I Love a Broad Margin to My Life - Maxine Hong Kingston [30]
Bum bum! Kang kang! Qwoooo!
C’mon c’mon c’mon! I was rushed
out of the tent into a rushing crowd.
Everyone—all of the hamlet, and other hamlets—
out of the rolling ocean the crowd—around
corners and bends stream more crowd—
hurrying, hurrying somewhere wonderful. Above
heads, lifted and carried on chairs,
thrones, moved a parade of idols. Who
were they? Gods? Heroes? Ancestors?
They had big wide-open eyes, as if
they could see all things and all
people, see far to where we’re going.
I could not recognize the figures by a sign,
no antler bumps on head, no
red face, no blue face,
no long ears, no mudra
of hands, no multiple hands, no
multiple heads. They looked like regular
people dressed up in silk and gold
raiment, and crowns. The crowd slowed, so
tight were we. We fitted ourselves breast to
back, sides to sides, no elbow poking, no
stepping on toes or heels. Over our heads,
the roomy sky was benign blue; the clouds
were long and wispy. The crowd up ahead
moved faster, drawing, pulling my part
of crowd after them, faster, faster. I’m
a short person. All I can see are backs.
Where are the friends I had joong with? I can’t see
the idols anymore either. I look
at the sky trying but unable to project my point
of view to see the whole crowd, and the country it’s
moving through, whether there’s a destination,
and to find the people I know. I could lift
my feet, leave the ground, and the close-fitting
crowd would carry me. I don’t have to watch
or decide where I’m going. I stayed in step,
running on tiptoes. The ground was dirt
and trodden grass. The dirt was damp, damper,
wet. We were beside the river. We were
following the snaking path of the long river.
Song Hong, River Red, the Red River,
which goes from the Yunan River in China
to the Gulf of Tonkin. The river is full
of dragons, the river is a dragon.
Viet Nam is a dragon rampant;
she has a large head, many mouths,
and a long spine that flares into fantails.
And I’m a dragon, and my mother a dragon. I
and all these people are drops of dragon within
the big dragon body. We are blood.
We are performing dragon. Every so often,
Chinese have to mass together,
become a mashing moshing crowd. In
the United States, lonely, you can join the people
in Chinatown shopping for their daily greens,
and get your fix of Chinese crowd.
But those crowds move in both directions,
pass one another coming and going.
This mass I’m embedded in
feels like a Japanese or Korean demo,
like an advancing army. Breaching worry (worry is
the default working of my natural mind), I feel:
elation. Crowd joy. Happiness-in-people.
I am reliving peace demonstrations.
In San Francisco, we were a peace dragon
with 100,000 pairs of feet
walking up and down the city hills. From rooftops
and balconies rained rice as at weddings,
and water on the summer’s day, and rose petals,
and red and motley confetti. In Washington, D.C.,
on International Women’s Day, 2003, our peace
dragoness was a mile long, winding our way
to the White House. 1,000,000 people
marched in Rome. And thousands of Shiite
and Sunni Muslims together in Baghdad.
“O Democracy, I will make inseparable
cities with their arms about each other’s necks.”
For the first time in history, the area in front
of the White House fence was banned to demonstrators.
The U.S. Park Police stopped us
at Pennsylvania Avenue. So, we sat in.
We sat ourselves down upon the historic
ground. “Our House, our street.”
The Rangers are friendly and will converse, used
to being helpful to tourists. We have a permit;
didn’t you get a copy? You promised,
we could parade in front of the White House.
“Our House, our street.” The permit’s
for only 25 people. Okay,
so let’s count off 25.
1 2 3 4 5 …
I was ninth, 9 my lucky number.
I said my number and stepped between the Rangers.
Running at us, whooping, cheering came
a pink-clad crowd—the tail of the dragon!
They had gotten through the police line
at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
We rushed to meet them. Hugging,