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= A Chang and the Book of Mountains and Seas =

Mama Chang, as I have already mentioned, was a serving woman who had always looked after me — to put it more grandly, my nursemaid. My mother and many others addressed her this way, seemingly with a touch of politeness. Only my grandmother called her A Chang. I usually called her "Mama," omitting even the "Chang"; but when I grew to resent her — for instance, when I discovered that it was she who had killed my hidden mouse — I would call her A Chang.

In our parts there was no one surnamed Chang, and since she was short and stout with a sallow complexion, "Chang" — meaning "tall" — was certainly not a description. Nor was it her real name. I remember her saying that her name was Something-or-other Girl. What Girl, I have now forgotten; in any case, it was not Chang Girl, and I never did learn her surname. I recall she once told me the origin of this appellation: long ago, there had been a serving woman in our household who was very tall and large — that was the real A Chang. Later she went away, and my Something-or-other Girl came to take her place. But since everyone was accustomed to the name, no one bothered to change it, and so she too became Mama Chang from then on.

Although gossiping behind people's backs is not a good thing, if I am to speak from the heart, I can only say that I really did not much admire her. What I found most annoying was her constant whispering — murmuring to people in a low voice about this or that, wagging her second finger up and down in the air, or pointing at the other person's nose, or at her own. Whenever there was some little disturbance at home, I always somehow suspected it had something to do with this whispering. She also would not let me move about freely; if I pulled up a blade of grass or turned over a stone, she would call me naughty and threaten to tell my mother. And in summer, when we slept, she would spread out her arms and legs in the middle of the bed to form the character for "big," squeezing me so that I had no room to turn over. Having long slept pressed into one corner of the mat, it would already be baked hot. Push her? She would not budge. Call out to her? She did not hear.

"Mama Chang is so plump — she must be very much afraid of the heat, mustn't she? Her sleeping posture at night can't be very good either, can it? ..."

After hearing my many complaints, my mother once asked her this. I knew the intention was to make her give me more space on the mat. She said nothing. But at night, when I woke up from the heat, I still saw the character "big" spread across the entire bed, with one arm resting on my neck. I thought: this really was a hopeless situation.

But she knew a great many rules and customs, most of which I found tiresome. The happiest time of the year was naturally New Year's Eve. After the New Year's farewell ceremony, one received lucky money from the elders, wrapped in red paper and placed by one's pillow; one only needed to wait through the night and then could spend it as one pleased. Lying on my pillow, looking at the red envelope, I thought of the little drum, the toy swords and spears, the clay figurines, the sugar Bodhisattvas I would buy tomorrow ... But then she came in and placed a "lucky orange" at the head of my bed.

"Young master, you must remember this well!" she said with the utmost solemnity. "Tomorrow is the first day of the New Year. The very first thing you must say when you open your eyes in the morning is: 'Mama, congratulations, congratulations!' Remember? You must remember — this is a matter of the whole year's fortune. You must not say anything else! After you've said it, you must also eat a bit of this lucky orange." She held up the orange and waved it twice before my eyes. "Then, all year long, everything will go smoothly and swimmingly ..."

Even in my dreams I remembered New Year's Day, and the next morning I woke especially early. The moment I woke, I wanted to sit up. But she immediately stretched out her arm and pressed me down. I looked at her in surprise and saw her gazing at me with an anxious, urgent expression.

She seemed to want something more, shaking me by the shoulder. Then I suddenly remembered —

"Mama, congratulations ..."

"Congratulations, congratulations! Congratulations to everyone! What a clever child! Congratulations, congratulations!" She beamed with delight, laughing, and at the same time stuffed something icy cold into my mouth. After my initial shock, I too suddenly remembered — this was the so-called lucky orange. The ordeal that inaugurated the New Year was finally over, and I could get out of bed to play.

The principles she taught me were many besides. For instance, she said that when someone died, one must not say "died" but must say "passed away"; one must not enter a room where someone had died or where a child had been born; grains of rice that fell on the ground must be picked up, and it was best to eat them; and one must never, ever walk under a bamboo pole used for drying trousers ... Beyond these, I have mostly forgotten now; only the strange New Year's Day ritual I remember most clearly. In short: they were all exceedingly tedious affairs that even now, when I think of them, seem extremely bothersome.

Yet there was a time when I conceived an unprecedented respect for her. She often told me about the "Long Hairs." By "Long Hairs" she meant not only the armies of Hong Xiuquan but seemingly all bandits and brigands that came after, except for revolutionaries, since those did not yet exist at the time. She said the Long Hairs were extremely terrifying and their speech was incomprehensible. She said that when the Long Hairs had previously entered the city, my entire family fled to the seaside, leaving behind only a gatekeeper and an old cook to watch the house. When the Long Hairs did come through the gate, the old cook addressed them as "Your Majesty" — for that was supposedly how one should address the Long Hairs — and told them of her hunger. A Long Hair laughed and said: "Well then, have this to eat!" and threw something round to her. It still had a little pigtail attached — it was the gatekeeper's head. The old cook was scared out of her wits from then on, and whenever it was mentioned afterward, her face would immediately turn ashen, and she would gently pat her chest, saying: "Oh my, it scared me to death, scared me to death ..."

At the time, I did not seem to be frightened, because I felt these matters had nothing to do with me — I was not a gatekeeper. But she must have sensed this too, for she added: "A little child like you — the Long Hairs would capture you too, to make you a little Long Hair. And pretty girls — they'd capture them too."

