China – Yellow Crane in the Rain

Book Review: When True Love Came to China, by Lynn Pan

Lynn Pan’s When True Love Came to China is one of the most fascinating books I’ve ever read about anything. It argues that China was a stranger to love – or at least to “true love” – until the New Culture and May Fourth movements of the 1910s, when love was imported to China from its Western place of origin.

To make her case, Pan reviews Chinese and Western literary sources and shows that China, where “feeling” and “lust of the mind” were indeed well known, nonetheless fostered only a pragmatic experience of male-female coupling, due to the prevalence of arranged marriage and also to the Confucian preoccupation on moral perfection, which left little room for supposedly frivolous pursuits such as being in love. It fell to the Western mind, with its predisposition toward religious ardor, to develop the tradition of ecstatic devotion to one person. Even if the reader is uninterested in China, Pan’s chapter on the idea of love in the West is worth the price of the ticket.

That Pan limits her search for love to the Chinese and Western literary corpora tempted me to call foul, for love, as I thought, must surely evince itself outside of books. Psychologists, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, and folklorists might be even more insistent that Pan’s approach is myopic and that a better-directed hunt for love should also lead through their respective fields. Upon reflection, however, it makes sense that broader cultural phenomena such as love would sooner or later find expression in books, with the more significant phenomena garnering the most articulation. When True Love Came to China is in fact a monumental testament to the importance of books. Pan’s treatment of China’s pioneering lovers of the early twentieth century makes the primacy of book-borne sensibility undeniable.

When Pan quotes from Yu Dafu’s (1896-1945) letter to Wang Yingxia (1908-2000) – “Oh Yingxia! You are truly my Beatrice.” (p. 204) – she clinches both arguments, proving that love is a Western import to China and that books are important. Earlier chapters of When True Love Came to China highlight the role played by Ellen Key (1849-1926) and her book Love and Marriage, as well as the better-known effect in China of Henrik Ibsen’s (1828-1906) play A Doll’s House, in which the protagonist Nora walks out on her family. Nora is shown to be the role model proposed by the ardent Xu Zhimo (1897-1931) to the married Lu Xiaoman (1903-1965) in Xu’s exhortation for her to leave her husband and run off with him (p. 217).

For love to flourish, freedom and the idea of personality (see p. 163 and thereabouts) must also be secured, and Pan traces China’s quest for these latter prizes as well. The liberation of women, obviously, becomes an important part of the story, and students of this subject will find much in the way of further reading in Pan’s bibliography.

There is simply too much here – love, freedom, religion, marriage, feminism, history, China, Japan, Europe – for the present reviewer to summarize. When True Love Came to China is enthralling from so many angles. It is essential reading for life.

Book Review: Sanshirō, by Natsume Sōseki

Sanshirō’s namesake protagonist journeys to Tokyo from his provincial hometown in 1908, to pursue his education in Western subjects. What he finds on arrival is no brave new world of expanding horizons but a stagnant morass of demoralization. On a basic level, the Western ideas he encounters are not liberating but imposing, adding nothing to the native culture but confusion:

‘The sky was so clear before,’ said Mineko. ‘Now the color is all muddied.’

Sanshirō took his eyes from the stream and looked up. This was not the first time he had seen a sky like this, but it was the first time he had heard the sky described as ‘muddied.’ And she was right, he saw. There was no other way to describe this color. Before he could say anything in reply, however, Mineko spoke again.

‘It’s so heavy! It looks like marble,’ she said, using the English word. She was looking up high, eyes narrowed. Then she moved her narrowed eyes slowly, until they were turned upon Sanshirō. ‘It does look like marble, don’t you think?’

Sanshirō had no choice but to agree. ‘Yes, it looks like marble.’ (p. 97)

Mineko was doing so well with “muddied.” Why did she switch to marble? Why did Sanshirō have no choice but to go along with it?

