Pag 40
LEARNING THE HARD WAY
Master Yu’s personality seemed to have changed overnight. Before my
initiation, he’d been my protector and my only friend, and we’d spent evenings
drinking tea, eating cookies, and talking about my favorite subject: Afterward,
I seemed to have turned invisible—I became just another problem, one whose
solution was rigorous training, ear-shattering lectures, and the occasional
beating.
I quickly learned to watch the other children careful. Whenever they
stood up, I stood up. If they sat down, I sat down. Whatever they said, I said,
and whatever they did, I did. Not only did it make it less likely that Master
would single me out for punishment, but it also helped to create a bond between
us, me and my brothers and sisters. I made friends with many of the younger
children, and even my worst enemies, Yuen Lung and Yuen Tai, stopped making me
the constant target of their torments.
Things got better. Life was hard, but simple. I slowly grew used to the
routine.
This was a typical day at the academy: at 5 a.m., Biggest Brother would
wake us up—first with a shout, then a brisk shake of our shoulders if we didn’t
get up immediately. Then we’d and put away our blankets, and march outside to
the stairway that ran up the side of the building, climbing to the roof. Making
as little noise as possible to avoid disturbing the neighbors—who were all
asleep—we’d run several laps around the rooftop, just to wake up.
After the run, we’d march back down to breakfast, the sweat still wet on
our bodies. There was no time was no time to stop for a bathroom break, because
it was Master’s theory that any need to use the toilet in the morning meant we
hadn’t training hard enough. As he put it, all of the body’s toxins should have
been sweated out during the morning run… And so, the first time I made the
mistake of asking to relieve myself, I was given ten extra laps to run. (Better
to actually let loose in your pants—but heaven help you if Master found out.)
Breakfast itself was barely a meal, just a bowl of congee, which is a
thin rice porridge. The idea was to fool the stomach into thinking it was full,
but not to eat so much as to get in the way of practice, which lasted five or
six straight hours with barely a chance to breathe: warm-up exercises,
Pag. 41
then footwork training, martial arts, and acrobatics, all performed in
tight ranks in the academy hall, boys and girls together.
The most difficult instruction we had was in the aerial maneuvers that
give Chinese opera its visual splendor: flips and somersaults, all learned and
practiced without a net or harness. After watching the others do their
backflips with ease and grace, I was eager to learn. Master, gratified at my
enthusiasm, told Yuen Ting and Yuen Lung to teach me how.
Without warning, they grabbed me by the waist and flipped me over. All
of a sudden, the room was whirling around and the floor was much too close to
my head.
“The next time, your hands should be farther back,” said Biggest
Brother.
“You have to be stiffer in your neck and head,” said Yuen Lung. And then
they told me to try it on my own. That was the sum total of the teaching I had
in this spectacular—and dangerous—maneuver.
After a series of tries on my own, under Master’s watchful eye, I
managed to land awkwardly on my feet, but not before some terrible and
frightening falls. I was lucky, escaping with just bruises, head bumps, and the
occasional twisted limb. Some kids weren’t so fortunate. When a really bad
injury happened, there was no doctor around to make sure that no permanent
damage had occurred.
In fact, being hurt or sick was seen by Master as an attempt to get out
of practice; in his eyes, if you could move, you could fly, so anything short
of a crippling handicap was just a lame excuse—so to speak.
One day, of the younger boys went to a corner and sat down during
somersault practice, immediately drawing the attention of Master. Earlier that
morning, he’d complained quietly to Biggest Brother about feeling dizzy.
Biggest Brother had told to take it easy, saying that he’d explain it all to
Master.
But Master didn’t want to her any excuses. “Why are you sitting, boy?”
he asked, his voice icy with contempt.
“Master, he told me he’s not feeling well,” said Yuen Ting, stepping
between them. Master looked at Biggest Brother with surprise. Yuen Ting had
never stood up to Master before. Then again, no one ever did.
Brushing Yuen Ting aside with a gesture, Master pulled the woozy student
to his feet. “Do a dozen somersaults, and you’ll feel better,” he said.
A suggestion from Master was the same as a command, so the boy rubbed
his head and attempted to flip himself through the air.
He managed two shaky somersaults, and then fell sideways, smashing his
head against the corner of a table and landing on the floor, unconscious. All
of us looked on in horror. Blood was oozing from a wound on his temple. He
wasn’t moving.
You’d think an injury like that might reasonably be expected to result
Pag 42
Instead, Master leaned down and checked
the boy’s pulse.
“Yuen Ting, bring my bag,” he said, his voice firm.
Biggest Brother, his face pale, went into hall to Master’s room and
returned with the small leather bag that was Master’s all-purpose first-aid
kid. From the bag came a handful of tobacco leaves, which Master pressed
against the wound to stop the bleeding.
“Move him aside,” he told Yuen Lung and Yuen Tai. The elder brothers
quietly the boy’s prone body and set it near the wall, out of the way. Soon
practice continued as usual.
Four hours, the boy awoke, wincing at the pain his skull.
“Master, he’s awake,” said Yuen Ting.
