The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up (32 page)

LIAO:
How long did you stay inside the morgue?

CUI:
It felt like eternity. I started by counting my heartbeat. When my heart beat fast, I considered three as one second. When it slowed down, I counted one beat as a second. Later on, I counted myself into a sleep. I was awakened by some noises in the adjacent room. It was the sound of chopsticks banging on tin bowls. Apparently, it was dinnertime for the guard. The thought of dinner stimulated my stomach, which began to have terrible spasms. It hurt so much that I wanted to get up and move a little bit to distract myself from the pain. But I controlled my urges and held myself still a little longer. The guard spent the next two hours eating and drinking tea. Before he went to bed, I could hear him humming a tune from a traditional Sichuan opera. Strangely enough, I can now remember the tune and the words very clearly.

Things began to quiet down after the guard went to sleep. So I got up. My body was almost frozen stiff. I left the morgue. As I was passing by the hospital cafeteria, I noticed it was open for night-shift workers. Then, two nurses walked out, chatting and laughing. I hid behind a small grove of shrubs. As they passed by, I picked up a small piece of stone on the ground and threw it at one of them. It hit her right on the wrist. “Who is it?” She was startled, and dropped her food to the ground.

The two women screamed and ran back into the cafeteria for help. I ran away as fast as I could, and went back to the morgue. I stayed there for a little longer until it was quiet on all fronts. When I came out again, I accidentally came across half a bottle of water on the side of the road. I picked it up and dumped the water into my mouth. It felt really good. I then came to the place where the two nurses dropped their food. I cupped the food up and swallowed it. My stomach suddenly felt a surge of stabbing pain. I squatted down and rested for a few minutes. I then walked stealthily into the patient wards. I checked each floor for food. When I came to the fifth floor, I saw the doctor's office was open. Nobody was inside. I walked in, quickly changed into a white gown I found in the closet, put on a surgical mask, and picked up a stethoscope from the desk. Then I visited a maternity ward, pretending I was a doctor on call. I ended up with quite a few treats: I had stolen over a thousand yuan from various patients and managed to get some cakes and fruit.

After I came out of the hospital, I walked into a military medical academy next door. I stole a set of military uniforms that were hanging outside a dorm building. By that time, it was almost dawn. A big shuttle bus was parked right in front of the building. I found a piece of metal string, bent it, slid it in to open the lock, and got inside. I made myself comfortable on the last row of seats. Exhausted as I was, I soon dozed off. Then I felt someone tugging at my clothes and pushing me to a corner seat. I woke up and realized that the sun was already up, and the bus was filled with students in military uniforms. A guy sitting next to me asked: Which class are you in? I couldn't answer him, but randomly pointed to a building outside. He said: You work at the computer lab? I nodded.

From the conversations I overheard on the bus, I realized that it was Sunday. The bus carried the students, including me, all the way downtown. The trip went well, without any glitches. For the first time in a long while, I saw groups of pretty girls on the street. I tasted freedom.

LIAO:
You were even bold enough to sleep on a military bus. Weren't you afraid of getting caught?

CUI:
I couldn't go back to the hospital, and it was not safe to loiter on the street. Walking around inside the military medical academy at night was even riskier. The shuttle bus was the only place to go.

LIAO:
What happened afterward?

CUI:
They never caught me. I was a free man again, wandering all over the country, stealing and breaking into safes. I had stolen so much money that I didn't know what to do with it. I decided to settle down and live as a recluse. I purchased a couple of houses in Beihai. But I never felt safe. I wasn't at all excited about starting another business because I hated to associate myself with businessmen. They are boring people. Moreover, I had just reached the peak in my profession. If you wanted me to change jobs, I just couldn't get myself to become enthused about the idea. So, I just idled around. When I had nothing to do, my mind began to go crazy. I dreamed about prisons and policemen every night.

LIAO:
Were you ever married before?

CUI:
I had a girlfriend. She was a big fan of the Taiwanese pop singer Tong Ange. I loved his songs too. I wanted to marry her but couldn't. You don't have to tell your girlfriend about your profession, but you need to share everything with your wife. That's the Chinese tradition, isn't it?

LIAO:
How did you get caught this time?

