YANG K’UEI

(1905– )

While Yang K’uei (pen name for Yang Kuei) can be broadly identified as a patriot in the tradition of Lai Ho, his antipathy for the Japanese has less to do with politics than with class. This is evident in his first work of fiction, “Newspaper Boy” (Sung-pao fu, 1932), an autobiographical story about his experience in Japan. At the end of the story, a Mr. Yorifuji confronts the narrator with this question: “I’ve lived in Taiwan for some time. Do you like the Japanese?” After some deliberation, the newspaper boy confesses that he likes his colleague Mr. Tanaka more than his own brother. The reason is that whereas Mr. Tanaka, an exploited newspaper boy like our autobiographical hero, has treated him with all the respect and assistance due a comrade, his own brother is a policeman serving the Japanese overlords in Taiwan. It is in this light that “Mother Goose Gets Married” in our anthology should be read.

One of the highlights in Yang’s life is his founding of New Taiwan Literature (T’ai-wan hsin wen-hsüeh) in 1935, which was suppressed by the Japanese authorities two years later. After serving jail sentences more than ten times, he aborted his literary career and took up farming. The story in “Mother Goose Gets Married” is based on this period of experience. He resumed his literary activities after the war and served as editor of two newspaper literary columns until he was jailed by the Nationalist Government in 1950, presumably because of his leftist sympathy. In 1982 he was invited by the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa to visit the United States for three months. His works are included in Taiwan Literature under the Japanese Occupation (Kuang-fu-ch’ien T’aiwan wen-hsüeh ch’uan-chi).

Mother Goose Gets Married

Translated by Jane Parish Yang

I.

Flower gardeners, like parents the world over, all hope that the plants they raise blossom into hearty, beautiful flowers.

But during late spring and early summer, weeds also flourish and keep me especially busy. I root them out, but they grow right back and the process repeats itself. If I neglect to weed for several days, the whole garden becomes choked with wild grass.

I had to leave home to pay my last respects to the young Mr. Lin Wench’ien, who had passed away, and, at the same time, to undertake some unfinished business on his behalf. Though I was away from home for less than ten days, the whole garden had very nearly turned into a thick lawn. The flower shoots, hidden by the weeds, could be seen only by parting the wild growth. These flowers, robbed of their sunlight and mineral nutrients by the weeds, had become thin, yellowed, frail, and, just like the pallid young intellectuals of our day, devoid of any vitality. Most of them withered and died.

After I returned home, I was kept busy weeding the garden for many days. Before I had finished weeding half of it, the stubborn weeds would grow back thick and tall where I had first weeded.

A mixed feeling of weariness, sadness, anger, and impatience occupied my mind as I weeded, recalling the early death of Lin Wen-ch’ien and his ruptured home. I was unable to calm myself.

A weed called cattle crest grew in the yard. Its roots were long and dense. Cowhands made rope from this weed to tie up their cows. Like a man ready to fight to the death, I would stand with my feet planted firmly apart, grabbing the cattle crest with both hands and pulling with all my might. I would pull until I was red in the face and sweat rolled down my back, but the weed wouldn’t budge. I would have to call my son over to help. The two of us would yank this way and that until it finally came out with a “pop” and we fell backwards along with it. We often lacked the strength to get back up again. Because the roots were so numerous, every time we pulled up a bunch of the cattle crest, several small flower shoots would be pulled up with the weeds. One had to use all one’s strength and sacrifice many flowers in order to pull them out.

“These damn weeds!”

I would hold the cattle crest in my hand, amazed at its roots, which were as bushy as the hair of the Furies. Then I would angrily throw it to the ground and trample on it. The children would fight over who would get to jump on the weeds and imitate my tone of voice: “These damn weeds!” Then they would grin at each other, laughing lightheartedly the way one does after trying with all one’s strength and wits to get rid of a vicious power that bullies the good.

II.

I met Lin Wen-ch’ien in the special reading room in the Ueno Public Library. I don’t remember the date; I can recall only that it was a sweltering afternoon and I was soaked with perspiration. But the rest of what had happened is clear in my mind.

At that time I was studying at Nippon University. I often fell asleep during my aesthetics course from two to three o’clock in the afternoon, so I had to go to the Ueno Public Library right after class to make up for what I had missed in the lectures. This was perhaps due to my laziness. The professor lectured with enthusiasm—his voice was like a silvery bell tinkling in the breeze—but I was never able to concentrate. My notebook was full of question marks, not like the notebooks of the bright scholars who were able to record everything the professor said, including, I think, how many times he coughed. I thus didn’t have any free time to wander around the Ginza, but was a constant visitor to the library.

One day I was in the library looking for information on primitive art, which I hoped would answer some of the questions the professor had raised in class. I was carefully going through the card catalog when someone patted me on the back. I looked around and saw it was my classmate in the economics department. He looked at my notebook, so different from the others, and laughed. Though we had often run into each other at school, we hadn’t established a personal friendship. But we knew we were both Taiwanese, and it was a rare pleasure to exchange talk on our homeland in this faraway place of Tokyo. We became fast friends.

At the time, I was studying primitive art in order to gain a deeper understanding of the very nature of art. His wealth of knowledge about the economics of primitive society helped me resolve many questions. We often discussed this in the shade in the park. Sometimes we would continue the discussion in my three-tatami sized room, finally moving to his eight-tatami sized room. His room had chairs, tea and snacks, and quite a few reference works. It was a more convenient place for long talks. Our discussions were enthusiastic and frank, and during each we both were passionate debaters. What set us apart was that he led a comfortable life, with no economic cares, and I had to go to the night market every evening to work as a hawker to pay for my tuition and living expenses. By dusk the face of this passionate debater would change into that of a petty-minded and most ingratiating businessman.

