Can Xue - Five Spice Street

Really, it was this damn Dr. C whose third opinion actually fostered Madam X’s wicked bluster. He had sat on the roof for forty- nine or sixty-four days: did this mean that he must have talked with the gods or the heavens? Can it be proven? Only his wife verified what he had done, but she didn’t verify any communication between him and the gods, or that he had reached any high-level sexual joy. Rather, she verified that while he was on the roof, he had farted several times because of indigestion, and these farts had gone into her cooking pot. After Madam X had tugged at every passerby and announced her intention, all the elites suddenly became crazy and cursed Dr. C. fiercely, temporarily forgetting their upbringing and manners. They said it was this politician (that’s what they called C) who had put forward some dirty advocacy of high-level sexual joy and also had come up with some sort of popular song, thus abetting Madam X in her arrogance and caprice. In the past, these two publicly unknown cockroaches (for the moment, that’s how they decided to refer to X and Q) had never had this kind of courage. Because of C’s agitation, all of Five Spice Street’s ordinary people would become immodest and restless, just waiting to see. Immoral things would occur. If things turned out like this, how could we elites face society and how could we continue to hold the fucking meetings? Thinking of these questions with bitter hatred, the elites felt regret for the first time. When C climbed up to the roof like a centipede, no one had predicted this outcome. Everyone had watched with admiration from their small windows, as if entrusting him with all their responsibilities and obligations, and waited to enjoy the harvest he would bring. As he looked up at the firmament (in fact, he was calculating), we gasped unanimously in admiration, hoping that he would redeem our world, and redeem our souls as well. We also foolishly sang the popular song he used to trick us! What kind of ‘‘popular song’’ was it? It’s too shameful to hum even one word of it now. We really wished we could hide in a closet and not come out! Just think, even the elites behaved disgracefully. It was nauseating to remember. And what about the ordinary people? What about X and Q?

The time for firm measures has arrived, dear ones! We mustn’t hesitate any longer. We have to correct our position and take Mr. A’s viewpoint as our motto. Let’s learn it thoroughly. The meetings will continue. Everyone must gouge his selfishness from the deepest part of his soul, put the filthy thing on the table, and dissect it with a scalpel. There is a kernel in Dr. A’s lecture-his point about the masculine spirit. The reform he mentioned is significant; unlike just taking photographs, it contains a truly qualitative change. If we realize this change, we’ll reach a new realm. Our bodies will grow strong muscles, our mustaches will be thick and dark, our voices deep and stentorian. Our gestures will be vigorous and convincing. With such photographs on our walls, the world will change into a man’s world filled with masculine activities.

We elites have made mistakes. We have decided to correct our weaknesses. To start we can use a back thrust, or it’s also all right to say that we will turn our guns backwards and shoot. We’ll aim at Dr. C. Having stripped off his mask, we see the original. How can he be considered a major scholar or a philosopher? Someone carefully identified him and remembered that years ago he was a peddler selling quack medicine at the Five Spice Street intersection. Later, he changed his identity and bored his way into the ranks of our elites. Does this suggest that we’re a bunch of fools who mixed up a peddler with a philosopher and social elites? Here, we must emphasize a little something: his ‘‘sudden change of identity’’ didn’t occur overnight, but only after assiduous study-after exerting the strength of a peasant in a field of books. Lapping up information without digesting it, he finally reached the high level that he occupies today. At first everybody respected his erudition. He was very good at suiting his actions to circumstances and saying whatever people wanted to hear. Knowing we didn’t like compliments, he might not compliment us. He just refined our thoughts. As soon as we stated our opinions, he immediately followed up with his, expounding reasonably, causing you to be delighted and to accept him as a comrade, as a most beloved friend and confidant. After many years of hard study, this damn medicine peddler changed and became erudite and multi-talented. If it hadn’t been for this unfortunate incident, who would have remembered his origins? Hadn’t he been on the same footing with us not long ago? One bad element among us had purposely praised him, wanting him to ascend so that he himself would skyrocket ahead! That bad element had also tried to climb to the roof of the thatched cottage and participate with C in the swindle of the dialogues with the gods. It was only because the rafters were rotten and couldn’t support the weight of two people that he had to give up his plan. During those forty-nine or sixty-four days, he waited under the roof. If there was the slightest sound from above, even a fart, he would announce this to others and say that he was ‘‘the old philosopher’s proud disciple’’ and that he ‘‘was almost united in one body with the old philosopher.’’

All the elites believed their greatest weakness was that they didn’t learn enough from history; they suffered from amnesia. It was only eight years ago, or maybe twelve years ago, that this C had been a medicine peddler: how had we forgotten? While the tune he sang to peddle fake medicine was still in our ears, how could we forget and blindly worship him? It was as if we were purposely forgetting, or as if we considered his squalid background part of his glorious struggle. After recognizing this, the elites decided to have meetings in the dark room once every three days instead of once every five, and in urgent situations, once a day, in order to exchange views and summarize them in a timely fashion and to guard our homeland as tightly as an iron pail that ‘‘would not allow even a mosquito to fly in.’’

Okay. Let’s look at how X implemented her ‘‘normalization’’! Is normalization the same as legalization? First, we can dismiss this possibility, because the relationship between her and him definitely cannot be legalized. Never! So, how did she ‘‘normalize’’? Did she jump out from that dark granary to the main road and have sex in broad daylight? Did she force her way into Old Meng’s loft and live openly with an adulterer? Neither solution would work. We are ‘‘waiting’’! This ‘‘waiting’’ isn’t something we can easily deal with. X and Q had learned lessons from it in the past. We should consider X’s pronouncement a kind of overstated exhibitionism. According to Dr. A’s theory, a woman is simply a woman. How much difference could she make? She may have overcome Q (perhaps in fact Q overcame her), but that didn’t mean that she could overcome all of our elites. She may perform her ‘‘normalization’’ in midair: she’s certainly welcome to try; she just shouldn’t make a clamor. C took her hen-like cackle as a stage of sexual joy. Fuck! We’d rather cut off our tongues than accept this. She might have taken advantage of C’s foolishness and performed her joyful activities in dark places at first and then moved to the open street. Does that mean that we elites have to stand on the same side with her? Fuck! If she allied herself with C and put together a mighty battle array and then forced her way into Old Meng’s loft, would our elites have to retreat to avoid a conflict, or would they flee at the sight of the oncoming force? Fuck! As we see it, there’s something wrong with X’s mind. She must think that she and Q had become invincible to dare to make such an uproar on the street. Otherwise, why did she previously have to hide? Otherwise, why was it that no one had located the granary, which so far existed only as a hypothesis? Analysis of her past behavior showed that X did have this weakness. She would become overconfident and intoxicated too soon, unaware that fierce battles awaited her. Really, now an excess of self-confidence would cause her defeat. Even if she were smarter than others and had the ability to plan and perform, this self-confidence-so distant from reality- would ruin everything she had imagined.