I confess that I remembered this passage incorrectly. I thought that Mineko had described the sky consistently as marbled and that Sanshirō concluded that marbled was the only adjective that suited it. The difference, however is only one of nuance, with the true text showing how an English word comes to replace a Japanese one and my misremembered version accepting the imposition of English as an accomplished fact, conforming to my experience of Japan in recent years. On drives along the hilly coastline of southern Hokkaido, our car frequently passes through tunnels, uniformly designated as ton’neru, which has always seemed to me like bad English and not Japanese. I wonder how the Japanese named tunnels before the arrival of Commodore Perry and what was wrong with the old name. Why not call it a zuidō, using two kanji? (But then again, kanji are Chinese characters and zuidō is a Chinese pronunciation. Perhaps the Japanese really can’t avoid borrowing a foreign term, the only choice being the era in which the term was imported.)

At any rate, as though responding to the general marblization of things, a student at Sanshirō’s school addresses a gathering, “We do not study Western literature in order to surrender ourselves to it but to emancipate minds that have already surrendered to it.” (p. 116) Very soon after hearing this bold proclamation, Sanshirō attends a crowded track meet, which, auguring poorly for the emancipation project just announced, takes place under both the Japanese and the British flags.

Sanshirō was disappointed to find that the ladies’ seats were separate from the rest and unapproachable for ordinary human beings; also, there were a lot of important-looking men here in frock coats, which made him appear less impressive than he might have wished. Ogawa Sanshirō, youth of the new age, had shrunk a little in stature. (p. 118)

Of course, it doesn’t matter if skies are muddied or marbled, or whose flag flies over the track meet, if sex segregation and aristocracy are still so prevalent. As Haruki Murakami observes in his introduction to the 2009 Penguin edition I read, “Western ‘modernity’…had not yet taken root in Meiji Japan, nor, perhaps, is it all that firmly rooted in our own day.” (p. xxxv)

As for the plot, it involves Sanshirō’s somewhat passive pursuit of the witty and cosmopolitan Mineko and leads, rather predictably, to the contradiction between free and arranged marriage, which is fundamental to the Westernization question. The persistence of arranged marriage, as evinced in the storylines of myriad Asian movies and TV dramas popular today, confirms the truth of Murakami’s observation.

Therefore, as I finish Sanshirō, and as I finish also the 2020 Japanese movie Aristocrats, which features an arranged marriage, I resolve that my next reading, perhaps my next several readings, will focus on the crucial conflict between arranged marriage and freedom in marriage. No sooner have I closed the cover of Natsume’s novel than I have rushed to the library to borrow Lynn Pan’s nonfiction When True Love Came to China, which has some bearing on Japan as well.

Book Review: Lord of Formosa, by Joyce Bergvelt

Lord of Formosa is well-researched, fast-paced, transporting, and enjoyable. Readers should not feel daunted by the book’s 440-page length: The story flies by. Asian settings and character names are also made easy to assimilate by use of maps and by keeping the players to a minimum. Also, this is a transnational story, so it’s easier to keep track of the Chinese, Japanese, and Dutch names than it would be if all the names were Chinese. (Another bit of good news in this regard is that the main character, Zheng Chenggong, ends up with a Romanized name, Koxinga.) It is everything a historical fiction book should be.

One interesting facet of the book is Koxinga’s transition from protagonist to antagonist. It occurs abruptly in the “Physician” chapter, in which Koxinga is treated by a Dutch doctor. Seeing the volatile patient through the eyes of his caregiver effectively subjugates him to the latter’s judgement. For the balance of the novel, the narrative perspective – and the reader’s sympathy – remains with the Dutch, particularly with Formosa’s last governor, Frederic Coyett. A late-game discovery of restraint on Koxinga’s part salvages his appeal somewhat, and he winds up as an honorable antagonist though still an antagonist.

Author Joyce Bergvelt has done a great service in writing such a compelling book about Taiwan, which is such a uniquely fascinating place that it deserves a lot more books like this one.

