The Pidgin Warrior Read online

  Zhang Tianyi (1906-1985) was a Chinese left-wing writer and children’s author, whose novels and short stories achieved acclaim in the 1930s for his satiric wit.

  David Hull has translated numerous short stories from Chinese. His translation of Mao Dun’s novel Waverings received a PEN/Heim Translation Award. He is a professor of Chinese Language, Literature and Culture at Washington College.

  Zhang Tianyi

  The Pidgin Warrior

  A Novel

  Translated from the Chinese by

  David Hull

  BALESTIER PRESS

  LONDON · SINGAPORE

  Balestier Press

  Centurion House, Staines-upon-Thames, London TW18 4AX

  www.balestier.com

  Original title:洋泾浜奇侠

  The Pidgin Warrior Copyright © Zhang Tianyi, 1936

  English translation copyright © David Hull, 2017

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 911221 09 8 (paperback)

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

  This book is a work of fiction. The literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Contents

  Preface

  Arrival in Shanghai

  The Child of a Splayfoot Culture

  The Flying Mud-Pellets of the Woman Warrior

  The Subjugation of the Cook

  Paying Respects to The Supreme Ultimate Master

  The Power of The Supreme Ultimate Master

  A Shortcut to National Salvation

  In Love, Forget Not the Path of Good

  The Secret of Spending Money in Fighting For Justice

  Warriors and the New Morality

  Heartbreak

  The True Form of the Living Immortal

  Thirteenth Sister

  Flying Blades Kill the Enemy

  Preface

  Big boys, the story in this little book is told for you.

  If I said, “Long ago there was a king…” or, “Long ago there was a monster…” you would shake your head and wouldn’t listen: Ah, others are so much older and still listen to those stories!

  It’s true, you are already so much bigger. Hearing about some Aladdin’s Lamp or old Soldier’s Tinderbox does nothing for you. What you like to hear are adventure stories and swordsman stories. Ha! especially the swordsman ones. “Adventure” is actually an import: foreigners want to find a place where they can make money, that’s why they get into that line. As for swordsmen—foreigners have them too of course. But they can only cross swords using force against force: At best, a man like d’Artagnan might hold off ten or so and be considered top-rate. But they can’t fly over the roofs and climb walls. They can’t they leap to the top of a ten-thousand foot mountain in one bound either. And as for spitting secret blades out of the mouth, “in a glimmer of light, a head hits the ground,” well, that’s not even worth asking!

  The abilities of the Chinese swordsmen are truly remarkable. You know this of course: You’ve read so many illustrated storybooks about swordsmen: The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants, Little Five Gallants, Seven Swordsmen and Thirteen Gallants, Seven Swordsmen and Eight Gallants, Jiangnan Gallants, and all the rest…

  And so you read yourselves into a rapture. In the past few years a couple of little children even snuck out of their houses and tried to go Mount Emei to seek the Dao.

  There are adults who have read themselves into a rapture over novels about swordsmen too. But they don’t abandon their wives and children to go off somewhere seeking the Dao, because adults are somewhat more mature than children. They just daydream about it in their minds or talk about it emptily with their mouths, but that’s it. This business of swordsmanship is too murky, no one knows where to go to learn it.

  No one even knows where to go to see it, much less to learn it. Among all of our friends and people we know, there isn’t one who is a swordsman. No one has seen a swordsman. Or if they have, they’ve only seen them in those characters in the illustrated storybooks—each and every one dressed up like a stock military wusheng on the stage, although they are a lot of fun to watch flying back and forth from the roofs of the Wing-On or Sincere Department Store.

  Everyone has heard there are immortal swordsmen at the top of Mount Emei, but the people who live at Mount Emei believe the immortal swordsmen have always hidden away at Mount Zijin or Mount Tang or Mount Kun.

  But there are some people on the side who are laughing to themselves. And they are truly much more important than the immortal swordsmen. We’ve been talking for all this time—completely forgot to mention them. They are the mothers of the swordsmen. The swordsmen were born out of their bellies. They close their eyes and think for a while (Perhaps they might not even need to think at all), and with a giggle they give birth to an outstanding swordsman. With clasped hands, they go to the boss at the bookseller and collect their draft fee. That’s nowadays of course. As for those of earlier generations, those trailblazing ancestors who told swordsman tales, they didn’t have any draft fees to collect. They just wrote them out and gave them to friends for amusement and nothing more.

  The people they wrote them for—they are a group of people who are called “unofficial agents” in the novels, or they come out of the “unofficial agents.” They always end up running into difficulties in life: Sometimes they just aren’t allowed to live a peaceful life, and sometimes they get tricked—someone gets over on them somehow. Even though the law of the land exists, there are places where the emperor can’t reach. So they make up a person with great skill to come and help them. What humans can’t do, these fantastic people can. They have the morality of the agents, they understand ritual propriety and they understand the position of the agents. They assist those in the service of the emperor, like the Judge Bao and Judge Peng types bringing peace and stability to the land, eradicating bad guys and allowing the agents to live a comfortable life.

