Enigma of China

FOURTEEN

Chen’s Saturday started with something that had little to do with his responsibilities as a chief inspector.

Detective Yu had called the previous evening.

“It would be a great favor if you could come to Longhua Temple on Saturday-just for ten or fifteen minutes, no more than that. It’s the Buddhist service for Peiqin’s late parents-her father was born a hundred years ago. Peiqin says that I shouldn’t tell you about it. We know it’s not something appropriate for a Party cadre like you to attend. But one of her cousins recently held a similar service, spending money like water, and inviting as many big shots as possible. So I think-”

According to a popular Buddhist belief, the deceased, once they reached the age of one hundred, went on to another life. So on the hundredth anniversary of their birth, their children generally arranged a religious service, preferably in a temple. It was extremely important in the tradition of Buddhist reincarnation, since afterward, there were no further obligations to the dead on the part of those still living in the world of red dust.

Chen wondered whether Peiqin really held such beliefs, but that didn’t matter as long as her relatives did. Since Detective Yu never asked him for any favors, the chief inspector wasn’t in a position to say no.

Besides, it might be a nice change from the latest round of ever-depressing routine meetings. He’d had to spend most of Friday at a meeting of the Shanghai Party Committee. As a new member, he wasn’t required to say much, but all the political speeches by the leading members of the committee were not only boring but also inexplicably exhausting.

Qiangyu, First Secretary of the Committee, had made a long speech, emphasizing the great achievements in the city under the correct leadership of the Shanghai Party Committee. There might be something significant in the speech, Chen had vaguely sensed, so he had tried to read between the lines, but he soon gave up, surrendering instead to a dull yet dogged headache.

By Friday evening, Chen was glad of the chance to do something different, and something for Peiqin’s sake.

“Of course I’ll be there. I’ll stay for as long as the ceremony takes; you can count on me, Yu.”

* * *

Saturday morning, Chen was sitting in the back of a Mercedes driven by the bureau chauffeur, Skinny Wang.

“The Yus will have a lot of face at the temple today,” Skinny Wang said, “in front of their relatives.”

In the final analysis, Chen reflected, people had to believe in something-anything-in this age of spiritual vacuum. With no concepts such as the heaven or hell of Western religions, Chinese people took vague comfort in doing something like the temple service to help the dead in the next life.

The newly materialistic society was shaping many aspects of life according to its own terms-even things like this temple service. The more expense, the more face. That was a type of competition the Yus couldn’t afford, which was why Yu, a non-Buddhist, had to bring Chief Inspector Chen-supposedly a high-ranking Party official-into the scene. It was all for the sake of face. Face was an important issue to the Shanghainese.

“Here we are, Longhua Temple,” Skinny Wang declared.

Because of the ever-expanding boundaries of the city, the temple, originally located near the outskirts, was no longer considered too far away. And because of that location, it was larger than other temples nearer to the city center.

The driver parked and followed Chen as he stepped into an enormous courtyard leading to an impressive front hall lined with the gilded Buddhist statues, all of which were wreathed in spiraling incense. The wings on both sides of the main hall were rented out as service rooms and fetched large fees for the temple.

“Chen Cao, Party Secretary of the Shanghai Police Bureau, and member of Shanghai Communist Party Committee,” said Peiqin. Not exactly surprised, she introduced him loudly to people as soon as he entered. “The legendary Chief Inspector Chen, head of the Special Case Squad, you must have heard or read about him-he is Yu’s boss.”

Peiqin’s introduction included all the new official titles Chen had acquired. Chen understood.

“It’s from our Party Secretary,” Skinny Wang chimed in, putting down in front of the service table a large flower wreath with a white silk banner bearing Chen’s name and official positions.

On the table were black-framed pictures flanked by burning candles, surrounded by a variety of Shanghai snacks and fruit.

“Both Yu and Peiqin are my friends,” Chen said to the others in the room, after bowing to the photos.

Yu and Peiqin bowed back to him as a token of their gratitude.

Chen then held a bunch of tall incense in his hand, bowing respectfully three more times.

As Chen did so, all the others in the room seemed to be staring, holding their breath.

