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didn’t do anything special for Uncle Piao’s birthday dinner, but the mess officer gave us two large bottles of white spirits, one of which was for the old man.
    Mrs. Piao took out a dozen plates, and every one of them was at once filled with our food. Their eldest daughter, Shunzhen, happened to come home with her two sons for a visit. All the men, including the small boys, ate at the large table, while all the women were at a small table. The Piaos also prepared something — a huge bowl of dumplings and, of course, a plate of kimchee. As soon as we’d set everything up, Commander Meng arrived. Then dinner started.
    A kerosene lamp, hanging from the ceiling, shed coppery light on the yellow floor and the white walls. Everybody was free to serve himself, since there was no host today. CommanderMeng raised his cup and proposed a toast: “Uncle Piao, to your health and longevity!”
    “Happy birthday, Uncle Piao,” we said almost simultaneously and clinked our cups with his.
    “Everybody’s happy,” the old man said with his mouth full of food. He couldn’t contain his happiness. Except for me and Jia Min, all the men, including the two small boys, drank up the liquor in one gulp. Immediately every cup was refilled.
    The women ate away quietly; they smiled and murmured something in Korean. Obviously, they liked the food and maybe enjoyed not having to serve us. I stole a glance at Shunji. She must have drunk quite a bit, for her face was pink, and two dimples deepened below her plump cheeks. She was listening to her sister.
    Mrs. Piao used a ladle to give us each some dumplings. I wanted to have more rice and covered up my bowl with my hand, so she gave my share to Jia Min, whose bowl already had some dumplings inside. “Have more,” she said timidly in Chinese, smiling at Jia.
    After a bite, Jia started to cough; he looked tearful. I couldn’t tell why. Hsiao Bing wagged the tip of his tongue around his lips.
    Commander Meng left after three cups, because he had to visit other families and attend the banquet held for the village powers in the production brigade’s meeting room. Uncle Piao didn’t press him to stay. In fact, we felt more relaxed once the officer had gone. Now we could eat and talk freely.
    Soon Uncle Piao’s tongue loosened. He told us stories about the Japanese and the Russian troops, and even allowed us to touch the big scar on his crown inflicted by the Japanese police because he had carried a small bag of rice around his waist for his sick old mother.
    “Only the Japanese could eat rice,” he said. “The Koreans were allowed to eat only millet. For the Chinese, only sorghum and corn.”
    “How about soybeans?” I asked.
    “No soybeans. The Japs burned soy and wheat to drive locomotives that carried all the minerals and lumber to the seaport. From there they shipped them back to Japan.”
    “They were beasts!” our squad leader said, his voice full of hatred.
    “The Russians are no better,” Uncle Piao went on. “The Big Noses and the Small Noses are all barbarians. In the fall of 1945, in Hutou Town, I saw with my own eyes a Russian officer rape a Chinese woman. He put a pistol on the threshold of the house and raped her inside. The husband and the other Chinese men stood outside and dared not go in, even though the woman was screaming for help. Once you’re conquered by foreigners, you’ve lost everything. You don’t have the right to be a man.”
    “But the Russians came to fight the Japanese, didn’t they?” Hsiao Bing asked.
    “That is true.” Uncle Piao nodded. “But they were bandits. Most of them were in fact the Whites sent over by Stalin to fight the Japs as a punishment. They didn’t care who their enemy was, they just killed people and enjoyed themselves.”
    “Like the Japs?” I asked.
    “Sure, they’d kill anybody in their way. In Hutou at that time, there was a food vendor called Mu Shan, a Chinese acquaintance of mine. When the Russian troops marched