CUI:
Two years had passed since I escaped. I thought the coast was clear. I returned to Chongqing. One day, I made a bet with a couple of old buddies, saying that I could easily break into a new type of high-tech safe at a large company. There I went. I walked right through the main entrance. I broke into the treasurer's office. Within ten minutes, I located the safe and cut off the office alarm system. I stuck a razor-thin knife into a small crack, and with the sound of a click, I cut off the alarm on the safe. No shit, was that what they called the new advanced laser protection technology? Breaking that damn thing was the easiest job I had ever done. I was a little carried away by this initial success and began to let down my guard. I leaned against the safe, chewing bubble gum. I even blew a big bubble. After I opened the safe door, I found there were about 500,000 yuan [US$60,300] in there, plus some bundles of newly minted hundred-yuan bills. On the spur of the moment, I used my cigarette lighter and began to burn those hundred-yuan bills one by one. Then, the police arrived before I even finished with one bundle.

When I was arrested, I felt as if my heart had finally dropped to the ground after hanging on a high cliff for a long, long time. I felt my mind could finally rest. I stood up, stretched my hands out, and asked the police to handcuff me. Then, after they shackled me, I said calmly: Let's go.

LIAO:
Now that you are on death row, how do you feel?

CUI:
I think a lot about my escape three years before. It was too miraculous. However, nobody can escape his fate. While I was on the run, my body was set free, but my mind wasn't. I owe society too much. I never used the stolen cash to help those who really needed it. So many poor children can't afford to go to school, so many unemployed workers have nothing to support the family . . . What's the difference between those corrupt officials and me? There's none. OK, so much for the story. You are an intellectual and you understand that: whatever you do, you need passion and motivation. I have lost my passion and motivation to live. I'm ready to exit this world.

THE BLIND ERHU PLAYER

On a chilly night in October 1996, I walked into a hot pot (Chinese fondue) restaurant on Wangjianmu Street in Chengdu. After I sat down, I saw a waiter leading a blind street musician inside. The musician was holding an erhu, a two-stringed Chinese violin, and feeling his way around the tables. He kept bowing to customers. I felt so sorry for him and ordered a tune. To my surprise, he played it beautifully.

The erhu player said he was sixty-three and refused to disclose his real name. He called himself “Nameless Zhang.”

LIAO YIWU:
Master, you played so beautifully. Could you play me another tune, “Water from the River”?

NAMELESS ZHANG:
You need to pay first. According to the rules here, you pay ten yuan per tune.

LIAO:
Here is fifty yuan [US$6.40]. Please feel it and make sure it's authentic. Normally speaking, one cannot put a price on music. That's all I can afford. I need to leave some to pay for my meal.

ZHANG:
Sir, you are a pro. If you want to hear more, I can play for you all night long. Playing the erhu is like a writer burning the midnight oil. The longer you play, the more you are into it. “Water from the River” is such a sad piece. Why don't I play you “Chirpy Birds on the Empty Mountain”?

LIAO:
That's fine. Here is a toast to you. Throughout my life, I have loved two kinds of musical instruments: one is the erhu and the other, the flute. Look at the erhu; it only has two strings, but can express all the stories and emotions of human life. I grew up in Lijaping village, which was hemmed in on three sides by mountains. We used to live in a little run-down courtyard house at the foot of the mountain. When I see you play, all my childhood memories come crowding back. I remember a village teacher who liked to sit on the threshold of his house on rainy days and play the erhu. He also played it when the moon was out. His music always evoked in me a melancholy mood. Nowadays, I can only hear his music in my head.

ZHANG:
Your remarks make me cry. I have been selling music on the street for many years now. I can play all kinds of tunes with various techniques. But the majority of listeners have no ear for good music. They are just pretentious eaters who are simply looking for fun and something to enliven the atmosphere. I could handle their requests very easily. But playing music for a pro like you makes me nervous. The music has to come from my heart.

LIAO:
Tell me about yourself. How did you lose your eyesight?