"Well, then you'd be safe," I said, for I believed she must be the safest of all — she was neither a gatekeeper nor a little child, and she was not good-looking either, and besides, her neck was covered in scars from moxibustion.

"What are you saying?!" she said gravely. "Do you think we're useless? They'd capture us too. When soldiers came to attack from outside the city walls, the Long Hairs would make us take off our trousers and stand in rows on top of the wall. Then the cannons outside could not fire; and if they did try to fire, the cannons would explode!"

This was truly beyond anything I had imagined, and I could not help being astonished. I had always thought her belly was full of nothing but tedious rituals, but I had not expected her to possess such tremendous supernatural power. From then on I held a special respect for her; she seemed truly unfathomable. As for her spreading out her arms and legs at night to occupy the entire bed — that was naturally quite understandable, and it was I who ought to yield.

This respect, though it gradually faded, probably did not completely vanish until I learned that she had killed my hidden mouse. Then I interrogated her most severely and called her A Chang to her face. I thought: I'm not really a little Long Hair; I'm not going to attack the city, nor fire cannons, and I'm certainly not afraid of cannons exploding — so what do I have to fear from her!

But while I mourned the hidden mouse and sought vengeance for it, I was at the same time longing for an illustrated edition of the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*. This longing had been aroused by a great-uncle on my father's side, a distant relation. He was a plump, kindly old gentleman who loved to cultivate flowers and plants — orchids, jasmine, and such — as well as an extremely rare horse-tassel flower he had reportedly brought back from the north. His wife, however, was exactly the opposite: she understood nothing about anything and once rested a bamboo pole for drying clothes on the branches of his orchid plant, snapping them, and still cursed furiously: "Damn thing!" This old gentleman was a lonely man; having no one to talk to, he was very fond of the company of children, and sometimes even called us "little friends." In the great compound where our clan lived together, only he had many books, and unusual ones at that. Examination essays and regulated verse were there, of course; but it was only in his study that I had seen Lu Ji's *Commentary on the Flora, Fauna, Birds, Beasts, Insects and Fish of the Book of Songs*, and many other volumes with unfamiliar titles. My favorite at the time was the *Mirror of Flowers*, which had many illustrations. He told me that there had once been an illustrated *Classic of Mountains and Seas*, with pictures of beasts with human faces, nine-headed serpents, three-legged birds, winged humans, headless monsters that used their breasts as eyes and their navels as mouths ... Unfortunately, he no longer knew where it was.

I very much wanted to see such pictures, but I was too embarrassed to press him to search for it — he was very lazy. Ask others? No one would give me a straight answer. I still had a few hundred cash of my New Year's money, but there was no good opportunity to buy it. The main street where books were sold was very far from my home, and I could only go there once a year, during the first month, at which time both bookshops had their doors tightly shut.

When playing, there was nothing on my mind; but the moment I sat down, I thought of the illustrated *Classic of Mountains and Seas*.

I must have been thinking about it too obsessively, because even A Chang came to ask me what the *Classic of Mountains and Seas* was all about. This was something I had never mentioned to her before. I knew she was no scholar, so telling her would serve no purpose; but since she had come to ask, I told her everything.

After ten-odd days — or perhaps a month — I still remember, it was four or five days after she had gone home on leave — she returned wearing a new blue cotton jacket. The moment she saw me, she handed me a package of books and said happily:

"Young master, the 'Three Humming Classics' with pictures — I've bought them for you!"

I felt as if I had been struck by a thunderbolt; my entire body trembled with excitement. I hurried to take the package, opened the paper wrapping — four small volumes — flipped through them briefly — beasts with human faces, nine-headed serpents ... Indeed, they were all there.

This gave rise to a new respect in me. What others would not or could not do, she had accomplished. She truly did possess tremendous supernatural power. The resentment over the killing of my hidden mouse was completely extinguished from that moment.

These four books were the first I ever obtained, and the most treasured books of my heart.

The appearance of those books is still before my eyes. But judging from the appearance still before my eyes, they were a very crudely printed and carved edition. The paper was very yellow; the illustrations were also very poor — almost all composed of straight lines, with even the animals' eyes being rectangular. But they were my most treasured books, and looking at them, there were indeed beasts with human faces; nine-headed serpents; one-legged oxen; the bag-like Dijiang; and the headless Xingtian, who "used his breasts as eyes and his navel as a mouth" and still "wielded a shield and axe in dance."

After that, I collected illustrated books with even greater zeal. And so I acquired lithographic editions of the *Erya Illustrated* and the *Illustrated Study of Flora and Fauna in the Book of Songs*, as well as the *Dianshizhai Collection of Paintings* and the *Poetry Painting Boat*. I also bought another edition of the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*, a lithographic one, with illustrations and commentary in each volume — the pictures in green, the text in red — far more refined than the woodblock edition. This one was still in my possession until the year before last; it was the reduced-format edition of Hao Yixing's commentary. The woodblock edition, however — I can no longer remember when it was lost.

My nursemaid, Mama Chang — that is, A Chang — departed this world perhaps some thirty years ago now. I never did learn her name, nor her life story; I know only that she had an adopted son, and that she was probably a young widow left alone.

Kind, dark Mother Earth — may her soul rest forever in peace in your embrace!

March 10.

[[Category:Books]]
[[Category:Lu Xun]]

Lu Xun Complete Works/en/Achang - Revision history

Admin at 09:40, 12 April 2026