Book Review: Tales of Ming Courtesans, by Alice Poon

Tales of Ming Courtesans is a freedom book. Utilizing an approach that is very different from Lisa See’s in her Peony in Love, Alice Poon has created characters that do more than make the most of miserable situations. Rather, they rail at the injustice of them and seek liberation. In one passage, Poon credits very liberal expressions to the Hangzhou merchant Wang Wei and includes a ringing endorsement from Liu Rushi, perhaps the most intrepid of the three Ming courtesans portrayed in this book:

‘Confucius was dead wrong to have classed women as inferior humans. Just think of all the female talent that has gone to waste over the past several millennia because of that stupid gender discrimination! Aiya, too tragic! And our society is so depraved to exploit girls from poor families and allow the thin horse [human trafficking and procurement] trade to thrive! Why aren’t learned men ashamed at just ignoring it and do nothing about it! Let me tell you this: [Qian] Qianyi and I have always shared the same view on this issue. We have even planned to jointly petition the Emperor to ban the slave trade. That’s why we are great friends!’

‘Ah, now I understand why you call your boat the “Untethered Villa”! You are a freedom lover, true? Wasn’t it the Song poet Su Shi who had used the term “untethered boat” to portray his freedom from the burdens of officialdom?’ (p. 183)

Such discourse was indeed atypical of old China, but it was not unimaginable in the late Ming dynasty, when traditional dogma came under bold scrutiny and received norms of gender relations were challenged. Of course, Liu Rushi and her sisters are not merely interested in “freedom from the burdens of officialdom” but are desperately seeking to escape from brutal chains of control and chronic abasement. As their desperation increases, idealistic talk of freedom fades, and only the struggle for survival remains.

Nonetheless, they fight the good fight. Tales of Ming Courtesans is compelling and very exciting – and hard to put down. Readers will be sorry when it’s over, and if they are like me, they will be eager to learn more about Liu Rushi and her extraordinarily forward-thinking times.

Book Review: Rose, Rose, I Love You, by Wang Chen-ho

The plot of Rose, Rose, I Love You revolves around the expected descent of American GIs, on furlough from Vietnam, upon the town of Hualien, Taiwan, in the mid-60s. Time to get the female companionship ready! There’s greenbacks to be made!

The book is a 180-page long ethnic joke, in which the Taiwanese people are caricatured, as they frequently are, as charmingly, innocently vulgar. Many of the characters inhabit the underworld, and as they improvise at life, they are shown to be faithfully coping with Taiwan’s much imposed-upon history, speaking a mongrelized pastiche of Taiwanese, Hakka, Mandarin, indigenous languages, Japanese, and now, out of the latest necessity, English. People in on the joke, such as the author, Wang Chen-ho, and his Taiwanese readers, will be as amused as people often are to look into a mirror – perhaps a funhouse mirror – but the book’s Taiwaneseness doesn’t translate very well and in any case would probably get old for uninitiated readers outside the Formosan funhouse.

If there is anything profound about this book, then it would be its focus on what I consider a characteristic of Chinese society, namely, the pretentiousness of the leaders vis a vis the led. If an army of American johns is coming, then it should stand to reason that Taiwanese bed-girls would be the ones best equipped to deal with it. It’s not like they wouldn’t know how. But no. In Rose, Rose, I Love You, it is a cohort of mostly male city councilmen, pimps, doctors, lawyers, and pastors who step forward to manage the shit out of the situation, until it is as expensive, complicated, ceremonial, formal, and grandiose as anything this class puts its hand to. The chief busybody is a despotic high school English teacher who assumes the role of minister of orgies despite being a virgin. Talk about weltfremder herrschaftsanspruch!

What I’m Working On

My current book project is a little hard to explain, but I’ll try:

I translated a seventeenth-century Chinese text, a detailed account of a tedious political imbroglio, into English.
I extracted an intriguing subplot concerning a despicable family, resulting in a snappy 6000-word text.
I transplanted the setting to contemporary Baltimore. My impulse was threefold:
- Chinese settings seem to discourage would-be readers, and Baltimore may prove more accessible;
- Chinese names are especially off-putting to would-be readers, so rendering Zhang Qi as Tinus Juckman, Gu Xiangtai as Morgan Schwartzenberg, and Chen Luqian as Ruckleshaus Schumacher will hopefully yield more memorable characters;
- Transplanting Chinese institutions such as eunuchs and public floggings to Baltimore produces a keen jarring effect.
For fuller length and depth (and for the challenge) I am now employing an Oulipo method called larding, which means inserting one new sentence between every two sentences of a given text. The baseline translated/edited/transplanted 6000-word text has, as of this posting, been subjected to almost two full rounds of larding and currently stands at 22,000 words. I plan to lard it a total of three times.

