Years of Red Dust

YEARS OF RED DUST

 

 

 

 

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

 

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Death of a Red Heroine

A Loyal Character Dancer

When Red Is Black

A Case of Two Cities

Red Mandarin Dress

The Mao Case

 

POETRY TRANSLATION

Evoking Tang: An Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry

100 Poems from Tang and Song Dynasties

Treasury of Chinese Love Poems

 

POETRY

Lines Around China

STORIES OF SHANGHAI

Qiu Xiaolong

ST. MARTIN'S PRESS
  
  
NEW YORK

 

 

 

 

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

YEARS OF RED DUST.
Copyright © 2010 by Qiu Xiaolong. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Designed by Kelly S. Too

ISBN 978-0-312-62809-3

The stories in
Years of Red Dust
originally appeared, in French, in
Le Monde
in 2008.

Slightly different versions of “Welcome to Red Dust Lane,” “Cricket Fighting,” and “Foot Masseur” originally appeared in English in
Asian Literary Review
11, spring 2009.

A slightly different version of “Chinese Chess” originally appeared in English in
River Styx,
81/82.

First Edition: October 2010

10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

 

 

To the people of Red Dust Lane, which I had the
opportunity to revisit and recapture
in an ARTE TV documentary project in 2009.

I want to thank Laurent Greilsamer and Anne Guerand, whose pushing made it possible for the stories to come out first in serialization in
Le Monde.
I would also like to thank the Chinese University of Hong Kong for the fellowship, which enabled me to do the research for the historical background of the stories. And to thank Keith Kahla, as always, for the fantastic work he has done for the book.

Welcome to Red Dust Lane
(1949)

When I Was Conceived
(1952)

Return of POW I
(1954)

(Tofu) Worker Poet Bao I
(1958)

Chinese Chess
(1964)

Shoes of the Cultural Revolution
(1966)

Cricket Fighting
(1969)

When President Nixon First Visited China
(1972)

Pill and Picture
(1976)

A Jing Dynasty Goat
(1979)

Uniform
(1980)

Big Bowl and Firecracker
(1984)

A Confidence Cap
(1987)

Housing Assignment
(1988)

Iron Rice Bowl
(1990)

Return of POW II
(1992)

Old Hunchback Fang
(1995)

(Tofu) Worker Poet Bao II
(1996)

Foot Masseur
(1998)

Father and Son
(2000)

Confucius and Crab
(2001)

Eating and Drinking Salesman
(2003)

Lottery
(2005)

YEARS OF RED DUST

Now, as your would-be landlord—to be exact, your second landlord,
nifangdong
—I've lived in this lane for twenty years by the end of 1949. For a new college student not yet familiar with Shanghai, looking for a place characteristic of the city, a place that is convenient, that is decent, and yet inexpensive, Red Dust is the best choice for you. For the real Shanghai life, I mean.

Red Dust Lane—what a fantastic name! According to a feng shui master, there is a lot of profound learning in the choice of a name. No point in selecting insignificant words, but none in pompous words, either. The evil spirit might get envious of something too grand or good. We're all made of dust, which is common yet essential, and the epithet
red
lends a world of difference to it. All of the connotations of the color: human passion, revolution, sacrifice, vanity . . .

You are an honest, hardworking young man, I know,
so I hope you will become one of my subtenants here. Let's take a walk along the lane, so you can really see for yourself.

The first record of the lane is from the late Qing dynasty. Look at this impressive street sign written in the magnificent calligraphy of a Qing dynasty
Juren
—a successful civil service examination candidate at the provincial level. After that, it was developed as part of the French concession, though not as a central part of it. Indeed, so many changes, like the white clouds in the sky—one moment, a gray dog; the next moment, a black weasel . . . Of course, now things are changing again. The Communists are advancing with flying colors and the Nationalists retreating helter-skelter. But the one thing under the sun that will never change, I assure you: this is a most marvelous lane.

Think about the location—at the very center of Shanghai. To the south, the City God Temple Market, no more than fifteen minutes' walk, where you can enjoy an amazing variety of Shanghai snacks. To the north, you can stroll along to Nanjing Road, the street-long shopping center of Shanghai. If you prefer the fancier stores on Huaihai Road, it takes no more than fifteen minutes to get there. On a summer night, you may occasionally smell the characteristic twang from the Huangpu River. Strolling around those foreign buildings lined up along the Bund, like the Hong Kong Bank or the Cathay Hotel, you may feel as if the river were flowing through you, and the heart of the city beating along with you.

