass to stop the orange fragrance sticking to their palms and letting the secret out. But even with all this enterprise to keep them busy, there are still distractions. No one can resist the enchanting sigh of wind through the vast sugarcane fields, which can draw the soul out through your ears and leave you suspended in trance.

Of course, all these pillaged crops had owners back in the village, adults, but it was impossible to really get angry with the children. After all, everyone had children of their own, and there's a time in every child's life for a little naughtiness.

After all of that is done, the River Xu keeps on flowing, flowing all the way to the Eastern Sea, where the sun comes from in the morning. First, it joins the River Yuan, then the River Yuan pours into the Lake Dongting, then the Lake Dongting empties in the great Yangtze River, which doesn't stop until the Eastern Sea. There is no path between Water Village and the Eastern Sea, just hundreds of waters to cross and a thousand mountains stacked up thick one after another. When rivers and mountains measure the distance, the journey is truly unachievable. But by other measures, it's not so far. According to legend, a shortcut exists, in the form of a bottomless hole under a pond named Frog Pool, which lays at the foot of Deer - tweet Mountain on the bank of the River Xu. The bottomless hole goes straight down to the palace of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. One deep breath, dive, and you'll make it.

Frog Pool is on the east bank of the Xu River, opposite the flat beach of the west bank. Actually, the pond is part of the river, which angles deeper from the flat west bank to the deep east. Long ago, there was a dutiful and very beautiful girl who lived on the east bank. One day, she was sitting on a big black slab of rock by Frog Pool, washing clothes, when suddenly the rock turned into a turtle. The turtle plunged down into the water, carrying the girl on its back. The turtle took her to the palace of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, where she became the queen of the Dragon King and enjoyed eternal youth. The Dragon King knew about this girl and came up with the plan beforehand, with the turtle as his faithful servant.

Grandpa Yu often used to swim by the west bank of Frog Pool as a child, but he never once dared to swim over to the east bank. The very idea terrified him. It was funny - people would always talk about the Eastern Sea and its Dragon King, with his palace all encrusted with agate and pearls and full of his daughters, all half - dragon, all beautiful; but they never seemed to mention the Southern Sea, or Northern or Western Seas. The fable also was woven into everyday events. For example, whenever there was rain on a sunny day, that meant the Dragon King was celebrating marrying off another of his daughters. And, a popular way of expressing one's reaction to an especially happy or wonderful situation is to say:

"Ah, feels like riding in the Dragon King's carriage!"

The sea was thus a crucial part of life in Water Village, though nobody from the village had ever actually seen the sea. Most importantly, they had old customs to rely upon during times of drought, which taught them how to beg the Dragon King for rain. First, to carry out the rites, they had to be correctly dressed. Girls and boys, men and women of all ages dressed all in black dharma robes. Then they all lined up in a dragon column and marched towards the temple, incense sticks in their hands. They sang and worshiped on the road, reverent but loud, so that their noise would shake the walls of the Dragon Palace.

Another custom had to do with death. Whenever a villager died, the body had to be carried up the mountains with a special pole, carved in the shape of a dragon, complete with a dragon head. Devout sons and daughters dressed all in mourning white. It took sixteen people to carry the coffin slowly up the path, the whole procession wrapped in over a hundred feet of white cloth, so that the coffin and its bearers looked like an ethereal white boat. They had to first carry out the Buddhist rituals to ensure the dead person's soul could cross over the sea of bitterness and abyss of worldly suffering, and only then could the white funeral boat cross over to the Land of Ultimate Bliss. Grandpa Yu, in his time, painted many of the villagers' coffins. But coffins aside, he'd carved a lot of things in the village, including the latticework for his neighbors' windows. The one thing he definitely didn't carve was the pair of funerary dragon - head poles, which was far older than him. It had been in Water Village for generations, a gift from the past. It was a beautiful piece of work - eyes that threaten to burst into flames, a tail that seems always on the verge of swishing into life. It occupied a strange place in Grandpa Yu's head - he often felt like it must have been he who carved it, though he knew it was an ancient man who he didn't know. It just felt so familiar, made of nanmu(phoebe nunmu) wood, made to last a thousand years, no need for lacquer.

A few years ago, a buyer came from the city wanting to buy the pair of dragon - head poles, and offered tens of thousands for it. It belonged to everyone in the village, but for generations, it had been kept in the house where Grandma Hui's son, Qiangtuo, lived. His father and his grandfather before him had both guarded it there. Nobody really knew why or how this arrangement came to be, but that didn't really matter. What mattered was that everybody upheld the customs.

Word got out that Qiangtuo was thinking about selling. Grandpa Yu, furious, marched over to his house and hammered on his door:

"Qiangtuo! Get out here! If it's money you want I'll give it to you myself!"

Qiangtuo came to the door to justify himself:

"That city guy's an idiot! He's going to give us tens of thousand plus just for an old dragon - head pole! Trust me. Once I've sold it I'll make ten with the money, for the whole village!"

Grandpa Yu drew back his hand to hit the young man, but restrained himself:

"Shut your mouth! If it weren't for all those anti -superstition campaigns, I'd have you locked up in the ancestral hall for some clan discipline!"

The villagers used to keep a wooden cage in the ancestral hall. If any man in the village did or said something unfilial or improper, his family would lock him in the cage. It was designed so the buttocks of whoever was locked inside would stick out of the cage. Propped against the cage was a special bamboo rod that anyone in the village could use to beat him, whenever they felt like it. In Water Village, this was what "clan discipline" meant. Where Qiangtuo really stepped out of line was when he said he'd make ten sets of dragon head poles. He should have known that any one village could only have one set of dragon - head poles. To suggest otherwise was to invite disaster by angering the spirits. Nor was it just grandpa Yu who heard him say it - everyone in earshot spat curses in his direction, and within a few minutes the dragon - head poles were removed from his house and put behind Grandpa Yu's place. A few village lads set it up on two wooden horses and wrapped it in thick palm tree fibres. To stop rats getting at it, they tied bundles of thorns in the shape of cats to the feet of the wooden horses.

Days passed, and the weather cleared. With blue sky overhead, Grandpa Yu unwrapped the dragon - head poles, and meticulously wiped off dust that had settled on it. He marveled at the incredible qualities of nanmu - who knows how many generations' hands these poles had passed through, and it's still untouched by insects and water. And look how it shines after just dusting it with an ordinary bit of cloth rag!

Grandma Hui came over to speak with him:

"Brother Yu, I'm sorry about Qiangtuo. He has let us all down. My family looked after the dragon - head poles for so many generations, but ... Well, I was just thinking, why not give it a new coat of lacquer? I'll pay for the lacquer, and you can do the work."

Grandpa Yu, by the way, was also very skilled at applying lacquer.

He smiled wide, and shook his head.

"Ah, old sister, Water Village's dragon - head pole doesn't need any lacquer, never has, never will. It would be a pity to do so, even."

"Brother Yu, so ... you mean ... oh, I don't understand!"

He chuckled, and said:

"When my sons came home for New Year's, the year before last, I told them, 'There's a man from the city who wants to buy our dragon - head pole, and said he'd pay tens of thousands for it.' So, Wangtuo and Fatuo went out back and looked at it for a long time, and studied it. They said it was a rare treasure, a relic, and that it's definitely worth more than that man offered. They said, 'Whatever you do, don't put any oil or lacquer on it, because with relics, the older it looks, the more money it's worth!'"

Just hearing the word "money" gave Grandma Hui a fright.

"You want to sell it, too?" she asked.

Grandpa Yu laughed:

"Old sister, I wasn't surprised at all when Qiangtuo talked about selling it, but hearing it come from your mouth, I must say I'm quite shocked! What I'm saying is, I don't want to ruin our old relic! I mean, if you think about it, won't it be glorious, when Yama, King of Buddhist Hell, comes to take us, we'll be carried up the mountain on such expensive dragon - head poles! Ah, think of the honor we'll have!"

3

Back at the mountain slope vegetable patch, Grandpa Yu was tearing up some more chili pepper trees. The black dog was still gazing down at the village, motionless.

"Wake up, silly dog!" Grandpa Yu called out, "We're going home in a minute!"

He went to work plucking peppers from the torn - up trees. When he had about enough to make one dish, he spoke to the dog again:

"Let's go back, breakfast time!"

At the foot of the mountain, he couldn't help looking back over his shoulder at the forest behind." I should just go quickly and gather some termite mushrooms (Termitomyces albuminosus), " he thought. This was an easy task for him, but not for anyone else. The other villagers had to scour the whole mountainside just to find a few termite mushrooms, but he only ever went to a handful of special places only he knew about. Whenever people saw him walking back into the village with mushrooms in his basket, they always said the same thing:

"Ah, this whole mountain is your garden! For you, finding mushrooms is no different to picking a few bulbs of garlic from your vegetable patch!"

Grandpa Yu would just smile, and never told anybody where he got his mushrooms.

So, he turned back towards the forest, telling the black dog to not follow him. She tilted her head to one side and watched him disappear into the trees.

He headed straight to an out - of - the - way hollow where there was a huge natural roof of brambles and bushes, under which the ground was just one big blanket of fir needles. In Water Village, people just called the needles "fir grass." Until twenty years ago, people collected fir grass and burned it as fuel, but now they used coal instead. The tools that people used to collect fir grass disappeared from the houses of Water Village, too.

Grandpa Yu knew every rock and tree on the mountain, which hollows were good for termite mushroom hunting, and where tasty ferns grow. The other villagers also roamed all through the forest, but try as they might, they couldn't work out the secrets and tricks of effortless foraging.

As expected, Grandpa Yu found a big stash of mushrooms tucked under the brambles. The biggest were about half the size of his hand, sprouting out of the loam like umbrellas; the smallest were tiny buttons, glowing with a dim blue light. Termite mushrooms are like loach, in that the big ones are the most satisfying to catch, but the smaller they are, the better the flavor.

When he was done picking mushrooms, he turned to leave, and saw the black dog sitting some distance away, watching him.

"Didn't I tell you not to follow me?" he shouted, "If you follow me around everywhere, everyone will find out where I get my mushrooms! Come on, you know my mountain garden is a secret!"

Grandpa Yu always took time to survey Water Village on his way down the mountain, a little village surrounded by little parcels of land, each field divided by a raised ridge. His house was the only wooden one, and there was nothing very special - looking about it from this distance. Everyone else lived in brick houses, all white walls and black tiled roofs, two or three stories high. The brick houses were new; not long ago, everyone lived in wooden houses. They were all roughly the same height, and they all had old chimneys that breathed out constant kitchen smoke, as if as a natural by - product. Grandpa Yu's sons wanted to pull down the old wooden house and build a new one out of brick. But Grandpa Yu put his foot down, firmly:

"What's the point? You're never here anyway, and why exactly would I want to build a brick house?"

"We'll come back when we get old," they said to comfort their father. Grandpa Yu had nothing more to say on the subject, but he already had opinions about brick houses. Not worth the fuss, and not nearly as comfortable as a nice wooden house, especially not one that he'd built from the ground - every nail, every tile, every post and rafter, he'd run his hands over every component of his home. He wouldn't trade it for anything, not even a house made of gold.

Grandma Hui and Grandpa Yu were not only close friends, but also next - door neighbors. There was a thin strip of land between his house and hers, where they both had their gardens. Hers was for growing vegetables, his for growing flowers. They both kept the land busy and productive all through the year, so not a single season went by idly. The soil there was rich and fertile, but somehow, Grandma Hui's vegetables never grew as nicely as Grandpa Yu's did up in his mountain garden. She didn't have the strength to do the gardening herself anymore, so the work fell to her son, Qiangtuo, and so did the blame when the harvest didn't meet expectations. For this, he got his fair share of motherly scolding and proverbs:

"When the gardener works hard, the land will always keep up! Just look at your uncle Yu - his garden's on the mountain, crumbly yellow soil and all, and his chilis still grow so fat on the branches the tree can barely stay standing!"

Qiangtuo never took his mother's criticism sitting down. He usually answered back with something like:

"Well I'm not a vegetable farmer, you know that! My money doesn't come from selling vegetables I grow, but we have enough to eat. Isn't that enough?"

Grandpa Yu never got involved in these arguments, but only because Qiangtuo wasn't his blood nephew. If he was related to Qiangtuo, he would tell him:

"Planting the land is the same as planting your good name. If you don't do it well, you'll never gain anyone's respect!"

Grandpa Yu placed a high price on respect received from other people, so he made sure to be meticulous in everything he did.

Grandma Hui's house had one other resident - a big yellow dog, one of the black dog's many children. Mother and son had a strong bond. When the yellow dog saw his mother coming home, he would jump up and down in excitement and then maybe chase his tail a few laps. The black dog was calmer. This morning, as usual, she took a quick look at her son, to see that he was alright, nothing was wrong, then walked slowly over to her own house, gave her tail a lazy shake, and laid down under the overhanging eaves. Grandpa Yu wasn't far behind her. Walking into his house, he made breakfast for one, sat down to eat, and made the same old joke about the solitude in which he lived that he always made:

"It's never been easier to keep the whole family full and well - fed. All it takes is one old man's breakfast."

He knew perfectly well that he was repeating himself. All this nonsense over and over again, maybe he was getting old. Anyway, enough of such thoughts. The days were slow. The rest of the village had already finished eating by the time he was only just getting round to wash his breakfast rice. Qiao'er, when she came home, told him that in the city nobody washes their rice anymore. Apparently it's not necessary for factory - processed rice. But she thought it was great he still washed his rice, which is to say, she were impressed by how diligent he was about his hygiene. These days in the cities you can't trust anything that's made for you, and everyone lives in a state of constant worry. Grandpa Yu knew nothing about city people's anxieties -he just kept doing what he'd always done.

Rice is easy to wash; termite mushrooms are not. If you're careless, you'll get bits of grit and mud in your mouth. That morning, Grandpa Yu was absorbed in washing termite mushrooms when suddenly loud dog barking brought him back to the world. It was his black dog barking. At the same time, he heard someone outside shouting:

"Bring out your rubbish! Copper, iron, duck and goose feathers ... !"

Grandpa Yu rushed outside to grab the black dog and prevent it from doing anything regrettable. Too late. The junk collector, who wasn't from Water Village, had been bitten, but by the yellow dog, not the black. He saw Grandma Hui rushing outside, all in a fluster:

"What happened, what happened? How bad is the bite?"

The stranger seemed to be in pain. He rolled up a trouser leg, groaning as the fabric brushed over the bite:

"Look, look, you can see the teeth marks! See how deep they are? Oh look, now I've started bleeding!"

Grandma Hui kept bowing little apology bows at the man, wringing her hands:

"I'm so sorry, so so sorry. If only I'd been in time, this wouldn't have happened! Oh my, but you're young, you'll be alright, oh, will you forgive us?"

The stranger didn't seem too bent out of shape about being bitten. He was just confused:

"Forgive? You mean, forgive you, or forgive the dog?"

"Both, both!" Grandma Hui answered." I should take the blame. I raised it to be a stupid dog, just like I raised a stupid son! Really, biting people for no reason, just because it heard another dog barking!"

Grandpa Yu started laughing:

"Old sister, is what you're saying that my black dog is a clever mother? Or do you mean the yellow dog is a stupid son? It's a stupid son, raised by a clever mother!"

This took the stranger aback a little bit. Re - entering the conversation, he said:

"You see how much pain I'm in over here, and you two think it's a good time to make jokes? I know I'm not going to die or anything, but what I am worried about is rabies. What if I get rabies?"

Grandma Hui, remembering the situation at hand, hurried into her house. Just as she was about to go in the door, she turned around and said:

"Don't worry young man, I'll get you some money, and then you can go and get the vaccine. I'll go and get the money."

But before she could go inside, Grandpa Yu had something else to say:

"Old sister, don't worry about the money, he can have mine. It was my black dog that started all this after all. If she didn't bark, your yellow dog would never have bitten anyone."

But Grandma Hui just ignored him and carried right on walking inside.

A minute or two later, she was back outside with a wad of cash in her hand. Meanwhile, Grandpa Yu had also got his money out. He tried to laugh his way out of the deadlock:

"Oh, don't bother, old sister! I'm the one who should take responsibility. After all, it's my black dog's bad parenting that's to blame. It's not right for a mother to go around making a racket and causing trouble like that!"

Grandma Hui had a good poker face on, and didn't reply. She just went straight to the junk collector and put her money in his hands. Then she said to him:

"I know how much the vaccine costs, and there's a little bit extra there for you too."

But Grandpa Yu was having none of it. He snatched the money straight back out of the poor man's hands, and then replaced it with his own wad of bank notes, and said:

"Now listen here, young man, you mustn't take any money from her."

Grandma Hui protested:

"I know you have a little more money than I do, but that's got nothing to do with what's happening here! Just let it go, won't you!"

By now the junk collector was at a total loss, and almost beyond caring about the outcome to this bizarre little old persons' drama he'd somehow stumbled into:

"Wait ... so, so ... whose money should I take, then? Oh, forget about it, forget about it, I don't need your money. Just, please, stop bickering and let me go, I need to be on my way! I'm a busy man, I've got business to attend to!"

Grandpa Yu got the message, and said:

"Alright, just take the money and be on your way," giving him encouraging little shoves as he spoke, "I was going to have you stay for breakfast, but don't worry, I won't take it the wrong way, just take the money!"

That was all the invitation the junk collector needed. Once he was on his way, pulling his handcart behind him, the yellow dog began barking furiously, much to the ire of Grandma Hui:

"Oh, so now you start barking, eh? And what do you think that's going to achieve? You want one of us to go bite that poor man for you? Stupid dog."

This kind of little street drama was considered excellent entertainment in Water Village, and small villages in general. Quite a few people had gathered round to watch, and now that it was over, they started making jokes, getting as much fun out of it all as possible.

"Grandma Hui," one of them said, "Why would a person bite another person just because of a dog? You got it the wrong way round, it's dogs who bite people, for other people!"

Grandpa Yu stepped in:

"What's wrong with you? You can see Grandma Hui's angry, and you're just trying to get her even more worked up! And another thing, are you saying the yellow dog bit that man because of me? What quarrel could I possibly have with an out - of - towner?"

Now this was good fun. Another of the onlookers jumped in:

"The yellow dog is an excellent son, I should say. It did exactly what its mother told it!"

"Well, the yellow dog may be a good son, but if that's the case, she's a rotten mother!" another said.

"Then the yellow dog's a bad son, too," another villager argued, "A truly good son wouldn't just do anything his mother told him without first thinking about whether what she said was the right thing to do, wouldn't you say?"

Grandma Hui, her face rapidly turning purple, spun on her heels and stomped inside. Grandpa Yu, feeling irate and very unimpressed by the behavior of his fellow villagers, began to lecture them, his voice low so Grandma Hui wouldn't hear:

"You all should be ashamed of yourselves, teasing poor Grandma Hui like that, as if she's a little girl! Couldn't you see how angry she was? It's lucky Qiangtuo isn't home, or you'd really be in trouble!"

He'd ended up with Grandma Hui's money in his hands, so he handed it to a little village boy, and gave him instructions to quietly take it inside her house and put it under her pillow.

The boy was reluctant, but his mother was there, and few sharp words from her quickly put things right:

"Well, are you going or aren't you? When Grandpa Yu tells you to do something, you listen to him. Do you hear? No questions!"

So the boy obediently took the money, and quickly decided his little mission was a great little secret. Chuckling sneakily under his breath, he slipped through Grandma Hui's door on stealthy feet, much to the amusement of the adults. A good final scene to a thoroughly entertaining show "that nowadays every kid is shrewd."

Grandpa Yu walked back inside his house, and slowly went about making his meal. It was already past breakfast time, so he decided to eat breakfast and his midday snack together. The word "lunch" is not a part of Water Village's vocabulary - to the villagers, "lunch" is a city - people word The whole time he was cooking, he couldn't stop thinking about how angry he'd made Grandma Hui. He wished he'd reacted differently. There was just no need for it, really, no need for people to fight over something a dog did. The junk collector must have thought he was a crazy old man, and he was right. He was getting stranger with each passing year.

The house soon filled with the fragrant aroma of garden - parting - gift chili termite mushrooms, with a few chrysanthemum petals sprinkled on top. His garden was full of chrysanthemum, some as big as a dinner plate, and the smaller ones about the size of his clenched fist.

Grandpa Yu had almost finished eating when he bit down on a grain of sand, cracking unpleasantly in his mouth. He must not have washed the termite mushrooms quite well enough. Normally, his attention to detail was unassailable. When it fails, there must be something deeper going on beneath the surface, troubling him.

4

Grandma Hui went outside to her backyard and sat on a bench next to the well, which was surrounded by shiny flagstones. This was where she did her laundry and washed vegetables, and it was also her refuge whenever Qiangtuo made her upset or angry. Today was a little different; it was Grandpa Yu who'd made her angry, with his talk about clever mothers who raise stupid sons. How could that not be a jab at her, and at Qiangtuo? Thinking of Qiangtuo, tears of sadness mixed with the old, slow disappointment began to fall down her cheeks. Drying her eyes, she thought about how Qiangtuo only had one skill in life, and that was selling the sweat off his back; working hard, manual jobs, mostly making bricks at a local kiln, never earning anything more than a few hardship pennies. He'd never been interested in studying, and in this respect, his children, one son and one daughter, took after their father. They both went away to be migrant laborers when they were around fifteen or sixteen. His wife had left many years ago, unable to accept her family's poverty. Qiangtuo left for work at dawn and came home late, so Grandma Hui spent most of her time alone in the house.

Sitting by the well, she listened to the bugs chirp. They weren't as loud as normal this year, or maybe there just weren't as many as before. She remembered Grandpa Yu telling her "days" ago that if in a bug's life, a day is as long as a year is to humans. But then, what difference is there really, between a human life and the life of a bug? The sun and rain come in turns, we reproduce, we raise our young, we grow old and sick, our eyes close, and we die. And no one in Water Village even really knew what her name was, her name, the one she'd had from birth. They only knew her as You Hui's wife. It was his name they called her by, and it was in relation to his age, his generation status, not hers, that they addressed her as Grandma, Auntie, or Sister. When she was young, she was terrified of bugs. The sight of a fat green grasshopper sitting on a cotton tree branch made her skin crawl. Another time, there was especially loud chirping in the night. The next day, she found a dead bug on the stove. Asking her husband if it was the same bug that made all the noise the night before, he replied:

"Of course! What else would have made the noise? Look, it's a cricket!"

Grandpa Yu happened to be in their house at the time, and, as knowledgeable about insects as he was about, he took issue with his friend's insect - identification skills:

"I can tell without even looking at it it's not a cricket! What you're looking at is a kitchen louse!"

