梦幻的天空 Dreamysky

Scary Fox howling

Story and drawing: Feng Peng

Translation: Isamu Hayashi

1.

Among all of the four legged animals, perhaps there is nothing else that gives such a significant influence to our Chinese people than the fox. From ancient time our ancestors began trying their best to hunt foxes and to get their beautiful furs. The foxes are mysterious and crafty in their movements. They are difficult to be approached. Don’t you think there would be a mysterious feeling when you see a running fox in the wild field?

There are always a lot of weird folktales about the fox in our country. These kinds of tales gradually changed into all kinds of blind worship. The more poverty stricken and rural areas of China, the more blind worship the people of the area take place in. Poverty and less advance places always come with ignorance. The countryside area in Shanbei (northern Shanxi province) in the late 1960s is one of that kind of the places. Blind worship deeply existed among the local folks. One of the things was that people feared the magical effect of the fox. According to local folks, the appearance of the fox would be a sign of disaster. If a person unexpectedly meets with a fox he would not be able to avoid his bad fortune.

2.

Erdaohe was an ordinary village one or two miles away from nearby down town. There were only eight families living in this village. A small river named Zhoushui was running in front of this village. A wave of mountain ranges was behind it. Around both banks of Zhoushui river was an area with a concentrated population of this county. The nearer to the down town the population density would be larger and the natural environmental situation would be worse. Around Erdaohe the original vegetation was hardly to be seen. On both banks of the Zhoushui river there was nothing but the lower productive fields up and down the hills. Only on the area where nothing could be planted some thistles and thorns or messy weeds still remained. Wild animals nearly disappeared on this land, especially the four legged ones, except for field rats. For birds there were some small groups of sparrows, a few magpies and a rarely passing eagle. The big wild animals, like wolves or foxes, had escaped to the area several tens miles away from the river, or even to the deep valley beyond a hundred miles away. There was still large land with deep forests rarely reached by the people. This would be the final paradise for the wild animals.

According to the people of Erdaohe, the fox had not been seen for many years.

One day in January of 1970, I stayed at Lao Du’s home.

We knew each other quite well and also have deep friendships. He was a native person in Shanbei who was tall and big, as powerful as an ox. He walked through bumpy mountain roads carrying several hundreds pound loads just looked like going through ordinary flat roads. Lao Du’s Poyi (People in Shanbei calls wife Poyi) was also tall and big. She was a pretty woman and even a beauty concerned by local folks. The couple was the best field hands in their village. But at that time, the local working value was too low. Daily working value was only 0.2 Yan (about 3 cents in US money). They had several dependents needing to be supported, an old mother, a crippled elder brother, and two small children. They lived a very bitter life.

At that night there was another person who was a stonemason coming from Qingjian also stayed in Lao Du’s home. We all had dinner there. The dinner was very rough just like a Yikufan. (The word Yikufan means the meal that could help to remind the bitter life in the old ages. Having Yikufan is an event suggested by the local authority for political purpose. It is a kind of special cooked meal like steam bread made from the wheat bran, chaff, wild weeds, and adding very few grains. In Shanbei rural area the local folks were very poor, the meal that Lao Du’s family could served for their guests were as poor as Yikufan.)

The atmosphere of the whole cave house was warm and quiet. I had felt very tired because I had walked more than 20 miles in the day time. I laid on the end of the Kang stretching my exhausted legs and gradually closed my eyes. (A Kang is a kind of bed used in rural area of China , made of bricks, there is an empty space inside it that allows fire and smoke from the cooking stove to go though underneath the surface of Kang to make the surface warm. Normally several people or all of the family members may sleep in the same Kang. )

As I was just about to drift off into a sound sleep, a strange noise wakened me. It sent chills down my body and my sleepiness was jolted from me. I had not heard this sound before, but immediately I knew that it was the sound of some kind of animal; and it had come not far from the outside of the cave house. The noise was a mournful howl that tore through the cold silent winter night.

“Yi-a,yi”

“What is howling?”

“A Fox.”

“What will happen if the fox howls?” I was very confused.

It seemed the stonemason came back from his frozen situation.

“If the fox howls, someone will die. ” He told me angrily with his lower voice.

I got off the Kang and walked toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Lao Du asked me without even turning back his head.

“Get out and see what is happening.” I answered.

“Don’t go out!” said Lao Du decisively.

So I had to stand behind him and watch outside over his shoulders.

