CHAPTER 9 Mr Jiang
Next morning, I was told to pick up Om from a new address in Ruskington, a big village in Lincolnshire. The address turned out to be a little house nearby the church cemetery yard. I walked across the yard to get to Om's place. The yard was silent in the morning sunshine. All dead quiet, I thought. I had to chuckle to myself because I was surrounded by graves. What happened when people died? Well, some people believed that there was life after death. Some had told me that if you were powerful enough, you could see people in their eight hundredth year walking around, totally invisible to the normal eyes. I believed in death. Because without death, life itself did not make sense. It was through death or the threat of our mortality that we could come to appreciate our living. Death of loved ones was a sad thing for those loving ones who survived. I missed my grandpa very much. He was the one who I really loved and who really loved me. His love would be carried with me for ever.
I was suddenly made aware that somebody was staring at me. I looked up and saw Om stood in the doorway of the house. He looked at me as if he did not know me. I greeted him cheerfully, and he responded with a rather cold smile as if he was a stranger to me. I thought Om must be in one of those funny moods. Did robots have funny moods now and again? Ha, I was almost laughing silently in my heart. We remained silent on the way to the factory, which was rather odd.
We sorted wool in silence for an hour or so that morning. I just could not believe it. The silence was killing me, as my thought was trapped in this curious silence from Om. The other three guys seemed to be used to this stuff silence. They worked effectively one bale after another. They had been at it for forty years, so they were supposed to be good at it.
'Look, we could jump down, instead of using the stairs.' Om looked down the hole where the wool we threw down had piled up quite high. Something in his presence made me realise that this person in front of me was no longer a robot. There seemed to be a magnetic field between human beings. I just felt different.
'What is your name?' I ventured to ask him with an awkward smile.
'I am Mr Jiang. I got this job from Jane. She told me that they needed a livestock expert to work for their company. And she told me that you are my interpreter and driver. You are Philip, aren't you? Jane told me that you would mistake me for a robot called Om because I looked just exactly the same as him. Is that so?' He smiled. This time it was more genuine and friendly. I was sure that he was a real human being.
Updates on 23 July:
We sorted the wool in silence like the others. It seemed that was the rule of the game. It was the silence of the wool which made the fingers go swiftly through and thus got the job done in the most efficient and effective way. The supervisor came up to see how we were getting on. While he chatted to us, he started to sort the wool as if he was switched automatically by the presence of a pile of wool. This was what work did to people. We were all conditioned by our work and in a general sense our environment, however different we might be in our genes and other bio-determining drivers in our body. We were social animals.
We ate our sandwich with the rest of the workers at a big table which was littered with tabloids. On the wall facing the table, there were a lot of pin-ups. This was the norm for a working place full of men. Men needed women, while women did not always need men. That much I realised from my own observations and the observations by others. The nudity in this sort of environment did not really turn you on. It gave you a sense of relief from the presence of the other sex and some space for fantasies. The chap who helped us smiled at us and winked at the topless pictures. He was a friendly guy by nature and even the silence of the wool could not suffocate him enough over so many years in this industry. The human gene did seem to have a resilience that suggested possibilities beyond the mere fact that we were all conditioned by our environment or even our history.
We talked about how we arrived in the UK and our stories on the planes. My story was rather a fortunate one, as I was seated in between two Chinese-speaking English people, one young woman in her late 20's and one man in his 30's. It was almost like being in a set-up in a movie. They were both friendly people. She was teaching English and he went to China to learn about Chinese medicine. During the journey, our plane had to stop twice, once in Pakistan and another in Turkey. We were driven to a hotel in Karachi. Christine and I had a stroll in the City. It looked like a chaotic city, like any of those small cities in China. We did not feel threatened. But we did not venture too far either. That was perhaps the only time that I walked on a foreign land without a visa. We were served some odd-looking Pakistanese food in the hotel. We just sat there, ate a bit and talked. When we stopped in Istanbul, David bought us some tea with some local currency he had on him and Christine bought me a cartoon of Camel cigarettes. I was impressed with their generosity and their kindness, which gave me some extra confidence for my life in Britain.
For most Chinese at that time, going to a place like Britain was certainly a dream coming true. There were a lot of young Chinese who dreamt only of going abroad. I was not one of them. I came to Britain because I was in love with my girlfriend who had come to study for a Master's degree in Britain on a scholarship. Funny enough, my best friend was even more conservative than me. We had a farewell meal one night. After the meal, we strolled along the Shanghai streets. We saw some beggars. And he immediately questioned whether that sort of fate would fall upon me in Britain. I laughed it off as usual, but in my heart I did not have a definite answer to it. It was going to be a venture into the unknown, though I had read much about Britain during my four-year study of English literature and language at the University.
