From 1982 to 1984, Mark Salzman taught English to students at a medical college in Hunan, a province in south-central China. His description of that time, Iron & Silk, is a well-written, fast-reading, and charming collection of anecdotes that depict both stark poverty and deep love among the people he met. There is openheartedness, as described in the chapter "Teacher Wei":

... Since very few people in China have telephones, about the only way to arrange to visit someone is to walk to his home and knock on the door. If it's a friend, you can often dispense with the knocking and just walk in. My students told me again and again that if I ever wanted to see them I could walk into their homes any time of day or night.

"But what if you are busy?"

"It doesn't matter! If you come, I won't be busy anymore!"

"But what if you are asleep?"

"Then wake me up!"

There are sweet poetic stories, told by Salzman's students as they learn English — stories that dance close to the razor-wire political fences they must live within. Most displays of affection are forbidden, or unacknowledged. But in the chapter "Kissing", there is a private confession:

... Then very slowly, and with great precision, he said, "Teacher Mark. Do you remember? We said that we do not kiss our children after they are big. You are an honest, and you are my teacher. So I must be an honest, your student. As to kissing, this is not always true. I have two daughters. One is twelve and one is ten. I cannot kiss them, because they would feel embarrassment and they would call me a foolish. But every night, after they are asleep, I go into their room to turn off the light. In fact, very quiet, very soft, I kiss them and they don't know."

And there are local customs that Salzman finds hilariously startling. In the chapter "A Ghost Story", for example, he stays overnight with some poor fishermen in the boats where they live:

... In time I was properly introduced, and we pulled our boat into their little cluster and shared breakfast. When everyone had eaten, they took turns dropping their trousers, leaning off the sides of the boats and using the river as a toilet. At the same time, Old Ding insisted that it was time to wash up. He dipped an iron cup into the filthy water and began splashing it on his face and neck, inviting me to do the same. I declined, to everyone's surprise. "Don't you wash yourself?" "Yes, but not every day. I will tomorrow." Then it came time to brush our teeth. He dipped the cup into the water again, swished a lump of steel wool in it, then put the steel wool in his mouth to chew on. He gargled with a mouthful of the water, then spat it out. "Here—your turn." I declined again, and everyone agreed that it was an odd thing that Americans, who supposedly live in a fantastical future-world, understand so little about personal hygiene.

... which brings to mind Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, esp. the scene in Chapter XIII of making tea from Thames river water just before "one of the quietest and peacefullest dogs I have ever seen" drifts by, obviously quite dead.

Iron & Silk also touches upon Asian martial arts and philosophy — but the true strength of Salzman's book lies in the images of ordinary Chinese people he sketches, as they live and love and thrive.

^z - 2014-06-22