Lao Du ‘s house was kitty-corner to the Zhang Fu’s house. I saw little Zhang Fu also standing in his doorway and blocked his door with his thin and weak body. Little Zhang Fu’s father died when he was just ten years old. According to the local custom women could not be the master of the home. Therefore little Zhang Fu, was still a child and he had to be the master of his home. By this time I understood immediately that the master of every family should be standing in his home doorway to block inauspicious howling voices with his manhood body.  

The fox howling was coming from the opposite hill one or two hundred meters away from Lao Du’s home. The fox howled one time and another boldly, without caring if there were any onlookers. The voice was really frightening. It looked like the fox would try to show itself to all its enemies. As soon as my eyes used to see the things in the dark I found that the “Yi-a, yi” howling voice was coming from a ditch on the hill covered with wild bushes. When I looked closely it looked like there was a point moving among the bushes. That was the place that the fearful creature was in.

The fox had gone. The fear still remained in the village.

That night no one spoke loudly and no one walked in the village. People of every family closed their doors early, turned off the lights, laid on their Kang, and bundled into their old worn-in quilts.  I felt that the village folks were very funny because I did not believe the story of the fox howling and a person dying. As soon as I laid down I immediately fell into a sleep. Perhaps I was the only one fell into sleeping deeply at that night.

The next day there were no changes in the village. No families met with disaster. No bad news came out. The only trace was some kind of uneasiness still remaining on the faces of the local folks. I did not want to bother Lao Du’s family more so I went to town without having the breakfast. On the edge of the village I met another villager named Li Yongmao. Li was just driving his donkey cart and went out of the village. His Poyi laid on his cart. Her body was covered heavily with the thick blanket and her head covered with the scarf. I could see her eyeballs were rolling with worries inside the only opening on the bundled scarf. Lao Li said hello to me. I asked him if he also was going to town. He answered that he would send his Poyi to hospital in town. Then he told me that his Poyi had trouble in childbirth. Last night she turned from side to side over night but still could not give birth. His big son suggested that the only hope was to see a doctor in town. He quickly looked at me. After a while he had a sigh and said

“Yesterday was not a peaceful day. I feel a little bit worried. ”

 I understood that what he was talking about was the fox howling last night so I nodded my head quickly to agree with him. Perhaps Lao Li’s family did not really care about it. That was why only Lao Li himself came to town with his Poyi. We separated in front of the town hospital. Before I left I saw that it seemed Lao Li’s Poyi tried to say something to me, but because she was covered heavily I could not clearly hear what she said. She nodded her head to me and her eyes moved with smile. I guessed that she wanted to say good bye to me.

This couple was about a half hundred years old. The Poyi was about forty five. Their big son was already more than twenty. He finished middle school in the town and became a respectable big learner in the village. He had married his Poyi and his Poyi had been pregnant. Just at the same time Lao Li’s Poyi was also pregnant. The village folks said that the mother and her daughter-in-law would have their childbirth at the same month. What great triple fortunes it was!

Later that day I heard of the hospital diagnosis. It said that Li Yongmao’s Poyi died from the childbirth difficulty. Her age was too high for birth and the position of the baby inside her body was abnormal. I could hardly believe that this kindhearted and misfortune peasant woman would die with her final child in her body at that day.

That afternoon when I met Li Yongmao again he looked like he had been scared out of his wits. As soon as he saw me the tears filled up his eyes and dropped from the deep winkles. He sobbed out loud and told me that his Poyi had died. Hearing such unexpected sad news was so surprising that I could not say anything for a while. Lao Li murmured vaguely to himself “the fox, the fox.” All members of the Li family had gathered in the town hospital. That was when I heard the details from them. After Li Yongmao’s Poyi was checked by doctor in the

When I was heading back to Erdaohe from the town it was completely dark. I went out of the town gate. There was no lighting at all. The sky color was deep dark blue. I felt that it was a little bit transparent. The black shadows of the mountains covered the edges of the river. TheYan-Ding road under my feet appeared in a vague light gray color. I felt a strange sensation after I walked for a while. I saw a piece of white material lying on the surface of the road every ten or fifteen steps. I bent down and looked carefully. It was a small piece of white paper money that was used in China to send wealth to the dead people. The local folks were very poor, they could not throw a lot of paper money on the road like people in Beijing in the 1980s, but they respected gods more sincerely. They put every piece of paper money respectively on the middle of the road every ten steps. This paper money is for the dead people to buy their road to the other world. Li Yongmao and his family had just sent his Poyi’s body back to the village. The paper money must have been left by them. At that time there was no sound at all around me. The paper money lying on the road was still and soundless, as if also mourning for the dead. It was just like a white eye of a monster staring at me from the dark. I felt gloomy and not auspicious as if I was hearing that scary fox howling voice again. “Yi-a,yi”. A great unknown fear attacked me and I felt absolutely horrified. I quickly turned my head to look around. There was nothing there but the shallow gray colored Yan-Ding road laid out in front of me in the complete dark.