Mr Jiang had more problems when he arrived at the Heathrow airport, because he could not speak any English. He tried to hold onto some English-speaking Chinese. But they all disappeared when he was queuing up for the immigrations. Perhaps they were all worried about their own fate. For the Chinese, it was like going to a court both inside the British Embassy in China and in front of the immigrations officer at Heathrow. Nobody could have predicted the outcome and everybody had to leave that to fate. My own experience in the Embassy was an interesting one. I was rather ill that day. As usual, whenever I was physically weak, I was always mentally very strong. I rarely had them in place at the same time, which was when I could achieve something out of the ordinary. I went in there and was interviewed by a lady officer. Suddenly, I realised that I had seen her playing volley-ball on our campus. I told her just that, out of the audacity because of my poor health. She looked at me and looked at the papers. She asked me only a few questions and that was that. That was the best interview that I had ever had. I was normally a poor soul in interviews, for one reason or another. Once in a job, I could do much better than what one could see me in the interviews. Fortunately, my deadly weakness was overcome that day by my poor health.
Updates on 4 August 01:
The other sorters had left well before us. They were faster and they were professionals. Theirs was a dying trade. They had grouped together to work for the odd bales here and there. We finished about six bales that day, which we thought was not too bad. I drove Mr Jiang home to his house by the cemetery.
'I know you think it is a bit odd for me to live in this place. Well, apart from the Chinese superstition, the place is forever shadowed in the coldness of the dead, even in broad daylight. It is also very damp inside the house, as if haunted by ghosts. But I picked this spot to put pressure on myself. I think about going home every minute of the day and night. I miss my family very much.' Mr Jiang got out of the car and looked at the graveyard in an absent-minded way.
I also looked at the tombs, reflecting upon the years I spent here abroad. I could have done better here and there. But I was more resigned to the fate that belonged to me alone. I would take it whether it was full of happiness and fulfilment or not. The one thing that I was really happy about that I was coming to understand myself more and more over the years. In that sense, I was content that I knew what I myself was about.
On my way home, I thought about the days I spent in London with Christine. She was very kind to invite me to visit her soon after our arrival in Britain. I remembered playing football with her on the day I went to her home in Kent. It was a nice day and we had a good laugh, kicking the ball between us. I realised that she must have done that just to make me happy. She baked a lovely chocolate cake and we sat in their big garden and enjoyed the sunset. She was a bubbly character and had a melodic laughter. She was very relaxed in her ways which put me at ease. A funny thing happened on the night. She prepared a bubble bath for me and I secretly let out the bubbly water and opted for a shower, for fear of everything said in the papers. I lied to her and told her that I really enjoyed the bath. I had a good night's sleep in her bed while she spent her night with her mother. Next day, we went to London. She was generous to take care of all the expenses. We enjoyed a nice Thames cruise and I really liked what I saw in London. I was particularly curious about the black bin bags along the streets. She had to use her good sense of humour to explain to me what they were for. In the afternoon, we went to meet her girl friend Tina, who worked at BBC. We had a dinner in Pizza Hut. I remembered that I shocked the waitress when I put some sugar to put into the rather sour pizza. That was my first English meal, or Western meal. Christine and Tina had to hold back their amazement. In China Town, I went to buy some dried plums. When Christine tried it, she asked to be excused to spit it out, because it was too sour. The time flew by very quickly in her company. I really enjoyed London day and night. We went to stay with Tina. There was a moment when Christine and me stared at the full moon together. It was rather quiet from so high up in this tall building in London. She smiled at me and I smiled back. I was really grateful for her friendship, but that was that for me. We went to visit Greenwich the next day and had a nice chat, lying down on the lawn in the sunshine, which reminded me of the good old days at the University in Shanghai. If she had been a man, we could really become good friends. As I was already in love with my then girlfriend, we later lost touch and that was the end of our short-lived friendship.
At least in the Chinese culture, it was difficult to keep a close friendship with the other sex while you were already in love. That was perhaps another taboo for Chinese people. In my case, I never knew how to deal with the other sex any way. I was sensitive enough to understand their feelings superficially. But deep down, my ignorance of femininity meant that I could not really appreciate them very well. Over the years that had gone by, I would always keep a tight guard on my relationship with the other sex. I knew my curiosity and ignorance combined would make it much easier for me to hurt those women who came too close to me. So it was better safe than sorry for me. That was perhaps why I never kept any female friends this far.
The birth of my daughter was a real revelation for me. For the first time in my life, I had the precious opportunity to learn about femininity from the very beginning of life. I spent days and nights looking after my daughter while my wife was busy working in the Foreign Exchange Market. We bonded very well. It was pure love for me and for my daughter, perhaps pure dependence. It was an amazement for me to watch her grow up little by little and noticed all the changes on her. I also suffered the most when my daughter became ill sometimes. My heart almost broke when the doctors treated her with their usual lack of enthusiasm or professional coldness, though their manners were always polite and friendly. They had seen it all while for me, every bit of illness was almost like a to be or not to be challenge for the two of us. It was very hard to put into words that kind of devotion and love for another human being. I thought it was why I loved my grandpa so much. It was pure unselfish love and total commitment to the other's well-being. And the happiness therein went beyond everything else I had experienced in life. When I pushed her around in her push-chair, she would be ok for a while. Then she would struggle to turn around just to see that I was there. I had to bent down on my knees just to push the chair the wrong way while facing her. She would smile at me which melt my heart. That was pure happiness, while love was at the very heart of it. If every one of us could keep that love in our heart and give some of it to the people around us day in day out, the world would indeed become a paradise on the earth. I wondered whether an ideal global communications infrastructure should be based upon love, rather than utility, which seemed to be the present foundation for the Internet.(to be continued)
I was having my bath when I suddenly realised that I was being watched. I knew it was Jane who had channelled into my thought waves. I could see her relaxing in her bath too. She was having a bubble bath.
