The Five Brothers' Dream

After Xinde had stayed at the Foreign Trade Administration for some time, he slowly came to see one thing: days in a government office looked, on the surface, like a basin of clear water, and everyone said they were more or less the same. But if one truly stirred the water, the things settled at the bottom were all different.
The Provincial Foreign Trade Administration was a good work unit. In those days, being able to enter such a provincial-level government office already made many people envious. Once the uniform was put on and the ID card hung at the chest, one went in and out of the office building, the gatekeeper nodded, and people from foreign trade companies treated one with three extra degrees of courtesy. The salary was not high, but it was stable. During holidays and festivals there were benefits: rice, oil, sugar, biscuits, towels, washing powder, and sometimes fruit, canned goods, or dried seafood. The work-unit canteen was cheap. The dormitory, though old, at least had a bed, a stove, and a place to settle one’s feet. When young people spoke of it, they always carried a little humor: “Foreign Trade Administration, Foreign Trade Administration—what it manages is foreign-trade goods, what it feeds is cadres.”
Everyone laughed when they heard this.
Yet after the laughter, Xinde discovered that the so-called “everyone is more or less the same” was only a phrase spoken on the surface. In actual matters, every department, every section, every person could touch different things.
The inspection sections were the most interesting.
People in the Agricultural Inspection Department often dealt with grain and oil, foods, fruit, tea leaves, canned goods, and aquatic products. If someone’s kitchen suddenly had a few packets of good tea, a box of apples, or two tins of imported milk powder, no one asked aloud, but everyone understood in his heart. The Industrial Inspection Department handled machinery, household appliances, and light industrial products; sometimes they could come into contact with electric fans, rice cookers, cassette recorders, and small electrical items. The Chemical Industry Department sounded the least romantic—plastic, paint, fertilizer, rubber, chemical raw materials all day long—but some chemical enterprises were precisely the best at handling people. The things they gave were not necessarily handsome, but they were practical. There were also textiles, machinery and electronics, packaging, food, wood products—each had its own doorway. Different export products meant different enterprises, and the things inspectors brought home were therefore faintly different as well.
These things were not necessarily called “taking.” Much of the time they were called “samples,” “trial use,” “a company’s thanks,” or “something brought back in passing.” Change the word, and the meaning became much lighter.
Someone returned from inspecting a factory with two boxes of pastries added to his bicycle basket, and said the factory had forced them on him. Someone carried a bag of frozen shrimp and said it was leftover from sampling and could not be wasted. Someone replaced his old kettle with a brand-new electric one and explained that it was a trial-production sample from an enterprise, unwanted by anyone, so he had taken it home to look at the quality. When the office heard such words, no one seriously exposed them. They only laughed and said, “You comrades in Inspection truly work hard—so hard that even the pots, bowls, and ladles at home modernize along with you.”
The inspectors also had their own grievances.
Once, while drinking in the Huangsha dormitory, Acong heard Little Zhou tease him about “what good thing he had brought back this time,” and slapped the table. “You only see us taking things. You do not see us going down to the factories and eating dust. In the heat of summer, we run to warehouses; once the container doors open, it is as hot inside as a steamer. When we enter a freezer, it is cold as the Northeast. The boss of an enterprise hands you a pack of cigarettes—do you accept it or not? If you do not accept it, he says you are not giving him face. If you accept it, you people say we are corrupt. Being a person is hard; being an inspector is even harder.”
Little Zhou slowly picked up a peanut and said, “Do not make it sound so tragic. The Cantonese sausage you brought back last time did not taste tragic. It tasted sweet in the Cantonese style.”
The whole table laughed so hard they could hardly hold their cups steady.
Xinde laughed too, but did not say much. He was in the Personnel Department, a plain position, yet close to information. He knew that the differences between departments were not only differences in benefits; they were also differences in distance from power. Inspectors outside faced enterprises and foreign trade companies. In their hands were time, certificates, standards, and signatures. Goods had to go out, shipping schedules had to be met, foreign clients were urging; if an inspection certificate was one day late, an enterprise might lose money. Such positions naturally gave birth to many gray-colored human favors. Who made things convenient for whom, who helped someone expedite a case, who was familiar with which foreign trade company, who was especially well received during factory inspections—these things were like undercurrents beneath the river surface. No one could explain them clearly, and no one wished to explain them clearly.
The Inspection Affairs Department was not simple either.
