Lost Underground, Chapter 5

The Scent of Roses

LI MEI LING 

In our underground salons we played and sang forbidden songs. Listening to the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and other music from the west was considered evil and punishable by death. 

Today the words from Simon and Garfunkel’s Bookends weave their way into my consciousness carried to me by the breezes then suddenly swept away.

Time it was
And what a time it was
It was a time of innocence
A time of confidences 
Long ago, it must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They’re all that’s left you… 

At that time, I was constantly excited. I was a teenager looking for my face and had just started my journey as a woman. My older sister and my mother were taken from me, so I wandered carelessly between adolescence and adulthood, trying to figure what was real and what was a false promise.  

All the young people, girls and boys together were overwhelmed with the pure unadulterated joy of just being free, alive, and together. We lived in a constant state of delirium and raging hormones coupled with our imaginations. It was contagious. Our existence was at times an altered reality necessary for physical and emotional survival. 

We often spent days and nights, rarely sleeping, lingering by the lake just outside the city reciting our poetry and singing familiar songs to an old guitar. 

Our minds, fed by sleeplessness and hormones, drifted to faraway places while our hands wandered through the unfamiliar yet familiar hills and valleys of our bodies. Boys and girls coupled as randomly as the music. The boys and I were inebriated and under the influence not of wine but of the sheer energy of being young, together, and innocent. I fell in and out of love with all of them.  

The unbridled freedom of running rampant through the deserted back streets of Beijing with no adult supervision often brought us confusion, and danger.  We sought a sense of peace and security amidst the chaos and rubble wherever we could find or imagine it. We sheltered our hearts and our souls in music, books, poetry, and in our dreams and hallucinations.  

We lusted for beauty and often felt a strong sense of paradise beckoning us. And we were determined to find it. Somewhere it was said that there existed a valley of the most beautiful roses high in the mountains above the clouds where the air was thin and clear, and the birds sang. Carefully planning the trip to the valley of roses, we repaired our bicycles, packed meager food, and strengthened our legs for the long ride uphill. More than 20 girls and boys rode from the lake up to the Rose Valley in the mountains. 

We started our journey in the late evening. The dampness of the evening clung to our clothing and the clothing to our skin. The night whistled in our ears as our bicycles sped up the hills through curving dirt roads leading us to this place we had only heard of in stories. Stopping only for a quick cigarette we caught glimpses of lovers silhouetted in the moonlight. We continued riding through the night. 

As the sun began rising in the hills our bodies cast shadows on the rocks and trees. From our spinning wheels the light glinted off the spokes and sent lightning straight up through the clouds. The sun ricocheted from handlebar to handlebar, blinding us with the power of the light and energizing our lust for this new adventure. 

When we arrived at the Rose Valley, there was nothing to see but a valley of weeds.  Exhausted and disillusioned we dismounted from our bicycles and let them drop wherever we happened to stop. Carelessly we watched them topple on one another creating a tangle of metal and rubber. Exhausted, we broke out the wine and cigarettes the boys brought, and we sat to read our poetry among the weeds, leaning against one another to feel assured of our connectedness. Although paradise eluded us, our happiness was delivered in the warmth of our poetry and affection for each other. 

In the midst of the slow heat of the afternoon our peace was suddenly broken as someone shot up, pointed, and yelled, “look!” We saw that the place where weeds were previously, was now filled with clouds of pink roses. 

I remember reaching to touch the petals of the most magnificent rose I’d ever seen. It was soft and fragile. I milked its perfume, squeezing it lightly between my fingers.  Its heavy scent infused my hair and clothing. The air became thick with fragrance making us all so drunk and oh so dizzy. Exhausted, I fell into a deep slumber.  

By late afternoon I was awakened by laughter from some boys on a nearby canal. It had become very cold, but the boys went to swim to show off to the girls. We were so excited and had nothing to do but to recite poetry, sing, and explore each other’s heads, hearts, and bodies. We played into the night and then took our bicycles down the mountain to the Summer Palace that was held by the emperor until the 1920’s but by our time had fallen into ruin.   

We returned home well after midnight. Then, not unexpectedly, someone knocked on the door to ask us to go swimming. So, we rode on those bicycles back to the lake to swim under moonlight. I remember the beautiful, perfumed nights and the freedom. We didn’t need wine or drugs to see the flowers. We were already drunk. 

Did we really see it? I cannot say for sure.  Some people still sy they saw the Rose Valley filled with blooms that day. Did paradise elude us? Did we need to create our own valley of roses to sustain us?  

