Tihu Notes | Blind Master

There was a man surnamed Yang from Fenyang. I no longer remember his given name. His home was in Yanwu Town, and his family was a wealthy one. The Yangs had long been at odds with the Dai family of the same town. The two households checked one another, now one rising, now the other, so that in the end neither could do anything decisive against the other. One year, when the coal-mine bosses of western Shanxi gathered in disorderly protest and smashed the town government offices, the Dai family took advantage of the chaos to send men to burn the Yang granary. They also wounded several of the Yang kinsmen with blades and killed one of them. Because Yang himself had taken part in the disturbances among the mine owners, he fled far away to avoid trouble. The Yang family, lacking evidence and not daring to report the matter to the authorities, could only swallow the bitterness in silence. From then on, the hatred between the two families deepened all the more.

Tihu Notes | Louse Divination

In the spring of the Dinghai year, I returned with my family to Jinzhong to visit relatives. Among my cousins on my uncles’ side, most of those of my own generation were already married, and my elders reproached me often enough on that point. One day my grandmother heard that north of the city gate there was a beggar skilled in divination, and that people seeking readings went to him in an endless stream. It happened that my cousin Zusheng also meant to go and ask about his fortune, so my grandmother sent the two of us together. Beneath the old northern wall of the city there stood a wooden basin, more than four feet across and the color of jujube pits, and the beggar sat cross-legged inside it. There was more than an inch of filthy water pooled in the bottom, giving off waves of stench. Along the foot of the wall, dozens of people were lined up waiting for their fortunes to be told. We joined the end of the line and waited more than an hour before our turn came. I had always known that diviners observe four prohibitions, one of which is that the unclean are not to be divined for, so I did not believe in him at all. I let Zusheng go first to see what sort of trick the beggar had up his sleeve.

Tihu Notes | Rainbow Inkstone

A hundred miles north of Wuyuan there is a village called Hongguan, also an old town famed for producing Huizhou ink. In history it won the praise, “Unmatched gateway between Wu and Chu, first pass on the ancient Hui-Rao road.” I do not know the origin of the village’s name, Hongguan, but I had heard that night rainbows often appeared there after dark, and this made me intensely curious. A night rainbow is simply a rainbow that appears at night. If the moonlight is bright enough and the air contains suitable clouds and raindrops, a rainbow may form. Since moonlight is after all not as strong as sunlight, night rainbows are generally very dim, and among the common people are called white rainbows. China already had ancient verses praising rainbows, such as “Last night the Jade Emperor’s carriage set forth, and across ten thousand miles of sky a painted bridge was raised,” and the Book of Wei also contains records of observed night rainbows.

Tihu Notes | Whale Ink

Gongshang Kan, a native of She County, called himself an ink master.

In the “Eminent Learning” chapter of Han Feizi it is written: “After Mozi’s death, there was the Mohism of the Xiangli clan, the Mohism of the Xiangfu clan, and the Mohism of the Dengling clan; Mohism divided into three.” In his daily habits Gongshang Kan lived on plain food and tea, and wore coarse hemp tied around his right ankle. Those who knew such things said that this was indeed the dress of the Xiangli branch of Mohism.

Tihu Notes | Green Paper

When I was small, there was no good physician nearby, so I often had to go to the neighboring county of Huguan to seek treatment. Near the right-side lane just inside Huguan’s eastern gate there was an apothecary that treated only odd complaints such as mouth sores and chapped skin, infantile convulsions, madness, and poisonous sores. When I was four years old, I was once taken there because of convulsions. My mother told me that the physician there merely asked what symptoms I had, took out a black-gold book, tore out a certain page, burned it, and had me swallow the ashes with warm water. Within a few days I was well. I always felt that this way of treating illness was wonderfully strange, but I was too young then to remember it clearly.

Tihu Notes | Brushmaking

Quzhou has long been known as “the thoroughfare of four provinces and the meeting head of five roads.” Its shops stand dense and its merchants gather like clouds, making it an excellent place to hunt for curious objects. On Upper Street in Kecheng there was once an unremarkable little shop called Guancang Brush House, which sold nothing but writing brushes of every kind. One summer year I bought there a mixed-hair brush with a tip made of seven parts purple rabbit and three parts goat, and a handle of purple sandalwood. Such a brush was not unusual in Quzhou. They were sold everywhere, and the workmanship on this one was quite ordinary. There was not even any carved inscription, wire inlay, or lacquer painting on the shaft. Yet the brush wrote very smoothly, so I used it for my correspondence ever after. When winter came that year, the brush unexpectedly began to shed hair. I assumed I had bought a fake and left it neglected on the brush rack. But one day in the twelfth month I happened to glance at it and found that the tip had turned gray-white in color, full and rounded. I tried writing a few characters with it, and to my surprise the hairs came to a perfectly even point and the brush strength was firm and vigorous. Greatly puzzled, I began using it again. After spring arrived, it started shedding once more, its hairs turning blue-black, and when I wrote with it the strokes came out full and the ink flowed evenly. Only then did I realize that I had in fact bought a fine brush.

Tihu Notes | Biheng

Mo Hui, a native of Ji, made his living by writing columns for all kinds of newspapers and magazines. His articles were deeply loved by readers, and his fees were generous. But after returning from one writers’ gathering organized by a certain journal in Jingcheng, he suddenly found his ideas dried up. He had no inspiration at all and could not write a single word. Dozens of commissioned pieces had to be abandoned. At first Mo Hui thought he was simply overworked, so he traveled for more than a month. Later he even underwent several courses of psychological counseling, yet still saw not the slightest improvement.

Tihu Notes | Listening to Books

My old friend Su Xiao came from Shuyang in northern Jiangsu. She once told me that out in the Shuyang countryside there was a rough earthen temple enshrining two guardian figures, one with a red face and protruding fangs, the other with a blue face and golden horns. According to local legend, they represented the celestial generals Clairvoyant Eyes and Wind-Following Ears. During the Cultural Revolution, the statue of Clairvoyant Eyes was smashed, and only Wind-Following Ears remains to this day.

Tihu Notes | Aye-Aye

The lock on my door was old, and after several days of cold rain it finally rusted solid. There was a key-cutting stall at the mouth of the alley, run by a thin middle-aged man. After hearing what had happened, he picked up a new lock and gestured for me to lead the way. I asked whether he needed to bring any other tools. He waved his hand and said there was no need.

Tihu Notes | Jinzhi

My friend Li Mo, who studied in northern Hebei, majored in drama, yet she was also highly accomplished on the guzheng. Li Mo once told me that when she was seven, her mother took her to the provincial conservatory for a graded guzheng examination. Outside the exam hall the street was choked with traffic. An old man sat collapsed in the middle of the road, his face scraped and bloodied. Many people passed by, yet no one stepped forward to help him up. As Li Mo and her mother went by, her mother told her to go and help the old man to his feet. She also taught her that if no one was willing to help such an old man, then when one’s own parents grew old and fell in the street, there would be no one left to help them either. With some effort, Li Mo supported the old man to the roadside. He then told her to open the instrument case on her back. Li Mo’s guzheng was the cheapest sort sold on the market. The old man took a brush from his robe, swept a single stroke across the instrument, then turned and walked away, his steps more vigorous than a young man’s.