The Civil Servant's Notebook.

w.a.n.g Xiaofang.

About the Author.

w.a.n.g Xiaofang began his career in the civil service, which culminated in a position as private secretary to Shenyang Province's Deputy Mayor Ma Xiangdong who, in 2001, was sentenced to death for gambling away over 3.6 million US dollars of public money at Macau's casinos.

Since leaving his position in 1999, w.a.n.g Xiaofang has published thirteen novels about corruption and politics in China, many of which have topped the bestseller charts. The Civil Servant's Notebook is his first novel to be translated into English.

A Note on Chinese Usage and Names.

In Chinese, a person's given name always follows their surname. Therefore, the character Yang Hengda has the surname Yang and the given name Hengda. Lower ranked government officials will always refer to senior officials by their surname preceeded by official t.i.tle. Vice- ranked officials will occasionally be referred to without the vice- prefix, especially by lower ranked officials, as a show of respect. Vice-Mayor Peng would then simply be shortened to Mayor Peng.

Pinyin, the standard Romanisation method for Chinese characters, has been used throughout this novel except where the Chinese is more commonly known by its former Wade-Giles spelling (e.g. Chuang-tzu).

Number Two Department, Department Head, Yang Hengda.

'EVERYONE WANTS TO go to heaven, but the gate of heaven isn't like the gate of h.e.l.l, which opens with a push. I confused the gate of h.e.l.l with the gate of heaven.'

I read that in a report about the downfall of a high-level official.

I have to admit the statement shook me. I've always wondered: besides the doors of heaven and h.e.l.l, might there be a third door? If not, then what is it we're struggling for? Is it merely to push open the door to h.e.l.l?

Thinking this over I realise that in the course of my whole life, there's only been one door I've been compelled to push open every day, and that's the door to my office: Number Two Department, Combined Affairs, Dongzhou Munic.i.p.al Government.

I am the department head. Every day when I open this door I am at my most smug and complacent and my soul is at its most empty.

Last night I paid a visit to the Old Leader, whom I served for many years. He is ill with uric poisoning. Yes, that's uric poisoning, not uraemia. Many who visit him a.s.sume it's uraemia and can't see how it could be uric poisoning, but the moment the Old Leader explains, they understand.

He has uric poisoning because he's been drinking his own urine for years, and despite the fact that the habit has landed him in hospital, he misses no opportunity to recommend his long-practised cure to his visitors. Tirelessly, he expounds its benefits, reciting from the Compendium of Materia Medica: 'Urine, urina, aka "karmic liquor" or "essential decoction". Salty of savour, cooling, non-poisonous. Princ.i.p.ally used in curing chronic cough and congestion, cholera, injuries sustained in falls, haemorrhoids, etc.'

He'll add something about the urine cure being a quintessential part of Chinese culture. He hasn't changed a whit since I was in his service five years ago. He's still a devoted pract.i.tioner of the cure, even after he collapsed and was hospitalised.

Just the thought of the urine cure turns my stomach.

Though the Old Leader has been retired for many years, he is still a leading light in Dongzhou City, both by rank and record of service. He chose me as his secretary when I was a princ.i.p.al-level researcher in the office of the Retired Cadres Bureau of the Munic.i.p.al Party Committee. He had read an article I published in the Dongzhou Government Report magazine about how retired cadres could maintain their health. The Old Leader liked my writing style as well as my firm grounding in health issues. Fact is I didn't have a firm grounding. I'd simply been asked to contribute to the Dongzhou Government Report and wrote something off the cuff. But the article earned his appreciation, and out of the blue he chose me to be his secretary.

Once I had a.s.sumed my post I learned the Old Leader was hoping to use my skill with the pen to produce an important ma.n.u.script. It hadn't yet taken shape. It was merely a notion in his head. The work was not completed until five years after I a.s.sumed my post, under the t.i.tle, Philosophical Reflections on the Urine Cure.

Though I wrote the ma.n.u.script, it naturally appeared under the name of the Old Leader. He had poured five years of his heart's blood into the work; not for public consumption, but to record his experiences and share them with the retired cadres, and, of course, as a legacy for younger ones.

At first I had difficulty understanding what the Old Leader told me about his insights into the urine cure, so he was dissatisfied with what I wrote. He also believed that experience was the only true method of testing a theory.

So it was after his repeated urgings and to better fulfil my duty that I began the urine cure myself.

I never thought I would drink urine for a full five years.

