Polka Theatre Writing the World

WRITING THE WORLD - CHINA

Jamila Gavin 7 January
The brief is to write a story inspired by China. It should be not more than 1000 words.

I have decided to join you in this project, and also write a story. But how to begin? As a child, all I knew about China was from a favourite picture book about a duck called Ping, who lived on the Yangtze River!

Though I've been in so many places in the world, I've never been to China, and don't know many Chinese people – except for the lovely family who runs one of the best Chinese restaurants I've ever eaten in – right here in Stroud, Gloucestershire, where I live. I did have a very good friend over forty years ago, who was from HongKong, called Marina. We were at music college together and, later, I also fostered a child (now grown up) who was half Chinese and who, in recent years, has been getting to know the Chinese side of her family. Will I get some ideas from what I know of them?

When I'm given a brief like this, I try to connect with it in a very personal way. For example, I love travel, music, and dance, and theatre, and I know those things might inspire me to think up a story. I will think about people who have interested me in some way – whether or not they are Chinese - and maybe, turn them into my Chinese characters. That's what writers do. They are like magpies, picking up things that glitter and catch their eye, and reinvent them, so they can put them in a story. It will mean doing a bit of research; perhaps listening to some Chinese music, finding out more about China. – but I'll aim to write about what I know and feel, and what interests me.

So task number one for me will be to find a character; find an aspect or situation which really interests me, and work in a human storyline: being lost, going on a journey, having a secret or a fantasy, being given something – say from China – which has something magical about it, making a strange discovery.

I wonder what you will do! I look forward to your stories.

Happy writing!
Jamila Gavin

P.S. Did you know that one of the oldest versions of Cinderella was discovered in China, and this story is over two thousand years old? Think of a Chinese Cinderella, wearing Chinese clothes and eating Chinese food. That might give you ideas!

28 January
I've been gradually gathering everything I knew about China, and what elements were catching my imagination. Old China, new China. I've been reading poems and myths, I've been to the Chinese Warrior exhibition at the British Museum, I have been watching some Chinese films such as ‘Light the Red Lantern’, and ‘Farewell My Concubine’. I've been remembering that animals play a big part in Chinese philosophy and thinking. Every Chinese year is named after an animal.

A kind of story is formulating: I've found myself thinking about a peasant boy who lives not far from a lake. He likes to go there - it's lonely and he has his favourite spot from where he can look across the lake to the other side. He has been watching another boy come each day to practise singing, acting and martial arts. Somewhere beyond is a theatre school, and sometimes other children come down to the lake and practise tricks and routines and their parts in plays. The peasant boy wishes he could join them. He copies what they do - and knows he's as good as they are, but knows also that he can never join them. Then he hears that there is a big plan to flood the lake and create a huge dam. If this happens, his village will be submerged, they will have to move away and everything will change.

This terrible thing is going to happen in a few days. The boy goes down to the lake - full of sadness. There is a golden carp in the lake - a fabulous fish......

So! These are my ideas. I shall fiddle and twiddle and gradually pull out the essence of my story. It's like collecting ingredients for a recipe. Soon I shall start deciding what goes in the pot, and what I want to come out.

Hope you are all getting your ideas together!

Best wishes,
Jamila

9 April

Here are some early drafts I've come up with for my China-themed story...