But You Hui was a stubborn old man, and hated to be contradicted:

"You Yu, I'll admit you're a better craftsman than me, but I know the difference between a cricket and a kitchen louse!"

Grandpa Yu laughed:

"Your problem, You Hui, is that you don't think these differences are important or worth thinking too much about. To you, a horse and a donkey are pretty much the same thing. That's why only your wife believes you when you claim to know about these things!"

Grandpa Yu knew straight away he'd made a mistake -You Hui was easily offended. The room fell into silence, and the two men busied themselves with their tobacco pipes, shrouding their heads in smoke. After a while, Grandpa Yu said:

"If you don't believe it's a louse, I'll go catch a cricket and show you!"

Grandpa Yu loved watching bugs when he was a young boy, and spent half his childhood kneeling or lying down on the ground, getting the perfect vantage point. But he was a grown man now, and it wouldn't be proper for him to be seen sprawled in the dirt, and besides, he was a little out of practice. Instead, he rustled around between plants and rocks at the side of a field, under a hot midday sun. It's easy to hear crickets, but surprisingly difficult to find them. Still, he was easily able to focus on hunting for them while also using his brain to do other things, like working out how much of his life he'd spent listening to crickets. Crickets are active three months out of each year, which means that if you live to be seventy or eighty, you will have spent about twenty years listening to crickets. That's the same length of time roughly as one human generation. Everyone who lived in Water Village all spent several months every year listening to the crickets, but only a handful had ever seen one, not because they're rare or even elusive, but because to most people, seeing a cricket didn't even register as an event worth remembering or thinking about; so, they effectively go through life without ever seeing a cricket. Very few people take the time to study the finer details of life, and there's never enough time, especially when almost every moment of most people's waking life is preoccupied with the "Big Things."

He caught one eventually, and returned, cricket in hand, to You Hui's house, who as it turned out, had already forgotten about the whole cricket - kitchen louse debate, and was unimpressed anyway.

"Humph, not exactly a high - level skill, catching crickets."

What are you supposed to say to that? Grandpa Yu didn't know - it had all got a little too embarrassing. He looked over at Grandma Hui, perhaps looking for reassurance, and the cricket, seeing its chance, hopped out of his hand. Grandma Hui's face flushed red, as she anxiously tried to defuse the situation:

"Please don't take it the wrong way, Brother Yu. You know about You Hui's bad temper."

Grandpa Yu laughed:

"It's OK. I think we're both a little too old to hold a grudge over something as childish as crickets!"

You Hui started laughing too, and just like that, the tension broke. You Hui passed him the tobacco and motioned that he should load the big water bong. Bong loaded, Grandpa Yu began to smoke, and between puffs told a story about a special method he used as a boy to catch cicadas. In summer in Water Village, there is no game more fun than hunting cicadas. It wasn't easy - first, listen, then, follow the sound to the source, which involves climbing sneakily up a tree, and pounce with cupped palms coming together perfectly so as to catch the bug without crushing it.

"I was different when I was a boy," Grandpa Yu was saying, "I didn't bother with all that tree - climbing nonsense. Instead, what I did was find a good long piece of bamboo, then make a grid of broken bits of bamboo bark that I tied to the end of the stick, and draped it with spider - web. Then, when I saw a cicada, I just stuck out my pole, and bam, got it!"

You Hui laughed so hard he choked on the bong - smoke:

"It wasn't just you who did that, you know!"

Grandpa Yu wasn't finished:

"Alright, let me ask you this: with cicadas is it the male or the female that chirps?"

You Hui, uninterested, just said:

"So what, what difference does it make when you're catching them anyway?"

"You don't know, do you! Let me tell you - animals and people are opposites. With people, it's the women who are beautiful, but with animals, the males are better - looking. Just think about chickens, or peacocks! It's the same with cicadas - only the males make noise, the females just sit around silently. And crickets are the same again -whenever you hear crickets at night, it's the males singing songs for their women."

You Hui chuckled:

"What about you, Brother Yu? When you play your flute at night, are you playing for the cricket women?"

Grandma Hui glared at her husband:

"Would it hurt to say something nice for once? Why do you always have to be so harsh?"

That conversation changed something inside Grandma Hui. Starting from then, she was able to feel compassion for every insect that flew in the air or crawled in the ground. Butterflies, yes, but also ants and spiders. What brought about this change in her was the idea that insects have their own sexes, male and female, they court each other, they give birth, and they spend their lives enduring hot sun and hard rain. It was around that time that Grandpa Yu's wife gave birth to Wangtuo and Fatuo. Their daughter, Qiao'er, would still have to wait a few more years before making her appearance on the earth. It was also around that time that Grandma Hui, not yet a mother, started to think seriously about having a child or two of her own. Grandpa Yu said to Grandma Hui: "Nobody will believe what you are saying but your wife." that made Grandma Hui was unhappy.

Grandma Hui was not a Water Village native. The story of how she came there was an unusual one, and much retold and enjoyed among the other villagers. It started one day when the young You Hui didn't have anything much to do and so decided to make a day trip to the city. He was seen walking back into Water Village before dark, and following behind him with her head bowed down to the ground was a seventeen - year - old girl wearing a satin cheongsam, and carrying a makeshift cloth travel bag. One of the villagers asked him:

"Hey, You Hui, who's that you've got with you?"

His answer was short:

"Mind your own damn business!"

She went into his house, and that was it. There was no ceremony, no wedding feast, and they certainly didn't kneel together to pay respects and receive blessings of heaven and earth, as every other married couple in the village had. You Hui's parents died a long time before, and there were no other senior family members to be righteously outraged.

That was how, without any effort (and he was a notorious slacker) You Hui got married to the most beautiful woman in Water Village, with none of the usual help from matchmakers or family connections. Everyone in Water Village remembered and talked about the details of the day of Grandma Hui's arrival for a long time afterward. Some liked to talk about her beautiful cheongsam - it was the kind of thing you'd only normally see a young, rich man's wife wearing. Then there was her hair; black, shiny, tied in a bun with a fancy silver clasp. She wasn't an ordinary country girl - one look at her pale white skin told you that. Nobody heard her speak until several days after she arrived, but when she began to talk with her new fellow villagers, her accent was unfamiliar, so she was not only from some kind of wealthy background, but she was also practically a foreigner.

All in all, no one was under any illusions that You Hui convinced her to marry him without some kind of trickery. The troubling part was, you'd think she was an idiot to have fallen into his trap, but she wasn't, not at all. Quite the opposite, she could actually read, which was more than could be said for almost the entire village of Water Village! Added to that, You Hui was far from bright. It didn't make any sense! Grandma Hui didn't talk much to start with, let alone go around making a show of her literacy, but everyone remembered the first time it revealed itself in full. One of those occasions was when a Communist Party official from northern China was visiting the village. He'd called a village meeting and was reading to the villagers from a newspaper. The article was about the Korean War, and when he read out the words "Yalu River" as in the river on the China - North Korea border, he slightly mispronounced the "lu" sound, obviously because he misread the Chinese character that corresponded with it, so it became "Yalew." Grandma Hui tried hard to suppress a titter. The official asked her what she was laughing about, and eventually she had to break it to him that he'd made a mistake reading the newspaper. But the official would simply not be corrected.

"I know what I'm saying. It's pronounced 'lew', like the 'lew' in 'wearing a green hat[1]'." Grandma Hui blushed. But she wasn't finished - she still had to educate the official on the differences between "support" and "volunteer", which have very similar pronunciations in the standard Mandarin of the newspapers. Regrettably, the official was unrepentant:

"You say the article isn't talking about the Chinese People's 'support army,' but what else could it be? Isn't our army, the Chinese People's Support Army, supporting North Korea right now fighting against American imperialism?"

Grandma Hui got the last word:

"No, it should be the Chinese People's Volunteer Army. Maybe you don't know what 'volunteer' means. It means to do something of your own free will."

Everyone was astounded by Grandma Hui's performance -it was as if an immortal had descended from the sky and landed in Water Village. Who'd have thought there was a woman (a woman!) living in Water Village who knew more words than a Communist Party official!

The official, who became known as "the green official," seemed even more interested in Grandma Hui than the villagers were. Straight after that first meeting, he asked some of them whose wife she was, but they didn't understand him - his standard, northern Mandarin was alien - sounding to them. Later, Grandma Hui ended up explaining the words they didn't know. The green official found out she was married to You Hui, and soon began trying to get You Hui to enlist in the army and join the war in Korea.

You Hui refused bluntly:

"My wife told me that it's a volunteer army, and she also said 'volunteer' means you have to want to and be willing. Well, I'm not willing!"

It wasn't just You Hui who the green official was trying to enlist to the army - he was in the village to recruit as many soldiers as possible, but that became much more difficult when everyone realized they didn't have to go. Still, a few of the villagers took the green official's side, and often hung around with him gossiping, mostly about You Hui's supposed bad character.

Emboldened, the green official approached You Hui again one day:

"Have you reconsidered? No? Well, this is about more than just you. By dragging your hind legs, you're holding everyone else back."

You Hui didn't know what the green official meant by "dragging your hind legs," since that was a northern Chinese expression. Looking for clarification, he said:

"What do you mean 'hind legs?' Everyone I know only has one pair of legs! You might not like me, but I'm a person too, not a pig, or a cow!"

"The root of the problem is your wife," the green official explained: "Her holding you back is what's making you hold everyone else back, you see?"

You Hui cocked his head to one side, like a cockerel ready to fight:

"I won't have you talking about my wife! She knows just as well as me people only have one pair of legs! You might not know the difference between people and swine, but she does!"

The green official clenched his fists:

"I want you to be clear with me; who are you calling a swine?"

"Anyone who tries to force me to join the army, I'll call a swine!" You Hui roared.

The green official grabbed You Hui's shirt and asked him one more time who he was calling a swine.

Just then, Grandpa Yu turned up to break up the fight:

"No need to fight over a little misunderstanding," he urged the green official, "You Hui just doesn't understand your northern words. No one in the village does! And he was not calling you a swine!"

Grandpa Yu stopped the fight, but behind You Hui's back, the gossip continued. Someone claimed that his wife lived in a cathouse before coming to Water Village, and that must be how she'd managed to learn to read a few words - the men at the cathouse taught her!

Talk like this dragged on, until one day, the green official was in the street with a few village men telling them about different ways of saying "cathouse."

"In the north, " he was saying, "people call them brothels, and in the cities, whore houses. The women who work there, we call prostitutes, or whores if you're in the city. What do you call them down here? Ah, right, hookers! You know, when a hooker's seen too many men, they can't have children! Don't take my word for it, just wait and see, I can tell you she'll never have children!"

The green official was excited now, bits of spit shooting from his mouth as he talked. In his excitement, he spoke too loudly. Grandpa Yu was walking by and heard every word he said. He stopped, threw his hoe on the ground, and said:

"Who said that? Did I just here a cow fart, or was that actually a man speaking? It didn't sound like something any decent man from around here would say."

The gossiping men all stood up, except the green official who stayed seated on the ground.

Now he spoke directly to the green official:

"You want to know who the swine is around here? I'll tell you. Anyone who talks about a man's private, family business behind his back, that person is no better than swine. No wonder everyone calls you 'the green official' behind your back!"

A circle of people quickly formed around the two men. The green official stood up, a little shakily, patted the dust off his trousers, and finally said, not very confidently:

"Why are you so angry? It's not like I was talking about your wife."

That was a mistake. Grandpa Yu grabbed his hoe and swung it back, ready to attack, but before he could strike, some of the village men grabbed him and held him back.

One of them said to him, trying to calm him down:

"It's not worth it. You'd just be sinking to his level!"

You Yu shook free from the hands restraining him:

"You're all Water Village men - Water Village men never talk like that, like a gossiping woman! You should know, without me having to tell you!"

Shame - faced, the village men looked at the ground, scratching their heads uncomfortably.

Grandpa Yu stabbed a finger at the green official:

"You! Don't think just because you walk around with a gun on your belt everyone's scared of you! No one here has broken the laws. No one else except you wants to stir up that ... filth! There are no dishonest women here in Water Village! If you think this is a joke, I swear I'll take a knife to your dirty mouth!"

One day a while after Grandpa Yu stood up to the green official, You Hui invited him to his house to share some rice wine. Grandpa Yu was surprised, since in Water Village people only usually drink at special occasions, mainly New Year's.

"It can't be New Year's yet, can it?" Grandpa Yu joked.

You Hui replied, solemnly:

"I got the wine out specially for you, to say thank you. We both want to thank you, me and my wife."

So Grandpa Yu followed You Hui inside, where he saw a meal already laid out on the table.

"Where's Sister Hui?" Grandpa Yu asked, looking around.

"She'll eat in the kitchen. We'll stay in here and drink.

"Seriously?" Grandpa Yu asked, "you know things aren't how they used to be. Wouldn't it be a little ... strange, for her not to eat at the table with us just because she's a woman?"

"Not today. She said so herself. She wants us to have a talk, a proper talk, as brothers."

Grandpa Yu didn't ask any more questions. The two men got down to drinking, mixing rice wine with small talk. Once they'd drunk the appropriate amount, more or less, You Hui said:

"So, last night, I waited outside for the green official, jumped out on him and gave him a little once - over!"

Grandpa Yu's first reaction was to be scared:

"I heard someone jumped him, that was you?"

You Hui chuckled:

"Yes, but you could also ask who it was first said his mouth was full of shit."

Grandpa Yu's tone grew stern:

"Since that's the case, there are a few things I should tell you, as a brother. Real men don't do their dirty work in secret. If he says something wrong, you should go talk to him about it, up front. There's nothing honorable about sneaking up on someone in the dark!"

"But he has a gun!" You Hui protested.

Grandpa Yu's eyes widened. He put his chopsticks down, and said:

"That didn't stop me! Like I told him, as long as we don't break the laws, there's nothing he can do to us. I told him he was swine, right to his face, and what did he do? Nothing! He was too scared even to let out a little cowardly fart, let alone pull his gun!"

You Hui's face turned blank. He picked up his wine glass, and said:

"Alright, let's not talk about this anymore."

"Yes," Grandpa Yu replied, "let this be the end of it. From what I heard, the county's sending people to do an investigation here. They say there's someone in Water Village who's plotting to kill an official. If they catch you ... you'll end up in prison! This is serious - just don't go around bragging about how you beat up the green official, OK?"

A pause, then:

"Brother Yu, did you know that when you play your flute in the evening, my wife can't help tapping along with her hand?"

"I think you might have had too much to drink, brother."

"No, no, I'm not drunk yet. Brother Yu, to tell you the truth, I found her in the cathouse. That's where she came from."

Grandpa Yu banged the ends of his chopsticks on the table.

"Enough! Brother, why would you say that?"

"Don't be angry, Brother Yu. I ... in the past, I let myself down. I didn't have much money, but I made a few coins working odd jobs. Everything I earned, I spent in the cathouse. That was where I met my wife. Actually, I met her several years before she became my wife. But the world has changed since then, the law has changed - so, no more cathouses. The year of the revolution, I bumped into her on the street. I asked her where she was going, and she just cried, said she didn't know. Then I said, she could come live with me if she wanted, I told her it was only me in the house anyway."

Grandpa Yu swigged from his wine cup, recklessly. Then, he said:

"Brother, if there is one thing you've done right in your life, it was bringing her into your home. She is a brilliant woman. If you do what she says, learn from her, listen to her well, I promise you and your family will do well in this life yet!"

You Hui sighed, shaking his head:

"I wasn't born with a good brain, but she's different, she's got this ... intelligence. When you play your flute, I feel nothing, it's like I'm made of wood. But for her, she can understand it, it has meaning. That's why her hands start tapping without her even meaning to."

"You don't need to say anymore, brother. I'm never going to play the flute again, starting from today. There, it's settled."

"What do you mean? People like to hear you play. Anyway, if she likes to listen to your flute, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just, her world is bigger than mine, because she knows so many things. She knows about places far away from here and ancient things as well, ancient people. I mean, she can even read and write! I don't understand how I ended up being the one she's married to. Must be good karma from some other life long ago."

Grandpa Yu smiled:

"Everyone in Water Village talks about how you're one of those people who's lazy but lucky. I guess you could say, a blessed slacker. Just make sure to be thankful for your good karma. I think, it must have been many lifetimes in the making."

Grandpa Yu paused, then said: "You know that old Water Village saying? 'When a prostitute changes her ways, her worth is more than a goddess.' I think, this perfectly describes Sister Hui. She's a good, decent person, and I'll fight anyone who so much as hints at the word 'prostitute' in the same breath as her name!"

For many years after that night, Grandpa Yu didn't touch his flute. Sometimes, at night, he missed it, but he never allowed himself to play it, for fear that Grandma Hui would hear. Around the time that You Hui teased him about playing his flute as a love - song for female crickets, he played it while lying on the grass outside at night, to escape the summer heat. But that was only a few times. As soon as You Hui mentioned it, he stopped, and put it back in its hiding place. Gradually, he forgot where he'd put it, until one day, when Fatuo was three years old, he found it while rifling through his cupboards looking for things a toddler might enjoy playing with. When Grandma Yu saw Fatuo using the flute as a drumstick, she snatched it away, scolding the young boy:

"That's your father's flute, and look, you nearly broke it!"

Fatuo began to cry, and once he started there was no stopping him. Eventually, in an effort to calm him down, Grandpa Yu picked up his flute and played a few notes. The crying stopped immediately, but Fatuo was very insistent that his father kept playing. His pestering paid off, and Grandpa Yu started playing the same way he'd always played - no song or tune in his head, just playing what he felt like playing, making it up as he went. Soon, his eyes closed, and he felt himself drifting into the forest outside his house, birds singing, wind making beautiful noises in his ears, stream - water caressing his feet, fish nibbling at his toes.

The next day, he visited You Hui in his house. As You Hui passed him the tobacco bong, he said:

"I heard you playing your flute again last night. Can't leave the cricket women alone, eh?"

Grandpa Yu's face turned bright red. In his mind, he told himself: May the gods strike me down if I ever play that flute again.

5

With age, Grandma Hui's eyesight dimmed, but her ears stayed faithful. She still heard the crickets at night.

One day, when Grandpa Yu's flower garden was all ablaze with gold and yellow - chrysanthemums - he invited You Hui and Grandma Hui to his house to drink rice wine. You Hui never stopped finding it funny that Grandpa Hui liked to eat flowers.

"So what will it be with these chrysanthemums? Fried, or boiled in a nice soup?"

Joking aside, You Hui was curious why his old friend was serving rice wine. What was the special occasion?

"Oh, it's a good day," Grandpa Yu replied, in good humor, "Go and get your wife, we can't start without her!"

When the chrysanthemums reach the peak of their golden bloom, that means it's mushroom season in the mountains. Grandpa Yu had already been out foraging, and on the table that day were: one bowl of mushrooms fried with pork, one bowl of yellow braised carp, one bowl of seared tofu with green onions, and one bowl of cabbage, lightly fried, and all cooked and served by Grandma Yu.

As the two old couples sat down at table together, You Hui asked again what the special occasion was.

"Ask your Brother Yu," Grandma Yu laughed.

Grandpa Yu looked embarrassed:

"I think it would be better if you tell them," he said.

Grandma Yu began to explain:

"Today is the tenth day of the ninth lunar month, and well, your Brother Yu remembered that today marks fifty years from the day Brother Hui first brought Sister Hui to Water Village."

Grandpa Yu's eyes were glued to the table. He didn't look up, but said:

"I know you two didn't really have a wedding - the rituals and the feast and so on - but I saw on the television that fifty years of marriage is called a 'golden anniversary.' And it struck me, gold doesn't wear out or rust - gold is something that lasts. So, that's why today is a good day."

Grandma Hui put her chopsticks down out of the way so she could wipe tears away with her sleeve.

"Brother Yu, how did you remember? Your Brother Hui certainly didn't remember, and actually, neither did I."

"When you get old, " Grandpa Yu said, "you start to forget things, but only things that are new. You never forget the things that stayed with you from your old life. I remember what date that day was because, on the eighth day of the ninth lunar month, the ration - eaters passed through Water Village and stayed the night. They left the next day, the ninth. At the time, I wanted to join the army and become a ration - eater too, but my mother wouldn't let me go. She was sick, and she told me that if I left that day, the ninth, she'd be dead the next day, the tenth ... So, I ended up not going. It's hard to forget when your mother tells you something like that. The next day, the tenth, Brother Hui brought Sister Hui to Water Village. I even remember what my mother told me that day: 'the world is changing, and the ration - eaters' clothes are changing too.'"

"Ration - eaters" is the name old people in Water Village used to talk about soldiers.

Grandma Hui wiped her tears away again, and said:

"I just thank the gods I found a good man in your Brother Hui. If it weren't for him, I don't know where I might have ended up."

Grandma Yu laughed to lighten the mood, and said:

"Sister, this is a happy day, here - take your cup, drink up!"

"Fifty years ..." Grandma Hui said, "I've spent almost all my life with him, and now I can say, it was worth it! He may not be clever, or hard - working, but he's a good man. He's always been good to me, never beating me or shouting at me. In fifty years, he's never even laid a finger on me in anger."

Grandpa Hui laughed:

"How could I beat you? As far as I can tell, you're a gift from the Buddha. I just hope I haven't done wrong by not spending the last fifty years on my knees praying and lighting incense!"

"Now, it's time for us four to drink!" Grandpa Yu said, reaching for his cup, "And, since Brother Hui never gets tired of asking me how I like to eat my chrysanthemum, today, every dish on the table is topped with some delicious golden chrysanthemum!"

"So you really can eat it?" Grandpa Hui asked, incredulous.

Grandma Hui already had a few petals between her chopsticks. Looking up she said:

"Of course you can. Don't you know they're used in traditional medicine! But the only reason your Brother Yu wanted to eat chrysanthemum today - actually, he insisted - is to prove once and for all that they're edible. Can you believe how stubborn he is!"

"They both are," Grandma Hui said, looking between Grandpa Yu and her husband, "They've spent the better part of their lives arguing with each other. Never over anything important though, only strange childish things. They must have left a lot of things unsettled when they were boys ... remember that time they got into a big argument about crickets!"

The two men glanced at each other. Their eyes met, and they clinked wine cups, laughing together.

Years went by, spouses passed away, and Grandma Hui was left wondering, would chrysanthemum be good - tasting fried up on its own? In her garden, the chili trees were just slightly past season, past their peak. As she watched them, the sun began to tilt to the west, pulling the flagstones by her backyard well into shadow. The air began to cool as she sat, thinking about her dead husband. Tears leaked out of her hazy old eyes.

