Frog

TADPOLE: She’s resting. She’ll come out to toast our guests in a little while.

REPORTER: (holding the microphone in front of Yuan Sai) Chairman Yuan, now that your friend Tadpole has become a father at his age, are you itching to do the same?

YUAN: What an interesting phrase, itching to do the same. I may be itching, but not to do the same. I doubt that I have particularly good genes. I have two sons, and one’s as big a drain on me as the other. If I had another, I doubt that the results would be any better. Then there’s my wife, whose soil has seriously hardened. If I planted a sapling, in three days it would be a cane.

LI SHOU: Why not let your mistress do it?

YUAN SAI: How can you say things like that at your age, my friend? We’re upright, highly moral individuals who don’t get involved in ugly affairs like that.

LI SHOU: Ugly affairs? It’s all the rage these days, a new wave, gene improvement, aiding the poor and lending a helping hand to the weak, fuelling domestic demand and furthering development.

YUAN SAI: Stop right there. If that gets out, they’ll be coming after you.

LI SHOU: Ask them if they dare broadcast that.

REPORTER: (smiles without answering, turns to Gugu) Gugu, I hear that you have developed a ‘return to spring’ elixir that will restore a post-menopausal woman’s youth.

GUGU: Many people say I have a potion that can change the sex of a foetus. Do you believe that?

REPORTER: I’d rather believe it than not.

GUGU: There’s a god if you believe there is, and if you don’t, it’s just an unpainted clay idol. That’s just how people are.

TADPOLE: Miss Gao, you and your station colleagues are welcome to join us at the table. You can continue interviewing after you’ve had something to drink.

REPORTER: No, you go ahead. Just pretend we’re not here.

LI SHOU: How are we supposed to do that with you people walking around while we’re drinking?

REPORTER: You can — pretend we’re not people, pretend we’re — whatever you want.

YUAN SAI: Guifang, you were my idol during our school days, so I have to raise my glass to you.

LIU: (clinks glasses with Yuan) Here’s to the success of your bullfrog breeding farm and the early arrival of your Jiaowa Skin Care product in the market.

YUAN SAI: Don’t change the subject. I want to tell you how besotted I was with you back then.

LIU: Stop being foolish with your false display of affection. Everybody knows there’s a harem of beautiful women in Chairman Yuan’s bullfrog farm.

REPORTER: (takes advantage of the pause to speak into her microphone) Ladies and gentlemen, today’s Aspects on Society program focuses on a joyous event in Northeast Gaomi Township. On the fifteenth of last month, the famous playwright Tadpole, a recent retiree who has returned home to write, and his wife, Little Lion, both now in their fifties, were blessed with the birth of a healthy, lively, pudgy son…

GUGU: Bring the baby out to show everyone.

Tadpole runs off the stage.

LIU: (glares at Yuan and says under her breath) Enough nonsense. You’ll make Gugu unhappy.

Tadpole enters with Little Lion, a towel around her head, the swaddled baby in her arms.

The cameraman films away.

The guests applaud and shout their congratulations.

TADPOLE: Let Gugu see him.

Little Lion takes the baby up to Gugu, who pulls back the blanket to see him.

GUGU: (with emotion) A fine boy. A truly fine boy, with excellent genes. So good-looking that if he’d been born during feudal times, he’d be the top scholar at the civil service examination.

LI SHOU: Why stop there? He could be Emperor.

GUGU: What is this, a bragging contest?

REPORTER: (puts the microphone in front of Gugu) Did you deliver this baby, too, Gugu?