Our lane is medium-sized with several sublanes. Another plus, I will say. The front entrance opens onto Jinling Road. There, just a block ahead, you can see the Zhonghui Mansion—the high-rise owned by Big Brother Shen of the notorious Blue Triad, now down and out in Hong Kong. Karma. As for the back entrance of the lane, it leads into the Ninghai Food Market. In case of an unexpected visitor, you can run out in your slippers and come back with a live carp still gasping for air. In addition, there are two side entrances on Fujian Road, with a cluster of small shops and stalls. And peddlers too. Nothing can beat the location here.

This lane, or
longtang
, of Red Dust, may in itself tell you something of Shanghai history. After the Opium War, the city was forced open to the Western powers as a treaty port with areas selected as foreign concessions. The expatriates were then unable to tap the immense potential of the city, so some Chinese were allowed to move in. Soon the concession authorities had collective dwellings built for them in the designated lots. To make them convenient to manage, the houses were designed in the same architectural style, then arranged in lines like barracks, row after row, accessible to the main lane from sublanes. As in other lanes, most of the buildings in Red Dust belong to the
shikumen
style, the typical Shanghai two-storied house with a stone doorframe and a small courtyard. In the early concession days, a
shikumen
house was designed for one family, with rooms for different purposes—wings, hall, front room,
dining room, corner room, back room, attic, dark room, and
tingzijian
, a cubicle above the kitchen. As a result of the city housing shortage, some of the rooms were leased. Then individually subleased, with the rooms further partitioned or subdivided, so now a “room” is practically the space for a family. You may have heard of a comedy called
72 Families in a House
, which is about such an overcrowded housing situation. Red Dust is not like that. There are no more than fifteen families in our
shikumen
, you have my word on it.

In Red Dust, people of differing social or financial status are mixed together. Small-business owners or executives take the wing or a floor, while ordinary workers choose the back room or the attic. As for the
tingzijian
, it usually goes to those struggling men of letters—the
tingzijian
writers. They are really fantastic places for creative souls, with constant inspiration coming from the lane.

Indeed, your life is incredibly enriched with all the activity and interaction of the lane. You become part of the lane, and the lane, a part of you. Through the open black-painted door, you see this first-floor hall, don't you? It was turned into a common kitchen area long ago, with the coal stoves of a dozen or more families all squeezed in, along with pots and pans, coal briquettes, and pigeon-house-like cabinets hung on the walls. Squeezed, but not necessarily so bad. Cooking in here, you may learn the recipes of provincial cuisines from your neighbors. Coming
back soaked one rainy night, you don't have to worry about catching a cold: a pot of ginger tea is being brewed for you on your neighbor Uncle Zhao's stove, and Elder Sister Wu will add a spoonful of brown sugar into the steaming hot drink. Nor will you find it monotonous scrubbing your clothes on a washboard in the courtyard, where Granny Liu or Auntie Chen will keep you informed of all the latest news of the lane. Some say Shanghainese are born wheelers and dealers. That's not true, but there may be something of that which comes out of the way people in Shanghai have always lived in a kind of miniature society, constantly handling relationships among close neighbors.

People get together a lot not only in the
shikumen
, but in the lane too. Their rooms being so crowded, people need to find space elsewhere. All day long, the lane is vibrant with life—informal, relaxing, and spontaneous. In the early gray light, women will come out in their pajamas, first carrying chamber pots, then later hurrying to the food market, returning with full bamboo baskets and preparing food in the common sinks of the lane while spreading the gossip heard overnight. Men will stretch out, practicing Tai Chi outside, brewing the first pot of Dragon Well tea, singing snatches of Beijing opera, and exchanging a few words about the weather or the political weather. For lunchtime, those people at home will step out again, holding rice bowls, chatting, laughing, or exchanging a slice of fried pork for a nugget of steamed belt fish. In the evening, Red Dust gets
even more exciting—men playing chess or cards or mahjong under the lane lamp, women chatting or knitting or washing. In summer, it is so hot inside that some will take out bamboo recliners or mats. And a few even choose to sleep out in the lane—