The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up (5 page)

ZHOU:
You know, it takes me a long time to remove graffiti. It's more difficult than sweeping the floors or even cleaning out the pit. And when I finally erase it, the minute I turn around, new graffiti appears. Restroom graffiti has been in existence since ancient times. The only exception was during the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards painted Communist slogans all over the place and didn't leave enough room for graffiti artists. On the restroom walls, they printed slogans like “Capitalists Are as Worthless as Shit” or “Counterrevolutionaries Deserve to Eat Shit.”

I'm semiliterate so I can't understand much of what people write there. Most of the time, the mere sight of graffiti makes me so mad that I don't even bother to read it. There are limericks, dirty drawings, vulgar phrases, political slogans, and even paragraphs copied from published articles.

LIAO:
Those graffiti limericks were much more interesting than the ones we learned in school. I vividly remember one of them, “Love Songs from the Restroom.” It goes like this: You are a bird flying in the sky, I'm a cockroach, in shit I thrive. You are flying in circles in the clouds, I'm doing somersaults in the shitty pond.

ZHOU:
You're a well-educated person. Why do you memorize vulgar limericks like that?

LIAO:
Sorry to embarrass you. But think about it: there are well over a billion people in China. Only a few can get their writings published in newspapers and magazines, and you need to go through rigorous reviews and various levels of censorship. By the time your article gets to the paper, it no longer resembles what you originally wrote. Many people will never have an opportunity to express themselves in public. That's why the public bathrooms have become the venue for free speech.

ZHOU:
OK, I admit I saw a very funny one yesterday. It was a limerick to commemorate Chairman Mao. It was pretty easy to remember. It went: Chairman Mao, Chairman Mao, if you rise from your grave you will see embezzlers in raves. Chairman Mao, if you look to your right, hookers and druggies at your side. Chairman Mao, if you look to your left, fake goods are what you get. Chairman Mao, if you look behind your back, laid-off workers are deep in debt. Chairman Mao, if you look down, extramarital affairs are common. Chairman Mao, Chairman Mao, close your eyes, out of sight, out of mind. People want their iron rice bowls back.

LIAO:
That sure captures the mood these days. But anyway, is your business good, Grandpa?

ZHOU:
Barely. Then again, so many people are unemployed here. I'm lucky to have a business. My monthly profits are about two hundred to three hundred yuan. I'm pretty content with that. And for an old guy like me, managing toilets is easy work. Life is tough and tiring. All my nerves are strained. One of these days, one of the nerves will snap, and then I'll be gone.

THE CORPSE WALKERS

Stories of walking the corpse are popular in both northern and southern China. Most of the time, the tales are so dramatically exaggerated that one has to discard them as fiction. After Li Changgeng, a professional mourner, mentioned corpse walking in a previous interview, many readers wrote asking whether they were expected to believe Li's description of corpse walking. I myself thought it was half truth, half fiction, but recently I heard the following story, which seemed to me quite convincing. On the anniversary of my father's passing I traveled to Lijiaping in Sichuan, where my father was born and where his ashes are buried. After going through the rituals—burning incense, lighting firecrackers, and kowtowing in front of his grave—I paid a visit to Luo Tianwang, a feng shui master, who had selected my father's grave site. Luo is an old family friend, now in his seventies. He looked healthy and energetic; his vision was still keen and his mind sharp, and we spoke for some time.

LIAO YIWU:
When I was growing up here, I constantly heard stories about corpse walking from our neighbor, Third Grandma Wang. She told me that people in Sichuan call the practice “yo shi.” While “shi” means “dead body,” the word “yo” is taken from “yo ho, yo ho,” the sounds that corpse walkers chant while they haul the dead body along. Do you think there is any truth to these stories?

LUO TIANWANG:
Sure. Corpse walking has never been an officially recognized profession, but the practice had been around since ancient times. When I was young, I had several friends in the business of trading salt. They used to travel by foot on dirt paths to the central provinces of Shaanxi and Henan. By the roadside they would sometimes come upon shops that were closed and empty, with signs up saying “walking corpse across border.” These signs were spooky—blowing in the cold wind on a deserted mountain road. When my friends told me about this, I said: When a person dies, he becomes stiff. How can he manage to cross the border? They didn't know, and it wasn't until a couple of years later that I found out how it was done.

LIAO:
Corpses crossing borders? Did that mean the border that separates the worlds of the living and the dead?

LUO:
No, it meant literally crossing the province or county borders. As I told you, transportation was not very well developed then. The so-called national highway was a rutted dirt road. When a traveling businessman died of a sudden illness or accident, it was hard to transport the body back to his village to be buried in his native soil. And if a dead person is not returned to his hometown, as custom dictates, he would be called a lonely soul and a homeless ghost. So, since buses or trucks weren't available, if the family could afford it, they hired professional corpse walkers.