Half year later my turn was coming.  

Shanbei is on a yellow dirt plain. It is boundlessly covered with thick yellow dirt everywhere. The wave of the hills rises and falls just like a yellow ocean. Wherever the land was covered in yellow dirt, crops were planted there. There are almost no wild animals except the greedy sparrows. There are ravines between the hills. On the bottom of the ravines the red brown colored sand rocks which are buried under tens or hundreds of meters of yellow dirt. The spring water has seeped out of the rock cracks. The tiny streams sink into the shallow hollow to form the ponds. Those are the water sources for the local folks. Normally the villages are up to the hills. Some are even near the hill top.

Local folks used donkeys to deliver water. They designed a special saddle for donkeys to do this work. The trip from their home to the water sources was normally several miles. The round trip often took more than one hour. The amount of water that could be delivered at one time was about 5 liters. The donkeys only could work once a day so you can imagine how difficult the water use would be.  

            The continuous tiny steams went into pond and then flowed out to form the bigger streams. These streams joined into the small river. The small river passed the zigzag meandering ravine and flowed several miles, several tens of miles, and then finally went out of the ravine edge and joined into the Zhoushui river. If you entered the ravine from its edge at the river bank, the deeper you went in, the more nature you could see. About 15 miles deep into the ravine you could see a large expanse of the wild bushes and brown mountain chickens. Those were the wild birds that often could be seen there except the sparrows. If you were lucky you even might spot the colorful blue horse chickens. In the area about 20 to 30 miles away from river bank where was rarely reached by people and the original plants had not been destroyed, the tall trees and bushes were rich and splendid. Big animals, like the wolf and fox often appeared there. In further areas in the deep mountains called Old Deep Ravine by local folks. It was said that there was the bear and a kind of beast whose body covered with decorative pattern living deeply inside dense forests. According to legend, that was the leopard or the mountain cat. There were two different worlds on yellow dirt plain. Human occupied the area where there were the top and the slope of hills, the river banks, all of the area covered with yellow dirt. The wild animals were living in the area where there were only the deep ravines. These two worlds were still far separated, even in summer you could not see the green ravines even from the hill top.

                  The village where I stayed was about 30 miles away from the river bank. It was a far mountain area.

One day in August 1970 I prepared to go out to cut firewood because the stored firewood had been used up. Living in this countryside we depended on the firewood in our daily lifes for cooking the meal and warming the house.  

            Firewood cutting was a very hard work. I had to go out to find place where there were trees or bushes. Then I would cut wood and carry heavy wood bundles back home through the bumpy hill path. Normally the wood bundle would be as heavy as one or two hundred pounds. That was not an easy work. Especially in case of walking on steep, narrow paths on the hill, the width of the hill path was only about one meter between up cliff and down ditch. I had to walk in side direction like a crab and carry two meter long wood bundle on my back. In order to support my body I had to put both my hands on the surface of the cliff. If I lost my balance I would drop into deep ditch for sure. Can you imagine the result? For this reason I did not want to do this unless I had to.

                       One afternoon I had asked my team leader for leave. I went out with an axe and a leather rope. There was a ravine several miles away from the village. The bottom of ravine was wide and was filled with natural trees. Between the tall trees there were rich and splendid bushes as tall as a person. In the summer days there were seldom people here for firewood cutting. Soon I cut and collected a pile of firewood. All of the wood that I cut was dead wood and had dried very well. The total weight would be more than one hundred fifty pounds. After I bundled up the firewood with the leather rope I found a place covered with heavy shadow. I lay down on the ground. The lighting in the forest was so bright it hurt my eyes. The sunlight had to pass though many layers of leaves to reach the ground, where it turned into just a dim light. I was quite sure that I was alone within several miles. I felt that there were many active small animals around me. I could hear the chirp of the small birds and the moving sound of their wings. I could also hear the sound of something moving among the bushes and grasses. That should be a hare or a rat hurrying to find their food. The sound of hundreds of thousands of leaves in the trees waving with the wind became the background music. I was laying down on the ground quietly. My body was beginning to relax and relax and finally I felt I began to float with the wind. I felt that the hard farm work, the bitter life, the worries and stresses, the starving and exhausting over the years were gradually leaving me. My worry of my parents who were working in a labor comp far away also gradually was leaving me. My body felt like melted into a joyful, quiet, mild world. How happy if I could stay here for ever.

