Y CRIMES”: THE DEFENDANT’S STATEMENT BY ZHANG ZHE-ZHONG

JUNE 10, THE TWELFTH YEAR OF HEISEI (2000)

The original was written in Chinese. One of the examining officers instructed the defendant to write the statement after he had the defendant reenact the crime using a life-sized mannequin at the police station.

Detective Takahashi said, “Tell us everything about your life up to now; every rotten thing you’ve done, down to the last detail. Don’t hide anything.” Well, I’ve been living a rough life, hand to mouth, just trying to do the best I can. I haven’t even had time to look back over the last few years of my life or pause for reflection. I can’t remember the things that happened in the distant past, and I don’t want to. They were too sad, too painful, and I’ve sealed them tightly in a forgotten chamber of my memory. I have many memories that I’ve tried to leave behind.

But Detective Takahashi has kindly given me this opportunity to tell my side of the story, and I would like to do my best to meet his request. It means, however, that I will have to think back on my pathetic life and recall all the many stupid mistakes I have made—mistakes that cannot be unmade. I have heard that I am suspected in the death of Miss Kazue Sat, but I am innocent of this crime. I hope this statement will clear my name where that is concerned.

In China, a person’s fate is determined by where he is born. This is a saying we are accustomed to hear. But for me it is more than just a saying, it is the truth. If I’d been born in a city like Shanghai or Beijing or Hong Kong, not deep in the mountains of Sichuan Province, my life would have been filled with promise. It would have been bright and happy, of that I am certain. And certainly I would not have ended up making such a mess of things in a foreign country!

It’s true that I am from Sichuan Province. Ninety percent of the total population of China lives in inland areas like Sichuan. Even so, those areas possess only 10 percent of the nation’s wealth. The rest is controlled by Shanghai and Guangzhou and other port cities. Only 10 percent of the nation’s population lives in port cities, yet those cities control 90 percent of the nation’s wealth. The economic disparity between those who live on the coast and those in the inland regions only continues to deepen.

For those of us who live inland, we can only grit our teeth in despair as we smell the scent of the paper money and watch the glitter of the gold that we will never possess. We have no choice but to satisfy ourselves with millet and coarse grains, our faces and hair streaked with the dust of the fields we tend.

Ever since I was a boy my parents and my siblings always said, “Zhe-zhong is the smartest child in the village.” I am not writing this to boast but to be sure that you understand the conditions under which I was raised. I was, to be sure, brighter than the other children my age. I picked up reading and writing in no time at all. And I was able to calculate finances without any effort. To stretch myself and expand my knowledge, I wanted to continue my schooling and go on to higher-level classes. But my family was poor. They could only afford to send me to the village elementary school. When I realized that my dreams would never be realized, I suppose—like a tree whose roots are stymied and twisted and not allowed to grow—I began to nurture a dark jealousy in my heart, an ugly envy. I believed fate had determined that I would be born into this miserable existence.

Going elsewhere to seek work was the only way people like me could escape this fate. When I went to Guangzhou and Shenzhen, I worked long and hard, thinking all the while that eventually I also would be able to enjoy a wealthy life and save money just like the people from those regions. But after I came to Japan, I was overwhelmed with the feeling that my plans were utterly hopeless. Why might that be? Because the wealth of Japan was beyond compare even to that of China’s port cities.

If I had not been Chinese, if I had been born Japanese, I surely would not be experiencing these hardships now. From the minute I entered this world I would have had access to so many delicious dishes that half the food would go to waste. To get water, I would just turn a tap. I could bathe as often as I liked, and when I wanted to go to the next village or a neighboring town, I wouldn’t have to walk or wait for a bus that might or might not ever come, I could take a train that rushes through the station every three minutes. I could study what I wanted when I wanted, I could pursue the career of my choice, I could wear attractive clothing, I’d have a cell phone and a car, and I’d end my life under the care of an excellent medical staff. The difference between the life I had in China and the one I might have had in Japan was so great, just imagining it caused me nothing but grief.

For so long I dreamed of this free and miraculous country, this Japan. I envied all who lived here. And yet it is in the coun

try for which I longed so desperately that I now find myself imprisoned. How ironic! It’s pathetic, in fact. Back home in my impoverished village, my mother—suffering from illness—awaits a letter from me, each day passing as slowly as a thousand autumn nights. If she ever finds out what has become of me, I will not be able to continue living.

Investigating officers, detectives, and Your Honor, I beseech you, after I serve my term for killing Yuriko Hirata, please let me return to my home in China. Let me spend the rest of my allotted time on earth plowing the barren land of my home village and contemplating my life and the crimes I have committed. I beg of you, please show me leniency. I throw myself on the mercy of the court.

I’ve been made a fool of all my life. My family was the poorest in our impoverished village. We lived in a cave, so the others looked down on us. There were those who spread rumors that my father was cursed by the gods of poverty. Even when we were invited to a wedding celebration or a festival, my father was almost always seated in the lowest seat.

My father was a Hakka Chinese. When he was a boy, my grandfather led him all the way from Hui’an in Fujian Province to a small village in Sichuan, and they began to live in a little corner there. The local toughs were all Han Chinese. Not a single Hakka had ever lived in the village, and they told my grandfather they would not allow him to build a house. That’s how we came to live in a cave.

My grandfather was a diviner, a fortune-teller. I was told he started off with a successful business in the village but before long he lost favor because all his fortunes forecast bad luck. Eventually, he ran out of business altogether and our family slipped down to the depths of poverty. My grandfather refused to read anyone’s fortune after that, even if they asked him to, and even at home he usually refused to speak to anyone. If he ever were to open his mouth, those around him would stand on guard, worried about his ill-omened prophecies. Even though he practiced his craft with great earnestness, people hated him for it. So he decided he’d be better off saying nothing at all.

After a while my grandfather ceased moving as well. His hair and beard grew long, and he sat inside all day long like Bodhidharma himself. I can still remember seeing him sitting perfectly still in the dark shadows of the innermost room of the cave. Everyone in the family got so used to him we stopped noticing if he was even there or not. When it was dinnertime, my mother would set a bowl of food in front of him. Before long the food would be gone, so we took that as a sign that our grandfather was still alive. When Grandfather did actually die, no one noticed for some time.

Once, when no one else was in the house, my grandfather called out to me. I was in elementary school at the time. Since I’d hardly ever heard him speak, his voice caught me by surprise and I swung around to stare at him. My grandfather was sitting in the dark of the inner cave, his eyes fixed on me.

“We’ve a murderer in the family,” he said.

“Grandfather! What did you say? Who are you talking about?”

I asked my grandfather to explain, but he didn’t say anything more. I’d been spoiled by then into believing I was a clever boy, a sensible lad, so I chalked my grandfather’s comment up to the ramblings of a half-dead old fool and paid no attention. Before long I’d forgotten all about it.

Every day the members of our family cultivated fields halfway up the mountainside with the help of an emaciated old ox. Other than the ox, we had two goats. It was my older brother Gen-de’s job to take care of them. He was the second son. The family grew an assortment of crops, mostly grains. My father, mother, and older brothers would awaken early, before the sun had risen, and head out to work. They wouldn’t come home until past dark. Even so, the amount of food produced by those fields was inadequate to feed the entire family. Often we had to contend with droughts. When that happened we would go for months without ever getting enough to eat. All I could think, at those times, was how as soon as I reached adulthood I wanted to eat my fill of white rice, even if it killed me.

