STORY FROM SANDAN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 428, 5 September 1947, Page 8

STORY FROM SANDAN

+ )EWI ALLEY is known to us as a New Zealander who has, in his time, played many parts, all good ones, But this is the first time we have come across him as a short-story writer. The item printed here appeared first in "Gung-Ho News," the organ of the Chinese Industrial Co-operative movement, and deals with life at the Bailie Training School, conducted by Alley, at Sandan . :

R WA led a donkey down from Hung Shih Hu. Hung Shih Hu was just inside the Asashan Mongols border stone. It had red cliffs, and two streams, one salty, one fresh. It had seven houses, each separated by a few li. The people there grew barley in the summer to live on during the winter months. Sometimes they tended the camels of the passing caravans. Er Wa literally means "Second Kid" or "Second Plaything." It was the only

name he knew. He was proud to lead the donkey, as this was the first time he had been trusted to carry out a big comission ~~ and | the first time in any winter he had been clothed at all. Very proud was he of his clothing — a white bees upper garment and a shovel-shaped felt hat. Er Wa’s tunic was like Peter Pan’s. It just covered his thighs, leaving hardy, lithe legs free to jump over

sténes, and lead the donkey through the ‘passes that led down to the grasslands and the city of Sandan. His mother had given him Mongolian "tsamba"-butter, tea, and barley meal -for a parting celebration, and he had a barley-meal cake inside his jacket to eat on the road. His father had looked up at him as he was carrying out manure to the frozen ‘fields in preparation for the spring; the look had a bit of pride in it, the boy was quick to see. He was to take 100 catties of wool down to Sandan, and bring back whatever grain was possible. It was a high adventure, and the donkey seemed to be enthusiastic. Behind them trotted the great mastiff which the boy called "Huang," and which was his protection against wolves, as well as his closest friend. In the afternoon Er Wa arrived at the gates of Sandan, where the sentries stood. Huang stuck close to Er Wa’s heels all the while. The soldiers asked what he was carrying, and Er Wa stopped while they prodded the wool. Relieved that nothing more had been demanded of him, he moved into the city when they waved him on. Ke & * ‘THE trouble came in trying to sell the wool. The traders’. apprentices at shop fronts shouted half the value, and scoffed at him when he asked for more. He inquired. of the prices.for grain"and for other things he had been asled to take home,.They had all risen hig«. He went down the four main streets several times, -_-

leading the donkey, and now and then munching on his barley cake. Then hé sat at the crossroads, and no one took much notice of him, except to come over and offer 600-which was half the value. ' As he sat there a magnificent figurg@ came by-a boy who had once co with camels to his village. Now in a school cap and sheepskin coat he looked immense. Er Wa hardly dared approach him, but their eyes met, and the boy he had once known as "La Pa" smiled and came and squatted down by him, and was soon listening to his story.

"JT am called Fan Bao Ching now," said La Pa, "I am at the Bailie School. oe Er Wa had heard of the fabulous * Bailie School — a place where they printed their owr bank notes whenever they wanted them; where they used all the poor men’s wheat to burn in a big boiler and turned it into white light to play under at nights, when they should be sleeping on their k’angs3

where they took poor boys and the sent them away to big cities so that they could never see their families agains "Worse than the soldiers," had said a landlord who was travelling through Hung Shih Hu, and Er Wa had huddled closer to his mother on the k’ang, and his father had spat on the ground and cursed. "T’a ma di-what is the reeds doing to let such bad people come t our country?" There were foreigners there, too, wh ate up everything and beat the people, it was said. They had come and thrown out many good Buddhist images from an old temple, and now they lived therd themselves. ; Ba * * E asked Fan Bao Ching about these things, because Fan Bao Ching had been his good friend. Fan Bao Ching had played with him, and worked with him in Hung Shih Hu. And now Far just laughed. "Come and see for yourself," and off they went, the two kids, the donkey, and the dog, to the gates of the school, where Fan went to find the .yoys in charge of the woollen spinning section. " The lad who came out was tall and quiet. "How much do you want?" he said "1,400," said Er Wa, flying high. "1,100," said the tall boy, "bring it in and weigh it. Have you rolled sand into it?" "Not much, not much," said Er Wa quickly. ©