The Inspection Application Section was the window, the outward-facing front. People from foreign trade companies came with documents in their hands, anxiety written on their faces. This one said the goods would be loaded tomorrow; that one said the client in Hong Kong was waiting for the certificate. Someone wiped sweat from his forehead while saying, “Comrade, please help us, this is truly urgent.” The girls behind the counter had seen much and knew that “truly urgent” could be real or false. Some people’s materials were indeed complete, only the process was slow. Some were missing this and lacking that, yet still wanted to muddle through on talk alone. Some foreign trade clerks came often, became familiar with the window staff, and would smilingly hand over a packet of sweets or a box of biscuits, saying, “Everyone has worked hard.”
Expedited certificate fees originally had rules. But outside the rules, each office also had its own little accounts. The more expedited cases there were, the more income there was. As for how it was divided, how it was recorded, how it was used to “subsidize everyone’s hard work,” outsiders could not easily know. The girls in the Inspection Affairs Department typed, answered telephones, checked documents, and stamped papers all day. They did not look as though they came and went through wind and rain like inspectors, yet they controlled the window, controlled speed, and controlled the few minutes in which foreign trade companies were most anxious. Thus, some people were envious and said that the Inspection Affairs Department sat in the office, untouched by wind, unburned by sun, and at the end of the month still had expedited fees to divide. When the people of the Inspection Affairs Department heard this, they were unconvinced. “You come sit at the window for one day and try it. Out of ten inspection applicants, nine are anxious, and the last one is pretending to be pitiful. Our lips are worn out from talking—do you think we are eating sweets?”
Once, while lining up in the canteen, Axue heard someone behind her say that the Inspection Affairs Department had “good grease and water.” She turned back, smiled sweetly, and asked, “Which comrade thinks the grease and water is good? Tomorrow come help me answer telephones. I will let you have the water, and I will keep the grease.”
The other person’s face reddened at once, and everyone nearby laughed.
Yunni, however, was steadier than Axue. When she heard such talk, she usually did not answer, only lowered her head and ate. If someone asked her, “Does your Inspection Application Section divide quite a lot of expedited fees?” she would say lightly, “What we have quite a lot of is tempers. One hundred telephone calls in the morning, two hundred people pressing for documents in the afternoon. Do you want a share of that?”
Everyone laughed again.
The human heart is just like this. Busy people say idle people are comfortable; idle people say busy people have grease and water. Those sitting in offices envy those who go down to factories and receive enterprise hospitality; those going down to factories envy those in offices for not having to stand beneath the sun. Regular employees feel their wages are not high either, while contract workers feel that regular employees are holding an iron rice bowl. Temporary workers envy everyone and fear most the sentence, “We will discuss it again next year.” They were all in the same work unit and wore the same uniform, yet the accounts in their hearts were each calculated separately.
Xinde’s Personnel Department was relatively plain and poor.
The Personnel Department did not directly face enterprises, nor manage goods, issue certificates, expedite cases, or go to factories to receive samples. It managed people, files, transfers, salary tables, training lists, assessment materials. It sounded important, but in daily life most of it was paper work. Benefits were distributed according to the general arrangement, and extra things were few. Someone joked, “The greatest benefit of the Personnel Department is knowing what benefits other people have.”
Xinde heard this and smiled too. “Knowing and not being able to take—that is the most painful.”
“Then what do you people in Personnel take?”
“Documents.”
“Can documents be stir-fried?”
“Yes. Once stir-fried, they are called an incident.”
Everyone laughed until they leaned forward and back.
Every morning, like most colleagues, Xinde wore his uniform to work. The color of the uniform was sober. The cloth was not exquisite, but it carried the neatness of government office. When young people first put on the uniform, they could not help feeling a little proud. Riding a bicycle through the streets of Canton, the wind lifting the hem of the jacket and the ID card on the chest swaying back and forth, one seemed to have become a small part in the machinery of the state. After some time, the uniform lost its freshness, leaving only creases from repeated washing, white worn edges at the cuffs, and mud splashed by bicycle wheels on rainy days.
The road from Huangsha to Huanshi East was not short. Xinde often set out early by bicycle. Along the river, the wind was strong; in winter it chilled his fingers stiff, and in summer it covered him in sweat. Passing Shamian, he saw dense shade and quiet Western-style buildings standing still. Passing the busy streets, bicycle bells, human voices, and car horns mingled together. When he reached the bicycle shed at the work unit, rows upon rows of bicycles had already been parked there, like a metal forest. The girls from the Inspection Affairs Department often met him there. Axue would press her bell, its sound clear and bright. “Comrade Little Ma, what great secret does the Personnel Department have today?”
