Recollections of West Hunan

Shen Congwen

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781476774947
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Letters
• Index: Literature

Recollections of Western Hunan is a collection of the letters and essays of Chinese novelist Shen Congwen. Describing his childhood and life in Western Hunan between 1902 and 1937, this collection paints a vivid picture of both the idyllic beauty and turmoil of life in a province once known as the "bandit area, " a countryside shrouded in mystery, mysticism, and chaos.

■ Truth Is Stranger than Fiction

Old Mrs. Man went from the oil-press to the mill. Work had stopped there, because the stream was too low to turn the waterwheel festooned with fading green waterweeds, and there were white bird-droppings on the millstone. The slack winter season had come, that was evident, when virtually all work stopped. But the first snowfall had brought an intimation of spring. The snow by the embankment of Long Lake had been melting for some days, and the lake had risen to the entrance of the lock. Workers came to report that there was now enough water to turn the mill. At New Year every family needed several loads of glutinous rice to make sticky-rice-cakes. Young brides paying New Year calls on relatives had to take rice-cakes and sweet wine made from glutinous rice. So the old lady had come to have a look round and help the man keeping an eye on the mill. Taking a broom she swept away the cobwebs in nooks and crannies and on the millstone, then oiled the steel rim of the axle and hung in place the long sieve which had been kept in a corner. While doing this she told a hired hand to fetch a crate of glutinous rice, to test whether the mill was in working order.

When he had left she picked up a portable stove from one side of the mill to warm her hands, and walked out to the embankment to have a look. She decided, after trying out the mill, to go to the end of the village to see Dongsheng's mother. Three days ago he had left to escort some merchants, and strange to say had not come back. Twenty to thirty li was no great distance, there were normally no wolves or tigers there, and the going was so smooth that he could not lose his way even in the dark. Had something got into his eyes and made him fall into a wayside pit, the mouth of a long extinct volcano? Or had he been hunting deer or hares and rolled into a quagmire under the snow, to be sucked to his death? If so, he should have left tracks on the snow. The only other possibility was that he had made up his mind to join the army, but was afraid his widowed mother's tears might soften his heart and hold him back; so he had taken this chance to slip away. However, his job in the Security Bureau meant that he was already a member of the local armed forces, and if he wanted to join a military college it would be only too easy. In those parts it was generally some outside factor which goaded young fellows into leaving home: loss of face during a quarrel; inability to pay a gambling debt; or love for a girl impossible to marry. So finding it hard to stick it out any longer they ran away, in company or singly, to escape from their wretchedness at home and make a fresh start elsewhere. Yet Dongsheng had none of these problems. The secretary of the bureau, going to the manor-house to report his absence, had declared it most unlikely that he had run away to join the army. He did wonder, though, if Qiaoxiu's disappearance and the lack of news of her for half a month had something to do with it. Dongsheng was an honest lad. Although he had kept quiet about his feelings, he might have screwed up the courage to fetch her back. He might even have sworn not to return without her, which would explain why he had vanished. Of course this was only the secretary's guess; he had no evidence. But because of this, far-fetched rumours circulated throughout the village:At Red Crag Dongsheng had met Qiaoxiu who had run away from the Man famlily, and discovered that she meant to go to Changde with the suona player from Zhongzhai. For fear he might make trouble by blabbing, her lover and she had tied him up and thrown him into the river. Although this could not be proved, the rumour reached old Mrs. Man and upset her, not that she fully believed it. She must call on Dongsheng's mother to comfort her. Before setting out she filled a little basket with twenty big eggs.

Of the two hundred-odd families in Gaoxian, apart from the Yangs and the Duans, the Mans were the largest. And the old lady's family was the chief one in their clan. They owned fields near the village and orchards on the hills. The clan also had an oil-press, a mill and other properties, and they put in different managers every three years. In addition they ran a small grocery selling government salt in the market square five li away, but its turnover was small, and it simply served as a rest-house for them when they went to the fair there. The previous manager had died at about forty, and his place was now taken by this spry old lady in her sixties. Nearly twenty years had passed since her husband died, leaving her two sons and two daughters. Both girls had left home to get married. Her elder son was the recently married captain who headed the Security Bureau; the younger was a second-year student in the junior middle school in the county town. Both brothers were honest youngsters. The elder, having attended the village school for only three years, was not much influenced by Confucianism. As a propertied young landowner who had to defend the district, he naturally liked shooting and cudgel fighting. In his home there were hired hands, hounds and guns, and with a guest staying there he had hunted all winter long to pass the time.

