Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

class, no more struggles. All anyone can see these days is money. I’ve got two hundred acres of land over in Sandy Ridge, and plenty of ambition. I’ve set up an exotic bird breeding farm. I’ve given myself ten years to bring all the exotic birds in the world here to Northeast Gaomi Township. By then, I’ll have enough money to secure influence. Then, with money and influence, the first thing I’m going to do is erect a pair of statues of my parents in Sandy Ridge …” He was so excited by his plans for the future, his eyes lit up blue and he thrust out his scrawny chest, like a proud pigeon. Jintong noticed that when they weren’t selling something, the vendors on the bridgehead were watching him and Parrot Han, who never stopped gesticulating. His feelings of inferiority returned, accompanied by regrets that he hadn’t gone to see slutty Wei Jinzhi the barber for a shave and a haircut before leaving the labor reform camp.
    Parrot Han took some bills out of his pocket and stuffed them into Jintong’s hand. “It’s not much, Little Uncle, but I’m just starting out and things are still pretty tight. Besides, that stinking old lady of mine still has a string tied to my money, and I don’t dare treat Grandma the way she deserves, not that I could. She nearly coughed up blood raising me. Things couldn’t have been harder for her, and that’s something I won’t forget even when I’m old and my teeth fall out. I’ll make things right for her once I carry out my plans.” Jintong put the bills back into Parrot Han’s hand. “Parrot,” he said, “I can’t take that.” “Not enough?” That embarrassed Jintong. “No, it’s not that…” Parrot put the bills back into Jintong’s sweaty hand. “So, you look down on your useless nephew, is that it?” “After what I’ve become, I don’t have the right to look down on anyone. You’re special, a thousand times better than your absolutely worthless uncle …” “Little Uncle,” Parrot said, “people don’t understand you. The Shangguan family is made up of dragons and phoenixes, the seed of tigers and panthers. Too bad the times were against us. Just look at you, Little Uncle — you’ve got the face of Genghis Khan, and your day will come. But first go home and enjoy a few days with Grandma. Then come see me at the Eastern Bird Sanctuary.”
    Parrot walked over and bought a bunch of bananas and a dozen oranges from one of the vendors. He put them into a nylon bag for Jintong and told him to take them to Grandma. They said good-bye on the new bridge, and as Jintong looked down at the glistening water, he felt his nose begin to ache. So he found an isolated spot, where he put down his bag, and went to the river’s edge, where he washed the dirt and grime off his face. He’s right, he was thinking. Since I’m home, I’ve got to grit my teeth and make my mark — for the Shangguan family, for Mother, and for myself.
    Calling upon his memory, he made his way back to the old family home, where so many exciting events had occurred. But what spread out before him was a vast stretch of open land, where a bulldozer was just then knocking down the last remnants of the wall that had encircled the house. He thought back to what Parrot had said while they were on the top of the bus: the three counties of Gaomi, Pingdu, and Jiaozhou each gave up a tract of land for a new city, the center of which was to be the town of Dalan. So the spot where he was standing would soon become a thriving city, and his house was planned as the site for a seven-story high-rise that would house the Dalan Metropolitan Government offices.
    Streets had already been widened, paved with gravel over clay, and bordered by deep ditches, in which workers were in the process of burying thick water mains. The church had been razed, and a sign that read “Great China Pharmaceutical Company” hung above Sima’s house. A fleet of beat-up old trucks was parked on the onetime church grounds. All the millstones from the Sima family mill house were lying here and there in the mud, and on the spot where the mill had once stood a circular building was going up. Amid the rumbling of a cement mixer and the biting odor of heated tar, he passed by teams of surveyors and gangs of laborers, most of them drunk on beer, as he walked out of a construction site that had once been his village and onto the dirt path that led to the stone bridge over the Black Water River.
    As he was crossing the