Howard Goldblatt (Editor) - Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused – Fiction From Today

President Shi's eloquence flowed on; he was conversant with all the famous examples of toothache as well as all pertinent theories and schools of thought, from ancient to modern, native and foreign. From the fifth left upper molar of Napoléon to the auction of the dentures of Hitler's mistress, Eva; from the front teeth of the newly excavated female mummy of the Eastern Han dynasty to the qualities of the Buddha's tooth and its efficacy on various occasions-he was conversant with them all. Then he went on to the great controversy between the conservative and the radical schools in treating toothache, which has been raging for centuries. Just as he was at the height of his eloquence, I screamed, "It's killing me!" and fainted dead away.

President Shi was most apologetic. He was also modest. He declared that he was only the president of the Toothology Society and was not a practicing doctor at a dental clinic. He explained that the society was an academic organization and then proceeded to inform rne that all dentists at the county level were supervised by the Handicrafts Management Office of the county government and that their licenses were issued by Agricultural Market Control officers. He kindly pointed out to me that my toothache was too down-to-earth, too mundane for his own interests. He offered me the use of his collection, including The Toothache Encyclopedia, The Complete Guide to Toothache, Suggestions for Tooth Protection , and other reference books. As the ancient saying goes, The master points the way; the key to the cure is in your own hands. How could I have doubted it? I was reluctant to wear out my welcome. So, restraining myself according to the ancient rites, I picked up two volumes and left.

Reading those books plunged me into the depths of confusion. I realized with pain that teeth are mortal but knowledge boundless. In the act of pulling, the teeth are there, but after the act teeth are nonexistent. Lost in boundless despair in a toothless, boundless world, I woke up and found myself a modern man.

My wife's elder brother, who had just returned from research and study abroad, scolded me roundly for my ignorance and condemned President Shi for wallowing in useless words. He pointed out that fleeing the hospital with an aching tooth held hostage in my jaws was like Ah Q hiding from his own baldness. [2]He said that if Ah Q had taken steps earlier to treat his baldness, like taking vitamins and applying hair lotions, he might now be flaunting a mop of hair down to his waist. My brother-in-law warned that a toothache, if unattended, may develop from a single infected tooth to periodontal disease, to pulpitis, to osteomyelitis, to bone tuberculosis, and from there with one quick leap to cancer of the spinal marrow. Then if you're lucky, it's amputation. If not, you're a dead man. Examples were legion. In A.D. 1635, 5,488 people died of tooth disease in Europe alone. He pointed out with great perspicacity that there was no such branch of science as toothology, that none of the developed countries recognize it as such. He would recommend that a group of oral surgeons form a team to investigate the feasibility of toothology as a branch of dental science. I mildly objected to his way of setting up the non-native rhinoceros, metaphorically speaking, as a measure of all things. But I thanked him for his advice. The truth grates on the ears, as the saying goes. He had pointed out the stern effects of my dilatoriness in dealing with my tooth. As I did not want to lose a limb, much less my life, on account of one bad tooth, I decided to act.

I geared myself up for another pulling. That there might be anything else in that particular dental clinic apart from pulling teeth was beyond my wildest imagination. The chairman of the department where I teach told me that extraction is the fastest, the most pleasant, the most sanitary, and the most thorough way of dealing with a bad tooth and that drilling, filing, or filling is a much more painful process, with no end in sight. My colleagues at the department admonished me to make sure that I got hold of a male doctor for the operation, because tooth extraction is heavy labor. According to them, the grain allotment of dentists should be on a par with that of dockworkers. I took in everything gratefully, keeping to myself the fact that it was precisely a male doctor who had nearly killed me with his pulling. Friends and colleagues poured out their own experiences, lessons to be drawn, warnings for the future, tricks for an easy way out, rules to stick by, and so on, all relating to the art of dealing with the aching tooth. As the sayings go, The scholar offers words, the rascal offers gifts, and Birds of a feather flock together. Thus it may be deduced that both I and my community fell into the category of scholars. Alas for my scholarly tooth.

I stood in line for three days running, waiting my turn, but my turn never came. It was said that all the registry slips had slipped out by the back door. The masses at the front gate, tormented by bad teeth, were seething with anger. I wanted to make a scene then and there, but thinking of my status as a professor, I desisted. I would be in the middle of a scandal and still stuck with a bad tooth. I went home and told my wife everything. My wife said, "We have our own back door!" Back door, back door, enter ye who has the key.

I set out with two bottles of Maotai wine (don't blame me if they were fake; I can't tell the difference) to call on my wife's cousin many times removed, a certain Mr. Liu who was department head at one of the offices at the Ministry of Health. Mr. Liu told me first that he was supervisor for hospitals of Chinese medicine, that he had nothing to do with Western medicine, even less with dentistry and second that he disapproved of Western medicine on principle. The entire scope of Western medicine, he pronounced, was to take the human body apart for vivisection, a reflection of the outlook of the early days of the Industrial Revolution. If your tooth aches they'll attack your tooth; if your foot aches, they'll tackle your foot. All they can do, he continued, is to alleviate the manifestations. They're miles away from the root and source of the complaint. They resort to scalpels, forceps, hypodermics, saws, and clamps, treating people like machinery with so many parts. As to teeth, he added, all they know is to pull and fill, fill and pull, and they won't stop until they've rid you of your last tooth. With Chinese medicine, however, it's another story, and here Mr. Liu waxed eloquent. Chinese medicine treats the human body as an entity, a system, a construct of assimilation and dissemination, a system where the yin and the yang contend and supplement each other and the five internal organs move in unison. Even a puny little tooth has its roots in the heart, the lungs, and the kidneys, he assured me. And thus fuzzy mathematics, modern logic, total intuition, and sensory experience represent the postindustrial fifth wave. Mr. Liu informed me that famous physicians of the West had personally told Chinese medical students studying abroad that the future of medicine is embedded in China and will flourish in China, that it was preposterous for them to go west to study, that in fact it was scholars from the West who should make the pilgrimage to China to pluck the fruits of wisdom. He added that Picasso had owned up to Chang Ta-ch'ien that art is found only in China. Likewise, it is China, and China only, that is home to the genuine tooth. To sum up, Mr. Liu volunteered to help me get into the Hospital of Chinese Medicine for treatment.

I was so overjoyed that for the moment I even forgot my toothache. I have only myself to blame for my previous ordeal of that barbarous tooth extraction. Why did I have eyes only for Western medicine? I could kick myself. Mr. Liu went on to write a letter to link me up with a connection of his. I thanked him over and over again.