Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen

You like to sit alone in the last window seat on the plane.You want the airline industry in the US to be depressed like this forever.A blond and blue-eyed stewardess and a flight attendant of South Asian descent are whispering about a failed marriage in the empty seat next to you, while your wandering eyes flicker across the New World in autumn. Only over Nevada do you find a scene you are familiar with.You put your palm on the porthole because you want to touch the undulating loess.Your eyes comb the creases as if you were measuring them with your feet.You know that every time you lift your foot there will be a yellow sand flying into the air, it is a pity that the eyes cannot leave marks like the feet.And the loess that once printed your footprints is now lying on the hospital bed on the other side of the earth. You know that every step you take there, you can hear the tearless cries and curses of the ancestors from the ground.The loess here is calling for development, and the land over there is calling for people not to trample it.You see the young land here and you are tortured by a burst of jealousy, and you see the cracks in the ancient land over there as if you saw the wounds in your young heart.For a moment you can't help but burst into tears.

"Oh, she doesn't even know what kind of man she's looking for!" The two stewardesses giggled.After you have been tortured, you sometimes deliberately torture yourself and others on purpose; you never expect too much from life because you are afraid of disappointment.But despite this you are constantly imagining what will happen in the future.The habit of imagining is to you what smell is to a dog. You didn't actually leave San Francisco last night, you really went to Fisherman's Wharf to wander.When you parted with Jinghui, you found that she was suddenly very strange and indifferent to you, so you predicted the danger of you staying in her house.There are traps everywhere and you are setting traps for others, knowingly or not.But on the other hand, isn't the trap also a paradise?You two said "goodbye" to each other politely at the edge of the trap, or at the gates of heaven.Maybe this little voice trembling in the transparent air can really connect you later?You clearly know that as soon as you turn around and walk away, the big house will be immediately taken over by the mossy cold wind from the ancient well; with a wave of your hand, an ancient porcelain will be shattered into a pile of clay powder, and its elegant demeanor will disappear into nothingness.But you don't want to lose your childhood friendships even though you've fallen a thousand times.The future still needs to be fought and is uncertain, and the only thing that can be grasped is the memory of the past.You cherish the past as others cherish the years to come.

When the taxi passes by the green grassy golf course, you feel both excited and sad.He called a car and drove to the consulate.Experience had already told him that he would fall into the holes of countless institutions in Beijing at once.What he couldn't believe was that it was on the same piece of land as the big house he had just left, less than twenty minutes away by car.Fill out the registration form to see the passport.He proudly said that he did not have to come, but that the relatives of your consulate staff in Beijing asked him to bring you local products.no!Although when he lived in the Beijing Hotel, the women were afraid that he would not agree to serve them, but when he got here, it was the opposite immediately, and he had to beg in a low voice.No one in the concierge thought he should be special.He is just an official document except that his face is not covered with official seals.While bending over to perform various procedures, he was amazed at the power of state organs.Institutional red tape and respect for red tape is a hereditary disease that runs in the blood.The Chinese will immediately shiver with cold when they enter the institutions of the Chinese themselves.The fake antiques displayed in the reception room showed off Chinese culture, and he felt shudderingly that the fake was more durable and greater than the real.Sitting on the sofa, he felt uneasy not because he was a reform-through-labour prisoner, a fugitive, or a subject of censorship, but because he suddenly broke from one way of life to another without the buffer of jet lag.Traveling rapidly between the two lifestyles, most people have no time to adjust their psychology, but he can immediately adapt to life under depression.He thinks this is also a skill.The Tang Sancai standing in the cabinet seems to be about to fly down and trample him under his feet, just like the "horse stepping on flying swallows" of the Han Dynasty standing next to it.He watched the "horse stepping on the flying swallow" anxiously, and gradually realized that the Chinese have wanted to press all vigorous and flying things under themselves to prove their greatness since ancient times.So he finally crawled with peace of mind.