Because that’s the kind of life we led, I was determined—from the moment I was aware of what was going on around me—to leave home as soon as I was old enough. I would head to one of the big cities—the likes of which I had yet to see—and find a job there. I assumed the family land would be passed down to the oldest son, An-ji. My older sister, Mei-hua, was sent in marriage to a neighboring village when she was fifteen. I knew that the crops from our fields and the food from our few goats was not enough to sustain my brother Gen-de, my younger sister Mei-kun, and me.

Eight years separated me from my eldest brother, An-ji. There was a three-year difference between me and my second brother, Gen-de. When I was thirteen, a catastrophe befell the family. An-ji caused Gen-de’s death. It terrified me to think that my grandfather’s prophecy had come true, and I clutched my younger sister, Mei-kun, and trembled with fear.

An-ji and Gen-de got in an argument, and An-ji hit Gen-de and knocked him down. Gen-de stuck his head on one of the crags in the cave and stopped moving. A police officer came to investigate his death, but my father concealed the circumstances, saying that Gen-de stumbled, accidentally hitting his head as he fell. If An-ji had been charged with killing his younger brother, he would have been sent to prison and there would have been no one left to tend the fields. After he got out of prison, he would have had nothing to come home to and would have needed to survive on his own.

In our village there was a surplus of men. It was so bad it was said that in a neighboring village four men had been forced to share one bride. That’s how poor we were. My brothers had been arguing about a bride; that was the reason for their fight. Gen-de had made fun of An-ji.

But after An-ji killed Gen-de, he changed. He started to act just like my grandfather, refusing to speak to anyone. An-ji still lives in the village with my parents. He never married.

Perhaps my family is cursed. As the result of being pursued by a violent passion, both my older brother and I ended up murderers. As punishment, my brother will spend the rest of his life in solitude and poverty; and I, for the crime of killing Yuriko Hirata, must be incarcerated in a foreign country. My beloved younger sister met an untimely death on her way to Japan, and now I have nothing left.

My grandfather may have been forced to leave his home in Fujian and drift along to Sichuan, but if only his predictions hadn’t been so dire, if only he hadn’t chased everyone away, then…well, that is all I can think about these days. I am sure my grandfather saw the dark collapse of the family. Surely that is why he ended his days no better than a stone, sitting wordlessly in a dark cave.

At any rate, if my grandfather had said, “The murderer in the family is you; be careful,” if he’d warned me, I could have been more cautious. I would not have come to Japan. And if I hadn’t come to Japan, I would not have killed Yuriko Hirata, my younger sister would not have died, and I would not be suspected of Kazue Sat’s murder. I could have gotten a job in a factory near the village and would have learned to content myself with one yuan a day. That’s the way my life would have ended. When I think about what might have been, I’m consumed with grief.

What I did to Miss Hirata was unforgivable. I have no way to apologize. If it were possible, I would gladly replace her life with my own miserable existence.

However, when I was thirteen, I never would have imagined that this is the way I would end up. At the time, I could not forgive An-ji for what he had done. I could not bear to watch my parents grieve or listen to the malicious gossip the villagers circulated about us. I hated An-ji. But then, a person’s emotions are a curious thing. At the very bottom of my heart, I couldn’t help but sympathize with him.

After all, what he did was not unreasonable. Even I found Gen-de’s behavior extremely offensive. He liked to fool around and was always out chasing women. He stole money from my father and spent it on booze. He was a complete good-for-nothing. Why, some of the villagers had even caught him having sex with the goats, and the gossip that ensued was a source of great shame for my father.

To be perfectly honest, Gen-de had brought so much shame to our family that I was relieved when he died and An-ji, who was to inherit my father’s fields, escaped going to prison. If An-ji had been sent to prison, I would have inherited the fields, but it would have been more a curse than a blessing. Tied to a tiny parcel of land, I would have been forced to endure a life of hardship without ever knowing the civilized world.

The impoverished masses of China’s inland people have one good thing going for them: freedom. But that’s it. With no one to take particular notice of us, we were left pretty much to our own devices. And we clung to our freedom. So long as we stayed in the country, we were free to go where we wanted, do what we wanted, and die like dogs if we wanted. But all I could think about at the time was getting out of there and going to the city.

After my brother died, I had to take his place and look after the goats. Those were my father’s wishes. But when I turned eighteen I took a job in a little factory nearby that made straw hats and wicker pillows. I was able to do that because we sold the goats when my mother started to suffer from a stomach ailment. I preferred working at the factory, making things from wheat straw, over tending the goats or working the fields. But the pay was low. I got only one yuan for every day of work. Still, even that paltry sum was a luxury in a family as financially strapped as my own.

Around that time, the second and third sons on the farm next to ours started preparing to go out to work in one of the port cities. The farm they had was not enough to feed all the mouths in the family, and the village already had too many workers. There were no jobs for young men and no marriage partners for them either. So most of them just loitered around the village like Gen-de had done—up to no good, getting into scrapes, and causing trouble.

A fellow I had known since we were children, Jian Ping, went off to Zhuhai in Guangtung, which later became designated as a Special Economic Zone. Here he took a job with a construction company, mixing cement and hauling building materials. With the money he sent back to the village, his family bought a color television, a motorcycle, and all kinds of other things that we considered great luxuries. I was so jealous I could die.

I wanted to set out for the city as soon as I could. But how was I to raise the money? The earnings I made at the straw factory—one yuan a day—were so measly, I couldn’t even think of saving it. If I was going to get funds together, I’d have to take out a loan. But from whom? No one in the village was in a position to loan money. I had to raise the funds somehow so I could go off to the city like Jian Ping. That became my one and only dream.

In 1988, the year before the Tiananmen Square massacre, news shot through the village that Jian Ping had died. From Zhuhai City, he could see Macau just across the harbor, and apparently he had drowned while trying to swim across and smuggle himself into the country. At least, that is the information provided by the person who wrote the letter announcing Jian Ping’s death.

Jian Ping had wrapped his documents and money into a bundle and tied it to his head. He waited for the sun to go down and headed to the outskirts of Zhuhai. Then, with his eyes fastened on Macau, he began swimming. It was pitch-black and he swam a number of miles, intending to slip secretly into Macau waters. To a Japanese, his action would probably appear unbelievably reckless. But I can understand his feelings so strongly it makes my heart ache.

Zhuhai and Macau are connected by land. You can stand on the streets of Zhuhai and look over at Macau. Just a breath away, a different country stretches out before your eyes, inhabited by the same race of people. And casinos. Macau has casinos. And money. Where there is money, one can do anything and go anywhere. In Macau people enjoy all kinds of freedoms, every freedom there is. But that freedom, we hear, is guarded by border patrols and surrounded by an electrified fence. Could there be a more cruel place on earth?

If caught trying to sneak across the border, we were told that you’d be sent to a prison where the conditions were worse than horrible. You’d be stuffed into a tiny room where bedbugs the size of animals crawl over everything, and where you’re forced to fight others in the cell for the luxury of using the shit-encrusted slop jar.

But there is no high wall in the water. The waves cross the seas freely. I decided that I would try to swim for freedom too. I would swim to Macau, perhaps even Hong Kong.

In China, a person’s fate is determined by where he is born; that is an inescapable fact. Jian Ping was willing to risk his life in an effort to alter his predetermined destiny. When I heard what had happened, my ideas underwent a change. I was determined to take Jian Ping’s place in the effort to cross the ocean, to head for a free country where I could make as much money as I wanted.

At the end of that year my family began to discuss a marriage proposal for my younger sister, Mei-kun. The proposal was a good one for a family like ours, seeing as how we lacked financial resources. Although the suitor was a man from our village, he came from a fairly wealthy family. But there was a marked difference in ages. Mei-kun was just nineteen and her suitor was already thirty-eight. The suitor was short and homely. Small wonder that he was still without a wife!

