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on corncakes and salted greens. Stewed meat was sold from a dozen open-air cooking pots—the heads of pigs, sheep, cows, mules and dogs; the feet of pigs, sheep, cows, mules and camels; the livers of pigs, sheep, cows, mules and dogs; the hearts of pigs, sheep, cows, mules and dogs; the stomachs of pigs, sheep, cows, mules and dogs; the entrails of pigs, sheep, cows, mules and dogs; the lungs of pigs, sheep, cows, mules and dogs; and the tails of pigs, sheep, cows, mules and camels. There was also roasted chicken, roasted goose, braised duck, steamed rabbit, barbecued pigeon and fried sparrow…the cutting boards groaned under every possible kind of steaming, and colourful meat. The sellers held gleaming knives; some cut the fine meat into strips, some into chunks. Their red, oily faces looked hale and hearty. Some had thick fingers, some thin; some had long fingers, some short. They were all lucky fingers, free to caress the meat at will, covered in grease and overlain with redolence. How happy I'd have been to turn into one of those fingers. But it was not to be. More than once I was tempted to snatch a piece of meat and stuff it into my mouth, but the knives in their hands were powerful deterrents. So I chewed on my half-frozen corncake as the cold winds swirled round me, and wept tears of sadness. My mood improved if Mother rewarded me with a pig's tail, but how much meat did one of those have? A few mouthfuls at best. I even crunched up the little bones and swallowed them. But the pig's tails merely made the meat-starved worms in my stomach hungrier, and as I stared at the multi-hued meats in front of me my tears flowed unchecked. ‘Why are you crying, son?’ Mother asked. ‘I miss Dieh.’ Her face darkened. But after pondering my answer, she smiled sadly and said: ‘It's not him you miss, son, it's the taste of meat. Don't think you can put something over on me. I can't satisfy that craving of yours, at least not now. The mouth is first to fall prey to pampering, which is inevitably accompanied by trouble. Throughout history, many heroic individuals have lost sight of their ambition and come to grief by surrendering to their mouths. So don't cry, son. I promise you, the day will come when you'll eat your fill of meat. Once we've got a nice house and a truck, once we've got you married, to show that bastard of a father what I can do, I'll cook you a whole cow, then let you climb inside it and eat your way out!’ ‘Niang,’ I said, ‘I don't want a nice house or a truck, and I don't want to get married. All I want is a big plate of meat.’ ‘Son,’ she said solemnly, ‘do you think I have no cravings? I'm human too, I'd love to eat a whole pig too! But life demands that you keep your dignity, and I want your father to see that we're better off without him.’ ‘Better off?’ I said. ‘Like hell we are! I'd rather be a starving beggar with Dieh than live like this with you.’ ‘That hurts, boy,’ she said. ‘I skimp and I save, storing up my anger to pay him back. And for what? For you, you little bastard!’ Then she turned her anger on my father: ‘Luo Tong, I say, Luo Tong, you son of a black-dick donkey, you've ruined my life…If I feasted on fine, spicy food, if I ate and drank what I wanted, my eyes would shine and I'd be as enticing as that whore!’ Mother's mournful outburst moved me to the depths of my soul. ‘You're right, Mother,’ I said. ‘If you ate big meaty meals, I guarantee that within a month you'd turn into a goddess, more beautiful than Aunty Wild Mule. Then Dieh would abandon her and fly back to you.’ ‘Tell me the truth, Xiaotong,’ she asked, her tears flowing, ‘am I really more beautiful than her?’ ‘Sure you are, Niang,’ I said confidently. ‘Then why did he go after a slut who'd been screwed by every man in town? Not just go after her but run off with her?’ I rushed to Father's defence: ‘I heard him say he didn't go looking for Aunty Wild Mule, that she went looking for him.’ ‘What's the difference?’ Mother growled. ‘If the bitch doesn't wiggle her arse, the mutt's wasting his time. If the mutt isn't interested, the bitch wiggles her arse for nothing.’ ‘Mother,’ I said, ‘you wiggle so much you've got me all confused.’ ‘You little snot,’ she snapped, ‘don't pretend you're confused. You knew what was going on between your father and Wild Mule but you helped him keep it a secret. If you'd told me, I'd have stopped him from