Country Driving [126]
On that day he had arrived to join the Great Wall Society of China. He had never mentioned it in the past, but now he explained that last year a Chinese hiker had stayed in the guesthouse before going up to the Great Wall. “He was a member of the Society,” Wei Ziqi said. “He told me I should join, too. It doesn’t cost very much.” Guesthouse conversations often had a deep impact on Wei Ziqi. He listened carefully to his city customers, and he kept their business cards in a special box in the family room, not far from the Denver skyline. Today he had written the man’s name onto a sheet of paper, along with the address of the Great Wall Society.
I walked with him to the Society’s offices, which weren’t far from my apartment. The application process was simple: Wei Ziqi paid his five dollars in dues, and he gave two passport-sized photos to the office secretary. The only hitch occurred in the application section entitled “Résumé.”
“Is it OK if I don’t fill this out?” Wei Ziqi said.
The office secretary explained that every member of the Great Wall Society needs a résumé. Wei Ziqi studied the page for a minute. Finally he wrote:
1969–1976 Born and became a child in the village
1976–1988 Studied at school
1989–1991 Worked as a security guard
1991–Present Worked as a peasant in the village
He was too modest to mention his business. The secretary looked through the forms to make sure everything had been filled out. She paused at one section entitled “Political Status.”
“You’re a Party member, huh?” she said.
“Yes,” Wei Ziqi said shyly. “Is that good?”
“Of course it’s good,” the secretary said, laughing. “In school I was only a Communist Youth League member!” She pasted his photograph onto an ID card, applied a red ink chop, and then it was final: Wei Ziqi was a member of the Great Wall Society of China.
Afterward I took him to lunch at a Sichuanese restaurant. I noticed he was carrying a new Party gift: a stainless steel thermos embossed with the words “Commemorating the Bohai Township Party Members Advanced Education Activity.” The thermos marked another twenty-day study session; Wei Ziqi said that they had been recently reviewing speeches by Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. He filled me in on other village news: he planned to build a bigger fishpond, and he hoped to remodel some of the guesthouse rooms. Down in the lower village, a city investor had recently acquired another tract of land, and there were plans to build a small road into the hills. Near the end of the meal Wei Ziqi suddenly remarked, “Some people say that I might become the Party Secretary someday.”
He had never mentioned this before. I asked when it might happen.
“Not soon,” he said. “Whenever the current Party Secretary retires.”
“When will that be?”
“It depends on a few things,” he said. “The main question is whether she receives another term.” He was silent for a moment. “This isn’t something I talk about,” he continued. “I don’t talk about becoming the Party Secretary. Other villagers are the ones who talk about it.”
I asked if the Party members would be free after they finished the current meetings at the end of the month.
“No. There will be more meetings.”
“About what?”
“About our own affairs. Self-criticisms.”
“When does that start?”
“Next month.”
I asked if he already knew what he was going to criticize about himself.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t thought about it yet.”
OVER THE YEARS I learned that every act of Wei Ziqi’s served a purpose. It was a quality I associated with the countryside, where people are efficient with everything, even their words. At leisure they might engage in long conversations about faraway lands and distant events, but they are close-lipped when it comes to personal affairs. And quite often they are single-minded. Wei Ziqi might spend months on a secret plan, preparing in silence, and then all at once he would take action. And he always followed up on a serious endeavor. I wasn’t surprised when one day