Don’t Cry, Tai Lake

whites in Wuxi.”
    “Not good.”
    “Really! The white fish came fresh from the lake. It was recommended on the menu.”
    “You’re from Shanghai, so you don’t know. Local farmers raise fish in enclosed ponds, and they add drugs to the water to increase production. For instance, antibiotics, lots of them—so the fish won’t get sick,” she said. “Now let’s suppose, instead of being pond-raised, the fish is caught in the lake. You should take a good look at the lake. The water is so polluted that it is totally undrinkable. How could the fish from there be any good?”
    He had heard stories of serious environmental problems throughout the country, not just here in Wuxi.
    “Is the water really so bad? Not long ago I heard a song about the beautiful water of Tai Lake. You know it.”
    “Yes, they play it on TV,” she said, pausing before she went on. “You’re a tourist, so you may not know. Have you seen or heard of the green algae blooms in the lake?”
    “No, I haven’t been back to Wuxi in years, and I only arrived yesterday. I haven’t been able to walk around the lake yet.”
    “The whole lake is covered with a thick, foul-smelling canopy, leaving people without drinking water for the last several days.” She raised the bottle of water.
    “Have people tried to do anything about it?”
    “What’s the use? The city government calls the outbreak a ‘natural disaster’—due to the warm weather, the bacteria ‘exploded’ at rates unseen in the past. Whatever reason they may make up, though, you wouldn’t believe it if you saw pictures of the factories dumping waste into the lake. The local residents form long lines to buy bottled water, and the neighboring cities shut sluice gates and canal locks to prevent the contamination from spreading. Still, the local officials won’t do anything because Wuxi’s economic boom has been built on the ever-increasing revenue of the factories around the lake. Economic miracle indeed. The only standard for success in today’s China is money, so people are capable of doing anything and everything.”
    She wasn’t just being fastidious about food or jumping on one of the fashionable trends of vegetarian diets or organic food. Instead of simply doing the job she’d been assigned, checking on environmental problems, it seemed that she had made efforts to look into the social and historical causes too.
    “Oh, I shouldn’t be such a wet blanket,” she exclaimed, noticing the fish sitting untouched on the platter.
    “From my window at the center, the lake appeared okay. Like in a Tang poem, the spring water ripples bluer than the sky.” At least one advantage of an identity as a bookish tourist was that he could quote poetry at length, letting it say what might otherwise be too difficult. Serious, yet not that serious.
    “Where are you staying?”
    “Wuxi Cadre Recreation Center.”
    “But that’s a place for high-ranking cadres, and you’re—you told me you’re a schoolteacher.”
    “Someone gave me his vacation package. A small potato like me couldn’t afford to let it go.”
    “I see,” she said, eyeing him up and down. “For free?”
    “For free.” He wondered whether she believed him. But it was true, and he noted that she was not in a hurry to leave—not yet.
    “You’re going to the ferry,” he said on the spur of the moment. “How about letting me walk you to the ferry? You can tell me more things about the lake.”
    And something about the murder too, he thought but didn’t say.
    “I’m not a good guide for a tourist.”
    “No, perhaps not for a tourist, but what you said about the lake interests me,” he said, pointing at his notebook before he closed it. “As I said, occasionally, I write poetry too. The image of the horribly polluted lake may serve as a poignant background, like in ‘The Waste Land.’”
    She studied him with a sort of mixed expression, and then changed her mind.
    “Fine, let’s walk there. But I have to warn you, it’s not the part of the lake you can see from your window at the center.”
    “It doesn’t have to be,” he said. He rose and left some money under the platter on the table. “Let’s go.”
    They were already close to the end of the street when Uncle Wang hurried out of the kitchen, waving his hands, shouting out to them.
    “Your white fish, Mr. Chen, and your steamed buns, Shanshan!”
    “Don’t worry about it. We’re going to the lake,” he said, waving back at him.