His mother, born in a poor family, had simple tastes and was hardworking and thrifty. Since the family property had been built up by generations of thrifty, hardworking forbears, they kept up some of the traditional ways. Her clothes were patched and mended but always spotless. Her trim underclothes and outer clothes gave off a faint fragrance of hay and the acidity of the rice gruel with which they had been starched. Her carefully dressed hair and neatly shod feet showed her senior status and were characteristic of old-fashioned village women. All she did appeared to have no connection with books, yet conformed to the expectations of the men of old, especially as regards her disposition. Knowing that money comes and goes, she showed concern for relatives and neighbours and was not parsimonious. By giving away part of one's property one could keep the larger part. She was friends with all the villagers, even those unrelated to her, and if any family had a funeral or wedding, if a baby died or a son had a long illness, she would call on the mistress of the house and share her grief or joy. Then, secretly, she would send someone to deliver a few measures of rice or a couple of catties of lump sugar, thinking this her neighbourly duty. And all this she did completely spontaneously.

None of the household had fixed religious beliefs. On the altar in the middle of the hall were offerings to Heaven and Earth and the ancestral tablets. They also sacrificed there to the Year God and the Tutelary God. In the kitchen was the God of the Hearth, while the pigsty, cowshed and barns had their different deities too. Every morning and evening without fail the old lady washed her hands to bow before them with lighted incense. On the first and fifteenth of every month, she fasted to express her gratitude and pray that no harm would come to the family or to their livestock. During the festivals in different seasons she observed the appropriate rites to pay homage to the spirits, fasted to purify her mind or killed a pig to redeem a vow, unquestioningly following all the old customs. Before New Year, auspicious gold paper coins and congratulatory couplets were pasted on all the doors, on the pigsty and cowshed. And money and rice were prepared as gifts for relatives and neighbours. If someone came sheepishly to ask for a loan, and the sum was not excessive, she always gave it.

As the family had so much property, people were needed to manage it. Apart from the guards of the Security Bureau responsible for keeping order in the village, they had three or four hired hands, and a steward who was a close relative. With the copious by-products of the oil-press and mill, they generally raised four sleek and sturdy oxen, a styful of fat pigs, a dozen goats, thirty to fifty hens and ducks, a dozen cotes of pigeons, and several watchdogs. In the centre of their courtyard grew a large walnut tree; they kept two golden pheasants in a coop, and two lop-eared foreign rabbits, while in the bamboo grove behind the house stood several beehives. Although outside affairs were handled by the young men of the clan, it was old Mrs. Man who kept track of their income and expenditure at home and outside, the amounts spent on gifts to relatives and the amount of their debts. She kept these figures in mind, and needed no account book to reel them all off at a moment's notice.

Regarding daily household affairs, the old lady was a realist; in her spiritual life she was a worshipper of idols; yet regarding her children, she was an idealist. She faced up to the present, yet placed her hope in the future. Her elder son had the strength to defend their home, the virility to father two sons and two daughters, and she should live to arrange her grandsons' marriages, one to a girl in town, another to one in the country. One granddaughter too should have a husband in town, the other one in the country. As her second son was studying in the provincial capital, she thought he had better follow the custom of free choice there and find himself a girl student, who could come and teach in their clan's primary school and play the harmonium and sing. Or the young couple could stay in town to teach. It was up to her son to decide. But he said he preferred to wait ten years to get married. As for Dongsheng, she should help find him a wife too when he grew up, and give him a few mu of hilly land for his own.

The old lady's dream was quite healthy, quite uncertain too considering that place and time. As the saying goes, man proposes, Heaven disposes. For storeyed buildings rationally constructed could collapse suddenly like snow or ice if Heaven so willed, then flow off with the melted snow into the stream, past the stone embankment and under the bridge into the mighty river—and that was the end of them. Because this small community was built on the same foundation as the whole country, the countryside was being bankrupted, and the county and provincial governments depended largely on the opium tax to keep going. The same applied to Gaoxian's Security Bureau with its thirty old-fashioned rifles. It provided escorts for small opium dealers, and most of its revenue came from the ten yuan levied on each load of opium. The custom was to send a man with a visiting card to escort these merchants to the district border. Once across it, they were the responsibility of the bureau in the next district.