“You’re going to accept his offer, aren’t you?” I asked my sister. “You’ll be able to live a better life than you have until now.”

Mei-kun looked down at her lap and shook her head.

“I absolutely refuse. I despise that puny little monkey of a man, even if he does have more money than we do. He’s so short I’d still have to look down on him, wouldn’t I! I won’t go. If they do make me go, I’ll agree to tending the fields, but that’s it. I’m not going to become an old woman like my sister.”

I gazed at my little sister. What she said was not unreasonable. Our older sister—six years my senior—had married into a family that was not much better off than our own, and she had had children one right after the other until now she was as dried up as an old woman. But Mei-kun…Mei-kun was an adorably attractive girl, the very apple of my eye. Her cheeks were round and her nose thin. Her limbs were long and slender and graceful when she moved. Sichuan is known for its beautiful women. I’d heard that a girl from Sichuan could go to any city in the world and be assured of a warm reception. My little sister had inherited a wanderer’s blood from her grandfather. She was prettier than any of the girls in the nearby villages and she was headstrong.

“If I had a suitor like you, I’d marry,” Mei-kun went on with great earnestness. “I’ve seen all the actors on the color television that Jian Ping’s family has, and I don’t think any of them come close to you.”

I’m embarrassed if I seem conceited, but I have to admit that around my village people thought I was a handsome man. Of course, our village was small. If I went to the big cities I am sure I’d find any number of men better looking than I. Even so, my sister’s compliment gave me confidence. And after I came to Japan, people often told me I looked like the actor Takashi Kashiwabara. Mei-kun looked me right in the eye and said, “We ought to appear on TV together, you and me. We’re both good-looking, and we have a nice sense of style. I’ll bet we could make lots of money in the movies. But of course we’ll never get a chance, as long as we stay in a village like this. I’d rather die than stay here. Let’s go to Guangzhou together. Really. What do you say?”

My sister looked around the cave where we lived—our dark, cold, damp home. Outside we could hear our mother and An-ji talking in gloomy tones about when it would be best to sow the millet. I couldn’t take much more of this place. I’d had enough. As I listened to An-ji’s voice, I supposed my sister had the same feelings. She reached out and took my hand.

“Let’s get out of here. Let’s go and live in a house made of concrete, just the two of us. A house with plumbing and no need to haul water, a house with electric wiring throughout the walls, a bright warm house with a toilet and a bath. We could buy a television and a refrigerator, a washing machine too. It would be so much fun to live in a house like that with you!”

We’d run electricity through the cave about two years ago. I’d stolen some electric wires and rigged them up to the closest utility pole.

“I want to go, believe me I do. But we’ll have to save up the money. Right now I’m broke.”

My sister looked at me like I was an idiot.

“What are you talking about? I’ll be an old lady by the time you’ve saved up the money! And if we wait, I’ve heard, the train fares will go up as well.”

I’d also heard the same rumor. They said train fares would be higher after the lunar New Year. That news made me want to leave all the sooner—certainly before the fares increased. But where was I going to find the funds to cover our travel? That’s when Mei-kun murmured, “If I agree to marry that man, he’ll have to bring me a gift of betrothal money, right? Why don’t we use that?”

What my sister proposed was preposterous, yet we could think of no other way to get out of town. Reluctantly, I agreed to abscond with the money.

When Mei-kun’s suitor heard she had agreed to marry him, he was overjoyed. He brought money over that he had been saving for several decades. All told it came to 500 yuan, more money than my entire family would make in a year. My father was delighted and stowed the money away in his chest. That’s where it was when my sister and I stole it. We fled from the village the day following New Year’s on the lunar calendar. Careful not to be seen, we raced toward the bus stop on the outskirts of town just before dawn, eager to catch the first bus of the morning.

As early as it was, the bus was already packed. Others had heard the same story we had been told about the hike in train fares, and everyone was eager to get to the cities before the rates went up. My sister and I crammed ourselves and our heavy bags onto the bus, not to be deterred. We would have to stand the whole way, a ride that would take more than two days. We’ve come this far, I encouraged my sister. Just hold out a bit more and we’ll be in Guangzhou, just as we’d dreamed. I smiled.

When the bus finally reached its last stop, a lonely country station, a snow-laced rain had begun to fall. Dog-tired, I peered out in the hope of finding a shelter from the rain, but saw something so shocking I grabbed my sister’s hand tightly.

A large crowd of people was sitting on the rain-soaked ground in front of the train station. There had to be as many as a thousand people, mostly young men and women, and they were being pelted by the rain, their clothes saturated and heavy with the weight. Clinging to plastic bags filled with pots and clothes and other possessions, they waited patiently for the train. Since there were only two inns, I was certain they were already filled to capacity. I saw no stores. All I could see were waves of people waiting in front of the silent station. From among the rain-drenched crowd, an occasional white puff of breath or steam drifted loosely skyward.

Our bus wasn’t the only one to arrive. After we got out, bus after bus pulled up, each just as full as the last. The people on the buses looked to be coming from villages even more remote than ours and equally as impoverished. The number of people in front of the station continued to grow. It was impossible for those newly arrived to get close to the station. They pressed close to one another, and here and there little pushing matches and squabbles arose. The railway guards rushed around but there was little they could do.

We’d be lucky if we could get close enough to buy a ticket, I realized, let alone board the train. I was overwhelmed. We couldn’t very well go home, not after we’d stolen the engagement money. Even my strong-willed little sister must have been feeling discouraged, because she looked like she was going to cry.

“What are we going to do? At this rate it’ll be a week before we can even get on the train! And while we wait more people will come and the price will go up!”

“We’ll think of something.”

While I tried to comfort my sister I was recklessly pushing ahead, trying to ease the two of us into a group of people that was closer to the station. People began to shout angrily. “We’re lined up here! Go back to the end of the line!” I glared in the direction of the voices. Among the group was one brute of a man who looked eager to start a fight. But my sister appealed to the man in a pathetic little voice. “Oh God, I feel so sick I think I’m going to die.”

With little choice, the man reluctantly moved aside about six inches. I planted a foot in the space and set our cooking pot there. When I finally had enough room to sit, I pulled my little sister down on my lap. She buried her face in my shoulder and collapsed against me like a rag. I suppose we looked to the rest of the world like a loving couple, doing their best to comfort each other. But in fact, both my sister and I were so agitated we were ready to fall apart at any minute. We were so nervous we could hardly think straight. Yet we had no choice but to wait for the train.

Glancing at the people around us, my sister murmured, “All the people here seem to have tickets already. We’ve got to get tickets too.”

The ticket window was already closed. I squeezed my sister’s shoulders to silence her. If we stayed pressed as tight as this, there’d be no need for either of us to have a ticket. Besides, I was determined not to lose my place, even if it cost my life. I was going to get on that train. If that meant I had to clamber over the heads of all these people, that is what I would do—of that I was certain.

We waited for six hours, and during that time the number of people only increased, each and every one of us heading to the city in search of work.

Finally we heard people begin to shout, “The train’s coming!” The farmers huddled in the station all began to scramble eagerly to their feet. Terrified by the surging mass of people, the station attendants abandoned the checking of tickets. There were a handful of station guards on duty, but we didn’t let the fear of bullets stop us. We all pushed slowly toward the platform. Overwhelmed by the massive wall of people, fear flashed across the faces of the station guards. They knew they would not be able to stay the onslaught. The chocolate-colored train neared the platform and the crowds heaved forward before halting with a great sigh of disappointment. The windows of the train were fogged up so it was impossible to see inside, but people’s feet and arms and belongings jutted out of the doors. The train was obviously already grossly overcrowded.

