《On The Same Days》橄榄树

25、6th December Friday 2002 Amsterdam

　　Geef de boer een stoel (Give the farmer respect they derserves)

　　As always, it was raining, gray sky, cold sea wind blowing hard, went all the way through Tina’s coat to her heart. Though per temperature, it was much warmer than it was at home in North China, but it was dry back there, with shinning sun on the white snow. Here she felt cold from inside out, cold and damp.

　　Flooded in and out of those shops on the Kalvestreet among all the gifts fishing people, Tina was in search for presents for the evening. It was Sintklas festival, some Christmas man like figure on a white horse from Spain who brings children their dreams. Tina had promised the doctor family to celebrate with them together before she went back China. She couldn’t find any excuse to escape. Anna would join too; there’d be ten persons in total. 10 pieces of presents, Tina felt headache. It would be much easier if she could afford whatever she thought they’d like, but a combination of taste, class and price is never easy to find. Reached Dam Square already, still bare hands, Tina threw a few coins into the cans in front of each motionless human statue, the one with face covered under green shinning powder, a file case under left arm, tie flying forward, right hand backward, as if frozen at a certain step when he dashed to work, gave Tina a bow. Tina didn’t even dare to look into his eyes. The bow must be the only rest he could get to mobilize the frozen blood a bit. He got his dignity and courage, hadn’t he? He didn’t beg; he performed in the damp cold rain.

　　* * *
　　Knew she had just given away some 50 RMB, she felt guilty. That was the cause of her second brother, He Ping’s fight. (He Ping means peace, though he was an after-war product, the parents named him after his brother Bao Wei, defense, together defend peace.) The fight was originated over a fine of 50 RMB because he collected the corn home from the field one day too early. The farmers were supposed to wait till the exact date announced by the local village committee before taking anything back home from their own fields. He would have stopped if the village chief, who was a hoodlum chosen by villagers out of fear, by the committee because of his Mahjong playing skills, had talked to him in a nicer way instead of “Watch your step, brother, you are violating the rules, 50RMB and send all these corn to the village committee right away, otherwise…hn!” the last scornful sounds from the hoodlum’s nostril trigged her brother’s anger, besides he knew exactly the tricks the chief was playing, the hoodlum on purposely did not broadcast the exact date through the big village microphone, so that he could raid on people who started the getting in for some money to play Mahjong, “Who the hell do you think you are? You were eating your mom’s nipples when I served in the army!” so her brother continued his corn collecting. 4 years services in army, her brother learned one thing, if you never speak up, everyone would come sitting on your neck and piss, he could play down for a few years with no problem, but not the whole life in his own village, village Wu, the piece of land where his parents, brother, sister and his own life based on, he wouldn’t bend for a dirt hoodlum, otherwise there’d be no ground to hold on.

　　The hoodlum chief’s face turned purple from green out of sheer anger, no one ever dared to talk to him like that since he turned 15 and stole the first dog from the neighboring village and killed it for his own birthday. Abruptly he disappeared on his motorcycle leaving a sharp terrible noise with dark smoke. He got to find his hoodlum gangs to show the Peace some color, he wanted to show him some color for quite a while, a returned soldier, a pretty wife, raised some cow, had a freezer, selling ice creams, so what? The stupid guy had to learn some manner, had to know who’s kingdom the village is, it was his, he was the chief.

　　Collected his hoodlum gangs, he went to Peace’s home. They asked for bunches of ice creams, threw them all away after one bite. Defense came, frowned at all threw away ice creams. Defense knew it must be about the getting in of Peace, his 9 year old nephew just went to tell him about these gangs destroying their ice creams with no intention of payment. He knew the freezer cost a lot and so far Peace hadn’t get back the investment yet. But he would rather not have a fight. “Weren’t the ice creams your taste?” Defense smiled to the chief,
　　“Hi, brother, feel pity? Then pick up and eat.” The hoodlum chief decided to attack Peace’s brother first.
　　“Don’t go too far, this is still village Wu.” Defense raised his voice a bit.
　　“Aha! Is it?” Hoodlum chief threw half of his ice cream to Defense’s face, it went into his collar. Defense caught the hoodlum with one hand, another hold into fist, before he hit on the hoodlum, his father came out, with pale face, tried to pull Defense away. The hoodlum chief took the chance, heavily kicked into the father’s chest. The father fell down. Some more villagers came out watching; no one dared to come up to stop the fight.

