Chinese Literature

beginning to shout angrily at one another. He couldn’t wait any longer. Li-chia jumped on a bench.

“Wei, wei, wei!’ he cried. “Don’t smash the tablets everybody, don’t smash the tablets!”

The tablet wreckers paused, the brawlers stopped their hands and stilled their voices.

“Breaking all the tablets like this is no good,” Li-chia continued in a quieter tone. “My idea is that any family that wants to worship in private can take their tablets home. Keeping them here is a waste of time, no question about it!”

About half the people took his suggestion, and hurried to pick up their fallen tablets. The other half made no move towards the tablets, but began a lively discussion among themselves. Some of them said they already had a shrine and tablets at home. Others said they never really had a home until after land reform, and that the most prominent place in the house was already occupied by a picture of Chairman Mao; they didn’t need any of that tablet junk. One man said, “The dead are like a lamp that’s gone out”’—it didn’t make any difference to them whether you worshipped them or not. Quite a few stated that since their families hadn’t had enough money to pay the “Tablet Entrance Fees” for several generations they had no tablets in the temple anyhow.

After all those who decided to take their tablets home had collected them, Iron Hammer pointed his big pole at the remainder. “Then nobody wants these? Smash ’em!”

Immediately, there were loud crashes, and splinters began flying all around the room. Shrine canopies shook violently, spreading great clouds of murky dust. Suddenly, there was a sound like a clap of thunder. The large central placard—emblazoned with the glory of Grand Marshal Yang who originated the clan one thousand years ago—came tumbling down.

Yang the Elder had rushed about tempestuously when Iron Hammer had first started swinging his pole. Afterwards, when Li-chia stopped the wrecking, the old man had relaxed and returned to his seat at the table. But he hadn’t dreamed that the young mam would say what he did, and that these words would set off an even more thorough demolition. The Hlder’s cronies had long since disappeared. Only the Bigot remained, huddled beside the doorway, clutching his ancestral tablets to his chest, wagging his head and sighing.

Jumping to his feet, Yang the Elder let out a roar. He glared around with bulging bloodshot eyes, like a maddened bull looking for a target. Finding no one on whom to vent his rage, he raised his hookah and ploughed it through the tea bowls piled on the table, sending the crockery crashing to the floor.

“T’ll fight to the last breath in this old body!” he howled.

At that moment, he noticed Chun-mei, beside a rack which was hung

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