|
|||||
wrist rattle in agitation as she plays with them. But that's the funny thing, it got so he had nothing left. You know he used to run a magazine? I saw some data~ The elder Mrs. Chen is no longer listening to him. He stands with her under the canopy of her umbrella, both of them looking down the hill, their backs to her son's gravestone. Allen told him once that the Chinese have a very specific notion of relational space; if your back is turned on something, it might as well not exist. The illusion of privacy is enforced. Below them families perform their routines as if stage-managed, deliberate in movements and silences: approach, bow, reflect, depart. She continues: A good entertainment magazine. Stories of the stars. He'd always have a TV guy over at his 
|
place, or a movie star. You know Brigitte Lin? He'd call her little sister. Shit, how many guys would have loved to call Brigitte Lin "little sister"? Magazine was shut down by the government, he was thrown in jail. Supporting the wrong politician, or they made something up, they did it all the time back then. So he gets out of jail, and what does he end up doin'? Working a printing press. Hard labor. She pauses to hack and spit phlegm onto the flagstones at their feet. So he marries this woman and her daughter, and soon his wife's spent all his money, gambling at mah jong. So he finally has enough and leaves. Walks right out while she's playing mah jong, and she doesn't even care. Goes to America to get a job, but nothing works, and then America messes him up, he decides that he's not going to work anymore and he spends three years in a Buddhist monastery. Can you believe it? He could have gone to one here in Taiwan, but he goes to one in  |
||||