　　That was what Peace saw when he drove the tractor corn home. His eyes turned red. The hoodlum chief saw Peace too, he jumped right in the middle of the road, and hands on his waist posed as a tea pot, the hoodlum group were making dirty noises and enjoyed the whole scene immensely. They knew Peace would have to stop and the tractor will have to be driven into the committee house by the chief as it always happened. Peace drove on, for a moment he wanted to just drive straight ahead and pulverize that dirt under his wheels. He controlled himself instead; he stopped, jumped off the tractor. The hoodlum chief triumphantly jumped in and planned to drive the tractor to the committee house, suddenly he felt sharp pains from his arm, his back and his shoulder; he saw his own blood splashing on the steering wheel, he screamed and faint. Peace’s father just managed to stand up, faint again at the sight. Peace hold the blood dripping axe, turned to the group of hooligans paralyzed in shock, “If any of you think this dirt worth your life, come up then, one by one, don’t fight with a group like cowards. Killing one of you, I die fair, killing two, I count one as discount. ”
　　The gangs looked at each other suspiciously, decided the half dead chief wouldn’t worth anyone’s life anymore, they hadn’t really get anything more than a few ice creams from him anyway, therefore some of them went away to fetch nearby doctors and arrange cars, some went to check the living status of the chief.

　　Of course it wouldn’t end easily. Peace knew he deliberately didn’t want to cut the chief into pieces; otherwise he wouldn’t stop the tractor. He just wanted to give him a lesson, to show him that it was still Village Wu. Local police arrested Peace the same evening after the chief was sent to the county hospital. Before Peace went, he instructed his wife to call one of his comrades in arms who worked in some governmental bodies for help; he had saved that comrade’s life once during a bush fire. Two days later, he was set free.

　　But the hoodlum stuck in the sickroom of the county hospital, rumoring that he’d never forgive Peace and all the generations thereafter, that he’d sue Peace for his violation of law and intention to murder a civil servant of the people; that he’d asked his hooligan friends to pay special attention the whole Peace’s family. Those days Peace didn’t dare to leave home, afraid anything might really happen; he slept with the axe next to the pillow. The whole family woke up at every dog bark. Peace’s father secretly went to the hospital and left some money for the hoodlum chief, the chief thought Peace was finally scared, sending even more rumors day after day.

　　Peace got completely no peace. That wasn’t what he wanted, he went to the hospital one night also with this axe, “If you still want to live further, come back to the village and get over with the accident. You’ll still be the chief, I’d cooperate as long as you don’t piss on my neck. I will pay your hospital fee for another 10 days and the fine of 50 plus a tractor corn; forget about the law suit, if I dare to cut you, I have ways to get away. If you won’t come back after 10 days, I will make sure an end will come to it.”

　　On the 9the day, the chief was back in the village. Broadcasted the fine and corn he had collected from Peace in public, privately returned the fine. He was not as dominating as before to the villagers anymore. Peace thought he did at least one good thing, yet he noticed villagers’ smile to him were not as warm and natural as before anymore either, they are a bit scared.

　　The parents both got ill for months. When Tina arrived home, her father was still coughing blood. She didn’t get the story from his parents, neither her bothers nor sisters, but a neighbor who was an audience of the whole accident. She still remembered her mother said everyone was ok as long she was alright in Amsterdam. The fact was nobody was ok at home; they were all in fights, danger and illness. She felt her heart was bleeding. It wasn’t the first accident of the family, she remembered her father’s fight when she was very small, and her father broke one wrist for that fight.

　　The night when she arrived home, Peace came home late drunken from his comrade friend. He fell a few times before reached the door of the house. Tina ran out and helped him in, settled him onto their brick made bed, made tea for him. He saw her, “Is my little sister back? Oh, never go away again.” On those words, he threw up. Tina cleaned up, made more tea. “I worry about you, you are there with yourself, and I knew what it was like. I used to be in the army with myself. No one can help you. Come back, I am here, I can protect you…”
　　Threw up again, Tina held tea for him as his hands were trembling, her tears dropped into the tea cup, she held his hands, in her memory, so far, the first time that she held her brother’s hand, among her family, there were no display of affections, no linking arms at long time no see.
　　“If not in the village, somewhere in town then, at least where I can go. If anything happens in that dam city even further than the moon, I can’t go there, I can’t even see you. I will never forgive myself; I am your brother, your brother wasn’t able to walk out of this village, but he had to make the village a safe place for our family…I am proud of you, my little sister, but don’t torture yourself too much out there, we are a family, we live happily together is all meaning of life, isn’t it?... ” his tears dropped into the tea cup too.

