A small town has many tales
Full of joy and sorrow,
If you come to a small town
You can reap a bountiful harvest.
- Teresa Teng’s “Story of a Small Town”
I think she was recognized in the station of that small town. Heads turned, hushed whispers followed our passage. She just walked through like one would through a mist, conscious of, but treating it no more than a mild annoyance on the road to her destination.
The minute she stepped down the train, she transformed back into that serious, intense, rebellious woman he first met. Holding her head high, she projected an air of invulnerability and even a tinge of haughtiness. He now knew this was not her true nature but even then, he had to recall her tenderness to convince himself that it was all an act. But it was more than acting. It was as if she had stepped into the skin of another woman. Everything about her changed, the way she carried herself, the way she walked, talked and her general facial expression. If it was acting, it was flawless. I observed the transformation with amazement and not a little admiration.
And she didn’t just cut through the crowd. She nodded to some and exchanged greetings with others in a steady confident voice. At her request, I’ve worn my best set of clothing. The only silk I owned that was passed down from my dear departed father. It was hardly worn (never saw my father in it) sew in the timeless fashion of a conservative gentlemen. All I need to do is to live up to the apparel. I took the cue from her and assumed a leisurely bored air. It was amusing to note the response and respect people paid to the clothing. I had initial misgivings but as I walked along I began to feel a sort of secret enjoyment that I did not know I possessed. Maybe I am also an actor at heart. She was opening doors in me that I did not even know was there. And as an actor, I found I could put guilt and embarrassment aside as I had become a different person. There was a strange sense of freedom that a poor fisherman from down South can never possessed. It changed me that day. And though I was and always will be a fisherman at heart, I was no longer the same fisherman. And though I will always be with the sea, my world has reached beyond that sea.
I picked up strange dialects with different intonation, heavy, guttural and to my unfamiliar ears spoken fiercely as if in a quarrel. The ladies’ speeches were flighty, lighter but faster like an excited sparrow skipping on freshly hoed earth. But when she spoke the dialect, it sounded different. It was like the flight a gliding sparrow over a field of grain, musical. She did only casual bargaining as if it was beneath her station to involve in deep haggling. But she was firm with her prices and walked away if they were not met only to have the hawker running after her to accept her offer. She bought several pounds of choice cuts reddish pork, two fat chickens all tussled up, several rolls of succulent Chinese sausages, a large bundle of fresh “Emperor’s Green”, a few flasks of aromatic rice wine – enough to prepare a feast for a king. She then beckoned a street urchin without shoe to send them to an address written on a piece of paper and a note announcing her return. The grinning boy with the unbuttoned shirts happily clutched the few coins she paid and hurried away with the load.
She bent over the table looking over the displays of hair pins. The stall owner was just about to fawn over her when she silenced him, just with the lifting and holding up of her hand. She looked over them until her eyes came to rest on one that had a phoenix craved on a turtle shell. I thought it was too old for her but she held it tenderly, brushing it like one would stroke a cat. The intuitive stall keeper volunteered “only 50 Yuan for a sharp lady who appreciates quality”. She immediately put it down and walked away. “20 Yuan!” but she continued walking. I took a 10 Yuan note and pressed it into the protesting keeper’s hand and hurried after her with the hairpin.
We took a corner table in the balcony of a restaurant overlooking the busy street. She ordered the food and we sipped Oolong tea waiting for it. A player somewhere was playing a sentimental canto-pop, “We met in the middle of an empty street…” Away from the crowd, she seemed relaxed, even happy. Though now and then, a shadow will fleet across those fathomless eyes, which raised her eyebrows without her realizing it. She quickly dismissed it like one intended on having a good time despite an approaching storm. And she told me stories. Stories about the town and the people in it. I waited anxiously to see it if the stories will lead her into it. Though as interesting as the stories were, what I was dying to know was her role in it. She told the stories with so much details and feelings that she must have lived them but there was no mention of her though I was sure the observations was made by her personally. The tales told me she was happy in it. Why did she leave?
