The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up (33 page)

LIAO:
With you being my guide, I will start enjoying this freedom tomorrow. I will bring my flute and let's do a duet together. You can collect all the money. I hope you can introduce me to more blind musicians.

ZHANG:
Why?

LIAO:
I want to find an agent who can help us find sponsors and organize a blind musicians' concert. If you can get twenty blind musicans, we can make it happen.

ZHANG:
Good idea. I will go back and discuss it with the head of the guild.

LIAO:
Are you telling me that there is another blind musican older than you are?

ZHANG:
No, he is younger and he is not blind. He is the head of the local triad, who controls this territory. We call him “Mr. Big Guy for the Blind.” He is the only one who can go and negotiate with musicans at the Wuhou Temple Road, Chunxi Road, and the Western Gate Bus Terminal areas. By the way, do you have money? He charges a lot of money for the service.

LIAO:
Don't be too obsessed with money. It ruins my initial impression of your erhu music.

ZHANG:
It's getting late. Let me start playing.

THE STREET SINGER

I first met Que Yao at a nightclub in 1995. We were both guest performers that night. I was a flute player and he was a pop singer. A friend told me that he was blind in one eye. That was why he wore a pair of designer sunglasses all year round, day and night. He looked kind of cool with his sunglasses, reminding me of Wang Kai-wai, the Hong Kong movie director, whose credits include In the Mood for Love. Que Yao sang like a woman in a pretentiously soft falsetto. I found his style repulsive, but the crowd at the bar swooned all over him.

In the ensuing years, I saw him perform at various venues and got to know him a little better. On a recent Saturday afternoon, I interviewed Que Yao at a teahouse near Chengdu's Huangzhong Residential District.

LIAO YIWU:
Is Que Yao your real name?

QUE YAO:
Of course. That's my first name. My family name is Qi. I was born on April 11, 1969, right after the Communist Party concluded its Ninth Congress. Chairman Mao designated Marshal Lin Biao as his successor in the new Chinese constitution. The whole country showed up on the streets to celebrate. To mark the occasion, my parents named me Queyao, or Leap for Joy, for Chairman Mao's choice of a successor. You know, it was at the height of the Cultural Revolution. Each time Chairman Mao issued a new edict or a quotation, whether it was during the day or in the evening, people had to go out into the street to celebrate with singing and dancing.

LIAO:
I remember those days. Were they Communist Party officials?

QUE:
No, far from that. They were ordinary folks—both of them were blind. For many years, I felt so embarrassed about my parents that I never talked to anyone about them. It wasn't until I turned thirty that I realized how stupid that was. I had a very interesting childhood. I grew up in a small town in Sichuan. My early memories were of sausages shuffling back and forth on a machine. I was three and my mother had me tied on her back. She worked at a sausage factory run by the local welfare agency. All the workers there were disabled—the blind, the deaf, and the crippled. Both my mom and dad were employed there. Between the two of them, they earned twenty-seven yuan [US$3.50] a month, barely enough to support a family of five, including me and my two sisters.

My parents used to be street musicians. My mom played the erhu, a two-string Chinese violin. My father was quite a well-known storyteller. His storytelling, interspersed with singing, was accompanied by the daoqin—a traditional instrument which has become almost extinct nowadays. It was like a drum, made from a meter-long thick bamboo cylinder, with the open end covered in pigskin. He would tap the drum, singing and talking to its lively rhythms. Most of his stories were taken from Chinese classical literature, such as “The Warrior Conquered the Tiger.” People loved the suspense and colorful descriptions. My father had had a large following. When the Cultural Revolution started, the government banned him from performing because his stories were considered feudalistic and anti-revolutionary. As a result, he and my mom were assigned to work at the sausage factory.

My hometown was situated along the Yangtze River in poverty-stricken Yunyang County, near Chongqing. Before the Cultural Revolution, people living in the remote, isolated countryside and small towns didn't have access to various forms of entertainment. Street performers and local operatic troupes filled the void. But, after 1966, street performances were declared illegal and local opera troupes were only allowed to stage the “Eight Revolutionary Model Operas” mandated by Mao's wife, Jiangqing. Apart from that, people spent their evenings attending Communist meetings. Sometimes, they might witness public executions of counterrevolutionaries or murderers and rapists. That was it. People were bored to tears.

