Sheng Keyi - Northern Girls - Life Goes On

As disembarking passengers took their luggage from the overhead compartment, a bag hit Sijiang on the head. She resisted the urge to cry out, though the tears still dribbled down her face as she stumbled off the train.

It was hot. They staggered along the platform, peeling off layers of coats and sweaters as they went. Sijiang touched all of her pockets again, suddenly feeling that her clothes were very outdated.

‘Don’t fret. We’re here now. It’s alright,’ said Li Mazi.

‘Hey, Sijiang, he’s right, y’know. Just keep moving forward. Here.’ Xiaohong gave her two hundred yuan . As soon as the money was pressed into her palm, Sijiang started crying again, her young face displaying a whole host of emotions.

‘Alright. Let’s get on the train to Shenzhen now. And stop speaking in our hometown dialect. Here it’s just plain ol’ Mandarin.’ Li Mazi had spent a lot of time outside of Hunan and spoke Mandarin fluently. Xiaohong and Sijiang, on the other hand, were constantly tickled by their own attempts when they first started. Later, they just found it bewildering. Everything flowed fine in the Hunan dialect but when it came to Mandarin, they were tongue-tied. The words just got stuck. They were afraid no one would understand them, except Li Mazi. Xiaohong, recalling her primary school lessons word by word, played teacher, with Sijiang her only student.

‘ You. Are. Li. Si. Jiang. I. Am. Qian. Xiao. Hong. He. Is. Li. Ma. Zi. We. Are. In Guangdong . Wah! Look at all them banana trees! They’re covered in fruit!’ The last observation came out in a sudden burst of flowing Hunanese. Sijiang doubled over with laughter. Li Mazi put a finger to his lips, reminding them that there were other people on the train. Xiaohong glanced around and noticed a manual labourer sitting nearby, openly laughing at her through his leering, lecherous expression. She turned away, silently cursing him.

Sijiang began to feel her pockets again, top and bottom, inside and out, not missing a single one.

‘Hey Honghong, when we’ve made a bit of money, I want to buy a whole load of beautiful clothes. What we’ve got on now screams ‘country bumpkin’. You think we’ll get laughed at in Shenzhen?’ Sijiang moved a little closer to Xiaohong as she spoke.

‘We’ve got to wash tons of scalps first but then there’ll be plenty of new clothes, plenty of good food and plenty of men to choose from too,’ Xiaohong drawled, chattering idly.

‘Hey, come on! I keep telling you to use Mandarin,’ interrupted Li Mazi, his eyes springing open from his nap.

‘Alright, if we have to. We. Will. Soon. Be. In. Bea-U-ti-ful. Shenzhen. Si. Jiang. You. Happy? I’m. Hoppy. I’m. Not. Even. Nervous. I’m. Easy ,’ said Xiaohong. And so they made their journey, brushing up on their language skills as they went. Whatever they saw they called it by its Mandarin name, Li Mazi giving guidance when they were wrong. By the time they reached Shenzhen, the two girls’ tongues were completely tied in knots. Li Mazi said, ‘Keep practising. It’ll get smoother as you go along.’

II

The rickety bus rolled along, pulling over at each stop as it went. The young fellow collecting tickets stood up for the whole journey, welcoming those coming aboard and bidding farewell to those alighting. He had a small black bag clasped between his thighs and one hand pressed over it, making it look as if he were touching himself in a less than appropriate manner. When Xiaohong saw him, she fought to suppress her smile.

Seeing the girl’s response, Li Mazi pontificated, ‘For a man, money is a lifeline’.

‘And a woman’s lifeline is…?’

‘A woman’s lifeline is her man.’

‘Oh God! A woman’s lifeline is also money! You think a woman should rely on some guy? No way!’ she said unequivocally. To herself, she thought, Looking at the desperation of that guy who couldn’t fill out his trousers, or that under-the-thumb man who was so keen on Sijiang, you’d think it was men who counted on women for survival, not the other way around.

‘To get money, women always have to go through men. You’ll understand before long,’ Li Mazi retorted haughtily.

‘So, whoever holds the money is in control?’ Sijiang said, as if feeling her way through a fog.

With a surprised gasp, Li Mazi said, ‘That is profound.’

‘Sijiang is right. It is a simple matter,’ Xiaohong said, speaking rapidly in their hometown dialect.

‘Passengers going to Magang get off here,’ called the conductor. The bus spat out the three passengers and pulled away in a cloud of black smoke that choked them half to death.

‘Where the hell are we?’ The two girls were perplexed. The air here was rotten, filled with a yellow dust turned up by the tyres of passing cars as they came off the flyover and onto the open road. The buildings were arranged in a random, disorderly fashion. Sijiang stuck close to Xiaohong, who felt she was drifting about in an odd place.

‘This is the outskirts of Shenzhen. We’re only a short distance away from Magang town centre here,’ Li Mazi pointed vaguely in the direction they’d been travelling in. The landscape seemed to be made up of patches of mist, fog and various shades of grey. There was no sign of the skyscrapers they’d heard so much about. Four legs suddenly felt heavy with exhaustion and disappointment as they trudged along behind Li Mazi through the town to a desolate wasteland. Eventually, they saw a white sign with red lettering, Waste Collection Station.

‘You’re a rubbish collector?’ Sijiang asked, deflated.

‘No. It’s a recycling station,’ Li Mazi replied indignantly. ‘I just help the boss out a bit. Don’t look down your noses at this place or at my boss. He makes a lot of money at this.’

Xiaohong mused to herself, I’ve heard of a rag and bone man saving up enough to build a small house but I never imagined a rubbish collector could amass a fortune. Sijiang was hungry and discouraged, though not nearly as disappointed as Xiaohong, who said loudly, ‘What the hell kind of backwater joint have you brought us to? Hey Sijiang, let’s have a look around first, then we’ll talk about what to do next.’

And so the three of them proceeded down the dirt road towards the waste collection station, in single file, carrying their variously sized baggage. They passed a European-style building, then a small square, then, on rounding a bend, came upon a makeshift shack.

III

‘I’ve told you before. No overnight guests! I’d have to pay a fine if I let anyone stay.’ A rough-featured man with a square head was lecturing Li Mazi in Mandarin that had a heavy Cantonese accent, his arms and legs waving in a furious display of anger. Li Mazi, deftly avoiding the flailing limbs, kept calling him ‘Mr Zhuang’ and ‘Boss’ which seemed to appease the man to some degree. Mr Zhuang’s face visibly brightened when he saw the two girls enter the room behind Li Mazi, only to become tainted by a lecherous cloud.

‘Well, Li Mazi, we really do need you here. There’s lots of work piled up waiting for you.’

‘Mr Zhuang, Boss, these girls are from my hometown.’ At the boss’s softened tone, Li Mazi spoke with a little more confidence.

‘Oh! In that case, welcome, then! Must’ve been a rough trip. Why don’t you take them in to get some rest?’

The workers’ quarters were situated in a low, humid building, accommodating three or four people to a room. Inside each room was a basin, a big window, and a smattering of colourful plastic bags. Li Mazi, being a manager, had a private room equipped with a bed and a desk, leaving a narrow space in which a person could walk from one end of the room to the other.

‘Li, I asked the canteen to cook up something a little extra, seeing as you’ve travelled so far. Not an easy trip.’ Xiaohong and Sijiang just wanted to flop on the crowded bed, but were prevented by Mr Zhuang’s intrusion.