“Yi-a, Yi”

            It was a fox I thought. I knew that there was always the wolf or the fox appeared in this deep ravine so I didn’t really care about it at the beginning. But the howling got nearer and nearer, clearer and clearer. The fox is the kind of night animal that is mysterious in its movements. It is very good in hiding itself. Why did it run and howl at the day time?

I opened my eyes and I concentrated to hear the howling voice. The wonderful relaxing feeling had gone away from me. The voice was just as the same as I had heard before in Erdaohe. It was so hurried, so sonorous, so sad, and so clear. I was quite sure this continuous howling fox was just coming quickly toward the ravine where I was.  Soon the howling got more clear and much stronger. It seemed that it had climbed over the hill and had come down to the ravine. At that time all other sounds around had stopped. The birds no longer cried and flied. The small animals among the grass became silent. As if even the wind had stopped and the sound of leaves had not been auditable. Only the scary howling voice of “Yi-a, yi” was coming at full speed. Indeed It was approaching me at great speed. I jumped up from the ground and held with my axe while hiding behind a bush. I bought my axe at a utility shop in Qianmen street of Beijing . It had a layer of gold colored copper coating except the edge of blade. I was sure its cutting speed would be twice as faster as the normal axe. I had asked a village carpenter to add a bronze gloss special wood longer handle to it. It became a very handy tool for me. Though it was good enough to kill a wolf I still did not have enough confidence. That was the first time that I was facing a wild meat eating animal alone in a wild world. Here the bushes were very rich and splendid. The visible range was only about two or three meters. There was a freeze. I was sure that if the fox running route deviated 10 meters away from the spot where I was, it would just pass by my body. But from the howling direction it would be directly running toward me. Finally I had felt it was coming very near to me and just about to approach me from the bush in the front of me, but just at this time the howling suddenly stopped.

It became deadly quiet. I could even hear my heart beating. That fox had found me first, though I thought I had hidden very well. I was holding my axe firmly and holding my breath. I largely opened my eyes and looked around. As soon as there was a little moving, or moving sound, or there was a yellow colored creature moving among the bush I would use my axe to kill it. But nothing happened. While I was waiting nervously the voice of “Yi-a, yi” suddenly was appearing again behind me just like under my feet. I was surprised and turned back stretching my arm and tried to kill something. But there was nothing there. The grasses and bushes were still. The scary howling got further and further away. I was sure that I looked like the stonemason who was frozen by the fox howling. When the fox howling completely disappeared I began sit down on the ground dejectedly.

               The previous vigor returned around the ravine. The small birds and animals got active again. It looked like even the wind that had stopped for a while was moving again and blowing the tree leaves. I could not go back to the previous wonderful feeling any more. Li Yongmao’s Poyi died after the fox howling. What did it mean to me? A blurry vision of paper money thrown on the grounds of Erdaohe came to me.

            I sat there for a long time, dazed. I then struggled to carry my firewood up the small hill. When I was near the edge of the village, the day was already at twilight. Under the late golden sunshine, the cooking smoke from each of the villager’s homes rose into the sky. The village children ran from afar to welcome me; they jumped and shouted all around me. They looked up at me and bombarded me with various questions of my work. Even the village dogs waved their tails furiously at me. One of the dogs even ran up to me and licked my face in affection. The problems that I had faced in the ravine had not influenced them whatsoever. I had also never told any of the villagers of my encounter with the fox. Even though they were not like the traditional dark age society, who would cast out anyone with any affiliation with demons or ghosts, I did not see why I would need to tell of my tale to the villagers and cast this dark shadow on their hearts.

            That was 30 years ago. My life has been full of ups and downs. On the upside of my life, I was the president and general manager of a foreign company. On the downside, I have labored as a common delivery boy and produce seller, pedaling my self from place to place on a rundown tricycle, where I was on the lowest level of an unforgiving society, always struggling with poverty on a low income. I was laughed at constantly by the upper class society, some of which were even the former co-workers of my parents. What has that fox that I had encountered that year in Shanbei had to do with my life? Even now, I still have not figured that out. And maybe I never will.