Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh

that some of them had ended the lives of their own sons or daughters in chamber pots or by leaving them by the sides of roads to starve or freeze to death. They were children no one bothered to save. To these people, leaving children by the side of a road or at an intersection was somehow more humane than drowning them in a chamber pot; in fact, this was nothing more than self-consolation by decent fathers and mothers in the grip of poverty. Put out to die, these children had an incredibly slim chance of living, and most probably ended up filling the rumbling stomachs of wild dogs.
    The second group of abandoned children includes those born with disabilities or who are retarded. These children aren't even entitled to end up in a chamber pot. In most cases, the parents bury the child alive in some remote spot before the sun comes up. They then top the burial mound with a brick directly over the infant's abdomen, to keep it from being reborn during the next pregnancy. But this is not always carried out. Shortly after Liberation, Li Manzi, who is now a local district chief, was born with a harelip.
    Illegitimate children comprise the third group of abandoned babies. “Illegitimate” is a powerful insult for anyone, and in my hometown, anytime a young woman gets particularly angry at someone, this is what she calls them. An illegitimate child, of course, is one born to an unmarried woman. Most of these children are bright and attractive, because men and women who are adept at sneaking around to produce a love child are nobody's fools. These offspring have a somewhat higher survival rate, since childless couples are often willing to raise them as their own; often they'll arrange to take them in beforehand, and once they're born, their biological fathers deliver them to their adoptive parents in the dead of night. Others are left someplace where they're easily spotted. And most of the time, money or valuables are tucked into the swaddling cloth. This group of abandoned children often includes boys, while there are seldom any boys in the previous two categories, except for those who are disabled.
    The period after Liberation, owing to improvements in living standards and hygiene, saw a significant drop in the occurrences of abandoned children. But the numbers began to rise again in the 1980s, when the situation grew very complicated. First, there were no boys at all. On the surface, it appeared that some parents were forced into acts of inhumanity by rigid family planning restrictions. But upon closer examination, I realized that the traditional preference for boys over girls was the real culprit. I knew I couldn't be overly critical of parents in this new era, and I also knew that if I were a peasant, I might well be one of those fathers who abandoned his child.
    No matter how much this concept tarnishes the image of the People's Republic, it is an objective reality, one that will be difficult to eradicate in the short term. Existing in a filthy village with foul air all around, even a diamond-studded sword will rust. So, it seems, I awakened to the Truth.
    All night long it rained, but as dawn broke, a ray of sunlight — blood-red, wet and hot — split the dark clouds. I carried the baby over to the bed and asked my wife to watch her. Then I went outside to slosh through the muddy puddles of rainwater and to cross the river on my way to the township government office to ask for help. As I entered the lane, I saw that the sorghum stalk fence had been blown down by gusty winds, leaving lush morning glories to soak in the water. Purple and pink blossoms had turned to face the clearing sky, as if offering a sorrowful complaint. Now that the collapsed fence was no longer a barrier, a clutch of half-grown chickens, their feathers still growing, rushed into the yard to peck frantically at large heads of cabbage.
    The river's floodwater all but submerged the little stone bridge, sending spray high into the air when it crashed against the stones. I twisted my ankle when I jumped off the bridge, and as I hobbled along the dike, I couldn't help but think that this was not a good sign, that this trip to the township office might not solve my problem. But I kept hobbling as best I could toward the row of tiled buildings.
    Rain had washed the government compound until everything was clean and fresh. Red bricks and green tiles, and the surrounding thickets of green bamboo, sparkled wetly. There were no human sounds in the compound.