recite some version of it.
Because it is an oft-told tale, you must use special talent in performing it. Lots of expression—sadness, wonder, surprise, genuine regret, and so forth. You pause here, look there, and move your eyes sideways to increase anticipation. In my younger years, many men said they had never felt closer to immortality than they did while listening to me. Even the other courtesans said so, and they are not ones to flatter another beauty, except insincerely.
My version went more or less like this: A poor fisherman falls asleep on his boat, which floats into a secret grotto. He emerges on the other side in a haven where people dress and speak in the style of a bygone era. The people are free of war and worry, hate and envy, sickness and old age. There is only one season, spring. The maidens are always virgins, the wine is always sweet, the peonies are always blooming. Standing on every hillside are trees whose branches are heavy with voluptuous peaches.
“What is this place?” the fisherman asks a young maiden, and she replies, “Peach Blossom Spring,” and then pleasures him in ways he never imagined possible. (“With wine and song,” you should say with innocence. Everyone will get a big laugh out of that.) Time does not pass in this heaven on earth. It renews itself, as does his insatiability. Eventually, he regains his senses, realizing that everyone back home must be worried sick about his absence. He sails for home laden with delicious meats and fruits for his mother, father, and wife. He will tell his friends to come with him to this utopia. The boat is a leaky wreck by the time he reaches his hometown. Half the village has burned down, the pagoda has collapsed, and the people are frightened by his long, matted beard and hair. He learns that two hundred years have passed, three civil wars have been lost, and his family and friends are long dead. Sadly, he returns to his boat and sails back toward the grotto. Many years pass, and he is still sailing, unable to find Peach Blossom Spring.
That is the story everyone knows, but I like to add on a happy ending. It goes like this: The fisherman is about to drown himself when he spots the same pretty maiden on the riverbank, eating a peach so enormous she has to use both hands to bring it to her cherry lips. She waves to him, and together they sail through the grotto to Peach Blossom Spring. Nothing has changed. The maidens. The peach trees. The weather. The contentedness. The fisherman is again young and handsome—and, of course, looks remarkably like the host of the party.
The maiden looks like you.
When I recited this ending, I mentioned the erotic pleasures the lucky man would enjoy. Everyone knows them. Swimming with Goldfish, Tasting the Watermelon, Climbing Higher on the Peach Tree. Often they were the ones I already knew that the host loved. But of course you should not include these details while you are still a virgin courtesan. Maybe next year. As I accompany you on the zither, my playing will help you know what you say next: a bit of glissando to signal the surprise arrival, tremolo for mounting passion, a sweep over all twenty-one silk strings for the return to the past. During the next week, I will train you to deliver every word with precise gestures of your face and body while still looking natural and spontaneous, as if the story is unfolding before you, as if all your emotions are genuine and unexpected. You will learn to use an innocent girl’s melodious voice, with its sweet trills up and down, its hesitant pace, or a mounting rush of pleasurable release.
There is another quality to a superior performance. Some girls perform without emotion, with mere skill. They may be masters of technique, but they wear a frown of concentration. I call that style “Looking at the Arrow and Not the Target.” So boring. After three minutes, the men are hoping the story will soon end so they can return to a more boisterous evening.
Another
Because it is an oft-told tale, you must use special talent in performing it. Lots of expression—sadness, wonder, surprise, genuine regret, and so forth. You pause here, look there, and move your eyes sideways to increase anticipation. In my younger years, many men said they had never felt closer to immortality than they did while listening to me. Even the other courtesans said so, and they are not ones to flatter another beauty, except insincerely.
My version went more or less like this: A poor fisherman falls asleep on his boat, which floats into a secret grotto. He emerges on the other side in a haven where people dress and speak in the style of a bygone era. The people are free of war and worry, hate and envy, sickness and old age. There is only one season, spring. The maidens are always virgins, the wine is always sweet, the peonies are always blooming. Standing on every hillside are trees whose branches are heavy with voluptuous peaches.
“What is this place?” the fisherman asks a young maiden, and she replies, “Peach Blossom Spring,” and then pleasures him in ways he never imagined possible. (“With wine and song,” you should say with innocence. Everyone will get a big laugh out of that.) Time does not pass in this heaven on earth. It renews itself, as does his insatiability. Eventually, he regains his senses, realizing that everyone back home must be worried sick about his absence. He sails for home laden with delicious meats and fruits for his mother, father, and wife. He will tell his friends to come with him to this utopia. The boat is a leaky wreck by the time he reaches his hometown. Half the village has burned down, the pagoda has collapsed, and the people are frightened by his long, matted beard and hair. He learns that two hundred years have passed, three civil wars have been lost, and his family and friends are long dead. Sadly, he returns to his boat and sails back toward the grotto. Many years pass, and he is still sailing, unable to find Peach Blossom Spring.
That is the story everyone knows, but I like to add on a happy ending. It goes like this: The fisherman is about to drown himself when he spots the same pretty maiden on the riverbank, eating a peach so enormous she has to use both hands to bring it to her cherry lips. She waves to him, and together they sail through the grotto to Peach Blossom Spring. Nothing has changed. The maidens. The peach trees. The weather. The contentedness. The fisherman is again young and handsome—and, of course, looks remarkably like the host of the party.
The maiden looks like you.
When I recited this ending, I mentioned the erotic pleasures the lucky man would enjoy. Everyone knows them. Swimming with Goldfish, Tasting the Watermelon, Climbing Higher on the Peach Tree. Often they were the ones I already knew that the host loved. But of course you should not include these details while you are still a virgin courtesan. Maybe next year. As I accompany you on the zither, my playing will help you know what you say next: a bit of glissando to signal the surprise arrival, tremolo for mounting passion, a sweep over all twenty-one silk strings for the return to the past. During the next week, I will train you to deliver every word with precise gestures of your face and body while still looking natural and spontaneous, as if the story is unfolding before you, as if all your emotions are genuine and unexpected. You will learn to use an innocent girl’s melodious voice, with its sweet trills up and down, its hesitant pace, or a mounting rush of pleasurable release.
There is another quality to a superior performance. Some girls perform without emotion, with mere skill. They may be masters of technique, but they wear a frown of concentration. I call that style “Looking at the Arrow and Not the Target.” So boring. After three minutes, the men are hoping the story will soon end so they can return to a more boisterous evening.
Another
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