white nights jia pingwa [at the beginning of a lengthy excerpt (STRANGE EVENTS, OPERA, SELF-IMMOLATION OF THE REINCARNATED MAN) a few notes on jia pingwa in translation]
[A FEW NOTES ON JIA PINGWA IN TRANSLATION] ▣ i once lamented the fact that we would never see an english translation of jia pingwa’s abandoned capital. i still call it by that english-language title. that was how everyone referred to it. it appeared as ruined city in english just about ten years ago now. and then i lamented the fact that the greatest work of modern chinese literature could appear with almost no reaction outside of specialist circles. it was a bestseller, infamously banned in china, later unbanned. it shook the literary scene. and the english translation earned a brief, confused review in the times. it was all meaningless. ▭ let me say more about abandoned capital, even if i would like to write here about what followed it. it is unlike any other novel. it defies description. i can say this: it is a novel about late twentieth century urban life written in the style of a ming-qing erotic picaresque. it is about corruption and sex, sometimes about the life of a writer, about the history of the city… ▭ the book meant something to me. i have said this before. i read it at at a time when my life could still be changed by a book. this is partly sentimental. but i still discover new things in it. ▭ there is no chance of the five novels that followed abandoned capital appearing in english translation. i can lament that. if you have read abandoned capital, you will want to read those books, too. ▭ i say that none of the novels have been translated. that’s not true. translations of them might have been shoved in desk drawers long ago, unpublished. and the earthen gate, the second novel after abandoned capital, was translated by hu zongfeng and he longping, with the assistance of robin gilbank. it was published but it might as well have been shoved into a drawer. it came out through a tiny british press. there was no promotion. i know how few copies have sold of my translations. i can guess that my copy is one of dozens that has been sold outside of china. it was a project to ship books back to china to decorate the offices of cultural bureaucrats. the translators did a fine job. ▭ but i think we will never see translations of white nights, old gao village, remembering wolves, or health report. these are important novels, but jia pingwa is not an important writer outside of china. he was left behind in acclaim overseas by his peers, like mo yan and yan lianke. what can i do about that? ▣
[WHITE NIGHTS] ▣ i think white nights is the best of the five, by which i mean it is the most similar to abandoned capital. i am referring only to a style. it is not about sex. it’s about death and music. ▭ the book follows a migrant worker named ye lang. jia pingwa likes to write about sojourners in the city. ye lang is abandoned capital’s zhou min. ye lang is working on a construction site and meets an opera performer named nan dingshan, who introduces him to a municipal bureaucrat that helps him secure a position at the provincial library. he also joins through nan dingshan and a romance with the musician yu bai the cultural scene in the city. this is a limited description. like abandoned capital, the plot of white nights is hard to summarize. the plot doesn’t matter. ▭ i would like to share some of the novel. this is a translation not always up to my standards. it is schematic. it needs polishing. but you can judge for yourself. ▭ this is the beginning of the novel. like abandoned capital, with its opening scenes of a fantastic flower growing from a pot of soil borrowed from yang guifei’s tomb and multiple suns appearing in the sky, white nights begins with a guaishi, with a strange story, a supernatural event. this leads into the main narrative. the stories of the central characters of the novels, then, are also parts of the legend. ▭ this is what makes jia pingwa so brilliant, i think, this mixture of legend and realism. it is something different from what the magical realists of china attempted in the 1980s. it is indebted again to the ming-qing vernacular novels. ▭ legend becomes realism and fractures again and again into dreams, drama (mulian rescues his mother in this case), more legend. ▭ it is difficult. i can only say that i will do my best. ▣
[A FEW NOTES ON MY TRANSLATION] ▣ some translators would argue it is unethical to publish unapproved translations like this. i always note that. i feel exceptions can be made, since this is not a work that is being shopped around by another translator. it was published thirty years ago. ▭ even worse, i have taken liberties here. this is not the sort of work i would send to an editor. this is translating in an idiosyncratic style. i think it works, but you might not. it should inspire you to secure the permission of the author and the rights to the novel, find a source of funding, convince an agent of its worth, dump hours of unpaid labor into preparing a sample, and publish a translation! ▭ i might manage to work my way through more of the novel later, but this is a beginning. ▣
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WHITE NIGHTS EXCERPT BEGIN
the autumn that KUAN GE met YE LANG was the same autumn THE REINCARNATED MAN came to the city.
