Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [6]
Auyung gave her some mosquito repellent to rub on and shouted angrily at the village cadre coming to greet them: “I told you ages ago someone was coming to visit. Why didn’t you clear the track? You’re so busy making money that you can’t spare a minute for anything else!”
The man bit back an angry retort and gave a loud laugh instead. Then he turned and bellowed at the crowd of women with babies in arms looking on curiously from a safe distance: “What do you think you’re gawping at? Haven’t you been taught how to behave in front of foreigners?” The women giggled nervously but continued to tag along behind them.
“It’s been so many years since Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. How come your grandfather and your mother didn’t want to come back for visit?” Auyung asked Amy.
“Mum said that Granddad died just as China and Canada re-established diplomatic relations. Granddad had a few friends who made inquiries about getting a visa to go back but he and Mum decided they couldn’t go.”
“Why?”
Amy stood still and looked at Auyung levelly. “I was hoping you would tell me that.”
After a moment’s silence, Auyung said: “Everything was crazy back then. Not just the people, even the river in the village went crazy—there was torrential rain and it rose to levels not seen in a hundred years and flooded the entire village.”
“Haven’t you got a better explanation than that? I am a sociologist, in case you’ve forgotten,” Amy replied coolly.
“Of course. But now isn’t the moment to talk about it. By the way, I’ve done studies of overseas Chinese too so we have quite a lot in common.”
“Mr. Auyung’s a professor too, Ms. Smith,” Ng the driver chipped in. “He’s made a special study of these diulau homes. That’s why the Office for Overseas Chinese Affairs contracted his service so he can deal with the preservation of these homes.”
Amy concealed her surprise. “So then you’ll know why in a place where every inch of land is worth its weight in gold, this place is so desolate, won’t you?”
Auyung gave a slight smile. “Do you want the textbook answer or the local tales?”
Amy smiled back. “Both please, I’d like to hear both.”
“The textbooks will tell you that this land suffered heavy industrial pollution, and was abandoned because crops can’t be grown on it.”
“And the other version?”
“The locals say that things happened here, back in the past, and there have been supernatural phenomena, so no one wants to build here. ”
“You mean it’s haunted?”
Auyung shook his head. “No, that’s not what I said. Of course, you’ve every right to interpret local tales just how you wish.”
Amy burst out laughing. This old boy was certainly interesting. It might not be such a bad idea to stay a couple of nights.
They stumbled down the track and arrived at the building. In fact, it had been clearly visible from a distance, but it was only now that they were right in front of it that it revealed its age. It was a five-storey Western-style concrete building, south-facing, with overhanging Chinese-style eaves on all sides. There were numerous windows, all very narrow and so weatherbeaten that they had lost their original shape. They looked more like cannonball holes than windows. The iron bars fitted to every window and door were heavily rusted. There were Roman-style mini-columns under the eaves, and the columns and windows were all covered in carvings now scarcely visible.
Auyung brought a large stone over and stood on it. Extracting some sheets of newspaper from his briefcase, he began rubbing the lichen and bird droppings from the door. Eventually, a name appeared: “Tak Yin House.” The characters were carved in the Slender Gold style of the Song dynasty, and in the deeper parts traces of pink could be seen. Originally, no doubt, they would have been painted vermilion red.
The door was narrow and covered