In addition to transcribing the Old Leader's thoughts on the cure, I was also under strict instructions to record my own ponderings, two thousand characters per day, minimum. Come rain or shine he reviewed and annotated my notes as if he were reviewing government doc.u.ments, with a red pen no less. So over the course of those five years I not only wrote the Old Leader's Philosophical Reflections on the Urine Cure, but I also acc.u.mulated nearly one million characters of my own Reflections.

I never imagined the Old Leader would be struck down by his urine drinking habit. This was the diagnosis of Western medicine, of course, and he had a staunch faith in Chinese medicine. He insisted that his illness was caused not by drinking urine, but, on the contrary, because there'd been a couple of days when he had stopped drinking urine. He had stopped because, being over seventy, he was having problems with his prostate and was unable to urinate, leading to a hiatus in his cure. Last night he still held fast to his opinion, saying he would continue his cure and 'Let them say what they will!'

I drank my own urine for five years and I think I'm qualified to say something about the cure. In the beginning, with the Old Leader's a.s.surances, I too believed drinking urine would 'strengthen one's body and extend one's life'.

But after a long period of practice I realised that urine is a waste product, painstakingly filtered from the blood by the kidneys, and putting it back into the body was simply making the kidneys and liver do their work over again. No wonder he was poisoned!

Regardless what you believe, urine is not water, though water may be its major component. Urine is toxic. It is a waste by-product of the body's metabolism.

You can liken society to a human body, from which the metabolism of history expels cultural waste. This cultural waste is terribly dangerous, but we often confuse what is dangerous with what is great and enshrine these things as our traditional cultural heritage.

My reflections on urine drinking were precisely this kind of trash.

The day I left the Old Leader to become head of Number Two Department, my friends treated me to a proper send-off. I sniffled as I watched the yellow, white-frothed beer being poured into my cup. My friends thought I was weeping for joy at being made a department head. Little did they know those were tears of suffering. I had drunk my own urine for five years to get this position. I felt like a newly released prisoner.

That night I drank too much, and when one of my friends drove me home I was overcome by nausea. I ignored it, however, and once I got indoors I rummaged around for my reflections on the urine cure. It was a full ten thousand pages. The sections written during the first two years were already yellowing like dried leaves. I found a quiet place in the apartment compound and burnt them all, my face lit red by the fire, the flames hissing their mockery.

After my five years with the Old Leader, by rights, I should have returned to my position in the Retired Cadres Bureau but, similar to the way the Old Leader had selected me, a theoretical article I'd published in the Dongzhou Daily about the urban development of Dongzhou won the appreciation of Vice-Mayor Peng Guoliang, who had just taken office.

Prior to this, of course, Mayor Peng had visited the Old Leader on various occasions and holidays. The old man was extremely concerned with the progress of his career and had expressed great interest and solicitude as the Mayor first got to bureau-level and had then gone on to the position of vice-mayor. So Mayor Peng had become familiar with me. It was a Spring Festival when he came to visit the Old Leader in this case. He started complaining about the lack of talented writers and went on to an appreciation of my literary skills. Finally, he proposed I be transferred to the Number Two Department as department head. The Old Leader acceded with happiness.

And so I became the department head.

Including myself there are only five people in Number Two, but the state of affairs is complicated, and no wonder: Number Two Department is a policy-making core of the Munic.i.p.al Government. It is also responsible for the day-to-day operations of the vice-mayor. In effect, I am Mayor Peng's office director. It is a good position.

My predecessor's deputy wanted it most, of course. His name is Xu Zhitai.

Xu is short and has a face like a brick and when he gets to scheming he's not to be trifled with. I heartily dislike the opaque and sinister smile that always hangs on his face. It reminds me of the phrase 'a smile that conceals the knife'. But just as well: that way I am constantly reminded to be on my guard. I am particularly wary of him because it was Xu who did away with my predecessor, with a proper office coup. But I soon worked out that all he wants is his daily bread, so that's what I've given him.

Not long after I took up my post, an opportunity arose to visit America with an investment recruitment team led by Mayor Peng himself. I pa.s.sed it to Xu Zhitai and his brick-like face broke into a bready smile.

In Number Two Department, although I no longer suffer the daily dose of urine, I'm beset with the sense of being lost at sea. On the office wall hangs a quartz clock, and every time I see it I feel it is a white pit, a trap. I feel like I am falling into it. Other times it seems like a face, one that undergoes many changes. It cycles through my colleagues in the department. Sometimes it's Xu Zhitai's skin-deep grin. Sometimes it's Department-Level Researcher Huang Xiaoming's sunny visage. This is the face I envy most because it contains a touch of n.o.ble arrogance. Sometimes it's Junior Department-Level Researcher Ou Beibei's alluring, coquettish face, which turns my thoughts impure. Sometimes it's the apparently pure face of section member Zhu Dawei, one I could make most use of. Most often, of course, it is a face much like my own; a face that has drunk urine, a face that swings like a clock's pendulum.