  And even more than that, these people of great ability are incredibly generous. As soon as there is a problem, they fly right over—help out for you, go to great effort for you, without you spending a fraction of a penny. If you offer to give them a real send-off, they won’t let you. It’s so much better than even those officials Zhang Long and Zhao Hu from The Water Margin.

  The more these stories are told, the more they progress. If it was only a swordsman laying waste and slaughtering bad guys, without running into any tougher opponents his entire life, that might seem to be a bit monotonous. So, from among the pack of bad guys will emerge an “Evil” swordsman to do battle with “Good.” They start with eave-jumping and wall-climbing and progress to spitting out secret blades from their mouths. The result—of course, you could figure it out on the first guess—the “Good” of the agent is victorious. If they aren’t victorious, then they can go and seek instruction form those immortals of the “True Doctrine.” Because the immortals will help the true Son of Heaven and their agents. On telling the story or hearing the story told, people who think like the agents, or those who have been educated by the agents, will all glow with happy smiles: Everyone is utterly happy, it’s true!

  Among them there are also some—a little more earnest, who actually come to blows and want to struggle against this group on their own. He wants to become a swordsman himself. And so he…

  This little book of mine will tell of just such a man. Here—I want to expl
ain why our hero wanted to go study such a peculiar profession, how he came to study, and after completing his study, what things he wanted to do.

  (For anyone who might want to become a swordsman—please do not neglect this: This little book might be said to provide a “How-to guide to becoming a swordsman.” Reading this is just as good as what someone studying how to write a novel would get from reading those How to Write Fiction books.)

  But my story here doesn’t mention everything: and it might lead you not to understand several points. Otherwise, what would I be doing nattering on bothering you with this revelation?

  This will serve as a preface.

  —The author, April 1936

  1

  Arrival in Shanghai

  A sleeping city. A peaceful night.

  Suddenly…Boom!

  Whoosh!

  The artillery shell swept through the black sky with a whistle, and then—Bah-boom!

  The XX munitions factory was blown into a crater. It was a Sun Brand shell.

  The second barrage followed. Rifle reports. The third barrage. The fourth. The fifth.

  The sleepers jumped out of bed.

  “What!...”

  “It’s some kind of live-fire exercise again, right?”

  “It doesn’t sound like it.”

  “They’re always having those live-fire exercises!”

  “Listen!”

  Someone screamed out. The massacre had already begun.

  “XX devils!”

  “What are our soldiers doing?”

  But they had decamped to XX!

  That information quickly spread. Every corner of the city shook as if in paroxysm. Every wall was covered in announcements. On the streets the cry shouted out, “Extra! Extra!” The air was awash in nervous talk.

  “They’re going to be in Tianjin soon!”

  “Beiping is in a difficult spot too.”

  “Kill every last devil!”

  “Chaos is here now!”

  “What’d they have the soldier retreat for?”

  It was like the entire world was a rubber band pulled taught. With just a slight bump, it snapped with a pop.

  “It had to happen sooner or later.”

  “Our kind of people have to find a way out for ourselves!”

  Students became active too: grabbing flags and heading out to the Dongdan Archway, shouting. People on the streets felt this time the students were a bit different than before: This time the events would impact even them.

  “Good kids!”

  “Everyone go!”

  Some people ran all over the place trading information:

  “Are things really dire here in Beiping?”

  “Who can say?”

  “I’m thinking of moving back south. Are the banks still allowing withdrawals?”

  They all spoke softly, as if a raised voice would be heard by the devil soldiers. Their breathing was strangely labored: the atmosphere had congealed thicker than paste long ago.

  “Elder Shi Bo, what’s the news you’ve heard like?”

  “Untenable. The stratagem is: “Against Overwhelming Odds: retreat.””

  “Exactly so, exactly so. I’m still going to go over toward the bank to see if I can hear some news.”

  The bank was busy handling withdrawals for its clients. The auction house had a couple dozen people coming by every day to have cumbersome furniture they couldn’t take with them appraised. At the station, telephone calls were coming in, flustered faces were coming in, all wanting to reserve places in first and second class sleeping cars.

  “Alright. It’s all settled.”

  And so cars swarmed out of Qianmen, stopping at the entrances of the East Station and the West Station to disgorge their contents: Wives, concubines, bedding, jujube boxes, elder masters, ladies, leather luggage, young masters, chausie cats, biscuit tins, male servants, rattan baskets.

  On sitting down in the sleeping car that felt like a bathhouse, a sigh.

  “Relax.”

  “But Tianjin? Who can say if Tianjin might be all in chaos. That would be a disaster.”

  The sitting person smoked, calmly watching the others squeeze onto the car. A porter, his head jammed awkwardly to the side by some leather cases or something was struggling and calling out:

  “Pardon! Pardon!”

  Behind the porter the owner of the leather case squeezed in, anxiously looking around. His two legs only briefly stopped moving and the bedding that was coming up behind him pressed into his neck.

  “Pardon! Pardon!”

