Riding the Iron Rooster

But what about the Chinese liking for gambling? Wasn't that a sort of forecasting and speculation? I felt it was, but gambling in Chinese terms is not rational. It isn't a judicious indication of a possible outcome. It is a fling, something reckless, with a hint of hysteria in it. You might bet on the result of two fighting crickets (it is a popular pastime in China) or on a throw of the dice because triumph depends entirely on luck or good fortune—spiritual qualities. But politics wasn't moral and it certainly wasn't a lottery. It had to do with ambition, power seeking and greed, and it was not only unreadable but regarded as unsuitable as an occasion for a gamble. The Chinese would have a flutter on a cricket but never on a commissar.

Mr. Ni was cautious, but Mrs. Deng, who joined us, was talkative. She was also headed for the coast. She was thirty, she had one child, her husband was studying engineering. She worked in a government office. She wore her hair fashionably curled, and her bright yellow sweater had poppies embroidered on it. She also wore a skirt. "But it's cold!" she cried, smacking her knees. "I should put on my trousers."

I asked her whether she had been surprised when Mr. Hu had been forced to resign.

"Not surprised at all!" she said. She blinked fiercely. She had small teeth. She silenced Mr. Ni. "What a man! Did you hear about the way he invited all those Japanese people to visit China? The Japanese pay for thirty Chinese, but we pay for three thousand of them. It makes no sense!"

"Maybe he was being generous," I said.

She batted me on the arm.

"Ha! Generous! He doesn't know what he's talking! He once read a speech at a general's funeral. 'We are so sad,' he said. But he was smiling! He just talks and talks. We say, 'He's so happy he doesn't know his name.' You understand? Ask him his name and he says, 'Ha! Ha! I forget!'"

"Do you think it is bad that he talks a lot?" I asked, knowing full well that blabbing is seen in China as dangerous and stupid.

"It is just big talk," Mrs. Deng said. "You know the saying about the skinny face?"

"Sorry, I don't."

"If you have a skinny face you beat your cheeks"—she smacked her face with her stiff fingers—"to make your cheeks swell up."

"What's the point?"

"Your cheeks get fat because you beat them, and you try to make people think you're rich."

"I see. A pretense to make yourself look good."

"Hu Yaobang is like that. Can such a man be head of this big country of China? Never."

This made more sense than the People's Daily, which linked Mr. Hu with bourgeois liberalization and student protest. He simply talked too goddamned much.

Another fellow I met on the trip to Xiamen had a familiar request. Would I please give him an English name? His Chinese name was Li Guoqing—or "National Day" Li—because he had been born on an auspicious day in October. I was a little sceptical about the Chinese •who called themselves Ronnie and Julian, but Guoqing insisted, so I said, "How about George?"

He smiled and muttered it.

I asked him how much he was paying for his ticket from Shanghai to Xiamen. He said 40 yuan ($11). Mine had cost me 148 yuan ($41). If we had flown, his plane ticket would have cost 83 yuan ($23) and mine 173 yuan ($48). Foreigners in China always pay more. It is the policy. They also get better treatment, on the whole—though not necessarily in railway trains. I had heard of Chinese being bumped from Soft Class in favor of a foreigner, but I never saw it happen.

"Foreigners have more money," Guoqing said. "Why shouldn't they pay more?"

"If you come to America, do you think you should pay less because you're Chinese?" I asked.

But he wasn't listening. "Please call me George," he said.

***

Xiamen, on the hilly coast, had the reputation for being the richest city in China, for having the best houses and the happiest people. It also had the largest proportion of families with relatives living abroad. Stop anyone on the street in Xiamen, it was said, and they would tell you that they had an uncle in Manila, or a cousin in Singapore, or that a whole branch of the family was settled in California. They stayed in touch. In general when people left China for fresh pastures they left the poverty-stricken province of Fujian (Fukien)—this was in the nineteenth century—and most of them set sail from Xiamen (Amoy). They were seafaring people from one of the greatest Chinese ports: millions of them slipped away.

But they did not forget their homeland. They came back to marry. They sent money home. In many cases they returned and built large houses and retired here. Without question, Xiamen has the noblest houses, the grandest villas, the most elaborate walls and gardens, and the most magnanimous charitable and philanthropic enterprises. These are all the result of successful emigrants becoming rich overseas and for sentimental reasons remitting their funds.