Along the River Read Online Free PDF Page A

skill.
    “I’ve never seen such talent. This boy has had no training at all. Yet he shows such wonderful understanding, as well as enormous technical ability. He’s the best jade carver I’ve ever encountered.”
    I remember looking at Ah Li and thinking that he didn’t look like anyone I had ever met. Later on, I found out why this was so. Ah Li is not Han Ren (of Han origin). His ancestors came from a foreign country far away to the west. Ah Li cannot read or write but is able to create anything he fancies out of wood, bamboo, clay, jade or stone. He can also make things grow in the garden. He and Gege spend hours cutting shrubs into the shapes of tigers, monkeys, dogs and birds.
    I try to help them sometimes, but Gege always shoos me away. Gege was born in the Year of the Ox, whereas Ah Li was born in the Year of the Rabbit. Although Gege is two years older, Ah Li is half a head taller and already has fine hair growing above his upper lip. He has tousled, dark brown hair, big round eyes and a prominent but crooked nose. Old Ah Wang, Baba’s number-one manservant, calls him Da Bi Zi (Big Nose).
    Ah Wang has worked for us since Baba himself was a baby. He’s always scolding Ah Li for laziness. Ah Li enjoys gardening but hates cooking, doing laundry and dusting and cleaning.
    Like Gege, Ah Wang was also born in the Year of the Ox, four sheng xiao cycles (forty-eight years) earlier. Like most Ox people, he is strong-willed and stubborn. Ah Wang is a foot shorter than Ah Li, with bow legs and a bald head fringed by wisps of white hair. Something’s wrong with his back because he’s unable to stand up straight, and he walks with his shoulders hunched and his head bent forward at all times. The boys don’t like him, and call him Hunchback.
    Ah Li tries to avoid Ah Wang as much as possible. He spends his time tending the flowers and shrubs in the courtyards, walking around with his hands in his pockets and whistling as if he’s lord of all under Heaven. Gege often saunters into the garden to “help” Ah Li, instead of doing his homework and studying the Confucian classics.
    At times, Ah Wang reports Gege’s truancy to Baba. He says Ah Li is a bad influence and will make Gege fail the Jin Shi (Imperial Examination). Baba usually laughs and says that Gege understands how important the examinations are and will not dishonour the Zhang family by failing. He also says that someone who carves jade as well as Ah Li must be intelligent. However, to stop Ah Wang from complaining to Niang, he forbids the boys from playing in the garden where Ah Wang can see them. So the two boys begin spending time in Ah Li’s garden shed, where he sleeps.
    While they are in there, instead of memorizing Confucian sayings and composing essays, Gege and Ah Li make amazing objects such as wooden flowers, bamboo cups, paper-cuts, clay figures and stone sculptures. They laugh and joke and have so much fun that I can’t resist going there myself.
    Under Ah Li’s direction, Gege and I have become willing helpers in transforming his shed into a playhouse. First we clean out the rubbish and sweep the earthen floor. Beneath the window, we erect a platform of long, wooden planks and cover it with bamboo matting to transform it into a sort of bed for sleeping, sitting or jumping. Against the wall, we build a large wooden box with a lid, for storage. Finally, we help him make a round table by placing a large slice of polished tree trunk on a flat piece of beveled stone. Outside the hut, we frame the door with two rows of bamboo trunks of equal height and roundness. We put two wooden benches facing the garden with their backs to the bamboo. Throughout the monthlong process, Ah Li directs us like a general, placing a piece of stone here, or removing a shrub there. He emphasizes over and over that space and voids are as important as flowers and trees in the creation of beauty and harmony.
    We spend many happy hours creating our playhouse in the garden, but