　　That was her brother, the same blood and flesh. He tried all what he can do for the family and still have room to worry about the crazy little sister across the oceans. She couldn’t even help in anything, anything at all, not in terms of money, not in terms of power, not in terms of completely nothing but making him worrying even more.

　　At the moment Joyce came in, the father had called his daughter in law, Kun; right after Tina set a foot at home. Kun borrowed a Jeep, came with Joyce and their nearly 2 years old daughter all the way from his village at the other side of the county within a few hours. Joyce’s eyes turn red right away sing the tears from her brother and sister without knowing what was going on yet.

　　* * *
　　Tina felt a drop of tears ran down her cheek, mixed up with the rain drops, she didn’t wipe it. Watching loads of people in different colors stroking around Dam Square, some show was going on under a few red plastic tents. She felt it was all just so unreal. Back on the 4th, the whole way, from the moment Peace waved goodbye to her at the nearby town’s bus station, she felt like a statue, a piece of rotten wood, broken balloon. She hadn’t even cried. Just stared into the distance the whole flight back to Amsterdam and locked her herself in the room with mobile phone shut. She couldn’t talk to anyone.
　　She couldn’t even talk to herself. It was a perfect accident that the blonde who moved in before she left moved out of her house again before she came back; she enjoyed the peace at a loss of one month rent. The blonde didn’t pay. She felt much better this time, even a bit relieved to be cheated by a Dutch rather than her own folks.

　　She didn’t even dare to think about Joyce, a college student who was assigned to a bankrupted firm upon graduation. Joyce went to Shenyang and worked in a textile factory for a while when Tina was in college. She had to go home after a few months when their mother had her lymphadenitis operation. Their family had no connection to help her for any job in the cities; they tried to marry her into cities through match-makers. She had met quite some middle aged city garbage, under most cases they were just looking for a maid instead of a wife.
　　Joyce would rather kill herself and sell the meat instead. So she married with Kun, another college graduate who went back home. He had a job somewhere in a city, but he couldn’t live with that little amount of salary. Before marriage, Joyce had no idea how poor the Kun’s family was, they owed some 30,000 RMB, it all became Kun’s responsibility the moment he came back home unemployed. There were no space in Kun’s family house for the new couple to live; they had to rent a room, made of clay, to live. Whenever she cleaned the floor, she had to pour basins of water on the ground first to prevent the dusts smoking. She tried to make friends with neighbors, talked with them about how to properly feed a pig and raise dozens of hens, she tried to learn how to cook, how to harvest, how to make unbearable life bearable. She gave birth to a baby, Clear Moon, she called her daughter, hope that her daughter wouldn’t be like her, Joyce means a kind of flower in Chinese, flower, blossoming, withering, she hoped her daughter would be like the moon, out there shinning all the time, bright and clear. Joyce saw a piece of light again, in her gray life.

　　There was one night both Joyce and Kun fell in deep sleep after they warmed their brick made bed with lots of corn stalks. Woke up mid night, Joyce found out Clear Moon was burned into pink color, tightly shrank into a little hard statue, motionless and breathless, the blanket under Clear Moon was too thin, the bed was too warm, she had neglected her for too lang. Joyce screamed of fear, Kun’s mother came first, the old woman squeezed some tooth paste on Clear Moon’s belly button, murmuring some incantations. Kun arranged the jeep, they went to the country hospital in the night, the doctor on duty never met a similar case, it was hours, to Joyce, centuries later, Clear Moon let out a sound of cry again, which marked her second birth. Clear Moon often got ill after that, couldn’t eat much, threw up often, had convulsions often, compare with same aged children, she spoke slow, react slow. Joyce tried to teach Clear Moon to say her own name, thousands times, the daughter could only managed something like “Glee Mon”, Joyce often shaken her own head, then moved to tears whenever the daughter called very clearly “mama.”
　　There was one way if they want to get another child without paying a heavy fine they would able to afford, that was to report Clear Moon as demented, Joyce would never allow Clear Moon to be referred as that.