Among the last souvenirs of my youth, I found a book that didn’t belong to me. One of the kids who stayed with us after returning from the Rose Valley left it behind and must have forgotten about it. A dried flower was pressed between the pages and was quite flattened. A few people still have these dried roses crumbling with age and many swear that they came from that visit to the Rose Valley. The color is gone, but oddly, the fragrance remains. 

LI MEI LING  

Tianping, the Boy 

I carry the responsibilities of age now and I’ve become nostalgic for the freedom and innocence of my youth. 

Searching for traces of my youth in my apartment, the same one I grew up in, I finally opened an old suitcase containing my mother’s writings, music, and paintings. Looking through the suitcase, I realize now how much of my mother’s spirit was a part of the salons. Imprisoned by the government, she was away from me during the salon time but speaking with her later she gave me insight into her heart.   

The well-worn leather suitcase is clasped with a golden lock. I can tell it was very expensive at the time it was made. My heart races as it reveals itself. My fingers tremble as I trace the stitching around its edges. Blowing off the dust, I find a beautiful patina etched into its surface by time and travel. As I touch each scratch, I feel it whisper its own story. The suitcase is unlocked! I ever so slowly lift the lid. There’s a key carefully placed on top of everything inside as if my mother had meant for me to lock up after I finish perusing the contents. 

The first thing that catches my eye is a small portfolio with embroidered birds and flowers, which I had watched my mother stitching. Inside that portfolio is her sheet music, and several small paintings done in the traditional Chinese style of the past, which fall from between the pages. She must have hidden these to prevent the government from finding and destroying them. Other objects I find are neatly folded letters from my father, some very small and fragile teacups, and a beautifully wrapped paper packet of bitter melon seeds. The seeds have retained their faint fragrance, which, now released, takes me back to another time.

Exiled by the government to her hometown, my mother lived in a very simple house that sat alone and somewhat isolated from any neighbors. For a brief period, I lived there with her. She planted gardens with wildflowers and vegetables for our table. We watched the garden from a small porch in the front of the house, where birds would come to steal the fruit of her labor. 

I remember standing under the bitter melon vines in the morning. Tiny yellow blossoms are especially fragrant at that time of the day, and especially before the melons begin to appear at the base of each flower. I remember thinking how tiny and fragile the flowers were compared to the dark green wrinkly, warty, bitterness of the fruit. Inside is a chamber filled with an airy cloud-like pillow suspending fat white seeds that exude a fragrance of their own when exposed at the exact moment of maturity. Timing is everything since too soon or too late means the fragrance will be absent. Bitter melon is an acquired taste. Being extremely bitter, most people spit it out almost reflexively. However, if you can get over the first shock and spend some time chewing on it, the bitter fruit becomes almost sweet, and you can hold the fragrance of the flower for just a moment in your mouth. 

Inhaling the perfume from the old seeds, I can hear my mother asking me: Do you remember “Tianping”?  

I’m transported to another world, another place, like an old film without any color, but very clear. I’m back to the countryside where peasants thresh the wheat. This area is now referred to as the “labor farms of the Cultural Revolution,” but it’s ten years before the revolution and I am still a child. My mother and I walk together on the threshing field. The land is plain, cut by a small river where I place my hand in the trickle to catch tiny tadpoles dodging my shadow. My mother holds my hand, so I don’t fall in.  

But everything changed in that region by the time I became a teenager. The serenity of the river was no more, and the sound of the wind was punctuated by the noise of sickles slicing through sheaves of grain. Harsh and cacophonous sounds dominated the landscape bouncing from metal roof to metal roof of the storage sheds. The orders shouted from the mouths of guards reverberated across the fields fouling the wind that used to caress the wheat. 

But over that time, I had changed too. I was coming of age and began spending more time with my young companions. 

One evening I sat with my girlfriends listening to songs from the radio. It was night and there was no light. A group of boys asked to join us, and they played jokes and sang songs.  

Here is where the story of Tianping begins. 

Suddenly a man emerged from the dark and came close to us. He was tall and thin, and his face looked just like my father: thin face and high nose. A girl yelled “Tianping, come over. We will introduce a girl to you.” and pushed the man toward the group demanding, “What kind of wife do you want? This time you should look more carefully. It should not matter if she is pretty or not.” Everyone laughed. The man’s face looked pained, and he fell silent. When it became quiet again, another voice whispered that Tianping was a dreamer and hoped for a wife because he was already 40 years old (although he had the bearing and attitude of a young boy). His family was not poor, but nobody wanted to marry him because everyone thought he was a fool.  

And now a plan was concocted to fool the fool. 

