I remember that I broke my grandfather's favorite fishing rod when I fell. He was going fishing, and I had volunteered to carry the rod. I had it on my shoulder as I ran on ahead. I wasn't careful, and when I fell, the rod caught in the window of a house. My grandfather almost wept as he stroked the broken fishing rod. It was just like when my grandmother stroked her cracked bamboo mat. That mat of finely woven bamboo had been slept on for many years in our home and was a dark red color, like the fishing rod. Although she slept on it, she wouldn't let me sleep on it, and said if I did, I'd get diarrhea. She said the mat could be folded, so in secret I folded it, but as soon as I did, it cracked. I didn't dare tell her, of course, I only said I didn't believe it could be folded. But she insisted that it was made of black bamboo and that black bamboo mats could be folded. I didn't want to argue because she was getting old and I felt sorry for her. If she said it could be folded, then it could, but where I folded it, it cracked. Every summer the crack grew longer, and she kept waiting for a mat mender to come; she waited many years, but no mender came. I told her people didn't do this sort of work anymore and that she'd had the mat so long, she might as well buy a new one, but my grandmother didn't see it that way and always said the older, the better. It was like her: the older she got, the kinder she became and the more she had to say, by repeating herself. My grandfather wasn't like that: the older he got, the less he had to say and the thinner he became, until he was like a shadow, coming and going without a sound. But at night he coughed, and once he started, he couldn't stop, and I was afraid that one day he wouldn't be able to catch his breath. Still, he kept on smoking until his face and fingernails were the color of his tobacco, and he himself was like a dried tobacco leaf, thin and brittle, and it worried me that if he wasn't careful and bumped into something, he might break into little pieces.
My grandfather didn't just fish; he also loved to hunt. He once owned a well-greased shotgun made out of steel tubing. To make the shotgun was a lot to ask of anyone, and it took him half a year to find someone who would do it. I don't recall his bringing home anything except for a rabbit. He came in and threw a huge brown rabbit onto the kitchen floor. Then he took off his shoes, asked my grandmother to fetch hot water so he could soak his feet, and immediately started rubbing some tobacco he'd taken from his pouch. Wild with excitement, I hovered around the dead rabbit with our watchdog, Blackie. Unexpectedly my mother came in and started yelling. Why didn't you get rid of that rabbit like I told you to? Why did you have to buy yourself that shotgun? My grandfather muttered something, and my mother started yelling again. If you must eat rabbit, ask the butcher to skin it before you bring it into the house! My grandfather seemed very old then. After my mother left, he said German steel was good, as if with a shotgun made of German steel he could shoot something more than rabbits.
In the hills not far from the city, he told me, there used to be wolves, especially when the grass started to grow in the spring. Crazed with hunger after starving all winter, the wolves came into the villages and stole piglets, attacked cows, and even ate young cowherd girls. Once they ate a girl and left only her pigtails. If only he'd had a German shotgun then. But he wasn't able to keep even the shotgun he'd had made locally from steel tubing. In the book-burning era of the Cultural Revolution they called it a lethal weapon and confiscated it. He sat on a little wooden stool just staring ahead without saying a word. Whenever I thought about this, I felt sorry for the old man and dearly wanted to buy him a genuine German-made shotgun. I didn't, but I once saw a double-barreled shotgun in a sporting goods store. They told me I would need a letter of introduction from the highest-level sports committee in the province as well as a certificate from the public security office before they could sell it. So it was clear that I would be able to buy my grandfather only a fishing rod. Of course I also know that even with this imported ten-piece fiberglass fishing rod he won't catch anything, because our old home turned into a sandy hollow many years ago.
There used to be a lake not far from our home on Nanhu Road. When I attended primary school, I often passed the lake, but by the time I started junior secondary school, it had turned into a foul pond that produced only mosquitoes. Later, there was a health campaign and the pond was filled in. Our village also had a river. As I recall, it was in an area far from town, and when I was a child, I went there only a couple of times. Once when my grandfather came to visit, he told me that the river had dried up when a dam was built upriver. Even so, I want to buy him a fishing rod. It's hard to explain, and I'm not going to try. It's simply something that I want to do. For me the fishing rod is my grandfather and my grandfather is the fishing rod.
I step into the street shouldering a fishing rod with all its black fiberglass pieces fully extended. I can feel everyone looking at me and I don't like it. I'd like to get on a bus, where I won't be noticed as much, but I can't get the rod to retract. I hate it when people stare at me. Shy since childhood, I am uncomfortable in new clothes, and being dressed up is like standing in a display window; but it's worse carrying this long, swaying, shiny fishing rod. If I walk fast the rod sways more, so I go slow, parading down the street with the rod on my shoulder, feeling as if I've split my trousers or I can't zip up my fly.
Of course I know that people in the city who go fishing are not after fish. The men who buy tickets to fish in the parks are out for leisure and freedom. It's an excuse to escape from home, to get away from the wife and children, and to get a little peace. Fishing is now regarded as a sport, and there are competitions with divisions according to the type of rod used; the evening newspapers rate the sport highly and carry the results. Fishing spots and party venues are designated, but there are no signs of any fish. No wonder skeptics say that the night before the competitions, people from the fishing committee come to put fish into nets, and that's what the sportsmen catch. As I am carrying a brand-new rod on my shoulder, people must think I'm one of those fishing enthusiasts. But I know what it will mean to my old grandfather. I can already see him. So hunched over that he can't straighten his back, he is carrying his little bucket of worms. It is riddled with rust and bits of dirt are falling out of it. I should visit my old home to get over my homesickness.
But first I must find a safe place to put the rod. If that young son of mine sees it, he'll wreck it. I hear my wife shouting at me, Why did you have to buy that? It's cramped enough in here already. Where will you put the thing? I put it above the toilet tank in the bathroom, the only place my son can't reach, unless he climbs onto a stool. No matter what, I must go back to the village to get rid of this homesickness, which, once triggered, is impossible to shake. I hear a loud crash and think it's my wife using the meat cleaver in the kitchen. You hear her yelling, Go and have a look! You then hear that son of mine crying in the bathroom and know that calamity has befallen the fishing rod. You've made up your mind. You're taking the fishing rod back to your old home.