　　The accountant position in Kun’s town house was vacant, a few persons who considered being qualified were interviewd, including Kun, whoever that wanted the position had to pay 5000 RMB, competition fee they said, on temporary employment term with possibility of change to long term or permanent (no, there is no such a thing as contract, nothing on paper at all). For a town house position, it was the cheapest, everyone believed it was a reasonable amount, two years time you’d get that amount of money back, meanwhile Kun would be able to eat in the town house dinning hall for his lunch, sometimes dinner, which would save a lot of food expense at home. But Kun hadn’t any penny for that, Joyce had to borrow from her brothers.

　　Joyce and Kun were not the only ones went back after college education. Chunks of text from books couldn’t guarantee a job, city young man’s had their connections and knowledge over cities, farmer’s son and daughters mostly ended up back to where they were from. Farmers started to doubt over the whole education matter, they didn’t meant to spend their life savings to buy nothing more than some early grown gray hairs on their sons or daughter’s heads. Mostly those who did a circulation and came back were turned somber than those who never had been out.
　　So perceived Defense his sister and sister in law. He decided that his son should stop after middle school and start farming. Tina talked with him for hours, tried to convince him that it’d be better for the son to study further, yet she couldn’t even convince herself. She was no good example either; her nephew had shaken his head and laughed at her waitressing picture taken in Floriade park. She cried, out of frustration, that she couldn’t promise anything, even if she’d dare to promise a job in city somewhere, yet that wouldn’t necessarily promise a nice happy life. Eventually she did promised the job, an empty promise, but she had to, she couldn’t let the boy just go follow his father’s footsteps in the field for all the coming years, fight even bloodier for some bloody village kingdom dignity every now and then, he was just 15.

　　* * *
　　Church music brought Tina back again; she’d never been in any church here yet, though she had almost been baptized by her America teacher when she was in college. She had questioned her teacher hours about his “A watch was made by man, the universe must have been made by somebody” theory, about witnesses, about bible stories, about if the teacher, as a sincere Christian, really never lied, even for good purposes…Yet still, she wanted badly to understand it all and to believe in it, but she had her doubt. She had been to those private churches a few times, singing holy songs with them, listening to their pray. She heard more desperation, rebellion and fierce quest for many material things instead of peace and calm.
　　Private churches are illegal in China, which made all the prayers felt like soldiers to a certain extent, which was what Tina didn’t like, it didn’t feel like pure religion, it was also politics. The amazing fact was the speed of the expansion of Christianity across the whole country. She’d never believe it if it hadn’t been her own mother who woke up in the early hours in the morning to pray, with forehead covered under a piece of handkerchief. Mother told Tina there were someone from some town coming to the village every Saturday, lecturing them bible stories, witnesses, holy songs and more. Many house wives, some husbands too, believed in it because of the stories he told, true stories he said, that some farmer who believed in God was cured from cancer without going to the hospital, and another farmer got most harvests in a year of drought…Mother wished if she believe in God, the family would be safe and no one will ever get ill.

　　Tina asked her mother what does she knew about bible, or Jesus, if she knew it was a western religion, if she knew about Christmas and Easter and alike. Mother had no idea. No one told her about that and no one really cared, they just believed in whichever god there was for a better fortune that was all. Yet the private gathering was also illegal, local polices raid the meeting point every now and then and arrest people, set them free again after a few days due to shortage of detain space. Peace was very angry at their mother, he scolded at whomever that came to fetch their mother for those lectures, he’d hate it if his mother got detained one day just for any stupid religion, something completely intangible. The mother had to secretly pray extra hard for her son every time after he shouted away yet another sister of the religion..

　　Anna and Maria would laugh to death if they hear this, Tina sighed, went into the Bijnkorf, a classy department store at a corner of Dam square, warm and crowded. Wiped her face with a tissue, Tina went up the forth floor where all the books and CDs listed; never wrong to buy those things, re-presentable presents, one might give it to the next person as present again after read or copied them.

