Don’t Cry, Tai Lake

man.”
    Chen pulled out two pairs of chopsticks for them and they didn’t wait for a second invitation, attacking the dishes as if they were at home.
    “The pork tongue is delicious,” Zhang said, pouring beer into his cup, “but the beer tastes like water.”
    Indeed, their cups were the tiny porcelain cups for liquor. So Chen ordered a bottle of Erguotou, the same as the empty bottle on their table. He also talked to the waiter about a salted yellow croaker pot, which Chen wanted to be sure wasn’t from the lake.
    “No, just the Erguotou,” Li cut in like an old friend. “No more dishes.”
    Before the waiter came back with the liquor, Li added in a hurried whisper, “You know how salted croaker is made. People spray DDT all over the fish to preserve it longer and cheaper. The other day I saw a fly landing on a salted fish here. Guess what? The fly died instantly. How poisonous!”
    “Wow!”
    “You’re an extraordinary man,” Zhang said, pouring himself a cup from the new bottle. “I could tell that with one glance.”
    “Having listened to your extraordinary wine game, I have a couple of questions for you.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “Those comments were deep. But what about ‘Fish and shrimp were edible’? Let’s not talk about salted croaker. People relish fresh lake delicacies and especially so here.”
    “Let me tell you something about the fish and shrimp in the lake. You can see how white the smelt looks, can’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Almost transparent, right?” Zhang said, taking a slow drink from his cup. “Now, let me tell you what. The smelt have long, long been immersed in formalin, so that they look dazzlingly white.”
    “What? Aren’t they naturally white?” Chen said. “The three whites of the lake are widely celebrated.”
    “In such a dirty, polluted lake, how can the smelt grow to be white and pure? If anything, they are now ghastly green or black, and no matter how long you put them in clean water, they remain discolored. That’s where the formalin comes in.”
    “However contaminated the fish are, people still have to eat,” Li said with a dramatic sigh, resolutely chopsticking a smelt into his mouth. “To tell you the truth, I’ve not tasted it for months, tainted or not. How can a poor, down-and-out man like me afford to pick and choose?”
    “Confucius says, Rites collapsed, music broken . That’s what happens in China today. When Chairman Mao led our country, there was no gap between the rich and the poor. A company boss earned about the same as a janitor. People all had secure jobs that were nonbreakable, like iron bowls.”
    “You’re wrong, Zhang,” Li said, putting down his cup. “The gap was there under Mao as well, but you didn’t see it, not that easily. Not far away, for instance, is the high-ranking cadre center where Party officials can enjoy all the privileges for free. Could you have ever stepped into it?”
    “Yes, this used to be one of the best resorts for high cadres, and they would come here from all over the country. But with the lake now so polluted, they aren’t so interested in it anymore.”
    Was that the reason for Comrade Secretary Zhao’s refusal to come here? Possibly. In his position, Zhao could afford to pick and choose. Not so for Chief Inspector Chen. In fact, it was an amazing stroke of luck for him to be chosen to come here. Or was it?
    “Wrong again. Do you think those high cadres will have to eat the fish and shrimp from the lake here? No way. Theirs are shipped in specially.”
    Chen nodded. That was exactly what he had heard earlier at the banquet table in the center.
    “What a crying lake! More and more people around here get cancer and other mysterious diseases. My old friend was rushed to the hospital with so much arsenic accumulated in his body that the doctors were all amazed.”
    “What toxic air people breathe every day! More and more babies are born disfigured. My next-door neighbor had a son who was born looking like a toad, all covered with green hair.”
    It began to sound like another round of the drinking game, except it was with more horrible, concrete examples. Chen listened without interrupting, or eating, or drinking. He hadn’t been hungry and was now even less so, while the other two had kept themselves busy devouring, then discussing, as if anxious to pay him back that way.
    “It’s all for the sake of profit. But you can’t blame those factories alone. What else can people really grasp