Ran Chen - A Private Life

To be accurate, I should really refer to you as my teachers or guides. You clarified my thinking, rectified my attitude, and reformed my overall outlook, rekindling in me the same flame of enthusiasm for living and life that burns in the masses! My intractable obstinacy and extreme pig-headedness must have exhausted you, given you no peace at all, and left you emaciated from the need to give me constant attention. I remember you once saying that it would be easier to deal with an undercover commando or a posse of female American CIA agents than to deal with me. Obviously, I've been a major headache to you, and a thorn in your side. And worst of all, despite your help, I treated you as my enemies. It fills me with shame and distress to think back on how heartless I have been.

Now, at last, I understand, and it is because of this that I am writing to you here to express my sincere thanks, and to give you a full report on my life and work at present.

My mood has changed, and I'm always happy now. Sometimes I have a hankering to feel melancholy, but I just can't bring it off. I often go out for a walk, and I've discovered that every day it's a new sun, and the touch of its golden light makes me smile. All the women that I meet on the street are just like my mama. They ask me if everything is okay, if I'm hungry, or not feeling well. And all the men I meet are just like the model soldier and citizen Lei Feng. If I should carelessly stumble, they fight to be first to rush over and pick me up, and make great efforts to help me brush the dust off my clothes, and they offer me money to go to the hospital to get my cuts bandaged, even if I haven't so much as scraped the skin on my knee. I really don't understand: when I walked on the streets before, why did those empty scenes leave me so cold, so troubled? Why could I not suppress my tears?

Even a vegetable seller in the farmers' market gave me things for free. It was one time when I had gone there to buy some cucumbers. There was a little boy in line right behind me. Actually, there was all kinds of room around us, but he stuck there right behind me anyway. I had seen him around before. He was always in the market, perched on the top of a heap of vegetables in the sunshine, eating an apple or reading some children's book. I guess he was one of the sellers' kids, maybe the lady's in front of me. I thought they looked a bit alike, so I didn't pay him any further notice. The lady selling vegetables was particularly friendly that day, talking nonstop about this and that, asking me where I bought my dress, and how much money the mayor earned. Picking over the cucumbers, I said, "The mayor serves the people. He just doesn't think about things like that." When I went to pay her, I discovered that my purse had disappeared. I must have carelessly dropped it somewhere. I was so upset I started to cry, but the lady said, "Don't cry. We all have troubles sometimes. Here, the cucumbers are free." I was so deeply moved!

Now my house is always jammed with visitors. I wend my way among the happy crowds, nodding my head in greeting, smiling, clinking glasses, never the least bit lonely. And the telephone is constantly ringing off the hook. I used to have a sign on the front door that said, Visitors please say "Bye" after ten minutes. There's still a sign on the door, but the message is totally different. Now it reads, Make yourself at home – you're welcome anytime. Now in my home, the front room is like a market, the front door always open. When one group leaves, another arrives. My friends go on about my complexion, they say my face is beautiful, my skin delicate and fair. When I say, "I haven't had a chance to wash it yet!" they all laugh. What bothers me is that I can't figure out why all these male and female friends love me so much, or whether or not I should get married. I'm afraid that if I marry one of them, I'll lose too many friends; yet if I marry the lot of them, not only will they wear me to a frazzle, I'll be in trouble with the law as well. It's such a happy time – the days flit by like minutes!

Even if it should happen that none of my friends comes to visit, I am very happy all by myself. With my supper I have a tiny glass of American ginseng whisky (please note: just a tiny glass, not a large one), for health purposes only. With the weather gradually getting colder, and my blood circulation being rather poor, as you know, my hands and feet are always cold, and a little shot of whisky warms up my nerve endings. Although there was one time when I drank just a tad too much and chatted with myself the entire night. Asking this and answering that, I was quite a scene, a veritable symposium all by myself, so much so that the next morning when I bumped into my neighbors in the hall, they asked me, "Just how many guests did you have in your place last night?" But, I promise you, nothing like that will ever happen again.

My present rapid progress is, of course, all the result of your guidance and your treatment!

What is especially pleasing is that no longer do I just sit at home staring at the walls, living off what my mother left me. I have gone out into the world and joined the work of society. Not too far from home, I got a job in a warehouse, keeping track of incoming and outgoing inventory. Because of my extensive educational background, I was very quickly made the manager of my section, but even then people thought the job didn't tap my abilities. But I was very pleased. Even though, counting me, the warehouse had only two workers, being manager of a section was not too far from being deputy head of a department, and after that it's only one more little step to becoming a bona fide cadre.

Of course, a road up is never without its twists and turns, and responsibilities are always arduous. As you all know, I'm not very good at mathematical calculations. Although I am quite aware of the old saying that when there's a tiger on the mountain you should skirt around it, when you choose a job checking inventory you can't avoid dealing with numbers, and even after a tough stretch of trying, I still managed to mix up incoming and outgoing inventory. So I had no choice but to give up my management job. But this didn't dishearten me at all.

Yesterday, a city census officer knocked on my door. Looking through the peephole, I first thought it was a man, but when I looked closely, I saw it was a woman. She was beautiful, very striking; and, quite reassured, I opened the door. With Mother's death, the number of people in the house had changed from the original two to one, and she had come to take care of the change in registration. Right then and there, I decided that I would like to be a census officer. I told her this and asked her to help me. She talked to me for a long time that day. I could see that she really liked me and would surely be able to help me. As soon as I thought that before long I could put on my uniform and go from house to house mixing gloriously with the common people, knowing who was eating rice, who was out of soy sauce, who borrowed an onion from whom, who had a new daughter-in-law, I felt an ineffable joy and completeness. What pleasure all this will bring me!

It is obvious from all this that my "agoraphobia" has been thoroughly rooted out by you. And from this written report you should be able to see how clear, how precise, and how logical my thinking has become. So, since I am now fully recovered, there is no need for any further examinations.

Thank you all once again for your care and attention!

Ni Niuniu

Early winter, 1994, Beijing

After I had mailed the letter to the hospital, I went to the store and bought a blue lampshade, a vibrant yellow artificial sunflower, and a milk-white and lavender porcelain flower vase, which I took home and carefully arranged in my beloved bathroom.

When I was finished, it was just like another world.