“If we don’t do something,” I told Mei-kun, “we’ll never get out of this station. No matter what happens, do not let go of my hand. Do you understand? We’re getting on that train.”

I gripped my sister’s hand, and we put our bundles up in front of our bodies. Then we pushed with all our might. I don’t know if it was because my cooking pot was jamming into his backbone, but the man in front of me glanced over his shoulder with a pained expression, lost his footing, and stumbled to the side. Gradually the wall of people gave way. A number of people fell but I pushed ahead to the train without any apology, trampling bodies on my way.

Terrified of the stampede, the station guards and attendants had long since fled. Scarcely aware of their departure, we pushed recklessly ahead, climbing over people, being climbed on. It didn’t matter. Everyone there had but one thought in mind: Get on the train! We were all wild with determination, not caring what happened to anyone else.

“Zhe-zhong! Zhe-zhong!”

I heard my sister’s shrill scream. Someone had hold of her hair and was pulling her backward. If she fell, she’d be trampled and likely killed. I dropped the bags I was carrying and rushed to her rescue, punching the face of the woman who had grabbed her hair until she let go. Blood began to spurt from the woman’s nose, but there was no one to care. It was insane.

I have no defense against anyone who might criticize my behavior at the time. I was in a situation that no one in Japan could possibly understand. The spectacle of all these people fighting to board one hopelessly overcrowded train may seem ridiculous, but for us it was a matter of life and death.

My sister and I managed to inch closer and closer to the train. But now I saw that there was a person in the nearest car waving a thick wooden rod and threatening to beat anyone who tried to push aboard. He clipped the man in front of me on the side of the head with the rod and sent him toppling to the side. Just at that moment the wheels of the train began to turn. Frantic now, I lurched at the person wielding the stick and, with the help of a strong man at my side, managed to yank him off the train. Then, using the people who had fallen as a stepping stool, I succeeded in hoisting my sister and myself aboard. Any number of people tried to follow suit, desperate to scramble after us. But now I took up the position of the man with the stick and did what I could to push them away. When I think back on it now it gives me goose bumps. It really was like a scene from hell.

Even after the train pulled out of the station, my sister and I remained in a state of extreme agitation. Sweat pored down our faces as we turned to look at each other. My sister’s hair was tangled and her face was bruised and streaked with mud. I’m sure I didn’t look much better. We said nothing—having no words to express our feelings—but I knew we were feeling the same way. We made it! We were lucky!

After a bit we regained our composure. We were once again crammed in with other people who were as heavily bundled as we, with no option but to stand in the aisles between the seats. We couldn’t sit down, much less stretch out. After half a day we would reach Chongqing. It would be two more days before we made it to Guangzhou. Neither of us had ever set foot outside our village, and here we were traveling by bus and train for the first time, heading for a place we’d never seen. Would we be able to endure the stress? I wondered. And what awaited us at our destination?

“I’m thirsty,” my sister whined as she leaned against my chest. We’d used up all our water and food on the bus. Afraid of losing our space at the station, we had not tried to get our hands on more. We’d had no choice but to board the train with no provisions. I ran my fingers over my sister’s tangled hair, smoothing it down as best I could.

“Put up with it.”

“I know. I just wonder if we’re going to have to stand like this the whole way.”

My sister glanced around. Among the other passengers standing in the aisle, some were drinking water or eating steamed bean-jam dump lings with one hand and holding on with the other without losing their balance. What really surprised us was a woman standing and cradling a baby in her arms. Chinese peasants are certainly sturdy.

A group of four girls who looked to be no more than sixteen or seventeen years old were standing together in one corner at the end of the aisle. They had clearly worked hard to look fashionable, tying their hair with red or pink ribbons. But one glance at the way their round cheeks were sunburned, and their hands swollen red with chilblains, and I could tell they were country girls used to the harsh conditions of fieldwork. My sister was so much prettier there was no comparison, I thought, and a wave of pride washed over me.

Every time the train swayed, the ugly girls shrieked coquettishly and grabbed hold of the men standing around them. My sister glared at them contemptuously. One of the girls pulled out a jar of Nescafé instant coffee that had long since been emptied of its original contents. She had filled it with steeped tea, which she now drank with a grandiose gesture, as if to taunt my sister. For us, foreign import goods like instant coffee were magnificent luxuries. We’d only seen empty jars of the product and then only at the houses of the village wealthy.

My sister gazed enviously at the tea. When she saw this, the girl turned her torture up a notch, pulling a tangerine out of her bag and peeling off the skin. It was only a small tangerine, but the sweet citrus smell suffused the train compartment. Oh, that scent! Just thinking of it brings tears to my eyes. That scent defined the difference between the haves and the have-nots, an unimaginably wide difference! A difference that is enough to drive a person crazy, disrupt his life. I don’t think you Japanese can ever really understand this feeling. And you are fortunate as a result.

The scent of the tangerine suddenly disappeared and was replaced by a horrible odor. The door to the toilet had opened. Everyone immediately turned their heads away and trained their eyes downward. This was because a yakuza type had emerged from the toilet. Most of the people on the train were dressed in soiled Mao suits. But this fellow was wearing a smart-looking gray suit jacket, a red turtleneck sweater, and baggy black trousers. He had a white scarf tied around his neck. His clothes were good quality. But his eyes glinted shiftlessly just like Gen-de’s had. He was clearly a tough customer. When the toilet door opened I could see two other men inside, both dressed just like him, smoking cigarettes.

“Those bastards have laid claim to the toilet and now no one else can use it,” the man standing alongside me muttered bitterly. He was a head shorter than I.

“Well, then what are we supposed to use?”

“The floor.”

I was shocked. But when I looked down at my feet I saw that the floor was already damp. I thought I’d smelled something foul when we got on the train. Now I knew what it was: human piss.

“What if you need to take a shit?”

“Well….” The man laughed, revealing that he only had one tooth in the front of his mouth. “I have a plastic bag with me, so I’m going to use that.”

But once the bag was full I had no doubt that he’d drop it on the floor of the train. He might just as well take a crap on the floor to start with. “Why don’t you just do it in your hands?” the pimple-faced teenager behind me cut in.

The people around us laughed, but half of them looked pretty desperate. It was pathetic. No matter how poor my family was, even though we lived in a cave, we never would have considered soiling our home with our own excrement. Human beings just don’t live that way.

“Are all the cars like this?”

“They’re all the same. The first thing a person does when he gets on is try to secure the toilet. A seat comes second; he heads right for the toilet. See, if the train gets packed like this, even if the toilet is empty you can’t get to it. Far better to try to occupy the toilet. Sure, it may stink. But if you bring a board with you and place it over the hole, at least you can sit down in there; you can even stretch your legs out and sleep. And you can lock the door, see, and ensure that no one gets in but you and your friends.”

I craned my neck to look around me in the car. People were packed together, standing in the aisles and even in between the seats, and small children and young women were stretched out in the luggage racks above the seats. The seats accommodated four people, face-to-face, but all I could see of those seated was the black hair on the top of their heads. They were crammed so tightly into their seats that they couldn’t move and had no choice but to do their business right there in front of everyone.

“It’s not so bad for men, I suppose, but it must be hard on the women.”

“Well, they can pay those fellows to let them use the toilet.”

“They have to pay?”

“Yep, that’s the business they’re in: charging money for the toilet.”