I only met my predecessor, Zhao Zhong, after I had taken his position. He invited me to dinner. The reason I accepted was to discover more about conditions in the department, and in particular about the coup that had forced him out.

Zhao Zhong knew what I wanted and took the opportunity to slander and denigrate everyone. I kept my wits about me and took what he said with a grain of salt. He gave me one piece of information that startled me, however: the leader of the coup hadn't been Xu Zhitai. Shocked, I said, 'If not Xu Zhitai, then who?'

Zhao Zhong, a cigarette stuck into his grin, said, 'Tsk tsk, Yang Hengda, I thought you were cleverer than I, but it turns out that still waters run shallow! Let me ask you: if Xu Zhitai became department head, who would be vice-head?'

As the realisation hit me, I murmured to myself, 'But surely . . .'

Zhao Zhong nodded and revealed another startling piece of news. 'Hengda, terms are up at the end of this year. The old mayor is going to be Director of the Munic.i.p.al People's Congress. Do you know who will take his place?'

I didn't need to guess. 'No matter how you look at it, it has to be Vice-Mayor Peng.'

I said this because Mayor Peng had been actively jockeying for the position and had often intimated to me that there was a good chance he would get it. Of course I sincerely hoped that he would be successful, as my boat would naturally rise along with the tide.

Zhao Zhong laughed with scorn. 'Hengda, have you learned nothing from your years in the corridors of power? Do you understand nothing of politics? When has a standing vice-mayor of Dongzhou ever been promoted directly to mayor?'

I thought back over the last few mayors. None of them had. Growing impatient, I said, 'Enough suspense, Zhao Zhong, who will it be?'

With a look of enormous smugness, Zhao Zhong took a deep drag on his cigarette and said, 'Why, Vice-Governor Liu, of course.'

'Liu Yihe?' I blurted.

'Think about it carefully, Hengda.' Zhao Zhong smiled obsequiously. 'Is there anyone better suited to it than Governor Liu?'

Looking at Zhao Zhong's fat, smug face, a secret worry began to gnaw within me. The year Liu Yihe became standing Vice-Mayor of Dongzhou City, he had fought Peng Guoliang tooth and nail for the position. Now the two of them were in contest to become mayor, and if Peng Guoliang were defeated once more, was he likely to go quietly? Liu Yihe returning would mean storms within Dongzhou's official circles. There is nothing more important than your allies. If you backed the wrong person, all your efforts would come to nought.

During the meal Zhao Zhong hinted that I should switch my allegiance to Liu Yihe. I immediately became wary. I couldn't tell if this idea was his own or Liu Yihe's, but Zhao intimated that his advice was not offered lightly. I found myself in a dilemma. Loyalty was paramount within officialdom, but at every changing of the guard it was disloyalty that proved victorious, and loyalty empty.

I have always seen the civil service as a means of making a living, as a labourer labours, a farmer ploughs, a businessman makes deals or a teacher teaches. But traditional culture places so many burdens of high idealism and ethics within the pursuit of politics. The words 'public service' lie like a crushing weight on one's shoulders. I have served one leader or another ever since I began my government career, first in the Retired Cadres Bureau, then helping the Old Leader with his five years of research into the urine cure, and now cudgelling my brains to write reports for Peng Guoliang; a million characters' worth of material within a year, all signed with his name, with me ever the bridesmaid. Better to be a novelist, who can reach fame and fortune through his own work. Just look at me: my writing never earned me a penny. Even the cigarettes I smoked while I worked were paid for out of my pocket. And this was 'public service'? More like 'private service'!

Though I kept my cool in the face of Zhao Zhong's temptations, he could see that I was hesitating, and honestly, who wouldn't want to throw in their lot with the next Number One?

Zhao made an a.n.a.logy that was very vivid, though a little crude: Number One was the c.o.c.k, and Number Two was the b.a.l.l.s. It may look like they have equal standing, inseparable as they are, but when it comes time for lovemaking, one gets the prize, and the other just watches the door. No wonder everyone wants to be Number One! Zhao Zhong broke into loud guffaws, and I grinned so broadly I almost spat out my abalone.