Master walked over to the boy and helped him to his feet. “You’ve been
sleeping while the others were working hard,” he said bluntly. “When lunch is
over, you can show them what a well-rested person can do.”
The boy nodded groggily and joined the rest of us noon meal, leaning on
Biggest Brother’s arm. I saw the expression on Yuen Ting’s face. It was grim
look.
A look of hatred.
Lunch at the school was a more substantial meal than breakfast,
consisting of soup, made from tofu and green vegetables, and then rice with
fish. After eating, we were finally allowed to go to the bathroom. Then we
moved on to the most essential—and painful—part our training: flexibility exercises.
Opera performers have to be able to do a complete leg split, horizontally on
the ground, and vertically, holding one leg above the head. And so we practiced
splits against the walls, against the floor, against everything. As soon as the
exercises began, the room would be full of howling, because frankly, it hurt
like hell.
The worst thing was that, if you couldn’t split all the way, Master
would send Biggest Brother over to push your body down until it felt like your
joints were going to come apart. And if he couldn’t do it alone, he would call
other older students over, and they would hold your legs apart while he pushed
you. It didn’t matter how much or how hard you cried; eventually, you’d go down
into a split.
It was a nightmare. This might sound terrible, but eventually you
actually felt happy to see other kids crying, because it meant that someone
else was being tortured, not you. Oh god, it was awful. And it would go on for
hours, until walking, or sitting, or even standing was agony.
After we practiced splits, we would move on to handstands. An opera
performer has to be as comfortable on his hands as on his feet, so the brief
handstands that any adolescent child can manage were not enough
Pag 43
Master decreed that his students would have to be able to stay
on their hands for at least half an hour at a time. After fifteen minutes, our
arms would grow limp, our blood would rush to our heads, and our stomachs would
begin to turn flip-flip. But we couldn’t show any weakness at all. A limb that
moved would receive a whack from the master’s rattan cane, and woe to the
student who allowed himself to hall over!
Still, Master could pay attention to only a single student at one time,
and when he was occupied with adjusting his or her form—a blow at a time—one of
the senior brothers would quietly turn his body to lean his legs against the
wall. The rest of us would soon do the same…until Master turned around, of
course, at which point he’d see an innocent row of dutiful young students, upside
down and ramrod straight.
After practice, we’d divided into groups—although, after doing splits
for hours, we felt divided already. Some of us would be sent to do chores, like
washing dishes, cleaning the hall, or tending to the ancestral shrine. The rest
would go to singing or weapons instruction.
Then came dinner, which was just a larger version of lunch. We would
always try to draw out dinner as long as possible, because what came afterward
made all of the physical torment of the day look like a walk on the beach.
Once dishes had been cleared away, we’d file silently down the corridor
into a large room with desks and chairs. At the front of the room was a
chalkboard, usually covered with obscene words, stray graffiti, and
unflattering drawings of the older brothers (or sometimes, if one us was
feeling really brave, of Master).
The first time I’d walked into the room, I’d felt betrayed. It was a
classroom! I didn’t mind training until I cried from exhaustion, or even being
beaten when I deserved it—but lessons! That was more than I could
stand.
Luckily, I wasn’t alone in feeling that way. None of us at the academy
were scholarly types, and putting fifty twitchy children in a single room with
an unsuspecting tutor was a recipe for disaster. The lessons were mostly
tedious stuff, like reading, writing, classics of literature, and Chinese
history. The tutors were mostly old, retired schoolteachers or young, naïve
college graduates. Master was nowhere to be found, having left the academy to
amble or visit old friends. There is an old line about mice and cats, and what
one does when the other’s away—
And so, as soon as our poor tutor began his boring lecture in his dry
teacher’s voice, we’d do our best to drive him crazy. Books would be thrown on
the floor. Faces would be made behind the teacher’s back. The class would break
into fits of laughter. Balls of crumpled paper would fly. Some of the younger
boys would begin to wrestle, until the older ones had to dive in to break it
up. The girls would talk loudly with each other, ignoring the chalkboard and
whatever dull lesson had been
Pag. 44
I the tutor raised his voice, we’d just drown him out.
Of course, if Master came back early, he’d find us
sitting quietly and politely in our seats, because the classroom had a window
that overlooked the courtyard, and all of us had sharp eyes and ears.
It wasn’t easy to find teachers who could stand this
kind of treatment, considering the stingy pay Master gave them. If you walked
into a classroom full of disobedient students, didn’t make much money, and they
treated you like dirt, you’d quit too, wouldn’t you? During my time at the
academy, we burned out eleven different teaches, none of whom lasted more than
a year. About the only thing we ended up learning was how to say “Good
afternoon, Teacher!” Because that was how far class would get before things
dissolved into chaos.
Sometimes, when we were on trips outside of the
academy, we’d run into schoolboys and schoolgirls in their uniforms, good
little boys and girls who laughed at us ragged-looking kids—al the boys with
shaved heads and all the girls with short hair and no pretty dresses. And even
though they teased us, we didn’t envy them at all. We never even thought about
what it would be like to be in a regular school, siting in class and doing
lessons all day. Those kids had nothing in common with us. Our life was all
about surviving. Each of us knew that, if the master hadn’t hit us that day,
then that day was a very good one, and we were very lucky. And that was all
that mattered.
