Ha Jin - Ocean of Words

It was December 28 by the lunar calendar. Squad Leader Han Feng and I brought back our lunch, sorghum and stewed tofu, and put it on the floor of the guest room in Uncle Piao’s house, where the five of us from the Sixth Squad were quartered. Before we could take out the bowls and spoons, the door of the family room opened, and Uncle Piao’s large white head appeared behind the frame. He waved his hand, summoning us. “Today’s my birthday. Come and eat with me.” He spoke Chinese with a thick Korean accent.

We looked at each other and didn’t know if we should obey him. “Thank you, Uncle Piao, but we have our own lunch here,” Squad Leader Han said.

“Come on, all of you.” The old man gesticulated forcefully, the corners of his pouchy eyes wrinkling up.

Getting up from the floor, we had no idea how to deal with the invitation. It was said that the Koreans were so sincere that they would be offended if you didn’t act like their close friends in their homes. Guanmen Village had about three dozen Korean families. They all kept their own customs and lived in convex-roofed houses, in which the floor and the bed were the same.

In the middle of the family room stood a short-legged dining table. Beside it was a basin of rice sending up warm steam in the sunlight. A large bowl of hot soy-paste soup occupied the center of the table, on which there were several dishes and pieces of tableware — kimchee, jellied pork, miniature dumplings, a liquor pot with six small porcelain cups, and six pairs of chopsticks upon six deep plates. Mrs. Piao and their youngest daughter, Shunji, knelt near the two large caldrons set into the floor in a corner; they were ready to serve us. We didn’t know what to do. The old man had not told us a word about his birthday beforehand.

“Sit down,” Uncle Piao said. “All of you. Come close, close to the table.” He pulled my arm. “Sit here, Little Fan.”

We all sat down. I tried hard to sit cross-legged in the Korean manner, but my legs were as stiff as wood. Except Squad Leader Han, the rest of us — Hsiao Bing, Jia Min, Jin Hsin, and I — couldn’t bend our feet backward far enough to sit that way. The squad leader unbuttoned his collar.

“Eat and drink,” Uncle Piao said, picking up a pair of chopsticks. His wife and daughter moved close with wooden ladles in their hands.

“Just a minute, please.” Squad Leader Han stopped them. The two women lowered their eyes and knelt beside me. “Uncle Piao,” Han said, “thank you for inviting us, but we cannot eat your food. We cannot break the rule, you know.”

“What rule?” the old man stopped pouring liquor into a cup; the skin around his big nose crinkled. On his right cheek, the purple mole seemed to grow larger.

“The Second Rule: Do not take a needle or a piece of thread from the people. That’s Chairman Mao’s instruction,” Han said.

“That’s true,” Jia Min and I said in unison.

“Drop it! Don’t give me so many rules in my own home. I make rules here. I want you boys to eat. You don’t take anything from me.”

“You know, Uncle Piao, we will violate the discipline and be punished if we eat with you without the company leaders’ permission.” Han smiled as he kept shooting glances at the dishes on the table.

My mouth was watering. We had not tasted meat for a month, and every one of us might have dared to take a bite of a live pig. It was too much to have these good things in front of you when you could not touch them. “Uncle Piao,” Jin Hsin said, “please let us go!”

“Today is my sixtieth birthday. I’ve invited all of you as my friends, but you don’t want to show your faces at my table. You shame me!” The old man’s nostrils were expanding, and he was red to the neck. Mrs. Piao said something in Korean that sounded like an admonition not to shout.

Bang . Uncle Piao struck the table with the chopsticks. His wife lowered her head. The brown soup was rippling in the pottery bowl. “All right, if you boys don’t eat I won’t celebrate this birthday, no more!” He leapt to his feet.

“Please listen to me,” our squad leader begged, but it was no use. The old man pushed the door open and began throwing the food together with the containers into the yard. The soup bowl flew through the air, leaving behind a brown line on the white ground, landed beside a pear tree, and disappeared in the snow. Pieces of pickled cabbages, pork cubes, and dumplings were scattered everywhere in the yard. A flock of chickens and a few crows arrived at once and began eating away. Their heads were bobbing up and down. It was windless outside, and the sun was shining in the blue sky.

Mrs. Piao held the basin of rice and moved it behind her. Shunji was sobbing. Uncle Piao put on his boots and went out without his fur hat.

We all lost our wits. The squad leader ran out to look for Uncle Piao, while the four of us retreated to our room and ate our own lunch. He did not get hold of the old man, who drove his bullock cart north to transport coal. There were a lot of coal pits in the mountain, and Squad Leader Han didn’t know which one was Uncle Piao’s. Han returned spiritless. Since neither Mrs. Piao nor their daughter understood Chinese, it was impossible for us to explain to them.

That evening our company’s Party secretary, Wang Hsi, and Commander Meng Yun came to the Piaos to apologize. The family had just finished dinner. We gathered in the guest room, watching them through the narrow opening of the door. They were all sitting on the floor, and Uncle Piao was himself again and looked quite happy. After taking away the bowls and dishes, Mrs. Piao placed three small cups of kimchee juice on the dining table. To our surprise, the leaders thanked the old man and both emptied the cups in one gulp.

“Good, that’s an army man, Ha-ha,” Uncle Piao said.

“Uncle,” Secretary Wang said, “we came to apologize for what happened at noon. Our men spoiled your birthday dinner. Please forgive us,”

“No, no, it’s my fault. I had a bad temper.” The old man looked a little embarrassed, and he turned to his wife, who smiled with her palm covering her mouth.

“Uncle Piao, we promise you that won’t happen again,” Commander Meng said.

“It’s all over now. Please don’t mention it again.” The old man drank the last drop of the juice. “To tell you the truth, we Koreans like only straightforward men. I know these boys are good, but they behave like timid girls in my home. You see, they’re soldiers, carrying guns and firing cannons; they should be more spunky. Korean women are crazy about spunky men.”

We couldn’t help tittering behind the door. They all turned to us and then laughed heartily. His daughter Shunji was not present, and Mrs. Piao didn’t seem to understand what her husband had said.

“Uncle Piao,” Secretary Wang said, “we’ll celebrate your birthday the day after tomorrow.”

“It’s on our company,” Commander Meng added. “We’ll bring wine and dishes. All right?”

“All right. Ha-ha, wonderful! I love Chinese food more than Chinese women.” The old man’s eyes flashed a bit in the dim light. They shook hands and got up from the floor.

The company leaders came into our room and told us that from now on if a Korean gave us something, we must not refuse. First we should accept it and then find a way to pay him back. In any case, we must not impair the friendship between the people and the army.

Two days later the whole company had the Spring Festival feast. The mess squad cooked six dishes — stewed boar meat with potato noodles, fried ribbonfish, cabbage and bean jelly, scrambled eggs with mushrooms, pork and tree ears, and turnip slivers mixed with sugar and vinegar, so we just brought back some extra of each dish for the Piaos. The cooks didn’t do anything special for Uncle Piao’s birthday dinner, but the mess officer gave us two large bottles of white spirits, one of which was for the old man.