My life went on like this for three months, until he discovered that this double life I was leading was affecting my studies. Then he volunteered to pay my expenses. This allowed me to devote all my energy to research as he did, and I became his constant companion in his studies.

I returned to Taiwan five years earlier than he did, but as soon as he got back he came to see me. He quietly walked up behind me as I was squatting down in the flower garden, and tapped me on the shoulder, just as he had done before when we first met in Ueno Public Library. But this time he did it listlessly.

We both had changed much in those five years. I was shocked by the changes in him, and perhaps he felt the same way when he saw me. Anyway, it was he who had changed most. Before, he had the bearing of a gallant young master, steady and energetic. But now? Could it be that he had forgotten and left that part of him back in Tokyo? It was a long time before I recognized it was Lin Wen-ch’ien by his eyes and lips.

He clumsily repeated over and over how he envied me.

“What a joke . . . what is there to envy?”

I tugged at my scraggly inch-long beard, and chuckled to myself. If the kind of life I had been leading these past five years was worthy of envy, then what in the world wasn’t? For those who had majored in art in college, it was simply impossible to find a suitable job. Except for dressing and painting oneself up like a “sandwich man”—wearing two billboards for advertisements and pounding the drum on the street all day—nothing became of our studies. I wasn’t willing to sell my soul that way, so I took on a number of odd jobs that demanded physical labor. As a result, my health deteriorated. On the advice of and with financial assistance from some friends, I took up flower gardening. This was vastly different from being a laborer; I could control my own schedule without being pushed around by others. And it was a much more enjoyable job.

III.

As soon as I saw Lin Wen-ch’ien, I realized how tired he was. But the fatigue that showed on his face was probably not from the long journey. More probably it was the result of some radical change in his life.

Though he didn’t have a scraggly beard like mine, his face seemed withered and pale. His former intense, energetic air had completely vanished. His face seemed that of someone disillusioned and lost.

I went to the stream at the back of the garden to wash my hands and feet, then led him into my small hut. It was about the size of eight tatami mats laid down in one piece, much larger than the minuscule three-mat room of mine in Tokyo where we had held our heated debates. But book shelves, trunks of clothes, quilts, and miscellaneous items were strewn all over the mats. The children had pulled everything out again to play, so there wasn’t room for anyone to sit down. I hurriedly put some things away and made room in the corner of a torn mat.

He was very exhausted. I hadn’t even invited him to sit down before he plunked himself down, closed his eyes, and stretched out his legs. He leaned against the mud wall, his clothes becoming smudged with dirt. I became alarmed and brushed them off, then stuck a page of newspaper between his back and the wall. But he said, “Never mind, there’s no need to . . .”

He, who used to be so fastidious about his clothes, now paid no attention when they were dirty like this.

“I’ve changed completely.”

I was staring at him, thinking how strange his reaction had been, when he slowly opened his eyes and sighed.

“You don’t look well. Are you sick?” I was still worried.

“No, no,” he said, and then he began slowly to relate what had happened to him during the five years we had been apart. I listened as he told his story, and both of us fell into a painful, depressing state of mind.

IV.

He said that for about three years after I returned to Taiwan, he had continued his research much as before. But from the fourth year on, his father kept telling him to come home, and he didn’t send him money as often as before. Lin Wen-ch’ien knew right away that the family was having financial problems. Unable to give up his research, he chose to move into the three-tatami sized room I had once rented and to copy my lifestyle, going to the night market and working as a hawker to pay for his living expenses, anxious to put into practice what he had learned about economics.

At that time, Marxist economic thought was at the peak of its popularity. It seemed as if all his hotheaded classmates had been altered by its appeal, calling for class struggle and taking part in the movement to put their theory into practice. But he kept to his own principles, believing that through compromise, not struggle, the same goals could be reached. Of course, he also believed that the economic system that emphasized the acquisition of individual wealth was already outmoded. Being a young man with a spirit of righteousness, he actually looked forward to the end of such an anachronistic system. For this reason, he worked hard to formulate an economic theory that would benefit the masses without resorting to the principles of class struggle. After intensive study of the economic life of primitive men, he was convinced that if the capitalists were to operate on the basics of fairness and benevolence, his “coprosperity” economic plan could be carried out without struggle and bloodshed.

He was heir to the temper and way of thinking of his father, who was a prominent sinologist in his hometown, and as a young child he had been greatly influenced by Confucian ideas:

These are the words of Confucius which Wen-ch’ien had heard from his father since childhood. But it was because of his family’s practice of egalitarianism that their own financial resources were totally exhausted. In an age of greed and selfishness, their Confucian persuasions brought them only bankruptcy, not peace of mind. Ironically, they thought this was due to their lack of consideration for the public interest. If they had acted truly unselfishly, they would not have been troubled by their financial losses.

Although Wen-ch’ien’s father inherited more than a thousand acres of ancestral land, the family had all led a frugal life. Naturally, they didn’t squander their money on wine and women, gambling or opium. But when it came to helping others, their generosity and charitable ways had no limits. Just as Lin Wen-ch’ien had underwritten my tuition and living expenses, his father had paid for the tuition of even more children from destitute families. Whenever someone became ill and had no money, or if a family couldn’t afford to bury its dead, Wen-ch’ien’s father would pay for all the expenses. When the anti-Japanese movement arose, it generated a mass movement of national culture and a demand for democracy and freedom. The elder Mr. Lin contributed most generously to the people working for such causes. He never pressed for the rents from the lands he rented out, which were his only source of income, or for rents in arrears. As a result, all his property, including his own house, was mortgaged—and all fell into the hands of one company.