She looked across the table at him listening intensely to her tales. A little smile escaped her lips to be followed by a frown. He too loved her tales and she told them to him by the lake under the weeping willows, on the branch of that large oak where they dangled their feet, in the empty classroom of the school on a weekend, even in that old cemetery at night when eerie winds blew and where the tales were shared by more than the two of them. She loved to pour out her heart. She did her thinking in her words. And she always came to have feelings for those who appreciated her tales. “What is a story-teller without listeners?” she once said. “You gave meanings to my tales, so you gave meanings to me, to my existence.”
Now a fisherman was listening to her tales. He wished he was him. But it could not be. It will never be. She felt that tug at her heart and tasted the bitterness in her tongue. Her eyes threatened to betray her. But she forced them all back. She will not cry again. She had cried enough. She swore she will never shed another tear for him and she will keep that promise. She will defeat her sorrow. That old sorrow that she refused to indulge in. If she has to take on new sorrow to replace it, that is okay. The new sorrow will not have him in it. Slowly, the new sorrow will drown the old and him along with it. Only then will she be free. So she will embrace new pain to drown old one. It made strange sense to her.
Even to herself, she did not want to admit that she also needed to drown her shame. She was convinced she can only love one man in her life. So she held her love until she was sure she found the right one to give her heart to. Her suitors were many but she bid her time until her soul-mate came along.
When she was ten, reading a book under a tree at the back of the school; she heard a quiet voice softly enquired “what is that you’re reading?” She looked up at his shy face with hair neatly combed and parted in the middle. His hands behind his back and he was gently swaying like a reed in the wind. His eyes were on her spotless shoe and there was a gathering glow on his cheek. That day, she told him his first story until it was interrupted by the recess bell. But the next day, he came back to hear the rest of the tale. When she ran out of tales from the books, she made up her own. She could spin a tale from anything, a blade of glass swaying in the wind, a bent old lady struggling down the street, a smile on a young girl’s lips, a flash of lighting, a striking of a bell or the twinkling of wind chimes. He would challenge her by calling up an object, a scene, a person, anything and she would effortlessly continue her tales from there. It became a sort of game between them.
Everyone in town knew they were destined for each other. People would smile and pointed them out as the town’s pair of Mandarin duck. Everyone assumed they would marry once they came of age including their parents who had no objections to their relationship. She never has another boyfriend, there were no need to. She found her soul-mate early and the other suitors just melted away into the background. She grew up pretty, vivacious and witty. Many boys were interested but all they could do were to envy him and they did not try to be more than friends. It would not have matter anyway. She would simply be not interested. She had found her “one-love” early and she had no need for any other.
The fisherman looked at her falling into her reflections. He frowned at her growing silence but did not say anything. Let her get it out of her system. I wished she would share it with me but he knew he was not and could be no part of it. And he could not help. The only good he could do was just to be there for her.
She suddenly realized she had slipped into silence. She looked up embarrassed and saw the frown on his face which he immediately tried to hide.
“I’m sorry.”
“Is there any way I could help?” he asked even though he knew what the answer will be.
She shook her head. I must break free of this malaise, she thought. That is my past. It has no relevance to my present and my future. I must break free. I will. I must.
“Sorry. It will not happen again” she said not too convincingly. She knew that she can keep it at bay guarded but when her guard was down, it can silently creep behind and overwhelm her. But I will beat it. It will take some time and much effort but I will beat it into submission. It is alright to suffer but it is not alright to be defeated. And I will not be defeated. My pride is all I had left. But that thought almost broke her and she had to gallantly struggle to regain control. I don’t know why I’m still so vulnerable, she thought. I hate it and I hate him for making me feel this way.
She regained her composure, smiled at him, held his hand and said “let us go. It is time to go home.”