Beginning in the early 1970s, there was a period of political relaxation. That was the time when Lin Biao, jealous of Chairman Mao's supremacy within the Party, attempted to assassinate our Great Leader. After the assassination plot failed, he escaped in a hurry to seek asylum in what was then the Soviet Union. But his plane crashed in Mongolia after running out of fuel. Do you remember that? Who knows how he died. Anyhow, the extreme days of the Cultural Revolution were pretty much gone. That led to a revival of traditional operas, music, and plays at private venues such as weddings, funerals, or birthday parties. The revival offered opportunities for former street performers like my parents. So, they organized a small troupe consisting of seven or eight blind musicians. The troupe would carry simple props and perform at private functions. They even traveled across the border to Sichuan Province and performed on market days in rural areas outside the city of Yichang. They could earn twenty to thirty yuan [US$2.50 to $3.00] a day. Sometimes, they might run into the local militia or members of the Market Regulatory Committee. When that happened, all their “illegal” income would be confiscated. They could be detained for a couple of days and had to attend public denunciation meetings. Somehow, they became used to the risks.

I went on tours with my parents at the age of four. Troupe members would carry their musical instruments on their backs while walking in a single line—one hand holding a stick and the other holding on to the shoulder of the person ahead of them. I served as their guide and led them from village to village. Can you imagine a four-year-old, with a shaved head, walking at the front of a group of blind musicians? I was often bored and tired, reduced to picking my nose and yawning. We would leave very early in the morning and walk ten to fifteen kilometers a day for a gig. On the way, our group constantly attracted the attention of adults and kids. They would follow us and poke fun at us. I felt so embarrassed and wished I could disappear. Well, most of the gigs were associated with funerals. It was a local tradition for rich people to have a lavish and festive funeral with bands and chanting monks. The event normally lasted from three days to a week, attracting hundreds of people from around the region. In a way, funerals provided a rare occasion for entertainment. At a funeral, the family of the dead would set up a stage in the middle of the courtyard, right next to the coffin. Various groups would take turns performing traditional operas or story singing. At a gig like this, my dad would do a dozen shows, each one lasting two to three hours. It was pretty challenging and could easily strain the performer's voice. But my dad had a voice of steel. He practiced long hours every day for many years. He could handle the long hours without any problems.

LIAO:
Did they do it all night long, without stopping?

QUE:
My dad would do three shows a night. There would be a two-hour break between shows. He would normally find a quiet spot and doze off a bit. All his shows were classic Chinese tales about the imperial court or touching love stories, which Chairman Mao called “historical trash.” But ordinary folks loved the “historical trash.” One of the most popular pieces that my dad performed was called “Courtesan Li Yaxian.” The story goes like this: In the Tang dynasty [618–917], a young scholar named Zheng Yuanhe traveled to the capital city of Chang-an to take his imperial examination. If he could pass, he would be eligible for a high-level government post. As he passed the prosperous city of Yangzhou, he visited a brothel and encountered the famous courtesan Li Yaxian. He became so infatuated with her that he decided to stay. As one might predict, Zheng missed his exams and squandered all his allowance. Seeing that he was penniless, the madam threw him out on a cold snowy night. Zheng had almost frozen to death when two beggars saved him. They took pity and taught him to survive on the street by singing the famous “Beggar's Song.” Meanwhile, courtesan Li was saddened and dismayed to see that her lover had lost his motivation to succeed in life. Li stabbed her eyes out and scarred her face so he would leave her to pursue his future at the imperial court.

LIAO:
What a story, with all its ups and downs.

QUE:
Many local opera troupes picked segments of the story and converted them into different operatic versions. For example, in Beijing opera, it was called “Beauty Stabbing Her Eyes to Motivate Her Wayward Lover.” In Sichuan opera, it had a different version, “Beggars Wandering the Street,” which focused on Zheng's life as a beggar. All these versions drew from the same story. For his own performance, my dad took the plot of the story and borrowed the librettos from various operatic versions. The result was a poetic masterpiece, with singing and storytelling. He dramatized every twist and turn and could hold people's attention for hours. Believe it or not, my dad was illiterate. He learned all the librettos by listening. “Temptation abounds in the vast expanse of the red dust / The lover's heart is entangled by all consuming lust / What is the meaning of life for butterflies and bees? / To be drawn to pretty flowers to fulfill their destiny and needs.”

LIAO:
I'm amazed you can still remember those librettos.

QUE:
As a kid, I didn't have any friends and spent lots of time hanging out with blind musicians. During those gigs, I would watch them until I dozed off. As time went by, I began to pick up a lot of the librettos. I once fantasized acting in one of the operas someday.

