Eloping to Zhuhai
After a whole night of chatting and lovemaking, you
got up about ten o’clock the next morning. For a rich brunch, Hua e.hired a
driver to take you two to Daoxiang Village, one of the most famous restaurants
in Zhuhai. You told her that beginning from today, she should pay whatever cost
that might incur out of the funds you had asked your mother to e.transfer to Hua’s
WeChat Pay account one day before you left Jingzhou, You had made this special
arrangement not only because as a short-term foreign visitor, you couldn’t open
any WeChat Pay or Ali Pay accounts in China for your own convenience, but
because you didn’t want to “eat soft rice,” a folk catchphrase referring to the
shameful practice of a man spending a woman’s money. But the reason you gave
Hua was that you didn’t have a cellphone, so you would have much trouble making
every payment in cash. More important, if she footed every bill each time you
ventured outside, you two would look more like a married couple in public,
since people expected wives to be the money-holder in every Chinese household.
In Daoxiang Village, you had a highly
amazing and nutritious “pigeon feast,” namely, five pigeons cooked and served in
as many different ways. To most Chinese, pigeons were particularly nourishing
and rejuvenating, some even saying “one pigeon equals five chickens.” Though you
were quite skeptical about its health effects, you strongly hoped that by
eating much pigeon meat or drinking plenty of tonic pigeon soup you could get
enough sexual energy to make love with Hua day and night.
When
you returned to her condo suite in Fuhua Square, one of the oldest and
wealthiest neighborhood in the city, you played sex on her big sofa rather than
took a nap in her bed. To spend your time together in a more meaningful way, Hua
proposed to visit Zhuhai Grand Theatre located in a distant small isle, as it
was Zhuhai’s internationally renowned landmark, but to avoid running into
acquaintances or even relatives while walking closely with you, you two didn’t set
off until after supper.
By the time you arrived at
Yeli Isle, there had already been quite a lot of local visitors and foreign
tourists. Constructed in the shape of two huge seashells, the theatrical
complex looked magnificent as all colorful lights began to be turned on.
Walking around at a leisurely pace, you were greatly enchanted by the whole
dream-like night view. To you, the theatre was a masterful artwork, as unique
as beautiful as, if not more than, any other similar architectural buildings in
the world, like Sydney Opera House or Canada Place. With its bio-geological connectivity
with the South China Sea, the theatre offered a rich symbolic meaning. What
kind of pearl could you find if you step inside the shell? you thought aloud.
About half an hour later,
Hua led you in a short walk towards the famous Zhuhai Fishing Girl, an 8.7
meter tall granite statue standing at the scenic Fragrant Burner Bay. When you
came close to the islet, you saw an elegantly postured girl wearing a gillnet
on her shoulders like a fancy shawl, with a large brilliant pearl held high in
her hands, with a warm and tender smile on her face as if greeting every guest
approaching her.
“There must be a story or
legend about her,” you said.
“You’re telling me!
There’re at least three different versions that people have kept telling and
retelling here.”
“Just tell me the one you
find most intriguing.”
As Hua recounted, the
fishing girl is actually the youngest and most beautiful daughter of King
Dragon in the vast South China Sea. Tired of her immortal life as a princess in
the Dragon Palace, the girl, named Zhu, comes out of the sea with her sisters one
day to pay a visit to the human world. Attracted by the songs and laughs from a
coastal village, Zhu refuses to return to her heavenly marine world, and soon
falls in love with a young fisherman called Hai. Knowing her earthly romance,
her admirer Cangjiao, a hornless but scaled dragon in the Dragon Palace,
transforms himself into a wounded dwarf and presents himself in a pitiable way
to Hai. To take advantage of the fisherman’s kindness, Cangjiao pleads with Hai
to treat his faked deadly wound. He tells the young man that all he needs to do
is to take off Zhu’s bracelet and grind it into medical powder. This Hai does
without hesitancy, but only to realize that his Zhu is to die because the
bracelet functions as her talisman. To save Zhu’s life, Hai goes to the wise
Elder of Nine Zhou [the ancient name of China], who advises him to go to a
dangerous island to find the Life-restoring Grass. After going through all varieties
of risks and hardships, Hai eventually finds the grass, which he keeps alive by
feeding it with his own blood rather than water until he could use it on his
beloved Zhu. When she is recovered from the death spell cast by the evil in
Dragon Palace, she happens to find a huge pearl on the beach. To show their
gratitude, Zhu, meaning “pearl” in Chinese, and Hai, meaning “sea,” give the
pearl to the Elder during the their wedding ceremony.
“What a fascinating and
culturally significant love story!” you exclaimed.
“What makes you say that?”
Hua asked.
“Well, for one thing, the
story tells us how Zhu and Hai enter into matrimony to form a new life after
defeating the evil forces and overcoming all the obstacles. For another, it
mysteriously anticipates Zhuhai as a coastal city, a major urban area which has
become one of the cleanest, most livable and most beautiful cities in China as the
most secular country in the world.”