a key hung at his breast, a shiny copper key. only a child away from home carries a key around their neck. THE REINCARNATED MAN walked right up to number seven bamboo alley, where an old woman lived, and put the key in the door. it was a lock built into the door. he twisted the key left, twisted it to the right, but it would not open. THE REINCARNATED MAN cried out. ah hui! ah hui! that was the name that the old woman was called when she was a girl. even her neighbors did not know it. she opened the door. she froze. she dropped the piece of bamboo screen that she had been weaving. he told her his name. in another life, ah hui, i was your husband. even though i have passed on, my love for you has never faded. i came here to see you. why doesn't this key work anymore? THE REINCARNATED MAN raised the guqin he had tucked under his arm. he started to strum a tune that sounded like a farewell song. almost as soon as his fingers hit the strings, he pulled them away and laughed. not much has changed around here, he said. when ii was around, everyone down this alley made a living weaving bamboo. it’s still the same. anything made of bamboo, you could find it here. i remember, they used to make door curtains, and bamboo baskets for sieving rice, and in the summer they made fans and bamboo pads that you could put on your bed to stay cool when it got hot. almost every house had stacks of bamboo steamers out front, twelve of them in a stack. this was where they made them, all around here. that’s how they earned a living around here. the best weavers in the city. they could do it in the dark, by feel! THE REINCARNATED MAN knelt down and felt under the cabinet where he kept the earthenware jar that housed his crickets. he blew the cobwebs off the lid and held it affectionately. he spoke about the time when he and the woman had been man and wife. he told her about things only she would know. he told her about the day that he fell in love with her. it had been the eighteenth of august. she was a servant to a shopkeeper. she was crouched by the side of the road, rinsing out a chamber pot. as she worked, the filthy water running out of the pot soaked his boots. he was wearing black boots with white soles. he was about to scold her. she looked up. she stuck her tongue out. she smiled. it was a gentle smile. it was fate. he fell in love with her. he told her about a winter night, when they had met below the city wall. it was a moonless night. they embraced under a locust tree. they crashed back against the tree. leaves fell. they weren't paying attention. they didn't notice the man crouched in the grass a short distance away. he threw a chunk of brick. he hit him on the shoulder. it didn’t hurt. ah hui felt something warm and sticky dripping on her face. she smelled his blood. you don't remember, ah hui? remember that wart on your ass? you went to the city god’s temple with a length of string, then took it home, tied it around it, and it fell off. is the wall still there in the back yard? every time you brushed your hair, you took the hair out of the brush and balled it up in your palm. you used to put the hair into the cracks in the wall. remember when my tooth fell out? you pushed it into a crack in that wall, too. before he could finish, she broke down and sobbed. it really is you, she said. it must be you. you came back for me? she led him into the house, prepared him a meal, and began making the place ready for him to stay.
this legend quickly spread from bamboo alley all across the city. this legend was what KUAN GE was talking about over drinks with YE LANG. YE LANG laughed coldly. he paused to listen to the pipa player. he cocked his head. she wasn't very good but YE LANG listened closely. he lately had taken an interest in composing music. a composer should sit at a piano. he should have long hair, like a lion’s mane, spilling over his shoulders. he should lower his head in concentration and then lift it to hum a snatch of the tune. what was written on the papers in front of YE LANG were only fragments. KUAN GE shook his head. he stretched his neck in the stiff collar of his policeman's uniform. the sight of the sharp-faced man and the sound of his chilly laugh disturbed him. the laugh was arrogant, it seemed to him. arrogant people can never be reformed. they are stubborn. they could never be reconciled with the people around them. KUAN GE bent to the table and slurped up a puddle of liquor. he could not understand what he saw in the man. how could he treat him as a friend? was he born to that fate? he snorted and sent the sheaf of papers flying. he wasn’t worried about upsetting him. he wanted to prove to him that he was right. he wanted to take YE LANG to see the old woman at number seven bamboo alley. when they got there, he saw a white parasol hung from the door. the old woman was already dead.