ZHANG:
As soon as I was pulled out of my mother's womb, I began to struggle in the dark. I don't know what sins they had committed, but all my three siblings were born blind. My family had a reputation in the region as “a cursed dark hole.” When I was three years old, my father thrust an erhu into my hand, and forced me with a whip to practice. Playing the erhu was a blind person's rice bowl. It was not as romantic as you have just described. When I turned seven, my parents couldn't stand the fact that all their children had been born blind. They both swallowed poison and committed suicide. At their funeral, I was draped in a white mourning outfit; I sat beside their bodies and played the erhu nonstop. I was hoping to get enough donations and buy coffins for them. I sat there and played for three days. Their bodies were decaying and I was also on the verge of exhaustion. But I didn't dare to stop, feeling as if a whip were hanging over my head. Even now, I still associate my memories of my father with that thin whip that inflicted so much pain on me. Eventually, friends helped bury my parents. My siblings and I were adopted by another blind family. At the age of thirteen, I began to wander around the street to make a living as a musician. I started out in my hometown, Qiaolai, and then traveled all over the province.

LIAO:
Is it easy to move around for a person like you?

ZHANG:
Blind people have their own community. Each time I arrive at a new place, I have to pay my respects to the chief of the local community. I butter him up with flattering words, and then hand over some money as a gift. With this bribe, he will designate a blind kid to be my guide. The kid will lead me down boulevards and small lanes with instructions about where to make a turn and who lives where. He will also tell me which household is rich and more likely to hire musicians, what the temperaments of people in the household are, and when is a good time to visit. There are rules for everything. By the time you memorize them you can start your own business.

LIAO:
Those must have been the rules and customs before the Communist revolution. We are now at the end of the twentieth century. There are street artists everywhere, some singing and playing musical instruments, others performing acrobatics. They don't seem to follow any rules. Most of them change venues constantly. If they see a busy area, they start their gigs right there. Sometimes, the police will kick them out. During the holiday season last year, five blind musicians showed up in front of my house with their erhus, and together they played “The Sun Comes Out and People Are Happy.” I ended up giving each one a red envelope with crisp new bills in it.

ZHANG:
They were not real musicians. Ours is a big city. Fake musicians wander from district to district, swindling money out of residents. We do have rules within our community. Street musicians are gradually forming a guild with professional rules. Everyone is hoping to make money with real skills. The market for quacks and fake products is getting smaller.

LIAO:
What do you mean by “professional rules”?

ZHANG:
First, street musicians need to have their own fixed venues or territories. Second, street musicians need to elect their own guild chiefs. In China, everyone used to belong to a government work unit, which offered them jobs and housing. Street musicians also need to be organized and regulated. For example: I've been playing music near the Wangjianmu area for almost seven years. Everyone recognizes me and knows that I treat my music seriously. People are willing to order tunes from me and pay for them. I'm sure you'll see blind musicians in other areas such as Chunxi Road or Wuhou Temple Road. I don't care and have no intention of finding out who is performing down there. All I care is to do a good job here. I assume street guitarists, violinists, beggars, bicycle repairers, or shoeshine boys in this territory will share my view. If someday we want to move to another territory at random, we have to negotiate. Otherwise, we could be kicked out.

LIAO:
Aren't you worried about the hard economic times when restaurants around here close down one after another?

ZHANG:
I have known many restaurants to close, but that hasn't affected me that much. I have never been short of clients. There are many entrepreneurs who dream of making it big in the restaurant business. The closing of one store means the opening of another one. This area never remains idle. When a Chinese restaurant closes down, a Western restaurant opens up in its place. A seafood restaurant closes down, a hot pot joint opens. The Wangjianmu area used to be the burial site for a young emperor during ancient times. It has good feng shui and is full of prosperous human spirits. In the summertime, the hot pot vendors line up the street, and it's hard to squeeze by. While I perform there, the smell of spices is very distracting to my sense of surroundings. There is the danger of me walking right onto someone's hot pot stove. When all the hot pots are boiling and set in motion, so is my music, which is sometimes lost in the din of the street. I asked a friend to get a speaker for me. I hook up the erhu to the speaker. I carry the speaker on my back while I play. I'll do anything to make restaurant goers happy so I can make some money.

LIAO:
Don't you feel you are wasting your life playing here?

