Five Spice Street

‘‘My relationship with Old Woman Jin comes from my affection for the worthy lady. As long as I still feel passion for the worthy lady, I can’t leave Old Woman Jin. I very much like expressing my passion this way. (Although people reproach me for being absurd, I never waver.) I can’t help it: every day, I repeatedly practice and become more skillful. I know that some people mention my passion and the vulgar ‘spare-time recreation’ in the same breath in order to detract from the value of my existence. How can you expect my former buddies to have any better opinions? They splash cologne all over themselves and swarm into the toilet and talk indiscreetly of relationships between men and women. They boast, and they’re filled with self-satisfaction. Once someone goes beyond their limited notions, they crowd together to attack him. Looking scornful, they say, ‘This is all there is to it. How can there be anything new?’ I know how chilling this is. Really, my former friends can’t evolve into civil people. It’s too late. My verdict is completely pessimistic. Everything I’ve experienced has led me to this verdict. I can tell you about it.

‘‘The first conflict occurred at noon that day. Winking and so delighted they couldn’t contain themselves, my former buddies surrounded me at the toilet and kept making sh-sh-sh

sounds. They pressed me to the wall, wanting me to make a clean breast of ‘the inside story’-‘c’mon, give your buddies some fun,’ ‘tell us all the juicy parts.’ They also let me know: Since I had mentioned ‘sex appeal’-no trivial matter-they had reason to conclude that I had a carnal relationship with the lady. Can you use this word offhandedly? Isn’t it obvious what it refers to if you use it about someone other than your wife? On our Five Spice Street, ‘sex appeal’ means ‘spare-time recreation.’ Since long ago, these two expressions have meant the same thing, and the hidden meaning of ‘spare-time recreation’ is something everyone can understand. Both expressions are transparent and descriptive: they produce almost physiological pleasure. My buddies weren’t interested in the semantics of the expression. They just wanted to understand what was going on, authenticate it, and learn something educational. They for sure didn’t intend to try anything themselves with that lady: I didn’t need to take precautions with them. In any case, not everyone was aroused just by seeing her. This lady had lived right under their noses for years. It’s too bad that none of them had paid any attention to her, nor did they even know what she looked like. Only after I described her did they know that she had remarkable ‘sex appeal.’ Why wouldn’t this make them look at her with new eyes?

‘‘With a gloomy expression, I explained: ‘There are some things in this world which can’t be understood by the book. Sometimes, we have to change our way of thinking and look with brand-new eyes before we can enter into the essence of something.’ This seems difficult and troublesome, but with hard struggle you can make it. Of course, if you want to reform, there will be sacrifices. For instance, I sacrificed all my molars. This partial loss, however, let me achieve total freedom. If you can’t bear any loss, you’d better just blindly conform; you’ll never be able to understand vital newfangled things.’ My relationship with the worthy lady goes beyond the bounds of their ideas. This is a lofty relationship: it belongs to the future; it spans the present. There’s been no physical contact in my relationship with the worthy lady. It was in my fantasies that I felt her sex appeal. This is real, not a bit abstract. Still, it isn’t the same as ‘spare-time recreation.’ For the moment, I can’t find the right word to express it, but anyhow, it’s the momentum for my life development. They had to admit that beyond the notion they had, there was a huge space filled with novel things. I hoped they could all break through and try hard to expand their horizons and not be suffocated by parochial ideas.