But the consulate staff who came out to receive him were very enthusiastic.When he saw the large-collared shirt and the weak tie, he immediately thought of the Beijing Overseas Personnel Service Department.This is my own person, but my own person can talk about everything and must be very careful.This man is still very young but has not shaved the stubble on his chin, which shows that he has not yet developed Western living habits.He saw that his unshaven chin somehow suddenly felt apologetic, as if he had disturbed the normal life of others.The young man thanked him for "bringing us the warmth of a loved one".He couldn't help but get excited when he heard the language of this model opera.China's new culture has incorporated all human feelings into the orbit of political operations, and he seems to have become a member of an official condolence team.So he had to cough to show his dignity.He couldn't figure out how human touch was ground into political seasoning in the state machine.He deeply felt that many years of labor reform made him out of the times.This young man not only knew him, had read his books, but also knew about the English translations of his works published and sold in the United States. The young man straight to the point asked him how much royalties he got.He spread his hands and said that because China has not joined the international copyright convention, it is entirely up to foreigners whether to give royalties.The young man became indignant and calculated for him how many dollars he would get if China joined the international copyright treaty.It seems that the young man must be an economic expert working in the consulate.He heard that the amount was indeed considerable, and at the same time secretly ashamed that he had been reformed unknowingly after all, so good that he could only "make political accounts and not economic accounts".It turns out that only a man who was poor enough to have nothing is poor because he counts every penny he gets now as extra money, and because the heavy manual labor he used to do was never valued so he would think that now The mental work performed is also worthless.No matter in the past or the present, whether it is physical labor or mental labor, it has never been his means of earning a living, not his enjoyment, not his need, but his predestined toil.Today he knows that his labor can never be reflected in value.He began to wonder what he had been living on for fifty years.

He stared blankly at the silk "Great Wall" on the wall and judged himself in frustration, but his ears listened to the young man's eloquence.The young man acted as his advocate, arguing that he should go for royalties.He couldn't figure out what in the big bag he had brought was for the young man, and he should have packed more for him.The instigation of the young man made his heart flutter: oysters, whiskey, lingering candlelight, surnames, etc., although they are cheap, they have to be paid... He came from the house full of fantasy to this house full of rationality without knowing his mind Unconsciously, there has been a change: Yes, the realization of fantasy depends on money; the beautiful lines on an ancient porcelain, and the warm love can only be set off by a warm environment, and all of these cannot be done without money.So, why doesn't our country participate in international copyright conventions?He heard the young man ask him this.He explained that we translated a large number of Western works and did not pay royalties to Western authors.The current situation is that we translate more foreign works while we translate less. If we join the international copyright convention, our country will immediately face a "cultural trade deficit".It dawned on the young economist. Immediately after the sound of "Oh", it is advisable for us not to participate in the international copyright convention, so as to avoid further shortage of our foreign exchange.The young man now convinces him that he must temporarily sacrifice his personal interests "for the sake of the country".When he heard it, he felt that it was as reasonable as the young man's just cry out for his grievances, and even more reasonable, thinking that I have sacrificed most of my life's happiness for the benefit of the country, so of course I will simply sacrifice to the end, and you don't need to mobilize me for this.So he couldn't help smiling.He had long understood what would happen in such an institution.Every worker in such an institution will tell you that what you lose is not what you deserve in the final analysis, and whether you should brush your teeth in the morning and what clothes you want to wear today are also related to national interests.

He wanted to leave but he couldn't bear to spoil the serious enthusiasm of the young man.He remembered that a famous European sinologist he knew had appreciated a new word in modern China called "do work", and the two verbs overlapped with infinite meaning.This young man was "doing work" for him, so he had no choice but to stare at him and express his willingness to treat himself as a "job" for him to "do". The stewardess next to me stood up. That sky-blue butt tightly wrapped in the uniform skirt took his eyes off the porthole.The worry and jealousy about the land just now were all caused by going to the consulate yesterday.Every time I go to a government office, it will cause a convulsion of worrying about the country and the people, and people who go out from there will sigh doubly.Many diseases are not acquired on the street, it is precisely this person who runs into the hospital and is infected.This often makes him hesitate between avoidance and participation.The plane was buzzing.The Nevada desert is over.He asked for a glass of orange juice and the stewardess gave him a can of Coca-Cola.He forgave her for the smile and the sky-blue ass, and gave her a smile back.

In the middle of a yawn something bumped against his chest.He touched his heart but couldn't find the place where it collided.Every time he travels abroad, he thinks that he will leave the shadow of the past far away in his homeland, but all the past is still attached to his body like a skin and rises up into the sky at the same time. He stared at the clouds countless times on the plane.It would be best if there were no planes, no passengers, no stewardesses, only him as a wandering spirit floating in the vast sky.How many times he had really felt that way.His flesh would ooze out of the porthole.Maybe it was when the physical body took off into the air and recalled the previous memory of itself?He remembered the scene before he was born: the wind was blowing, the clouds were like arrows, and he accidentally landed in a land called China.For wandering souls, there is only the difference between heaven and hell, but now there are all kinds of troubles caused by nationality and flesh body.These disturbances constitute the so-called experience.Experiences live on forever, even when the physical body is burned to ashes.