CHI
Chi was in charge of the pigs. He had been doing this job ever since he had reached the height of their ears, and his mother had put a stick in his hand, and told him to herd them out into the countryside to forage. But now his mother had followed his father to the city, and Chi had been left in the charge of an aunt and uncle, who didn’t love him, and treated him badly.
At first, when he was still very young, he was only in charge of his uncle’s pigs, and came back each noon to eat a bowl of rice and some stewed bean sprouts. But, later, as all the other people in the village asked him to herd their pigs too, he filled a small pumpkin shell with rice and vegetables, wrapped it into a cloth bundle, which he tied to the end of his stick, and took to driving his pigs further afield, wandering from dawn till dusk, which is how he found his lake; his secret lake; Chi’s Lake, as he liked to call it.
Chi had discovered this lake all by himself and, because he never ever saw anyone else there – not even fishermen, he felt it was his. It was fed by several streams which ran down from the surrounding high mountains, gathering at the bottom of a steep canyon into a cold, crystal clear stretch of water. Only in the hottest of summers did he ever enter the water as it made his feet and hands go numb.
It was here, unseen and unheard by anybody, he loved to sing and act, and pretend he was in the theatre. He had once seen some travelling players, and longed more than anything to be like them. He would leap onto the rocks and bellow out songs, and fling out his arms with some wonderful oratory.
But when he had worn out his voice, and while his pigs scuffled and shuffled into the undergrowth, he liked to wander along the shore collecting pebbles suitable for stone skipping. He looked for the smooth, flat pebbles and added them to his pocket, already bulging with stones. Then he his fingers blindly shuffled and filtered them, selecting the next stone for him to skip.
Sometimes, when the wind blew up, the water could be choppy, and ruffled, making it impossible to skip stones. But today, the lake was as flat as a lady’s hand mirror, with the sun glancing across its surface, gold and grey, silver and green, glimmering in the depths below.
Ah! His fingers closed over a stone which seemed exceptionally smooth, and flat, yet which had some kind of shape to it - though, at that moment, he was only thinking of how far it would skip. He positioned himself on the shore with legs apart, bending low to be parallel to the water’s surface. He twisted his body right round for extra power, drew back his arm and, with the stone held flat between his thumb, and first and second fingers, he spun forwards expelling it with all his force across the surface of the water. The pebble skipped: one, two… three, four, five….six….seven, eight…“NINE!” he yelled with triumph. “NINE skips. Just wait till I tell the other boys,” and he began to sing a loud sweet, piercing triumphant song. “Let the heavens tremble, let the waters groan, I skipped a pebble, nine times. I am the champ-i-on.”
His voice rang across the waters, making spindly silver birches quiver with echoes. He had just taken another breath to start a new phrase, when he noticed a vast shape looming beneath the surface of the water. He stared in amazement as a huge fish with golden scales, and a gleaming white as a pearl belly, swam towards him. With a mixture of awe and fear, Chi backed away, terrified of its gaping mouth, and the menacing-looking feelers which dangled on either side of its jaws. He knew it was a carp. The biggest carp he’d ever seen in any fisherman’s net.
The carp came so close, its belly brushed the sandy bottom before it rested, looking at him through the clear water with strange green eyes. The lake was always a quiet place, yet never without the hooting of coots, moorhens and the metalic link of finches rattling around in the trees. But as the golden creature gazed at him, there was a silence, as though he had become deafened, and his breath was stifled in his throat. It was as if a magician had cast a spell and frozen all movement and, though Chi wanted to back away from the open-mouthed fish and its staring eyes, he couldn’t move.
A century could have passed, or just an instant, when a pebble slid from the fish’s mouth and began to sink in a slow, wavering descent. Then the carp flicked its tail and, without even breaking the surface, plunged into the depths and was lost from sight.
With a reflex action, as swift as a serpent, Chi’s hand plunged into the water and grasped the stone. As he held it in his hand, he knew it was his stone – the stone which had skipped nine times. What did it mean?
He sat on the shore, and cradled the pebble in the palms of his hands. It wasn’t an ordinary stone, now that he looked at it carefully. It was green, translucent, and shaped like a fish. How precious; how extraordinary; what should he do with it? Holding it close to his chest, he lay back, feeling an irrepressible desire to sleep.
(755)
Whether he slept and dreamed, or simply slept and awoke, he had no idea, but suddenly, he heard a sound. It was singing. Someone else was singing by his lake. Was it some strange bird? The voice curled across the waters, merging with the curlews, and the thrushes, calling their families together for the night.
The dying sunbeams gleamed on the surface of the water. Through bedazzled eyes, he glimpsed a figure on the other side of the lake, standing among the reeds by the water’s edge; a slender young girl, in a long silken dress, her hands covered by sleeves floating like mists around her wrists, and her long unpinned hair blowing about her face like clouds. The way the light reflected on water and silk, she seemed to levitate among the tall reeds.
Chi jumped to his feet and ran to the water’s edge to see more clearly. She seemed to beckon him and, with barely a second thought, he plunged into the icy lake and began to swim.
What madness! What on earth possessed him? Not only was the water freezing, but the other side of the lake looked farther with every stroke he made. Soon he began to feel his legs cramping, and the water surging into his gasping mouth.
Just when he thought he must surely drown, he felt something glide under him and buoy him up. It was the smooth strength of the golden carp. Instinctively, he clasped his arms around its slippery neck, before he slipped into unconsciousness.