"Cut two catties for sand then, will that be all right?" said the tall boy. "Take it,’ Fan nudged Er Wa. Er Wa led the donkey into the temple courtyard where there were boys working at machine shops, going to classes, and doing all manner of things he hardly understood. Outside a big store room he stopped, and lads came out to weigh the wool. Half a dozen dogs came to sniff around Huang, and sit at a respectable distance, for Huang was very big, even for a Mongolian mastiff. Other boys he knew came around, and he talked with them about what he had to purchase. They had said that all the boys came from foreign parts, but most of those who came to look at his dog seemed to speak his own language. : He was given his money in crisp, new s, and hurriedly left to buy the milwheat, and peas. Fan told him to come back and sleep in the school farm and put the donkey there. He said he would speak to the lad in charge of the farm, since the school always wanted things from Hung Shih Hu-gypsum, wool, and camel’s hair. , bd ue * Se in the evening Er Wa came back to the school, past the big gates, and on under a big paifang to the school ‘"éerm near by, where these was a bit of "ground covered with ice, on which Fan was skating, with pieces of iron fixed to leather shoes. This was a new thing for him to go back and talk about. In- the farm the lad in charge was kind, and let Er Wa put the grain sacks at the foot of the k’ang where he was to sleep, but he would not have the donkey in the same room. They gave him a meal of mien, which ‘tasted very -good, even though he had bought a big bit of wheat bread in the afternoon and had finished it entirely. Then as the gloom deepened, Fan took him over to the engine-house beside the big dagoba, and there, with a roar, a tractor motor started, the generator whirled, a boy went to the big switchboard, and suddenly, all over the school buildings, and down the street, lights leapt into brilliance. It was amazing. Er Wa had never heard such a stirring noise, never thought that such miracles could happen. In his home, it was perpetually dark and smoky in the win-

ter, always cold. In the summer the rooms were so full of bugs that sleep was not easy. But this electric light, these wide rooms, this bustle of doing and making, of fun and efficiency mixed -this was a boy’s world undreamed Sates He could hardly sleep for excitement that night. The k’ang was lit, and someone threw a sheepskin coat over him... . * * * \JEXT morning he found Fan again, and asked how to get into the school. Fan scratched his head, and wondered, and called over some other Sandan boys to talk about the matter. Er Wa knew only a very few characters, but then, he was very clever and he was strong -they would see. And so they went to consult the lad in charge of the farm, a quiet Honanese, who scratched his head, too, and looked at Er Wa appraisingly. "How would you like to shovel coal into the boiler?" he asked. Er Wa did not like anything to do with coal. He had once been sent to work in coal pits, and a pit had collapsed, crushing several of the other naked "ants’-men who had to crawl up long tunnels carrying pitiful baskets of coal dust. But then those lights, Did they really come from coal, and not wheat? Yes, he would even shovel coal, if that was necessary, and pass through any apprenticeship needed. The Hunan boy smiled, and said he had better take his donkey home, and then after New Year, if his family wanted him to do so, he could come and work for a few months in the day, and study at night, to see if he could really work and learn, and after that... . then they would see. That night on the k’ang in Hung Shih Hu there was a long discussion. The donkey came close to the k’ang, and the mastiff crept close to the donkey, the family huddled together. Er Wa, under his father’s sheepskin, talked till they slept. Er Wa’s excitement was infectious, for the next day they talked on, and for many other nights. The cold days that.crept on to the New Year seemed a little less cold, for Er Wa asked the way to write sounds from anyone who could tell him. The world seemed to be more hopeful somehow.