“Wait,” he took out the hairpin and gave it to her. He liked the look in her eyes. She carefully wrapped it in her embroidered handkerchief. They sat in the same rickshaw as it went rattling down the dirt road.
The minute she stepped down the train, she transformed back into that serious, intense, rebellious woman he first met. Holding her head high, she projected an air of invulnerability and even a tinge of haughtiness. He now knew this was not her true nature but even then, he had to recall her tenderness to convince himself that it was all an act. But it was more than acting. It was as if she had stepped into the skin of another woman. Everything about her changed, the way she carried herself, the way she walked, talked and her general facial expression. If it was acting, it was flawless. I observed the transformation with amazement and not a little admiration.
And she didn’t just cut through the crowd. She nodded to some and exchanged greetings with others in a steady confident voice. At her request, I’ve worn my best set of clothing. The only silk I owned that was passed down from my dear departed father. It was hardly worn (never saw my father in it) sew in the timeless fashion of a conservative gentlemen. All I need to do is to live up to the apparel. I took the cue from her and assumed a leisurely bored air. It was amusing to note the response and respect people paid to the clothing. I had initial misgivings but as I walked along I began to feel a sort of secret enjoyment that I did not know I possessed. Maybe I am also an actor at heart. She was opening doors in me that I did not even know was there. And as an actor, I found I could put guilt and embarrassment aside as I had become a different person. There was a strange sense of freedom that a poor fisherman from down South can never possessed. It changed me that day. And though I was and always will be a fisherman at heart, I was no longer the same fisherman. And though I will always be with the sea, my world has reached beyond that sea.
I picked up strange dialects with different intonation, heavy, guttural and to my unfamiliar ears spoken fiercely as if in a quarrel. The ladies’ speeches were flighty, lighter but faster like an excited sparrow skipping on freshly hoed earth. But when she spoke the dialect, it sounded different. It was like the flight a gliding sparrow over a field of grain, musical. She did only casual bargaining as if it was beneath her station to involve in deep haggling. But she was firm with her prices and walked away if they were not met only to have the hawker running after her to accept her offer. She bought several pounds of choice cuts reddish pork, two fat chickens all tussled up, several rolls of succulent Chinese sausages, a large bundle of fresh “Emperor’s Green”, a few flasks of aromatic rice wine – enough to prepare a feast for a king. She then beckoned a street urchin without shoe to send them to an address written on a piece of paper and a note announcing her return. The grinning boy with the unbuttoned shirts happily clutched the few coins she paid and hurried away with the load.
She bent over the table looking over the displays of hair pins. The stall owner was just about to fawn over her when she silenced him, just with the lifting and holding up of her hand. She looked over them until her eyes came to rest on one that had a phoenix craved on a turtle shell. I thought it was too old for her but she held it tenderly, brushing it like one would stroke a cat. The intuitive stall keeper volunteered “only 50 Yuan for a sharp lady who appreciates quality”. She immediately put it down and walked away. “20 Yuan!” but she continued walking. I took a 10 Yuan note and pressed it into the protesting keeper’s hand and hurried after her with the hairpin.
We took a corner table in the balcony of a restaurant overlooking the busy street. She ordered the food and we sipped Oolong tea waiting for it. A player somewhere was playing a sentimental canto-pop, “We met in the middle of an empty street…” Away from the crowd, she seemed relaxed, even happy. Though now and then, a shadow will fleet across those fathomless eyes, which raised her eyebrows without her realizing it. She quickly dismissed it like one intended on having a good time despite an approaching storm. And she told me stories. Stories about the town and the people in it. I waited anxiously to see it if the stories will lead her into it. Though as interesting as the stories were, what I was dying to know was her role in it. She told the stories with so much details and feelings that she must have lived them but there was no mention of her though I was sure the observations was made by her personally. The tales told me she was happy in it. Why did she leave?