One Mr. Wang, a senior executive in that company, had the power to save the Lins from bankruptcy. To be fair, it must be said that this Mr. Wang was not a man without feelings. Indeed, he often praised the elder Lin’s character, saying Mr. Lin was the person he respected most. He had also personally advised Mr. Lin not to worry about his financial crisis. However, he mentioned one condition which Mr. Lin, though open-minded as always, found difficult to accept. This increased Mr. Lin’s worry and anxiety and it was this condition which drove the old man, who could have been able to die content, to a miserable end.

Wang’s single condition was a request that Mr. Lin give his daughter, Lin Wen-ch’ien’s only sister, in marriage to Wang as a concubine. If old Mr. Lin agreed to this proposition, not only would the bankruptcy notice be canceled, but other advantages would follow. For example, he would leave old Mr. Lin a little property for his livelihood. In addition, Wang could place Lin Wen-ch’ien in an important position, allowing him to use what he had learned in Japan and eventually restore the prosperity of the Lin family.

This condition really wasn’t unreasonable. Indeed, at a time when some people were forced to sell a child in order to live, the condition which Mr. Wang attached to his proposal was, at least in the eyes of some people, most attractive. Besides having a wealthy and powerful son-in-law in Mr. Wang, old Mr. Lin could not only keep part of his property but also help his own son find a good job. He stood to gain three things by just giving up a daughter. Convinced that his offer was irresistible, Mr. Wang gave a banquet for friends as an advance celebration.

But that was not the way old Mr. Lin looked at things. When he was informed of Mr. Wang’s intention, he nearly had a fit. However, after he had soothed his injured feelings, he was forced to take stock of his situation. After all, he was at a dead end. For one moment he told himself not to yield an inch, since he was an old man whose days were numbered. But then he considered his son, who was about to enter society, and his daughter, Hsiao-mei, and he had second thoughts. He knew that once bankruptcy was declared, the future of his children would be bleak. He thought back and forth on it and finally, tears streaming down his face, he agreed to Mr. Wang’s offer. And he fell ill immediately.

Though the brother and sister understood the old man’s difficulty, they couldn’t accept what he had done. Hsiao-mei resolutely said that she would die rather than marry a dissolute man with no sense of national pride. As for Wen-ch’ien, he had more reason to object to the arrangement, if only because the whole idea ran counter to what he stood for. He could not for any reason sacrifice the happiness of his sister to solve his own financial problems. Thus old Mr. Lin died without solace. Not only did his Utopian plans remain unrealized, but even during the last hours of his life he was denied the peace of mind he deserved.

Lin Wen-ch’ien came to my flower garden to look for me just after he had buried his father. Bankruptcy would befall him, his elderly mother, and his frail younger sister at any moment. It was then that I realized the true meaning of his “envy” of me. Though my father, who raised me and my brothers in poverty, did not leave us with any land or a straw hut, he didn’t leave us in debt, either. Thus we could muddle along and live a relatively quiet life. This was quite a blessing!

I kept staring at this good man, Lin Wen-ch’ien, and thought of his family, the one who had died and the ones still living. Feeling sorry for them, I wept uncontrollably.

After he came to see me, Lin Wen-chien and his sister received three warnings and threats from Mr. Wang. But since his father was no longer a cause of concern, and after seeing that the kind of life I led was not altogether unbearable, Wen-ch’ien resolutely rejected Mr. Wang’s request. And in no time, the bankruptcy announcement arrived.

Somewhat to his surprise, Wen-ch’ien felt completely relieved after the auction. Immediately, he sold off all the unnecessary articles, rented a tiny plot of land, and built a small house. There he planted sweet potatoes and vegetables to maintain a simple life.

V.

Time passed quickly. Another five years went by. Because I got an abundant amount of sunshine, fresh air, and appropriate exercise during this time, I conquered my tuberculosis and regained my health. Because of the experience gained over these past few years, our life became a bit more comfortable. I often thought of my old friend, and just as I was hoping to help him out in some way, the sudden announcement of his death came.

I hurried over to his place.

During these five years, both of us were busy making a living and couldn’t meet often as we had in Tokyo. Even so, we still sent word to each other at times, and whenever we had the opportunity we sought each other out for a long talk. His family had never done manual labor before. Income from sweet potatoes and vegetables was also less than that from raising flowers. Naturally they were much worse off than we were.

Perhaps it is really true that snobbery is a part of human nature. When his father was alive, and signs of their financial trouble had not yet appeared, guests would flock to their door. Yet now, even local people whom Mr. Lin had helped substantially and who were now well off had completely forgotten the existence of this family. Lin Wen-ch’ien’s death did not in any way attract their attention. When I entered his house, I found only his mother and sister crying and a few neighbors helping out. Those who came to pay their respects were very few, and it was all quite desolate.

After hurrying all the way, I rushed into his bedroom, which also served as a study. I was panting and trying to catch my breath when I saw his corpse, covered with a blanket. I couldn’t help feeling shocked. I went over and lifted the blanket. How pitiful he looked, thin as a shadow. The sun had tanned his face a dark brown, and his beard had grown long. Although he was just over thirty, he looked like an old man of fifty or sixty who had died a natural death. I gripped his hand, thin as a bamboo rod, and noticed a trace of blood on his lips. His hands were frigid. My breath came hot and rapid in my chest. I did not usually cry in public, but my eyes clouded over and tears streamed down my face.