"You're gone ... you left on your own, and now you're in a better place. Where am I, now you left me behind to suffer? You raised a stupid son, and stupid grandchildren -none of them were any good at studying ... but then, I'm stupid too. I know that now.

"What a waste ..." she sighed out loud, "I've given my life to Water Village, when if I'd just had a bit more education, I might have gone somewhere in the world. All the things I've done here ... every child born, I was the one who birthed them - it was me, the midwife. Every soul who died here, I tended their body, made them ready for their funeral."

As a young woman still new to Water Village, Grandma Hui served as the village's barefoot doctor. Whenever someone had a headache, or a fever, she would come running with the medicine box on her back. The box was beautiful, made by Grandpa Yu, of course, of camphorwood painted white with a neat little red cross under the little key - latch. She kept a special reserve of energy for her midwife duties. When she heard one of the village women's amniotic fluid had just broken, she sprinted like a madwoman to their house. Sometimes, the little glass medicine vials in her box would break as she ran, so it became a village custom for whatever young man was on hand to take her box and run after her holding it, strong hands insuring vials didn't break. If any man saw her running and didn't help, he would be sure to get an earful later. By the time Grandma Hui was an old woman, she knew the birthday of every person in the village aged forty and over. If anyone forgot when their child's birthday was, which did occasionally happen, they knew they could count on Grandma Hui to refresh their memory. Her memory stayed sharp, but gradually her midwifing services were no longer needed. Times change, and now new mothers go to the city hospital instead. Men and women older than Grandma Hui recalled how in the past, when a woman was getting ready to give birth, her family had to be ready for whatever might happen. Funeral pyres were as much a part of the preparation as celebration wine. But that changed after Grandma Hui arrived. In her time as midwife, not a single woman died in childbirth.

Grandma Hui only took up her midwife duties twelve years after her arriving in Water Village. That was the same year she had her own son, Qiangtuo, who was born just three months before Grandma Yu gave birth to Qiao'er. Earlier that year, Water Village's old midwife died, leaving the handful of pregnant women in the village in suspense, scared. They began trying to work out whose child would come out of the kiln first - the kiln is what people in Water Village jokingly called a woman's womb. In Water Village, the way of deciding who would be the new midwife was simple. When the job needs doing, it simply has to be done, so, whichever village woman was brave enough to do it, she would be the village midwife for the rest of her life.

The pregnant wives' bellies grew bigger, and they all knew they were drawing closer to the gates of life and death. They each singled out women they trusted, and courted them with jokes:

"You'll give me a hand, won't you, when the time comes? Don't you think it'll be exciting to hold my life in your hands? Or, think about it this way - if I've ever done anything to wrong you, or if you just don't like me, you'll have the chance to be rid of me forever!"

But no one dared to take the job.

Meanwhile, Grandma Yu was pregnant too, though she didn't tell anyone or even discuss it after it became obvious. Then, very late one night, a firecracker went off outside the Huis' house. The Yus woke up immediately, startled. Grandma Yu leapt out of bed, worried. In Water Village, a firecracker means one of two things - birth, or death. Their loud noise, smoke and fire are valued for driving away evil spirits, so they are vital at times when human souls cross between spirit and physical worlds. The only way to tell whether a firecracker is being used to protect a dead soul or a newborn one is that when a person dies, mourning relatives will also burn spirit money outside the gate.

A few minutes later, Grandma Yu came running back home, panting and beaming with joy:

"Sister Hui's had a baby boy!"

"Who was the midwife?" Grandpa Yu asked.

"The gods!" she replied, "It must have been the gods, because she did it all on her own!"

Grandpa Yu's jaw dropped. For a while he couldn't speak, but finally managed to say:

"I can't go over, wouldn't be proper, but you go, you go, You Hui's not going to be much good to her right now, and she'll need some help!"

"I know, I know, I'm going, I just wanted to come tell you the good news so you wouldn't worry. Oh, I was so scared when I went out, I was half expecting to see spirit money!"

"Thank the gods! They protected her, and she's alive, with a new - born baby boy!"

Three months later Qiao'er was born, with Grandma Hui as midwife paving her way. Grandma Hui brought a brand - new professionalism to her post - the first thing she did was go out and buy a pair of medical - grade scissors and gauze. Past Water Village midwifes used ordinary kitchen scissors, heated briefly over fire, to snip the umbilical cord. When the day came for Qiao'er to arrive, Grandma Hui sterilized the scissors in a pot of boiling water, and prepared the gauze using a bamboo steamer. It was afternoon when Qiao'er was born, so there was an audience of village women watching. None of the women could believe what they were seeing - Grandma Hui had a lot to do, but the way she went about it was calm, and methodical. The women all were bursting with questions for Grandma Hui, and a few days later when Grandpa Yu invited everyone over for celebratory sweet wine, they got their chance: "Where did you learn to have her lay on top of a big piece of gauze like that? And where did you learn to steam the gauze? Oh, and the scissors, who taught you to put it in boiling water?"

Grandma Hui just laughed, and said:

"Oh, it's easy. I just thought about it, and that's what made sense."

Someone else asked:

"Who taught you to leave the umbilical cord so long like you did?"

She laughed some more, and said:

"If you cut it too short you might hurt the baby's tummy, but if you leave it too long, it gets in the way. At least, that was my thinking. I don't think I left it especially long."

Then, some years later, the authorities sent word to Water Village that the village was to select one person among them to attend a special school where they would study to become a barefoot doctor. It was obvious to everyone that Grandma Hui should go, no discussion needed. She was the only person qualified - besides being able to read, she was also bright, and just as importantly, she liked to help people. She was the only woman anyone had heard of to act as her own midwife - that was proof enough of her talent.

Qiangtuo and Qiao'er were born just three months apart, so they grew up side by side, practically siblings. When Grandpa Yu made something, a wooden toy car, or a folding chair for Qiao'er, he would always make another one to give to Qiangtuo. Old clothes from Wangtuo and Fatuo were split into two piles - one for Qiao'er, one for Qiangtuo. This is how they grew up, and it is also why certain rumors started.

One night, Grandma Yu pulled her husband aside to talk:

"So, you know how people used to think that Sister Hui couldn't have children? Well, now obviously they know they were wrong, but it seems a little strange, how it took them ten years to finally have a baby. So now people are saying, maybe it's You Hui who has the problem, maybe it wasn't her who couldn't have children, but in fact him."

"How am I supposed to know about that?" Grandpa Yu replied." Whether or not they can have children," Grandpa Yu replied, "that's for Avalokitesvara to take care of."

"Do you understand what I'm saying?" she asked her husband.

"Of course, but I'm not interested in hearing about what other people say! I can't stand when people get themselves involved in things that have nothing to do with them. You shouldn't get involved in that kind of talk, unless it's to tell people why they shouldn't talk about other people's family business!"

"What I mean is," Grandma Yu continued, "Qiangtuo is practically your nephew, and we live right next door and we're very close with them. We always treat him well on daily basis, it's good."

Now Grandpa Yu realized she was hiding something under her words.

"What is it?" he asked, "What have you heard?"

"There are some people who say, maybe Qiangtuo isn't really You Hui's son. They think You Hui is infertile ..."

Now Grandpa Yu understood what she meant.

"Do you believe it?" he asked.

"Do I believe what?" she asked back.

"I think you'd better ask yourself that question," he replied.

"Well, what difference does it make whether I believe or not!"

"There's nothing to fear about people talking - there will always be people who like to talk. What's important is that your own behavior is righteous. He who is upright does not cast a crooked shadow."

The woman who took care of preparing people's bodies for their funeral, a healthy eighty something year old, died suddenly. While there may be several midwives sharing duties at one time, there was only ever one person who tended to corpses, and now, there was no one in place to take the job. Certainly nobody thought it should be Grandma Hui - as a barefoot doctor, dealing with dead bodies was considered to be beneath her. But she wasn't worried about that. She saw that nobody was prepared to do what needed to be done for the poor old dead woman, so she stepped up. Amid wailing and moans of her family that made the sky spin and darken, she gave orders for water to be boiled, then asked the relatives to bring out the grave clothes. She had to be quick, wash the body and dress it while it was still soft and supple. Grandma Hui was over thirty years old now, a veteran midwife of many village births, yet she'd never in her life seen a dead body. She wasn't scared though. She went to work wearing a surgical mask, the same mask in fact that she wore while tending to the old woman on her deathbed. She didn't take off her mask off until the old body lay clean and ready on a wooden board. Then the villagers returned to their senses as if waking from a dream, and began calling out the name of Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Boundless Life and Light, and praised Grandma Hui's good deeds which they said would surely bring her much good karma. Grandma Hui pulled down her mask, and said:

"The old lady dead before us spent a lifetime doing good deeds. That's why she left the world without pain or sickness."

From that day, Grandma Hui was the sole gatekeeper at the passageways between this world and the worlds unknown to mortals. Birth or death, all souls in Water Village passed through her hands.

Nobody disputed that caring for bodies was a virtuous and meritorious undertaking, but that didn't mean the thought of actually doing it didn't scare them. Death is dirty, and worse, it attracts ghosts and evil spirits. Normally, people would keep their distance from someone who touched a corpse for a few days after. They wouldn't eat anything that person touched and they would never invite them inside their home for fear that they would bring ghosts with them. But as always, Grandma Hui was different. People weren't actively afraid of her, but they still thought it strange that a woman who paid such loving attention to appearances - always clean, hair always neatly combed and shining with health, clothes plain, but always nice and neat - would be willing to get so close to death, to touch it with her hands.

The resident village loud - mouths didn't hesitate to question You Hui about his wife's strange choice of charitable activities.

"Such a pretty wife, but just think about where her hands have been ..."

They asked him if he was afraid to eat food she made.

You Hui always took her side, but later, at home, he took it out on her in big arguments. He told her she shouldn't get involved with dead people, that it was a useless thing to do anyway since it didn't bring them any extra money or food. He supported her other work - she earned work - points with her barefoot doctor work, and as a midwife, they could count on steady gifts of sweet wine.

Grandma Hui was assured in her reply:

"Everybody dies someday, and when they do, somebody needs to look after their body."

"But I'm asking you," You Hui insisted, "what do you gain from it?"

"What 'gain' does the sun get from shining on the earth?" she shrugged." What 'gain' does the rain get from falling on the land? What about Brother Yu. He accepts money for everything he makes, except coffins. So what 'gain' would you say he gets from that?"

"That's his business. No one told him he couldn't charge money for coffins, he decided that himself. Other carpenters do charge a fee, and think about it - when he works for free, it puts them in an awkward spot when they ask for money! It makes people not like him!"

"So you'd have me ask for money then?" she fired back, "When someone in their family has just died, you want me to go to them and try to take their money? Are you really suggesting that?"

"No, I never said that! I just don't want you to do that work. I don't want people to make jokes about it, to make fun of me!"

"Well, next time someone makes fun of you, just tell me, and then when they die, I won't help them. There, that's fair, isn't it?"

Immediately, she regretted her words. She knew it wasn't fair. How could she say something so heartless?

6

Grandma Hui had a white doctor's coat, which though years and seasons past, stayed blindingly white. She kept it on top of her medicine box, neatly folded and wrapped in a clean piece of cloth. Then, when an emergency came up, she grabbed it along with the box and flew out the door. Within moments of arriving at the sick person's house she whipped the coat on over her shoulders and pulled the surgical mask over her head. All that the patient saw of her was her eyes, bright and big, and brows, fine like willow leaves. Then when she bent her head down to take the pulse, the patient could see her ears, delicate pink like fine fuzz on winter melons. When she finished treatment, she took off her mask, tidied her hair though it didn't need it, and said something warm and comforting to the patient with a kind smile. She always emitted a strange almost divine light - at night under dim lamp - glow her face was like a deep - water luminous pearl, in daytime her face shone milk - white in sun coming through the window.

When Grandma Hui's doctor's coat began showing first signs of fading a faint yellow hue, her son Qiangtuo was already ten years old.

One day in spring that year, she was just getting ready to head out of her door with the medicine box on her back, when an official from the commune came in with the production team secretary.

"A rare honor!" Grandma Hui greeted them, "How may I help you?"

"Are you busy?" the production team secretary asked." If not, there is something I'd like to talk with you about."

He explained that a female official from the county town was being sent to Water Village for re - education. She had to live somewhere, and in his opinion, the Huis' household was the most appropriate option.

"We've heard good things about you," the commune official added, "You have some learning, and a reputation as a good person. You'll do a good job of educating her."

"Since arrangements have been made," Grandma Hui said, "I'll be happy to help."

"Wouldn't you like to talk it through with You Hui first?" the production team secretary asked.

"No need. He's a good man. He'll understand."

The commune official, noticing a pile of fir wood outside Grandpa Yu's house, asked Grandma Hui:

"Are you planning to build a new house?"

"Oh no, that belongs to Brother Yu next door, but yes, he is building a new house."

The commune official came to Water Village again the next day, this time with the woman official. He led her into the Huis' house with a ceremonious air, as if she was a distinguished guest arriving at a fine establishment.

"Sister Hui," he said, "this is the official I told you about. Her family name is Liu - you can just call her Little Liu. Thank you, and sorry for the trouble."

He left quickly, without staying for lunch.

Little Liu was visibly uncomfortable, not knowing whether to sit or stand. Grandma Hui saw, and said:

"Comrade Liu, please, I'd like you to feel at home here. It's a small household, just me and my husband and our son Qiangtuo. I'm sure you'll be comfortable here."

Grandma Hui showed her to the room she'd prepared for her:

"It's not as comfortable as it is in the city, but I keep it clean at least. You'll get used to it."

Little Liu put her bags down on the floor, and made a show of rushing to the kitchen, asking:

"Sister Hui, where's the well? I'll go and fetch water."

Grandma Hui grabbed the bucket Little Liu was already holding:

"No need, no need! There are men in the house, we wouldn't ask you to carry water!"

But Little Liu insisted and eventually got her way. It's no small event when a city woman comes to the village, and there were plenty of people eyeing her up as she walked down the road, eager to see how white her skin was.

"Look how white she is!" someone exclaimed, "She's white like a winter melon!"

"Yeah, she's white, but she's not as white as Grandma Hui," another argued.

"Not as pretty as Grandma Hui either!" another chimed in.

"What did she do to get sent here?" someone asked.

"'Illicit relations' is what I heard," someone else replied.

"I heard it was she slept with someone!" said a woman named Qiuyu.

Grandma Hui heard all of this, and she saw the pointing and staring behind Little Liu's back. It made her skin crawl and her ears burn. It felt like it was her they were talking about, not Little Liu. That night, she went to Grandpa Yu's house. He was in the front room, working on his latest wooden creation. He saw she needed to talk, and laid down his axe.

"Brother Yu", she said, "people are talking about Little Liu behind her back, and ... well it feels wrong. She's living in my house, so I'm responsible for her. I just feel, even if she did something really bad to get sent here, she's here to make up for what she did." Grandma Yu was bustling around too, tying up bundles of wood, helped by Wangtuo and Fatuo. When she heard what Grandma Hui was talking about, she sent them into the bedroom to do homework.

Qiangtuo was in another room doing homework with Qiao'er, as usual. They were both in third grade at elementary school now. Qiangtuo was eavesdropping on the adults' conversation, until his curiosity got the better of him and he came running out asking:

"What's 'illicit relations'?"

Grandpa Yu lightly slapped his bottom and said:

"When the grown - ups are talking you're not allowed to listen!"

Grandma Yu laughed, and answered Qiangtuo's question:

"When a woman hears a man say, 'I'm going to bed,' if she says 'I'm going to bed too,' then they are having illicit relations."

On cue, Qiao'er came running out and said:

"Mama, just now I finished my homework and said, 'I'm going to bed' and Qiangtuo said he wanted to go to bed too. Does that mean we're having illicit relations?"

Grandpa Yu laughed so hard. He grabbed Qiao'er and said:

"That's enough! Any more of this talk and I'll spank your bottom so hard you won't remember what day it is! Off to bed with you!"

Qiangtuo wanted his mother to go home with him, but she sent him away. Grandpa Yu told her:

"Don't worry, I'll go have a word tomorrow. It's that Qiuyu who always starts the rumors, so I'll go talk with her and hopefully that'll be the end of it."

But Grandma Yu thought this was a bad idea:

"Qiuyu's got a wicked mouth on her, I'm just worried you won't be able to get through to her. Why don't I go instead?"

Grandpa Yu didn't back down:

"You? You're no match for Qiuyu. She'd have you for breakfast! I'll go. I've got nothing to fear from her."

She kept on: "Will you just listen to me! I don't want you to go!"

"What, you think I should be afraid of her?" he asked, taken aback now.

Grandma Yu bowed her head:

"I know you're not afraid, but I am! I'm afraid of her."

"If you're so afraid, why do you want to be the one to talk with her?" he asked.

"If she wants to talk nonsense and start rumors, why not just let her? Anyway, if she goes too far there's a Party official here - let her deal with her!"

This last remark frayed Grandpa Yu's temper:

"What are you saying! She's not just an official. She's a woman, who's here in Water Village for re - education. Don't you think she's already in a tight enough spot? How can we sit by when people gossip about her? Sister Hui would never say what you just said, I'll tell you that much. She knows better than you do!"

Now Grandma Yu was angry too, her voice quivering louder:

"You're right. I don't know as much as Sister Hui! If I did, there wouldn't be any need for Qiuyu to gossip behind her back!"

"What? What did she say?" Grandpa Yu pressed her, his voice growing louder too, "What does she have to say about Sister Hui? It was Sister Hui who saved her when she was so sick back then. Remember how sick she was? If it weren't for her, Qiuyu wouldn't be with us now!

"What are you talking about? Qiuyu doesn't go around spreading rumors because she keeps grudges. That's just what she does. She doesn't care who she talks about!"

They argued on and on, but Grandma Yu just couldn't bring herself to bring up what was really her central point, what all the arguing was really about, which was that Qiuyu had been going around saying Qiangtuo was actually Grandpa Yu's son. Actually, Grandpa Yu knew all about this rumor, though he pretended not to. He knew that if he brought it up there would be no good way for that conversation to end. Then there was also the fact he was scared if he and his wife started arguing about it, Grandma Hui would hear about it.

So, he stayed silent a while, trying to think of a way out of this. Eventually, he said:

"Don't worry, I've worked out what to do. And I won't go looking for Qiuyu without good cause."

Grandma Hui went to check on Little Liu before going to bed. The disgraced official was writing in a little notebook when she saw Grandma Hui come in.

"Big sister, come in! Please, won't you sit down?" she gestured.

"Are you keeping warm enough at night?" Grandma Hui asked. "It's only just spring, the nights are still cold. I hope your blanket isn't too thin."

"It's not too cold. I'm used to it actually," Little Liu replied." Big sister, I should probably tell you, I'm actually older than you are, even though I call you big sister."

Grandma Hui looked little Liu up and down afresh:

"You city people stay inside in the shade on sunny days, and you keep dry when it's wet outside. No wonder you look a little younger. You know, to country people, city people are so beautiful!"

Little Liu laughed:

"Actually, big sister, you're more beautiful than the city people I'm used to! When a city woman's beautiful, it's because she had beautiful clothes, but when a country woman's beautiful, it's natural."

Grandma Hui blushed:

"You're just flattering me! How could a country woman like me compare to city people?"

"Your accent, you don't sound like a local," little Liu observed.

"No ... but there's not much I can say about that. I don't know where I'm from. I became a wanderer when I was very little, like ragweed on the river ... I still don't know what wind blew me here to Water Village."

"Well, the way you speak sounds local. It's just your accent that's different ... Actually, you pronounce some of your words the northern way."

Little Liu spoke thoughtfully, as if trying to trace Grandma Hui's home from her voice. She observed her silently for a while, then heaved a deep sigh:

"You've suffered in this life too, big sister."

Grandma Hui sighed too, then laughed, as if to comfort Little Liu. Then, without meaning to, she found herself looking at the notebook lying open on the table. When she realized, she quickly looked away.

"Big sister, are you ... can you read?" Little Liu asked.

"No, I wouldn't make that claim, not in front of an official like yourself! I just know enough to read the newspapers, enough at least that I know what is acceptable to say and what isn't - enough that I know not to say reactionary things. And then I also know a few of the words on my medicine bottles, so that I don't give people the wrong medicine."

Little Liu closed the notebook, saying:

"Big sister, do you know about my mistake? What I did?"

Grandma Hui looked away, embarrassed:

"Whatever you did, all that matters is you're here, making up for it."

"I'm scared about tomorrow. I'll have to go out to work, and everyone will be there, looking at me. How am I supposed to hold my head up in front of them?" she sighed.

"There's no one in the world who hasn't done something wrong in their life. Trust me. There are good, honest people here. They won't talk down to you. As long as you work hard and show that you're a good person, they'll see that!"

"I just don't know if I can look at myself in the mirror yet," she said, and began to cry.

"Don't cry. Don't cry, " she urged, taking Little Liu's hand, "Who doesn't have setbacks in life? This won't last forever either. You'll do your time here and go back, reformed, and then you'll be an official again - our leader. Tomorrow when we go out to work, you can follow me and I'll introduce you to everyone. Once you get to know them, you'll see there are lots of good people here."

Little Liu wiped at her tears, and said:

"Big sister, you should go to bed. I still have to work on writing my confession."

"What is there to confess?" Grandma Hui laughed, standing up, "People like to get close to one another. It's natural. And then everything's all heat and madness, and you lose control for a short moment. You're already over the worst of it now. All you've got to do is control yourself from now on and everything will be fine!"

Early after dawn the next day, the production team leader's whistle shrilled, followed by his shout:

"Team Ten, all members, transplant seedlings!"

Grandma Hui carried a pair of bamboo baskets with a shoulder pole and called to Little Liu:

"Work time! Let's go!"

Little Liu asked if there were baskets for her, but Grandma Hui said:

"No need for you to have separate baskets - my husband and I will both take a pair and that'll be enough."

The members of Team Ten all emerged from their separate houses, some with baskets, some without, and headed towards the paddy fields outside the village. The whole way the people at the front kept turning around to take peeps at the woman official from the big city. Little Liu clearly felt uncomfortable walking along empty - handed. Eventually, Grandma Hui saw this and passed her shoulder pole over to her, whispering:

"Here, take this and you'll look a little more like you're doing something."

Little Liu gratefully took the shoulder pole and immediately took comfort in it. On the way, Grandma Hui greeted a few of the people who weren't just looking over shoulders but actually approached them head - on. She told Little Liu who was who, and they all shouted their names over to her. Pointing at Qiuyu's son, Grandma Hui said:

"And that's Tiepao over there, Tiepao as in 'iron gun!'"

Little Liu smiled and bowed her head in his direction:

"Hello, Tiepao," she greeted him.

