Asakiyume mita

One of the luxuries we have maintained is a landline. It's a great way of keeping spam off your cell phone, and it's always charged. Not only have we kept the landline, we've kept a corded phone, which means we don't need any wireless capability for it, which means it doesn't stop working if we lose wifi or power.

For the longest time we had a Panasonic corded phone, but eventually it failed. When Wakanomori went to get a replacement, the only thing that was available was a Panasonic knock-off:

~~The pashaphone~~

I somehow took it into my head that it was made for the Russian market--I think because of the name, though really that should have inclined me to Turkey?--and in fact a complete stranger on the internet started reminiscing with me about late Soviet caller-ID phones when he saw my tweet about it

But in fact the Pashaphone doesn't appear to have any connection with Russia.

It does, however have a connection with China--namely, it's made there. The whole thing is really light. In fact, it weighs about as much as the pink eraser whose tip you can see poking into the photo over to the right of the number 9. It feels like a child's toy phone.

Well, the problem with a corded phone is that sometimes you stretch the cord further than it can easily go and pull the phone off the counter and onto the floor. I've done that a couple of times already since it came to live with us, and something rattled loose inside the poor baby, so Wakanomori took it apart to see what it was....

... and we discovered a small slab of stone stuck in the phone that apparently serves no purpose other than to give it a little weight. It says 恭禧 (Gōng xǐ)--congratulations! As in, I suppose, "Congratulations, you are now the proud owner of a pashaphone!"



How many devices come with little talismans inside them, wishing us well? Not many! But there should be lots! This is a trend to be imitated--quick, alert the business schools!

Little White Duck: A Childhood in China, by Na Liu (text) and her husband Andrés Vera Martínez (art), is a collection of seven vignettes, done graphic-novel style, from the author's childhood. She was born in 1973 in Wuhan, China. Eventually she came to the United States, and now she's a doctor of hematology and oncology. She wanted to make this book to tell her daughter what life was like in China in that era, and I found it so engrossing that I sat in my car, reading it, after having picked it up from the library.



Every aspect of the book is beautiful. Andrés Vera Martínez's illustrations are full of small experiential details (Na Liu brushing her teeth at an outdoor tap, a woman riding sidesaddle on the back of a bicycle pedaled by a man, a dirty thumbprint on the titular white duck). You can tell that Na Liu shared vividly what her childhood was like. And then the stories she chose to tell were such a moving and varied collection, and they just resonated in my bones, corroborating everything Chinese friends and acquaintances of a similar age have ever said, as well as things I've read.

The first vignette is the story of Mao's death in 1976 and little Na Liu not understanding at all what's going on.

"The music was also very sad. My mother held me very tight and she started crying again. I looked around. Everyone was crying ... Seeing so many tears made me feel like crying too. After a while I couldn't stop. I cryed all the way home. My parents would explain that sad day to me many years later.

That leads into the story of her parents. Here, her mother's portion...

When my mother was a girl, she had polio. Her leg became paralyzed. A working-class family normally wouldn't seek treatment, knowing it was not affordable. However, she believed Mao's army existed to help the common person. She turned to them for a cure. They performed multiple surgeries for free, and she was able to walk and even run again.


But lest you think the book glorifies Mao-period China, there's also a vignette in which her mom tells her about the famine they lived through (as a result of the Great Leap Forward--millions died because ideology trumped common sense):

Someone in town said the mud around the temple could be eaten ... Hundreds of people, young and old, died from eating mud.


The story of the time Na Liu and her sister run around doing good, inspired by Model Citizen Lei Feng ("the tiny screw that completes the machine") ends most unfortunately for some chicks under their care--very real.

--Xiao Qin**? Did you learn about Lei Feng in school today? --Yeah. I want to be just like him


Some propaganda posters featuring Lei Feng.


Probably the vignette that will linger with me most, though, is the one the title comes from. Na Liu has a little coat she loves that has a white velvet duck appliquéd to it. When her father takes her to his natal village for a visit, she wants to wear it, even though her mom advises her not to. The children in the village have never seen anything so pretty.

--The duck is really soft. --Uh? --What's it made from? --Can I touch it too?


The kids end up playing together, but Na Liu comes away feeling shocked and sad. She concludes the vignette with a reflection from the writings of Confucius, who apparently said there are three ways to learn: by studying, which he thought was best, by imitation, which he said was easiest, and through your own experience, which can be heartbreaking.

It's a short book, but wow, it's powerful. It seems that having written this, Na Liu has just gotten on with being a doctor, but I'd like to check out some of her husband's other work.

ETA: I'm editing in a content warning. There's casual cruelty to animals in the book. Some of it is unintentional (like with the chicks), but other cruelty isn't. ... I mean there are other awful things alluded to or shown too, like famine--we live in a world filled with cruelty. But you might not expect it, and maybe you *would* expect me to mention it, so I'm mentioning it so that you won't pick up the book and get an unwanted surprise.

**Na Liu and her sister go by the nicknames Da Qin (big qin) and Xiao Qin (little qin)--a qin being that long stringed instrument that's the ancestor to the zheng (known in Japan as a koto)<--thanks for the correction on this, larryhammer.

At this time in the morning, the shadows of the tiny bits of snow we have cast huge. It's like looking at the Guilin Mountains.

Guilin Mountains, photo by Hiroji Kubota, from this site


See?



Can't you imagine wandering there, with your sturdy pack horse carrying your porcelain tea set and some charcoal, so that when you tire, you can sit down, make a fire, brew some tea, and watch the sky and the mountains?

Fan Chengda (1126-1193), a government official of the Chinese Song dynasty, made observations of the people on Song China's southern frontiers. They're recorded in Treatises of the Supervisor and Guardian of the Cinnamon Sea, which wakanomori happens to have borrowed a copy of.

Fan's notes are fascinating:

( on pearl fishermen )

( the Ziqi people )

( embroidered faces )

Tune in next post for more ethnography, from a more recent era.