A long time passed before I raised my head. It was then that I discovered a thick pile of a draft manuscript on the table by his feet. The title was “Vision of a Co-Prosperity Economic Plan.” It looked as if he had been working here right up to the day before, since there were no specks of dust on the tabletop.

In order to hide my tears, I bent down to take a look at it. His sincerity was apparent in every word, every sentence, stirring up memories from the past. If it weren’t for his corpse lying there before me, I wouldn’t have been able to believe he was dead.

Hsiao-mei said that on his last day he was still digging up sweet potatoes in the garden! This kind of labor was too strenuous for a man with his physique. Moreover, it was apparent from the hastiness of his writing that he knew he was dying. Racing with the shadow of death, he tried frantically to complete the manuscript. Though the front part of this work, which approached two hundred thousand words, was yellowed, the ink of the last twenty some pages was fresh. Traces of blood were evident, another example of how he had forced himself to finish it even as he was coughing up blood. I again gripped his hand, this thin bamboo rod, and wept.

VI.

This was the second year of the war in East Asia. Many young men had been drafted by the Japanese military government to serve as soldiers, laborers, and medics. The industrial buildup destroyed many people’s livelihoods and the rationing of necessities made it mandatory for the people to tighten their belts and wear ragged clothing. Except for those who used their power and influence to become wealthy from the war, everyone else endured the hardship in silence. Whoever dared speak out would be accused of “rumormongering” and of “spy activity.” Japanese agents, relying on the special network they had constructed, thus captured many persons.

At a time when guns and bombs were sounding all around, Lin Wen-ch’ien had put all his energies into finishing that “Vision of a Co-Prosperity Economic Plan,” still hoping that mankind could find its conscience and regain primitive man’s simplicity and purity. Nothing could have been more naïve than this. As a friend, he surely was worthy of respect. But, unfortunately, a man of his convictions could not find a place in the world we lived in, and what he held to be his “vision” would benefit no one, much less himself

Thinking while I worked, I had pulled out a lot of weeds. Weeds which in the past could only be put into the compost pile could now be used as feed for the geese. I used the manure basket to collect them, and as I took them over to the goose pen, the children were just gathering around it, yelling and jumping. Even the baby, not yet two years old, copied his brothers and sisters in laughing and clapping his hands. I thought they were happy about something, but it turned out the flock of ducks had stretched out their necks and were leaping and pecking at the miniature seed rice hanging out from the eaves.

“Papa, the ducks are really shameless!” said my second son, who had just begun kindergarten in April, as he insistently tugged on my hand.

Since the implementation of rationing, we had to reduce our rice consumption by eating millet gruel twice a day; rice was served only at dinner. The children were constantly hungry and searched for sweet potatoes to bake in the stove. This led their mother to call them “shameless.” For this reason, they were happy to see the ducks gobble up the food the way they themselves did, as if they had found moral support in the ducks’ actions.

Two or three ducks were leaping up, then fighting over what they had pecked off the millet stalks. After finishing those kernels off, they stretched their necks up again even higher. In this way the lower sheaves were pecked clean, but the ducks couldn’t leap up high enough for the rest. They just stood underneath, shaking their tails and staring up at the millet stalks. Then from behind them a duck ran up, stepped on the back of the one in front of him, and leaped mightily. Perhaps the bound stalks had become loose, for with this assault, the grains came tumbling down and the brave duck flipped over in a somersault. The other ducks who had been waiting at the side, their necks outstretched, rushed forward in a pack and trampled the one who had just flipped over as they each latched onto a stalk and dragged it off. The duck who had flipped over quacked as he was stepped on. By the time he scrambled to his feet, the spoils had all been carried off and he was left there in a daze.

This little scene was quite amusing and I laughed along with the children but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the duck that had been stepped on. But the children, who had gathered around to watch the ducks’ performance, happily clapped and stamped their feet, even happier than when watching a circus.

“Hey, hey, you’d better hang them up higher. If the ducks eat all these seeds, what will we do next year?” I said to my wife, who was laughing gleefully along with the children.

The millet grains were easier to store than sweet potatoes and were the best way to make up for the shortage of rice, especially since they could be raised between the flowers in the plot. In addition, spreading fertilizer and watering could be done at the same time, not to mention that space could be saved. The other gardeners all said my way of planting was like killing two birds with one stone.

My wife laughed as she gathered the remaining stalks into a bundle, bound it tightly, and hung it up high. The ducks pecked the ground clean, then stretched out their necks toward the stalks hanging high above them. Only after failing to reach the grain did they go elsewhere in search of food. A duck’s capacity for food is very large. They eat both sweet potatoes and grain. At a time when people were going hungry, I didn’t want to raise them at all, but someone had given them to us and my wife brought them home. As a result, I could only watch them go hungry. It was really hard to bear.

Raising geese, though, was much easier. Geese only need to feed on grass. Grass from the garden was plentiful. When the children got out of school they could herd the geese down to the grassy area to feed. They did this every day and had already become fast friends with the geese, whose white feathers looked most lovely. When the children held the geese up to play with them, the geese would honk contentedly in their laps.

“How heavy!” My second son, who had just entered kindergarten, imitated his brother in picking up a goose, but because he couldn’t carry it, he almost dropped it. Frightened, the goose spread its wings and squawked.

“Come on!”

Putting the geese down, the brothers raced to the grassy plot. The geese frolicked in the pond for a while, then spread their wings and, as if flying, raced over.