The chill awoke him. The reeds around the lake were shivering restlessly. He could see the light among the reeds, and thought it was the sun still setting, but then he realised the sun was rising there to the east behind a spindly copse. He had slept there all night.
“Have you come to return my jade?” said a high tuneful voice.”
He turned.

Clambering out among the reeds where she had stood, he searched for any sign of her, but found nothing; no footprint in the soft mud between the reeds, nor a silken thread caught by the thorn bushes. But a slight dusty path led upwards through a wood of silver birches. He followed it on and on – abandoning his pigs for longer than he knew he should. He was about to turn back, when the ground dipped, and there in a hollow below, he saw some low roofs, and the sound of voices chanting; children’s voices.

Somehow, nobody greeted him with a beating, or angry words. Noone seemed to have realised how late he was. With a feeling of foreboding, he hurriedly shut the pigs in their sheds, and crept towards the temple where he realised everyone had gathered. Among flickering braziers and flares, the faces of the villagers were etched with anxiety.
He saw old grandmother, the oldest person in the village, wrapped tightly in her shawl.

They were talking about a dam; how their valley was to be flooded, all their houses drowned, and everything – their peach and cherry orchards, their beanfields and barley crops, and even their little temple surrounded by peach trees – all were to be submerged in a vast lake. “It is progress!” declared an official who was not from their village.
“Where will we go? What shall we do?” wailed the villagers.
The government will pay you,” said the man. But no one believed him.

A strange, high, distant sound. Without opening his eyes, he lay there, enchanted, in a half dream, wondering if it was some sort of magical bird. Gradually though, as the sound continued, he realised it was someone singing. He sat up, abruptly awake, resentful at the thought that someone else knew of his lake.

And another idea...

A DANCER BY THE LAKE

Chi was in charge of the pigs. He had been doing this job ever since he had reached the height of their ears, and then his mother put a stick in his hand, and told him to herd them out into the countryside to forage. At first he would come back to their small house at midday, to eat a bowl of rice and some stewed bean sprouts but, as he got older, he filled a small pumpkin shell with rice and vegetables into a cloth whch he tied to the end of his stick , and set off for the day.
This freed him to wander all day long, and go much farther afield with his pigs – especially to go to the crystal lake – or Chi’s Lake – as he liked to call it. He had discovered this lake all by himself and, because he never ever saw anyone else there – not even fishermen, he felt it was his. It was fed by several streams which ran down from the surrounding high mountains, gathering at the bottom of a steep canyon into a cold, crystal clear stretch of water. Only in the hottest of summers did he ever enter the lake, and even then, it made his feet and hands go numb. Mostly, while his pigs scuffled and shuffled into the undergrowth, he liked to skip pebbles across the water’s limpid surface, or observe the different patterns the wind made on the lake, or see the water fowl scuttling in and out of the reeds with their hooting, pipping and cheeping sounds. Sometimes, he scratched pictures on one of the flat table-like boulders with a sharp stone, till the hot sun on his neck made him sleepy, and he just stretched out and dozed off.
He had dropped off that day, to be woken by a strange, high, distant sound. Without opening his eyes, he lay there, enchanted, in a half dream, wondering if it was some sort of magical bird. Gradually though, as the sound continued, he realised it was someone singing. He sat up, abruptly awake, resentful at the thought that someone else knew of his lake. The sunlight flashed on the surface of the water nearly blinding him yet, through bedazzled eyes, he glimpsed a figure on the other side of the lake, standing among the reeds by the water’s edge; a slender young girl, in a long silken dress, her hands covered by floating sleeves, her unpinned hair blowing around her. Reflections of sun on water and silk enveloped her; made her seem as if she levitated above the surface of the lake. Then the singing stopped and she was gone.
Chi scrambled to his feet and ran to the water’s edge to see more clearly. But she was no longer there - only a faint coil of mist rising from the lake. His resentment turned to one of mysterious excitement. It gave him energy and, with barely a second thought, he plunged into the icy lake in a belief that he could swim to the other side.
Clambering out among the reeds where she had stood, he searched for any sign of her, but found nothing; no footprint in the soft mud between the reeds, nor a silken thread caught by the thorn bushes. But a slight dusty path led upwards through a wood of silver birches. He followed it on and on – abandoning his pigs for longer than he knew he should. He was about to turn back, when the ground dipped, and there in a hollow below, he saw some low roofs, and the sound of voices chanting; children’s voices.

Fish? Jade. Ghost?
Story of a valley about to be flooded?

And here's the first draft of my final story - you'll notice it's too long - so I had to edit it down a bit.