There were several chestlike cardboard boxes stacked up against the table, Chen observed as he put the incense into a container. The boxes probably contained netherworld money for the dead. Years ago, money for the dead was simply placed in large red bags. The imitation boxes with padlocks vividly painted on them represented an “improvement with time,” showing sophisticated consideration for the convenience of the dead in the other world. Chen couldn’t help wondering whether his gift of the wreath, standing alone, was out of place. Then he noticed that the wreath bore several ribbons and bows folded to look just like silk ingots.

“I don’t know how to thank you, Party Secretary Chen,” Yu said.

“There’s no need for that, Yu. It’s an opportunity for me to pay tribute to my uncle and auntie.”

Like the use of “Party Secretary Chen” by Yu, “uncle and auntie” by Chen was for the benefit of others. Chen was becoming increasingly self-conscious, so he walked over to a monk arranging large envelopes on a side table. He tried to engage the monk in a conversation about Buddhism, but the latter simply stared at him blankly, without responding, as if Chen was an alien.

Peiqin moved over and whispered, “The service might lessen my guilt a little.”

So that was one of the reasons she wanted to have the service. Her father had gotten into political trouble in her elementary school years and had died in a far-away labor camp. During the Cultural Revolution, her mother also passed away. Peiqin hardly ever talked to others about her parents. Only once did she tell Chen that as a little kid, she had been secretly resentful of her parents because her family background had shaped and determined her life in those years.

A line of monks started to file into the room. Like the others, Chen began kowtowing again. To his surprise, the head monk pronounced his name and position solemnly at the head of the list of the service participants, as if it would mean a great deal to the dead.

It caused another whispered stir in the room. Some of Peiqin’s relatives began talking to one another, and her second aunt, a fashionable old lady with silver hair and gold-rimmed glasses, wobbled over using a bamboo stick.

She said to Chen, in earnest, “Thank you so much, Chief Inspector Chen. You have made the day for Peiqin, and for all of us as well. I’ve seen your picture in the newspapers. Perhaps we’ll also see a picture of you in the newspapers here at the temple…”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence: she knew the request was preposterous. Any pictures of him in the newspapers were in conjunction with articles about his work. They were never about him, a Party member police officer, being at a Buddhist service in a temple.

But Chen simply nodded, pulled out his cell phone, and punched in a number.

“Are you free this afternoon, Lianping?”

“Yes. Why, Chief Inspector Chen?”

“I’m at Longhua Temple. My partner, Detective Yu, and his wife, Peiqin, are going to have a meal as part of a service here. Some of their relatives were talking about the possibility of there being some pictures of the event in the newspaper…”

“All for the sake of face-in this world or the other. I understand,” she said, but then added in a louder voice, “It’s a free lunch, right? Actually, I want to thank you for thinking of me. I’ll be there in twenty minutes, Party Secretary Chen.”

Both Yu and Peiqin appeared flabbergasted, catching only fragments of the phone conversation during the monks’ chanting.

In less than twenty minutes, Lianping walked in, her arrival heralded by a quick succession of flashes from the camera in her hands.

She came over to give Chen a hug, her cheek touching his. She was wearing a low-cut black dress, black heels, and a white silk scarf around her neck-along with a red-stringed Wenhui name tag.

“If Chief Inspector Chen wants me to come, how could I not?” she said with a sweet smile, shaking hands with Peiqin and Yu before she turned to the others. “I’ve been working on a profile of Chief Inspector Chen for Wenhui Daily, and these pictures will appear with the article. Chen is not just a hard-working policeman but a multifaceted person. The picture might well be captioned, ‘Chen kowtows with his partner at the temple-the genuine human side of a Party official.’”

It sounded almost plausible, but he doubted that she would really run such a picture in the Party newspaper.

With the service gradually reaching the climax, he managed to withdraw into a corner, where Lianping soon joined him. They were left alone for the moment. Others knew better than to bother them, except when some latecomers had to be introduced to the distinguished guest, Chief Inspector Chen.

“Guess how much the service costs?” she whispered.

“A thousand yuan?”

“No. Far more than that. I’ve checked out a brochure at the entrance. The hall rental alone costs more than two thousand-and that doesn’t include the fee for the service or the red envelopes for the monks.”

“Red envelopes for the monks?”