Locking his bicycle, Xinde slowly said, “The great secret is that being late three times requires a written self-criticism.”
Axue rolled her eyes. “That is not a secret. That is intimidation.”
Yunni pushed her bicycle over from the side and smiled. “You people in Personnel even speak like notices.”
Xinde said, “Then I will revise it: comrades are requested, with a relaxed and pleasant mood, to consciously avoid being late.”
Axue clapped her hands. “That is better. It sounds like the host of a cultural performance.”
Such jokes added a little brightness to mornings in the office.
Once he entered the office, the day slowed down. On the desks of the Personnel Department there were always file bags, transfer orders, salary tables, name lists, and cadre résumé forms. Xinde’s handwriting was good, so people still liked asking him to write many covers, certificates, and meeting labels. With his fountain pen, he wrote names stroke by stroke. Sometimes he thought: behind each of these names was a person, and each person was searching for his or her own place inside this office. Some wanted to climb upward; some only wanted to live steadily. Some envied others who went down to factories and received things; some envied others who did not have to bear risk. Some said aloud that they were poor and plain, while in their hearts they remembered every distribution. Some said they did not care, while their eyes stared at the notice board.
The notice board was the place in the work unit where human feelings most easily gathered.
Once a transfer notice was posted—who was transferred to Shenzhen, who was temporarily assigned to Ruizhou, who would attend provincial training, who had been selected as an advanced worker—people immediately crowded around. Some smiled after reading; some fell silent; some turned away and went to inquire further. The few minutes before the notice board were often more truthful than meetings. In meetings, everyone said they obeyed organizational arrangements. Before the notice board, a little personal feeling finally showed.
Once, a certain department distributed a batch of festival gifts sent by enterprises, saying they were “to console comrades working overtime.” There were not many items, only a few for each person, but once the news reached other departments, the flavor changed. Some said that department had divided good things again. Some said, “We are all in the Foreign Trade Administration. Why do they have them and we do not?” In the canteen, the discussion was lively. Acong held his bowl and said, “Do not be jealous. Come down to the factories with our department. Warehouses are forty degrees in summer, and the north wind blows at the docks in winter. Then you will know how heavy one bottle of peanut oil can be.”
Little Zhou said, “Whether the peanut oil was heavy or not, I do not know. But when you carried it back to the dormitory, your footsteps were very light.”
Acong laughed and cursed, “Finance people are the most frightening. You even calculate the weight of other people’s footsteps.”
Sitting to the side and listening to them spar, Xinde felt amused, and also felt it was real. People were not sages. No matter how good a work unit was, human hearts would compare. Comparison was not necessarily bad, and it was impossible to have no comparison at all. The problem was that some comparisons, once spoken aloud, became jokes; while some comparisons, hidden too long, became resentment. The wisdom of a government office often lay not in making matters absolutely fair, but in maintaining, within imperfect fairness, a balance that still allowed everyone to eat together, attend meetings together, and pass their days together.
There were rules, and there were also places without rules.
The major rules were written in documents; the minor rules were hidden in human relationships. Formal procedures had to be followed, and greetings from acquaintances had to be heard. Certificates had time limits, and enterprises had urgent matters. Cadre transfers had procedures, and a single sentence from a leader also carried weight. Many things could not openly break the rules, but they could be walked around. Whoever understood measure was safe. Whoever was too greedy would sooner or later meet trouble. Whoever was too rigid would easily be accused of not understanding human feeling. In this environment, Xinde slowly learned silence, and slowly learned observation. He discovered that the hardest thing in government office was not knowing what was right and what was wrong. It was knowing when to speak and when not to speak; when to smile, and when to pretend not to have heard.
Once, a cadre from another department came to the Personnel Department, wanting to inquire whether there was hope for his transfer. The man first exchanged greetings, then circled around the subject, and finally lowered his voice. “Little Ma, since you are here, you must know a little, right?”
Xinde was organizing files. He lifted his head and smiled. “What I know is all in the documents. What the documents have not written—even if I know it, it is the same as not knowing.”
The man paused, then laughed. “You Fudan graduates speak very slickly.”
Xinde said, “It is not slickness. It is fear of falling.”
The other man laughed loudly and could no longer easily ask further.
The Personnel Department was plain, but because of that it also had a kind of safety. Those who were plain had fewer temptations, and also fewer troubles. Xinde watched the people of the Inspection Department deal with enterprises, watched the people of the Inspection Affairs Department be surrounded by foreign trade companies, watched some people busy in a whirlwind, and others idle enough to drink one cup of tea for half a day. He himself sat in the office every day, copying and writing, organizing materials, riding his bicycle to and from work, returning at night to the Huangsha dormitory to eat, chat, and practice calligraphy. The days moved slowly, like a boat upon the Pearl River, unhurried and unforced.
