Riding the Snake (1998) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mao is dearest of all." It had been the beginning of a political dissatisfaction that had ended with his exile to Khotan.
    The train rattled on, a lurching, winding metal snake, taking him back to the city of his birth.
    After five days, the train finally pulled into Beijing's bustling "Fire Cart Station." Zhang Fu Hai got off and looked around in awe at the same railroad station he had left fourteen years before. Only the building remained the same. Its twin clocks chimed in watch - towers above the station roof. Red flags were flapping in the late winter breeze from silver poles at the end of the huge new concrete concourse. Outside lay a wonderland of capitalism. There were shiny American and German-made taxis lined up, waiting for rich travelers. Fu Hai couldn't afford one of these, so he hired a three - wheeled trishaw with a pedal-boy to take him back to his old neighborhood.
    Beijing was totally transformed. No more dark colors and drab clothing. The city was alive with activity. It was February 8, 1998, the day before Chinese New Year, which would mark the beginning of the Year of the Ox. The national bird of China had become the construction crane. The steel-armed monstrosities seemed to be perched on top of every other building. There were department stores with plate-glass windows filled with modern appliances, which more and more people could afford: "Snowflake" refrigerators and "Great Wall" color TVs. Record stores advertised Aiwa stereos. A huge McDonald's restaurant was right on the edge of Tiananmen Square. Fu Hai passed the old Forbidden City and Bei Hai Park with its placid, beautifully landscaped lake. They peddled past Coal Hill with its five gold-roofed pavilions.
    Beijing seemed money-mad. He could barely believe Wang Fu Jing, the big shopping street with its T-shirt shops and music stores. He gawked at the Chinese shoppers in bright clothing and western blue jeans. He marveled at the fancy bars, restaurants, and karaoke clubs.
    All of this had been happening while he'd been in a dank, dark room sweating over steaming silk cocoons. Instead of being thrilled by the changes, he became even more bitter. Because of the "Four Olds," he had lost his chance to be a part of it all. And even worse, he knew he never would be. He was no longer from Beijing. He was now a hated refugee from the Western Provinces. A peasant scorned for his very presence here, forced to constantly show his relocation permission slip.
    Fu Hai finally arrived at his father's old house. It was as he remembered: a large gray brick building with an ornate carved wooden door, which had been freshly painted red. After asking for his sister at the second-floor apartment where he was born, he was told by an old woman that Wang Xiao Jie was now living in the abandoned porter's room near the street entrance of the house with her husband, a night soil collector named Wang Ping An. His sister, the old woman said, had one child, a girl. It was said with contempt, girls being of little value in New China. Fu Hai walked slowly across the tiny courtyard, passing coal bricks drying in the sun. The bricks were made by scraping coal dust out of the stoves, mixing it with water, and pouring it in wood molds to dry. Later, it would be cut into bricks and reused. Everything in China was reused--even old wood matches were saved. A wood splinter could still carry a flame from one fire to another. Eggshells could be sprinkled on potted plants as fertilizer. Old Ping-Pong balls got faces painted on them and with a little cloth became finger puppets to entertain children.
    Fu Hai walked across the yard feeling the harsh stares of the families now clustered in the building. He walked down the stairs into the dark porter's room. A cloth hung over the threshold of a ten-foot-square windowless space that was now his beloved little sister's home. When he saw her, he could barely believe it was her. She looked ancient. A twenty-six-year-old crone. Her teeth were