I should tell you a bit about the past.
I'm fifty-four this year. Fortune books say fifty-four is a moment of transition. So I should tell you a few things I know.
I must talk about my blood relations. However far I travel, I have to admit that I am from Yingping.
Even if you've never gone back once, your ancestral home is still Wuliang village, Yingping County, Pingyuan Province. Wuliang is sometimes written with the Chinese character for my name, and sometimes with it for "emptiness" .
Wuliang is a big village with a population of three thousand people.
Historically, it was a bastion of reed-mat weaving. To the west of the village is a reed marsh as far as the eye can see, and every household made their living from weaving mats. Wuliang mats supposedly won a gold prize at the 1958 Panama World Fair, but I've never seen the trophy. The men here normally used to be shorter than the women, because of carrying heavy bundles of wet reeds on their backs. The women used to be taller than the men, because they spent their days stamping down on stone rollers to flatten strips of bamboo.
I'll admit that I've touched the bottoms of almost all the women of Wuliang. Back then, as in the old days, Wuliang's women made the men get up at dawn to carry the bundles of bamboo strips that had been broken the night before and to take them away for weaving. Those bamboo strips used for weaving were flattened by the women standing on the stone rollers. The women stood on the round stone rollers in the streets of the village, their heads held up high, using the power in the tips of their toes, the agility of their buttocks, and the shaking of their breasts to drive the stone rollers to and fro, left and right. Every one of them had strong, skilled feet and nimble bodies, like extremely skilled ballet dancers. This used to be a common scene in Wuliang.
In my memory, Wuliang women are all incomparably tall, their asses are plump and luscious, and they are bursting with life. I have to say, I was already somewhat intelligent by then. My hand could just reach a woman's bottom. Back then, I would run down the street under the rising sun, pinching the women's bottoms, and as I pinched, the women would scream and shout. We called it "eating bean jelly" .
And I'll admit that I've touched the breasts of almost all the women of Wuliang. I can say without any exaggeration that I know more about breasts than any other man in the world. Guosheng's woman had a mole on her breast. Zicheng's woman had breasts like misshapen aubergines. Baoxiang's woman had extremely large nipples just like a pair of mauve mulberries. Sanhua's woman had breasts which were like great big gourd ladles. Hailin's woman had breasts which hung down like overgrown old bottle gourds. Yin's woman had nipples which were embellished with pockmarks, like bowls of water tofu sprinkled with black sesame seeds. Shuiqiao's woman had breasts which were tiny, two little wooden bowls upturned on her chest. I'm not telling you this to titillate you. I just want to point out that there are all kinds of women.
Fifty four years ago, my mother gave birth to me on a heap of plant ash, before leaving this mortal world. Three days after I was born, my father, Wu Dashun, who was a coal miner in Datanggou mine three hundred miles away, was buried alive in a gas explosion. The state leaders back then would say, "Fatal accidents are not uncommon." So if you die, too bad. All I was left with was three hundred yuan of funeral expenses. It's not like nowadays, when the marked price for a dead relative is two hundred thousand …
So the third day after I was born, I became an orphan.
Now I want to tell you about my uncle.
Listen, I dared pinch the women's bottoms because my uncle allowed it.
My uncle once had a glorious future ahead of him. In his youth, he was an artillery captain stationed in the Yingping garrison. Captain Cai Guoyin had a name only one character different from his contemporary, the pop singer Cai Guoqing. But they had completely opposite destinies.
People say his love story scandalised the whole city of Yingping. After he stomped into the county middle school in his brand new uniform and riding boots, a little pistol hanging at his waist, his life would never be the same again.
Captain Cai Guoyin was in love. He had taken a liking to one of the girl students. He went to peer into all the classrooms in the school, leaning against the windows with their rotten window papers. To get a better view, he craned his neck and took up various different positions, finally fixing his attention on a girl with a long braid. Every time a teacher came out of the building, he would stand up straight and snap to "attention" with his feet together. In those days people really respected soldiers, so no one thought he was behaving badly. After a while he was invited into the headmaster's office.
As a member of the local garrison and a company commander in the Siye regiment, he had been to the school before, twice to give military training, and once to give a speech. So the old headmaster was very polite to the young captain. "Captain Cai," he said, "You are a hero. It's such a hot day, how could we let you stand outside?"
"The one with her shoulders back," was all the captain said.
"What thunderous applause there was when you gave that speech before," said the old headmaster, "The students learnt a great deal. If you have time, would you come back and speak again?"
The captain clicked his tongue. "The one with her shoulders back," he said again.
The old headmaster fiddled with his glasses. "It's terribly hot. I'll send someone to fetch us a watermelon, shall I? The melons are quite good this year."
And still the captain said, "The one with her shoulders back."
He was talking about a girl who had spontaneously run onstage to offer him flowers, after the speech he had given two weeks earlier. She had left a very deep impression on him. When the old headmaster finally realised what he meant, he was rather embarrassed.