I looked stealthily at the yakuza. He must have gotten bored inside the toilet and come out to look around. He stared at the group of girls, seeming to size them up. Then he watched the mother nurse her baby. When the group of girls turned away bashfully, the man next set eyes on my sister. I was alarmed and tried to hide her from his line of vision. I began to feel worried by her beauty. The man glared at me. I looked down.

The man shouted in a loud voice, “The toilet costs twenty yuan to use. Any takers?”

Twenty yuan would amount to about three hundred yen in Japan. A paltry sum, perhaps. But I made only one yuan a day when I worked at the factory.

“That’s expensive,” said the girl who had been eating the tangerine, throwing out a challenge.

“Well, then, I guess you won’t be using the toilet.”

“If we don’t we’ll die.”

“Suit yourself. Go ahead and die.”

The man spit this out and slammed the door shut. Three men were in that tiny toilet. What were they doing? I had no idea. All I knew was that there was far more room in the toilet than standing in the aisle.

“I wish I were a baby,” my sister said, as she gazed enviously at the infant in its mother’s arms. “I could wear diapers, drink breast milk, and not worry about a thing!” My sister’s face was pale and streaked with dirt. Dark circles had formed under her eyes. That was to be expected. Before we waited hours to board the train we had stood on a cramped and jostling bus for two days. We were totally exhausted. I told my sister to lean on me and try to get some sleep.

I’m not sure how much time had passed, but over the tops of people’s heads I caught a glimpse of the sun setting outside the window. Everyone in the train was quiet, squished together. We swayed to the rhythm of the train, everyone moving as one. My sister awoke and looked up at me. “How much farther to Chongqing, do you think?”

I didn’t have a watch, so I had no idea what time it was. The man with no front teeth overheard her question. “We get to Chongqing in about two more hours. And there’ll be people there who’ll want to get on. It’ll be interesting.”

“At Chongqing will we be able to buy food and water?” I asked.

When he heard my question the toothless man snickered. “What kind of wishful thinking is that? Do you suppose you can get back on the train if you get off? That’s why everyone brought water and food with them.”

“Is there anyone who’ll share with us?”

“I will.” I swung around when I heard someone answer. A man in a tattered and patched Mao suit was waving a grimy-looking bottle filled with water. “One drink for ten yuan.”

“That’s too much.”

“Then go without. This is all I’ve got; I’m not giving it away.”

“Let us each have a drink for ten yuan.” I looked at my sister’s face in surprise. She wore a determined look.

“You drive a hard bargain. All right then.”

When he struck the deal a young woman at the other end of the aisle held up a tangerine and shouted, “You want this for ten yuan?”

My sister’s response was curt. “I’ll let you know after I’ve had a drink of water.” When she had drunk her fill she handed the bottle to me and mumbled, “If you’re smart, you’ll drink as much as you can. We’re paying ten yuan for it, after all.”

“True.”

My sister’s expression startled me. I brought the bottle to my lips and drank. The water was warm and tasted rusty. But it was all the water I’d had in over half a day. Once I started drinking, I couldn’t stop. “That’s enough!” the man shouted angrily, but I played the fool. “I’m just taking my drink,” I said. The people around us laughed scornfully.

“Pay up now!” the man said.

I pulled the money out of my pocket. I had all the bills rolled up together and bound with a rubber band. The murmur that shot through the crowd around me when they saw the wad of bills was nearly deafening. Of course, I had not wanted to show all my money to strangers, but I had no other way of getting ten yuan out of my pocket.

My hand trembled so badly I could hardly count the bills. Not just because everyone’s eyes were riveted on me, but because I’d never paid ten yuan for anything back home. I heard my sister swallow. I suppose she too was anxious.

How absurd to have to lay out so much money just for a drink of water. I was appalled by such meanness. And yet I had to pay. The callousness of those around me was shocking. And yet it was a valuable experience. We were heading for the city, where we were sure to see and hear things we had never before imagined. This was a good introduction. I can still remember how shocked I was when I came to Japan and saw the way people spent money like water, without a care. It made me so angry I wanted to curse them all.

At any rate, I finally counted out ten one-yuan bills and handed them to someone who gave them to the man who’d sold us the water. When I did, the man grew eve

n more irritated. “You act like such a country bumpkin, and there you are with all that cash, you bastard! I ought to have charged more!”

The young woman who had earlier tried to sell us the tangerine started to ridicule the man. “Don’t be so greedy. You only have yourself to blame, not knowing the first rule of sales! Before you start criticizing our country cousins here you ought give your own hollow head a whack! It might knock some sense into you!”

The people standing around her laughed.

“Those two are loaded! They have to be carrying close to five hundred yuan!” The man with only one front tooth spoke so loudly everyone in the train car heard. Everyone started to mumble and murmur. The group of four girls turned to stare at us, their mouths agape.

“Mind your own business,” I told the man. But he just laughed at me like I was an idiot.

“You don’t know shit about the world, do you?” he taunted. “You ought to divide your cash into smaller wads and tuck it in different places. That way one person can’t make off with it all at once.”

Right. Right. The people surrounding the man—people who had nothing to do with any of this—nodded in agreement. Mr. Tooth continued ribbing me.

“No doubt about it, you’re a bona fide hick. Haven’t you ever heard of a wallet? I bet you come from a village that’s so poor you’ve run out of wives.”

“Well, it takes one to know one! You sure do stink. Haven’t you ever heard of a bath? Or maybe peeing on the floor is the custom at your house. Hey, I’ve a favor to ask you. Take your filthy hand off my ass!” my sister shouted.

When they heard the way my sister responded, the rest of the car burst into laughter. Mr. Tooth turned beet red and looked down with embarrassment. I clasped my sister’s hand. “Way to tell him, Mei-kun.”

“You can’t let people get away with stuff like that, Zhe-zhong. Before long they’re going to be throwing themselves at our feet, each and every one of them. We’re going to become movie stars, beloved throughout the land and rich to boot.”

My sister poked me in the ribs with her elbow to emphasize each of her points. Yes, it is true. I had come to depend on my little sister with her quick wit and strong will to pull me along in life. And yet I ended up in this foreign country without her. I hope you can understand just how difficult it has been for me, how lost I have been.

Sometime later, the train jerked suddenly and the passengers toppled forward. Outside I could see telephone poles and the lights of tall buildings. It was a city. I started to grow excited. We’d reached Chongqing! It’s Chongqing! Chongqing! The people around me began to clamor nervously, expectantly, uneasily.

Mr. Tooth, who had grown quiet after being shamed by my sister, said just behind me, “You two don’t have tickets, do you? I know you sneaked on.” He waved a pink-colored ticket in my face. “If you don’t have a ticket, they take you off the train and throw you in jail.”

My sister looked up at me in shock. Just at that point the train glided into the station. Chongqing was a big city, but it was the first station the southbound train had entered. The platform was swarming with people, all farmers, waiting there to transfer to our train. They began scrambling to board. The yakuza type picked up a heavy stick and walked toward me. I assumed he was going to use the stick to menace anyone who tried to board the train, but he handed the stick to me. “Give me a hand, why don’t you?”

I had no choice but to comply. I got ready to spring into action, but when the door opened no one was there to get on. I was caught off guard. And then a young pistol-wielding station guard appeared in front of me, so I quickly brought the stick down to my side.

The guard shouted roughly, “Ticket inspection. Present your tickets for inspection. If you don’t have a ticket, get off the train.” The passengers around me lifted their pink-colored tickets high above their heads.

My sister and I looked down. Packed in like sardines among all those people, we were the only ones without tickets.

“You have no ticket?” I started to explain to the station policeman that I’d had no time to purchase one, but before I could the yakuza type held me back with his hand.