　　* * *
　　Tina was the last one arriving at the party. Luckily everybody was there already, and in the middle of their conversations. She circulated a kiss round, from the two artists Anna, Maria, to the doctor, their son, a car trading center manager, son in law, a HM manger of a big firm, their daughter, a manger of a publishing house, daughter in law, a physiotherapist, all dressed casually yet with style, the two younger woman both had a child on their arms. A perfect big happy family picture, Tina’s eyes just got wet for completely no reason; she held the glass of lemonade from Maria, hastily hided to the corner where the bookshelves were.
　　“How did you like the trip back to China?” the doctor came stand beside her. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone?
　　“Was fine, how are you? How was your conference in Berlin?” Tina had always been good at answering questions with vragen.
　　The doctor started to describe with full enthusiasm the whole conference over intestine cancers he attended, together with hundreds of specialists from all over the world they exchanged information and decided to do more research.
　　“Look at it,” he took one of his medical book out, turned to a page of the large intestine cancer picture, “there are no ways to cure it, but there maybe ways to keep the situation under control, to limit the cell growth, to…” Tina nodded, and nodded, at whatever he was saying, sounded from miles away; felt her own large intestine became unrest at the sight of the picture.
　　“Come up, time for gifts.” Maria shouted to them.

　　All gifts from everybody were piled up in the centre, 8 adults plus two children settled themselves in chairs and couches. The son of the family picked up a first package for Maria. Her name was on the package. She smiled and opened it, read the poem out loud. Tina couldn’t completely follow the meaning of the poems yet. But after a few packages, she realized what kind of stupid mistake had she made, she did copied some sentences of poems from Internet, wrote poems was far too much for her broken Dutch, but she signed her name instead of Sint, God, she didn’t know all gifts were suppose to be given by Sint, that partly the fun was to guess from the style and content of poems which particular Sint the gift was from. Everyone had to say “Thanks, Sint” after opening the gift and reading the poem, sometimes if one realized who the Sint was, he’d eye the particular Sint when he said thanks.

　　So thanked Tina Anna after she got a watch from her with an English poem.

　　Now Sint has to put his Dutch words into English rime,
　　Even for Sints that is a crime.
　　So forgive him if this poem stinks,
　　He tired his best so Black Piet thinks,
　　That he could do better the old man from Spain,
　　But he had to write in the bloody rain.

　　The poem is short but the Sint want to say,
　　That he loves to have you back in Holland all the way,
　　Do not study to hard, do not try to be the best,
　　Take some time off and please have some rest.

　　I know in Holland the people say,
　　That time is money and that is O.K,
　　But one needs this present to see the time,
　　And this is the end of the English rime.

　　Love
　　Sint

　　The doctor opened the CD Tina bought for him, he tried to read the poem, but stuck somewhere in the middle, there was one word, clearly in printing that he had never known, he asked Maria, then Anna, seriously as scientific as ever, finally turned to Tina as her name was beneath the poem, what did she wrote? What did that word mean? Tina’s cheeks could fry eggs easily, she must have missed or mistaken some letters when she copied, even a correct word she wouldn’t understand at all, how the hell would she know what a wrong word means? “It meant creative thinking,” mocked her herself, they all burst into laughter.

　　Maria handed another package to Tina, it was a Sint CD, with a Poem Tina amazingly understood every word she read,

　　De Sint heft gehoord hoe jij naar Nederland bent gekomen
　　In het buitenland studferen dat waren je dromen
　　De Sint is er trots op dat je de stap maakte
　　En van alles probeerde en niet in de war raakte.
　　Dat is ook knap vinden Sint en Zwarte Piet.
　　Maar veel Kennis over Holland dat heb je nog niet.

　　De Nederlandse december maand is bijzonder
　　Ook nog Sinterklaas en kerst, het is een wonder
　　Je bent jarig in december net als de Sint
　　Dat betekent dat hij je voelt als een oude vriend
　　De Sint wil dat je liedjes leert zingen met hem,
　　Want geloof het of niet je kunt zingen met die stem
　　Het leren zingen van Sint nicolaas wijsjes,
　　Dat doen in Nederland ook Chinese meisjes,
　　Dus kind zet dit cdtje maar op
　　En zing met een stem dan ben je de top

　　Doei
　　Sint

　　Believe or not, that night, back home, Tina did played the Sint CD, and did followed the rhyme and sang with it. She promised to herself that she’d tell the Sint story to Clear Moon one day, that her Chinese aunt had also got love from the Dutch Sints, how the doctor had seriously questioned her “creative Dutch word”…