Rule—guessed too low instead of too high.
“He’s eight,” I said, honestly.
“No! He’s twelve.”
So many of the village kids looked smaller and younger than their years, in contrast to the adults, who accelerated to middle age.
“How old am I?” Ms. Guan demanded.
“Thirty,” I tried, safely, although I knew the truth.
“I’m forty-two!” she laughed.
“Forty-two and you’re still without a husband?” the woman standing in the aisle teased. I knew this talk stung Ms. Guan, but she gamely parried back. Later she told me she hated living in Wasteland, where there were no secrets, unlike in town, where she could blend in and be anonymous.
The boy on her lap studied my face in silence.
“ Gan sa? ” Ms. Guan said, dialect for “What’s up?”
“Can I ask Teacher Plumblossom a question?” the boy said, seriously. “I want to know: Do you hate Osama bin Laden?”
“Can you hate a dead person?”
The boy blinked. “Do you hate Hitler?”
“I hate eating cabbage.” I was talking to a twelve-year-old and trying to lighten the subject.
The boy didn’t take the bait. For the remainder of our ride to Wasteland, we discussed not food but the nature of evil. It was 7 : 30 in the morning when the boy got off at the intersection of Red Flag Road.
“I have one more question!” he yelled to the driver, who idled.
“Teacher Plumblossom, do you miss your mom?”
The full bus watched, expectant.
“Yes, I miss my mom.”
“Do you miss her so much that you cry?”
“Yes,” I lied. The boy had boarded the bus alone and was exiting alone, and I guessed he needed assurance. “Sometimes I miss her so much that I cry.”
“Ha ha!” the boy crowed. “What a big baby!” He bounded off the bus as the passengers laughed.
It was a typical Wasteland house. A wrought-iron fence and gate separated its painted yellow brick from the nameless street that crossed Red Flag Road. Forty homes clustered in this corner of the village. All had peaked corrugated tin roofs and gardens for yards; ours was known for its large spring onions. Rows of corn grew in the back.
The entrance’s exposed cement floor needed sweeping, while the kitchen conjured thoughts of anything but food. Its soot-coated walls held a rusting cleaver and wok, a single propane burner, a refrigerator, garlic bulbs, and a bottle each of black vinegar and soy sauce. Frost-tipped cabbages filled a waist-high clay pot capped with a marble slab that balanced atop them. Cabbage leaves drooped from the gap, looking like they had tired and given up while trying to escape.
The house had two rooms, both nearly entirely filled with a kang , fueled by the stacks of rice stalks piled outside. The platform bed began just inside the door and required a high step to mount; coming home felt like climbing onstage.
The house, like Wasteland itself, straddled the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries: there was no indoor plumbing, but I had broadband Internet, installed by a technician who drove out from Jilin city. “You must like to play online poker,” he guessed. Perhaps that explained why I was holed up out here.
“I need Skype to call my wife.”
“OK,” the technician replied, looking around the empty farmhouse.
I had installed a virtual private network to breach the “Great Firewall” that blocked selected Web sites. In China, one came to recognize the stealthiest Internet on-ramps the way American parents could rattle off the highest performing school districts: 96 . 44 . 178 . 178 is much better than 216 . 240 . 128 . 82 . It turned out I didn’t much need the VPN; I could access more forbidden Western media sites in the countryside than in a city. It was as if no one bothered to keep an eye on the single screen glowing atop a kang in a village named Wasteland.
I shared the house with Ms. Guan’s brother. Mr. Guan was a wiry farmer my age whose temperament reminded me of neighbors in Minnesota: at once taciturn and bemused. He
“He’s eight,” I said, honestly.
“No! He’s twelve.”
So many of the village kids looked smaller and younger than their years, in contrast to the adults, who accelerated to middle age.
“How old am I?” Ms. Guan demanded.
“Thirty,” I tried, safely, although I knew the truth.
“I’m forty-two!” she laughed.
“Forty-two and you’re still without a husband?” the woman standing in the aisle teased. I knew this talk stung Ms. Guan, but she gamely parried back. Later she told me she hated living in Wasteland, where there were no secrets, unlike in town, where she could blend in and be anonymous.
The boy on her lap studied my face in silence.
“ Gan sa? ” Ms. Guan said, dialect for “What’s up?”
“Can I ask Teacher Plumblossom a question?” the boy said, seriously. “I want to know: Do you hate Osama bin Laden?”
“Can you hate a dead person?”
The boy blinked. “Do you hate Hitler?”
“I hate eating cabbage.” I was talking to a twelve-year-old and trying to lighten the subject.
The boy didn’t take the bait. For the remainder of our ride to Wasteland, we discussed not food but the nature of evil. It was 7 : 30 in the morning when the boy got off at the intersection of Red Flag Road.
“I have one more question!” he yelled to the driver, who idled.
“Teacher Plumblossom, do you miss your mom?”
The full bus watched, expectant.
“Yes, I miss my mom.”
“Do you miss her so much that you cry?”
“Yes,” I lied. The boy had boarded the bus alone and was exiting alone, and I guessed he needed assurance. “Sometimes I miss her so much that I cry.”
“Ha ha!” the boy crowed. “What a big baby!” He bounded off the bus as the passengers laughed.
It was a typical Wasteland house. A wrought-iron fence and gate separated its painted yellow brick from the nameless street that crossed Red Flag Road. Forty homes clustered in this corner of the village. All had peaked corrugated tin roofs and gardens for yards; ours was known for its large spring onions. Rows of corn grew in the back.
The entrance’s exposed cement floor needed sweeping, while the kitchen conjured thoughts of anything but food. Its soot-coated walls held a rusting cleaver and wok, a single propane burner, a refrigerator, garlic bulbs, and a bottle each of black vinegar and soy sauce. Frost-tipped cabbages filled a waist-high clay pot capped with a marble slab that balanced atop them. Cabbage leaves drooped from the gap, looking like they had tired and given up while trying to escape.
The house had two rooms, both nearly entirely filled with a kang , fueled by the stacks of rice stalks piled outside. The platform bed began just inside the door and required a high step to mount; coming home felt like climbing onstage.
The house, like Wasteland itself, straddled the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries: there was no indoor plumbing, but I had broadband Internet, installed by a technician who drove out from Jilin city. “You must like to play online poker,” he guessed. Perhaps that explained why I was holed up out here.
“I need Skype to call my wife.”
“OK,” the technician replied, looking around the empty farmhouse.
I had installed a virtual private network to breach the “Great Firewall” that blocked selected Web sites. In China, one came to recognize the stealthiest Internet on-ramps the way American parents could rattle off the highest performing school districts: 96 . 44 . 178 . 178 is much better than 216 . 240 . 128 . 82 . It turned out I didn’t much need the VPN; I could access more forbidden Western media sites in the countryside than in a city. It was as if no one bothered to keep an eye on the single screen glowing atop a kang in a village named Wasteland.
I shared the house with Ms. Guan’s brother. Mr. Guan was a wiry farmer my age whose temperament reminded me of neighbors in Minnesota: at once taciturn and bemused. He
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