But what he said affected me deeply. Every clique has a core and a periphery. The core doesn't like the periphery weaselling inwards. Meanwhile the periphery isn't satisfied with its status. Struggle is inevitable, and in the course of that struggle, small fry like me have to fight just to keep from being sacrificed by the big fish. No wonder so many within officialdom follow the doctrine of 'what have you done for me lately?' The career of the official is like Li Bai's poem, 'The Road to Shu', beset with insurmountable peaks and pa.s.ses, and treacherous fords and rapids, pitfalls concealed with flowers, and submerged reefs and rocks. Only by one's own wits can one reach the other side, if indeed there is an 'other side'.

I declined Zhao Zhong's offer to drive me home after the meal. I felt the desire to walk alone. The fresh air was comforting. Girls stood in twos and threes beneath the roadside trees, looking like the sketches of a third-rate painter. 'Poor little hookers,' I thought.

It was a real pleasure, walking through the night. After sitting in an office so long I had nearly forgotten that people are meant to walk perhaps into eternity? The road to heaven is long but the road of man is short. Why choose the long over the short?

A 'beauty' approached, simpering, 'come and play, big boy!' I waved her off.

We come into life experiencing l.u.s.t, and so we see all that promotes life as good. We fear death, and so we see all avoidance of death as good, little imagining that good and evil are both the children of freedom, both irrational. The path of humanity is evil, and the secret of evil is goodness. Evil is hidden in the hearts of all, a second self. True evil arises from freedom, but true goodness does as well. Freedom is a peculiar, incredible and uncertain thing. If given full rein it becomes evil. Why does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Because absolute power results in absolute freedom! When freedom is given full rein it holds nothing sacred, it accepts no boundaries.

My wife was still awake when I got home. She always waits up for me, mostly because she gets suspicious, and no wonder when the world outside is so full of temptations. The small fry has small temptations and the big fish has big temptations, and both fish and fry would have to be made of something special to resist those temptations.

I've never believed in that 'something special', though my wife is always preparing me something special no, I should call it 'special medicine' that she boils into soup for me to drink. Never mind that she studied Western medicine she's never lost her faith in Chinese medicine.

Since becoming department head, I often stay up late writing or am obliged to go out drinking, and, as I rarely exercise, I have grown flabbier by the day. That 'cable of all flesh' has also become increasingly intractable, to the point where it no longer does my bidding. It bothers my wife no end, and she's dug up all sorts of folk remedies to try out on me, with no success.

She had found a new one that day. It had finished stewing and was awaiting experimentation.

Sure enough, the moment I walked in the door, she carried a bowl of black liquid out of the kitchen and handed it to me with a sly glance, saying it was a secret remedy handed down through six generations of Chinese doctors. I didn't want to disappoint her. Who wouldn't want more staying power? So I took the bowl and drained it with a flick of the wrist. My wife may not be a ravishing G.o.ddess, but I think she's just right: thin everywhere except her well-maintained bosom. Before I started at Number Two, she was the apple of my eye. But now I can't help comparing her to Ou Beibei, and after everything I've seen in the karaoke and sauna joints, even her bosom is no longer special.

Down the medicine went and I felt a heat rising in my chest. Seeing my wife's coquettish glances, I knew I'd be unable to avoid further experiments that night. Sure enough, the moment I slid into bed, her soft tongue began roaming over my sensitive parts, her white b.r.e.a.s.t.s firm and buoyant, as if it were she, not I, who'd drunk the medicine. I honestly did want to pleasure her, but the more I thought about it the more I felt that lovemaking had become a responsibility, a duty, a job no different from a day's writing. I was generally able to put on a show, but for some reason my fires were well and truly quenched that day. My wife worked herself into a sweat before finally giving up, wiping away tears. Seeing her so disappointed, I wanted to castrate myself on the spot.

The price of that day's exhaustion was that she demanded, starting the next morning, I go back to drinking urine. Nothing for it but to drink, then. I drank my urine for a week, with no change. My wife gave me no mercy, though, and every night tugged my manhood as though she were tugging a kite string.

One evening, however, when I was in a hurry to try some experiments of my own, my wife believed it was a week of the urine cure that had restored my 'Asian Mighty Winds'. Her moans were particularly t.i.tillating, and when I imagined them issuing from Ou Beibei I instantly began to swell. Not only that, I managed more than one hundred thrusts of the spear, as though I'd eaten G.o.dd.a.m.ned v.i.a.g.r.a.

The Office Chair.

DO YOU KNOW what it means to be an office chair? Let me tell you. An office chair not only represents location, but it also represents status.

We might be lowly chairs, but our ancestry can be traced back to the dynasties of the Han and Wei. Do you know what our ancestors were called?

When I tell you, you'll kneel in homage, prostrate yourself even, for only our ancestors can reveal the secrets of the changing dynasties.

Why?

Isn't it obvious?