LIAO:
But how could a corpse walk? Was there magic to it? I've heard that corpse walkers would have a black cat climb over the dead body, generating static electricity that would make the corpse move like a puppet.

LUO:
That's nonsense.

LIAO:
Have you ever seen someone walk a corpse?

LUO:
Yes. In the early 1950s, the new Communist government sent a work team to launch the Land Reform movement, which took land from the rich and gave it to the poor. The work team categorized people according to their wealth and beliefs. Rich landowners and Nationalists were deemed enemies of the people, and many were tortured or executed if they couldn't first escape into the mountains or pay off the triads to protect them. Since three generations of my family had been in the feng shui business, we were considered practitioners of superstition, and I wasn't allowed to participate in the land redistribution activities. I had nothing to do, and one dark and overcast afternoon I was strolling along the village road when a bulky, black object suddenly passed me, sending a chill down my spine. The thing was covered with a huge inky-colored robe. The bottom hem of the robe was splattered with mud, and from time to time a leather shoe poked out below. The footsteps were
heavy and made a repetitive, thudding noise, like someone knocking the ground with a block of wood. Just then, my friend Piggy scurried up to me and whispered in my ear: That's a corpse.

Piggy's words spooked me, and I ran around in front of the robe. A man was there, walking a few paces ahead of the corpse, wearing a beige vest and carrying a basket filled with fake paper money. In his other hand, he held a white paper lantern. Every few minutes, he would reach into the basket, grab some money, and toss it high in the air. You know the ritual, don't you? It's called “buying your way into the other world.” People in the countryside still believe that the fake money is used to bribe the corpse's guardian ghosts so they don't block the road to heaven.

LIAO:
So people used to think the world of the dead was equally corrupt. But why the lantern in broad daylight?

LUO:
To light the way to heaven. And the white lantern, the fake money, and the black robe helped create an atmosphere of mourning. The lantern also served a practical purpose—but let me finish my story. Piggy and I decided to keep following the corpse walker. The corpse looked a head taller than an ordinary person and wore a big straw hat. Beneath the hat was a white paper mask—one of those sad-looking masks like they wear in operas. The guy at the front would chant, “Yo ho, yo ho,” and strangely enough the corpse would cooperate just like a well-trained soldier. He followed the guide with great precision. For example, when the guide and the corpse were climbing some stone steps on the street, the guide said, “Yo ho, yo ho, steps ahead.” The corpse paused for a second, then moved up the stairway, step by step, with its body tilting back stiffly. Piggy and I followed the pair for about six or seven kilometers, all the way to a small inn on a quiet side street. While the corpse waited at the entrance, the guide walked into the lobby, tapped on the counter, and said in a low voice: The god of happiness is here.

LIAO:
What does that mean?

LUO:
Apparently it was a code phrase, because the innkeeper nodded and smiled and stepped out from behind the counter. He bowed to the guide and led him and the corpse to the back of the inn. We snuck into the backyard and found the corpse walker's room because the guide had left the white lantern in front of the door. We tried to get closer but heard an angry shout from the innkeeper. He grabbed my coat sleeve and snarled: Get away, you little bastards. Don't you dare tell anyone, got it?

LIAO:
Wasn't the innkeeper afraid of getting bad luck from accommodating a corpse?

LUO:
Because the corpse was wrapped up in a robe, no other customers would even suspect anything, and the local people actually considered corpse walkers auspicious, because death is the beginning of life in another world. I later found out that's why a walking corpse was referred to as the god of happiness. There was even a saying: If the god of happiness comes to your inn, good fortune will follow. Of course, an innkeeper could charge three times as much for providing accommodation to corpse walkers.

Anyway, despite the scolding from the innkeeper, Piggy and I didn't want to leave. We hung around in the lobby. Soon the innkeeper returned from the back with a shiny silver dollar in his hand. That was a lot of money in those days—he couldn't contain his excitement.

When he noticed us, he called us over, handed us some small change, and told us to run to a restaurant down the street to get fried peanuts, cooked pig ears, pig tongues, and some hard liquor. We were also told to buy candles and fake paper money from a funeral-supply store. The innkeeper said the corpse walker needed to replenish his supplies for the next day's trip. Strangely enough, the innkeeper specifically asked us to get two sets of bowls and chopsticks from the restaurant. He said one set was for the god of happiness.

We ran our errands quickly, and the innkeeper thanked us profusely. He tipped us a couple of coins and invited us to sit down with him for tea. He told us that over the past twenty years, he had accommodated over ten corpse walkers who were passing through the region. We peppered him with questions. He lowered his voice to a whisper: It's not the corpse that does the walking—it's the living. Piggy and I didn't understand. The innkeeper said the magic lies inside that black robe. But he wouldn't say anything else. Piggy said: We live in a new Communist era now. Corpse walking is a practice from the old society. It is now considered superstitious and illegal. There's no need to keep it a secret from us. We won't tell anyone. But if you don't tell us, we'll report you to the officials for renting rooms to corpse walkers. After our begging, then our threatening, the innkeeper told us.