THE GOLDEN CARP

Soo Yin was in charge of the pigs. She had been doing this job ever since she had reached the height of their ears, and her grandmother had put a stick in her hand, and told her to herd them out into the countryside to forage. Everyday, she wandered from dawn till dusk, which is how she found her secret lake; Soo Yin’s Lake, as she liked to call it.
It was fed by several streams which ran down from the surrounding high mountains, gathering at the bottom of a steep canyon into a cold, crystal clear stretch of water. Only in the hottest of summers did she ever enter the water as it made her feet and hands go numb.
On the far side of the lake, hidden somewhere beyond a small wood of silver birch, must have been some kind of school for actors, because sometimes, the children would come down to the shore to practise their singing and dancing. How she loved watching them perform amazing acrobatics, leaping on each other’s shoulders, turning cartwheels, or doing beautiful graceful movements which told a story. And when they sang, which they always did, Soo Yin would join in, their voices echoing across the lake among the floating lilies, and the shivering reeds.
No one ever came to her side of the lake, so it was here, unseen and unheard by anybody, Soo Yin copied what the children did, singing the songs they sang, and trying to learn their acrobatic tricks.
Sometimes though, after Soo Yin had checked on her pigs, which scuffled and shuffled in the undergrowth, she wandered along the shore collecting pebbles suitable for stone skipping; smooth, flat pebbles to add to her pocket, already bulging with stones, and her fingers blindly shuffled and filtered them, selecting the next one for her to skip.
Today, the lake was as flat as a lady’s hand mirror, with the sun glancing across its surface, gold and grey, silver and green, glimmering in the depths below.
Ah! Her fingers closed over a stone. It seemed exceptionally smooth, and flat, with a shape to it - though, she was only thinking of how far it would skip. Soo Yin positioned herself on the shore with legs apart, bending low to be parallel to the water’s surface. She twisted her body right round for extra power, drew back her arm and, with the stone held flat between her thumb, and first and second fingers, spun forwards expelling it with all her force across the surface of the water. The pebble skipped: one, two… three, four, five….six….seven, eight…“NINE!” she yelled with triumph. “NINE skips. Just wait till I tell everyone,” and she sang a loud sweet, piercing triumphant song.
“Let the heavens tremble,
Let the waters groan,
I skipped a pebble, nine times.
I am the champ-i-on.”
Her voice rang across the waters. She had just taken another breath to start a new phrase, when she noticed a vast shape looming beneath the surface of the water. She stared in amazement as a huge fish with golden scales, and a gleaming white as a pearl belly, swam towards her. With a mixture of awe and fear, Soo Yin backed away, terrified of its gaping mouth, and the menacing-looking feelers which dangled on either side of its jaws. She knew it was a carp. The biggest carp she’d ever seen in any fisherman’s net.
The carp came so close, its belly brushed the sandy bottom before it rested, looking at him through the clear water with strange green eyes. Although there was the hooting of coots, moorhens and the metallic clink of finches rattling around in the trees, there was a silence, as though she had become deafened, and her breath stifled in her throat. It was as if a magician had cast a spell. Soo Yin wanted to back away from the open-mouthed fish and its staring eyes, but she couldn’t move.
A century could have passed, or just an instant, when a pebble slid from the fish’s mouth and began to sink in a slow, wavering descent. Then the carp flicked its tail and, without even breaking the surface, plunged into the depths and was lost from sight.
With a reflex action, as swift as a serpent, Soo Yin plunged her hand into the water and grasped the stone. As she held it, she knew it was her stone – the one which had skipped nine times. What did it mean?
She cradled the pebble in the palms of her hands. Now that she studied it, she could see it wasn’t an ordinary stone: it was creamy, translucent, with a golden glow, and shaped like a fish. It was as if she held the very soul of the golden carp who had brought it back to her. How precious, how extraordinary, how magical!
With a shock, she realised she had forgotten the pigs. Thrusting the jade into her pocket, she grabbed her stick and rushed away calling “Oi,oi,oi!” it took till sunset, before she returned to her village, hurrying the pigs along in the dark.
Somehow, nobody greeted her with a beating, or angry words. No one seemed to have noticed how late she was. With a feeling of foreboding, she hurriedly shut the pigs in their sheds, and crept towards the temple where everyone had gathered. Among flickering braziers and flares, the faces of the villagers were etched with anxiety. She saw her grandmother, bundled into her shawl, as if it were the only shelter she would ever have again. They were talking about a dam; how their valley was to be flooded, all their houses drowned, and everything – their plum and cherry orchards, their beanfields and barley crops, and even their little temple surrounded by peach trees – all were to be submerged in a vast lake. “It’s progress!” declared an official who was not from their village.
“Where will we go? What shall we do?” wailed the villagers.
“The government will pay you,” said the man. But no one believed him.
Later, as she lay down on her mat to sleep, she listened to Grandmother moving about in the darkness muttering; “What am I to do with the girl? She’ll be nothing but a hindrance. I can go to my son, Chi in the city. He’ll take me in – but not with this girl. What did I do to anger my ancestors, that they should have cursed him with a female baby?”
Soo Yin felt for her jade fish, and held it to her face. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She was a burden. Even her parents hadn’t wanted her. They had left her with grandmother soon after she was born, and gone to the city promising to send money back. But they never did. At last she slept, dreaming of being a famous dancer, in silken gowns, her black hair bound up behind her neck, and held with diamond pins, and bejewelled combs.
With the dawn light, Soo Yin, went from house to house collecting the pigs and, as usual, drove them along the path, beyond the woods, and down into the valley to her secret lake. If what the man had said was true, her secret lake would disappear under the vast dam they were going to build. She could hardly bear the thought. The pigs snuffled along the shore, as she stood at the waters edge, watching the sun rise among the reeds, and tingeing the white petals of the lilies with a pink hue.
“Where are you, golden carp?” she whispered, staring at the wind drifting across the surface of the lake.
Then she heard a sound. It was singing. Was it some strange bird? The voice curled across the waters, merging with the curlews, and the thrushes, as they prepared for their day.
The sunbeams sparkled on the surface of the water. Through bedazzled eyes, she glimpsed a figure on the far side of the lake, standing among the reeds by the water’s edge; a slender young girl, in a long silken dress embroidered with gold, her hands covered by sleeves floating like mists around her wrists, and her long unpinned hair blowing about her face like clouds. The way the light reflected on water and silk, she seemed to levitate among the tall reeds.
Soo Yin stared as if mesmerised. That’s me. That’s who I want to be. The woman turned. Even from that distance, their eyes met and, the beautiful lady, the Soo Yin of the future, raised her hand and beckoned.
What madness possessed her? Soo Yin plunged into the icy lake and began to swim. Not only was the water freezing, but the other side of the lake looked farther with every stroke she made, and her clothes filled with water and began to drag her under.
Just when she thoughts he must surely drown, she felt something glide under her buoying her up. It was the smooth strength of the golden carp. Instinctively, she clasped her arms around its slippery neck, and was carried to the far shore.
All day, she dried her clothes and, when she was dressed, looked at her secret lake for the last time. She thought she glimpsed a golden glint of scales darting beneath the water. She took the jade from her pocket and kissed it, then turned to follow a dusty path through the birch wood.
She followed it on and on till the ground dipped into a hollow below, and she saw long low red-tiled roofs, and heard the sound of children singing.