“Faster, faster! The black one’s faster!”

Both geese had white feathers, but one’s bill was black, the other yellow. The older child rooted for the black bill, the younger one for the yellow bill.

“Faster, faster! Go, yellow one!”

The two brothers acted like cheerleaders, chasing behind to spur the geese on. By the time they got to the grassy area, the two geese had already arrived and were feeding on the tender green grass. Which one had won, the black or the yellow? They didn’t know, and couldn’t have an answer from the geese even if they had asked, so the two boys started to quarrel over it. Finding their argument to be futile, they finally lay in the grass and watched the geese feed, reconciled.

When the gander took a step in the grass, the female goose closely followed. Sometimes they went forward together, their rumps bumping against each other, like a pair of newlyweds very much in love.

Wife follows when husband goes ahead a bit,

Geese don’t make chicken shit.

The children gleefully changed the local folk tune this way to poke fun at them. The white geese strolling in the brilliant sunlight were a beautiful sight to see. They ignored the children’s mockery and reveled in the unobstructed expanse of grass. They cuddled up as they waddled along eating the green grass.

Squatting all day pulling weeds had made my back sore, and I walked down to the grassy plot, too.

“Papa, when will our geese give birth to a baby?”

“They don’t give birth. Geese lay eggs like a chicken.”

“Oh! Eggs give birth to babies?”

“Right. After they sit on the eggs, the little goslings will come out.”

“What a bother. Why don’t they give birth all at once like rabbits?”

It was really beyond me. The children often asked strange questions like this and I had a hard time dealing with them. For example, my second daughter, who always liked to be first, couldn’t accept the fact that she would always be the younger sister.

As for the question why geese don’t give birth to babies, I had to think a long time before coming up with the answer. “Rabbits have milk but geese don’t.” In this way I was able to give the children a passable answer.

“That’s right. Geese don’t have milk. But then how do mother geese feed their babies once they are born?”

“That’s why they lay eggs to raise them!”

“Oh, I see.”

“I want a little gosling. Chin-hua’s goose raised five goslings. They’re a lot of fun!”

“Really? Our geese are big now. I think they’ll be laying eggs pretty soon. Let’s prepare a nest for them.”

The brothers, their expectations raised, addressed the geese saying: “Hurry up and lay eggs so you can raise some babies!”

VII.

The director of the hospital brought the section chief of the General Affairs Department over to the flower garden because they were planning to plant two hundred giant cedar trees around the hospital.

I had flowers for cutting and potted plants here. Decorative trees, shrubs, and fruit trees had to be ordered first before another gardener would send them over. Gardeners all had their own specialties and when ordering from each other would offer twenty to thirty percent discounts.

“Do you have any samples here?” the director asked, after looking around the garden plot.

“Yes, I do. The trees are all planted in the seedbed on the mountainside.”

This was a lie. I had rented a plot on the mountain, but what I had planted were sweet potatoes and cassava to supplement our diet of rice. Because of the capital investment, it was impossible for me to deal directly with this kind of plant, which had to grow for many years before it could be sold. However, claiming the cedar trees to be mine would make a better impression on the customer. I had learned how to tell this kind of little falsehood early on.

“Then when can you deliver them?”

“In about two or three days.” Thus the transaction was completed, two hundred four-foot tall trees, sold for seventy cents apiece, were to be delivered to the hospital within three days.

Ordinarily, earning two to three dollars a day was considered pretty good. I didn’t expect a transaction worth more than a hundred dollars to be completed this simply. Each tree cost me fifty cents, so that for two hundred trees I could earn forty dollars. Subtracting the cost of delivery and planting, I could still clear more than twenty dollars profit. I was elated.

At this time, the children herded the geese home.

“Oh, these two geese are really beautiful! Did you raise them?” asked the director, patting the children’s heads. The children responded to this praise by giggling and bragging: “This is the male and that one is the female. They’re going to lay eggs soon and raise little goslings!”

“That’s wonderful, just wonderful . . . Someone sent me a gander. I’m thinking of raising it but can’t do it without a female . . .”

Before the director could finish, his companion broke in. “That’s right. He’s growing up and you’d better find him a mate. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Ha, ha, ha! That’s right,” the director said to me. “It wouldn’t be right not to get him a bride. This female goose of yours is all right. Would it be possible for you to let me . . .”

The children, who had become worried when they heard the director wanted our female goose, tugged at my clothes and secretly said, “Don’t give her away.” Of course I didn’t mean to let someone else have this “perfectly matched” couple. But, on the other hand, seeing how important a customer he was to us, I couldn’t give him a flat no. I could only say, “We only have this one pair. If you want one, please wait awhile and I will find you one.”

When they heard what I said, the children were no longer worried. But they still seemed to fear the director would take the geese by force, so they herded them into their pen immediately.

The director was, in fact, quite open-minded and didn’t insist on taking this female goose. He just said, “Do what you can for me,” and began looking around for flowers.

“This speckled bamboo is nice, how much is it?” the director asked, turning to his companion. “It would look good planted in that hexagonal flower pot at home.”

That’s right. It would look really nice.”

Because of the female goose incident, I was afraid he was unhappy, so I said: “If you like this one, then I’ll give it to you.” I began to dig it up.

“Well, then thank you. Dig up three of them, then.”

Sensing that he didn’t want the female goose anymore, I generously dug up three speckled bamboo, wrapped them in a newspaper and gave them to him.

“What is this?”

“Bulbous root lily.”

“Please wrap up twenty,” the director said.

