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

The Crabman was delighted to see them. He started boasting about what a hit he had made at the meeting, how many girls had their eyes on him, and how the district leader had come over to shake his hand, which meant either that he wanted to send him to the province-level meeting as a representative or possibly wanted to recommend him to go to college. But let us no longer dwell on the Crabman's inflated ego nor describe the way the Professor's eyes seemed to pop out of his head when he heard the word college . After all, we must not forget that our main characters came here to eat, so let us allow them first to go into the dining room.

With eyes as bright as candles, Four Eyes sized up the situation, table by table. The amount of knowledge needed for scrounging for food was immense since not only did our heroes want to eat, but they wanted to eat well. After all, how else could they accomplish their goal of having a nutritious meal to perk them up? Based upon our experience, the best choice is to sit at a table occupied by female high school graduates. You know just how sophisticated those young ladies from Shanghai can be in front of their male peers. They'll eat only a small bowl of rice and occasionally, very occasionally, daintily pick up a morsel of food. Even then, they look at the food with expressions of disdain on their faces. They say they're full even though their bowls aren't empty and may raise their eyes and sigh in amazement as they say, "Really, I don't know what's wrong, but I just don't feel like eating." Of course, who are we to pass judgment on them? Maybe they would rather starve themselves than see their male classmates return home disappointed because they haven't eaten their fill. If that were really the case, then these young girls should be praised for having been blessed with the radiant, majestic glory that emanates from maternalism and love.

All roads lead to Rome. Four Eyes' choice just happened to coincide with our own. Since he understood the rules of etiquette far better than we, he appeared unwilling to accept other people's kindness without offering some sort of payment. After all, if he was going to eat somebody's stir-fried beef, he was definitely going to give them the benefit of his knowledge. Consequently, one could hear the uninterrupted sound of jokes and laughter coming from that table. You can imagine just how adorable those girls looked as they covered their mouths and giggled. Of course, they had no time to eat, which was perfectly normal and proper. The problem arose when Four Eyes brought up the subject of the Crabman's rescuing Old Chen, a topic of conversation that the Crabman did not find funny in the least. He shot a glance at Four Eyes, in which we can detect the silent suffering of a tough young man whose pride has been seriously wounded. What's more, the flavor of this suffering seemed to be doubly intense. From this episode, we can gain a profound moral lesson: never tell jokes about a man in front of a woman.

Unfortunately, Four Eyes had never learned this lesson, and there he was at the dining room table, bringing up that same old story one more time. The Crabman put down his rice bowl and dragged Four Eyes over to the corner. With a stern look on his face, he said, "A person should be a little more tactful when he speaks. Do you understand? Everything isn't just a big joke."

"Huh? Do you mean the part about saving the portrait?" Four Eyes still hadn't begun to take it seriously. "Don't tell me you're starting to believe the newspaper report?"

"The fact that there wasn't a portrait of Chairman Mao in the room isn't my fault. Hadn't I already risked my life by rushing in there? Can you blame me because Old Chen didn't hang up a picture? If he'd wanted to hang one up, don't you think I'd have helped him? In the ordinary course of events, every house should have a picture of Chairman Mao, so it follows that logically speaking, the newspaper report was accurate."

Four Eyes shook his head so hard his glasses nearly crashed to the floor; then he just stood there for a minute as if in a daze. You could see that he was trembling inside. Then he walked away. But he had only gone about two paces when he turned around, took the letter out of his pocket, and flung it at the Crabman. Then he stalked off, making it clear that he wasn't returning to the table. The Professor and Abe Lincoln exchanged glances. Finally, Abe Lincoln trailed after Four Eyes while the Professor stayed behind with the Crabman. At this point, it's hard to say whose loss was greater. There might have been another goal to this outing for the three of them (that is, apart from the idea of eating well to perk them up). But now that Four Eyes was gone, it's hard to gauge what the chances were of actualizing the goal.

We don't know how the Crabman felt after reading the letter. I heard about what happened later from the Professor. That night, the Crabman ignored the Professor's advice against going to the restaurant in town. Neither did he listen when the Professor tried to dissuade him from drinking so much. At the table next to them were several other young high school graduates from Shanghai who worked at the commune. The Crabman started arguing with one of them over some trivial matter, which resulted in black eyes and bruised faces all around. In the process, they managed to break several bowls and plates. The man who ran the restaurant was neither sympathetic nor amused. He called in the police, who took both sides into custody. Since the Crabman was an activist representative, he was handed over to the head of high school graduates in the district, who subjected him to a half-hour lecture. Luckily for him, this brought the incident to a close. However, from then on, there was no further mention of going to a province-wide meeting or being recommended to go to college or anything of the sort.

Can you actually say you don't feel sorry for the Crabman? Don't you think that he let things get a little out of hand? When you consider what a glorious future he had as a potential college student chosen from among all the activists in the province who answered the Party's call to go up to the mountains and down to the countryside (and getting into college then was certainly more difficult than it is now), it's hard to understand how he could throw everything away because of a girl. With all that going for him, could he possibly have been worried about not finding another girlfriend? Although your questions are perfectly reasonable from both the emotional and logical points of view, somehow the Crabman was unable to get this into his head. So we can only conclude that it must have been caused by the hand of Fate. Otherwise, as Four Eyes said, everything is predetermined by one's personality. In fact, it was that night, when the Crabman returned home so crestfallen, that Four Eyes delivered his famous lecture on how personality types are predetermined.

"Humans fall into three basic personality types," he announced. "Let me give you an example. The first type is called the prude, the second type is the womanizer, and the third is the pervert. That's to say, human desires can be elevated to the theoretical level. Now I'm a true pervert, so I'm not interested in taking any action unless that action is going to confirm my theories. Crabman, you're a womanizer, and that's why you drink and get into a fight over some trivial incident. The Professor is a prude, which is why he won't get involved in things like this. You see, the entire outcome of a person's life is predetermined by his personality type."

"You didn't mention Abe Lincoln. What type is he?" asked the Professor.

"I'm not exactly sure; he's so defensive it's hard to tell. I'd guess he's either a prude or a wild rapist."

The Crabman was seething. He said, "How the hell can he be a wild rapist when I'm just a womanizer?"