I call it Meet Me at the RASCAL. Here is a choice sentence: “Tinka Klein and an oud player named Ashurbanipal, both naked and dreadlocked to the pubes, leapt back and forth between the modules of Goldie’s Italian leather sofa, trying to avoid collateral damage.”

Book Review: Peony in Love, by Lisa See

It is odd to encounter pride in subservience, but it should not be surprising. In China, the standard was set centuries ago by a woman named Ban Zhao, who argued that women were too important not to be taught to serve their men. The forcefulness of her advocacy for female education has led some modern scholars to call her a feminist, but the object of her advocacy – the inculcation of complaisance – has led the rest of us to balk at the term. There are few things more mind-blowingly paradoxical than the pride Ban Zhao took in the woman’s role as upholder.

Lisa See’s Peony in Love showcases this sort of pride in a seventeenth-century elite family. In the words of its protagonist (named Peony), “As women, we have to think about how to make our husbands happy by being good wives, bearing sons, running our households well, and being pretty so they don’t become distracted from their daily activities or loiter with concubines. We are not born with these abilities. They must be instilled in us by other women. Through lessons, aphorisms, and acquired skills we are molded…” (p. 73)

Chief among the instillers is Peony’s mother, whose molding of little girls starts with their feet. Footbinding, that most grotesque symbol of subjugation, is exactly what elicits the most pride from Peony’s mom:

‘More girls are having their feet bound than ever before in the history of our country,’ Mama explained. ‘The Manchu barbarians believe our women’s practice to be backward…but the Manchus can’t see us in our women’s chambers. We wrap our daughter’s feet as an act of rebellion against those foreigners….We have our women’s ways. This is what makes us valuable. It’s what makes us marriageable. And they cannot make us stop….They cannot compete with us or stop us from cherishing our culture. More importantly, our bound feet continue to be an enticement to our husbands.’ (p. 46)

So sayeth the mother, but does the daughter (Peony) take such pride in her condition? Indeed, her enthusiasm for the life that is planned for her is shaken by the opera The Peony Pavilion, which introduces the disruptive force of love. It is love that suggests to Peony a chance at a kind of escape:

I wanted to bury myself in thoughts of love. I had no way to get out of my [arranged] marriage, but maybe I could escape from it in the same way I had here in my natal home, by reading, writing, and imagining….I did have a certain kind of knowledge…and I would use it to save myself. I wouldn’t write poetry about butterflies and flowers. I had to find something that would not only be meaningful to me but would sustain me for the rest of my life.
A thousand years ago, the poet Han Yun wrote, ‘All things not at peace will cry out.’ He compared the human need to express feelings in writing to the natural force that impelled plants to rustle in the wind or metal to ring when struck. With that I realized what I would do….I would find all those places in The Peony Pavilion that illustrated [my thoughts about the Seven Emotions]. I would look inside myself and write not what the critics had observed or what my aunts discussed about these emotions but how I felt them myself. I would finish my project in time for my marriage….My project would be my salvation in the coming dark years. I might be locked up in my husband’s home, but my mind would travel… (p. 76-77)

The rest of this review is a spoiler.

Peony, therefore, pins her wishes on an inward escape; she has no hope of launching any kind of rebellion. Readers holding out for the latter will be disappointed, especially since Peony will, following the examples of Ban Zhao and of her own mother, reconcile herself to, and even express pride in, female subservience. Encountering a young woman whose feet she had helped to bind, Peony feels “a momentary flash of pride that her bound feet had turned out so well.” (p. 202) She resolves to bind another girl’s feet in order to give her a chance at an upward marriage. (pp. 223-224) She counsels yet another woman, “Your husband is Heaven. How could you not serve him?” (p. 173) It is very hard for the modern reader, myself included, to avoid feeling revolted at Peony’s failure to grow out of – nay, her success at growing into – this most ironic form of chauvinism.

