Ma Jian - Red Dust

Yao Lu hands me a book of Xian legends. ‘It might give you some ideas for a story. I admire you, you know, giving up your job, roaming the country alone. You will be a sage before long.’

‘I am not looking for ideas. I just felt confused about life, and thought travel might clear my mind. I still know so little about this country. If you want to write about society, you need to see the whole picture.’

‘It is hard to empty your mind. Desire is the root of all suffering. I write very little these days, I’m thinking of giving it up and going into academia.’ He gives a bitter smile and rubs his glasses.

I read the four characters on the scroll hung above his desk: Sky, Man, Become, One. ‘What martial arts are you practising these days?’

‘An esoteric branch of qigong. I took it up three months ago. It is a form of deep meditation which helps redress the flow of one’s inner energy. It has improved my concentration. You should try it. After years of practice one can heal the sick and change stone into gold.’

‘I don’t have the discipline. I long to enter a state of calm, but I am plagued by constant distractions. I planned to make a pilgrimage to Tibet a few months ago, but my mind was too clouded, I turned back halfway.’ I am about to mention the fight I had with the thugs who stole my camera, but decide to keep it to myself.

‘Shall we give it a go?’ he asks.

We sit facing each other at opposite ends of the bed. The only sound in the room is the pan of water simmering on the stove. Yao Lu starts giving me instructions. ‘Close your eyes, empty your mind, perceive the Celestial Eye.’

I lower my eyelids and picture the wife’s bra dangling from the peg on the door and Yao Lu’s face bashed to a pulp. I look up, and see Yao Lu, eyes shut, stroking an imaginary ball of air. I close my eyes again and see an open sky.

‘Focus your mind on the pit of your abdomen and discover your vital energy. Breathe in through your mouth and let the energy rise to your hands. Are your palms starting to sweat? Breathe out and feel the heat rise to your forehead. The Celestial Eye sees the fire. .’ Half an hour later my limbs are swollen and my face is dripping with sweat.

‘Good. You have the root of wisdom. Nourish it carefully and you will prolong your life.’ I look up and see a halo of steam hovering above Yao Lu’s head.

‘Have you joined the Daoist Society?’ I ask.

‘No. I refuse to enter any organization. But they have asked me to give a series of lectures on religious divination and the five elements.’

‘I regret taking my Buddhism vows so soon,’ I say, leaning back against the white wall.

‘Daoists believe that Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism are three paths to the same goal. No matter which path you choose through the clouds, they all lead to the same blue sky. Daoism is for me the most interesting, though. There are no gods to worship or rules to obey. It teaches us that man is part of nature, and is condemned to a life of constant change because the Yin and the Yang are inseparable, and follow each other as night follows day. It teaches us not to waste time fighting and grasping but to resign ourselves to fate and live at peace with the world. Every evil has its punishment.’

‘Yes. People waste time fighting one other, when the real enemy is time itself.’

‘There are no enemies in this life, Ma Jian. You have too much aggression inside you. You must learn to be as meek as a newborn child. Daoism tells us the belligerent are always the first to fall.’

‘I don’t approve of aggression, but everyone should know how to defend themselves. I agree that weakness can be strength, but by advocating submission, I feel that Daoism sometimes encourages slothfulness and a sense of complacency.’

‘The police have sunk their claws into me, Ma Jian,’ Yao Lu says, suddenly changing the subject. ‘They have not allowed me to leave Xian since I was arrested for writing that poem on the Beijing Democracy Wall. I feel trapped.’

‘Run away to Shenzhen, then. It’s a haven of free enterprise. You can buy yourself a fake identity card there and get a job with a foreign company. You could even buy a forged passport and make a new life for yourself in America.’ My eyelids are drooping, I am struggling to keep awake.

‘But I have a wife and a child on the way. I can’t leave. Besides, there is no culture in the south.’ His voice is quieter now that he is lying down.

‘Your wife attacked you with a fire poker, for God’s sake. What kind of woman would do that? Leave now before it’s too late.’

‘You cannot change the course of fate,’ he whispers to himself.

With that stone in his heart I know that Yao Lu will never be free, no matter which path he chooses.

The next day I visit the Huaqing Hot Springs at the foot of Mount Lishan. Tourists peer at the empty pools trying to imagine emperors and their beautiful concubines taking their baths here a thousand years ago.

I go to the public bathhouse at the back of the complex and share a small pool with five strangers. The sides are green and slimy, and the water is very hot. My pores slowly open in the disinfectant steam. It feels good. This is my third bath this year. I don’t like showers, but wallowing in warm water is very relaxing. No wonder all the expensive hotels are equipped with baths. The attendant knocks on the door again and shouts, ‘Get washing, you lot. You’re out in five minutes!’

In the afternoon I sit by the Pool of Nine Dragons reading the legend of the stone tablets, then catch a bus to the Terracotta Army. I buy a ticket for the museum, and enter the hall only to find a crowd of peasants selling fake Neolithic tiles and arrowheads. When I return to the ticket booth and ask for a refund, two fat men walk over and shout, ‘You bought your ticket, so go in or shove off!’ I walk away, fuming with rage, and discover the real Terracotta Army Museum is on the other side of the road. A group of southern tourists mill around me, grumbling about the scam. Another tour bus pulls up outside the ticket booth. I walk over to warn them but a tall man in an army coat blocks my way and says, ‘Breathe a word and you’re dead.’ So I stand back and watch thirty people buy tickets, file into the hall and come out seconds later looking disgruntled and confused. I tell myself all sins have their punishment, then turn round and cross the road.

The Terracotta Army vault is just a corner of the vast necropolis of the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shihuang. Like all Chinese emperors, he divided his time between constructing his lavish mausoleum and collecting beautiful women for his harem. Historical records claim that in 246 BC, Qin Shihuang conscripted seven hundred thousand workmen to build his funerary compound which was only completed thirty-seven years later, a year after his death. His son was afraid the workmen might divulge the location of the buried treasures, so he ordered the men to be buried alive, together with the emperor and his concubines. This fifty square-kilometres of land is packed with corpses.

In the cavity of the museum’s main hall, five thousand life-size clay soldiers stand poised for battle, their faces identical to the tourists peering down at them. The vault next door is still under excavation and the soldiers are not yet restored. Some are still half-buried, others have crumbled onto mud walls or lie shattered on the floor. I am reminded of the photographs of the mass graves unearthed just west of Qin Shihuang’s main tomb.

I study the ancient warriors. A layer of skin has been peeled from the earth, and China’s cruel, ugly soul is exposed to the light of day. The emperors who followed in Qin Shihuang’s wake restrained themselves slightly by stipulating that only a third of the national income should be spent on their mausoleums. But they continued to take their most precious possessions with them into the nether world, including jewels, gold and live concubines.