God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [44]
Wang Zisheng, born in 1940, had just turned sixty-seven. He was short, sturdy, like a tree stump, with a big cotton hat. We followed another path that snaked around the village before reaching his courtyard house, a chaotic “farm” with pigs, dogs, and chickens all about and the pungent smell of their doings assailing my nose. When Wang Zisheng opened the door to let us into the house, a mother hen and a dozen chicks slipped between our feet and vanished inside.
The first interview, taking place inside the house, lasted four hours. After we bid him good-bye and walked out of his courtyard, Wang’s wife caught up with us, tucking some oven-baked buckwheat cakes into our hands. I never felt so hungry and gobbled them up right away.
Six months later, as I was transcribing the interview, I noticed that half of Wang’s stories had been accidentally erased from the tape. I examined the machine back and forth, banging my head against a wall. During the previous ten years, I had done more than two hundred interviews. That was my first accident.
Out of desperation, I phoned Dr. Sun, begging him to arrange a second interview. So on August 5, 2007, I traveled to Kunming and met up with Dr. Sun.
The mishap with Wang Zisheng’s tape was only the beginning of a series of misfortunes. On the way to Kunming’s bus terminal, I left my bag on the backseat of the taxi. The bag contained some of my most prized possessions—a flute that had followed me for many years, a camera, a new tape recorder, my notebook, and some of my favorite music CDs. Visiting the police station and phoning the taxi dispatcher produced nothing. I had to press on with my task. I reorganized myself, purchased a new tape recorder, and returned to the bus station only to find it jammed with people on their way to a nearby festival.
The whole world seemed to have risen up against me, and while Dr. Sun suggested we go another time, I stubbornly refused. We finally persuaded a truck driver to take us. As we sat in traffic jams due to a harrowing accident, I bowed my head and prayed like a Christian, asking God if he was testing my patience and confidence. Before dusk, as our truck was approaching the white church building with the pink roof outside Wang Zisheng’s village, my heart was filled with gratitude.
Wang was tending crops in the field. He looked a little confused when he saw us. As we slowly walked to his house, the sun was disappearing behind the mountains. Then two rainbows suddenly emerged in the sky, forming a colorful cross. For a few minutes, I became distracted by the unique natural phenomenon.
The lightbulbs glowed weakly inside Wang’s cavernous room, so we all sat on the porch outside. Amid the attacks of swarms of post-summer-rain mosquitoes, our second interview started. I checked and rechecked my tape recorder. It was working.
By nine o’clock, I finally completed my mission and felt an overwhelming sense of relief. Fortunately, erasing an interview from the tape could be made up with the help of devoted friends like Dr. Sun. But what if we, as a nation, collectively lose our memory of our past?
Liao Yiwu: Why is it that Christianity has become widely accepted in the Miao villages?
Wang Zisheng: Christianity was first introduced to the Miao villages around 1906 with the arrival of two Christian ministers, one from Australia—his Chinese name was Guo Xiufeng; one of my relatives who reads English says his name is Arthur G. Nicholls—the other, an Englishman. I only know his Chinese name: Shi Mingqing. They belonged to the China Inland Mission and came here from Kunming on donkeys. They had traveled for three or four days, and when they finally reached the Miao villages, the two caused quite