  “Quickly, quickly, the train is getting ready to leave!”

  Everyone had found their berths and quietly awaited the train’s departure. Everyone had their legs splayed out, strolling out of the little compartment door walking through the hall. Everyone would certainly run into a couple of friends in the car.

  “Elder Shi Bo!”

  “Ah! Mister Liu Liu!”

  “Please, come in and have a seat.”

  That one called Elder Shi Bo who had a few wisps of a beard strode through the little compartment door.

  “Going to Shanghai?” Mister Liu Liu pulled a cigarette from a green foreign metal case to give to that Elder Shi Bo.

  Elder Shi Bo nodded his head, popping the cigarette into his mouth and moving to take advantage of the light in Mister Liu Liu’s hand.

  “And Bao Juan?” Mister Liu Liu asked.

  He rapidly took in a few mouthfuls of smoke and blew the smoke out which freed his mouth to say, “We all came together.”

  In the compartment, aside from Mister Liu Liu, there was a forty-ish fat man who had been smiling and staring at Elder Shi Bo the whole time. Mister Liu Liu glanced at the fat man, and felt he had to do something about it.

  “Have the two of you met? This is Elder Shi Bo, ah, Mister Shi Boxiang. And this is…”

  “I’ve very much looked forward to meeting you,” the fat man dashed out. “You have lived in Beijing for quite some time, Elder Shi Bo?”

  “Jiachen… Yisi…Oh… nearly thirty years.”

  Everyone was given a sudden jolt as the train began to move.

  The Elder Mister Shi Boxiang took a drag on his cigarette, but it had gone out.

  “Has Brother Dashi come along with you?” Mister Liu Liu asked the Elder Mister Shi Boxiang as he glanced around, as if looking for that Brother Dashi. He looked under the seat and then the ground, then put his hand in his pocket and dug around.

  “Oh, he also came with us.”

  Mister Liu Liu found his matchbox and gave the Elder Mister Shi Boxiang a light. And, looking at the fat man, “Elder Shi Bo’s son Dashi’s martial arts are quite good. He’s… He’s… What was the name of the school? It had a name. Was is the Shaolin School?”

  Elder Shi Bo smiled. “I can never keep those names straight either. He was… It was called some kind of internal gongfu, right?”

  “Does he still practice every day?”

  “He loves to play around with that, and I don’t bother him much about it. He was concentrating some kind of qi. Horseplay, that’s all it is!”

  The fat man stuck out his belly and told Elder Shi Bo in a loud voice that the skill concentrating qi was an extraordinarily powerful skill in the martial arts.

  Gan Fengchi was one who could concentrate his qi, Gan Fengchi! His voice raised even louder — he worried that the sound of the train would drown his voice out.

  “As long as you are willing to work hard, there’s nothing that can’t be learned well. Has your honorable son been formally accepted by a master?”

  The Elder Mister Shi Boxiang opened his mouth and was about to reply, but the fat man kept up his questioning rapid-fire.

  “What is your esteemed son’s courtesy name?”

  “Zhaoc
hang. The first character Zhao is “omen” as in ‘a bad omen,’ and the Chang? Chang… Chang is… It’s “prostitute” but without the female part.”

  “Will you allow us to meet?”

  It seemed like the fat man was an expert in these things. The Elder Mister Shi Boxiang looked at that fat swollen face, and then strode out of the compartment into his own to call his eldest son Shi Zhaochang over.

  Shi Zhaochang was a half-head taller than his dad, and maybe twenty-five or -six years old. The corner of his eyes pointed up, which made him look like an actor in an opera. His face was red and he was bit pudgy. His chest was quite developed, but he did all he could to suck in his belly, which gave him a bit of a hunched back.

  The youth greeted Mister Liu Liu and the fat man with clasped hands. He sat down on the seat and hunched his back even more.

  The fat man stared at Shi Zhaochang. “What type of gongfu has Brother Shi been practicing of late?”

  “Form-Intention Boxing”

  “You must have practiced a long time.”

  “Half a year,” Shi Zhaochang took the cigarette offered by Mister Liu Liu. “It’s actually not that difficult. My teacher says that practicing gongfu relies entirely on whether or not you have a natural-born foundation. If you don’t, no matter how hard you work, you’ll never get it right. That makes a lot of sense.”

  The fat man nodded. He wanted to ask more about how his gongfu exercises were going, but he couldn’t make out if Form-Intention Boxing would be categorized as external gongfu or internal. He looked out the window: the countryside flew behind them.

  Half to himself, he said, “Internal gongfu is very important.”

  Shi Zhaochang was startled. Oh, this fat man might know a couple of things.

  He felt him out: “I also practice the skill of concentrating my qi.”

  The fat man turned his head back, puffing out his belly, and started talking in a loud voice about Gan Fengchi again: “You should train qigong like Gan Fengchi’s. Gan Fengchi was truly outstanding. For example… For example…”

  He looked around to see if everyone was paying attention to him, and then went on to talk about Gan Fengchi.