The Emperor’s Gift

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I am a cu-zhi. Cu-zhi is the Chinese word for cricket. This is what the character looks like…

Listen; cu-zhi, cu-zhi, cu-zhi, it is the sound or chirr of the cricket. Cu-zhi is also the Chinese word for autumn. No Cu-zhi has known a winter’s morning.

My name’s Sam Sing Song from the land of Mahjong, from the city Shang Hae, by the river Chang Jiang. My charm is my chirr. It chimes cheerful and pure, never shriek, never sharp, never shrill. My singing’s so fine; I’ve a voice so sublime, it brings tears to the eyes of the blue butterflies that live on the hill. Shush, hush, listen be still. Let me sing if you will. My journeys my song won’t you please come along and hear mysteries and secrets revealed.

I begin all my chirrs just that way, like my father and grandfather before me. The chirr is the cricket’s chant. I sing of the Forbidden City, the palace of our young emperor Qianlong. I sing of his magnificent skills in the martial arts, the arts of war, though he is a man of peace. He is a scholar, a scientist, a poet, and an artist. Qianlong is the dragon, the bridge between the gods and us creatures here below. Qianlong is a god.

My family is known for our beautiful chirr. I sing of great voyages, of opulent palaces, of things mysterious, yet in truth I am skinny and shy. I’ve never left my own shadow. I’ve only seen this small sky above our shamble of shrubbery, like my father and my grandfather before him. I’ve heard that the Chang Jiang River circles around the world, through majestic mountains, plunging thousands of feet in misty, deafening waterfalls, through shrouded farmland, small towns and hectic cities. I’ve heard that the river Chang Jiang becomes the river of stars. In the blue pulsing night I sing. My song can carry me higher than the wings of a phoenix. My song soars to that river of stars. When I am alone in the blue shivering night, it is then that I know deep in my heart that one day soon I will meander through the land like the river. I know that somehow I will hop through the gates of the Forbidden City. Those things concealed will be revealed to me. Someday the songs I sing will all come true.

“Sammy, the night is cool, let me sit beside you. We will keep each other warm,” chirrs Suzy Tang. “This must be the most beautiful place on earth.” She coos looking up at the river of stars. She smells of ginger and sweet oranges. I think that she is prettier than the stars. I’m too shy to tell her.

“You must be crazy Suzy. Shang hae is a dangerous, dirty port city. It is a city of strangers who come to make money and leave in a hurry. We live in a shamble of shrubbery. Even the mighty Chang Jiang River crawls through Shang hae choked with garbage and perhaps tears. The river is smart; the river is always leaving. The river knows there are better lands than this. Someday I will wander away from here like the river.”

“I could never leave. My mother and father are here in the shrub, my sisters and brothers, all my friends, and you.”

“That is because you are a girl. Boys need adventure.”

“Your father and your grandfather were once boys, yet they never left the shrub. They could have followed the Grand Canal to Peijing to sing to the emperor’s father. They have beautiful chirrs and could have been chosen by the emperor of old to live in the Forbidden City. They knew there was no place better than here. You should honor your elders and heed their teachings.”

Suzy was right; it was the Grand Canal that could, no would take me north to the Forbidden Palace. Two thousand years ago an army of young men with rolled up sleeves and heavy shovels began digging, and this very day they were still at work dredging its muddy bottom. It was wrong to never stow away aboard a Junk and sail that watery road that men had worked so hard and long to carve out of the rocky ground.

“Do you think you are better than your father and his father?”

“Suzy,” I speak softly to hide my pride, “Emperor Qian long has the gifts of wisdom and strength. His ears are keen. He can hear the whispering of the gods, the ancestors, and the whispers of our enemies. He shares his gifts with his subjects. He is a loving father to China. He teaches us that our gifts are not our own but belong to all of China.

Think of the thousands of men who dug the canal. Think of their strained backs and blistered hands. Think of the thousands of tons of earth lifted by the muscles in their arms. Their bones now lie buried beneath that earth and yet the water flows north, it’s flowed for two thousand years and will still be flowing two thousand years from now. Their gifts were their tired muscles and their calloused hands. They share their gifts with all of China’s children, those long ago turned to ghosts and those yet to be born.

Suzy. My gift is my chirr and one day I will sing for the Emperor. My song will bring him peace and joy in some troubled twilight.”

“Will you sing for me now?” Suzy asks after a long and pondering silence.

“I will sing to you as if you were the Empress herself.”

The soft breeze carries the melody of the river that runs both north and south. Suzy and I chirr in rhythm with the currents, giggling and yawning until the water turns crimson, a darker reflection of the pink morning sky. We sing until the birds chirp their warnings. Then we sleep in the shade of the shrub. We do not sleep for long. I am awoken to a low buzzing of chirr, not song but gossip. The sun through the branches burns my tired eyes.

“They say he died two weeks ago...There will be a contest at the Imperial fair, Qian Long himself will be the judge.”

I jump out into the harsh sunshine. Suzy and her aunts are chirring hushly.

“What are you chirring about?” I ask her.

“It’s nothing, just gossip that my uncle brought back from the docks.”

“Nothing!” Screeches Suzy’s Aunt.