But slowness did not mean tastelessness.
Sometimes the happiest thing in a day was merely that the canteen gave one extra piece of roast duck. Sometimes the most annoying thing was only that a certain file lacked one form, and half the afternoon was spent searching for it. Sometimes the most ambiguous thing in a day was Axue bringing a document from the typing room and adding, before she left, “Little Ma, your handwriting really ought to be used for shop signs. It is wasted in Personnel.” Sometimes the gentlest thing was Yunni reminding him in the bicycle shed, “It will rain tomorrow. Do not say again that if you ride fast enough, the rain cannot catch you.”
These small things, like fine threads, tied Xinde to this government office.
It was not that he felt no envy. When he saw people from the Inspection Department bring back samples and everyone share them, he envied that liveliness. When he heard that a certain department had divided expedited-fee subsidies, he too calculated his own small salary in his heart. When he saw cadres being sent to Shenzhen and their futures seeming broader, he also wondered whether he himself was too settled. But each time he returned to the Personnel Department, sat at his own desk, opened his fountain pen, and saw names appearing one by one upon white paper, he would slowly quiet down again.
Everyone had his own place.
Some people stood at windows and were urged by others. Some ran outside and were hosted by enterprises. Some sat in offices and were pressed beneath documents. Some received a little more, some a little less. Some looked glorious, but behind them the risks were also great. Some were plain, but slept steadily. Fairness in the world was often not one bowl of water held perfectly level; it was that each person had his own price to pay.
At night in the Huangsha dormitory, jokes about benefits and departments continued without end.
Acong said, “We inspectors earn hardship money.”
Little Zhou said, “Then leave the hardship behind and hand over the money.”
Someone from the Inspection Affairs Department came visiting and, hearing this, said, “You people on outside duty still get meals from enterprises. At our window we only get foreign trade clerks slapping the counter.”
Axue added, “And if they break the counter, they do not pay.”
Yunni smiled. “So we also count as industrial inspection. Every day we inspect people’s tempers.”
Axue was rather small in stature, but her skin was truly fair and clean. Some inspectors joked, “Axue is small and delicate—easy to eat.” Yunni was fuller in figure, her voice soft and gentle, with more womanly charm. Compared with Axue, Xinde was more inclined toward Yunni. This fondness was not yet love, but the feeling that she made his heart comfortable and faintly itchy was indeed there.
Sitting to the side and slowly drinking tea, Xinde could not help asking, “Then what does the Personnel Department inspect?”
Acong immediately said, “It inspects who has a future.”
Little Zhou shook his head. “No, the Personnel Department inspects who can write materials.”
Axue looked at Xinde. “Little Ma is responsible for inspecting whether characters look good.”
Xinde smiled. “I think the Personnel Department inspects patience. Only those who can endure patiently can live long in government office.”
Everyone first laughed, then felt there was some truth in the words.
Outside the window, night wind from the Pearl River blew past the old building, and in the distance the White Swan Hotel was bright with lights. Inside the building, these young people were busy or idle, pleased or wronged, envious or covetous, obedient to rules or skilled at finding openings. During the day, they were in different departments, each facing different temptations and labors. At night, they returned to the same dormitory, still cooking, drinking, playing cards, and joking together.
This was a true picture of the Foreign Trade Administration.
It was not pure nobility from end to end, nor filth spread everywhere. It was not that everyone was poor and clean, nor that everyone had grease and water. It was more like a government office rapidly expanding within the great tide of reform and opening: with systems, human feeling, rules, cracks, liveliness, and comparisons in the dark. Everyone stood in the position given by the age, trying to live his days well, avoid risks, grasp benefits, and preserve face.
Xinde wore his uniform, rode his bicycle, and kept to the relatively plain desk of the Personnel Department. The days passed slowly, one by one.
Sometimes he felt as though he were sitting at the side of a great theater—not at the center of the stage, yet able to see actors come on and go off, able to hear footsteps backstage, and also able to see places where the lights did not shine. Such days were not magnificent, but they were worth watching for a long time. What they taught him was not only the rules of government office, nor only the principles and feelings of personnel affairs, but also the true shape of the human heart before small interests.
And these things, perhaps, were harder to understand than the grand words in philosophy books, and even more worth writing down.