“He’ll pay no matter the cost.”

The guard turned immediately to the station official at his side and whispered in his ear. After a moment’s consultation he said to me harshly, “It’s two hundred yuan to Guangzhou.” As a rule the ticket was usually no more than thirty yuan a person.

“Haggle!” I heard someone say from within the car.

“Two hundred yuan for two,” I said.

“Get off the train,” the station official said. “You’re under arrest for boarding the train without a ticket.”

The guard pointed his gun at me.

Desperate, I tried again. “Two for three hundred yuan.”

“It’s two for four hundred yuan.”

“That’s no better than when we started. How about two for three hundred and fifty yuan?”

Again the guard conferred with the station official. I waited nervously. In a minute he turned back to me with a solemn countenance and nodded. When I pulled the money from my pocket, the station official pressed two tickets on thin pink paper into my hand and shut the door.

My younger sister and I had endured hunger and thirst as we headed to Guangzhou, refusing offers from surrounding passengers to sell us food and water. My hands had barely stopped trembling from the ordeal of counting my money in front of others. But of everything we had started out with, we had only a tiny sum left. I was overcome with remorse. If only I’d thought to stock up on food and water before we got on the train, I would not have had to squander my sister’s precious betrothal gift. I certainly was naïve. Why hadn’t I realized that there would be others, lots of others, trying to migrate to the city just like us? By the time we got to Guangzhou we had barely one hundred yuan left.

In the farming villages of China there are over two hundred and seventy million people, more than the arable land can feed. The farms produce only enough to support a hundred million, fewer than half. Of the remaining hundred seventy million people, about ninety million work in local factories. The other eighty million have no choice but to head to the cities to look for work. At the time this influx of surplus labor was referred to in China as the Blind Flow. Now of course it’s known as the Pool of the People’s Workforce. But blind flow better captures the reality of a desperate people groping about in darkness, struggling to follow the beacon of light glittering off the money available in the city.

All this I learned while aboard the train from the pimple-faced college student who stood behind me. Pimple’s name was Dong Zhen. He was tall and lanky, with shoulders that jutted out like a clothes hanger. His face was covered with festering pimples that oozed a yellow pus. “Zhe-zhong,” Dong Zhen asked me, “can you guess how many people will migrate from Sichuan to Guangzhou after New Year’s on the lunar calendar has passed?”

I tilted my head to the side. I came from a village of four hundred. It was impossible for me to imagine a large gathering of people. Even if I’d been told it would be the whole of Sichuan, it wouldn’t have made much impact on me because I’d never seen a map.

“I don’t know.”

“About nine hundred thousand people.”

“Well, where are they all going to go?”

“Just like you—to Guangzhou and Zhu Jiang, the Pearl River Delta.”

I couldn’t believe there’d be enough work to go around if more than nine hundred thousand people crowded into the same city. I was being carried along by bus and train, but I still had no idea what a city was.

“Will there be a place we can go to get help finding a job?”

Dong Zhen laughed. “You really are an idiot. No one will help you. You have to do it on your own.”

When I heard this I was beset by doubts. All I’d done up to now was tend goats and make straw hats. What kind of work was I going to be able to find? I recalled that my friend Jian Ping had worked in construc

tion, so I asked Dong Zhen. “What about construction work?”

“That’s the kind of job anyone can do, so the competition’s stiff.”

Dong Zhen took a swig of water out of his canteen as he answered. I gazed at the water longingly.

“Would you like a sip?” he asked. And he let me take a drink. The water smelled stale and fishy, but I was grateful all the same to have been given a swallow without having to pay. In the entire train car only one person was heading to university, and that was Dong Zhen. I imagined that as a member of the intelligentsia he would look down on simple farmers, but Dong Zhen was unexpectedly kind.

“I’m sure there’s a section of town where they pick up day laborers. You ought to go there and wait. I’ve heard that if you carry your own shovel and tools you’ll get hired right away.”

“What about my little sister? What kind of work could she get?”

“Women can get all kinds of jobs from babysitters, maids, nurses, laundresses, and the like to mortician assistants in the morgue. Then there’re jobs as guides at the crematorium, tea servers, and so on—every one of them low paying.”

“How come you’re such an expert?”

“It’s just common sense. But I guess I would look smart next to you; you really don’t know much about anything! You’ll see. Fellows who come to the city looking for work tend to talk a lot, and news travels by word of mouth. Before you know it, you’ll have heard it all.”

Dong Zhen leaned over to me.

“Your little sister doesn’t look the type to take to the kind of dreary jobs I mentioned,” he whispered in my ear.

Mei-kun had gone to the toilet, and I suddenly noticed that she had not yet returned. I looked around and saw that she was standing by the toilet, the door open wide, talking intimately with the group of young thugs. What was so funny? I wondered. They had suddenly started to laugh. All the other passengers on the train turned—as if on signal—and stared at the four of them. I kept my eye on my sister as she gazed up at the yakuza. She was flirting with him. It made me feel queasy. Dong Zhen poked me in the ribs.

“Looks like your little sister is making friends with the gangster.”

“No, that’s not it. She just doesn’t want to spend money on the toilet, so she’s trying to manipulate him.”

“She seems very adept at the game. Look, she’s giving him a beating!”

My sister was patting the yakuza on the arm and laughing. For his part, he was pretending that it hurt and flinching from her touch with exaggerated gestures.

“Let it go.”

Dong Zhen realized I was angry and started to tease me. “My God, you two act more like lovers than siblings!”

He’d struck a nerve. I flushed red with embarrassment. Yes, I was ashamed to admit it, but I was very fond of my sister. When I worked at the straw hat factory, there were ten female employees in addition to the men. They were all teenagers. They’d call out to me and follow me around, but they didn’t interest me in the slightest. Not one of them could hold a candle to Mei-kun.

“At the rate she’s going, your little sister’s going to be heading off with that gangster.”

“Mei-kun wouldn’t do something so stupid.”

It never occurred to me that Dong Zhen’s words would turn out to be true, but when the train finally pulled into the station at Guangzhou, my sister leaped to the platform with an animated expression and said to me excitedly, “Zhe-zhong, do you mind if we say good-bye here?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you sure?” I asked her again and again.

“Yes, I’ve already found a job,” she said, with great pride.

“What kind of job?”

“Working in a first-class hotel.”

Exhausted after traveling for two days and nights with nothing to eat, I stumbled to the platform.

“Those fellows said they’d help me find a job, so I’m going to go with them.” My sister pointed to the yakuza and his two friends. I walked over toward them. Pointing to the man who’d handed me the stick at Chongqing, I demanded angrily, “What the hell do you want with my sister?”

“You must be Zhe-zhong. My name’s Jin-long. Your sister here says she’s looking for a job, so I’m going to introduce her to someone I know. She can work at the White Swan Hotel. Everyone wants a job there. Must be your lucky day.” Jin-long adjusted his white scarf at his throat as he responded.

“Where is this White Swan Hotel?”

“It’s a first-class hotel built in the former concession on Shamian Island.”

“Shamian?”

Jin-long looked back at my sister and me and burst into raucous laughter. “Man, you really are a hick!” Mei-kun joined him in laughing at me. That’s when I realized my sister was angry at me: for getting on the train without knowing what I was doing, for spending four hundred yuan.

I grabbed her shoulder angrily. “You have no idea what kind of trouble you can get into, do you? He’s a gangster. Don’t you get it? That first-class hotel is all a big lie. It’s just a ruse to get you into prostitution.”