Our ancestors themselves were the secret. They were thrones, graded according to the rank of who sat in them.

Anyone who hears the word 'throne' feels a thrill, because once you sit on one, even your friends and relatives will ascend to heaven. When the emperor sits on a throne, the rivers and mountains are his. When a minister sits on one, wealth and honour accrue to him. It's no exaggeration that since the throne became a symbol of ident.i.ty, status and power among the barbarian tribes, it has become something of a phallic symbol.

The office chair is a grand arena. Once you've sat on it you're a human being, an official, you've got a career. keep your seat and your future will be glorious and rich. Lose your seat, and I become the tiger's maw! Don't believe me? Give it a try!

We office chairs are most particular about order. In ancient times we were called First Throne and Second Throne. In the modern day this has become First, Second and Third Hand, and so on. The 'hand' refers to the armrest. Never mind these 'hands' differ only by a single degree. That degree represents a vast difference in power. 'First Hand' means 'absolute'. Do you know what absolute means? It's the tail of the tiger, which none may tug.

The First Hand's chair is like a vast vortex, or an enormous magnetic field, into which people of all shapes and sizes are sucked. That's how cliques are formed. It's also how black holes are formed. I'm not boasting here. I believe that among all First Hands the most important is the county bureau-level First Hand.

Why?

Because, naturally, the county bureau is closest to the common people. It's the foundation of everything else. If the foundations are weak, the mountains will sway. So the county bureau-level First Hand is pretty important, right?

It's this importance that makes me proud to be the office chair of the head of the Number Two Department, Combined Affairs, Dongzhou Munic.i.p.al Government, because Dongzhou is the county capital.

I've served under three successive department heads of Number Two Department. The first was Xiao Furen, who has gone on to become Deputy Chief Secretary and Director of the Munic.i.p.al Government. Xiao Furen sat on me over the course of many sleepless nights of writing. When he first sat down his hair was sleek and shiny. When he stood up to take a higher post it was his bald pate that was sleek and shiny. That was to be expected. Xiao Furen worked doggedly and tirelessly, and after only a few years as department head his hair fell out entirely, leaving him with a 'Lenin pate'. Now he wears a hairpiece.

The second department head was Zhao Zhong, a man who looked like a water barrel. When he sat on me my joints squeaked and creaked. Of the three department heads I've served, Zhao Zhong was most apt to the t.i.tle. He played his role as department head as if he was a bureau head. Not bad, eh?

Zhao had a habit of bouncing a leg. He'd start shaking it the moment he sat down, as if I were somehow electrified. He would also fart silently long, foul farts that nearly killed me. There were only two circ.u.mstances under which he wouldn't shake his leg. The first was during department meetings. He liked meetings and he would run them as if he were a munic.i.p.al leader on an inspection visit. The other circ.u.mstance when his leg fell still is known to no one else in the department but me, and that was when a woman was sitting on it. Zhao Zhong liked women. A pretty one could stop him in his tracks. The most beautiful in the department was Ou Beibei, and Zhao coveted her. But he was only a department head, after all. Ou Beibei hardly gave him a second glance and that bothered him. But department head of Number Two Department was equivalent to a director of the standing vice-mayor's office, and women who needed something from that office but couldn't reach it, particularly beautiful women, almost all ended up in his hands. On many occasions, when no one was in the office, these women would sit docilely on his thigh, and when that happened, Zhao Zhong's leg was still. Some other less decorous movements I will pa.s.s over in silence.

Zhao has been replaced by Yang Hengda, who was the Old Leader's secretary for five years.

This Yang Hengda is a careful and conscientious fellow. He works doggedly and uncomplainingly, and often stays late at the office. Don't fall for his hardworking demeanour, however, or his circ.u.mspect manner. At heart he's not content with his place. Not only does he have low tastes, but he also has wild fancies. I've always suspected that he's a bit of a voyeur, and he likes to peep into people's privacy. When alone in the office, he often goes through other people's drawers, particularly Ou Beibei's. He likes Ou Beibei every bit as much as Zhao did, and he's always glancing at her when she's not looking. But Yang doesn't have guts to match his libido, and keeps himself in check. My guess is he won't sit on me for long before he's promoted.

From ancient times to the modern day, no small number of civil servants have spent their days being frustrated by the seat beneath their rear ends. Some don't like where they're sitting, others fear losing their seats. Those sitting up front fear those sitting behind. Those sitting behind hanker after those sitting in front. Even those who never wanted a throne aren't willing to pa.s.s their whole lives without one, and then they stop at nothing to wrest one for themselves. Those who were born believing a throne should be theirs burn even more hotly to acquire one.