LIAO:
What's the secret?

LUO:
Inside the black robe, there are two bodies: the corpse and a living person who carries the dead one on his back. During the trip, the person who carries the corpse has to use two hands to secure the body so it doesn't slide off. As you probably know, the body of a dead person becomes as stiff and as heavy as a stone. It takes eight people to carry a coffin. Imagine how tough it would be for one person, wrapped up in a large black robe, to walk hundreds of miles with a dead body on his back. Since it is hard for him to bend his knees, each move must be very stiff and awkward. On top of that, the black robe prevents him from being able to see what is ahead of him. Remember the white lantern that we talked about earlier? The light from the lantern is used to guide the corpse carrier.

LIAO:
When does a corpse walker eat?

LUO:
Under normal circumstances, corpse walkers only eat one meal a day, and they travel ten to twelve hours without any rest. Since they work in pairs, they alternate days carrying the body. Sometimes a corpse walker's journey can take over a month. With such a long travel time, it is impossible to make the trip during the warm months because the corpse would decay in the heat. Even in winter, corpse walkers have to inject mercury and other anti-decaying solutions into the body. Since clients know how tough the business is, they're willing to pay big money for the service. The innkeeper said people in the profession had to go through years of specialized physical training. They often had good kung fu skills and could defend themselves against roadside robbers.

Piggy and I were amazed when we heard all this. Piggy wanted to go to the backyard to check it out. The innkeeper stopped him, saying the door was locked. I said: We can put our ears to the door and listen. The innkeeper pinched my ear: If they catch you, they will chop off your ear and serve it as cold cuts with their drinks. Corpse walkers are very private people. Once they get in the room, they never come out again till early in the morning when they set off. It was a slow night for the innkeeper, so we ended up chatting for quite a while. It was pitch-black outside when we finally left. He gave us a couple more coins and made us promise not to tell anyone what we'd seen. He said that if officials knew that he was renting them a room, his business would be closed down.

LIAO:
That was it?

LUO:
Be patient! I'm not finished. After I got home, I couldn't get to sleep. I was still haunted by images of the corpse walkers. The next morning, I was awakened by the sound of the village chief walking up and down the street banging a gong. He was calling an important meeting for the whole village. I jumped out of bed, grabbed my coat, and ran out into the drizzling rain, skipping breakfast. From all directions neighbors were coming out of their houses.

As I got closer to the village square, I spotted Piggy. He pulled me aside and said in a muffled tone of voice: I have to tell you something. After we split up last night, I kept thinking about the stories the innkeeper told us. Something felt wrong to me. Chairman Mao told us to smash all superstitious practices. Well, those corpse walkers are engaging in superstitious activities—they're counterrevolutionaries! I couldn't let Chairman Mao down. I had to do something—otherwise, I'd be an accomplice. So I got up in the middle of the night, walked several miles to the county offices, and reported the corpse walkers to members of the Land Reform work team. They immediately contacted a unit of the People's Liberation Army stationed nearby. I led the soldiers and members of the work team to the inn.

Piggy's words made me really mad. I slapped him: You weren't supposed to do that. Didn't we promise the innkeeper to keep quiet? Piggy gave me a nasty look: What, you think I'd keep my mouth shut for just a couple of measly coins?

LIAO:
So much for the noble revolutionary reasons. It was all about money, wasn't it?

LUO:
Not quite. In that era everyone wanted to gain favor with the new government. Piggy was just trying to be part of the group. With Piggy's help, soldiers armed with rifles burst into the inn and rounded up the innkeeper and his staff. They moved silently into the backyard, stopped in front of the corpse walkers' room, and knocked on the door. There was no response. The soldiers had to bang on the door violently before they heard some rustling sounds from inside the room. Who is it? someone asked. That infuriated the soldiers and they broke down the door with their rifle butts. The soldiers jumped inside, waving their flashlights around the room. Piggy, who had witnessed the whole thing, told me that the two corpse walkers were standing in their underwear by the bed, shaking. The corpse, still covered in the black robe, was leaning against a wall. One soldier pulled up the robe and saw that it was the body of a woman, a rich lady—she had permed hair and heavy makeup, and she was dressed in an expensive, green silk
cheongsam.
Neither the village folks nor the soldiers had ever been that close to a rich lady before. Out of curiosity, some poked at her face, while others fingered the material of the dress. Her nose, ears, and mouth were filled with mercury and some kind of smelly liquid, but that didn't stop them from probing.