Everyone laughed, and Tiepao looked embarrassed. When Little Liu asked Grandma Hui what they were laughing about, she replied:

"He farts a lot, and always very loudly, like a big gun!"

In front, people were going: "Bang! Bang! Pong!" trying to imitate Tiepao.

Before breakfast, they worked on pulling up rice seedlings ready for transplanting, then after eating, they got back to work replanting them in the rice fields. As Grandma Hui rolled up her trouser legs, she asked Little Liu in a soft little voice:

"Have you worked fields before?"

"Oh yes," she replied." Every year we go out to the fields as part of the 'support the peasants' campaign."

"Ah," Grandma Hui laughed, relieved, "well, I don't need to worry then."

Little Liu lowered her voice more:

"Actually, there is something else I'm worried about. I'm scared of leeches!"

"Don't worry," Grandma Hui reassured her, "I'll keep an eye out for you."

It was cold in the field, serious early spring morning cold, so that as the villagers descended into the fields they started a chorus of moans as their feet plunged into frigid paddy water. They were in high spirits today, making lots of noise. Only Little Liu made no noise, keeping the shock of cold water to herself. Grandma Hui knew the villagers were excited about their new workmate. How charming to have an adulterous woman official from the city living among them! Watching Little Liu pull up seedlings, Grandma Hui could see she was obviously well - practiced, much to her relief.

"Look at you go!" she said to her, "If you were earning work points here, you'd probably get seven, the same as me!"

"Well, my stamina's no good," Little Liu cautioned against the other woman's praise, "I get very dizzy when I'm tired."

"In most cases it's low blood sugar that does that. You should be fine as long as you don't go to work too hungry."

Little Liu stopped what she was doing to look over at Grandma Hui, amazed:

"Big sister, you could be a doctor! At the hospital in the city! I had dizziness before when I worked in the countryside, but the other barefoot doctors just said something vague like that I had 'giddiness.' Low blood sugar huh? Who knew!"

"No! I could never be a doctor. I can say the words, but I could never do everything a hospital doctor does! But anyway, if you get too tired, just rest for a moment and don't worry, no one will say you're slacking."

All his life, Grandpa Yu couldn't stand Qiuyu. Mostly, he ignored her, never saying hello when they crossed paths in the village. At work in the fields, he made every effort to stand as far away from her as possible. But today, he purposefully worked right next to her, though he still ignored her. She wasn't really in a position to be offended when he ignored her, since he was two generations older than her, and thus had much higher status in the village. She was very aware of him and his presence though - trying to fawn on him, and she was always casting looks over in his direction. Now that he was working right next to her, she kept nervously trying to make small talk, though she didn't really have anything to say:

"Grandpa Yu, are you almost finished building your new house?"

"I don't have enough money for tiles," he replied, "Could you lend me some?"

"You must be joking! I don't have extra money lying around. I'm just about as poor as can be!"

"I don't see how either one of us could be much poorer than the other. We're both village people, aren't we?"

"But, you're a master craftsman! You can do a hundred different things with your hands, and all of them earn you work points! I'd sooner believe there's no sand in the river than your family has no money!"

"Maybe my problem is I can do too many things. I'm a jack of all trades but a master of none. Nothing I do brings in much money."

Other villagers, hearing Grandpa Yu, said:

"Uncle Yu, that's a bit rich, isn't it? You're a master at everything you do, and everyone knows you're a good man, There are plenty of people who'd be willing to help you."

Just then, Little Liu let out a blood - curdling scream. Everyone bent over rice seedlings stood up to look. It was a leech, latched onto her leg.

"Don't be scared. Don't be scared, and stand still. Don't move!" Grandma Hui told her.

The truth was, Grandma Hui was also terrified of bugs. Steeling herself, she grabbed the leech and tossed it as far as she could. It landed beside Tiepao's foot. He laughed in Grandma Hui's direction:

"Auntie Hui, you're out to get me, aren't you!"

Still laughing, he clambered up the embankment at the edge of the field, spread the leech on the ground and turned it over with a stick. He lifted it up like a war trophy, all red with blood, to show the villagers.

"The only way to kill a leech is turning it belly - up and letting it dry under the sun. You can't cut it into pieces, or each piece will turn into a new leech."

This wasn't something new he'd just thought up -everyone in the village already believed this to be a serious natural law.

Tiepao jumped back down into the field, and everyone saw the fun was over and bent back down to gathering up seedlings. The seedling field was big, so not everyone heard when Qiuyu said:

"What a screamer and all because of one little leech! I bet she screamed just like that when they found out she'd been sleeping around the place!"

But Grandpa Yu heard. He stood up and stared coldly at Qiuyu. Some of the others working nearby stood up too, watching Grandpa Yu watching Qiuyu. She felt the many pairs of eyes on her back and stood up too. Grandpa Yu wouldn't make eye contact but stared down at her feet, and quoted a proverb:

"Don't try to measure yourself against those who are greater than you, and don't trample those who are lesser than you!"

"I didn't say anything," Qiuyu said defensively as she turned red, knowing she had no ground to stand on.

"Well, good," Grandpa Yu said, "I suppose what I heard just now was someone farting. Alright, back to work!"

He bent back down, and everyone else followed suit.

Without hearing, Tiepao knew his mother was shooting her mouth as usual. He was known as an honest man, and often found himself in impossible positions because of his mother's mouth. He was just thinking about how she almost definitely was saying something mean - hearted about the new woman from the city, when a steam whistle shrilled, meaning breakfast. The steam whistle was located in a coal - burning power plant three kilometers distant. It went off twice a day - once at 8:30 in the morning, and once at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Without a single clock or watch in Water Village, it served as Water Village's sole timepiece.

After breakfast, it rained. The rain gained force, until waterfalls were pouring off the roofs of the village. Lots of rain was to be expected in spring, and the villagers still went out to work in it as long as it wasn't too heavy, protected by woven rush rain - suits. Today it was heavier than normal, with strong gusts of wind and peals of thunder. The sky soon turned dark with occasional white flashes of lightning. Grandpa Yu's thoughts turned to Qiuyu. According to Water Village folkore, a person who makes up rumors and spreads gossip will be punished by lightning strike. Grandpa Yu was nearly forty at this point, and he'd never seen anyone actually hit by lightning, just often heard about it happening, always in faraway places.

Whenever Grandpa Yu didn't have to go out to work he would stay in his house and work on his carpentry, usually not stopping to sleep until the chickens announced midnight. He was especially busy now that he was preparing to build a new house. He already had the timber, wood of fir trees from the mountains to the south, piled up around his house. He'd bought them in the mountains and floated them to Water Village first down the River Xu and then down the little "thousand - worker canal" that passed right through the village. Everyone helped him carry them out of the water up to his house. The canal was an old piece of work done by previous generations by building a dam on the River Xu and thereby diverting some of the water down through a channel that wended over the feet of the mountains into Water Village and then exited from the north past the orange tree orchards back in the River Xu. Ever since, the "thousand - worker canal" had been enriching Water Village's fields with effortless and dependable irrigation. The dam itself was also a beautiful piece of work - unobtrusive and flat, laying under the surface so fish and even boats could pass easily.

There was an established schedule in Water Village by which people usually built houses. First a carpenter was hired to build a wooden frame for the house, and then walls and windows were added piece by piece. But Grandpa Yu had a different idea for his new building. He planned to first make the walls, windows and doors which in the meantime he'd store outside his current house, covered up with dry rice stalks and oil - paper to guard against wet. This way, he could save the most difficult part, putting up the frame, for last, and once that was done, his new house would be ready for moving in!

He had You Hui, who when he wanted to be was a steady and ferocious workman, come help him saw timber into planks. He could saw all day long without needing a rest, but Grandpa Yu didn't want to work his friend too hard, so they took frequent breaks to smoke the tobacco bong and shoot the breeze. Their conversations covered a range of topics, including:

"Brother Yu, my wife says people come from monkeys, as in, we were monkeys first and then later turned into people. What do you think? Do you believe it?"

"Ah," Grandpa Yu replied, "if it was Sister Hui who said it, then I'll believe it. She's read a lot of books, so she should know better than anyone else around here."

"Well," You Hui counter - posed, "there are plenty of monkeys up in the mountains. How come they don't all turn into people?"

Grandpa Yu laughed: "That, I'm not so sure about!"

A different day, and all the planks were already made, so Grandpa Yu didn't need You Hui's help. You Hui didn't have anything else to do, so he sat around while Grandpa Yu sanded the planks he planned to use to make his doors. It was Sunday, so the children were all at home. Qiangtuo and Qiao'er were playing with the wood shavings flying out from under Grandpa Yu's hands, curling them together and wearing them as pretend play glasses. Wangtuo was already in junior middle school, and Fatuo was in the fifth grade. They were still young, but too big to spend all their time playing. They were put to work, helping move the things their father made inside under the shelter of eaves, while outside thunder boomed so loud the house shook. The whole family was silently at work.

"Brother Hui," Grandpa Yu called to his friend, "how many years have you been watching me work wood now? Learning is all about the eyes, by now you should be at least half a carpenter, wouldn't you say? "

As always, You Hui admitted defeat to Grandpa Yu:

"If I was as good a carpenter as you, my house would already be built by now!"

"Ah, " Grandpa Yu said slowly, "when building a house you should be like a swallow making its nest - take it slow, a little lump of mud, then a little bundle of straw. When you do decide to build a house, I'll work with you. I'll be the cheapest labor you ever hired - I won't ask for a fee, or even for any food!"

You Hui chuckled:

"If you plan on waiting around for me to build a house, you'll be waiting until your beard turns white! I'm an old good - for - nothing. I've already accepted that. We'll just have to wait to see how Qiangtuo turns out. It's all up to him now."

Outside, the rain picked up intensity, no sign of easing off. Grandpa Yu passed the bong and tobacco to You Hui. As he blew smoke from his mouth, he gazed over at the rice field embankment opposite his house. Water was seeping over the edge, forming little waterfalls. Water also seeped from the "thousand - worker canal," and there was surely more water pouring down the mountain slopes, though the roots of the forest up there would stop it from reaching the village. Anyway, it was all hidden in fog. Grandpa Yu wondered, is this how years back under the same rains Water Village got its name? Water Village - Seeping Waters.

7

Grandma Hui's yellow dog had just bitten the traveling junk collector and Grandpa Yu knew full well he'd upset her though he didn't know she was sitting out back all angry. Once he'd eaten breakfast and the midday snack all at once, he headed up the mountain, carrying two bamboo baskets with a shoulder pole. His task today was to gather some sharp thorns to replace the old blunted ones on the feet of the wooden horses on which the dragon - head pole rested. Too blunt, and rats would climb up and chew on the dragon - head pole, and his name would be spat on by generations.

As he walked, the black dog flew past him, then suddenly stopped and waited for him. It seemed the more he ridiculed and mocked her, the more excited she got in her bouncing up and down. The yellow dog followed too for a little way, as it always did, before finding something interesting that he sniffed at for a while and then went slowly trotting home again.

"You did a good job raising that boy!" Grandpa Yu shouted to the black dog.

He knew exactly where on the mountain to find thorns, and before long they were in his hands. On the way back, he spotted some mushrooms that he picked to take back for Grandma Hui. Back in the village, he knocked on her door, but no answer. Then he shouted "Anyone home?" But when no one replied he let himself in and placed the mushrooms down just inside the doorway.

He was tying the new thorns onto the wooden horses when he heard Grandma Hui say from behind him:

"Brother Yu, I'll take the mushrooms, thank you, but not your money."

He stood up and turned around. She didn't look angry, so he said:

"Sister, please, it was all the black dog's fault. You don't need to do this!"

"It was the yellow dog who bit the man," she said, "so your money has nothing to do with it."

Having said her final word, she put the money down on the wooden dragon head.

"Your temper keeps getting worse!" Grandpa Yu laughed.

Grandma Hui laughed too:

"Me, bad temper? Never! By the way, in the Three Character Classic, it clearly states: 'With an unfilial son, the father is to blame, ' but you told me it goes: 'With an unfilial son, the mother is to blame.' You were trying to fool me!"

They both laughed some more, and the two dogs got excited, bouncing around at their sides, although the black dog was more lackluster than her son.

"Look, the yellow one's lazy as well as having no conscience! Every time I go out he only follows me a few hundred yards before he gets bored and goes back. If he had a conscience he'd stick with me no matter what!"

"Well, I am his owner after all. When I go out, he always stays with me. Ah, if everyone were as loyal as our dogs the world would be a peaceful place."

Grandpa Yu could tell from her tone of voice that she really was talking about dogs rather than calling him a dog, and disloyal. From this, he knew she was no longer angry.

When he was finished tying the new thorns on, Grandpa Yu took out his woven rush rain - cape and used it to polish the dragon - head pole. Grandma Hui got her face up close to the old wood and smelled it:

"Brother Yu, breathe this. It's got this faint fragrance about it. I wonder how many dynasties this old scent drifted through!"

"Your nose is better than mine. Mine's not much good for breathing things anymore," he turned down her invitation.

This use of the word 'breathe' in place of 'smell' was a peculiarity of Water Village, left over from ancient times when it was the norm and still today well - read people know it from the ancient poetry.

"I have the opposite problem - I'm too sensitive. When I breathe the perfume young people use, it makes my head spin! And I love your flowers, but there are a couple that are too strong for me - jasmine and cape jasmine."

"I wish you'd told me before," Grandpa Yu said, still polishing, "I would have got rid of them if I'd known."

"Don't get rid of them," she said hastily, "I may not like them but that doesn't mean everyone else doesn't. The world doesn't revolve around me, and nor should it!"

"Alright," Grandpa Yu shrugged, "whatever you want. I'll leave them."

She picked up a cloth and helped him polish the dragon - head poles.

"When I was little I once saw a dragon dance," she said." I don't remember where it was, or how old I was, but I remember all the lanterns were all tied together with yellow silk and had dragon patterns painted on, not like here in Water Village where we just use bamboo fiber and glue on paper. Here the dragon dance is always at night, but the one I remember seeing was in the daytime."

She never normally talked about things from her past, every kid in Water Village has grandma, but Qiangtuo doesn't. And Grandpa Yu never asked her about them, figuring she probably didn't want to talk about them. All he said now was:

"People do things differently everywhere you go. You walk five kilometers, and the people talk differently. Go the other side of the mountains, and the customs aren't the same. Like, in Water Village people never pay New Year visits or make sacrifices on the second day of the New Year, but on the other side of the river they'll do New Year visits and sacrifices on the second, but not on the first."

Grandma Hui changed the subject:

"Brother Yu, do you think Yama King of Hell knows that this dragon - head pole is a rare relic? You would think he'd be a real connoisseur of this kind of things, wouldn't you? Qiangtuo told me it's worth tens of thousands ... Do you think that's true?"

"No!" Grandpa Yu said, "this pole is the holy heritage of Water Village, and it's priceless! Not only is the workmanship masterful, not only has it been passed down for countless generations, but this kind of nanmu, of this quality! These days you just can't find wood like this!"

Grandma Hui laughed and changed the subject again:

"Let's see which of us dies first. If it's me, I don't want the young people to carry me all over the village in circles, wasting time and making noise. I can't stand the noise! I want to just go straight up the mountain."

Grandpa Yu put down his cloth, and said:

"Sister, I'm sure you won't die before me. You're younger than me and your health is good. Just look at your hair! Seventy - three years old and still jet black!"

"Ah, a few years difference doesn't mean much to Yama," she said, "He'll take us as he pleases!"

To them, death was just a small - talk topic like any other. The sun tilted again to the west for the end of another day, its light shedding whites and wrapping itself in reds, under which the dragon - head pole floated delicate hues of rose.

In her old age, Grandma Hui wore her hair in a bun, the same way she wore it the day she arrived in Water Village, held up with the same shiny silver hairpin, with a spell during her middle age when she cut it short. The secret to her still black and glossy hair at over seventy years old was that she'd never been in the habit of using shampoo. Instead, she washed her hair with hot caustic soda water, which she prepared by taking some rice - stalk dust in a loose - woven bamboo basket, filling it with hot water, and letting it drip down into a wash basin below. The resulting liquid had a faint sweet scent to it, like grass left to dry under the sun. After washing her hair with the rice - stalk dust soda solution, she would take a pinch of tea oil and massage it into her hair. Grandpa Yu never talked about her natural shampoo formula with her, but he knew about it and when he saw the young people buying all kinds of fancy shampoo and conditioner he thought to himself they'd be better off just using rice - stalk dust. He never voiced these thoughts though, just kept them in silence inside his old head.

Grandpa Yu went over to the Hui household in the evening to tell Qiangtuo he wanted his help first thing the next morning shifting some "rounds". Qiangtuo did not know what Grandpa Yu wanted, earning swift rebuke from his mother:

"You knew it. Just do as Grandpa Yu told you!"

In Water Village, as everyone knew, "rounds" means logs that are specifically set aside and used to carve coffins with. Grandpa Yu was preparing to make another coffin using the stacks of camphorwood in his shed, because the one he previously made was now being occupied by You Hui, having already passed away.

Qiangtuo was indeed up first thing the next morning ready to help. This new spate of coffin - building was actually promoted by the conversation about death that Grandpa Yu had had with Grandma Hui the previous night which made him realize he'd better get on with it, good health or not.

Qiangtuo got to work dragging "rounds" out of the shed. After a while, and with a big pile of wood already outside, he said:

"Uncle Yu, this is about how much you'll need, isn't it?"

"No. Keep going. I'm going to need all the wood I've got."

Qiangtuo was unconvinced:

"Eh? This much should be enough for one retirement home I would have thought."

"Don't worry about that," Grandpa Yu said, "Just go bring out some more."

After breakfast, Grandpa Yu got down to work with his saw, while Grandma Hui looked on sitting on a bench she'd carried outside.

"Brother Yu, carving coffins isn't to be taken lightly -have you checked to make sure today is an auspicious date?" she asked.

"Eh, better to get on with it. There's no knowing how long my strength will hold out - if I keep putting it off I might find myself too old and tired to do it later."

"Brother Yu, how on earth did you remember the date when I first came to Water Village," she said, easing down a familiar tangent, a question she'd asked him hundreds of times.

She must be getting old, Grandpa Yu thought to himself. When a woman gets old she starts to talk more, and always about the same things. Ah, it really is true that animals and people are opposites. With animals, it's the males who are better looking, and who talk more. But with people, it's the women who are prettier, and who talk more. That being said, it's only her mouth that's gotten old - her ears are still sharp and then there's her mysterious black hair ...

He chopped his axe down into a round as he replied:

"I remember what date that day was because, on the eighth day of the ninth lunar month, the ration - eaters passed through Water Village and stayed the night. They left the next day, the ninth. At the time, I wanted to join the army and become a ration - eater too, but my mother wouldn't let me go. She was sick, and she told me that if I left that day, the ninth, she'd be dead the next day, the tenth ... So, I ended up not going. It's hard to forget when your mother tells you something like that. The next day, the tenth, Brother Hui brought Sister Hui to Water Village. I even remember what my mother told me that day:'The world is changing, and the ration - eaters' clothes are changing too.'"

Grandma Hui completed the ritual by saying, for the hundredth time:

"Thank the gods I found a good man in your brother Hui. If it weren't for him, I don't know where I might have ended up."

Grandpa Yu was still chopping away with his axe, sending woodchips flying like arrows in all directions.

"You'd better come sit behind me, Sister Hui," he advised her." I wouldn't want you to get hurt by a loose woodchip."

She stood up, laughing:

"The older I get the more I get in the way. Maybe I should stay where I am and get killed by a woodchip and save some time!"

But she did move, and sat down again, thinking about how Grandpa Yu was seventy - seven and still carving coffins. In her mind, there would never be another carpenter in the world like him. Thinking these thoughts, she allowed herself to enjoy the scent of sweet camphorwood - it settled her mind.

"Brother Yu! Watching you make coffins makes me think there's not really anything so great about living in the city. City people, when they die, go to get cremated and just like that there's nothing left of them. Much better to die in the countryside and sleep sweetly in a beautiful wooden retirement home!"

"I don't know if it makes much difference what happens to your body once you're dead, " he replied." Death comes, and your brain goes out like a light. They could boil you in hot water and you wouldn't know better. Everyone's equal in death ... even the top leaders in government grow old, and they burn just like the rest of us. A few moments of fire, and they're lost! Just a few handfuls of dust in the ocean."

"And the fish in that ocean, you think people would still eat them if they knew about all that dust?" Then without waiting for a response, she said:

"What about 'superstition?' Do you believe it's superstition, or not? Remember what happened to Qiuyu when she died? She spent her whole life talking bad about people, and what happened to her? A lightning bolt came and took her jaw clean off!"

She was a truly notorious gossip, and she suffered the corresponding punishment, just as Water Village folklore foretold.

She died in the same year when Grandpa Yu was building his new house. It was just after the last of the late - season rice was harvested, a rare slack time in the farming calendar. Grandpa Yu had just torn down his old house and had moved in with the Huis temporarily, though he planned to have his new house built and ready in plenty of time for New Year's.

Qiuyu of course had something to say about Grandpa Yu living with the Huis:

"You Yu and You Hui already share families and everything else anyway, makes sense they're living together. Especially since that adulterating city woman is there too. Birds of a feather, eh!"

One day around that time, the green official suddenly walked up into the village while Grandpa Yu was working on the frame of his new house. You Yu waved to him, smiling:

"Mr. Green, a rare pleasure!"

(The green official was plenty used to his nickname after nearly twenty years of comings and goings and always people calling him by that name.)

But today he looked angry about something. Seeing the foreboding colours in the man's face, Grandpa Yu's first thought was that there must be some new political campaign starting up and that was why he looked angry. The green official also had made a habit of coming to stay and work in Water Village a while at the start of each new passing political campaign. Grandpa Yu made the appropriate adjustments to his own face, purposefully making himself look more somber.

"Where is she?" the green official called out to Grandpa Yu.

"Who?" he asked, perplexed.

"My wife!"

"Your wife?" Grandpa Yu repeated, even more confused.

The green official's face turned a little purple:

"You Water Village folk have some real foresight, as it turns out, giving me that nickname. My wife cheated on me, and now she's here, for re - education."

Grandpa Yu suddenly understood:

"You mean Little Liu is your wife?"

"Little what?! Who said she's little? Over forty years old and she thinks it's the perfect time to go running around with another man!"

Grandpa Yu offered him his tobacco bong. The green official waved the proffered bong away, and pulled out two cigarettes, passing one to Grandpa Yu. They lit up, and Grandpa Yu said:

"Your wife is out in the fields working. I would be out there too, but I asked for leave to build my new house."

