The Natural Laws of Good Luck Read Online Free PDF

already marriedin a government office by virtue of official signing of papers. But Da Ge had invited many old friends to come to a wedding “show” that included martial arts stunts and a wedding orchestra. We were supposed to appear onstage and dance a wedding dance. This exhibitionist idea was repugnant to Zhong-hua, but he could not say no to an older brother-in-law.
    Da Ge and Zhong-hua were opposite personalities. Da Ge relished the limelight. He loved to show off his skill with sword or staff and leap high in the air in his pink silk pantaloons. Wherever we went, he demonstrated to people he had just met how he could make
qi
energy by concentration. He captured their attention and then made them feel the heat collected in his palms. He said he could blow off the end of a Coke bottle with this heat, but it would make a mess. I asked Da Ge if Kong Hui and I could share our poem translation at the show, since his brother was also going to perform with his yo-yo in what seemed to be shaping up as a hodgepodge talent show. He said, “OK, OK, if there is time.” I didn’t yet know enough to realize that this meant “No way.”
    The night of the show we were supposed to meet everybody to catch the bus that would take us to dinner. We hurried down the main street lined with vendors selling from small tables or makeshift platforms made of crates. They sold bunches of greens, eggs and watermelons, jade bracelets, and small statues of Confucius. Zhong-hua shouldered me onto a side street and up an alleyway strewn with cardboard and vegetable refuse. Stucco walls smelled of urine, and flies feasted on melon rinds. We made a few more turns into the labyrinth and ducked into a restaurant.
    The restaurant was the living room of an old man and his wife who were on the couch watching TV. Two bottles of wine stood at attention on top of the TV, and one small table occupied the middle of the room. The man motioned for us to sit, and Zhong-hua pointed to the wine atop the TV. Soon we were served a gigantic dish of dumplings with another huge bowl of chopped cucumbers on the side. Zhong-hua linked his arm through mine and downedthe wine while I downed mine. We smirked like two outlaws stealing time. It took only an ounce of Chinese wine to paralyze my lips and set my head on fire. I vaguely remembered that we were supposed to be going somewhere, but where?
    I thought of the two small china vessels on my mother’s shelf, a portly middle-aged man with a knapsack and cane and his pleasingly plump wife in her bonnet and long-aproned skirt with a basket on her arm. The inscription on the base under the man’s feet said, “I am going on a journey.” The inscription beneath the woman read, “And I am going with him.” I would follow Zhong-hua anywhere. Zhong-hua’s face was beet red, but I trusted him no less. I asked,
“Women yin’gai qu nar?”
(We should go where?)
    â€œBu yao.”
(No need.) He filled my glass again. We finished our meal and careened back into the alley. Zhong-hua bought a watermelon from a farmer, who slashed it open with one stroke of his big knife. We sat on the dusty curb and ate it, slurping and spitting seeds. One landed on my shoe. I realized Zhong-hua did not care about red shoes or about my appearing in them to please his brother-in-law. Ordinarily, I could not detect any trace of negative attitude in this man, but he had drunk the tall bottle of wine from the top of the TV, and I could plainly see that he disdained to go among the people Da Ge had summoned.
    â€œDa Ge is waiting for us.”
    Zhong-hua waved his hand in dismissal. As the younger relative, he must always defer to his elder. Da Ge used him as a shopping cart, a hat rack, a bellboy, and a secretary, according to the order of the Confucian universe. Zhong-hua sauntered down the alley with deliberate slowness, his arm draped heavily over my shoulder. He began to sing a melody. The