YE LANG sighed. the liquor hit him. he retched into the gutter. at that moment, there was an uproar from the south end of the alley. from a crowd of people, pressed together, came a voice: is he going to light himself on fire.
the crowd as one fell back. the crowd rushed forward. they looked like a field of wheat in a summer breeze. From among them sprouted a mushroom of fire. the crowd roared with alarm and fell back again. they did not run away. something’s wrong, KUAN GE said. he ran toward the fire. by the time YE LANG had caught up to him, KUAN GE had already burst into a shop and grabbed a bucket of waste water. he might as well have been tossing kerosene. the flames rose higher. they glowed pink with a layer of blue around them. the man inside the fire sat down. the burning man glowed like amber. there were cries to save the man, but nobody dared step into the fire. YE LANG asked who the man was that had lit himself on fire. YE LANG tried to get a better look. KUAN GE roared for him to run to call the fire department. there were only little shops along the alley and none had a phone. he had to run to another alley before he found a phone. he waited there for the fire engines to past. in those forty minutes, the burning man was reduced to gray dust. the firemen did not bother wasting their extinguishers. the fire that had raged in front of an astonished crowd of hundreds of people burned itself out. all that was left was a scorched mark in the shape of a person on the pavement .
the man that had lit himself on fire was THE REINCARNATED MAN. the old woman had taken in THE REINCARNATED MAN and begun preparing a meal. it was the time of year when the buds of the locust tree were in season. they had just appeared in the market that morning. she rolled them with flour and set them to steam. she went out into the backyard of their house and collected in a bamboo basket some tender buds from the toon trees. the locust buds came out of the steamer looking like silver pieces. many years ago, people in xijing used to love eating them that way. nowadays, they do not. she cooked many things that day. she waited for her children to come home. she wanted to gather as a family again and to hear her children call their father. they did not believe her. they were already older than THE REINCARNATED MAN that she claimed was their father. they were materialists. they didn’t believe in superstition. they worried about what people in the alley would say. they refused to call THE REINCARNATED MAN their father. they said that they would go to the public security bureau and report the man. the old woman wept. she went into the back yard and hanged herself from the toon tree. when she was dead, THE REINCARNATED MAN went out into the alley. he played his qin and wailed at the neighbors. tears ran down his face. this went on for three days. the man that had already died once set himself on fire and died again.
the scorched skeleton of THE REINCARNATED MAN could not be swept from the surface of the alley. KUAN GE scraped at it with a coal shovel. the final traces of THE REINCARNATED MAN clung to the pavement like streaks of melted bitumen. all that KUAN GE succeeded in doing was uncovering the shiny key.
KUAN GE did not care about the key. he regretted that the guqin had burned. he regretted that he had been carried away in the moment and had not paused to listen to the tune that the man in the fire was playing. he remembered the final rhythm. it resembled a classical seven-character couplet: pingping zeze pingping ze / zeze pingping zeze ping.
when YE LANG had rushed away to call the fire department, somebody had stolen the cover of the bell on his bike. he was searching for the cover or the thief, and contemplating stealing somebody’s else’s bell cover, when KUAN GE came over, mumbling. what’s all this, pingping zeze? he asked. he couldn’t answer. YE LANG took the key from him. he tried it in many locks but none opened. he thought to himself, in xijing, there are two things everyone needs: a bell for your bike and a key. the bell on your bike was like your voice. if you lost your bell, you lost your voice. bell covers were often stolen. if you lost yours, you took somebody else's. and it went on like this, so that everybody eventually suffered. was it possible that at any given time in the city only one person was without a bell cover? and a key. a key could only fit in one lock. if you unlocked it, you owned it. unless you were a thief. this key, he told himself, must have its own lock. the key belongs to something and since i have the key, whatever it unlocks belongs to me, too. the man that had lit himself on fire must not have managed to find the place he belonged. YE LANG slid it onto his key ring. on the key ring was a tiny stainless steel spoon for cleaning his ears. he had a habit of taking it out in a crowd to scrape out his ears. after that, whenever anybody saw the copper key, he told them the story of THE REINCARNATED MAN.