Word count: 1,599

(755)
Whether she slept and dreamed, or simply slept and awoke, he had no idea, but

Chi sprang to his feet with a shock. He had forgotten his pigs. Thrusting the jade into his pocket, he grabbed his stick and rushed forwards calling his special call, “Oi,oi,oi!” But how stupid! His pigs were on the other side of the lake – probably scattered and lost by now – or eaten by tigers. His special call turned to a howl.

Clambering out among the reeds where she had stood, he searched for any sign of her, but found nothing; no footprint in the soft mud between the reeds, nor a silken thread caught by the thorn bushes.

Somehow, nobody greeted him with a beating or angry words. Noone seemed to have realised how late he was. With a feeling of foreboding, he hurriedly shut the pigs in their sheds, and crept towards the temple where he realised everyone had gathered. Among flickering braziers and flares, the faces of the villagers were etched with anxiety.
He saw old grandmother, the oldest person in the village, wrapped tightly in her shawl.

A strange, high, distant sound. Without opening his eyes, he lay there, enchanted, in a half dream, wondering if it was some sort of magical bird. Gradually though, as the sound continued, he realised it was someone singing. He sat up, abruptly awake, resentful at the thought that someone else knew of his lake.

It wasn’t her fault she had been born a girl. But she’d already paid a heavy price. Her parents in despair at ever being able to afford a dowry for her when she grew to be of marriagble age,

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