ZHANG:
My life? I have never pondered these profound issues. For a blind person like me, every day is the same, unless I get sick or injure myself by bumping into a wall. When I was fifteen, I was playing at a teahouse one day. Suddenly, firecrackers filled the air like ear-shattering bombs, and completely drowned out the sound of my music. I didn't stop and kept playing until the owner grabbed my hand. He said the teahouse was empty and everyone was gone. I felt my way outside. People were beating gongs and drums. I was told that the Communist troops had entered the city. That was it. Didn't realize the Nationalist government had been toppled. Later on, after the Communist government was established, I was given some money and sent back, along with many migrant workers, to the countryside in Sichuan. I was assigned to work as a musician for a local cultural bureau. I spent a year learning Braille and I even had a girlfriend.

LIAO:
How did you get yourself a girlfriend?

ZHANG:
That was 1957. Folk music was in. The tunes by the well-known blind erhu performer and composer Aibing were very popular in China. I rode on the popularity of Aibing, and was invited to perform on the stage for a large crowd. I also played for some music professors. One company made records of my music. Then local officials wanted me to recruit a student. I told them that I didn't want anyone who had normal eyesight. Those who could see would never have the opportunity to enter the world of the blind.

So they sent me a female blind student, who was three years younger. We practiced day and night to prepare for performances at folk music concerts. One day around noontime, I was taking a nap. I felt something moving on my face. At first, I thought it was a fly, and tried to chase it away with my hands. Then, I touched a soft hand, the fingers caressing my nose and my eyes, sending burning sensations all the way to my heart. I reached out my hands and touched her as if I were in a dream. Her braids were so thick, her eyes were so big, her eyelashes were so long, and her skin was so smooth. We finally embraced and held each other close. Around that time, my music reached a peak. I didn't feel that I was playing. I felt as if someone inside my heart were playing for me. I could see my lover in my music. She was beautiful. Wouldn't it be nice if I could take her with me to wander around the world?

LIAO:
Did you get married? Did you have children?

ZHANG:
We had sex and she became pregnant. During those years, premarital sex was considered immoral and illegal. You could end up in jail for that. Since we were disabled people, the director at my work unit didn't prosecute us. But he forced my girlfriend to have an abortion so we could avoid bad repercussions among the masses. But we wanted the baby and my girlfriend refused to undertake the procedure. We applied for a marriage license. The director said that it was a special case and he needed to have meetings to discuss it. After several meetings, he still couldn't make a decision. Meanwhile, my girlfriend's pregnancy was getting more and more prominent.

Not long after, Chairman Mao's anti-Rightist movement started. My director was labeled a Rightist, and he lost his job. Some of his former subordinates charged that my girlfriend had been impregnated by the director. They didn't think a blind person like me could have sex with a woman. We never got the marriage license, but instead ended up being the target of public humiliation. I was labeled a corrupt element of society because I tried to defend my director. Thank God I was blind; otherwise I would have been tortured to death by those fanatics. My student had a harder life. Several guys pinned her down and coerced her into having an abortion. She was also labeled as a degenerate element of society for having sex with the director.

LIAO:
What happened later?

ZHANG:
We broke up. It was fate and I couldn't escape. It would have been different if it had happened today. People's attitude toward sex is different. Also, if a blind person can marry another blind person, wouldn't it be a perfect match? It could help solve many social problems. At that time, the whole country was like a big prison. The Party controlled every aspect of our life—eating, drinking, pissing, shitting, birth, marriage, and death. By the way, my student died in the famine of 1960.

LIAO:
People are more open-minded than before. Dating and premarital sex are no longer political issues. You are also free to sell your music on the street. I assume nobody asks you to pay license fees.

ZHANG:
Pay a license fee? To whom? I think the government should impose a social welfare tax to support people like us. I've been laid off from the Cultural Bureau since the 1960s. If it hadn't been for those political campaigns, I would have been a celebrity and probably a professor at the Chinese Academy of Music. They have an erhu department, you know.

LIAO:
What's so special about being a professor? No profession grants you more freedom than that of a street musician.

ZHANG:
Being a street musician without any professional affiliations is nice, but not stable. You never know what will happen the next day. By the way, why don't you start to “enjoy” this freedom?