However, in exact proportion as I sympathize with Peony in Love’s frustrated readers, I am compelled to respect its accomplished writer. Lisa See has done what I could not: She has created a convincing protagonist at peace with a world we could never accept. While writing Southern Rain, I found it impossible to imagine a female lead who was well-adjusted to repression. There was no way I could write sympathetically about a footbound heroine contentedly serving a pre-selected husband. Such a woman could only be a victim, in my view. So I dodged the challenge by making my heroine a social outsider, educated by nuns and with unbound feet. Lisa See, in rising to the challenge, has given us perhaps more insight into seventeenth-century China by taking us inside the mind of someone who is more fully representative of it: a teenage girl with absolutely no control over her life, warped in body, limited in mobility, fixed in destiny, and constrained in every conceivable way. What could Peony do besides make the best of her situation – even to the point of being proud of it, which most women apparently were – as well as read, write, and dream?

In its realistic delineation of its heroine’s limited options, Peony in Love must count as a great success. It is historically well-grounded and finely researched, right down to conceptions of the afterlife. The jury may still be out on the question of realism versus reader satisfaction, but See’s realistic book, like Peony’s life, is probably as satisfying as could be expected.

Excerpt from Southern Rain: The Alluring Bodhisattva

The next scene foreshadows the meeting of the hero and heroine. The image is by Satomi Kamei.

Watching Nanjing fume from the sky or from the ground, neither Peng bird nor human would have noticed the elderly nun on a donkey cart making her way through the smog from Cock-Crow Temple on the north side of town to outside Treasure Gate, the southernmost portal of the city wall. Though missiles whizzed by her, she maintained her dignity, as did her cart driver, who seemed to have absorbed a bit of her gravitas. The nun was called One-Eyed Jingang, for partially blinding herself while studying the Diamond (Jingang) Sutra, and she was Cock-Crow Temple’s abbess. While unaccompanied women raised eyebrows if they ventured abroad on most days, the Spring Festival provided One-Eyed Jingang not only with the cover of smoke but also with an excuse to be out, for clergy were often called upon to offer prayers for the New Year. In fact, One-Eyed Jingang was expected at another place of worship, a monastery named the Temple at the Edge of Heaven, where a prayer meeting was planned for that morning. Before the chanting began, however, she wished to consult with the abbot on a matter of some delicacy.

Arriving at the Temple, One-Eyed Jingang alighted from the cart, paid its driver a little extra for the New Year, walked through the main gate, and ascended the stairway to the Mahayana Pavilion, where the abbot, whose dharma name was Baichi Shi’ai, or “Idiot in the Service of Love,” greeted her with ebullient good cheer. Fearless of gossip, he invited the nun into his office.

“Wisdom to you,” he saluted her, offering some tea. “Big Sister is a bit early. Have you come to help me choose today’s reading?”

“No, Big Brother,” the abbess returned, as she sat down on a stool. “I’m sure you’ve already found something appropriate. As it turns out, I’ve come to discuss something…inappropriate.”

She placed on Baichi Shi’ai’s desk the bulging sack she’d been carrying, which the abbot had assumed to be filled with boxed or string-bound folios of sutras. She untied the twine at its neck, just as somebody in the neighborhood set off another string of firecrackers like a drumroll.

The sack fell away, revealing a statuette of the Guanyin Bodhisattva, sculpted from rosewood. The carving stood about a foot tall, but its subject did not stand, nor did she sit cross-legged in stolid meditation. Rather, she lolled in a sultry position with one leg arched upward at a right angle, her arm draped over her knee. Although she was Guanyin, the Goddess of Compassion, she posed in the style of Tara, Mother of Liberation; but whatever compassion or liberation she offered her worshippers, it was of a primal, physical sort. Her sexuality was total, not of parts. It sprang not from flaring hips or curvaceous breasts but from her unworldly air of assurance and utter lack of inhibition. Against all convention, this Guanyin held her eyes open, inviting her faithful to advance and be saved. A mandorla of fire radiated from her body, a manifestation of the power of her love.

Baichi Shi’ai knew better than to resist the goddess’s charms. Instead, he gave rein to his native enthusiasm. “Oooh! Hail, Guanyin Bodhisattva!” he crowed.