“Have you heard the proverb, An old monk chants the scripture without putting his heart into it? That’s easy for a monk to do, chanting, as they do, 365 days a year. According to folk wisdom, that would make the Buddhist service less effective. To make sure that the monks perform the service wholeheartedly, red envelopes are absolutely necessary.”

In spite of her youth, she was perceptive, as well as cynical and opinionated, about the absurdities of contemporary social reality.

“Because of your high official position, your presence adds to their collective face,” she went on, with a teasing smile. “So you are doing them a great favor. For that matter, Zhou would have been as passionately welcomed here, before his fall, of course. Ours is a society of connections-connections that are established through the exchange of favors.”

He was taken aback.

“Detective Yu is my partner, and a good friend too,” he said. “Don’t read too much into it. We’re not ‘exchanging favors.’”

“I know things are different between you two. You’re his boss, and you don’t have to come. That’s why I’m here taking pictures. But the service is beyond me. Philosophically, Buddhism is about the vanity of human passions, but this service is the very embodiment of vanity in the world of red dust, more relevant to the living than to the dead.”

“That’s true. I tried to talk to a monk about the difference between Mahayana and Hinayana. He simply stared at me as if I were an alien from another planet, gibbering in an indecipherable language.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Peiqin’s summoning all of them to a lunch at a restaurant across the street. According to a red notice on the gate of the restaurant, the meal was being held in a large room with three round tables. Yu and Peiqin were there, busily leading people to their respective tables.

Lianping was seated next to Chen at the main table. It was possibly a well-meant trick arranged by Peiqin, who was as eager for Chen to “settle down” as his own mother was. He had no objection to the seating arrangement, and Lianping smiled, playing along with whatever interpretation the host might have of her.

“The shrimp is fresh,” Lianping said, peeling a large one with her slender fingers and placing it on his saucer-almost like a little girlfriend-before whispering in his ear. “I wonder why it’s not a vegetarian meal.”

Peiqin, leaning over to pour wine into Chen’s cup, overheard her comment and responded with an approving nod.

“We checked out the menu of the vegetarian restaurant attached to the temple. It was two hundred fifty per person for the so-called vegetarian buffet, including Häagen-Dazs, as much as you can eat.”

“What’s the point of featuring Häagen-Dazs with a vegetarian meal?” Chen exclaimed.

“The meal following a service has to be expensive, or else the host-as well as the guests-will all lose face. Not to mention the ghosts of the dead. It’s difficult for a vegetarian meal to be that expensive, hence the Häagen-Dazs.”

“I think you made the right choice here, Peiqin,” he said, helping himself to a chunk of sea cucumber braised with oyster sauce and shrimp roe.

A cell phone chirped. Several people immediately checked theirs, but it was Lianping’s. She took out her phone and glanced at it without trying to answer it.

“Somebody has just forwarded me a microblog,” she said.

“Microblog?” he said, the slippery sea cucumber falling from his chopsticks into the small saucer.

“It’s just like a blog, except it’s limited to no more than 140 characters. The government hoped such a short piece wouldn’t stir up big trouble. But it’s like a small Web forum, and people can read, comment on it, or forward it on their cell phones instantaneously. As a result, it’s turning into another big headache for the ‘stability-maintaining’ officials. They’re talking about requiring that people who access this sort of microblog register with their real names.”

“So the Internet cops can easily track them down,” he said, shaking his head. “Do you write microblogs as well?”

“No, but I read those of others.” She leaned over and said in a low voice, “I’ve made some inquiries about Melong. The Web forum of his was one of the most popular in the city, appealing to a large group of readers. Because of its popularity, it attracted a lot of ads, which more than supported its operations. Melong is quite a character. He keeps his forum popular, controversial, and from time to time comes perilously close to the last ‘red line’ drawn by the authorities, but never really crosses that line that would prompt the government to take action and shut the forum down. He’s an old hand at avoiding any direct confrontation with the authorities while running the forum his way.”

“So he’s sort of independent.”

“Sort of. You could say that. At least, he doesn’t have to work another job. But he’s also an occasional hacker. There are stories that he makes real money as a hacker, but one can’t tell whether there’s any truth to those stories. He’s a cautious one. Anyway, I’ve never heard of him getting into trouble because of hacking. Within the circle, he’s known for doing things in a way that is characteristic of jianghu.”