after THE REINCARNATED MAN died, a hotel was built on bamboo alley. it was built on the site of the self-immolation, so the developers knew they needed to give it an auspicious name. they called it pingze palace. a terrible tragedy led to the creation of a place devoted to beautiful music.
there were many luxury hotels in xijing, but this was the first in the southwest corner of the city. the architect had something new in mind for the hotel. the building was shaped like a zhongni qin. the entrance of the hotel was guarded by five basalt lions, which also stood out in xijing at the time. it's not that guardian lions were rare, but these were different from most that that stood outside of many banks and hotels in the city. the average guardian lion always wears a dumb expression. they stands mouth agape like frogs. the lions of pingze palace had a proud posture. they looked up, as if watching the heavens for some divine signal. even though they were carved from grey basalt, you could imagine their eyes gleaming red. the lions were built by a local company from stone quarried in suide county in the northern half of shaanxi. YE LANG worked for this company. his job was running out to suide and coming back with any materials the contractors needed. while working on the lions, YE LANG was given a small room in the hotel.
at that time, the hotel held many conferences. the pingze palace was doing good business.
YE LANG made a habit of slipping into the lavish banquets thrown by bureaucrats and businessmen in the hotel’s conference halls and dining rooms. as the toasts were being given at one banquet, he would slip into the banquet. the hotel's servers started to wonder who he was. they asked one of the guests: is he a politician or something? what do you mean?" the banquet guest looked over at YE LANG. he seems to be invited to every banquet. as soon as YE LANG heard them, he rose to go. of course! the banquet guest said. he struts like a general! YE LANG wasn't dressed well but he carried himself well. YE LANG reached down and took a toothpick from the jar at his place and pocketed a book of matches from the table. the banquet guest rushed over. who exactly are you? the banqueter asked. you must think you're somebody, coming in here, taking a toast, and then just striding out. do you know who i am? YE LANG cupped his hands in front of his breast and gave a bow. i'm your biggest fan, he told the banqueter.
you must be mistaken, the man said. NAN DINGSHAN is NAN DINGSHAN's biggest fan. that is how YE LANG met NAN DINGSHAN. NAN DINGSHAN was famous for playing comic roles in shaanxi opera. he had been a local celebrity, taking to stages across the province in the long gown, rouged cheeks, painted-on moles, and flowing silk sleeves of the nagging older woman roles of the choudan. but the red sun had set. mao zedong was replaced by another type of superstar. there was the movie star. there was the sports star. there was the pop star. pop stars came to xijing and played in stadiums, but not many went to see the local opera. NAN DINGSHAN became a smalltime operator. he made money with occasional shows, or events like this one, where he performed for banquet guests without his trademark make-up. he did it for the meager paycheck. he did it because it satisfied his addiction to performing. YE LANG and NAN DINGSHAN both had the stink of the countryside on them. they sniffed each other out. without knowing him, NAN DINGSHAN had noticed that YE LANG might be somebody special. he sized him up again. a hundred years ago, you would have been commanding the cavalry, NAN DINGSHAN said, but now you're reduced to a stable boy. YE LANG chuckled and pinched NAN DINGSHAN's chubby cheeks. all those years playing a woman, he said, i can’t believe it didn’t turn you gay. i had a fortune teller predict my future, NAN DINGSHAN said, when i was just a boy, and he said i should've ended up a high official but i was doomed in this life to play a high official's wife, all because my ancestor's graves were put in the wrong place.
