Five Spice Street

Dear ones, probably you think I’m going to launch into a tirade or the summary of my thoughts on the roof of the thatched cottage? Hadn’t a torrential argument already accumulated in my mind? Wasn’t my incomparable eloquence already mature? I swept grim eyes over all the people in our community and then slowly sat down. The hoped-for event didn’t occur. Having seen me on the roof, who would dare speak nonsense, or recklessly spread generalities about experiences they had not had in order to temporarily satisfy their vanity? So all of them were waiting, looking with children’s eyes at my lips. They didn’t dare miss anything. I said just one thing, ‘‘This is a tragic time. Higher sexual joy can exist only in our illusions.’’ With that, I raised my eyebrows, sat cross-legged, and once more became the fossil on the roof. The room was silent. Everyone’s head drooped. The last rays of twilight fell. Night would soon descend, and the cold wind poured in from the broken window: the atmosphere in the meeting room was icy. What I’d already said summed up everything, and I didn’t say another word during the meeting.

Who else but the old philosopher who had spent forty-nine or sixty- four days cross-legged on the roof could have uttered these words?

Their impact was overwhelming. Their aloofness and worldly pessimism would have convinced any intellectual regardless of his experience. After the meeting broke up in silence, I can assure you that the intellectuals were no longer concerned with Madam X and Mr. Q. The little slights were all low level. This was not what we needed. ‘‘That day’’ will eventually come. The tide of history can’t be stopped. On a foggy morning, holding hands and shoulder to shoulder, we will sit by the street and sing a song: ‘‘That day

is still far away. Everyone should wait quietly. In the silence comes the song of the lark. Life is this weighty. We moan in the midst of torment. Ah, we moan…’’ I’m also the writer of this philosophical song, now popular on our Five Spice Street. Even people like my wife are inspired by it. Once, at midnight, she suddenly rushed into the garden and belted it out. Then she started slapping herself.

Ever since I wrote the song, no one had paid attention to X and Q. Because of my curiosity and fantasies, I observed them but discovered that their little tricks were of no use to theoretical research. From the time I climbed up to the roof of the thatched cottage, I uncompromisingly expunged those two people from my research. I began considering the mutuality of elevation and popularization. X and Q still had a great influence on the crowds (though curling their lips, everyone secretly watched every move they made). But if I put the issue on the table or publicly debated it, I’d get caught in a dogfight, so all of my research would become obsolete. This would be a gross misstep, not in accord with my status. Dear ones, don’t worry: I didn’t engage in that nonsense. I squatted as steadily as Mt. Tai on the roof of the thatched cottage and considered a counter- measure-the popular song, whose profound pessimism would influence the crowds. I knew this wouldn’t be very useful, for while on the roof, I had given up all conceit. But I was determined to do it this way because I wanted to break the monopoly of X and Q in the realm of consciousness. As soon as I put this plan into effect, the elites would tacitly understand, and their understanding would turn around the consciousness of Five Spice Street.

Of course, this isn’t to say that they possessed consciousness or that I became optimistic. Definitely not. My pessimism had long since penetrated to the marrow of my bones. The crowd’s consciousness should rather be said to be like a plastic plaything. You melt it into whatever shape you want. From the bottom of my heart, I believed they had no true consciousness except for what was shaped by the elites, and the elites’ inspiration came from my enlightenment. I sensed obscurely the possibility of future high-level sexual joy and communicated it to the elites through an ordinary popular song. After the elites acknowledged this (there is a qualitative difference between acknowledgment and comprehension; no one could comprehend my abstract consciousness, because it was divine will), they indoctrinated our beloved ordinary folk with it as if force-feeding ducks. Then the beloved folk would begin strolling on the main street like drunks, belting out these high-level lyrics of mine. It may have looked like blasphemy or a farce to an outsider, but what else could we do?