The old lady saw a hired hand bringing two half crates of grain from the manor-house. He headed straight for the mill, followed by two people. One was a stranger, the other was Dongsheng's mother whom she wanted to see to hear what news she had. Before greetings could be exchanged, she saw that Mother Yang looked most upset. She hurried towards her, “Aunt, is your Dongsheng back? I was just going to call on you.”

Mother Yang's shoes were covered with slush. Dispirited and fearful, she seemed to have shrunk. She swore softly, “Buddha! I'm really out of luck!”

The old lady deduced that there was bad news. She asked the strange visitor, “Brother, are you from Xinchang?”

The hired hand hastily put in, “Brother Jimao, this is the captain's mother. Tell her all about it. Don't be afraid, and don't hold anything back.”

Realizing that something serious had happened, the old lady led them all into the mill.

Cold and flustered, the messenger started stuttering. Not until he had cleared his throat could he explain his errand. He said that Dongsheng, missing for three days, had reached Red Crag ten li away when a small band of horsemen, headed by two of the Tian brothers from their village, had barred the way and kidnapped him as well as the two opium dealers. First they had taken them to Jimao's small eating house at the foot of the hill, to warm up there before going up the hill—where to he didn't know. Jimao recognized Dongsheng, who was smiling as if this was nothing serious. But yesterday at the fair he heard that Dongsheng had not returned to Gaoxian and the captain had sent to find out what had happened to him. So he realized Dongsheng was being kept prisoner. Among the kidnappers, apart from the Tian brothers whom he knew, he had seen a strapping fellow in his twenties who resembled the suona player from Zhongzhai, generally known as Fifth Brother. With his suona and a mauser on his back, he looked a formidable figure. Dongsheng had smiled at him and at Jimao, but it was a cryptic smile. Jimao begged the old lady not to let anyone know he had brought this news, or the Tian brothers might burn down his house in revenge. If he didn't bring the news, though, he was afraid he might be involved as they had gone to his shop to warm themselves. The escape back of the two opium dealers bore out the truth of his story.

By the afternoon the whole of Gaoxian knew this. The captain considered it a great loss of face. He at once called an emergency meeting in the Security Bureau, to discuss whether to settle the matter privately or to notify the county. A spirited youngster of the Man clan said, “Red Crag comes under the captain's jurisdiction. By acting like that, the Tian family have as good as challenged his authority. Settling it privately means sending an intermediary to discuss how much ransom money the Mans must pay. We've already lost face enough. And if we create a precedent, showing weakness, the same thing may happen again. Besides, one of that band was the fellow from Zhongzhai who carried off young Qiaoxiu. How dare he show up again to make fresh trouble? He's spat in the face of us Gaoxian people.” There was reason in what he said. The captain and secretary, having weighed the pros and cons, proposed mobilizing the militia and notifying the county that they were going to hunt down these bandits. The captain went to the county town in person to report this, and asked the county head to lead a force to that area to speed things up, making an example of one as a warning to many. The county head, a demobilized officer, was on good terms with the captain; and being young and eager for action he had been meaning to stay with him to have some hunting. The next morning he mounted his big new sedan chair and accompanied the captain back to Gaoxian, taking a platoon of guards. He put up in the captain's house, while the thirty guardsmen were billeted on the lower floor of the Security Bureau. The village at once became lively.

After the news spread that the county head had gone to Gaoxian to pacify the district, the captain sent scouts to Tian Family Stockade at Red Crag. They came back to report that the Tian brothers had gone up to Tiger Cave that morning taking four guns, several loads of commodities, five or six loads of rice-cakes, three bushels of rice, a bucket of oil and over a dozen men with some twenty swords and spears. Over thirty people had gone, including Dongsheng, Qiaoxiu and the suona player from Zhongzhai. Dongsheng looked haggard and one of his feet was bare. The Tian brothers had cracked jokes to boost the villagers' morale. “We don't have to be afraid if the county head comes. We can hold that upper and lower cave even against heavenly troops. They'd soon be tired of cricking their necks looking up. Once all the fat hens hereabouts have been eaten, the county head will go back in his sedan chair to his yamen—he can't do a thing to our sixth Brother.”