I began wrapping them up, but without waiting for me to finish, he asked again: “What’s that?”

“Hydrangea.”

“Dig up two of them . . . And this?”

“Grotto flower.”

“And over there?”

“Garden dahlia.”

His wanting this and that made it hard for me to keep up.

Though I was a little concerned, I thought to myself that no matter how shameless a person might be, he couldn’t want so many things just given to him. But I was also embarrassed to say the price right then. I thought I’d wait until he asked the price, then explain which I could give to him for free and tell him the prices of the others. But he ordered the children to call two rickshaws for him and didn’t mention prices again. With only a “thank you,” he left with a full load of flowers.

I became anxious and said, “I’ll give you the rest of the flowers, but I bought this potted banyan tree in order to rent it out. The original price was six dollars. I’ll let you have it for the original price.”

Sitting in the rickshaw, he looked at the potted plant in his lap, then at me and said: “Six dollars? That’s cheap, but it’s too heavy and hard to carry. I’ll pick it up next time.” He then returned that old potted plant to me. But what he had already taken alone canceled out the twenty dollar profit I could have made.

This transaction had been in vain.

VIII.

Early the next day I went to four or five gardeners to find the giant cedar trees. Because they were scarce, no one was willing to sell them for under sixty cents apiece. I then went to several flower gardeners in the countryside and was finally able to buy them at fifty-five cents apiece. But since the price had already been settled, there was nothing I could do about it. All I could do was deliver the goods to the hospital as promised and hire two workers to plant them.

When the trees were ready to be planted, the director and the section chief supervised. The three of us took a whole day to plant those two hundred trees. By the time we had watered them, it was already quite late. I ordered two bowls of noodles for the workers and sent them home when they finished. After finishing a task, one always relaxes a bit. I didn’t even care about the loss anymore.

The next day I delivered the bill to the hospital. Because the director was not there, I gave it to the section chief and asked him to pay as soon as possible. He looked the bill over, said they would notify me when they would pay, and turned to go. I hurriedly stopped him and asked, “When will that be?”

“Maybe the end of the month.” He knitted his brows as he spoke.

Why not say straighforwardly “the end of the month”? Why add a “maybe”? This really puzzled me. This was the first time I had been involved in such a large transaction. Part of the capital was borrowed. I still owed the gardeners more than twenty dollars. If the date of payment couldn’t be settled on, what was I to do?

I have always hated to run into my creditors. I remember once I owed twenty dollars to a rice shop and the owner took me to court over it. Having to stand up in front of the judge was as uncomfortable as standing before the court of hell. Thus, having waited until the end of the month without any word from the hospital on when they would pay, I went over early one morning to inquire about it. I had to wait a long time until the section chief came to work. I hurried over to him.

“What is it?” He looked straight at me but without giving me his full attention.

I almost blurted out, “What else?” but I restrained myself, comforting myself with the thought that a man in his position was bound to have many things to attend to. So I took a deep breath and politely explained to him the purpose of my visit.

He finally seemed to remember and said, “Oh, you’re the gardener. Too bad. The director said the giant cedars you sent over weren’t like your samples. They’re too slender.”

“Samples? What samples?”

“Weren’t there several trees in your garden? The ones you brought over aren’t the same at all.”

“Who said those were samples? Those were yard trees over six feet tall, two to three dollars each. You ordered four-foot tall saplings. How could they be the same?”

“But that’s what the director said. Well, then, come back and talk to him yourself.”

It was already the end of the month and all he said was “talk to him yourself’! He was clearly making it difficult for me. When the trees were sent over to be planted, they were present to supervise. If there had been a problem, why didn’t they say so then? Why did they wait so long before they found fault? What was I to do? If it were my own money, then waiting a few more days wouldn’t have mattered, but I needed the money to pay back the other gardeners.

“Could you please speak to him right away about this?”

“All right. You wait here.”

At least his manner of speaking was quite pleasant. But if the director used the same excuse as the section chief, I would be in trouble. I had to pay the cedar growers tomorrow.

But the section chief, who said he would be back soon, failed to show up. More and more patients arrived. The sound of straw sandals on the floor was irritating.

I sat on a bench in the waiting room and kept an eye on the door to the director’s office. The worried looks and low moans from the patients, some of whose heads were bound in gauze, added to my depressed feeling.

The nurse came back and asked for my registration card. I shook my head. She looked at me strangely and walked away.

After a long time, the section chief finally came out.

“You’ll have to wait to speak to him. He’s busy right now,” he said when he saw me.

I didn’t feel like talking any more. Though I was distraught, I didn’t want anybody to attend to my business if it meant a longer wait for those suffering people to see their doctor. So I simply said, “Well, then, please help me out because I have to use this money to pay back other people.” After that, I took my leave.

I didn’t feel like doing anything when I got home. I just lay on the bed and waited until noon, then went back to the hospital to see the section chief. This time his attitude was a little different. He repeated again and again that the cedars I brought over weren’t the same as the samples, he suggested that I go to see the director and talk it over with him, for it was the director who had ordered them and who came out personally to receive them when they were delivered.

The hospital at noon was different from in the morning, deserted as if after an ebb tide. I opened the door to the director’s office but found only the nurse on duty inside taking a nap.

“Excuse me, is the director in?”

“He went to inspect the hospital rooms,” she said, yawning.

All I could do was retreat to the bench in the waiting room to wait. A person anxiously listening for footsteps in this silent corridor would certainly be mistaken for a mentally ill patient by others. The nurse, peeking out to see if I was still waiting there, asked about my illness in that tone of voice, saying I should come back earlier some other day. I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry about it. I said I wasn’t looking for him because I was sick but for other business. She then smiled and left.