My sister looked troubled by what I’d said. But Jin-long just scratched the side of his nose and answered, as if annoyed, “I’m not lying. I’m friends with the hotel cook so I’ve got influence. If you’re worried about it, come by the hotel yourself.”

When my sister heard what he said, she held her hand out to me.

“Give me half of what’s left of the money.”

I had no choice but to do as she asked. I counted out half of the one hundred yuan and handed it to her. As soon as she tucked it away in her pocket, she looked up at me happily. “Come by and see me, Zhe-zhong!”

I watched my sister walk across the station platform with Jin-long and his gang, the bag with all her worldly possessions dangling from her hand. And then she disappeared through the gate. I was supposed to protect my little sister, yet wasn’t I the one who had depended on her? Suddenly I felt as if one of my arms had been ripped from my body. I was petrified. Hordes of weary travelers pushed past me, racing to get to the gates of the station.

“Well, that was a shock! Your sister’s not one to wait around, is she?”

It was Dong Zhen.

“I messed up.”

When he heard my weak reply, Dong Zhen looked at me sympathetically. “Well, that’s the way it goes. I was all alone from the very beginning. Better go buy a shovel,” Dong Zhen advised, and disappeared into the crowds, pushing his way through with his bony shoulders. When I came to my senses, I realized that I was soaked with sweat. It was only the beginning of February, but Guangzhou was farther south than Sichuan and much warmer.

I walked off with my back to Guangzhou Station. The men and women who passed me by were stylish and walked with confidence and pride. Tall buildings, so big they might have been palaces, loomed overhead; the sun, reflected off the window glass, shone in my eyes. I had no idea how to cross the broad road buzzing with traffic. An old woman looked at me in disgust, as I stood confused on the side of the road, and pointed to a pedestrian overpass. Great swarms of people were on the bridge crossing over the street. I too climbed the stairs and crossed but I was so tired and so hungry that I could not stop my knees from trembling. I have to say that I began to feel an intense hatred for my sister. She had betrayed me.

Just at that moment a policeman appeared in front of me, blocking my way. Remembering the incident at Chongqing Station, I immediately handed the man five yuan and asked him to direct me to the day laborers’ pickup site. He pocketed the money without batting an eye and told me something. But I couldn’t understand a word he said. He spoke Cantonese. I was flustered. This was China, but somehow I’d forgotten that the dialect spoken here would be different. Day laborer! Day laborer! I shouted my question countless times and finally in desperation began to imitate digging with a shovel. The policeman just pointed to the square in front of the station.

Finally it dawned on me. The station was the pickup site. With so many people to compete with, it would be next to a miracle if I managed to get a job. And while I waited to be picked, I’d run through all the money I had left and then would have no choice but to beg. I’m the kind of person who has to always be moving ahead. I can’t just sit quietly and wait.

The farm folk who’d come to town searching for jobs had little choice but to live on the streets, and I was not unlike them. The figure we cut here wasn’t much different from life back in the village, praying for rain. We entrusted ourselves to the whims of nature and depended entirely on the heavens for our survival. I was determined to be different. I was going to search for work on my own. That’s what I said to encourage myself, at any rate. I was not going to end up just another member of the crowd in front of the station. I had to get away from them. I walked with determination down the road alongside the cars and motorcycles.

Finally I reached a section where the traffic wasn’t so heavy. I was on an avenue lined with plantain trees that stretched as far as the eye could see. On both sides of the avenue were old houses with peeling paint. The frontage of each house was narrow, and wooden shutters bordered the second-floor windows. The houses were built in the bright and airy South China style that I had not had an opportunity to see in my village. While I walked along the avenue, I thought I could imagine how Guangzhou natives must feel. The winters are warm, the greenery luxuriant—what a refreshing place to live.

I had always been insanely jealous of the people who lived such wealthy lives in port cities. As I rambled down the avenue, I could feel my heart growing lighter and brighter the farther I walked. Gradually I could feel my courage return. I was young. I was strong. I was neither bad-looking nor unintelligent. I could easily see myself finding success in this city and living in a house like one of these. If someone would just give me a chance, I could do anything.

I came to a fashionable street. There were girls with long hair eating ice cream as they strolled by. Young men wore snug-fitting jeans. I stopped in front of a shop window lined with glittering gold necklaces. In a restaurant I saw a fish tank lined with fat fish and l

arge shrimp. The people inside the restaurant were happily dining on stir-fried meat and fish. How delicious it all looked!

The sun was setting. I was exhausted by the energy of the city and sat down alongside the road. I was thirsty and famished, but I didn’t want to spend my money unwisely. All I had was a meager fifty yuan, and out of that I’d already squandered five. A child rode past on a bicycle and tossed a soda bottle on the side of the road. I hurried to pick it up and drained the liquid that remained in the bottom. It was Coca-Cola. Only a small bit was left, but I will never forget how delicious it was on my tongue—just like sweet medicine. I put tap water in the bottle and drank until I had exhausted the lingering sweet taste.

I’d have to earn money. I wanted to drink this beverage every day of the week until I’d had my fill. I’d go to the restaurant that I’d passed to buy more. And I’d eat their delicious food and live in one of those fine old houses. I started to walk again, my mind made up.

Eventually, I came to a construction site. I wondered if perhaps it was past quitting time. A group of men in the filthy clothes that immediately identified them as day laborers were sitting in a circle sharing stories and laughing. I asked the men if they knew where I could go to pick up a construction job. One of the men pointed a dirty finger and said, “Go back to Zhongshan Avenue and head east. You’ll come to Zhu Jiang—it’s a big river. There’s a pickup site just along the riverbank.”

I thanked the man. When he returned to his circle of friends, I grabbed a shovel and ran off.

It didn’t take me long to find the laborer pickup site. There was a concrete retaining wall alongside the road, and just beyond it I could see the brown water of the Pearl River. Twenty to thirty men were already there. Off to the sides were shacks made of scrap lumber and old cement sacks: makeshift barracks for the laborers. There was even a roadside food stall. With little to do, the men either sat in a circle talking in loud voices or squatted exhausted on their haunches. I asked a young man, “Is this where you pick up work?”

“Yeah,” he answered abruptly. He eyed my shovel enviously. I gripped it tightly, prepared to fight if he tried to take it from me. I wanted to be sure I was in the right place, so I continued to question him.

“Can I line up here too?”

“You gotta get here early to get picked, but if you want to line up no one’ll mind. Besides, there won’t be any jobs left by the time they get to us.”

So that was how it worked. This fellow had been too far back in line to get picked today, but he would be at the head of the line tomorrow. If you missed the pick one day, you got it the next. But conversely, when you did get picked, you’d miss it the next day. The only way to get a job, it seemed, was to push to the front of the line.

“What time do they start hiring tomorrow?”

“There’s no particular time. They send a truck around, fill it up with workers, and then off they go. If you’re not on the truck, you don’t get work. You can’t afford to goof around.”

I took up my position right behind the man. Maybe it was the exhaustion of the journey finally catching up to me, but I fell asleep right where I was with my arms wrapped around the shovel.

I was awakened by the cold and the sound of people talking. Day was dawning, the blue sky spread directly in front of my eyes. I was surprised to find that I had slept straight through the night on the cold hard surface of the retaining wall. I staggered to my feet and found that several hundred men were milling anxiously around as if the work crew selection would begin any minute. I rubbed my eyes and took a drink of water from the bottle. Just then a truck came barreling toward us at top speed.

“Carpenters and coolies for bridge construction!” the man standing on the bed of the truck called out in a loud voice. “Fifty men.”

As soon as they heard him, men began to run in his direction waving their hands. Using a long pole to keep them at bay, the man continued, “Only men with shovels or pickaxes.”