A voice in the dark whispered that a girl was coming to meet him. Tianping became ecstatic. That same evening, he went to the mill house for the rendezvous. But there was only a man pretending to be a girl, wearing a scarf on his head…it was dark, and many kids were watching through the window. He could not tell if it was a man or a woman. In a high voice the man said he would marry him, but first he wanted clothes and money. Tianping was very happy and agreed to a wedding date. That’s when all the people watching could hold it in no longer and burst into a fit of laughter.  Tianping realized he had been tricked and cried. 

Later, I told my mother what I had witnessed. My mother said Tianping is a good man, works hard, and is honest, but rarely speaks. She thought the joke was too cruel. 

In fact, she said, your father’s family is similar; they’re not talkative either. Tianping was not a relative of our family, although our families lived together for a time, but we have an uncle from the same village. He was also a simple and honest person, and others tormented him just as everyone torments Tianping. An auntie said, someone should find a girl for Tianping, or he will be alone all his life.  

Because my mother was regarded as an enemy of the revolution, she was isolated and none of the villagers would help her. She had nothing. Only Tianping would help her carry water. He carried two heavy wooden baskets on a pole to transport the water from the other side of the village. He didn’t speak but silently put the water from the baskets into our storage jar.  

From my room I could often hear my mother talk to Tianping under the bitter melon vines he had planted for us. Only mother spoke, telling him stories about the Monkey King, the Seven Fairy Maidens and holy mother living in the heavens, and his favorite: The Woman’s Kingdom where the women were waiting to become somebody’s wife. Mother loved these stories, and it formed a bond for their friendship.  

The Queen of Heaven, who is also known as the Holy Mother, was, in mortal life, a maiden of Fukien, named Lin. She was pure, reverential, and pious in her ways and died at the age of seventeen. She now shows her power on the seas, and for this reason the seamen worship her. This was my mother's favorite, and she told it to me from the time I was a small child. 

Tianping asked her to tell him these stories again and again. 

Each time he heard his favorite story of The Women’s Kingdom, the expression on Tianping’s face was as surprised and excited as a 7-year-old boy hearing it for the first time. The thought of a kingdom made up of only women who married many husbands! He knew he could find a wife in this place. As in a dream, his soul was aroused with each telling. One day after hearing the story again, he said “Auntie, you have a good rest, I’m going to that Kingdom”.  

Mother had great patience with him because nobody accepted him. Our home was the only place he could come, although he always seemed embarrassed and brought gifts. Only his mother lived with him, and she always sent something along with Tianping to give to my mother; tools, coal, eggs, green vegetables, and seeds that they harvested. He helped my mother build and clean our village house. Everywhere we can see the work he did in our small yard. Later on, my mother’s situation became better, and other people began coming to our house to help. With that, Tianping rarely came by and slipped shyly away. 

We later received a telegram with a few words saying that my father was in Beijing, and we had to go back for a family reunion. Everyone knew we were leaving and came to say goodbye. Mother asked why Tianping didn’t come. I told her he probably didn’t want to see anyone. Mother said, “We may not see them again, so I want to leave something for them.” She put some gifts into a small cloth bag with a small lock on it. I don’t know what was inside. She must have put everything in that bag to send to the good-hearted older lady, his mother, who she met only once. Mother gave the bag to a boy to deliver to Tianping.  

The next morning, mother got up to cook noodles for me, and I heard Tianping’s voice outside. He said, “Auntie, have you gotten up?” I followed my mother out the door and found Tianping in very clean white clothes (he never dressed like this before). He had a large bag with him. Tianping stood under the melon vine, and he looked like he was going to a faraway place with his things. He said, “My mother asked me to send you off and I will go away too. I want to find the Women’s Kingdom to get married and take my wife back to see my mother.” He had taken the story as real. My mother turned her head to look at me. I dared not look at Tianping’s face, but said “There is no such place, it is only a myth.” Tianping was shocked, and his hope drained out. His bag dropped from his shoulder and as it fell to the dirt, I noticed he was wearing new shoes made by his mother. He had been willing to walk a long distance to find this kingdom. He said nothing but stared at us with his big black eyes. My cousin arrived with his cart pulled by a horse to take us back to the city. That morning Tianping lost his dream.  

In recent years, I learned that there is a tribe of Mosuo women in southwest China, an ethnic minority that has a matriarchal society, one of the last in the world. They are not far from the Tibetan Buddhist city the Chinese have renamed Shangri-La. But my mother didn’t know of the tribe at that time. She knew it as a folk tale.

We never heard from Tianping again. 

How was our dream of paradise in the valley of roses so different from Tianping’s dream of a kingdom of women? Could our dream have been simply a fairy tale too?