I waited until two-thirty, when the door creaked open and I saw a man in a white physician’s coat come in. It must be him, I thought to myself, and immediately stood up and cocked my head to look. But it was his assistant, not the director. I slowly returned to the bench to wait. I had never felt such boredom in my life. After waiting about another half an hour, I finally met up with the director.

In order to resolve the situation smoothly, I controlled my temper and first mentioned the business of his asking me to find a new bride for his gander. I said the children had asked all around and finally found a plump and beautiful goose. The beautiful bird weighed eight and a half catties and sold for a dollar a catty. I thought that finding him a new bride for less than ten dollars would please him and that he wouldn’t cause me any more trouble. Thinking this way, I spoke in a very casual manner. I tried to please him by speaking of the goose as a new bride, and hoped he would laugh. I was prepared to accompany him in a chuckle. But he showed no reaction and the pat little speech I had prepared fell apart. He acted in such a haughty manner, not saying whether he wanted it or not, that I never saw the smiling face I had hoped for. Was it that he also had to personally look over the goose before he’d be satisfied?

I could do nothing but ask him directly for the money.

“You should blame yourself,” he said “Businessmen should take care to keep their word. If the cedars you sent had only been a little smaller than the samples in your yard, that would have still been all right. Besides, you charged a high price.”

His face was very severe and his tone unusually harsh, like a judge’s. He was talking to me as if I were a swindler.

“The ones you ordered were four feet,” I said, no longer able to conceal my discontent. “Which ones weren’t four feet tall? All those two hundred saplings were over four feet tall. Some were even closer to five. You mentioned they weren’t the same as the samples. We never talked about any samples. The ones at my house are yard trees that were planted for many years. They’re not saplings. Adult trees and saplings are not the same—that’s perfectly natural. Besides, when we delivered them you personally came out to look them over. If there was anything wrong, you should have said so then. How can you mention this now after they have been planted for so long?”

“You! How dare you blame me! If I had said they weren’t right when you delivered the trees and made you take them back, wouldn’t that have been a lot of trouble for you? I felt sorry for you and here you go blaming me. And I thought you were a sensible person.”

Sensible? I didn’t understand at all what he meant.

Though I was very unhappy, at this point I only wanted him to pay up as soon as possible. I didn’t really care if I had to take a little more loss. I had already breached my contract with the seedbed gardener many times, how could I face him again? So I controlled my hatred and spoke conciliatorily: “How about settling it this way? We’ll go together to any seedbed garden you consider the cheapest. If you find any cedars sold at a lower price than mine, I will take it.”

I thought this was the fairest and the only way out, but my suggestion was received only with mockery:

“You’re really foolish! You think I have that much time to spare? You really don’t have any business sense.”

“I don’t have any business sense?” I said in amazement. What did he mean by this? I was puzzled. Aren’t many large transactions conducted by bidding? Then why was my suggestion met with ridicule? It seemed that I had underestimated the director, who was a doctor of medicine as well as a man with business sense.

I had been running the flower garden for many years already and did business every day. When customers came to buy flowers and we had settled on a price, then the deal was made: cash on delivery. There were some who owed me money for some time if they hadn’t brought money with then, but they had never lagged so long. Moreover, these were transactions of five and ten cents; they never exceeded three to five dollars. Could it be that large transactions are special? No matter what, all I hoped for now was for him to pay me as soon as possible and get it over with. From now on, I wouldn’t dare accept another transaction that promised a large profit, if I had to go through similar troubles—not to mention a bad deal like this one in which I lost a great deal of money.

“You’re right. I have no experience doing such large transactions like this one, so please help me out. “I almost begged him now: “For if I say they’re not expensive and you say they are, if I asked you to check with other seedbeds to compare and you say you haven’t time, then I really don’t know what to do next. My garden work is busy and I’ve spent all this time trying to collect payment on this. This really makes it difficult for me. Please help me out. Let’s be a little more precise, all right? If only you agree to pay me now, pay me whatever price you want to pay.”

“All right. I’ll go talk it over.”

“Who do you still have to go talk it over with? Sir, can’t you decide right now?”

“No.”

He yawned and stood up. I still hadn’t collected what I came for. I had come again in vain.

IX.

The end of the month had already passed. The next month I went to the hospital five times. Sometimes I couldn’t find the director, other times when I found him I didn’t receive a definite answer. I was so angry that I almost went mad, but because I wouldn’t be able to pay back the other gardeners’ bills if I didn’t get the money, I could only put up with it. In the end he lowered the price to fifty cents a tree and I accepted, though it meant losing more than twenty dollars. But even though the price was agreed upon, he still didn’t specify when payment would be made. He kept on delaying.

Another month passed. The giant cedars planted around the hospital all began budding and were unusually green and beautiful. But I was a complete wreck. The gardeners from the countryside kept writing me letters urging me to pay. Repayment of their bills depended wholly on when the director paid me. If he didn’t say when he would pay, I couldn’t write them back. I thus passed every day anxious and depressed.

The weeds in the garden had already grown tall, but I didn’t have the peace of mind to weed them out. After another ten days or so, the owner of the seedbed garden personally made a visit to my home. He walked in with an angry look on his face as I sat blankly in front of the table. I invited him to sit down and made tea for him. I apologized to him and explained why my payment was late. I felt so bad about the whole thing that even my ears became hot.

“Ha, ha, ha!” The seedbed owner’s hearty laughter surprised me. I looked at him curiously as he continued. “I’ll collect the money for you.”