I ran to the front of the crowd. The man took one look at my size and the shovel in my hand and nodded. Then he motioned me aboard the truck with his chin. Once he did all the men surrounding the truck started to clamber onto the bed, pushing and shoving, each determined to secure a place for himself. There was little the man could do to control them. The truck bed shuddered and shook. A number of men fell, or were pushed, and tumbled to the ground. It was just like the train. The truck bed was packed with people, and when no one else could squeeze on, the truck took off. A number of the men fell off when the truck pitched and swerved, but no one seemed to care. I clutched the shovel to my chest, careful so no one else would make off with it. The cool morning breeze off the river stung my cheeks.

I did construction work for three months. It was simple work but physically demanding. I’d work from seven in the morning until five at night. I’d mix concrete on-site or else help carry iron girders. I worked with every ounce of strength I possessed and made seventeen yuan a day. I didn’t think that was enough, so as soon as I finished for the night, I’d head to town and get part-time jobs cleaning or picking up trash. I was satisfied with the way things were going because I was earning seventeen times what I’d made at the straw hat factory. There was just no way to compare the opportunities I had in the city with what I’d had back home, and I was delirious with joy.

In order to save money I’d picked up scrap lumber and plastic on the job sites and used the materials to make my own little shack back at the laborers’ pickup place. I would stay there all night so when the truck came in the morning I was able to run out and line up. The other men who lived on the grounds were kind. If they made a stew of pig entrails, they’d give some to me. Or they’d call me over when they were sharing a bottle of cheap wine. But only the men from Sichuan Province did this. That’s because we only trusted those from our own region, those who spoke the same language.

When I’d saved up one thousand yuan, I decided to quit working construction. I’d had enough of life in the barracks. Moreover, whenever I went to town for some entertainment, I’d see other men my age out with girls, and they seemed much happier than I was. I wanted to find a job in the city—something that would be easier and more attractive. But the kind of work a day laborer could do was just about limited to what they now call the Three Ds: anything that was dangerous, dirty, and difficult. This was true of work in the cities as well. In this respect, China is no different from Japan. In order to get advice about finding a job, I decided to try to find my sister. I hadn’t done so until then because I was still angry about the way she had abandoned me.

I went to Zhongshan Avenue and bought a new T-shirt and a new pair of jeans. I didn’t want to embarrass her by showing up in my tattered work clothes. Because I’d been working in construction, my skin was tanned and my body had grown muscular. I imagined that when my sister saw me looking masculine and urbane, she would be impressed. I was itching to confront Jin-long, as I was still angry with him for taking my sister away from me. I hadn’t forgotten for one second how strong he had looked, how in control.

It was a hot day in early June. I carried a bag with a pink T-shirt in it, a gift for my sister, and headed down Huangsha Avenue alongside the Pearl River toward the White Swan Hotel. The hotel towered over the Pearl River side of Shamian Island. It was massive, at least thirty stories high. As I gazed up to the top of the chalk-colored building, I felt myself flush with pride to think that my younger sister, Mei-kun, was working in such elegant surroundings. But I felt so uncomfortable when confronted with all the foreign tourists walking in and out of the hotel and strolling around the grounds that I found it hard to step through the magnificent front doors. Four stocky doormen were standing alongside the driveway in front of the hotel, each dressed in matching maroon uniforms. They glared at me suspiciously. The doormen skillfully greeted guests arriving by taxi and guided them inside. And when foreign guests returned to the hotel on foot, the doormen spoke to them in fluent English. These doormen didn’t look as if they would welcome an inquiry from me, so I approached a man who was tending a patch of garden to the side of the entry doors. From his appearance and attitude, I could tell he was a migrant.

“Zhang Mei-kun is working here, and I was hoping you could tell me how I might find her.”

“Shall I ask for you?” the man replied in the northeastern accents of Beijing. He put his rake down and went off. I waited and waited but he did not return. I gazed at the rays of the sun glittering off the Pearl River and grew more and more apprehensive. At last I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the gardener. He spoke to me sympathetically. “There doesn’t seem to be a Zhang Mei-kun working here. I asked one of the personnel staff to look the name up, and she’s not listed anywhere. I’m sorry.”

I was shocked, but in fact I had suspected as much. No one is that lucky. I had come to feel more and more certain that my sister had been tricked by Jin-long, but what could I do? Realizing I would never see Mei-kun again, tears began to roll down my cheeks.

“Well, what about a guy named Jin-long? He’s a big guy who looks like a gangster. He said he had a friend who worked in the kitchen here.”

“What’s his family name? Do you know which restaurant he works in?”

I had no idea. I just shook my head from side to side.

“The cooks here all make good wages. It’s not likely they’d run around with gangsters.”

The man shrugged his shoulders as if to laugh at my ignorance and returned to his work. I was crestfallen. I followed the sidewalk around the hotel and walked off in the direction of Shamian, a natural island at a fork in the Pearl River. I’d heard that before the Revolution it had been a foreign settlement, and no Chinese were even allowed to set foot on the island. Now it was public land and anyone could enter.

This was my first trip to Shamian. A wide avenue spread out alongside rows upon rows of European buildings. Down the center of the avenue was a green median bursting with the bright red blooms of salvia and hibiscus. The houses lining the streets were even more beautiful than the tidy little houses I was so fond of in Guangzhou, one of which I intended someday to make my own. I sat on a bench and gazed along the avenue. Each day, it seemed, I discovered something that was even better than what I’d seen the day before. My thoughts returned to Mei-kun. Why hadn’t I stopped her from leaving me?

“Hey, you!” A man’s voice interrupted my thoughts. I turned to see a man who looked like a police official. He called to me in an arrogant tone. My heart froze. I’d come out with neither a residency permit nor any identification papers. The man was dressed in the kind of blue suit a government official would wear. His build was slight, but he walked with self-assured determination. Surely he was involved in some high-level position. The last thing I wanted to do was get nabbed for something, so I decided to act like a witless country bumpkin.

“I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“I know. Just come with me for a minute.”

The man took my arm and pointed to a black car parked beside one of the European buildings.

“Get in.”

I couldn’t get away. The man had me by the arm and was leading me to the car. It was a large Mercedes. The driver looked at me through his sunglasses and smirked. I was pushed into the backseat. The man in the suit got in the front passenger seat and turned around to look at me.

“I have a job for you. But you have to agree not to talk about it. That’s the condition. If you can’t agree to my condition, I’ll let you out right now.”

“What kind of job?”

“You’ll see when we get there. If you aren’t up for it, get out now.”

I was terrified, but I was also intrigued. What if this was just the break I’d been waiting for? I couldn’t get out. I’d had enough of life as a coolie, and I’d lost my beloved little sister. What else did I have to lose? I nodded in agreement.

The Mercedes headed back to the White Swan. When I’d left the hotel earlier, I never imagined I’d ever go back. The car pulled around to the front and the doormen who had earlier menaced me dashed out to greet us, opening the car doors adroitly. When the doormen saw me get out of the car they were not able to conceal their surprise. My spirits suddenly soared. No matter what kind of fate may be in store for me, it would have been worth it just to have experienced that feeling.

I entered the hotel for the first time, following the man in the suit. The lobby was crawling with wealthy people dressed in elegant clothes. I stopped in my tracks and stared, unable to help myself. The man grabbed my arm and tugged me roughly. He shoved me into the elevator and took me up to the top, the twenty-sixth floor. When the doors opened, I was assailed with anxiety and unable to move. If I step off the elevator now, I told myself, I can never go back to my old life.