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Authors: Gao Xingjian
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downstairs. If he rented, he would choose a downstairs kang where it was more soundproof. He said his wife liked singing. Good heaven! There was a woman with him. . . . He woke up. It had been a nightmare.
He had not had that sort of nightmare for a long time, and if he had dreams they didn’t have much to do with China. Abroad, he met people from China and they would all tell him to go back andhave a look: Beijing has changed a lot, you wouldn’t know it, and there are more five-star hotels than in Paris! When people said it was possible to make a fortune in China today, he would ask if they had made a fortune. And if they went on and said that surely he thought about China, he would say both of his parents were dead. What about being homesick? He had already committed such feelings to the grave. He had left the country ten years ago and refused to think about the past. He believed he had broken with it a long time ago.
He was now a free-flying bird. This inner freedom had no attachments, was like the clouds, the wind. God had not conferred this freedom upon him, he had paid dearly for it, and only he knew just how precious it was. He no longer tied himself to a woman. A wife and children were burdens too heavy for him.
When he closed his eyes his mind began to roam, and only with his eyes closed did he not feel others watching and observing him. With his eyes closed, there was freedom and he could wander within the female cavern, a wonderful place. He once visited a perfectly preserved limestone cave in the Massif Central of France. The tourists entered one after the other, holding onto the iron rail of their individual cable cars. The huge cavern, illuminated by orange light, had layers of walls with twisting folds and numerous wet, dripping stalactites and stalagmites. This deep fathomless cavity created by nature was like a huge womb. In this dark natural cavern he was minute, like a single sperm, moreover an infertile sperm, roaming about happy and contented; this was a freedom that exists after release from lust.
Before he had sexually awakened, as a child, he would travel on the back of the goose in the children’s books his mother had bought for him. Or, like Andersen’s homeless waif with a bronze pig, he would mount the bronze pig to roam the noble mansions of Florence at night. But he could still remember that his first experience of female warmth didn’t come from his mother but from a servant called Mama Li who used to bathe him. He would splash aroundnaked in the tub, then Mama Li would grab him and carry him against her warm breasts to his bed, scratch him where he itched, and coax him to sleep. This young peasant woman didn’t worry about taking a bath and combing her hair in front of him when he was a child. He could still remember her big white breasts hanging like pears, and her oiled, shiny, waist-length black hair. She used a bone comb to smooth out her hair and folded it into a big bun that was tied into a net and then fixed onto her head. At the time, his mother had a hairdresser’s perm, and combing it wasn’t as much trouble. As a child, the cruelest thing he saw was Mama Li being beaten up. Her husband came to look for her and wanted to drag her off, but she clung desperately to a leg of the table and wouldn’t let go. The man grabbed her hair by the bun and banged her head on the floor until blood from her forehead dripped onto the tiles. Even his mother could not stop the man. Only then did he find out that Mama Li had fled from the village because she couldn’t endure her husband’s bullying. But she wasn’t able to buy her freedom even by giving the man her indigo print bag with the silver coins and a silver bracelet in it, all of her wages for several years of work.
Freedom is not a human right conferred by Heaven. Nor does the freedom to dream come at birth: it is a capacity and an awareness that needs to be defended. Moreover, even dreams can be assailed by
He had not had that sort of nightmare for a long time, and if he had dreams they didn’t have much to do with China. Abroad, he met people from China and they would all tell him to go back andhave a look: Beijing has changed a lot, you wouldn’t know it, and there are more five-star hotels than in Paris! When people said it was possible to make a fortune in China today, he would ask if they had made a fortune. And if they went on and said that surely he thought about China, he would say both of his parents were dead. What about being homesick? He had already committed such feelings to the grave. He had left the country ten years ago and refused to think about the past. He believed he had broken with it a long time ago.
He was now a free-flying bird. This inner freedom had no attachments, was like the clouds, the wind. God had not conferred this freedom upon him, he had paid dearly for it, and only he knew just how precious it was. He no longer tied himself to a woman. A wife and children were burdens too heavy for him.
When he closed his eyes his mind began to roam, and only with his eyes closed did he not feel others watching and observing him. With his eyes closed, there was freedom and he could wander within the female cavern, a wonderful place. He once visited a perfectly preserved limestone cave in the Massif Central of France. The tourists entered one after the other, holding onto the iron rail of their individual cable cars. The huge cavern, illuminated by orange light, had layers of walls with twisting folds and numerous wet, dripping stalactites and stalagmites. This deep fathomless cavity created by nature was like a huge womb. In this dark natural cavern he was minute, like a single sperm, moreover an infertile sperm, roaming about happy and contented; this was a freedom that exists after release from lust.
Before he had sexually awakened, as a child, he would travel on the back of the goose in the children’s books his mother had bought for him. Or, like Andersen’s homeless waif with a bronze pig, he would mount the bronze pig to roam the noble mansions of Florence at night. But he could still remember that his first experience of female warmth didn’t come from his mother but from a servant called Mama Li who used to bathe him. He would splash aroundnaked in the tub, then Mama Li would grab him and carry him against her warm breasts to his bed, scratch him where he itched, and coax him to sleep. This young peasant woman didn’t worry about taking a bath and combing her hair in front of him when he was a child. He could still remember her big white breasts hanging like pears, and her oiled, shiny, waist-length black hair. She used a bone comb to smooth out her hair and folded it into a big bun that was tied into a net and then fixed onto her head. At the time, his mother had a hairdresser’s perm, and combing it wasn’t as much trouble. As a child, the cruelest thing he saw was Mama Li being beaten up. Her husband came to look for her and wanted to drag her off, but she clung desperately to a leg of the table and wouldn’t let go. The man grabbed her hair by the bun and banged her head on the floor until blood from her forehead dripped onto the tiles. Even his mother could not stop the man. Only then did he find out that Mama Li had fled from the village because she couldn’t endure her husband’s bullying. But she wasn’t able to buy her freedom even by giving the man her indigo print bag with the silver coins and a silver bracelet in it, all of her wages for several years of work.
Freedom is not a human right conferred by Heaven. Nor does the freedom to dream come at birth: it is a capacity and an awareness that needs to be defended. Moreover, even dreams can be assailed by
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