The Year of Rice and Salt

The eighth day of the fourth moon was another big festival, celebrating a deity who was patron to many of the guilds of the town. The guilds organized a procession, down the broad imperial way that divided the old city north to south, then over to West Lake for dragon boat jousts, among all the other more usual pleasures of the lakefront. Each guild wore its particular costume and mask, and brandished identical umbrellas, flags or bouquets as they marched in squares together, shouting 'Ten thousand years! Ten thousand years!' as they had done ever since the emperors had actually lived in Hangzhou, and heard these shouted hopes for their longevity. Spread out along the lakefront at the end of the parade, they watched a dance of a hundred little eunuchs in a circle, a particular celebration of that festival. Kyu almost looked directly at these children.

Later that day he and Bold were assigned to one of Shen's pleasure boats, which were floating extensions of his restaurant. 'We have a wonderful feast for our passengers today,' Shen cried as they arrived and filed aboard. 'We'll be serving the Eight Dainties today dragon livers, phoenix marrow, bear paws, lips of apes, rabbit embryo, carp tail, broiled osprey, and kumiss.'

Bold smiled to think of kumiss, which was simply fermented mares' milk, included among the Eight Dainties; he had practically grown up on it. 'Some of those are easier to obtain than others,' he said, and Shen laughed and kicked him into the boat.

Onto the lake they paddled. 'How come your lips are still on your face?' Kyu called back at Shen, who was out of hearing.

Bold laughed. 'The Eight Dainties,' he said. 'What these people think of!'

'They do love their numbers,' Kyu agreed. 'The Three Pure Ones, the Four Emperors, the Nine Luminaries 'The Twenty eight Constellations '

'The Twelve Horary Branches, the Five Elders of the Five Regions..

'The Fifty Star Spirits.'

'The Ten Unforgivable Sins.'

'The Six Bad Recipes.'

Kyu cackled briefly. 'It's not numbers they like, it's lists. Lists of all the things they have.'

Out on the lake Bold and Kyu saw up close the magnificent decoration of the day's dragon boats, bedecked with flowers, feathers, coloured flags and spinners. Musicians on each boat played madly, trying with drum and horn to drown out the sound of all the others, while pikemen in the bows reached out with padded staves to knock people on other boats into the water.

In the midst of this happy tumult, screams of a different tone caught the attention of those on the water, and they looked ashore and saw that there was a fire. Instantly the games ended and all the boats made a beeline for land, piling up five deep against the docks. People ran right over the boats in their haste, some towards the fire, some towards their own neighbourhoods. As they hurried over to the restaurant Bold and Kyu saw for the first time a fire brigade. Each neighbourhood had one, with its own equipment, and they would all follow the signal flags from the watchtowers around the city, soaking roofs in districts threatened by the blaze, or putting out flying embers. Hangzhou's buildings were all wood or bamboo, and most districts had gone up in flames at one time or another, so the routine was well practised. Bold and Kyu ran behind Shen up to the burning neighbourhood, which was to the north of theirs and upwind, so that they too were in danger.

At the fire's edge thousands of men and women were at work, many in bucket lines that extended to the nearest canals. The buckets were run upstairs into smoky buildings, and tossed down onto the flames. There were also quite a number of men carrying staves, pikes, and even crossbows, and questioning men hauled out of the fiery alleyways bordering the conflagration. Suddenly these men beat one of those that emerged to a bloody mass, right there amid the firefighting. Looter, someone said. Army detachments would soon arrive to help capture more and kill them on the spot, after public torture, if there was time.

Despite this threat, Bold saw now that there were figures without buckets, darting in and out of the burning buildings. The fight against looters was as intense as that against the fire! Kyu too saw this as he passed wooden or bamboo buckets down the line, openly watching everything.

Days flew by, each busier than the last. Kyu was still nearly mute, head always lowered, a mere beast of burden or kitchen swab incapable of learning Chinese, or so everyone in the restaurant believed. Only semihuman in fact, which was the usual attitude of the Chinese towards black slaves in the city.