The county head was well aware that the men in the mining district near the border were a wild troublesome lot, hard to control with a display of force. His idea had been to exploit their fear of officials and, while ostensibly suppressing bandits, to stay with some of the local gentry, enjoy a few feasts and then hold a meeting to settle the dispute. The ringleaders would have to hand over Dongsheng and the opium, or he could behead some unlucky villager (maybe one who had broken the law a few years before, or simply some pauper who had done nothing wrong) to hang his head in the market place as a warning. At another meeting he would impose a levy on each village for pacifying the countryside and to pay for ammunition, feasts and straw sandals for his guards. He would also select a couple of loads of the local gentry's sausages and bacon, as well as several dozen plump hens and big roosters. In addition he would demand a hundred or so ounces of rare herbal medicine to cure his wife's heart disease. Then with triumphant bugling his guards would march back to the yamen. His secretary would write a news release for the subsidized provincial paper, announcing when the county head had sallied forth, when he had returned victorious after fearlessly leading a fierce attack on the bandits. The county head would also report this as if it were the truth to the provincial government, referring to himself as “this humble official” while blowing his own trumpet. To add a touch of variety he could also publish an account in the name of some village representatives. In this way he could kill three birds with one stone: saving trouble, having a good time, and making a name and a profit. If all went well and his luck held, this might lead to his speedy promotion.

But the Tian Brothers are no fools: they were well aware of his intentions. However, though the Tian brothers understood the county head's psychology, they overlooked his determination not to lose face, as well as that of the captain.

Five hours after the scouts reported back, over a hundred Gaoxian militiamen were ordered to set out with weapons and rations to surround and wipe out the bandits in Tiger Cave. The county head himself would direct this campaign. His arrival had thrown the village and the captain into a commotion of feverish excitement. Two women were especially on edge. Not knowing what to do, they hid themselves in the mill, hearts thumping behind a gap in the low wall as they watched in silence while the troops marched off. One was Dongsheng's old mother, afraid that her son, forced to flee to Tiger Cave, might be killed in the confusion with the robbers, leaving her nothing to live for. The other was the captain's old mother, who thought it most unwise to make enemies of the Tians over such a trifle. Here he'd raised troops and brought those guardsmen from town to eat them out of house and home, frightening the villagers and scaring away even the hens and dogs. He should have sent a friend to negotiate and spend a little money to settle the matter—that would have saved her worry. The new bride beside them, still looking shy, did not know what to say or think. The captain had mounted his white mule, and with a loaded mauser over one shoulder was riding off behind the county head, when suddenly he remembered his widowed mother's frailty and love for him and her far-sightedness. He galloped back to the mill.

“Don't worry about me, mum. A big force like ours can't be worsted.”

But when he saw the tears in the narrowed eyes of the two wrinkled old ladies, and the dread in his bride's black eyes, he realized that more than this was preying on his mother's mind. Rather flustered he stuttered, “Mother, it's all right! We shan't kill people at random. We're all kinsmen, not enemies, and the county head says if they just hand over Dongsheng and...a small fine will settle the business. I'm not such a fool as to kill a man to start an endless feud!”

“For goodness'sake be careful, we don't want trouble!” the old lady urged him. “You're not like the county head who can get away with murder. If it comes to the worst, he can just clear out. But this is your home, where your dad and grandad are buried; so mind you don't bungle things! This rumpus you've raised is breaking my heart. I'll pray to your father and Buddha to protect you, and vow to kill two pigs if you come back safe and sound!”

His bride, young and inexperienced, just admired his heroism.

As the troops set out for Tiger Cave, the womenfolk, children and old men stood in front of their gates, on the ridges of the fields or in the temple court to watch the excitement. The contrast between the rowdy troops and the quiet village after snow made a vivid impression on them. It did not seem an uncalled-for raid but a seasonable and enjoyable hunt.

Tiger Cave, twenty li east of Gaoxian, was just about two li from the boundary of t...