‘Deng Xiaoping employs a fellow Sichuanese to roll his cigarettes,’ I tell them. ‘He won’t smoke anything else.’
‘Will we be able to visit Hong Kong after 1997, like we can visit Shenzhen now? Will Hong Kong and Shenzhen merge into one huge city?’
‘That depends how long your old compatriot lives.’
On the 11th I begin my ascent of Emei, the highest of China’s four Buddhist mountains. It is believed that the Indian saint, Puxian, travelled here in the sixth century on the back of a white elephant to perform miracles and expound on Buddhist law. I visit the Temple of Eternity in the foothills and see the sixty-two-ton bronze statue of Puxian seated cross-legged on a white elephant. In my dreams that night, the white elephant stomps through a busy market street. Crowds stumble back in terror and watermelons roll to the ground.
For two days I scale the stone steps of the narrow mountain path. At noon on the third day, I look down from the Golden Summit and see three silver rivers snaking through the hills of Sichuan and a line of snowcaps piercing the sky in the west. The landscape looks primordial and untouched. It is hard to believe that Sichuan is the most densely populated province of China, and home to a hundred million people.
Down from the mountain, I walk east and see the hanging coffins of the Bo tribe on a cliff of the River Min. The coffins are suspended on wooden plinths halfway up the rock face, and are the only legacy of the vanished Bo. Historians are not sure how the Bo placed their coffins there, or why the tribe vanished so mysteriously. But local legend has it that when imperial troops invaded the area in the seventeenth century to quash restive tribes, the Bo retreated to the rim of the cliff and hurled themselves off the edge.
Further east, at Neijiang, ‘City of Sweets’, I buy half a jin of sugared plums and go to munch them by the banks of the River Tuo. A small crowd gathers beside me to watch an old man swallow a sword. When the blades bulge through the skin of his neck everyone claps, and a little boy of eight or nine holds a plate out and asks for money. The old man announces his next act is called ‘Drawing Blood’. He raises his sword in the air and with one strike hacks right into the little boy’s neck. The boy faints in a pool of blood. The old man panics for a second, then begs the crowd to donate some money for the emergency hospital treatment. I give him ten yuan. When I squeeze free from the crowd I discover someone has stolen my sunglasses.
The next day I reach Dazu and see the Buddhist rock sculptures of Mount Baoding. A thirty-one-metre reclining buddha protrudes from the rock face, flanked by shrines to Confucian precepts of filial piety and statues of Laozi, the Daoist sage. A cliff nearby is carved with a Wheel of Life showing scenes from the six states of existence into which man is destined to be reborn. Those who kept to Buddhist law are shown languishing in the comforts of paradise, while sinners condemned to hell writhe in agony as cruel demons rip their tendons and tear out their eyes. The barbaric tortures remind me of Zhang Zhixin, the idealistic high-school teacher who was executed in the Cultural Revolution for daring to question Mao Zedong’s rule. The soldiers who walked her to the execution ground were afraid she would shout subversive slogans at the firing squad so they slashed a knife through her larynx, and in her agony she bit off her own tongue.
On the 19th I continue east, trudging for hours along a noisy dusty track. When I can bear it no longer, I jump onto a packed bus, buy a ticket, and breathe smells of dirty teeth and soiled nappies all the way to the city of Chongqing.
It is raining when I step off the bus. The air is cool and fresh. Below me, through the grey mist, I glimpse the brown waters of the mighty Yangzi converge with a muddy tributary. The river is so wide I cannot see the opposite bank. Boats float near and far, some moving, some not. I climb a steep, narrow street lined with small shops and food stalls. The man with wet hair wheeling his bike, the girl in black stilettos, the old woman riffling through the rubbish bin, the lady with a sagging bottom and a dainty leather bag, the children thrashing each other with their satchels, the rats scrambling up the gutters, all seem oblivious to the rain.
I reach the address He Liu gave me before I left Chengdu. It is an old wooden house. I creak up the narrow staircase and see a large rat on the landing. He watches me approach, and politely steps to the side. Our feet almost brush as I pass. I knock on the door but no one is there. I presume they are not back from work, so I walk outside and buy a fizzy orange. A bald shopkeeper is hurling abuse at a female stallholder across the road. ‘I’ll fuck your grandmother, bitch!’ he shouts. ‘I’ll fuck your wife, bastard!’ she retorts. ‘Better stuff a cucumber in your knickers first!’ he bellows triumphantly. The stallholder looks crestfallen and everyone laughs. The rainwater cuts small channels into the mud on the road and seeps through the holes of my shoes. It reminds me of the night I got drenched outside Chengdu train station.
The following day I visit White Palace Prison on a hill outside town. My school textbooks were full of stories of communist martyrs who were tortured here in the Second World War by the merciless Guomindang. The communists have now turned the prison into a propaganda museum. I expected to see a dark, sinister fortress, but instead find the building resembles a small country hotel. The cells inside are dark and musty, and strewn with mangles and iron chains.
On my way out I stop to read the notice pasted on the gates. My eyes skip past the first paragraph (’To commemorate the founding of the People’s Republic and strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat. .’) and focus on the list of criminals below. Each name is struck with a red cross.
Zhang, male, 23 years. Planned to incite insurrection by setting up an illegal ‘China Youth Party’. Execution imminent.
Wang, male, 24 years. Listened to enemy radio stations and corrupted his friends with counter-revolutionary discourse. At 10:00 a.m., 10 October 1982, he stormed onto a tourist bus parked outside the Natural History Museum, claimed to be armed with explosives, and distributed leaflets on the benefits of plural democracy among the terrified foreign passengers. Fortunately, the driver was able to perform a brave citizen’s arrest. Execution imminent.
Chen, male, 27 years. Since June 1979 made frequent plots to leave the country. On 2 October 1981 he stole a fishing boat and, when crossing into Japanese waters, he yelled ‘I’m free!’ at the top of his voice. A few hours later the tide pulled his boat back across the border into the capable hands of the Chinese naval police. Execution imminent.
Lu, male, 25 years. Held private parties and danced cheek to cheek in the dark, forcefully hugging his female dance partners and touching their breasts. Seduced a total of six young women and choreographed a sexually titillating dance which has spread like wildfire and caused serious levels of Spiritual Pollution. Execution imminent.
Yang, male, 31 years. Duped 25 women into marrying farmers in Anhui and Qinghai with empty promises of a better life. The police confiscated 16,000 yuan and four wristwatches from his room. Execution imminent. .
The thirteen criminals listed above will be taken to the public execution ground and shot in accordance with the will of the people.
Public executions take place throughout China in the run-up to National Day. I have grown up reading these death notices and have attended several executions. I once watched an army truck stop, a young man called Lu Zhongjian come out, handcuffed, and two soldiers escort him away. When he started to scream, they slung a metal wire over his mouth and tugged it back, slicing through his face. Then they kicked him to the ground and shot three bullets into his head. His legs flailed and his shoe flew into the air. A year later I married his girlfriend. I only found out they had been lovers when I discovered his death notice hidden at the back of Guoping’s drawer.