NAN DINGSHAN had another ability, which is that he could write paint and write calligraphy, and through that ability had met some famous calligraphers. he had a good relationship with ZHU YIHE, a secretary in the municipal government. when guests came from beijing, ZHU YIHE called on NAN DINGSHAN to assemble his calligrapher friends at the pingze palace. once, after drawing an orchid at a banquet of calligraphers and distinguished guests, someone proposed a couplet to add to it: in every blossom an entire world; in every petal enlightenment. NAN DINGSHAN waved him off. the neglected geniuses once fled to the mountains, he proposed, now they hide in the alleys of xijing. neglected geniuses? asked ZHU YIHE with a chuckle. you're a celebrity in this town, a famous actor. what are you griping about? i am not talking about myself, NAN DINGSHAN said, but about my brother here. he nodded toward YE LANG. he introduced him to the guests of the banquet. YE LANG lived up to his friend's introduction. he answered each question from ZHU YIHE competently and smoothly. ZHU YIHE took a liking to YE LANG. he gave YE LANG his business card and phone number, and invited him to his house. YE LANG went to his home several times. he gifted ZHU YIHE a pair of small stone lions from suide. ZHU YIHE remarked: i meet so many people in government, but i don't manage to get along with any of them as well as i get along with you. after that, ZHU YIHE tried to get YE LANG a job at the city library. the director of the library, a man named GONG CHANGXING, protested at first, but eventually took YE LANG on as an assistant. he was in charge of filing, writing materials, and public relations. after all his years sojourning in the city, YE LANG never expected that sort of good luck. ZHU YIHE was already in his sixties and lived alone. he paid close attention to YE LANG. it was through ZHU YIHE that he happened to meet YAN MING, too. she worked in the hair salon of a hotel in the city. she occasionally worked for ZHU YIHE as a housekeeper. NAN DINGSHAN couldn't help himself from joking about their relationship. they were like ZHU YIHE's son and daughter, he observed.
in the months after the lions went up in front of the pingze palace, crowds came to take in their strange appearance. something even more peculiar was happening to the residents of bamboo alley. every household seemed to have someone that had dreamed about lions. it wasn't long before they started to die. the coroner named the cause of death myocardial infarction. people in the alley diagnosed bad fengshui caused by the installation of the lions. they hanged mirrors at their front doors. at night, the lions were bound with red string. but people kept dying. the residents came together to organize a protest. the hotel managers agreed to move the lions and stage a ghost play. a troup performance baishen, with NAN DINGSHAN playing one of the central roles. that led to another performance being commissioned. NAN DINGSHAN noted that there was a tradition of performing mulian jiu mu in shaanxi opera. it was a good choice. it was a performance of meeting of the worlds of the living and the dead, of actor and audience, of the stage and the environment around it. it had been decades since any of the local actors had performed it. it was a time when anyone would say the unsayable and do the unthinkable, as long they earned cash. once someone got rich, they no longer fears leopards and tigers. they feared their fellow man. and they feared ghosts. mulian would be a hit. and compared to the hit-and-run banquet shows, singing arias without any of the makeup, the performers would have an opportunity to show their artistic abilities and make a bit of money. NAN DINGSHAN started working on finding and then preparing a libretto, as well as securing the right actors and musicians for the job. YE LANG suggested KUAN GE as a xun player. he turned them down. YE LANG took the job.
YE LANG took a salary from the library and another from the opera troupe. he was living high on the hog, it seemed to everyone else. he strutted. he reached into his pocket and rubbed the box of matches. he grew closer to YAN MING. he didn't follow traditional customs. he simply asked her one day: are you willing to marry me? she shot back: are you willing to marry me? YAN MING started to put more effort into how she lived. she rubbed vitamin e and cold cream into her cheeks. one day when he came over, YE LANG found her face caked in white, except for slices of cucumber over her eyes. he asked her: did you see that notice up on the lightpost downstairs?
she turned slightly, trying not to shake off the cucumbers. what's going on? she asked. missing person?
YE LANG said: someone picked a face up out of the gutter on bamboo alley. why don't you go claim it? YAN MING stood and was about to slap him. what does a woman have except her face? she asked. you've got a good face, YE LANG teased. too good to marry. YAN MING asked: what do you mean? YE LANG felt something stirring between his legs. he pulled YAN MING to him. he put her hand there. YAN MING flushed. even her ears were red. she gave in and rubbed. she couldn't feel anything. what's wrong? she demanded. YE LANG told her: i've had that problem since i was young. YAN MING's shoulders drooped. she looked like a chicken caught in a downpour. she went into the living room and cried. YE LANG couldn't help but find it funny. he decided not to try it again for a while. she was the type that he could tolerate. if he kept a steady job and made a name for himself, things would be fine.
