Riding the Iron Rooster

Then I decided to go to the big foreign-language bookstore on Wangfujing Street to see if Professor Dong's book of English phrases was available. It was not, but I was given A Dictionary of New and Difficult English Words. In the B's I found balled, ball-up, ballsy, ballahoo [sic], and banged, and under shit the expression I feel shitty in my body—a newly minted American colloquialism. But most of the words were chemical compounds—methyloxylate, sulphur dioxide— and their Chinese equivalents.

An elderly Chinese man was perusing a copy.

"It is not much use to me," he said, "because I usually translate music theory and this is very scientific. You probably don't know many of these words."

"Some of them look familiar," I said.

His name was Zhang Mei. He was a musician, adept at several instruments, including the piano; a composer, a conductor, and lately a music teacher. He also sang, he said—he was a baritone. As well as Chinese music, he played and sang Schubert ("very sad"), Verdi and Handel ("my personal favorite"). He also liked Stephen Foster. He said that Foster was one of the most popular composers in China.

"When I hear 'Beautiful Dreamer' I feel like weeping," I said.

"I prefer Handel," Mr. Zhang said.

He was small and frail and rather bent over, but when I said I was going for a walk he offered to come with me. He looked older than his years—he was seventy-five—but he walked nimbly. He said he had just seen his son off at Peking Central Station—the son was taking the train to Paris to study singing; he was not stopping on the way. I said, "It's a nine-day trip," but Mr. Zhang said, "He has a berth—he can sleep. He's very lucky."

I asked him whether the government disapproved of Western music. He said no, not these days. Later I found out that there were official directives about such matters; for example, on 7 March 1977, the Party sent forth a decree lifting a ban on the playing of Beethoven's music.

Mr. Zhang had never studied music. He said, "I am self-taught. I was in the New Fourth Army against the Japanese. I led the chorus, forty men. That was to rouse the troops. Also I wrote music and composed songs."

I asked him for an example.

"In the town of Huangzhou in Jiangsu Province we won an important battle. I commemorated it by writing The Song of the Baking Cakes.'"

He explained that it was a patriotic song based on people baking a particular kind of cake, called shaobing. They served them when the soldiers went off to battle and welcomed the soldiers back with more cakes.

I said, "Didn't you write songs about the Japanese as evil little fiends?"

"Oh, yes," Mr. Zhang said. "In the songs we called them all sons of names. Ghosts. Robbers. Rapists. Because they were robbing and raping. If you say 'rapist' most people will know immediately that you're talking about a Japanese, even now."

"Were they ghosts?"

He laughed. "Ghosts are guizi. They are cruel. Well, not exactly cruel. They are abominable."

I liked him. I asked him whether he was hungry. He said yes, but he also said he had very bad digestion. Nevertheless, he ordered an enormous amount of food. It cost 33 yuan and we ate very little of it. He paid for it in ordinary Chinese money (renminbi), and then I gave him the equivalent in Foreign Exchange Certificates, which were like hard currency. It was quite a transaction but it occurred to me that my changing this money was the whole point of his ordering this expensive meal.

He said he had chosen the restaurant because it was Cantonese, and so was he. While we were eating, he overheard four Cantonese men speaking about their bill—their meal had cost 35 yuan.

"They must be merchants to have paid so much for their meal," he said. He asked them if this was so, but they told him they worked in a nearby government office.

"Times are changing," he said. As a veteran he had various pensions and subsidies that came to 271 yuan a month. He said he felt fairly well-off.

I asked him what he thought of so many Japanese tourists visiting China after they had caused so much misery for the Chinese by occupying the country and fighting so tenaciously.

"We have forgotten all that. It is better to forget. Anyway, Chairman Mao said, 'Most foreigners are good—only a few are bad.'"

"I wonder what Chairman Mao would say if he saw what was taking place in Peking right now."

Mr. Zhang said, "He would be interested. Certainly surprised."

"He might not like it."

"He would have to like it. The facts would teach him. He could not deny it."

He said what most people had told me, that Mao in old age was senile. After 1957, Mao was not the same. He kept making mistakes and was easily misled by Lin Biao and the Gang of Four.

"People worshipped him. It was very bad. He did not encourage it but he tolerated it."

I asked Mr. Zhang whether he was optimistic about the changes in China.