She looked across the table at him listening intensely to her tales. A little smile escaped her lips to be followed by a frown. He too loved her tales and she told them to him by the lake under the weeping willows, on the branch of that large oak where they dangled their feet, in the empty classroom of the school on a weekend, even in that old cemetery at night when eerie winds blew and where the tales were shared by more than the two of them. She loved to pour out her heart. She did her thinking in her words. And she always came to have feelings for those who appreciated her tales. “What is a story-teller without listeners?” she once said. “You gave meanings to my tales, so you gave meanings to me, to my existence.”
Now a fisherman was listening to her tales. He wished he was him. But it could not be. It will never be. She felt that tug at her heart and tasted the bitterness in her tongue. Her eyes threatened to betray her. But she forced them all back. She will not cry again. She had cried enough. She swore she will never shed another tear for him and she will keep that promise. She will defeat her sorrow. That old sorrow that she refused to indulge in. If she has to take on new sorrow to replace it, that is okay. The new sorrow will not have him in it. Slowly, the new sorrow will drown the old and him along with it. Only then will she be free. So she will embrace new pain to drown old one. It made strange sense to her.
Even to herself, she did not want to admit that she also needed to drown her shame. She was convinced she can only love one man in her life. So she held her love until she was sure she found the right one to give her heart to. Her suitors were many but she bid her time until her soul-mate came along.
When she was ten, reading a book under a tree at the back of the school; she heard a quiet voice softly enquired “what is that you’re reading?” She looked up at his shy face with hair neatly combed and parted in the middle. His hands behind his back and he was gently swaying like a reed in the wind. His eyes were on her spotless shoe and there was a gathering glow on his cheek. That day, she told him his first story until it was interrupted by the recess bell. But the next day, he came back to hear the rest of the tale. When she ran out of tales from the books, she made up her own. She could spin a tale from anything, a blade of glass swaying in the wind, a bent old lady struggling down the street, a smile on a young girl’s lips, a flash of lighting, a striking of a bell or the twinkling of wind chimes. He would challenge her by calling up an object, a scene, a person, anything and she would effortlessly continue her tales from there. It became a sort of game between them.
Everyone in town knew they were destined for each other. People would smile and pointed them out as the town’s pair of Mandarin duck. Everyone assumed they would marry once they came of age including their parents who had no objections to their relationship. She never has another boyfriend, there were no need to. She found her soul-mate early and the other suitors just melted away into the background. She grew up pretty, vivacious and witty. Many boys were interested but all they could do were to envy him and they did not try to be more than friends. It would not have matter anyway. She would simply be not interested. She had found her “one-love” early and she had no need for any other.
The fisherman looked at her falling into her reflections. He frowned at her growing silence but did not say anything. Let her get it out of her system. I wished she would share it with me but he knew he was not and could be no part of it. And he could not help. The only good he could do was just to be there for her.
She suddenly realized she had slipped into silence. She looked up embarrassed and saw the frown on his face which he immediately tried to hide.
“I’m sorry.”
“Is there any way I could help?” he asked even though he knew what the answer will be.
She shook her head. I must break free of this malaise, she thought. That is my past. It has no relevance to my present and my future. I must break free. I will. I must.
“Sorry. It will not happen again” she said not too convincingly. She knew that she can keep it at bay guarded but when her guard was down, it can silently creep behind and overwhelm her. But I will beat it. It will take some time and much effort but I will beat it into submission. It is alright to suffer but it is not alright to be defeated. And I will not be defeated. My pride is all I had left. But that thought almost broke her and she had to gallantly struggle to regain control. I don’t know why I’m still so vulnerable, she thought. I hate it and I hate him for making me feel this way.
She regained her composure, smiled at him, held his hand and said “let us go. It is time to go home.”
“Wait,” he took out the hairpin and gave it to her. He liked the look in her eyes. She carefully wrapped it in her embroidered handkerchief. They sat in the same rickshaw as it went rattling down the dirt road.
To be continued...