If Master was in a good mood, after our lessons was
another training session, though less rigorous and more fun than the morning
and afternoon sessions. This is when we’d learn interesting things, like kung
fu, face painting, and the proper way to use props and opera costume. All in
all, between our morning and afternoon and evening sessions, we’d practice more
than twelve hours a day. Our art was a complex one, involving many different
skills. And we were expected to be experts in all of them before we set a
single foot on the stage.
Training would go on until bedtime, which was
midnight. All of us students from the six-year-old newcomers to the Biggest
Brothers and Sisters, had the same schedule: 5 A.M. to 12 A.M., five hours of
sleep, and then another day of training—day after day, seven days a week. Free
time was rare, and a cause for celebration; opportunities to go out, away from
the academy, were even rarer. So, until we grew old and skilled enough to
perform, the gray walls of the China Drama Academy were nearly all the world we
knew.
About the only contact I had with the outside world
was through my mother, who came to visit me at the academy every single week.
At first I loved these visits, because being with Mom was what I missed most
when I first came to the academy. Lying on the floor and staring at the
cracked,
Pag 45
white ceiling of the practice hall, I would remember
all the nights she’d sung me to sleep, and all of the nice things she’d cooked
for me. And I would remember how it felt to lie in my lower bunk, knowing that
my nom was in the bed above me—that she and Dad would protect me from any kind
of harm.
But strangely enough, after I had been at the academy
for several months, my attitude began to change. I’d learned how to survive at
the school, and my carefree days on the Peak seemed farther and farther away.
When my mom visited, she brought me candy and snacks, and I eagerly took them
and shared them with my friends. But her visits were also times when she
showered all the affection on me that she saved up during the days she was
away. I was a growing boy, and her hugs and kisses humiliated me in front of
the other students. Some of them had visitors, too; Big Brother Yuen Lung’s
grandfather came and saw him once in a while, but their meetings were short and
simple: his grandfather would ask him if he was healthy, and he’d say yes, and
they’d talk for a while about the family and about the academy, and then his
grandfather would leave, after thanking Master for his diligent training.
Not, my mom. In addition to cuddling me like I was
still a little child, she’d always baby me in another way that I couldn’t
stand. Along with her sacks of treats, she’d also bring large plastic bags full
of boiling water. Asking Master for a large metal basin, she’d pour the bags in
and give me a hot bath, scrubbing me down and washing my hair. I was the
cleanest kid at school, but also the most embarrassed. After her visits, my
clothes damp and my head wrapped in a towel, I’d be cornered by my older
brothers, each with something stupid to say.
“Hey, mama’s boy, how was your bath?” Yuen Lung would
sneer. Not to be outdone, Yuen Tai would jump in: “She remember to change your
diapers?” And then another brother: “Maybe she wipes your ass after you crap,
too, huh?”
And I’d just have to grit my teeth and walk away,
because if there was one unbreakable rule at the academy—well, there were a lot
of them, but this was the one we were taught never to
forget—it was that you couldn’t hit an older brother. Even if he hit you first.
Because if he hit you, you probably deserved it, but if you hit him, that was
as terrible an act as hitting Master himself. And hitting Master was
unthinkable. It was like hitting God.
One day, when my mother arrived, bathwater in hand, I
grabbed the bags from her and dropped them on the floor. “No bath today, Mom!”
I said. “I don’t need one. And I especially don’t need you to
wash me. I’m big enough to wash myself.”
My mother looked at me with silent shock. I was always
a rude little boy, and I’d always talked back to my father, with the expected
results, but
Pag 46
She didn’t
say anything; she just nodded, quietly, and sat down to open the sack of snacks
instead. As she was untying the knots that kept the plastic bag closed, I
noticed that her hands were raw and red, chafed almost to the point of
bleeding. And then I remembered the long walk from the house on the Peak to the
bus stop, and the even longer ride down the mountain road, and the lines at the
ferry dock, and the crowded, twisting streets Kowloon terminal to the school.
Mom had boiled the water for the bath in the
ambassador’s kitchen, and carried it for over an hour to bring it here to me.
She did this once a week, every week. And I was telling her that all of
her caring and exertion and pain was for nothing.
I pulled her hands away from the bag and hugged her
tight. “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. “I…I guess I didn’t realize how dirty I was. I
really could use a bath.”
And I smiled up at her. She really was the greatest
mother in the world. And she smiled back.
When she left that day, the older boys were ready to
taunt me as usual.
“How was the bath today, honey?” said Yuen Lung,
pulling his round face into a mockery of maternal affection.
I looked at him and wrinkled my nose.
“It was great, Big Brother,” I said, scrubbing the
towel across my wet scalp. “You know, maybe you guys should consider taking one
yourselves. ‘Cause something really stinks around here.”
And as their jaws dropped to the floor, I walked away
humming one of my mother’s songs, towel in one hand, her bag of treats in the
other.
Zoado, mas limpo
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