They smoked and the green official talked, more curses at his wife than meaningful communication, swearing and choking on smoke, big purple veins of his temple bulging and straining like earthworms.

"Mr. Green, " Grandpa Yu was saying, "Little Liu's been here over half a year now, but no one knows she's your wife. She's kept that secret well hidden, no doubt out of kind thoughts for you. So, if you're here to talk with her, be nice. But if it's a divorce you want you can just go down to the government office, no need to hang around here in Water Village looking for a fight."

"Easy for you to say and be all easy - easy about it!" he said with red eyes, "You think you'd be this calm if it was your wife?"

"Mr. Green," Grandpa Yu laughed, "if you said that to any other Water Village man you'd be in a fight next thing you knew, no question. I don't want to fight, I just want to tell you this - if your wife had an affair, it can only be your fault."

"My fault?! Fart on that! I who've given her three children!"

Grandpa Yu laid his axe down in front of him and swung his torso round, his legs still straddling a beam on the frame of his new house. Both arms wrapped around his chest and looking straight at the green official, he spoke to him in calm voice:

"Do you really think just being able to have children is what makes you a man? Any animal can do that! I'm telling you, if you don't fix your bad temper you'll never be a real man, and your wife will certainly have another affair."

The green official slumped down on the wood chip -covered ground and tears poured from his eyes. Grandpa Yu passed him the bong, and this time, he took it. As the green official loaded it with tobacco, he said:

"My children aren't grown up yet, otherwise I'd just divorce her and be done with it."

"I think of Little Liu as a good person, and so does everyone else in Water Village. We've all almost forgotten why she's here, in fact. If I were you, I would wait here until she finishes work, and speak with her. Tell her you missed her, or something else to show her she still means something to you. You should have come before now, it's been half a year already! Obviously, she would never have gone back to see you - she's scared you'd be angry!"

The green official choked on smoke again, not used to inhaling loose - leaf from a bong. He coughed and hacked for a good while, before saying:

"It's not like I have lots of free time ... I'm only here now because it's Sunday. Anyway, You Yu, we've known each other for nearly twenty years now, but I always thought you didn't like me. Actually, you're the first person who's ever talked with me like this ... directly talked with me, I mean. Thank you for trying to help me and my wife. You're a good man."

Grandpa Yu laughed: "Well, there are no bad men, or women, in Water Village! Now, can I tell you something, and be very direct?"

The green official looked straight at him, holding his breath and saying nothing, preparing himself to hear Grandpa Yu unveil some monumental new truth.

"Well, you look like you're ready to listen, so here it is: Water Village's not far from the county town, as you know, so whenever there's a new political or economic campaign in the county, it's always Water Village where it's first tested out. The upshot is, you've spent a lot of the last twenty years here, overseeing these different campaigns, and in that time, you've got in the bad books of almost everyone in Water Village one way or another, as well as your bosses in the county, and it's because of your arrogance."

The green official looked up at Grandpa Yu and said:

"You said there are no bad people in Water Village, but then what about the class enemies? The landlords, reactionaries and rightists?"

Grandpa Yu said nothing. He just picked up his axe, swung around on his perch, and got back to work on his house. He was building it all on his own, highly unusual. He needed no help, except when it came time to lift the frame off the ground and put it in place, and then also when the time came for tiling. The rest he did himself, shirtless under the hot sun day after day. Having swung axes for over forty summers under that high sun, his skin was black and shiny, his muscles taut. After hours of hard work, he sat down to rest, and picked up his conversation with the green official, still sitting nearby, where he'd left it:

"Are you really only interested in talking about landlords and rightists, after all the things I just told you? Let me tell you again - it's your fault your wife cheated on you, and it's your fault you never got promoted above what you are now! Remember the first time you came here, when the Korean War was going on and you had a pistol on your belt? No one was scared of you! Now you've got no pistol, and again, no one is even a little bit scared of you. You were a bandit once, years ago, weren't you?"

" ... I stopped doing that a long time ago, in 1948. I surrendered," the green official replied.

"Well, perhaps the reason you can't get a promotion is because you were a bandit before. But does that mean bandits are bad people? No! And would you admit yourself to being a bad person? There were bandits here too, about thirty kilometers south in the mountains. They used to ambush sheep farmers heading to town on market day. They never hurt anyone though, just wanted a ransom for the people they captured and even if they didn't get a ransom they still wouldn't hurt anyone. They were just poor and desperate, poor people doing what they could."

"You're right. That is the reason I never made it, " the green official said." I was just about to get a promotion, it was in sight, when someone brought up my 'problematic past.' Argh, I was only fourteen, I didn't know anything, I just followed some people into the mountains because there was nothing to eat. I stayed up there for just a year and a half and then came down and surrendered."

Grandpa Yu began chopping again, and said, intermittently:

"So, it sounds like you know you're not a bad person. Perhaps you shouldn't go around calling other people bad without first thinking a little. I'm over forty years old now, and I've got to know every person in Water Village, about two thousand in total. Not a single one of them is bad. Sure, some are unlikeable, some are harsh to others. They learned that from you and people like you, by the way, how to be harsh and how to punish. Of course, in the past, we had 'clan discipline, ' where anyone showing unfilial behavior was locked in a bamboo cage in the ancestral hall, and anyone could smack them in the behind with a special bamboo cane. But I only ever heard of once when clan discipline was actually used, in my lifetime. And you? How many people have you punished in your time here?"

The green official looked furtively over his shoulders, making sure nobody was around, then said:

"You Yu, everything you just said was textbook reactionary, textbook. But I won't tell anyone. You can trust me."

Grandpa Yu just laughed:

"You can tell people if you like. I'm not afraid! It's not like you have any proof - I could just say it's slander!"

"You Yu, seriously, I won't tell anyone," he insisted, quietly.

"Either way, I don't mind! Tell people if that's what you want!" And with that he got back to work.

The green official was squatting on the ground. He rocked back on his heels, smoking and gazing up towards the sun while he waited for his wife. Unlike other officials, he did not own a watch. A cock crowed, which got every cock in the village clamoring to be the loudest. This didn't last long, and then all that was left in the now even heavier silence of the village was the lonely noise of the axe's rhythmic chopping. Not even a wisp of cloud in the blue sky, just the sun holding court, stopped high up in the sky, not looking like moving any time soon. Bored, the green official forced some small talk:

"You said you only heard of one person who got the 'clan discipline.' Is that person still around?"

"Of course!" Grandpa Yu replied, "I won't name him, but during the Land Reform in 1950 he was the fiercest Communist in Water Village. Seems those days, the rude and unfilial have all become the pride and glory of officialdom!"

The green official was sitting in the Huis' house when the workers came back at noon. Little Liu was walking side by side with Grandma Hui, talking and laughing together, when she saw her husband. Her face went white.

Grandma Hui already knew all about Little Liu and the green official, and hadn't told anyone, not even her husband. She and Little Liu were bosom friends by now, no little detail of their lives they hadn't already talked about and shared.

"Mr... . Mr. Green," Grandma Hui said, taken aback," you're here!" She recovered quickly, continuing: "Little Liu has been a great help around here, and she has excellent relations with the masses. You two talk. I'm going to go cook." And she walked out the front door.

Before she'd taken a few steps, she turned around and saw Little Liu was following her.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"I'm going to fetch water," was all Little Liu said.

Not thinking, Grandma Hui called for You Hui and told him to go get the water instead.

You Hui didn't really want to go - he was hanging out at Grandpa Yu's house, but he came walking reluctantly over anyway. Since Little Liu moved into their home he'd only had to fetch water a handful of times.

But Little Liu was adamant, as usual:

"Sister Hui, let me get the water. My head's a mess, I need some time to think."

Grandma Hui waved You Hui away, who ambled back to Grandpa Yu's construction site to lend a hand. Then she went back inside and put the rice on, before turning to the green official and saying to him:

"You know, I've lost count of how many times she's cried over you. She blames it all on herself. She probably would have killed herself if it weren't for her children. You two need to work this out. She told me you're a good man, but your temper's bad. It's normal for husband and wife to argue once in a while, but you have to improve your temper. As for her mistake, I know it won't happen again."

"You Yu told me the same thing," he replied." Have you two been swapping notes about me this whole time?"

"What are you talking about? I'm the only person in Water Village who knows about you two. Anyway, you should think all this through. I'm going to go make the midday snack."

The sun was moving again now. Grandpa Yu looked up at it and wondered why Fatuo, Qiangtuo and Qiao'er weren't back home yet. Early that morning they'd gone to the river to pick ragweed. Grandma Yu was sure they'd stuck around afterward to swim, but she didn't say anything to her husband in case it made him angry. Actually, Grandpa Yu suspected as much, and was worried they'd gone swimming in Frog Pool. He used to swim in the river too when he was young. It was deeper back then, and he would often see big boats with white sails. He still remembered the envy he felt when he saw the sailors eating on their boats.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of children chasing each other and play - fighting. That must be them. His eyes flashed anger, and he yelled:

"Fatuo, get over here!"

Fatuo knew he was in trouble and edged flinching toward his father, hands already up covering his head. Grandpa Yu grabbed him by the arm, his fingernail leaving a thin white line on the boy's arm. He cuffed him around the ears, and the boy fell heavily down on the ground.

"You're a disgrace! You're not a kid anymore, and it's time you acted like it! If you don't watch yourself, I'll skin you with my own two hands!"

Grandma Hui came running out and pulled Fatuo into her protective arms:

"How could you! He's a child, you can't hit him with your man hands! Anyway, you can't just blame him, Qiangtuo's not a little boy anymore either. Qiangtuo! It was you who told Fatuo to take you swimming, wasn't it?!"

"I was too scared to go to Frog Pool," Qiangtuo defended himself, "but brother Fatuo said anyone who's too scared to go there is a son of a bitch!"

Grandpa Yu started towards Fatuo with a wooden measuring rod upraised. He lashed it down but Grandma Hui jumped in the way to shield Fatuo, and it hit her instead, snapping on impact. Grandma Yu came running out, cursing her husband:

"Beating children again, that's all you know how to do! If you want to beat someone, beat me. I'm the one who raised these children. I should take the responsibility!

Now Fatuo jumped out from behind Grandma Hui:

"I didn't say that!" he yelled.

"Yes, he did!" Qiao'er shouted from the sideline.

"He did," Qiangtuo also insisted, "I swear, he said 'whoever's too scared to go to Frog Pool is a ..."

Before he could finish the sentence he was silenced by a slap across the face from his mother. He started crying while still trying to talk and defend himself, so his words just crumbled into incoherent gurgling mumbles that no one could understand. Grandma Yu grabbed Fatuo by the arm and pulled him away, muttering:

"What were you thinking going to Frog Pool? Don't you know how dangerous ... the bottomless hole and turtle spirit? And you seem to think it's a fun place for a casual outing!"

Fatuo was scared his mother was getting ready to beat him, so he tore away and ran to the arms of Grandma Hui where he hid.

Qiuyu happened to be passing by and, seeing there was a show going on, stopped to watch as Grandpa Yu shielded Qiangtuo from Grandma Hui.

"Isn't this sweet!" she crooned, "Only a truly kind, wise man like Grandpa Yu could put his nephew before his own son! So much love, it's quite touching really."

Grandpa Yu had no time to listen to Qiuyu's fake niceties, but Grandma Yu said:

"Back off, Qiuyu! And don't stick your nose in my family's private business!"

"Oh, I wouldn't dare," she replied, still all false sincerity, "Anyway, I'm not the type to beat my dog, let alone my son! In my house, we look after our own, not strays!"

Grandma Hui said nothing to Qiuyu, just grabbed Fatuo and dragged him towards the house, while shouting at Qiangtuo:

"Get inside the house! No more nonsense, just go! Even dogs know when to go back to their kennel!"

"Who are you telling to go back to their kennel, Grandma Hui?" Qiuyu crowed.

Grandma Yu knew her Sister Hui would never get involved in a squabble with Qiuyu, so she took it on herself to defend her friend:

"Oh, for goodness' sake, she was talking to her son! Can't you just mind your own business?"

But any sign of resistance was just fuel on Qiuyu's fire. She raised her voice and started shuffling her feet to show agitation:

"What's it got to do with you? I was talking to her, not you. But I shouldn't be surprised - you two do share everything: you live together, you raise each other's children. I mean you practically wear the same pair of trousers! Real Communists, you two!"

Throughout this, You Hui was squatting by the door of his house, silent. It was not the done thing in Water Village for men to take part in a women's fight. To do so risked ridicule from the whole village. But this time he couldn't help himself. Leaping to his feet, he charged at Qiuyu, snarling like a tiger. Luckily, there were plenty of people gathered round watching, so someone was on hand to hold him back and talk him down:

"Don't do it! If you lay hands on her it'll really get out of control! You don't want that kind of trouble!"

Just then, the green official emerged from the Huis' house, finger pointing at Qiuyu with full force of official condemnation:

"What did you just say? No, I know what you said. You dirtied the name of Communism with your dirty mouth!"

Qiuyu had no idea the green official had been within earshot the whole time, but in the heat and ignorance of the moment it seemed to her she could use him to her advantage in this argument.

"Ah, we have an official from the county here with us. He can help settle this. What I actually meant when I said they are real Communists was that they are good Communist citizens! Nothing I said was meant to criticize. Actually I think it's great how they help each other - You Hui helps You Yu build his house, in return You Yu helps You Hui raise his son. They're both scratching each other's backs, real model Communists! If I wanted to talk bad about them, I would have brought up that woman official adulteress from the city, but I never did!"

Suddenly, the green official's face turned purple while his eyes bulged:

"Shut up!" he screamed at Qiuyu, "Shut up, or I'll make you sorry you ever opened your filthy mouth!"

Qiuyu was stunned. How could an official talk like that, to a woman? She had good reason to be scared, though she didn't know how badly she'd misjudged the situation. So, she ducked her head and ran, darting through a gap in the circle of onlookers like an animal surrounded by hunters.

Only after all this was over did Little Liu return, water pails over her shoulder, passing by the crowd outside the Yus' house with head bowed low. The well was close by, and she'd heard everything Qiuyu said. Without talking to anyone, she walked straight inside, past Grandma Hui who was standing in the door and greeted her with:

"Food's ready!"

Grandma Yu came over too, to give Fatuo another, less public talking - to. Grandma Hui advised her to go easy on him, because after all he was just a silly boy who didn't understand "these things."

Everyone was seated around the kitchen table, except Little Liu. The green official came out of her room and sat down, saying:

"She doesn't want to eat."

After eating, Grandpa Yu smoked for a while, and then got back to work with his axe. The day was stifling hot, and Qiangtuo and Qiao'er didn't have much to do but sit in the doorway and shout an old rhyme they believed was a magic spell for bringing wind:

"Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo! Come and bring us breezes! Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo! Come and bring us breezes! HUH! HUH!"

The production team leader's whistle cut through the heat.

"Time for work! This afternoon we transplant oilseed rape!"

The oil - crops and the wheats all have their allotted planting time in the old lunar calendar - the oilseed rape goes to field in the ninth month.

Grandma Hui knocked on Little Liu's bedroom door and shouted:

"Come eat something, quickly. You can't go out to work on an empty stomach with your low blood sugar!"

Little Liu opened the door, her eyes red and puffy, and said:

"Sister Hui, I can't go out in the state I'm in. Please, could you ask them to let me have the afternoon off?"

Grandma Hui knew the green official was in there, and her reply was for both of them:

"Alright, I will. You two stay here and have a proper talk, no fighting."

That evening, Tiepao went to visit Grandpa Yu, and offer apologies for his mother's behavior. He was many generations the junior of Grandma and Grandpa Yu, and he spoke to them with the utmost respect:

"I heard about what happened today, and I'm sorry. My mother's mouth can't be stopped. But, please, I hope you don't take it to heart."

Grandpa Yu replied: "Well, for my part I told your mother exactly what I thought, made no bones about it. I may have spoken a bit harshly. Please don't hold it against me."

Then Grandma Yu said:

"Tiepao, you should go talk with Grandma Hui and apologize. She shouldn't have to put up with what your mother said - at one time or another she's helped just about everyone in the village; she deserves better."

"Oh yes, I'm on my way there now, straight away," Tiepao replied in a hurry.

"Aw," he sighed on his way out, "there's no changing my mother now. Sixty years old and no end in sight to the poison that comes out her mouth."

Little Liu left Water Village not long after the green official's arrival. It was a tearful farewell with Grandma Hui:

"Sister Hui, I never would have made it through these ten months without you. And of course, Brother Hui, brother Yu, and Sister Yu. All four of you are the very best people in Water Village. I'll never forget your kindness."

A few days later, Grandpa Yu put up the frame of his new house. Winter was just arriving in Water Village. The oilseed rape was a foot high already, and the wheat had grown as high as a man's finger. In the early mornings the sun would emerge through thin wreathes of cold mist like an egg yolk in the cooking pot, bright yellow but easy to look at. Meanwhile white frost pinned plants and trees tight to the ground like lime powder scattered everywhere.

After breakfast that morning, a big group of village men gathered in front of Grandpa Yu's house. Grandma Yu handed out cigarettes specially bought for the occasion, smiling at everyone. Some of the men lit up straight away, others carefully placed their cigarettes behind their ears.

The wooden frame for the six rooms of the new house was laid out on the ground, and the foundation stones for the building's pillars were neatly arranged, looking like big carved stone drums. These beautiful stones caught the eye of a few of the men, who commented:

"Uncle Yu, where did you get foundation stones this high quality from without anyone hearing about it?"

"A Buddha came and spoke with me in a dream," he joked, "and told me where to find them ready - made!"

In fact, he'd got them from a stone mason up in the mountains a few years earlier. He'd been helping the man build his house, and instead of money, he asked him to carve these stones and deliver them to Water Village for him.

Now everyone gathered around the stones to admire them and say how they were even better than the ones the rich landlords used to have before the liberation.

Meanwhile, Qiao'er was darting around between the men, enjoying the clamor until a shout from her mother put an end to the fun:

"That's enough horsing around, Qiao'er! You really don't want to get on the wrong side of that frame when it goes up!"

So, she ran off to the front of the Huis' house, and got a few village girls to do hopscotch with her. She was good with her hands, and quickly drew the squares with a piece of old tile she picked up from the ground. Just as she was hopping on it, she heard a big shout of "heave!" She looked over, and the big wooden frame was already up! The girls all stopped playing to watch. One of them asked Qiao'er:

"Which one is your bedroom, Qiao'er?"

"My dad says I have to wait till I'm older. Wangtuo gets the biggest room, that one on the left, and the one on the right is for Fatuo," she replied.

"What about you?" one of the other girls asked, "I guess you must be getting married off soon and that's why you don't have a room! When you come back to visit you'll sleep in the shed!"

Qiao'er didn't really understand, but knew that she was being made fun of, so she chased the girl, fists raised, ready to fight.

At the construction site, the men were preparing to haul the central beam of the house up into place. This in fact was the main event of the day's work, which Grandpa Yu had prepared for specifically by asking a geomancer when might be an auspicious time of day. He didn't tell anyone he'd done this, worried that people might say he was superstitious, but the men all secretly knew anyway.

The beam itself was made of camphorwood, thick and straight, a beauteous length of wood fine enough to make all the neighbors jealous. When judging the quality of a house, the beam holds many answers, in much the same way as a young would - be bride can be judged by the temperament of her mother.

Grandpa Yu had already wrapped a piece of red cloth around the middle of the beam, which he used as background for a ritual magic mirror made of bronze that he nailed to the wood, along with some ancient coins. Ancient coins are easy enough to get hold of, but the bronze magic mirror is much harder to find. In those days, most people made do with glass replicas of the real thing. Grandpa Yu didn't have to find it though - it came from his old house, where it used to hang up on the old beam. All he had to do was polish it and it shone with new light.

Now he looked up at the sun to judge the time. The moment had arrived. The men wrapped a brown rope, nice and new, around the beam at both ends, and with a shout of "up!" strong men heaved it up steady onto the frame.

As soon as it settled in place, Tiepao killed a sacrificial cockerel and threw it up over the beam. Firecrackers crackled, and everyone there proclaimed together:

"May it be good! May it be good! May it be good!"

According to custom, when a chicken is sacrificed for a new beam, its meat is given to the carpenter as his due. But Grandpa Yu was his own carpenter, so he had no choice but to keep it.

"Grandpa Yu, you can't keep the carpentry and the chicken all to yourself!" Tiepao joked.

Grandma Yu was in high spirits too, as she announced to the crowd:

"Everyone is invited to a midday meal! There will be chicken and soup for everybody here! I want you all to share in our good fortune!"

Once the roof tiles were on, the house finally looked like a house. The tiles were an exquisite finishing touch, prompting sighs and admiration from everyone who saw. This was without a doubt the finest house in Water Village, and all the other villagers freely admitted it.

In these final days of building, Grandpa Yu drew crowds of spectators who were at first fascinated by the way he reversed the usual order of building a house, and eventually allowed themselves to be persuaded that his way was better, and quicker. As he explained to them, leaving the frame and tiles till last gave him plenty of time to install the windows and walls at his leisure with none of the normal rush.

Meanwhile, the weather grew colder. The walls weren't installed yet, so the Yus kept a big fire going under the roof and people gathered around it every day to chat. One rainy day when the villagers didn't go out to work in the fields, Grandma Hui was sitting by the fireside stitching the sole of a cloth shoe. She asked Grandpa Yu:

"What're those that are written on the pillars? They look like something a Taoist priest would write, but I can't tell what they mean."

"I think these must be the only words I know that you don't!" Grandpa Yu laughed, "They're marks that are passed down from the originator of architecture, Carpenter Luban. They're compass markers, actually. See, this one says 'eastern mountain,' and this one says 'western mountain.' The east is on the left, and the west is on the right. Then there's 'forward mountain' that shows which way is forward, and 'back mountain, ' to show which way is back."

Grandma Hui took a closer look and said:

"But, it's south that's to the left, not east!"

"The east and west that carpenters use are different," he explained." We use the middle room of a house as a bearing point. Then, left is always east, and right is always west. East is the cardinal direction, and west is the secondary direction. That's why when Wangtuo gets married, he'll live in the eastern room, and Fatuo will live in the western room."

"What about you and Sister Yu?" Grandma Hui asked, laughing.

Grandma Yu answered for him:

"Oh, old fogeys like us don't get our own room, not with rotten, unfilial children like ours! We'll just sleep outside and make do with their scraps!"

"You're one to talk, sister!" Grandma Hui said, "Wangtuo and Fatuo are excellent young people. They wouldn't betray you like that! But my Qiangtuo ... I don't dare think I could rely on him. He has a temper like an ox!"