“Yes, she does rather demand devotion,” observed One-Eyed Jingang. “I’m surprised you haven’t fallen to your knees.”

“Whose hands crafted such a powerful image?” asked the abbot. “Or was it a bolt of lightning striking a grateful tree that did the work?”

“Actually, it was created by one of my novices, a brilliant girl. Always reading, trying her hand at something new. I noticed her chiseling away at a hunk of wood from that old column we had replaced and decided to give her a bit of rosewood to see what she could do with better material. This is the result.”

Baichi Shi’ai nodded, still absorbed in Guanyin’s smoldering expression. “Where will you display it?” he asked, after a while.

“Display it?” the abbess exclaimed. “Good brother! It’s hard enough to protect the reputation of my convent without having something like that on a pedestal. Why give the next scandalmonger a chance to start yapping about the ‘lewd nuns of Cock-Crow Temple’?”

Baichi Shi’ai rounded his mouth. “Oh? You think this Guanyin is lewd?”

“No, I do not, but a lewd man would, and I’m tired of hearing lewd men talk nonsense about decent nuns.” One-Eyed Jingang cleared her throat. “So I was hoping that you, Teacher, would take this Guanyin off my hands.”

“And keep her here?” the abbot giggled. “My monks would explode! Even if I hid her away, they would sniff her out like tom cats.”

“You have that little faith in your brothers?”

“I have that much faith in my brothers.”

One-Eyed Jingang slumped. “Yes, I suppose we face the same difficulty. Since our calling is to free people from desire, it’s bad policy to introduce an object of desire into either of our sanctuaries. So what should we do with it?”

Baichi Shi’ai grinned. “You talk as though she were a problem to be gotten rid of, but Guanyin Bodhisattva cannot be a problem. Yes, neither of our temples is the proper place for her, but remember: Guanyin embodies compassion for the world.” He raised both his arms, in an encompassing gesture. “Let’s put her out into the world, then, where her compassion can do its work. If some starry-eyed lad falls in love with her, so much the better. Everyone in the world needs to be receptive to compassion, after all.”

One-Eyed Jingang thought for a bit and then nodded. “Yes, Brother, you are right. We should allow this Guanyin to play her part. I will consign her to the marketplace, to await the first receptive soul that comes along.”

She put the Guanyin back in its sack and tied it closed.

“So what will be today’s reading?” she asked, but her host didn’t answer, and both devotees of dharma continued to stare at the enshrouded idol for a long time.

Excerpt from Southern Rain: Chinese New Year’s Day

An earlier posting describes my first Chinese New Year’s celebration in Taiwan, in which I saw the streets of Taipei transformed into a veritable shooting gallery of bottle rockets. That memorable experience was one of the many inspirations for my novel, Southern Rain, which opens with this pyrotechnic description of the first day of the year. The time corresponds to February 1644 on the Western calendar.

It is the seventeenth year of the Chongzhen Emperor’s reign, the first day of the first month – Spring Festival – and smoke is rising over Nanjing, as its people celebrate the New Year by lighting things on fire.

Half the city’s population are setting off firecrackers, to the delight of the other half. In groups of young and old, they hang clusters of the paper-wrapped cylinders like bunches of red bananas from the eaves of temples and taverns. With the touch of an incense stick, the fuse commences to hiss and everybody scatters. If someone chances to round the corner unawares, on his way to visit relatives, he comes abreast of the little bombs the moment they begin to explode and finds himself engulfed in a thundering maelstrom. His chest thumps like a kettle drum hammered by madmen. He flails his arms about his head and staggers away as the crescendo continues, a blur of incandescence hanging in the air near which he passed, casting billows of smoke heavenward. Then, as the last charge on the string gives up its ghost and the echo rolls over the city and disappears into the hills, the celebrants clap and jump for joy, and even the rattled pedestrian grins and waves, signifying no hard feelings. He too is enjoying himself.

