China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

lost it. “He was very unhappy about losing his money,” the old man told me. “That’s what taught me not to get too attached to things.”

“Why did you come to Beijing?” I asked.

“I was bored,” he said.

Early the next morning we left. My father parted from the old man politely, but when I made my low bow, the old man gave me such a lovely smile. And I showed him I had the copper coin he gave me clasped safely in my hand.

My father was quite disgusted that the copper coin was the only thing Grandfather’s Elder Brother had given me. “A single copper coin. You realize that’s almost worthless, don’t you?” he said.

But actually it was very clever of the old man to give me a copper coin. If he’d given me a silver coin, I’d surely have spent it, whereas I had no temptation to spend the copper coin. I still have it to this day. It’s probably why I can remember everything about that visit.

—

The rest of my childhood was quite boring. There were certainly none of the finer things of life. Not that our village was cut off from the world. It was only four miles across the fields to the Grand Canal that runs up from the coast to Beijing; and I often used to walk over there to watch the ships.

On its way north from the port, sections of the Grand Canal are actually the Peiho River—though in places the muddy banks of the old stream have been so packed into mud walls that they look more like a canal than a river. The final stretch into Beijing is all man-made, however, and it goes through several locks. Beside the first of these locks, there’s a little inn where the boatmen often pause for refreshment and gossip with the innkeeper.

I used to love to go to that lock. For some reason I felt drawn to it. They say that we Chinese mastered the art of building them a thousand years ago. Or maybe earlier, for the oldest canals go back to the Han dynasty, twenty centuries ago.

The main cargo was grain, but all sorts of other goods went by. And though they were usually in crates, I’d sometimes get a glimpse of a bale of silk or a great standing jar of painted porcelain. I used to dream of being on those ships, you can be sure.

Anyway, I was standing by the lock when I heard a conversation that made a great impression on me.

A merchant and his son—a boy of about my own age—were on the side of the canal, stretching their legs while their vessel went through. “You may not like it,” I heard the merchant say to his son, “but you must study all the same. You can’t get anywhere in life if you don’t learn how to read and write. It’s the key to everything.”

I’d never heard that it was so important before. There were a few people in our village who knew how to read and write, but none of the poor men like my father could. So it didn’t take me long to make the connection. If I wanted the finer things of life, I had to learn to read.

From that day I pestered my father to find me a teacher. There was one old man who gave lessons to the half-dozen sons of the richer peasants and master craftsmen; but teachers have to be paid, so that was no good. If you want to make money, I thought, you need a teacher; but to hire a teacher, you need money. There didn’t seem a way out of that conundrum.

Then my father had a good idea. He went to see the old man and asked if he would accept payment in kind for those lessons. The old man certainly didn’t want any of my father’s carpentry.

“What I really need is a pair of leather boots, like the Manchu wear, for the winter. Do you think you could make those for me?”

“Certainly,” said my father. “I’ll make you the best leather boots you ever saw.” So it was agreed.

When he got home, he asked my mother, “Can you make a pair of leather boots?” Because making shoes was really a woman’s occupation.

“I have no idea how to do such a thing,” she replied.

“Oh well then, I’ll just have to do it myself,” said my father. He was quite cheerful about it. So I started on my lessons.

Most of the boys went to be taught by the old man because they had to. But I loved the lessons. Before long I could recognize about two hundred characters. As for writing, I soon got the hang of the basic brushstrokes that you have to learn to construct each character. The old man wouldn’t let his pupils be careless and make the strokes quickly, which most boys want to, because they’re thoughtless and impatient. But I thought the brushstrokes were beautiful. For me, each stroke belonged to the finer things in life. I wanted to linger on every one of them. And I think the old man saw this, because sometimes he would talk to me. He had a funny way of talking because he hadn’t any teeth, but once you got used to it he was quite easy to understand.

“Writing is like playing a musical instrument, you know,” he said. ‘‘It takes enormous practice and attention to the rules. A bad hand is painful to look at. It exhibits all the stupidity and vulgarity of the writer. But a fine hand is a pleasure to see. Scholars can identify the great masters by their hand, which we do not only look at but study. For that calligraphy is the pure emanation of the writer’s soul.”

“So the scholars work very hard to express their souls,” I said.

“Oh no,” he replied. “In fact, quite the reverse. They study the character as if it were a landscape, practice it endlessly, always trying to