“Nothing!” echoes Suzy’s other Aunt. “The Emperor’s old crooning cricket has gone to his ancestors. He is dead. There is to be a contest in the city of Tianjin during the Imperial fair. All the crickets of China may enter and chirr for Qian Long himself! The emperor will choose a cricket who will live in the royal chambers of the Forbidden Palace. This lucky cricket will live like an emperor. He will sleep on red silk sheets in a sandalwood gold gilded and lacquered room and eat chow-chow made of fruit, peels and ginger. My but I’m hungry! Sammy, your chirr chimes cheerful and charming; if the Emperor has ears then surely you would win.”

“It is mid-morning and I should be dreaming but instead my dreams are coming true.”

“No, Sammy.” Suzy says. “The festival is in October. Tianjin is many miles away. How can you get there in time?”

“Do you forget how fast I can fly?”

“If you fly so fast and so far you will shatter your wings. Your chirr will be weak and hollow; perhaps you would lose your chirr forever. How will you chirr for the emperor?”

Why, I wonder, are my dreams always outside my reach?

“You could fly to the docks in Shanghai, like your father and uncles do to gather exotic food and far away rumors.  There you could jump on board a junk sailing north. You can follow the Grand Canal all the way to the city of Tianjin. You could get there in time and your wings will be well rested. This is so exciting!” says Suzy’s aunt.

Now I am afraid. It is so far away; there are sailors with huge feet and scrub brushes that can reach into dark corners. I would be alone. I have never been alone before. The Emperor Qian Long is a god. How could I sing to a god? I, like my father and grandfather, have never been beyond my own shadow. Had Suzy’s aunt forgotten whom they were speaking to? “But it is only I, Sammy.”

“Your name’s Sam Sing Song from the land of Mahjong…” the aunts began.

I joined in,” from the city Shanghai, by the river Chang Jiang. My charm is my chirr. It chimes cheerful and pure, never shriek, never sharp, never shrill. My song is so fine, I’ve a voice so sublime, it brings tears to the eyes of the blue butterflies that live on the hill Shush, hush, listen, be still. Let me sing if you will. My journeys my song, won’t you please come along, and hear secrets and mysteries revealed.” The song fills me with joy and courage.

I fly hovering above them. I wave goodbye and I am soaring, following the smell of the river to the docks of Shanghai where I have never been before. The markets near the docks smell of fish, garbage and cats. There a man sells squids and black ink, seaweed, pink carp, baskets of shellfish, baskets of dates and ginger root, colored lanterns and thousands of fireworks.

There is the harbor. It is wondrous. There are thousands upon thousands of boats. The air is crowded with the bright colored sails of junks. Most of them are red. They look like the ribbed wings of dragons. The rising sun is just beginning to shine through the red sails. They glow like lanterns. Despite the smell this harbor is the most beautiful place on earth. I am so glad that I left the shrub. There are hordes of men loading thing on to junks and haul them off in carts and wheel barrels. They strain under heavy crates and burlap sacks. They yell and curse and laugh but do not notice me. The boats heave against their moorings like Mongolian horses pulling against their bridles. They creak and moan.

Barefoot men are loosing the moorings of a bright red boat. Red is the color of good fortune. I stow away aboard that boat of good fortune. We follow the river. The men lower a coarse weighted net that sink and disappear quickly beneath the brackish water. They haul the net in bulging with big eyed, fat lipped and frowning catfish and carp. The floorboards are wet, slippery and alive with waving tentacles and flapping tails. The fish are outraged and helpless. A large black fish is swimming across the wet boards towards me, his mouth gaping. I laugh to myself at the sight of the fish moving with such speed and purpose. He does not yet know that he is someone’s dinner. He is swimming towards me; his wide-open mouth is an expanding black circle. The gaping mouth of a catfish is not good fortune! My heart is rattling. My legs and wings forget how to move. It is I who will be someone’s dinner! I know fish have no breath, but I feel a cold breath on my antennas. I whiz straight up into the air like a bottle rocket.

The sun is still low on the eastern horizon. The red boat had been following the river south and not the canal north. I had been heading in the absolute wrong direction. What a foolish cricket I am. A fishing boat! A fishing boat will only return back to the dock after it has filled its hull with fish. Fish eat crickets! It is a very foolish cricket who would stow away aboard a fishing boat. I am very high and can see the docks. The wind is against me. I fly but do not move. I have made a terrible mistake. I must return home to my shamble of shrubbery. I inch across the shifting sky. My fear turns to shame. I cannot return home such a failure. My shame spirals into something darker, pride.

I am shaken and weary, but wiser when I return to the docks. I sit on a grassy slope away from the water’s edge where fisheyes cannot find me. I chirr to the wind and the sky, to earth and to the fiery sun to have mercy on so childish a cricket.

I watch for a boat without nets. I watch for a boat with burlap sacks bulging with rice or crates full of fruits and vegetables. I watch for a boat that is not scrubbed down. I watch for an untidy boat where brushes do no attack every dark corner. Most of all I need a boat going north up the Grand Canal.

I see a small junk named The Dragon Moon. Men are filling her hull with yellow silk, rice and tea. My heart jumps, for I know that this junk will sail all the way to Beijing, to the Forbidden Palace. Yellow is the royal color. It is a crime punished by death to wear yellow silk unless you are a member of the Emperor’s family. I am once again certain that I, like the yellow silk will reside in the Forbidden Palace.