LIAO:
Did you intend to inherit your father's trade?

QUE:
When I was young, I was so ashamed of associating with blind musicians. My dad had forced me to learn the erhu. Under his instruction, I practiced for hours. My little soft hand hurt so much. But if I stopped, he would beat me. Since my heart wasn't in it, I only learned to play a couple of popular revolutionary songs, such as “Chairman Is the Red Sun.” Looking back, I wish I had persisted. My parents were born blind, but they were smart and highly motivated people. My mother could play five different types of musical instrument. During the Cultural Revolution, she was forced to read four thick volumes of
Chairman Mao's Selected Works
in Braille. Soon, she memorized most of Mao's articles and won a prize. As for my father, he became very popular in the late 1970s, after Mao died. Many traditional performances came back with a vengeance. My father was invited to work with several opera companies in adapting old operatic pieces and writing new ones. He even performed several gigs on the radio.

LIAO:
So you didn't do too badly growing up among the blind musicians, did you?

QUE:
Not exactly. I picked up a lot of bad things too. One time, I fell asleep at my parents' gig at a funeral. The host family put me on a bed next to the coffin. Then the bed began rocking and I woke up. The son of the deceased was having sex with a girl from the opera troupe. At the height of their passion, unaware that I was awake, the girl accidentally sat on my leg. I was so scared that I didn't dare to cry or breathe. My legs were totally numb. Also, I was only five years old when I learned that taking white arsenic could help a woman abort an unwanted fetus.

LIAO:
That was quite an education you got. What has happened to your parents?

QUE:
My dad died in 1980, when I was eleven years old. Like many people who grew up along the Yangtze River, he enjoyed swimming. Since he was blind, I had to accompany him all the time. I would either swim by his side or stand on the pebbled beach to help him with directions. For example, if I saw a big swirl coming, I would scream “Danger.” If he swam too far out, I would call “Turn around.” One day, while watching him from the shore, I became tired and fell asleep. I didn't hear his loud call for help. It turned out that he had had a cramp in the leg and drowned. When his body was pulled out, it was all black and blue, very ugly. I was very sad. All the onlookers pointed their fingers at me: This kid is so dumb. His dad called for help for a long time and he didn't even wake up. I remember that my mother and my twin sisters hunched over my dad's body and wailed for hours. I simply stood there, without shedding any tears. I felt so guilty.

After my dad passed away, my whole family collapsed. No matter how hard my mother worked, she still couldn't support three of us kids. So when I was fifteen, I dropped out of school and got a job at another local welfare factory for the disabled. Once again, I was thrown into the circle of the disabled. My job was to vulcanize a type of cheap but highly toxic rubber and then pour it into molding machines to make soles for shoes. The workplace was like a poisonous hell, but workers on the production line never had any protection. Each month, we were given protective gloves, masks, and jackets, but most of us sold them for cash. I was paid 120 yuan [US$15] a month, quite a handsome salary. But soon, I began to suffer severe upper respiratory problems because of that poisonous smoke we inhaled every day. I coughed a lot and my voice turned raspy and hoarse. Eventually I quit, joined a band, and sang at dance clubs. That's how I began my singing career. I guess I must have got the genes from my dad. I didn't have any training but I was quite good. Initially, I did a lot of popular love songs because my raspy voice was perfect for it. Later on, I began to sing rock. Around that time, I met a rock musician by the name of Chen. He had a big influence on me. He was in his thirties and performed electric guitar. I went to visit him in his apartment one day. There was no furniture, nothing, except a bed and a globe. He also had some copies of the travel magazine
Windows to the World.
When I commented on the absence of furniture in his apartment, he pointed to his head: All my wealth is inside here. He wanted to travel around the world. Chen always ganged up with other guys in stealing and fighting. His defense was that many Western artists lived similar lifestyles. He admired Bob Dylan and John Lennon. I totally fell for his crap. At the age of eighteen, I teamed up with some musicians and formed a touring band. We traveled all over China, from the cities of Guangzhou, Xian, and Wuhan, to Nanchang, Luoyang, and Urumichi in the far northwest. Wherever we went, we just performed on the street. I played guitar and was the lead singer. Initially, I was pretty shy at this new “venue,” but soon I started to like it. We did a lot of hard rock. The music was so loud that we were always surrounded by a large young crowd. We put a collection box on the ground. At the end of the day, we would split the profits. We didn't make too much money, but all of us had a great time.