微薄的薪水,高尚的情操

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现在，我们可以没有面包，没有钱，没有房子，没有车子……但我们唯独不能丢失的是高尚的情操，笃定的信念，还有，满满的希望！

Liu Ling, Zhu Yuan and Ting Ting (names changed) are tour guides who double as office workers at the travel agency where they work. All three are smart, intelligent, pretty and in their twenties. They dress well, have their hair done every once in a way and smoke cigarettes three times the price of the ones I do. Mine cost me 4 yuan a pack and theirs about 13.

They are all energetic, ready to smile and generous. And, they all welcome me with a musical “laoshi” (teacher). I am not their teacher but I, on occasion, have given them some very basic English lessons. I was introduced to them by their boss Deng Yi (name changed), an old friend.

I dropped in to their office this afternoon after a stroll around the city centre. They welcomed me with warm smiles and the haoting (pleasant sounding) “laoshi”. Deng Yi wasn’t in so I chatted with them for a while and soon it was 6.30 PM, closing time. Before they closed up they invited me to join them for dinner. Lonely as I was I wanted to join them but said a polite “no thanks”. They insisted and I accepted―quite gladly.

We got into a cab and drove to a street-side restaurant, a “daipadang”, housed in a tent. On the way, Liu Ling said they (the three of them) could down 4 jin (2 kg.) of “xia” (crabs) between them. That sounded impressive, especially since I am mostly a vegetarian.

We stood outside the tent for a while as Liu Ling, Zhu Yuan and Ting Ting looked at the fare on view inside a glass-cage―a variety of vegetables and meats that they could choose from. I watched the dapaidang boss’s wife and a fuwuyuan (waitress) scissor the legs off the crabs as they picked them out from a large plastic bowl filled with writhing crabs awaiting their ignominious end. After the legs, they cut their heads off and then pulled their entrails out, collecting them in a smaller plastic bowl.

Later, as we sat inside sipping on our beers from little plastic glasses held in plastic cup-holders the conversation veered to their work. I asked them about their hours of work and on an impulse, their salary. I allowed myself the luxury of asking them such questions in part as a writer and in part as something that is considered acceptable in China. People rarely think twice before asking if one is married, their age, salary or whatever else. If at all anything is considered unacceptable, it is reference to things sexual. The rest is passe.

“Four hundred yuan”, Zhu Yuan answered. I was shocked. That equals a little more than fifty dollars a month. My former English major students from a three-year college in Guangdong, now, after three years of work experience earn ten times the salary these vivacious young women earn. I wonder if knowledge of English makes such a huge difference. After a few moments of reflection I ask them about their education and I learn that they studied high school but did not go to college or university.

“What about the salary of restaurant waitresses? What do they earn?” I enquire. Liu Ling remarks, a sardonic expression on her face, “More than we do”.

I feel a strange sadness and lose my appetite. The crabs, the numerous other dishes fail to attract my attention as I reflect on the way things are in our world.

All I can utter is, “You need to study more to better your lives.”

I think about Deng Yi’s colourful evenings at expensive restaurants, Karaoke bars and night clubs and the pained expression on her beautiful face. And, then I think about Liu Ling, Zhu Yuan and Ting Ting’s meagre salaries, benign looks, generosity and vivacity. I think about my salary and the difficulty I have making ends meet.

I think about China and India and the rest of the world. I feel I know more about life with each passing day but less about China with each passing experience.

“I don’t understand China, I can’t understand China,” something whispers inside...

编者按：

Jack现在江西农业大学任教，对这片土地的热爱促使他千里迢迢从印度来到中国。他很乐意与读者朋友们交流，他的E-mail地址是：