I was happy to be using what I’d struggled so long to learn, yet I felt no desire to spend years in the remote dusty reaches of China. The place was so secluded, and the work so exhausting, that I truly achieved an empty mind. The confusion that had overwhelmed me in New York was letting me alone for now, but waiting, like the phoenix, to soar again.
On a hot day during the third week, we were working at our last destination of the day-cave no. 45 of the thousand-armed Guan Yin. This cave felt so cool that I gave out a sigh of comfort as I stepped in. I took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from my face, then I turned to smile at my young friend. “Shifu, wouldn’t it be nice if we could now have a Coke with ice?”
“Hmmm…” She thought for a while. “But I’d rather have iced green bean soup-that’s what really dissipates the heat.”
“Not a bad idea, Shifu!”
Still laughing, our eyes caught the statue.
My friend gasped. I let out a small cry.
“Poor Guan Yin,” I blurted out, “she has lost at least half of her arms!”
The young nun exclaimed, “And her whole face is gone!”
Seeing this heartbreaking sight, Enlightened to Emptiness immediately plopped down and did prostrations. I did them with her. After we’d finished, we stood up and scrutinized the mutilated Goddess.
Enlightened to Emptiness whispered to me as if fearing that the earless statue might hear our conversation. “Miss Du”-she was now counting the Goddess’s outstretched arms-“there are only five left.” Then she exclaimed, “Ai-ya!” and shook her head in dismay.
If all objects, like humans, have fate, then surely this thousand-armed Guan Yin’s was not as lucky as the others who had the fortune to escape natural or man-inflicted damage. Then I thought of the Golden Body, dead for a hundred years, with the luck to be cared for and pampered like the living, or should I say, better than the living.
When I raised my camera to take another picture, I noticed the bare space on my left ring finger. Not wanting to take any risk that it might attract too much attention or even get stolen in China, I had left the engagement ring back home. Because of my hectic schedule in Anyue, I hadn’t thought much about Michael. It’s sad to realize the truth that human emotions are, like the stone statues, equally vulnerable to the lapse of time. Now ten thousand miles away, was I also out of Michael’s mind?
My gaze fell on the two large holes in the Goddess’s face. I stared at them as an emptiness started to gnaw at me. I didn’t want my life to end up like the holes-dark, empty, forgotten.
I peeked at Enlightened to Emptiness, who was now snapping pictures with fierce concentration. Are all nuns’ lives trouble-free like hers? I doubted it. She was just still too young to be enlightened to the machinations of this Ten Thousand Miles of Red Dust.
After three weeks of uninterrupted work on the sculptures, we felt so overwhelmed and exhausted that we decided to have some fun on the weekend-the last Saturday before we’d go back to Hong Kong.
“Let’s start with the local market,” I suggested to Enlightened to Emptiness.
She sighed.
“What’s wrong, Shifu?”
“Hai, but…”
“But what?”
“You know, it’s forbidden, actually not forbidden, but…inappropriate for a nun to go to the market.”
“But Shifu, remember that all Bodhisattvas, after they have attained enlightenment, all come back to this dusty world, right in the marketplace, to help the others.”
“Hmmm…OK, I’ll go, but…”
“My lips are sealed.”
In the midst of the crowded market we detected many stares and remarks directed toward us.
“Hey, a nun!” a teenage girl exclaimed, nudging her girlfriend.
“Mama, that woman has no hair!” a child pulled at her mother’s tunic and yapped.
“What’s that pretty girl doing with a nun?” a young man said to his friend, while throwing malicious glances at us.
A vendor smiled at my friend. “Miss, much cooler to have your head shaved, eh?”
Worst was when a plump man with missing teeth spat vehemently on the floor-a gesture to cast away bad luck. Some ignorant men believe that if they see a monk or a nun, especially in the morning when the day is starting, it will bring them bad luck. Shaved heads signify “nothing left,” which might result in “nothing left” in their pockets and rice bowls.
I peeked at my nun friend. She looked a little upset.
“Shifu, are you all right?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve experienced worse,” she said, resuming her spirited stride. “One time a man even came up to knock on my head.” She smiled. “But most people are still very respectful to us.”
Soon we squeezed into a stall crowded with children and their parents and saw a display of candy figures: dragon and phoenix, as well as the monk Xuan Zhuang, the crafty monkey and the lazy pig depicted in the famous novel Journey to the West.
“Miss Du, look,” my friend said excitedly, “he’s making the candies.”
The craftsman, a skinny, wrinkled fortyish man, ladled melted sugar from a pot, poured it on a slab of marble, then, with a small knife, started to pinch, pull, press, and cut the sugar. In just a few minutes, human figures, animals, tigers, birds, fishes, even insects were born under his dexterous fingers.
I bought the dragon for myself and the monkey for my friend. “Shifu”-I handed her the candy-“Enlightened to Emptiness.”
We chuckled. In the novel, the crafty monkey was named Wu Kong-Enlightened to Emptiness.
Happily my friend licked the monkey’s head, then said suddenly, “Oh, Miss Du, I don’t think I’m supposed to eat this.”
“Why not? It’s vegetarian.”
“It’s in the shape of a monkey, after all!”
“Oh, come on, Shifu, it’s not really an animal. No one from Hong Kong will see us here. Relax.”
“All right then,” she said, noisily biting off the monkey’s head.
Enlightened to Emptiness and I continued to lick and wander, following the flow of the crowd. My friend looked completely enthralled by the diversity and animation of the market. Her large eyes took in everything. Her pink lips let out excited oohs and aahs. So young and energetic, she really should have had some fun in the secular world before entering the nunnery. I wondered what made her become a nun at such a young age and whether she ever felt regret. Had she ever tasted the flavor of being with a man she loved?
Memories arose in my mind of strolling with Michael in the night market in Hong Kong. I remembered his hand reaching out to mine, his asking me to take him to see a Chinese opera with a happy ending, my teasing him about how I liked dogs, especially on a plate…
Then, we had been two strangers brought together by the fire. Now we were troubled lovers ten thousand miles apart.
“Miss Du-” Enlightened to Emptiness’s high-pitched voice awakened me from my reveries. “Let’s take a look here.”
We were now in front of a book stall crowded with several young people and teenagers. My friend immediately plunged into flipping through pages of old books and movie magazines as well as cheaply printed books on astrology, physiognomy, palmistry, and cooking.
As I was about to suggest that we leave, I found the young novice’s eyes shining bright and her lips moving soundlessly while she seemed to thoroughly enjoy herself.
I poked my head over her shoulder. “Shifu, what are you reading?”
Blushing, she tried to hide the book, but then handed it to me.