“Yeah, except that the
weather is too hot and humid. We gotta take a shower at least once a day. And
without air-conditioning, no one can live here nowadays.”
“That’s true, but no city
is perfect, is it?”
While you felt happy for
Hua to have been living in Zhuhai for nearly four decades, you were reminded of
Rodin’s bronze sculpture Thinker. Though the Chinese sculptor of the Fishing
Girl was far less known and influential than his French counterpart, his
artwork was just as “thoughtful” or philosophical and immortal. If The Thinker
represented the poetic-philosophical tradition in the western culture, the
Fishing Girl captured the most fundamental element in Chinese folk culture. You
meant to have a detailed discussion with Hua along this line, but she would
rather leave the stone pedestal for another long walk along the Lovers’ Road besides
the seawall. “It’s too narrow and too crowded here,” she complained.
To prepare for the walk,
you bought a bottle of water for each of you, and two ice creams, both for Hua,
who had once mentioned that she enjoyed ice cream very much.
“That’s very sweet of you,”
she said. “You still remember this!”
Hearing her appreciative
remark, you told her that you remembered everything special about her. For
example, her favorite color was purple, her favorite dish was shredded port
fried with hot pepper, her favorite actor was Jin Dong, and her favorite fruit
was cherries. Interestingly, she and your wife shared many similar tastes,
habits and tendencies.
As you walked slowly along,
you reached out to hold Hua’s hand in yours, but she shook off your hand.
Instead, she locked her arm in yours, in the way young couples did.
“Were you not afraid to be
seen by acquaintances now?” you asked.
“Not in such darkness,” Hua
replied.
“But why not let me hold
your hand?”
“Wouldn’t we stick out like
a sore thumb if we just held each other’s hand on this Lovers’ Road?”
“I see. How many times have
you walked with a man here?”
“Only two.”
“When was the last time?
With whom?”
“Of course with Dan, but
that’s more than thirty years ago, when we newly moved to Zhuhai. As this road
didn’t exist then, we walked on the seawall instead.”
The fact that you were the
only man she had ever walked along this Lovers’ Road in her entire life made you
feel not merely smug but fortunate about your extramarital relationship. If you
had known that she never really loved you as you had always believed while
still working on the Mayuhe Forest Farm, you would never have tried to see her
in 2019 after forty two years of separation, nor would you have begun to share
with her your life experiences since then. By the same token, if you had never
written and let her read the second part of your Last Love Letters, she
would never have developed any tender feelings to you, nor would you have
written and published so much poetry for her. Without that initial
misunderstanding, you wouldn’t even have dared to show any of your most deeply
hidden feelings towards her.
“Why not?” Hua asked after
she heard your explanation.
To partly answer Hua’s
question, you went on to tell her that by the time you reencountered her in
2019, you had come to terms with yourself in every sense, As a real monk would
put it, you were then old enough to gain all the insights into human
relationships and see through the entire world of red dust, especially after you
did a lot of meditation, retrospection and hard thinking as a Taoist hermit or
quasi monk in recent years. Aged 62, you were then not interested in developing
a sexual relationship with any woman other than your wife, not to mention making
an effort to find a lover or soulmate at the risk of getting hurt emotionally.
So conscious of your own sentimentality or vulnerability, you would never have
endangered your emotional well-being in an unnecessary or hopeless situation.
“Above all,” you said, “I
knew enough not to bring myself bitterness and humiliation, especially when I
realized how traditionally-minded you are, and how happy you have been with
your matrimony.”
“But now, both of us have
lost our moral integrity in old age.”
“To me, this loss is my
greatest gain in life.”
“How so?”
“You see, not every human
being has a chance to love someone so deeply as I do you; not every human being
can enjoy love with all their heart and soul in the way I can; and not every
human being has a complete soul to begin with, but I have you to complete mine.”
“You’re sweet talking me
again, but I love to hear it anyway.”
“It’s no less than my
emotional declaration made on this Lovers’ Road.”
When you got home, Hua
insisted on you sleeping in a different room for the night, saying that you needed
to take a really good break. Otherwise, you would overdraft whatever was still
left over in your sexuality and become really worried about your e.d. problem.
“Besides, both of us are too tired for sex after a long walk,” she added.
Before hitting the bed, you
took a joint shower with Hua as if to re-enacting what Zhu and Hai would do at
the back stage of Zhuhai Grand Theatre.
Author's note: This
story is inspired by Helena Qi Hong (祁红)
Yuan Changming
Bio: Yuan Changming edits Poetry Pacific with Allen
Yuan in Vancouver. Credits include 12 Pushcart nominations for poetry and
2 for fiction besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian
Poetry (2008-17), BestNewPoemsOnline and 2089 other literary
outlets worldwide. A poetry judge for Canada's 2021 National Magazine
Awards, Yuan began writing and publishing fiction in 2022, his first (hybrid)
novel Mabakoola: Paradise Regained forthcoming in 2025.
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