God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [36]
I wasn’t well educated, but I was pious. I set up an altar in my home and worshipped the god of fortune and goddess of compassion every day. Even so, my lot never changed. I continued to lose big. My husband tried to talk me out of playing it, but I wouldn’t listen. He became frustrated. Out of anger, he picked up the habit himself and fell into a bottomless pit. With two gamblers in the house, we fell deeply in debt. Sometimes we didn’t even have money to buy food. Even so, we couldn’t escape our addictions. We both ended up getting sick. Many people thought we were hooked on heroin. In truth, it was a type of heroin.
Luckily, we ran into Ruth, who generously helped us when we had no place to go. I heard a sermon one Friday evening. On the following Sunday, I participated in this fellowship group and was on my knees to make my commitment prayer. I changed my name to Yue Lang—Bright Moon—to mark my rebirth that moonlit evening. When I went home that night, I bundled up the statues on my altar and my mahjong tiles and tossed them into a river. I cleaned the house, inside and out, and was soaked in sweat. It felt good. I had suffered insomnia for four years, but as soon as I fell into bed, I was asleep and slept through to the next morning. When I awoke, I opened the windows and felt the fresh breeze. That was 2005. I have played mahjong just once since then. I couldn’t concentrate. I knew I had sinned. When I got home, I was on my knees, praying, and my husband saw me and asked, “What is this for? Is it worth it?” That night, I dreamed about a cross, shining so brightly it hurt my eyes.
I have not played since then. Our family situation has changed for the better. I no longer have insomnia. I’m quite healthy. My husband has even given up smoking. I don’t have to beg the Lord for anything. He knows everything. Each time I make some progress, he would reward me with his blessing. I’m going to follow the path of the Lord and seek redemption until I die.
By eleven o’clock, the Christian brothers and sisters were making their farewells. Since I was the only nonbeliever in the group, people took turns urging me to remove my worries and submit myself to God. The simplicity and sincerity in their offerings touched me. They believed that faith was a valuable gift, and they wanted to share this spiritual awakening with a guest. At the crossroad, I parted with my friend Li Linshan, who leaned on the shoulder of his wife and walked home, step by step. I watched as he shuffled down the street. I knew the cancer was eating him away, but he made steady progress toward the light of his home.
Part II
THE YI AND MIAO VILLAGES
Chapter 8
The Doctor
Darkness in the countryside is truly dark, black-ink dark, when the clouds are out and the moon so new it has yet to be born. I had not seen darkness like it for years. With the chill wind whistling, I felt alone, though I knew my traveling companion was just an arm’s length away. Dr. Sun (I will only use his family name because he wishes to avoid undue attention from the authorities) was taking me, on this dark night, to Fakuai Village in the mountains of Tianxin County in Yunnan province. “Fakuai,” I learned, was slang in the local Yi language for “waist of the mountain,” which was indeed where the village was located, though Dr. Sun was more precise when he explained we were going into the mountain’s “belly button.”
Dr. Sun, a missionary doctor I had met in 2004, agreed to introduce me to some Christian leaders in the ethnic Yi and Miao villages, where he visited three or four times a year. We had set out early enough, I thought, on December 9, 2005, but it was late in the day when our driver reached the end of the asphalt highway and his van began to shudder as its tires rumbled along a “hard candy” road, made from a mixture of mud and small stones. The driver, teeth now clattering, made no effort to slow down, and the van hurtled forward. Dr. Sun shrugged his shoulders—such was the