While the ladies talked, Grandpa Yu was absorbed in detailed little tasks around the house, until Grandma Hui asked him another question:

"Are those foreign words on the walls I see, Brother Yu? I've never seen a carpenter write foreign words before!"

A little embarrassed, he replied:

"They're English letters ... Wangtuo showed me how. There are so many wall pieces, so I numbered each one so they wouldn't get mixed up. I thought it'd be easier this way than writing out the old traditional numbers, you know, with all the confusing heavenly stems and earthly branches. So, I at least have one technique Luban didn't teach me!"

Grandpa Yu didn't really want or need help with the last bits of building, but You Hui had nothing else to do and so sat around handing him things anyway and taking absolutely no part in all this high - flung conversation of heavenly and earthly matters. Normally, Grandma Hui liked this quality in her husband - he was the quiet, honest type - but occasionally she'd get frustrated and angry with him and tell him she wished he had a bit more life in him instead of sitting around like an inanimate object waiting to erode.

Grandpa Yu moved his family into the new house on the twentieth day of the eleventh lunar month and of course, the day was marked by a big party with food and wine. According to Water Village custom, whenever someone moves into a new house they have to personally go around all their blood relatives and invite them to a party. Everyone else was perfectly welcome to turn up uninvited and have a drink. This event was called "drinking the village wine." Relatives are supposed to bring a present, but everyone else could come with or without, or they could just set off a firecracker on the hosts' behalf.

Everyone liked Grandpa Yu, so his party was well -attended, loud with drinking and constant firecrackers, and ran from noon well into the night. Amidst the constant stream of guests coming and going, everyone still managed to notice Qiuyu, who came in behind her son Tiepao. People also noticed that though there were two of them, they only set off one firecracker, and this despite the fact that normally only one person from each family would come to drink the village wine. This was too easy a subject for casual gossip, and the party guests happily indulged. But Grandpa and Grandma Yu didn't care. They were actually delighted to see each and every person that came through the door, even including Qiuyu, who shouted"congratulations!" across the room, and sat down next to her son Tiepao, from where her eyes followed Grandpa Yu around the room. When he walked by her table, she practically jumped to her feet to speak with him:

"Congratulations, Grandpa Yu!"

He clapped an appreciative hand on her shoulder and said, laughing:

"You're a senior guest tonight, Qiuyu! Make sure you have plenty to eat and drink!"

Qiuyu's lips were already shiny with grease from what she'd already eaten as she patted her belly and said:

"It's not often I come to a party at a rich man's house, so I've loosened my belt and I'm ready to stuff myself till I burst and die a happy death!"

The other guests at her table all laughed.

"When an old cow dies, everyone gets a share of the meat!" one of them joked.

"Qiuyu," another said, "if you die, we'll eat for three days and three nights by your funeral pyre, then we'll carry you up to the Mound of Ultimate Peace and it'll be the biggest, loudest procession Water Village's ever seen!"

Tiepao shot a glance across the table at his mother, and said:

"Who are you kidding? Nobody's going to carry her anywhere when she dies - people have to like you to do that for you. No, when she goes the best she can hope is people will pick up a few shovels and hoof her out of town."

None of this talk led to hard feelings, since Water Village people like to let their hair down at a party and joke about topics that are normally much more sensitive, death being one of them. Nobody gets angry when a party is swinging and the mood is right.

Qiuyu just laughed it off:

"How does the old proverb go? 'When ten thousand people hate you, death looks for you.' You'd have to add together three or four generations of Water Village people to get to ten thousand people! I'm not going anywhere until I've earned the hate of ten thousand people!"

"Then that would make you an evil spirit sent here to curse our village for one thousand years!" someone shouted.

It was cold and a big fire roared in front of the house, spreading warmth and light everywhere, illuminating excited men absorbed in simple party games, for example finger - guessing, where two players count to three and draw different number of fingers on one hand and guess how many the other has, with drinking for the loser. Outside, thin winter mist chilled the air, and nobody cared. Tiepao was the only one still sitting down eating, and the early arrivals had all gone home already.

The hangers - on were talking around the fire, while little children darted in and out, madly enjoying it all. Every now and then Wangtuo and Fatuo heaped more logs on the fire, sending flames flying up high into the air.

Someone caught sight of Qiuyu stretched out on the table and called over to Tiepao:

"Your mother's fallen asleep! Or wait, is she just drunk?"

Looking over at her, Tiepao said:

"She's not drunk! Mum, go home and sleep!"

He gave her prone body a push, and she slid softly off the table onto the floor. Everyone laughed:

"Your mother sure can sleep, Tiepao! Like a baby! She'll live to one hundred, no doubt about it, no, one thousand years old, sleeping like that!"

Tiepao tried to pull her up, saying again:

"Mum, go home and sleep!"

Something wasn't right. He kicked a bench out of the way and pulled his mother into his arms:

"Mother! Wake up! Mum, wake up!"

He kept shouting for his mother, and sobs began to shake his words. Grandma Hui came running over, checked her neck for a pulse and put her ear up against her nose.

"You Hui," she shouted, "quick, go get my medicine box!"

He returned a few moments later. She took out her stethoscope and listened for a while.

"She's gone," she said.

Tiepao sobbed:

"You left before I even burned spirit money for you! Why didn't you say something! Why did you just go!"

Grandma Yu quickly got some spirit money out from her room and set it alight in front of Qiuyu's body. Everyone else sprang into action, helping with all the many little things that needed to be done. In the village, people always know what to do when the unexpected happens. Firecrackers were set off outside Tiepao's house, another three piles of spirit money were burned at the door, and Qiuyu's body was carried to her home while Tiepao's whole family wailed their grief. The family of the bereaved is not allowed to handle the funeral arrangements - these things must always be handled by someone else. So, someone ran off to heat water for Grandma Hui, who was getting ready to prepare Qiuyu's body for her funeral.

"Too cold," she said, looking at the water, "Go add some more hot water. It's cold out today."

A few village women were standing nearby ready to assist Grandma Hui. One of them asked:

"Does it matter how hot the water is? Surely she doesn't know the difference now?"

Grandma Hui replied in a gentle voice:

"We must respect the dead. When serving the departed, you must think of them in the same way as if they were a living person."

True to her word, she bathed Qiuyu carefully and with tenderness, talking to her the whole time:

"Do you feel the water? It's nice and hot. Don't worry. I'm washing you good and clean to get you on your way! I'll wash your back first. You're so lucky to leave on a full stomach like this, no illness or pain or anything. I wonder what good deeds you did in your past lives to earn that luck!"

"Why did she go so suddenly, Grandma Hui?" one of the women asked.

"There were a few different things it could have been," she answered. "Acute inflammation of the pancreas perhaps, or maybe a heart attack, or maybe it was something else entirely. I'm not an expert; if there were a real doctor here, from the hospital, they'd know for sure what it is without having to look twice."

Someone asked Tiepao if her mother's grave clothes had been prepared.

"No, she hasn't so much as mentioned it," he replied, "She really believes she's going to live past a thousand and still be going strong."

Grandma Hui's lady assistants then began to discuss who they recommend asking to lend them grave clothes. They ended up with a few old ladies in the village who had their grave clothes prepared, and asked Tiepao to go ask around, since it's customary for the son to borrow grave clothes for his bereaved parent. Their advice to him was:

"Just sweet - talk them a little. It won't be hard - lending out grave clothes is a perfect way to earn some 'secret virtue' karma."

"Argh, forget grave clothes for a moment. I don't even have a coffin for her," Tiepao replied, dejected.

"Ah, well, I don't think many people would be willing to give you their coffin," Grandma Yu said, "but let me go have a word with your Grandpa Yu and see if he can carve one up for you quickly!"

Tiepao bowed deep to her, hands clasped in gratitude and reverence.

"Grandma Yu," he said, "a thousand years of joy will be your reward!"

With that, he set off to borrow grave clothes for his dead mother, while Grandma Hui shouted for more hot water:

"Can't let it cool down!"

Then the heavens boomed. A flash of light, and Qiuyu's jaw was gone, sheared off by lightning, so her chin hung ghoulishly from her dead head. Her lower eyelids peeled open too, eyes showing white rolled into the back of their sockets. The women, scared senseless, clutched at their chests.

"It's true! I believe it now!" someone shouted." She spoke too much evil, and see - struck by lightning, a lightning bolt hit her!"

"Shhh," Grandma Hui hurried to hush whoever it was; "She's dead. Hold your tongue!"

She bent down and pushed Qiuyu's chin back into place and re - closed her eyelids.

Meanwhile, someone else had just remembered a proverb about how lightning in winter is inauspicious:

"'When lightning strikes in winter cold, no cows will keep in field or fold.' Oh, now I'm scared next year there'll be a famine!"

Tiepao came running back, newly - borrowed grave clothes in his hands, sobs wracking his tragic voice as he called out to his mother:

"You're on the other side now mother, please bless and look over Water Village, the good people of Water Village! They're here to see you off!"

For her coffin, Grandpa Yu sawed off some of the wood set aside for his house, and worked all through the night to have it ready in the morning. When Tiepao heard this, he came running straight to his workshop and fell down on his knees at his feet and kowtowed three times, head banging loudly on the ground:

"Grandpa Yu, a thousand years of blessings to you! May your children and your grandchildren prosper and inherit ten thousand riches!"

"Don't worry about the coffin," Grandpa Yu said, "You should go - you have many other things to see to. I'll stay here and paint the coffin, it wouldn't be right to send your mother off in a box of white wood. Go ask the Taoist priest when is a good day for the funeral. Then, if there's enough time, I'll do two coats of paint. Otherwise, I'll just do one. Don't worry about the paint either - I have plenty to spare."

"I will go talk with the priest right away. Thank you for reminding me - since my mother died I just feel so numb, I can't think straight."

Tiepao paused for a moment, and then said:

"It was me who made her go drink the village wine at your house. She was too embarrassed to go at first, but I told her that Grandma Yu and yourself aren't the kind of people to hold a grudge. I said to her, 'Why don't you just go?' And then, she did ..."

"No one could have expected that to happen, Tiepao," Grandpa Yu said, "Don't cry. We'll give your mother a good send - off."

On his way out now, Tiepao called from the doorway:

"Grandpa Yu, I'll settle the money for the wood and paint with you later."

Grandpa Yu shook his head and said:

"Go. Now isn't the time to talk about money."

Tiepao did as he was told. A while later, he came running back to tell Grandpa Yu:

"I went to see the priest, but someone told me he's given up his job - he doesn't do any of the old Buddhist or Taoist ceremonies anymore because he's scared he'll get in trouble. Apparently, he was accused of 'spreading superstition.' Grandpa Yu, will you go talk to him? He won't listen to me, but if you go he'll have to listen!"

"I've got my hands full. I can't go off talking with the priest! Go back and talk with him, and tell him that if anyone criticises him for doing his job, I'll ask that person whether or not they'll be needing our help next time one of their relatives dies. Say exactly those words to him, and tell him I was the one who said them. Oh, and take a chicken to give him as well."

After Tiepao left again, Grandpa Yu got back down to work, not stopping until he'd carved out the shape of the coffin, around dawn. For breakfast, he went to Tiepao's house and ate some "funeral pyre rice."

Tiepao gave him the latest news about the priest:

"Grandpa Yu, the priest said he's not allowed to say those superstitious things anymore. He said it's all in the past now."

"And who told him that?" Grandpa Yu asked.

"He said it was some official, a higher - up, who told him."

Grandpa Yu fell silent. He finished his breakfast quickly, then hurried back home to work on the coffin. A few idlers came to watch him work and attempt to make small - talk with the hard - working carpenter:

"Qiuyu really said a lot of bad things in her life. Even after she was dead, God of Thunder still saw fit to take off her jaw," someone commented.

"We must respect the dead," Grandpa Yu replied, "I don't want to hear any more of that talk."

"Well, I'm just worried that when time comes for her to go up the mountain, the porters will take their chance to pay her back for her wrongs."

"Tiepao's a good son, why would anyone want to make him suffer?" Grandpa Yu said, woodchips flying from under his hands.

"It's not him, it's Qiuyu they want to make suffer."

"Listen to me when I say, the world of the living can only be at peace as long as the dead are also at peace. When she goes up the mountain, the porters better do it right. Don't spoil things for her family."

In the end, the priest chose the twenty fifth day of the eleventh month for the funeral, so no time to do a second coat of paint, especially since paint takes longer to dry in the winter. So, Grandpa Yu did the best he could, sanding the wood extra fine, so that even with just one coat of black paint the coffin shone.

On the day of the funeral, a thin sheet of frost had fragile claws in the ground. The porters, eight at the front and eight at the back, all wore straw sandals, their heads wrapped with strips of white cloth. Two people were entrusted with bearing the pole, one in front, one at the back. This was a solemn task - only people whom the village trusted and esteemed were allowed to take it up. As the coffin made its way on shoulders up the mountain road, Tiepao kneeled down at regular intervals to thank the porters:

"Village uncles, village nephews, thank you for carrying my mother safely up the mountain!"

Grandpa Yu followed behind, shouting out the special words the Taoist priest had prepared and written out for the funeral. They were different than normal:

"Smash Confucius!"

Then, the porters all chorused in union: "Aoh!"

"Disgraced General Lin Biao is an enemy of the people!"

"Aoh!"

Grandpa Yu kept chanting dutifully, but under his breath he cursed:

"A person's died here, but still they want us to care about all their earthly nonsense!"

8

Put a blade into camphorwood, and its fragrance wafts far and wide. Grandpa Yu was carving coffins. In her sleep, Grandma Hui breathed the sweet scent of cut wood. The next morning, she went to see him.

What an enviable vessel to the next world! Nobody in Water Village had ever seen anyone use camphorwood for their coffin, though they'd heard of rich people in the old days who did. Back then some rich people also used nanmu and yellow Catalpa wood. Grandpa Yu's camphorwood coffins were every bit as fine as those of the old landlords.

When she arrived in his workshop, Grandma Hui saw that he was carving two coffins, not just one.

"Brother Yu, why are you carving two of them?" she asked.

Grandpa Yu's hands didn't stop, but his mouth answered:

"I think it's quite obvious why."

Truth be told, she'd known this was coming for a while. It was for her. It was just that, when she actually laid eyes on it, she didn't know what to say. It did not reflect well on her that a non - family member was carving her coffin when she had her own son. Qiangtuo wouldn't come out of it looking too good either. But now that she'd started this conversation, she felt she might as well continue:

"Well, I still want Qiangtuo to give you the money for it. His father's already sleeping in your coffin, and I can't bear to have you make mine as well! No. Qiangtuo will pay."

Grandpa Yu just laughed:

"Ah, sister, the four of us spent our whole lives together, and this way once we've all passed on to the next thing, we'll still be together! So don't worry about dividing up what's mine and what's yours."

When Qiangtuo found out, he couldn't help feeling very ill at ease. It was a reminder of how he'd failed in his duties to his father, and now his mother too. He knew he was unfilial, and it bothered him. Especially since he'd always said he'd pay Grandpa Yu for his father's coffin, and now years later, he still didn't have enough money to pay him back. He'd gone into debt to build his house and in the several years since he'd been living lean. By this point, he was ashamed even to see or talk with his fellow villagers. In an effort to atone, he got up early every morning to go to Grandpa Yu's house and offer to help with whatever wood he was working on. Of course, lacking carpentry skills he wasn't much use to Grandpa Yu, but the old man knew the turmoil Qiangtuo was in, so he always managed to think of something that needed to be moved. Always moving the same things, back and forth, no change. Now, Qiangtuo brought up the money question again:

"Uncle Yu, you make the coffin, and I'll pay for it."

But Grandpa Yu shook his head, saying:

"Your mother already paid me for the wood. You can just give the money to her."

Later, Grandma Hui went to straighten things out with Grandpa Yu:

"Brother Yu, why did you tell Qiangtuo I gave you the money? I never gave you any money!"

"Qiangtuo's heart is in the right place - he's trying to be a good son. Let him believe it, and it'll take some pressure off his shoulders. And don't be too hard on him - he only just finished up getting his house built."

But Qiangtuo wasn't the only one who needed to feel he could respect himself in village society. Grandma Hui knew the conversation about her coffin was over, but now she didn't know where to go looking for her own pride and self - worth. It was one thing for her husband to have been gifted a coffin - he'd died early and unexpectedly, so it was reasonable his family had been unprepared for his death. But already so many years had passed since then, and so fast. There were no excuses left for her and she felt she was no longer worthy of being a full member of society. As she paced around her house, the sweet scent of camphorwood followed her and wouldn't leave her alone anywhere. It tweaked at her nerves and made her jittery. Outside, she could hear Grandpa Yu's axe clomping rhythmically through her future coffin - it felt like the axe was cutting into her body, not dead wood.

She felt an obligation to go keep Grandpa Yu company while he worked, but she couldn't be comfortable around him. She closed her eyes. Her mind was full of thoughts like: Grandpa Yu had looked after her his whole life, and now it looked like her debt would carry over after her death! There wasn't a single thing she'd done for him, not so much as a tiny favor. He'd never needed her help back when she was the village barefoot doctor - he'd always been strong as an ox, never so much as sneezed. Every other person in the village over the age of forty had at some time eaten medicinal herbs picked by her hands, or had an injection she'd administered. But not Grandpa Yu. She'd never so much as taken his pulse!

Early every morning, she got up and went out to the well, where she washed clothes. Then, she'd go inside to make breakfast and think about how she kept meaning to tell Grandpa Yu to not bother making his own breakfast anymore, that it would make more sense for them to eat together from now on, but somehow she couldn't force the words out of her mouth. They were stuck inside her, weighing on her heart.

After breakfast there wasn't a whole lot for her to do. So, she just went out back and killed time, wandering slowly around going nowhere, her nostrils full of the sweet scent of camphorwood. For her, it was an old smell, the smell of the medicine box Grandpa Yu made for her. Most barefoot doctors had medicine boxes made of artificial leather. She couldn't stand that strange, fake smell. Once, she'd been on a trip to the county town to attend a meeting of barefoot doctors, and a visiting expert from the provincial city noticed her medicine box. He'd praised it as a very scientific choice of material, and said natural camphor has anti - microbial properties and keeps bugs away. He'd asked who made it for her, but Grandma Hui just blushed scarlet and said nothing.

Grandpa Yu's hands weren't as quick as they once were. It took him half a month of chopping to finally finish the two coffins. All that time, Grandma Hui sat by the well and thought about how she didn't hear crickets chirping anymore. It was just like Grandpa Yu said: people age by the year, but bugs age by the day.

Finished, two white wood coffins lay under the eaves of Grandpa Yu's house, waiting to be painted. Grandma Hui saw them from her house, and set out to take a closer look. Her feet were stiff as she walked towards Grandpa Yu's house, and her hands were uncomfortable from feeling nowhere to put them. In many ways, the feeling was the same as when she walked down the street as a young woman and she could feel all the young men watching her. Grandpa Yu had sandpaper in hand, smoothing out the coffins until they gleamed white. At either end of the coffins you could see the old camphorwood growth - rings, one for each year.

One coffin was smaller than the other - hers. Lain next to each other, they seemed to embody the natural division of men and women, and the males and females of all the animal world. Suddenly, Grandma Hui felt they weren't coffins, but people stretched out there on the floor, one man and one woman. A strange sensation pressed on her heart, and she faltered, ashamed to move forward. Grandpa Yu saw, and shouted over to her:

"Sister, are you alright?"

She was barely able to meet his eyes for the shame she felt:

"Yes, yes, I'm fine."

When she reached his side, he stroked the coffins, saying:

"If I'd used naumu there'd be no need to paint them."

Grandma Hui could tell he wanted her to praise his work. She reached out a hand and ran it along the whole length of coffin. The wood glided under her fingers, so smooth it felt like someone had put talcum powder on it. Talcum powder was what made her rubber medical gloves so smooth back when she was a barefoot doctor. The old medical box was still in her house, under her bed, though the white paint had long since yellowed.

Next, she ran her hand along the other coffin.

"Brother Yu, there's no one in the world with skills like yours. You know, a long time ago when I went to a meeting in the county town, everyone swooned over that medical box you made me. Everyone wanted to have a look inside and breathe that wonderful smell. There was even an expert from up in the province who told me it's very scientific to use camphorwood for making medical boxes."

Grandpa Yu laughed:

"Ah, old sister, you've told me that story three hundred times! Since you like that box so much, I'll make you another one and you can come out of retirement and go off to the county to have a go at being a traveling midwife - doctor! I've got a whole shed of camphorwood! I was going to use it to make furniture for my children, but I'm sure they'll make do without!"

Grandma Hui giggled like a little girl:

"We're not young anymore, and we've changed a lot. The world's changed too. Nobody wants barefoot doctors or midwives anymore. Anyway Brother Yu, you're always saying how I love repeating myself, but how many times have I heard you joke about that shed full of camphorwood? I believe it would be somewhere around three hundred times by now!"

Grandpa Yu got started on painting the coffins that same day. First things first, he applied the base, a coat of lime.

"Eh, it's already so smooth. Do you really need to put lime on it?" Grandma Hui asked him idly, sitting next to him and enjoying the sun.

"To do a job well, each stage must be done in order. Once I've finished the base, I'll go over the whole thing again with sandpaper."

"Ah, this life seems just like a dream. You blink once, and it's already over. I've been thinking about Little Liu a lot lately. She was such a kind person ... but was taken advantage of so badly. It really wasn't fair how they punished her, and said she was an adulteress."

"I often find myself thinking about her husband," Grandpa Yu said. "He was a kind person too, though a little stupid. What makes him stupid? He never questioned his bosses - all he knew how to do was listen and nod along. A farmer's boss is the weather, but he knows better than to trust it, because he knows it's always changing!"

"Do you remember that time when the green official was here and the production team leader called a meeting in the middle of the night? He fell asleep before the meeting even started, even with all the noise of everyone talking and shouting. I remember the production team leader telling us, in a big important voice: 'Tin is better than gold!' But who in their right mind would believe that? Everyone knows gold is far more valuable than tin!"

Grandpa Yu pursed his lips, thinking.

"Ah yes, I remember. That was the last time the green official came to Water Village as an official. Actually, I don't think he ever came back after that," he mused.

"No," Grandma Hui confirmed, "after that there were no more officials in Water Village, at least, none that lived here as part of their work. I think by the time the green official was done here, he was sick of Water Village, or his job - it's hard to tell which. That was the year Wangtuo and Fatuo graduated from high school. Qiao'er and Qiangtuo were still studying, and I remember at that meeting I was just talking about, Wangtuo and Fatuo laughed when the production team leader said tin is better than gold."