‘Phil, how is your smelly day at the factory?’ She smiled at me, sniffing at me in pretended disgust. I could see similar reactions from my daughter when I got home everyday. The wool did smell quite a bit. It was not that smelly in the factory. Maybe, it was because I got used to it. Human beings were such adaptive animals. Sometimes, you could say that we had adapted to situations too well. The endurance of the human race must have gone beyond all other animals, particularly in emotional terms.
‘Thanks to you, Jane, I had a lovely day. We are learning fast to become professional wool-sorters…’ She suddenly burst into a pearl of melodic laughter and used her left foot to turn off her hot-water tap.
‘Professional wool-sorters? You and Mr Jiang? Never, Phil, get a grip of yourself. You two can never become professionals wool-sorters. Those are the people who can really concentrate on the job and enjoy it in some way. Those are the people who live on the silence of the wool. Their brains are empty but the pure sensation of the silence of the wool. You two will never get there. You two are too busy with your thoughts. The quality of your work is poor and the quantity you produce is pathetic to say the least.’ She gave me the usual wicked wink of hers.
I looked at her in silence. Her face was rosy pink and her eyes are bubbly with a good sense of humour. I knew I adored this woman very much. She embodied something which really touched the depth of my heart. Falling in love was the easiest thing to do for any man, though love and happiness did not come without its prices and they normally did not come hand in hand, particularly in romantic relationships and marriages. I thought the best way to love this woman was to keep a distance as far away from her as possible. If I would never be that close to her, then she would be mine forever to be loved. To love was one thing and to be loved was another. When the two came together, there came the darling bud of happiness.
‘Phil, please don’t be such a sissy. If you adore me so much, you should dare to come and confess your love openly. You should come and make love to me, as a man would do. You think too much and act too little. Your philosophical thoughts are just the self-excuses to enable you to hide behind the loftiness. Love is also a utility, particularly between man and woman. To love is to make love, to love is to possess. It is all quite selfish and understandably human.’ She almost sneered, as if she had seen through me and she understood me better than myself.
‘What you have said is partly true for the love between man and woman. I admit that love without sexual orientation is a rather difficult thing to achieve. But I do think it is still possible. And there have already been many great friendships between men and women which did not involve sex. This Platonic love does seem to symbolise love in its purest form. Sex only goes as far as the body, while love seems to go much deeper. The reaching of love really refreshes your whole soul and the orgasm it achieves lasts forever, which is so much different from sexual orgasm.’ I thought these words in a way as if I was reciting from a book of wisdom. Jane smiled at me and closed her eyes. Her mind became blank and I knew she was drifting away into her memory sea. It was funny that even through the mind waves, the gateway to each other was closed as far as memory was concerned. It was the live thoughts which got across or transmitted. It was possible that memory or static items were stored in a different place or format in the brain. Or maybe, it required a different wave length.
I was left alone to my bath. The ticking sound of dripping water did make me a little bit sleepy. I was struggling to come to terms with the pros and cons of this mind wave thing. The mind net where two people could reach for some kind of subtle coincident thoughts had always existed. It was the force behind the ‘thousand monkey’ phenomenon. If it had been formally established as a communications infrastructure, it became also a utility thing. It was no longer that magical. Above all, if people’s thought waves could be intruded by others, then that would indeed be the end of the world. Our minds or souls must be left alone, no matter what. It was a price we would always be willing to pay to retain our human-ness. We were never machines. We were forever purposeful human beings, despite its many drawbacks, in terms of crime, war, discrimination, abuse, injustice, corruption, and so on. That was perhaps why there could never be Heaven on the Earth, since in Heaven everyone was supposed to be so synchronised in goodness and kindness that there was to be no individuality and no individual purposes and no fundamental difference. It was death that made living more significantly meaningful. As human beings, we were deemed a world of love and hatred, friends and enemies, black and white, good and bad, constructions and destruction…We lived on our pains, sufferings, anxieties, worries and fears as well as our happiness, joy, pleasure and sweetness. The end of humanity was when we were totally connected or intruded by the most omnipotent communications infrastructure of all, which completely ignored our claim for purposeful thinking for the benefits of each individual. At least in terms of the fault-ridden internet infrastructure, individuality was allowed to survive and flourish in most circumstances. It was the individuality that marked the mankind so different from every other kind of living beings. It was also the power of the coming-together of different individualities in forms of love, family, group, company and society that enabled human beings to be able to create histories of our own. All our sufferings were also mothers of our happiness. (Chapter 9 finished on 13 August, 2001).