He seemed so confident that it was hard for me to believe it.

“You’re going to collect for me? You think you can collect the money for me? You mean it?”

“Of course I mean it. Schools or other organizations delay payment occasionally for one reason or another, but the public hospital’s accounts are independent. If the director doesn’t want to give you a hard time, he can pay you any time.”

“Is that so? Then why has he caused me so much trouble on purpose? That I really can’t understand.”

“The reason is very simple, and you’ll know in time. But that female goose of yours, can you let me take it along? That’s the price you have to pay.”

“Uh, humph . . .”

“You’re not willing? Then I have no way to collect the payment for you.”

“She’s already laid eggs and hatched eight little goslings. And the children really like her the best. If you take her away, I’m afraid . . .”

“She’s not the children’s lover or your daughter-in-law. Geese are all the same. Just buy another one, and I’m sure the children will love her all the same. And, after some time, she will care for the goslings just the same.”

As he spoke he went over to the goose pen, put his hand in to grasp the female goose’s neck and pulled her out. After tying up her feet, he took her away. The goose flapped her wings and squawked and, as if imploring me to rescue her, looked at me. I felt bad, but in front of my creditor, I couldn’t save her.

Thus he took command of me, and with goose in hand, he led me first to the directors dormitory, then to the hospital to find him.

“Mr. Director,” the seedbed owner intoned, “the goose which you liked so much has already been sent over to your house. The new bride and groom get along very well and seem quite happy.”

Actually the female goose, having been placed in that strange place, squawked for quite a while and squatted forlornly in the corner. This smooth-talking seedbed owner, however, made up a story and described the scene vividly, as if the new couple did get along well. Perhaps this was the secret of doing business.

When the director heard this, his attitude changed completely. That overbearing man changed in an instant into a nice man with a smiling face.

“Really? Then I really can’t thank you enough.”

It was hard for me to believe a person could change this quickly. But the evidence was right before my eyes. The director continued:

“Please wait right here.” He stepped out and quickly returned, informing me that I could go to the accountant’s office to get my money any time now. In the short time that we had to wait, he had also ordered the nurse to pour tea and offer us cigarettes.

As we left, the director accompanied us to the door, repeating his thanks over and over.

When I went to get the money from the accountant, I was surprised to learn that the bill had been calculated according to the original price of seventy cents a tree.

As we walked home, the seedbed owner looked back and smiled at me.

“Well, how about it? Whatever he wants, you give it to him. That way, even if you say each tree is a dollar, or even a dollar and a half, he will never argue with you. The reason? Simple enough. This is a public hospital, and why should he care if something he orders is expensive. But whether you give him something or not is another matter. Some people in his position would openly demand a commission, to be invited to dinner, or a flat payoff. Since he didn’t ask for any of this, you can’t say he doesn’t have some self-respect.”

“So that’s what it was.”

If it was a “truth” I had just discovered, it was also a fact of life that deepened my anger and depression.

“This is ‘co-prosperity,’” the seedbed owner added.

The Japanese had used “Co-Prosperity” as their slogan to promote their war in East Asia. Its effect was now evident even in a rural farmer.

“‘Co-prosperity’? How does it apply to me?” I looked at him, puzzled.

“Your business will go smoothly and the other party also benefits from your prosperity. If this is not co-prosperity, what is?”

Business will go very smoothly and everyone involved will benefit. It sounded attractive, but behind it there must have been many who had to pay for it.

“Vision of a Co-Prosperity Economic Plan”—I thought again of Lin Wen-ch’ien’s work.

Lin had once blamed the English merchants for bribing Ch’ing dynasty officials in order to run their opium trade on mainland China. In some businessmen’s eyes, this was truly “co-prosperity.” What a hateful term! And today I played a part in it as well. I shook in disgust. I immediately paid the seedbed owner what I still owed him and walked off, as if trying to escape from him. Walking home, I held the rest of the money in my fist and felt uncomfortable. These forty dollars couldn’t be called a profit. All I could say is that the deal came off even—if I didn’t consider marrying off Mother Goose as a loss.

Lin Wen-ch’ien died young because he had labored on his “Vision of a Co-Prosperity Economic Plan.” And I played a “co-prosperity” role to make a living.

My conscience was hard on me.

When I got home, the children had already returned from school. They had taken the geese down to the grassy plot to feed as usual, but their former innocent liveliness was missing. The gander, having lost his mate, and the goslings, having lost their mother, seemed lonely and sad. They scratched left and right and moaned lowly. “Old mate, where have you gone?” It seemed as if he were really calling out to her as he looked for her. The goslings wandered about in confusion and ate nothing.

I decided to work on Lin Wen-ch’ien’s unfinished thesis and fill in his incomplete sentences. It was something I had to do to make up for my own wrongdoings. This probably wouldn’t be easy for me because I had no training in economics. But unless I finished it, there was no hope for a beautiful tomorrow.

“Unless co-prosperity can be achieved without sacrificing the interest of any one person, it is not true co-prosperity . . .”

As I wiped my tears with a handkerchief, I suddenly felt that these last words written by Lin Wen-ch’ien had firmly taken hold of my heart.

NOTE

1. From Analects, XVI: 1, tr. D.C. Lau, Confucius: The Analects (har-mondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979), pp. 138-139. D.C. Lau says that the “text [in the original] is corrupt here. In the light of what follows, this passage should, probably, read: . . worries not about poverty but about uneven distribution, not about underpopulation but about disharmony, not about overturning but about instability” (ibid., p. 138).