"Oh yes, it's all come back to me," Grandpa Yu said." Their laughing woke up the green official, and he had no idea what was going on. The production team leader explained again that tin is better than gold, and then Wangtuo and Fatuo laughed and said that this was nonsense!"

"Yes, yes!" Grandma Hui said, "and the green official didn't get angry or laugh, or anything, just closed his eyes again! And then Wangtuo stood up and said that the production team leader mixed up the words, and that really it shouldn't be 'gold is better than tin,' but 'days of old are better than the world today,' though these two sentences are pronounced almost identically. And while he was explaining this Fatuo got up and wrote the right characters on the wall with a clump of mud he picked up off the ground, explaining that it shouldn't be the 'jin' that means 'gold,' but the 'jin' that means 'the present,' and not the 'xi' that means 'tin,' but the 'xi' that means 'former times.'"

Once the coffins were coated in lime, they had to stand overnight before the next round of sanding, so Grandpa Yu and Grandma Hui spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the sun. These days, the village was full of old people passing their days napping, so the atmosphere was more conducive to rest - all the young people who were physically able were gone, having struck out for far - flung cities in search of work and riches. There were still young children in the village, though they spent most of their time at school, not making noise in the street. Occasionally, a cock - crow would break the silence, marking the time.

All of a sudden, Grandma Hui remembered Grandpa Yu's flute:

"Brother Yu, do you still have that old flute of yours? It's been so many years since I last heard you play it."

He laughed:

"To be honest I'd completely forgotten about it! I would have died without ever thinking about it again if you hadn't just brought it up! It's been so long, I don't know if I'd still be able to play it ..."

He went inside, searched around, and emerged again with flute in hand.

"My memory keeps getting worse - I was sure I put it in the cupboard, but it turned out to be stuffed in the bottom of a chest ... anyway, what should I play?" he wondered aloud.

His movement felt natural enough as he raised the mouth - piece to his mouth, but he didn't play in the same freestyle way he did when he was younger. Instead, he played tunes that he'd heard on the television, reeling off one after another, until he couldn't help laughing.

To Grandma Hui, there was something about the way he was playing that seemed "off." She couldn't explain it, but she complimented him anyway:

"Beautiful! You've still got just as much energy as the last time you played it - you're going to live to a thousand and never age a day!"

She'd made grave clothes for him a long time ago, but had never found an appropriate moment to present them to him. With her coffin finished, she found it more embarrassing. She didn't want Grandpa Yu to think she was giving them to him in exchange for his work, because clearly two sets of grave clothes were nowhere near as generous a gift as two coffins. So, instead she explained it to him like this:

"Brother Yu, I made a set of grave clothes for you last year, but I wanted to wait until your eightieth birthday to give them to you, as a gift."

He chuckled:

"I knew you'd want to make my grave clothes. Why not bring them over now? I'd like to see them."

So, Grandma Hui went back to her house, and when she returned she was carrying two sets of grave clothes.

"This is yours," she said, "and this is mine."

As he took his, a pair of special shoes fell out of the bundle.

"How did you know my shoe size?" he asked, surprised.

"Your wife and I were the ones who made your shoes together, as well as Wangtuo's, Fatuo's, Qiangtuo's and Qiao'er's. I have an outline of your shoe under my bed in fact that I used as a template."

"I never really thought about how they got made! I only ever cared about wearing them!" he laughed.

While he laughed, the black dog started barking. Grandpa Yu looked up, wondering if there was a stranger outside. But he didn't see anyone. The yellow dog was out front as well, up on hind legs looking around.

Grandpa Yu still didn't see anyone:

"For goodness' sake," he called, "what are you barking at, a ghost?"

He didn't seriously think there was a ghost. He'd just said it as a throwaway comment, but it made Grandma Hui uncomfortable. Many people in Water Village believe that souls from the shadow world, or ghosts, sometimes visit the human world, the world of light. People can't see ghosts, but according to legend, dogs can. Ghosts normally roam the world of light during night time - as soon as they hear a cock crow, they float up the mountain and disappear. That's why, if a dog barks outside the door of its owner's house at night and there's nobody there, the first thing the frightened owner does is mentally check if he's done anything bad recently. Even more frightening than a dog seeing a ghost at night is a dog seeing a ghost in the daytime, because a ghost that can defy the sun is a ghost to be scared of.

Grandma Hui hurried back home clutching her grave clothes to her chest. She lit three sticks of incense in the family shrine and made three formal bows, saying:

"Old husband, watch over your Brother Yu. You've gone to a better place and left me behind here on my own. If it weren't for your Brother Yu I wouldn't even have a coffin to be laid to rest. So, watch over and protect him. Watch over Qiangtuo as well. He's not a bad son. It's just ... his abilities only go so far. Life isn't easy for him - he's so young, and his wife left him with two children to raise all by himself."

Finished with her prayer, she turned around towards the door, and almost jumped out of her skin - Grandpa Yu was standing in the doorway silently, watching her. Jangled nerves made her whole body shake. He laughed, and said:

"Old sister, you were never a big believer in superstition when you were young, but here you are praying at the shrine! I seem to remember when you first started doing funeral care, people asked if you weren't afraid of ghosts, and you said you weren't scared!"

She took her hands away from her chest where she'd been clasping them to calm herself, and kneaded her aching back.

"You scared me so much my heart almost jumped out of my mouth! And no, I'm not afraid of ghosts. Thank you very much! Why should I be? Every time I helped someone get ready for the funeral, I was doing a good deed, and I owe my long life and good health to the people I helped. They're all watching over me. And the reason I ask my husband to look after you and me is because he can help us, and the reason why he can help us is that he was a good man - Yama King of Hell will listen to him."

There had been a lot of rain in the last few days, so the brick factory where Qiangtuo worked was shut until the weather got better. He'd spent his time off helping out at Grandpa Yu's house. The rain worried Grandma Hui - she thought it might delay work on the coffins. She said as much to Grandpa Yu:

"The rain's come at just the wrong time! Ah well, you'll be able to get back to work once it dries out a little."

Grandpa Yu laughed a specific kind of laugh, which Grandma Hui knew well. It meant he was pleased with himself:

"Old sister, I'm afraid you don't know much about painting coffins! Rain is actually a good thing! When it's dry out, there's a lot of dust in the air that can get into the paint and make it dirty. But when it rains, there's no dust. Of course, the paint will take a little longer to dry, but that's alright. Fine work takes a long time in the making! This rain is actually good luck - the Heaven must be looking out for you!"

With that, he started painting. Three coats of paint later, fine sheets of silky rain were still falling.

"Thank you for your blessings, Jade Emperor! When I make it to Heaven, I'll perform nine kowtows in your honor!" Grandpa Yu exalted.

A dim haze of yellow light filtered through the rain. Grandpa Yu looked up at the sky, as if he could see the Jade Emperor up there. Water Village villagers were never entirely sure about where they went after death. They talked vaguely about Yama King of Hell and the Jade Emperor up in heaven as if there wasn't enough difference between heaven and hell to be worth bothering about, or as if Yama and the Jade Emperor were just old next - door neighbors. The binding force of logic naturally weakens a little in ghostly realms that can only be imagined at.

On the coffins, Grandpa Yu painted symbols of longevity at each end: cranes, pines, and cypresses; and on the sides he painted the words "blessings, long life, joy," and holy images of the Eight Immortals. As he was painting the lotus that one of the Immortals, Immortal Lady He, held in her hand, he thought of Qiangtuo's runaway wife.

"How many years ago was it your wife left? Must have been a long time by now," he asked Qiangtuo.

"Eight years," Qiangtuo answered.

"Do you know where she is now?"

"No! Nobody knows where she went ..."

"Have you ever tried to find her?" Grandpa Yu pressed.

"What's the point? There's no reasoning with her. I've accepted that she doesn't want me ... but how could she give up her children?"

Grandma Hui joined the conversation:

"You mustn't blame her for what happened, Qiangtuo. She left because you were too poor to make a family life that's worth living. It was her decision to make. I just hope life is treating her well now, and that she found a good man."

"Actually, a few years ago I heard she was in Zhejiang Province, and she had another two children out there." Qiangtuo said matter - of - factly, as if talking about something that had nothing to do with him.

"Your children are getting bigger, and you have a new house now," Grandpa Yu said." I think, if she comes back here, you should welcome her and let her live with you."

"Yes, that's exactly what I always tell him, " Grandma Hui said, "I always say: 'you mustn't hold it against her that she left, and if she ever sees fit to come back you should let her.' Only young people have time for all that fighting, loving, hating and all those things. When you're old, you realize what matters is that you've spent your life with someone."

"Yes, I agree with you," Qiangtuo said, "but obviously my wife doesn't! She's probably living a life of luxury right now instead of staying stuck in Water Village!"

"Well, if she is, then good for her!" Grandma Hui said." In the end, she's the mother of your children - you should be happy for her!"

She was already tired of this conversation, so she turned to Grandpa Yu and changed the subject:

"Brother Yu, you're someone who knows how to live life right. You don't talk about doing things, you just get them done, like how you painted our coffins and everything. I think that old saying was right: 'When you have enough to eat and enough to get by, if you make life's plans well, then life will be kind to you.' You've had a better life than the rest of us because you know how to plan ahead."

"I could say the same about you, Sister Hui," Grandpa Yu replied." Was it not you who made grave clothes for me without saying a word about it?"

The insides of the coffins were to be painted red. Once Grandpa Yu had mixed the paint, he announced, proudly:

"Normally, people use ordinary red paint, but for our coffins, I've used cinnabar. Cinnabar's almost impossible to find these days, money or no money. Luckily, I've kept this cinnabar hidden in my house for more than sixty years!"

Grandma Hui was quite delighted to hear this.

Once the painting was done, Grandpa Yu moved the coffins into his shed, where he covered them in layers of palm mats, and stored them on makeshift frames made of trestles.

"Camphorwood has a sweet smell, so rats especially love chewing it," he said.

Hearing this, Qiangtuo ran up the mountain to gather thorns for keeping the coffins safe.

9

New Year was just around the corner, but Grandma Hui was in bed sick with a cold, barely able to move. Luckily, she'd already gathered medicinal herbs. Early in the morning, she heard children outside singing New Year rhymes:

"Oh, on the twenty - fifth, we make the tofu! On the twenty - sixth, we smoke the meats! On the twenty - seventh, we kill the cock! On the twenty - eighth, we bake the rice -cake! On the twenty - ninth, everything is ready! On the thirtieth, everyone, light firecrackers!"

Stuck in bed, Grandma Hui's thoughts turned gloomy. Where was Qiangtuo's wife? Eight years gone now ... didn't she care about her children at all? And did she really have new children and a new husband?

And what about Qiangtuo's children, her grandchildren, were they alright, wherever they were, down south working somewhere? They were supposed to be coming home for New Year's - they said they would, but then they called on the telephone and said they couldn't get train tickets, nothing they could do. But was it really because they couldn't get train tickets, or was it because things weren't working out for them and they hadn't made any money since leaving Water Village?

In the build - up to New Year's, Water Village is always noisy with the screams of pigs being slaughtered. There were only a couple of butchers in Water Village, so their services were in high demand. They rushed around the village, barely getting a moment's rest. It was the custom for a family that slaughters their pig to invite friends and family to drink a bowl of blood soup, which is made with fresh pig blood, lard, and tenderloin. Thanks to his revered status in the village, Grandpa Yu got many invitations for these blood soup meals. With each new invite, he always told them that he'd go if Grandma Hui went. When they told him she was still sick and wouldn't want to leave her house, he told them that she'd be sure to get better if a few more people went to see her and invite her for blood soup. It worked! The people did as he said, and soon she was feeling better.

Grandpa Yu hadn't kept pigs for years, so he always felt a little uncomfortable about eating everyone else's blood soup meal when he couldn't return the favor. Every New Year, he'd buy fifty or so kilograms of pork, smoke it till it dripped wax, and wait for his children to arrive. But they hadn't been able to come home these last few years, so his house was full of more cured meat than he'd ever be able to eat alone. He ended up giving it away during the next year's Dragon Boat Festival to the same people who invited him to eat their blood soup meals. In Water Village, people keep careful count of little generosities given and received, and always make sure to repay kindness.

Many people over the years had invited him to celebrate the New Year in their home, but he always turned them down:

"No. I'll pass the New Year on my own. An old saying goes: 'You can't take New Year's away from anyone, not even beggars.'"

This was the answer he gave everyone who asked, except Qiangtuo.

Qiangtuo said to him:

"Uncle Yu, my mother said our two families should spend New Year's together ... She said it makes sense this way."

"Was this really your mother's idea, or was it yours?" Grandpa Yu asked him.

Qiangtuo was not known for his persuasive rhetoric, so Grandpa Yu was surprised when he answered his question with another question:

"What does it matter whether it was my idea or my mother's?"

Grandpa Yu laughed:

"If it's your mother's idea, I'll gladly accept. We've spent our whole lives together as brothers and sisters, and I feel that at this point we are a family. If it's your idea, I'll still happily accept your offer and consider it a filial act. I've known you your whole life, which is more than I can say about Wangtuo and Fatuo."

"Uncle Yu! It was my and my mother's idea together!" Qiangtuo said.

Grandpa Yu formally accepted the invitation.

"There's a dish I'd like you to make for me," he told Qiangtuo.

"What is it?"

"Your mother loves to eat fir mushrooms, so I'd like you to make fir mushrooms fried with cured meat."

Qiangtuo laughed uproariously, thinking this was a huge joke:

"Uncle Yu, it's the middle of winter! Where are we supposed to get fir mushrooms from?"

"You should know better than to doubt me by now," Grandpa Yu laughed, standing up and entering one of the inner rooms. When he came back out, he had a bag in his hand:

"I kept some dried mushrooms especially for New Year's. Here, go and soak them in hot water - but don't tell your mother, wait until they've soaked a while and are all fragrant, and see if she notices!"

New Year's Eve dawned cloudless and glorious, mandarin trees in back yards gleaming under a bright sun. By noon, the smell of cured meat wafted through the village. Grandpa Yu's dog and Grandma Hui's dog, black and yellow, spent the day yawning, the warm sun and smell of meat carrying them drifting towards sleep.

"Brother Yu, let both of us rest today, no need to do anything ourselves. Qiangtuo will take care of things for us. The important thing today isn't how good the food is, or who does it; with Qiangtuo here, you and I will still have something to eat."

He didn't argue, and just sat with her outside the house in the warm winter sun and played his flute. He'd taught himself some tunes to play instead of just jumping about between television fragments. Grandma Hui's foot tapped lightly on the ground, listening happily. The dogs seemed to be taking it in too, listening from the ground where they lay.

Any member of Water Village who follows the old traditions knows that New Year is not complete without eating Pig's head stew bearing riches. To make it, you first smoke the pig's head until it's waxy yellow, then boil it and cook it in stew. Before eating, it must first be arranged on a big platter and presented to the family spirits, which is the name people had for their dead ancestors. If you're especially devout, you would then carry the platter up the mountain and present it to each of your family's tombs in order of seniority. But some people forego this part and just serve it on a big plate in their house, light some incense and candles, burn some paper money, and make their offering while gazing reverently as a family at the mountain.

Grandpa Yu and Grandma Hui were both too old to go out climbing the mountain now, but Qiangtuo intended to stew a pig's head anyway.

"Don't bother with the head this year," Grandpa Yu told him, "The three of us won't be able to eat it all. Choose a good piece of ham for us instead. That'll see us nicely through the New Year."

Qiangtuo cooked the ham. When it was ready, he said:

"Mother, Uncle Yu, it's time to burn the New Year spirit money."

"Get the sacrifice meat ready, and take it to your Uncle Yu's house. We'll burn spirit money there first."

Qiangtuo did as he was told, heading out the door with the platter of ham.

"Qiangtuo, stop. There's really no need," Grandpa Yu called after him, "Both of our families have the same ancestors. Put the ham on the table here, do the sacrifice here, I'll make a ceremonial bow and that will do fine."

"No, no," Grandma Hui hurried to say, "Take it to Uncle Yu's house. I'm the woman in the family, and you're my son; we should go to his house and make the ceremonial bow."

She had her way. Once they'd carried out the ceremony they returned to the Huis' house.

"Brother Yu," Grandma Hui said, sounding perplexed," is it just me, or is that fir mushrooms I'm breathing right now? Goodness, I hope there isn't something wrong with me!"

Qiangtuo shot a glance at Grandpa Yu. He started laughing, and Grandpa Yu joined in, chuckling:

"You are truly an impressive lady, Sister Hui! Your nose is still sharp as ever, and meanwhile mine's been useless for years!"

"Oh, is it really fir mushrooms! Where could they have come from - it's the middle of winter!"

Grandpa Yu just laughed and gave nothing away, so Qiangtuo explained:

"Uncle Yu knows how much you love fir mushrooms, so he put some aside especially for New Year's. I just put them on the stove; they're black, autumn fir mushrooms!"

There are two mushroom seasons each year in the mountains of Water Village. The first is in the fifth month, when red mushrooms grow, and the second is in the ninth month, which is for black mushrooms. The black mushrooms are prized for having an even better taste.

Grandma Hui laughed and cried at the same time:

"Your Uncle Yu is like the Earth God - only he knows where all the best things grow. When we were young, nobody was a match for him at mushroom picking."

When the time came for them all to sit down to dinner together, the sun was still high above the western mountains. Grandpa Yu got out a bottle of Maotai liquor, and passed it to Qiangtuo, saying:

"I can't bring myself to drink wine as good as this. You have it. Your mother and I will drink some rough sweet rice wine instead."

The two family dogs stood in the doorway, tilting their heads.

"Oh, I almost forgot about the dogs!" Grandpa Yu shouted.

Qiangtuo picked up the dog's bowls and filled them with rice and pork. Normally, the two dogs would fight at mealtime, forgetting they were mother and son, but today they must have realized it was New Year's, because they didn't so much as look at each other, and just ate their meal in silence side by side.

The next morning, the first day of the New Year, Grandpa Yu woke at the crack of dawn. The moment his eyes opened, he strained his ears to listen for bird calls. The first bird he heard was a magpie. He heaved a sigh of relief and let his body relax - the harvest would be good this year. He'd been worried he'd hear a sparrow first - sparrows mean famine. He got out of bed and walked straight outside. Grandma Hui was standing in her doorway.

"Old Brother Yu, happy New Year! What bird did you hear this morning?" she greeted him.

"A magpie! Gracious rains and gentle winds this year!"

She beamed with pleasure to hear the good news, and said:

"I heard a magpie too! It's going to be a record harvest this year! If we get some snow this winter, then it will be a sure thing."

Right after Grandpa Yu finished eating breakfast, friends of his children turned up outside his house to pay a New Year visit. His children had called him last night to wish him a happy New Year and tell him the names of their friends who would visit. He'd met them before, but only at New Year's, so he didn't really remember who they were. They obviously had gaps in their memories too, because they forgot that Grandma Yu had already passed away and mistook Grandma Hui for her. They even pressed New Year money in red gift wrapping into her hands, but she just dropped the money and ran away, into her house.

The first few days of the New Year, whenever Grandma Hui was at Grandpa Yu's house, she kept an ear out for the cars that carried these young people to Water Village, horns blaring. As soon as she heard one, she'd hurry back home.

None of the other villagers knew who these outsiders were, but they secretly kept count of how many cars came and went, and had conversations about Grandpa Yu's visitors:

"There's been at least a dozen cars this year. That's more than last year!" they'd say, jealously.

When Grandpa Yu woke up on the third day of the New Year, he noticed his paper window blinds looked brighter than normal. Could it be that it's snowing outside, he wondered? He got up and went out to take a look, and, sure enough, the ground was covered under a thick blanket of white snow and cold fresh cottony flakes were dancing in the sky.

"Sister Hui!" he called to Grandma Hui in her house," it's just like you said! They call that divine foresight! You must secretly be a goddess living among us!"

Grandma Hui stood in her doorway, and replied:

"Brother Yu, have you eaten breakfast yet? If you haven't, come over to my house and we'll eat together."

"I'll wash my face and then I'll come right over," he replied, his voice bright with joy.

In Water Village, the third day of the New Year is Lantern Day, when people get out their dragon lanterns and perform dragon dances. The snow added to the excitement, and the whole village was overflowing with festive energy. The dragon dancers were the most energetic of all, running around testing drums and gongs in preparation for that night's dancing and holding loud conversations back and forth across the street, while the gongs clanged making all the windows in the village rattle in their panes. Boys ran and danced around the village, lighting firecrackers and acting crazy. Girls played games, standing in a circle and kicking shuttlecocks back and forth, long pigtails jumping up and down.

Everyone in the village was the descendant of the same clan, and the village ancestors were split into five bloodlines, ranked by seniority. The dragon dance always started outside the house of the most senior family and then proceeded past the houses of each of the remaining bloodlines in turn. For hundreds of years it had been this way, and never changed. But the dance didn't stop in Water Village - it carried on around neighboring villages, carrying festive clamor through the countryside. Some of these villages will have sent someone to Water Village beforehand to invite the dragon dance to their village, while with other villages, someone from Water Village would send a note to announce that the Water Village dragon dance would come around. Everyone involved in these festive exchanges made sure to be extremely courteous and proper, and usually the highest - ranking person in each village would go from house to house beforehand and tell each family to make sure someone was at home to greet the dance when it arrived. In the past, each family would give the dancers some sticky rice cake, but nowadays they gave little red packets of money instead. The money was never so much as to be excessive, and anyway, the real value of the money is that it represents wishes for good fortune. If one of the village families had recently celebrated a wedding, the dancers would stay a little longer outside their house, for which the family would obligingly give a little extra money to the dancers, making everyone happy.

Dragon dances are also an expression of a village's pride and reputation - the further they danced from their home village, the greater the glory. Grandpa Yu, when he was young, used to be the leader of the dragon dance, and all the villages in the region would send people to Water Village with invitations for him and his dragon dancers. He danced every year until he turned sixty, when he announced:

"Everyone has their time, and everyone gets old. Young people are the best at dancing, and in their hands, the dragon dance will be better. If I stick around I'll only make a nuisance of myself."

However, his passion for the dance continued long after he stopped leading it. Every year he would follow it to watch, and he always accompanied the lanterns down to the river on the thirteenth day of the New Year when the festivities officially ended there.

The celebrations flashed by, and soon it was already the thirteenth. The snow was long gone, and after a long stretch of bright, clear days, the ground was dry and fresh. Today was the day when all the dragon lanterns were collected from wherever their journeys had taken them, and brought back to Water Village. That evening over dinner, Grandpa Yu asked Grandma Hui:

"I think I'll go to Frog Pool to join the other villagers in the closing ceremony of the festivities. Do you want to come with me?"

