MAGAN'S WORLD:I STARED at the sign, trying to work out its matrix of painterly strokes, comparing them to the few dozen Chinese characters I knew, scanning through them all in my mind like a rudimentary fingerprint test. Finally I turned to my brother and said, "Canting. It says canting [restaurant]!"
We had just arrived in Yichang on a waterbus down the Yangtze River. It was late at night and a storm was washing the topsoil down through the streets towards the river. All I wanted was some food and a bed, but the city had closed down – the only sign of life being a single low-watt bulb above a door that illuminated this faded sign.
The Yangtze Dam was being built at the time and all along the river towns and cities were being torn down and rebuilt above the new waterline – nothing was certain or fixed anymore.
I looked at the characters again, convincing myself they read “canting”, and pushed through into a tiny dimly-lit room with just two tables and some chairs arranged on a tiled floor. A television was playing somewhere out the back and I heard the sound of a baby gurgling to itself. No one appeared to greet us, so we sat down and waited – the rain dripping off us onto the dog-tooth tiles.
Eventually an old woman shuffled in from the back, and let out a little squeal at the sight of us. I smiled warmly and explained in my bad Mandarin that we’d like “two plates of rice and vegetables, please, with some meat for my brother, if possible”.
She just stared, wide-eyed. I was accustomed to having my crude assault on Mandarin misunderstood, and so after a moment I set about repeating myself, more forcibly this time and with added emphasis on the vowels which I thought might warrant it. She just gazed at me, then said something urgently that I thought meant she had no meat.
“Fine,” I said, “No problem at all, just rice and vegetables is grand.” Her anxiety seemed to rise a notch, but I smiled as magnanimously as I could and assured her that everything would be just fine, until at last she turned and retreated.
I heard the TV being switched off and the baby carried away somewhere outside. I had a distinct impression that everyone was leaving the house, but I put the thought aside and sat back to await my dinner, imagining the vegetables being prepared and the wok heated.
After 20 minutes my brother began to grow wary. “You are sure this is a restaurant?” he asked.
I scanned the room, searching for proof – a menu, table mats, toothpick holder, cash box even. There was nothing. I was just beginning to consider the implications of this – that we may have gatecrashed a private home – when the front door opened and a portly gentleman strode in, followed by the old woman with the baby and a timid, wraith-like girl carrying two plates of stir-fry.
The man rather drunkenly introduced himself as a professor of English, and launched into a lengthy declaration, welcoming us to Yichang in general and to this honourable household in particular.
“It’s a restaurant?” I pleaded.
"My China welcomes our foreign friends," he gushed, ignoring me. "It is our honour to feed wàiguórén, to banquet and toast them."
“Yes, but . . .” I began, but he wouldn’t allow me continue, instead, using the English language as a slalom course on which to slide, he explained how “hospitality is the kernel of China’s new commitment to the wisdom of Communism with the benefits of Democracy,” and that he was sure that his people would receive exactly the same hospitality if they ever visited our town.
I gulped back my food, saying nothing.