In addition to the hanging clusters, some firecrackers can be thrown, and some are miniature rockets. Explosives of these sorts transform Nanjing’s streets and alleys into gauntlets of spark-trailing missiles, air bursts, and ground bursts. Young boys in particular are fond of launching pocket rockets from their hands, to watch them ricochet off buildings and passersby. Their favorite targets are peddlers on donkey carts, because they pretend nothing is happening. They go right on hawking their snacks – “Steamed buns! Dumplings!” – while projectiles bounce off their bellies or lodge in the folds of their robes, sending sparks cascading from their torsos. The pinnacle of fun is to toss a cherry-bomb into the street, timed to explode when a cart passes over it. There it lies, its fuse sizzling, while, say, the noodle-man approaches, crooning “Thick noodles! Thin noodles! Sesame paste! Black bean paste!” and just as his cart reaches it, Bang! off it goes in a cloud of sulfur. Both man and beast jolt from the concussion but emerge unfazed, the peddler resuming his hawking, the donkey his hauling, showing no sign of distress. Onlookers beam and the young pyrotechnicians make ready the next barrage.

Not all that is set alight that day contains gunpowder. Nanjing’s denizens also burn joss paper – play money – as offerings to the gods or to their deceased ancestors. Clan after clan of them, Chens, Wangs, and Zhangs, gather in their kitchens or courtyards to burn wad after wad of the heavenly currency, which takes to the air in particulate form. The offering of joss paper is less likely than fireworks to involve the occasional victim, unless it takes place on the ground floor of a storied building and some poor soul is caught upstairs. In such a case, the unfortunate one, as soon as he realizes he is suffocating, makes a desperate dash to the nearest window and thrusts his head outside. Gasping for oxygen, not even this man complains but rejoices in the good cheer and bonhomie of festival time.

Thus does Nanjing exude mirth and merriment, acrid, dark, and thick. Smoke rises over Cock-Crow Temple, a nunnery on a hill. Smoke curls about the Drum Tower, whose beating of the time that day is drowned out in the din. Smoke mushrooms over Three Mountain Street, Nanjing’s always-bustling bazaar. Smoke hangs above the Qinhuai River, its famous pleasure quarter. Every tiled roof, every bridge and pagoda, every curvy street and winding canal is enveloped in haze. To the gigantic Peng bird of legend, soaring far above town on this New Year’s Day, Nanjing might appear as an exquisite incense censer made to resemble a fairyland. To Nanjing’s human residents, the column of smoke dwarfing their city is yet another of its many superlatives; Nanjing wears it like a plumed crown. The vast metropolis, ringed by a wall of eighteen gates, is the pearl of the Yangtze River valley and original capital of the Current Dynasty. It is opulent and lively and crammed with attractions, the subject of rhapsodies by songsters and poets who call it a paradise. If Nanjing’s celebrated “kingly air” is now tinged with ash, its people breathe it in even more deeply and feel all the more regal for it. They are as proud and prosperous as any people have dared to be. In a consuming exuberance, they revel and roister, until their city is choking with smoke.

From the Black Creek River to the Grand Canal

The episode with the Mississippi egrets described in my last posting was incorporated into my novel, Southern Rain, now available via Kindle and at selected bookshops in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore; it is also available for pre-order, in advance of the general release of the print version in January.

The appearance of the Mississippi egrets, transposed into Chinese cranes, foreshadows the meeting of the hero, Ouyang Nanyu, and the heroine, Ouyang Daosheng.

Just beyond a tributary called Witch Mountain Spring, Nanyu noticed two white cranes flying upstream and then perching on the embankment. When the boat drew close to them, they took off again, swooping on ahead, before coming to a new resting place at the side of the Canal. Nanyu reckoned that the cranes moved ten times this way over the course of an hour—leading and waiting, leading and waiting—as though luring him ever onward. They didn’t seem to be feeding, and if they were migrating north, Nanyu wondered why they didn’t just get on with it, without waiting for him to catch up. If they wanted to stay on the Canal but were afraid of the boat, then why didn’t they fly to the side, to allow it to pass? For the rest of the day, Nanyu was sometimes invited to share food, sometimes asked for help maneuvering through a lock, and then, he would forget about the cranes; but whenever his activities were finished, he’d look up and there they would be, still scouting out the route.

Nanyu continued to see them after he closed his eyes that night, but in the morning, they were gone.