unexpectedly for YE LANG, there were problems among the leadership of the city. this sort of thing was not uncommon, and everyone in the local governments and organizations was used to it. in the end, compromises could usually be struck. but this time the mayor and the city party secretary would not bend. the province, beijing, and the localities were divided between their factions. in the end, the mayor was transferred out of the city to another post.
as the saying goes, once the tree falls, the monkeys move on. after the mayor left, ZHU YIHE was fired. he was offered a post in a distant suburb of the city. ZHU YIHE had been a lecturer at a junior college before entering politics, and seeing his hopes for a political career dimming, he decided to go back to teaching. but things did not go smoothly. he had been out of the profession for too long. his superiors were rough on him. he lost his title. he had a stroke. he was unconscious for five days. he had no relatives, so YE LANG and YAN MING were the only ones to stay by his bedside. when the doctors told YE LANG that there was no hope of saving ZHU YIHE, he wrote an angry poem and pasted it up on the hospital gate.
it said: learned men can build the nation, the king of hell might turn a blind eye, a title can kill the scholar that claims it, the common man has no hope. the new mayor was unhappy with the protest. he ordered the poem torn down. but it spread like wildfire. the mayor, hoping to calm the uproar, sent a note to the disciplinary committee and had ZHU YIHE reinstated as a professor. on the seventh day after his stroke, he regained consciousness. he was deaf. all he could do was sit on his bed. he was a dead man that could still eat. he was entombed before his death.
after ZHU YIHE's stroke, YE LANG was let go from the library. GONG CHANGXING sent someone to give the message to YE LANG that he was not needed anymore. YE LANG howled when he heard the news. YAN MING did her best to console him. for a long time, he did not speak. he spit a broken tooth on the floor. he spit up phlegm stained with blood. except for his rehearsals for the play, he did not go out. on the sixth day of june, the preparations were nearly complete. the actors and musicians went to the temple to make offerings. the xiaohualian went first. the dahualian went next. finally, there was the laosheng, the xiaosheng, the qingyi, the laodan, and the xiaodan. they made solemn vows. they promised to perform to the best of their abilities. when it was done, they sat down to a meal of noodles. YE LANG ordered a bowl without meat. NAN DINGSHAN said: you don't eat meat, a sturdy specimen like yourself...? you haven't eaten meat since you were young? you look like you came up feasting on raw flesh! YE LANG said: i eat noodles. they symbolize longevity, don't they? he slurped up a mouthful. NAN DINGSHAN said: men are living beings. ghosts are living beings. stick with me. a life in the theater will provide you with a living. YE LANG's mouth froze as he tried to speak. his long face seemed even longer.
one day, NAN DINGSHAN's shifu CHOU LAO JIAO arrived. he passed out a score to the musicians and gave them three days to copy it down. he was about to go to check through the costumes, but someone from the city government arrived to invite him to a banquet. CHOU LAO JIAO protested: a lowly player like myself, called to eat with the city fathers? he went home and ironed his trousers. he put on a pair of velveteen slippers. he figured out that the banquet was being held for a taiwanese businessman. the city government had invited people from many fields. CHOU LAO JIAO upon learning who the banquet was for gave a terrible sneeze that spattered the table with snot. he left the banquet. thirty years before, he had gone to korea with the guest-of-honor. they were fighting for the same side. both men were taken prisoner. they planned an escape. the future guest-of-honor squealed to the guards. CHOU LAO JIAO made it out, along with two other men, but it was not easy. when he got back across the line, he fell under suspicion. he had to take shelter in the theater, playing the clown roles. he learned the clappers, too. the guest-of-honor made his way somehow to taiwan. CHOU LAO JIAO took ill when he heard the news. the players and musicians went to his bedside. they postponed rehearsals. in the end, the troupe decided to put the show on for CHOU LAO JIAO, hoping that it would rouse him.
they set up in the old man's yard. they sang for hours. finally, a voice came from inside the house: there's something wrong with him. the clappers went silent. everyone rushed inside and
WHITE NIGHTS EXCERPT END
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