“Jianghu-you mean he views his circle as an imagined world with its own ethical code, like those martial arts novels?”

“Yes. He’s known for one particular attribute: he holds fast to his own rules. There are things he will do, and things he won’t do. For instance, it’s said that he makes a point of protecting his sources-which in turn adds to the popularity of his site. Then again, one never really knows: according to some sources, Melong also has connections in the government, and that’s why he’s been able to run it his way all along.”

“What else?”

“What else?” she repeated, smiling, picking up a piece of beef in oyster sauce. “Like you, he’s a filial son.”

How did she know that about him?

An unexpected toast made by that aunt of Peiqin’s provided an excuse for Chen not to respond to Lianping’s comment.

“I want to thank you, Party Secretary Chen, and your beautiful journalist girlfriend. When the pictures appear in Wenhui, Peiqin’s parents will be so happy in the netherworld.”

He stood up in a hurry, cup in hand, but he didn’t know what to say in response, or whether it was even appropriate to make a toast back.

Peiqin smiled across the table apologetically. Yu scratched his head.

Lianping pulled out her cell phone again, looked something up, then picked up a pink napkin and scribbled something on it. She pushed it over to him as he sat down again awkwardly.

“Here’s Melong’s phone number. You may as well call him. You can tell him you’re my friend.”

“Thank you.”

The lunch came to an end, fortunately before someone else tried to make another toast.

Everyone walked across the street and back to the temple. Some carried boxes of food, and they didn’t forget to put the boxes in their cars before reentering the temple.

Instead of going back into the room where the service was held, they now gathered around a huge bronze burner in the courtyard. It was time for people to burn the sacrifices for the dead. They started putting into the fire the boxes of netherworld money, along with some other imitation sacrifices, including a vividly detailed paper mansion.

“Look at the address,” Lianping said, standing beside him.

“123 Binjiang Garden.”

“The most expensive subdivision in the city of Shanghai.”

“So the dead can enjoy the top luxuries in the netherworld, if not in this world. I don’t think that has a lot to do with Buddhism, the burning of symbolic sacrifices for the dead. Perhaps it has more to do with Confucianism.”

“There is something I don’t understand about Confucianism. Confucius said, ‘A gentleman doesn’t talk about ghosts or spirits,’ but at the same time, he urges people to offer sacrifices to their ancestors.”

“These days, we’re in an age of spiritual and ideological vacuum, and ours is a society with no religion to fall back on. For most people, nothing exists or matters but this present world. So this service, influenced as it is by the materialistic considerations of the here and now, provides a sort of cold comfort.”

So saying, he leaned toward the burner. Among the sacrifices being consumed in the roaring flame, he was astonished to see a carton of imitation cigarettes.

“What? 95 Supreme Majesty!”

“You know, there’s a new picture of cigarettes online,” she said, her face flushed with the heat.

“Another photo related to Zhou?”

“No. Not directly. It’s of some other Party officials in a conference room. For a conference, drinks and cigarettes on the dais are a given. The expensive ones are provided for free as a necessary government expense. In this new picture, however, the cigarettes have been taken out of the pack and placed on a small saucer. Why? So that people can’t recognize the top brands. The conference organizers must have been nervous about causing another scandal. But they were foolish. No smoker ever dumps their cigarettes out of the pack like that, so the cover-up effort only drew more attention to it. It resulted in another avalanche of sarcastic comments from netizens about the picture.”

She had a point. He himself would never have dumped the cigarettes out into a saucer, and he was no stranger to such things being provided at the government’s expense. Fortunately, she was changing the topic.

“By the way, I’ve just heard that there will be a new bronze Confucius statue erected soon in Tiananmen Square. I wonder whether people will burn incense there as well.”

“That’s impossible,” Chen said. “Think about the May Fourth movement, and Mao’s denunciation of Confucianism.”

“Nothing is impossible in today’s miraculous China. Remember the old saying? When one is seriously sick, one can’t afford to choose a doctor. But do you think resurrecting such an ancient idol will really solve the ideological crisis in our country?”

Her brows were arched. She was sharp. He saw the cynical humor in her eyes, and he liked that.

Whatever sacrifice was still burning in the containers in the temple courtyard, it was dying out.