When I was little, on the morning of the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month, there would always be a woman squatting beneath the spirit wall outside the gate of our family courtyard. She was short and stout, wearing an old red padded jacket with cotton wadding sticking out of the cuffs. Someone in the house would go out and give her a box of malt candy and half a tray of dumplings. The woman would leave in great delight, then run off toward the courtyards of other branches of the clan. My mother said she was a madwoman from the village, and because it was Little New Year, no household took offense and each simply gave her a little food to send her on her way.
When I went home for Little New Year last year, I saw that woman again. Strangely enough, she seemed still to be about the same age, only dressed in even worse rags, with wisps of dry grass tangled in her hair. I looked at her carefully. In truth her features were fine and delicate. Aside from the thick dust that covered her, there was no sign of premature age. As before, I handed her malt candy and dumplings. Without even lifting her eyes, she turned and started away, as though our charity were no more than her rightful due. I called after her and held out a half-new white down coat. She stared at me for a long while, then at last shook her head and pointed softly to me, saying, “Young man, could you give me that coat of yours instead?” I was wearing a red Columbia jacket. It had cost only a little over two hundred yuan, but I still hesitated for a moment before taking it off and offering it to her. She smiled, raised her right palm before me for an instant, did not take the coat, and then turned and ran away.
I stood there stunned, unable to move for a very long time, until my mother came out and called me.
I had seen it clearly. In the lines of her palm there was written a highly intricate Chinese character: 爨.
The Book of Rites, in the section “The Sacrificial Offering of the One Animal,” says: “When the meal is finished, they make offerings to the central hearth and the side hearth.” Kong Yingda explained, “The hearth is the sacrifice of the old woman.” The hearth, that is, is the Kitchen God, and legend says the Kitchen God is a woman. Sima Biao of the Western Jin wrote, “The Kitchen God has the form of a beautiful woman, wears red clothes, and is named Ji.” I do not know whether this madwoman’s name was truly Ji. But I do know that there are not many hearths left in China anymore. I have recently been reading American Gods. If the gods across the sea have already fallen into such ruin, how much less are the gods of China exempt? Jiang Taigong has already become a national father to the Koreans. Given enough time, more and more immortals will surely be changing their nationality as well.