"My eyes are no good in the dark," Grandma Hui replied, "I wouldn't feel safe going out. You shouldn't be wandering around after dark either."

He just chuckled, finished dinner, and went anyway.

Another tradition honored on the thirteenth is that you can go and take any vegetable from the yard of anyone in the village, and they have to let you do it and be nice about it too. The young village boys always had an excellent time on the thirteenth - their favorite targets were cabbage and radish, which they cooked up with sticky rice cakes. While they were busy in the village vegetable gardens, the adults were parading down to the river with their dragon lanterns, striking gongs and beating drums as they went. When they arrived at Frog Pool, they laid down the lanterns, lit incense and spirit money, set off firecrackers, and then took a torch around to set the dragon lanterns on fire. While this was happening, everyone else stood nearby and shouted out in one voice:

"May it be good! May it be good! May it be good!"

Flames leapt into flight, and the "dragon" set off on a journey to the Eastern Sea. At the end, as the last flame guttered out, someone would always sigh:

"Ah, now we have to wait until next year ..."

On the way back to the village there were always a few young people who couldn't resist the urge to detour. Not quite ready to let go of childhood, they would sneak off to steal a few vegetables.

The crowd spread out, some walking faster than others. Someone was concerned about Grandpa Yu who was deliberately walking at the back, and asked him:

"Grandpa Yu, can you see alright?"

"I can see fine," he replied, "Don't worry about me. The ground is all silver with moonlight."

Slowly the noise of the crowd faded, and his ears filled with silence. In the silence, the moonlight on the path seemed to glow brighter. His eyes and ears were fine anyway, it was just his nose that weren't so good anymore. It was Grandma Hui who had bad eyes, though her ears and nose were still sharp. Even so, he detected a stink on the otherwise pure cold breeze - on the thirteenth, some of the more miserly village people would slosh feces over their vegetable gardens to put off would - be thieves." I guess there are some good things about my nose failing me," he mused.

Halfway back to the village, Qiangtuo came walking down the path to meet him.

"My mother sent me out looking for you. She was worried something might have happened," he said.

"Your mother is a worrier, Qiangtuo. What did she think could have happened? She knows me better than that!"

They walked together back home, and the two dogs bounced up to greet them. Grandma Hui was standing in her doorway.

"I knew people were coming back when I heard the dogs bark," she called out to them, "Then I got worried when you weren't with the others. Were you lurking behind to steal vegetables, Brother Yu?"

He began laughing, and said:

"What a fine thing that would be, if I still had the energy to steal vegetables!"

With that, he went inside his house, the door swinging squeakily shut behind him. In the whole village, only his door squeaked. In the old days, everybody's door squeaked, and attentive villagers would listen every morning to hear whose door squeaked first - a good way to judge whose family was the hardest - working. Grandpa Yu washed his face, and promptly went to bed. His mind turned to flowers. He decided to get rid of the cape jasmine and jasmine the following year - Grandma Hui didn't like their smell. What to plant instead? Pomegranates would be a good choice - they're auspicious, because they bear many seeds. Some cherries would go nicely in his garden too. But first things first - tomorrow he would dust the dragon - head pole.

Grandpa Yu got up early the next morning. He was in no hurry to make breakfast, so went out back intending to start his day dusting the dragon - head pole. As soon as he got behind his house, he saw the palm fiber cover lying on the ground. His first thought was: "That's strange. There wasn't any wind last night, was there? Maybe it was some child messing around?"

He went to take a closer look. His eyes opened wider -the dragon - head pole was gone! All that was left were empty trestles and the palm fiber cover lying crumpled on the ground. Grandpa Yu's whole body emptied of energy, and he collapsed on the ground. The cold ground sent a shiver through him, and his ears were ringing. Slowly, he crawled back to his feet, then staggered to Grandma Hui's house and pounded on her door:

"Sister Hui, open the door!"

The door swung open, to reveal a frightened Grandma Hui, eyes as wide as saucers:

"Brother Yu, what's happened?"

As he answered, hot tears practically flew down his cheeks:

"It's all so wrong, so wrong. The dragon - head pole, it's gone!"

Grandma Hui's face froze, and she slid down to the ground.

Soon she was crying too:

"It's Qiangtuo. It must have been Qiangtuo!" she sobbed.

"Why would you think it was Qiangtuo? You really think he'd dare? How am I going to tell everyone I lost the village's dragon - head pole? My god, they'll want my head for this!"

It didn't take long for a crowd to gather outside his house.

"It must have been someone from Water Village!" someone said, "If it was an outsider, the black dog would have woken us all up and the yellow dog would have bitten them!"

Qiangtuo jumped to his feet to defend his good name:

"I swear on everything holy it wasn't me! How could I do something so unspeakable, so unhuman? It's not in my room, so it would wrong Uncle Yu."

"Whoever it was, they must have come very early in the morning. It can't have been before midnight because there were still people out stealing vegetables - someone would have seen," someone else said.

"You don't know that! Actually, I was outside last night and I thought I saw a shadow ..." one of the young people said.

"So why didn't you do anything? Or are you calling yourself a pig, nothing else to do apart from root around for food?"

"He's just making up stories! The moon was so bright last night, he must have been able to see more than just a shadow!"

None of the people gathered there said a word about Grandpa Yu, who was sitting in his doorway, head bowed low to the ground. After a while, the crowd realized they weren't going to solve the mystery then and there, and one by one the people left.

"It was my house that it was stolen from," Grandpa Yu said hoarsely to the backs of the dispersing crowd, "so I will take responsibility for making a new one. It won't be nanmu like the old one - I'll use camphorwood instead."

Nobody said anything back to him.

He fell ill, and couldn't get out of bed, and Grandma Hui's sickness from the previous month flared up again. Now that the New Year holiday was over, Qiangtuo had to go back to work at the brick factory, while also looking after Grandpa Yu and Grandma Hui. He barely had time to fit it all in.

"Qiangtuo, you should look after your mother. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine after a few days' sleep," Grandpa Yu told him.

He did start to feel better, and a few days later he got up for the first time and went outside. Bumping into Qiangtuo, he asked:

"How is your mother? Is she feeling better?"

"No, she won't eat anything and she doesn't want to get out of bed," he replied.

"If she's not eating anything, it's hardly a surprise she doesn't have the energy to get out bed ..."

"I sit by her bed every day and plead with her to get up, or eat something, but she just shakes her hand, " Qiangtuo replied miserably.

Grandpa Yu didn't feel like eating either, because of a tight knot in his chest. A few days later, there was still no sign of Grandma Hui, so he went looking for Qiangtuo and told him:

"I'm going to visit your mother."

Inside the Hui's house, he found Grandma Hui in bed.

"Old sister, you have to eat something. You can't live without food. I know you don't want to, but at least have a few sips of rice soup. And don't worry yourself about the dragon - head pole. As soon as I've had a few more days' rest, I'll get started on a new one. I know I can make it at least as good as the old one."

Grandma Hui said nothing, and didn't move, not even a twitch of a hand or a shake of her head.

"Old sister," Grandpa Yu said, raising his voice, "You mustn't blame this on Qiangtuo. He wouldn't lie, and he said it wasn't him. Anyway, I can't see him doing something like that - he doesn't have the gall."

He kept talking, trying to draw a response, but nothing worked. After a while, he got a strange feeling - something wasn't right. He reached out a hand to feel her forehead, and then her nose.

"Old sister, you're trying to frighten me. Don't do this to me, old sister!"

He leapt to his feet, fury suddenly surging through him. He turned to Qiangtuo, who was standing behind him, and slapped him full across the face:

"You swine! She's stone - cold!"

Qiangtuo ran to his mother's bedside, threw himself over her body and listened at her chest for life. Nothing. He began wailing with grief, clinging to his dead mother.

Grandpa Yu wobbled, dizzy all of a sudden, and sat down before he fell.

"Old sister, how can you be gone? You didn't even stop to say goodbye!"

Then, turning to Qiangtuo again, he shouted:

"Don't just sit there and cry. Go burn the spirit money! Hurry up!"

The other villagers all came running when they heard Qiangtuo's wailing and saw spirit money burning. Some of them were scared and lingered outside, but others ran straight into the house, mostly older women who wanted to know when Grandma Hui had died. But no one knew. Grandpa Yu asked them to go heat water.

"Grandma Hui has been taking care of our dead bodies her whole life. Is there anyone else in the village who knows how to do it?" he asked.

The women looked around at each other, exchanging doubtful looks. None of them knew what to do.

"You're all scared of ghosts, aren't you? You're scared she's not clean," Grandpa Yu said." I'm not scared. Your Grandma Hui was as good a person as ever lived - she's going to be a goddess, not a ghost. She lived cleanly her whole life, there's no way she's dirty now. Go, go heat the water and I'll wash her myself. Make sure it's hot, I want her to enjoy her last bath. And someone go get some caustic soda water. It's what she always used to wash her hair."

A wooden bath tub was fetched. Once it was full of hot water, Grandpa Yu gently lifted his dead sister's body and lowered it into the tub.

"Old sister, you don't feel dead at all. Your body's still so soft. Are you sure you're not just holding your breath, trying to scare me? You even look like you're smiling. If you don't want to go, you can tell me. But if you're really gone, don't worry about me. Just go. Old Brother Hui is waiting for you ...

"Old sister, you are a good, gentle person. I'm sure the spirits will listen to you in the other world. Tell them to watch over Qiangtuo. He's always been a good son. And watch over everyone in Water Village. They're all here to say goodbye."

His farewell words had everyone else in the room in tears. He was crying too, softly:

"Old sister, life was so cruel to you! Everyone should have parents and a family, but you never did. Every man should have a grandmother, but Qiangtuo never did. If you hadn't run into Brother Hui, who knows what would have happened to you!"

But the others in the room reminded him of how lucky she was in so many ways:

"When she got old she had you to look after her, and she has your beautiful coffin to sleep in. And even now she's lucky, because she has you to wash her body! Few old people are so blessed!"

One of the women chimed in:

"Look how clean she is! Her skin's still white and soft. She doesn't look like an old woman at all!"

Someone brought in caustic soda water, hot and steaming. Grandpa Yu took it, and said to Grandma Hui:

"Old sister, I'm going to wash your hair now. I'm using the same soda water you used your whole life, the water that always kept your hair so black and full of life."

When he finished, he said:

"Bring some tea oil."

He took a drop of it in his palm, rubbed it evenly over his hands, and gently massaged it into Grandma Hui's hair. He didn't know how to tie her hair up in a bun, so he asked one of the women to do it for him. Soon, her glossy black tresses were tied up in a bun with the old silver hairpin she'd always used.

Now that her body was ready, Grandpa Yu helped her into her grave clothes.

"Old sister, hold out your arms while I put your grave clothes on. They're the ones you made, and they're beautiful. Now give me your feet, I'll help you put on your shoes. They're lovely, too. They're embroidered with dragons and phoenixes."

Some of the women remembered the old rituals. They went to get a big plate on which they placed a tea cup filled with rice and tea leaves. In the old days, people would put rice and tea leaves in the mouths of dead relatives to send them to the other world. People also used to put tiny bits of silver in with the rice and tea leaves, but silver was not easy to come by these days, so people either did without, or used coins instead.

Grandpa Yu took the rice and tea leaves and placed them in Grandma Hui's mouth. Then, he took out a dainty little silver chain from his pocket and put it in her mouth too.

"Old sister, this silver chain belonged to Qiao'er. I want you to take it with you."

The coffin was already in the house, waiting. Now that Grandma Hui was dressed, the villagers put her to sleep inside her final resting place. The coffin was no longer just a coffin, but the residence of a living soul. It was painted red with cinnabar, matching the red of the funerary blanket laid over her body. The red shone on her face, lighting it up like a delicate ripe peach.

Grandpa Yu leaned on the end of the coffin, looking down at her and thinking:

"You just don't look dead; your face is so rosy and beautiful ..."

His tears ran down his face, and dripped onto hers.

The dogs knew something terrible had happened - at first they ran in circles outside the house, letting out little whimpers of grief. But when the crowd outside grew larger, they retreated under the eaves of Grandpa Yu's house, not wanting to get in the way. The yellow dog lay his head on his mother's back, and the two of them lay gazing up the mountain towards the Mount of Ultimate Peace.

Grandpa Yu had someone carry out a long, thick camphorwood log from his shed. He was ready to begin carving a new dragon - head pole. He'd already spent days thinking about how he would do it, as he lay sick in bed. Thousands of times he'd run his mind's eye over the old nanmu pole. He could trace its every detail with his eyes closed. He knew exactly how many scales the dragon had - ninety - nine.

Outside Grandma Hui's house, the air was thick and loud with firecrackers and recitals of Buddhist sutras and occasional blasts of gunpowder that Tiepao set off sporadically in between drags on his cigarette. Nobody but Tiepao dared to stand next to his little makeshift bombs when they went off, but he didn't care. He was nearly sixty already, and it was by now a long custom for him to light gunpowder whenever somebody in the village died.

"Grandma Hui was a very good person, a saint really," he said, "Even after my mother said all those bad things about her, she still treated her just like anybody else - looked after her when she was sick, even washed her body when she died. There are very few people as good and as kind as her in this world."

The standard by which any good funeral is measured is the amount of noise that accompanies it. In funerals, noise is auspicious. It is essential to have firecrackers, explosions, and above all, weeping. Grandpa Yu was very worried there wouldn't be enough people weeping for Grandma Hui, since she didn't have a daughter or any relatives in Water Village. Her daughter - in - law was gone, and Qiangtuo couldn't weep, since he was a man. Only women can weep at funerals. But in the end he needn't have worried - the number of village women weeping astonished him. They had all at some point in their lives received Grandma Hui's kindness.

Grandpa Yu relaxed a little, and returned to his carving in peace.

All the old people of the village were out - come to offer condolences, to help, to watch Grandpa Yu carve, or just to look for a free meal.

Some of them asked Grandpa Yu little questions, like:

"The old dragon - head pole was all one piece. Why are you making the new one in three pieces?"

These questions weren't worth answering. All he said was:

"Look a little closer."

But in his head, he was thinking: "It's as if they don't have a brain! The head of the old pole obviously was raised up away from the body, and the tail was well out to the left - how could one piece of wood be thick enough to do it all! It'd be hard to find even a camphorwood tree thick enough, let alone nanmu! The old pole was three pieces too, but nobody looked carefully enough at it to see."

Meanwhile, the traditional mixture of Buddhist and Taoist funeral rites were carried out. In charge of these was the son of the old priest, a young man named Jintuo who inherited his father's cassock and alms bowl when the old man died. Jintuo had always been naughty as a child, so nobody in Water Village really trusted his powers as a holy man. But there was no other choice - he was the only priest around, and every funeral needs a priest.

Jintuo got thirsty after a while reciting sutras, so he took a break and wandered over to where Grandpa Yu was working on the dragon - head pole.

"Grandpa Yu," he said, "take as much time as you need with the dragon - head pole. We'll hold the funeral whenever you're finished. Whatever day that happens to be, I'm sure it will be an auspicious one."

Grandpa Yu looked up:

"What a load of dog fart!" he said, jabbing a chisel at him, "You listen to me - you will do your job, and do it properly. Come back when you're ready to tell us when is the proper day for Grandma Hui's funeral, and not before! Or do you think now is a good time to make jokes? If you don't get serious about this, I'll cut your balls off! Whichever day it is, I guarantee the dragon - head pole will be ready."

Jintuo made hasty bows to Grandpa Yu, and said:

"Please don't be angry, Grandpa Yu. I was just messing around. I already checked the dates. Didn't anyone tell you? On the twenty - eighth day in the first lunar month, at noon, the earth will grant her safe passage."

"Enough ... that's enough ..." Grandpa Yu said, letting his jabbing finger slowly down.

Jintuo saw that Grandpa Yu was no longer paying him any attention, so he left, clanging his alms bowl as he went.

A few women came over to admire his work:

"Grandpa Yu, you're a wood - working god! You've only been carving two days and you can already see the shape of the dragon!"

One of them ran her fingers over the bead inside the dragon's mouth. She couldn't work out how it was possible:

"Grandpa Yu, this bead is so big! How did you get it inside the mouth?"

"Didn't you just say I'm a god? Well, that should answer your question. Magic."

He soon finished carving the head and tail, and connected them onto the long straight pole by mortises and tenons. Immediately, people gathered around to look and gasp in admiration:

"It's even more mighty looking than the old one!"

Though he didn't say so, Grandpa Yu agreed. While the old dragon also had a raised head, the way it was carved made it look like it was lunging forward, while his new one had a higher head and a longer neck that reared straight up, looking ready to soar into flight. It was so lifelike. He'd carved a flying dragon.

He still had some cinnabar left over from making the coffins, so he prepared some more cinnabar paint and painted the pole bright red. He painted the bead in the dragon's mouth white, and the dragon's eyes he painted black, with white pupils. Freshly painted, the dragon looked exactly how the villagers imagined a real dragon would look. In the old days, the old nanmu dragon - head pole would get a new coat of paint every few years, but once people started calling it "cultural relic," the painting stopped.

When he was done with the dragon, Grandpa Yu brought out Grandma Hui's old medicine box and gave it a fresh coat of white paint with a new red cross.

"She told me she wanted the box to go with her at her funeral," he explained to confused onlookers. As he laid it in her coffin, he said to her:

"Old sister, I promised to make you a new one, but I'm afraid I can't. My eyes aren't sharp enough to make the joints anymore."

Next, he placed his flute next to her, saying:

"Old sister, you'll never hear me play my flute again, and I will never play it again. Here, I want you to take it with you."

When the day of the funeral arrived, the sun was holding court high in the blue sky. The coffin porters arrived early in the morning, wearing straw sandals and white cloth wrapped around their heads. They were served rice with extra vegetables for breakfast, in accordance with Water Village etiquette.

Grandpa Yu went to talk with them:

"Your Grandma Hui used to tell me that she hates having a fuss made over her, so please, when you carry her up the mountain be gentle and slow, and don't go running all over the place. And be kind to Qiangtuo - he has always been a very filial son."

"Yes, boss, no problem," they mumbled, already nose -deep in their rice bowls.

But he knew they wouldn't be kind. Qiangtuo didn't really know how to get along in society, and though his heart was filial, his mouth had a way of always saying the wrong things. The villagers only heard what he said; they couldn't see his heart, so they all thought he was unfilial.

The moment had arrived. Jintuo held up a bowl of sacrificial wine and made offerings to Heaven and Earth. He incanted the words to drive away evil spirits and wandering ghosts, and hurled the bowl of wine to the ground, smashing it into pieces. Then, the porters all grunted in unison and heaved the coffin up off the ground:

"Aoh!"

Wailing sobs erupted from the mourners, shaking the sky with their noise. Most of the onlookers lining the street shed tears too, and the two dogs howled and jumped and leaped all over the place. Grandpa Yu followed behind. He stopped, leaning on a walking - stick, clasped his hands in front of his chest, and bowed to the coffin:

"Go in peace, old sister! May the dragon lift you up, to ride the clouds and mount the mist. May your way be lined with lotus flowers and lead all the way to the great heavenly Jade Lake!"

The coffin was now encircled in thirty or more feet of trailing white cloth. Qiangtuo and many of the other villagers walked inside the cloth circle, so that the whole ensemble looked like a giant dragon boat. The yellow dog ran circles around the coffin, jumping up and down, as if urging the people on, or guiding their way. The black dog followed behind Grandpa Yu, sticking close to her master.

The porters stayed busy shouting marching chants:

"Lift her up! Pull her on!"

"Aoh!"

"No rest until success!"

"Aoh!"

They passed a pond, and the porters began to bounce the coffin back and forth on their shoulders, those at the front in turn pushing it backwards, those at the back in turn pushing it forwards.

Seeing this, Qiangtuo ran into the pond and fell to his knees, bowing repeatedly to the porters:

"Uncles, brothers, nephews, I beg you, please carry my mother gently up the mountain! I know in my life I've been ten thousand times unfilial, and I've made ten thousand mistakes, but please, I beg you!"

The pond was so cold his lips turned purple. From far behind, Grandpa Yu shouted:

"Stop! Be gentle with that coffin!"

It was absolutely vital that the coffin did not touch the ground, and that it be lowered into the grave at precisely the pre - ordained time. Grandpa Yu shouted at the porters some more, and they slowly began moving forwards again, shouting more marching chants, each one auspicious.

When they passed by the winter water fields, the porters stopped again, and began bouncing the coffin. With a wail, Qiangtuo jumped into the field, kneeling in the mud and bowing frantically:

"Uncles and nephews, please do the right thing! I know that I'm bad. I know I'm not fit to be a human! From now on, let me be your ox, let me be your horse!"

The porters moved forward once more. They lifted the coffin over the last ridge at the end of the farm fields, and started up the mountain towards the Mound of Ultimate Peace. The road is steep and difficult. Even with both hands free it's easy to fall, which is why the greatest fear of any bereaved villager is that the porters will bounce the coffin on the mountain road and drop it.

When the coffin was halfway up the mountain, the porters at the front suddenly spun around with a yell and pushed the coffin backwards. The porters at the back were taken by surprise and forced to stagger backwards down the slope. The black dog and the yellow dog charged to the front, grabbing the trouser legs of the front porters in their mouths and trying to drag them up the road. Qiangtuo, terrified beyond words, ran under the coffin and tried to prop it up on his back.

"Please stop. I'm begging you. Don't do this to me! I know why you're doing it! I'll confess. It was me who stole the dragon - head pole. It was me and a man from outside the village, but I swear I'll get it back. Just please take my mother safely up the mountain!"

The porters stopped, adjusted the coffin on their shoulders, and carried on up the road. Qiangtuo was left lying on the ground, covered in mud and weeping.

Grandpa Yu caught up with him and smacked him across the bottom with his walking stick.

"How could you be so unfilial! Everything we are doing today is for your dead mother, and you still found a way to lose face!"

"Uncle Yu," Qiangtuo sobbed, "there was nothing else I could do! Where was I supposed to get the money I owed you for those two coffins?"

"You fool! I see that I've wasted the last forty years of love on you! When did I ever say I wanted money from you? Are you just going to lie there and do nothing? Get up! Go!"

Qiangtuo crawled to his feet and ran after the coffin, still crying. Grandpa Yu's legs felt weak. He stopped where he was, and looked up the road. The mountain peak was shrouded by clouds of many colors - an auspicious omen. He watched the fire - red dragon carry Grandma Hui slowly up the mountain towards heaven. She was going the same place everyone from Water Village goes when they grow old - the Mound of Ultimate Peace.

注释

[1]The "lew" in question is 绿, meaning green. In China, if a man is said to "wear a green hat," it means his wife has had an affair.