Candies
“Several days after that, on the way to school or at home, Droma would quietly take out the half candy to lick it gently. Sometimes when there were no others around at school, she would quietly take it out and lick it a few times. Sometimes at home she would take it out to let her brother lick it a few times and put it back. The sheep dog often stared at Drolma's hands with its big and black eyes, sitting still with an expectant look.” Yang Tongyan (April 12, 1961 - November 5, 2017), a famous dissident writer and social activist better known as Yang Tianshui, was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for “subverting state power” because of his critical essays on overseas websites, as well as his political activism.
Photo: Alvan Nee/Unsplash
"These are a few pieces of candies, rock candy, milk candy, and fruit candy."
Pointing to the blackboard, a female teacher read aloud, followed by a burst of childish voices echoed among the hills – “These are a few pieces of candies,,,"
Magnificent but patient dawn slowly brightened the Songpan Grasslands; also brightened the southwestern mountains, a village primary school hut halfway up the mountain, the fine chalk handwriting on the blackboard, the nice mild round face of the teacher and a dozen untidy boys and girls.
The female teacher, eighteen or nineteen, was holding a wooden stick to lead the reading again:
"This is a piece of candy."
The sunlight traveled through the door and windows to caress her dark black double pigtails.
The school kids were fully concentrating and reading in slow but sweet childish voices:
"This is a piece of candy."
It was a little bit chilly in the mountains in the autumn; spells of chilly winds eddied around the cottage, and some kids were rubbing their small reddish hands while reading.
The teacher had a look at the southern row of children and said:
"Dear girls and boys, if Drolma has two candies and Sangzhi has one, how many pieces of candies do they have in total? Please hands up to answer," the teacher said.
Some small hands were raised high in the southern row. The teacher said:
"Drolma, please."
A girl in Tibetan robe stood up. Her black little eyes blinked and said:
"A total of three."
The teacher motioned Drolma to sit down while saying “Drolma is right.” She then added:
"Those in Year Two, please be attentive! If Drolma gets nine pieces of candy, but Basang takes four away, how many pieces will be left? “
Some of the children sitting in the mid-row of the classroom began to raise their hands, some turned their fingers to count, and some heads lowered as if they were afraid of being found. With a smile the teacher said to a boy:
"Gelang, do you know the answer?"
A dark, timid boy stood up and said:
"Five."
The teacher smiled happily and said:
"Gelang is right. Sit down, please! Next, those in Year Three, please be attentive! If Drolma, Basang or Jielang was assigned five each, then what is the total number assigned to them? Please use the multiplication to make it out! "
Only one kid among the children sitting in the back of the classroom put up a hand. The teacher gave him a gesture, he stood up and said:
"Three fives is fifteen, the total is fifteen."
Very satisfied, the teacher went up to the back of the classroom and led the kids at back to read the multiplication table. She then went to a boy of fourteen or fifteen and asked:
"Moocuo, now we have fifteen candies, if they are divided equally among Zoma, Basan, Gelang and you, how many does each get then? How many will be left? What will you do with the remainder?"
Moocuo, in a Tibetan robe with dirty sleeves, stood up tamely, looking at the ceiling and said slowly:
"Each could get 3, and two will be left, and to whom should the remaining two be given?"
After thinking for a while, he resumed:
"The remaining two should be given to Drolma who is the youngest among us."
The teacher asked:
"Why do you want the rest candy going to the youngest?"
Moocuo said:
"The elder should take care of the younger. That is what teacher always teaches us"
The teacher said:
"Dear boys and girls, the elder kids should take care of the younger ones, understood?"
The children answered immediately in chorus: "Understood!"
Outside was a sheep dog, standing under a tree and casting his curious eyes into the classroom. On the hill-slope not far away cattle and sheep were moving leisurely: some were chewing grass, some looking at the sky. The teacher opened the green canvas bag on her desk, took out a paper bag, and said:
"Dear boys and girls, let me hand out the candy, okay?"
The girls and boys were excited and active. Some whispered, some twittered. Their tender voices sounded like many little birds singing. Some asked:
"What does candy look like?"
Some asked:
"Really very very sweet?"
Some asked:
"What is rock candy and what is fruit candy?"
The teacher waved to the children and said:
"Please be seated on your seats, I'll distribute the candies among you."
The students kept quiet at once, with joy and an expectant look on each face. The teacher started the distribution from the Year-One kids in the southern row, with each kid having two: one fruit candy and one milk candy. When the teacher walked to Moocuo of the Year Four, only one fruit candy left. "Moocuo, sorry, I will give you another one next time."
"It’s all right, Teacher. I'm older than them. One is enough."
Petting his head gently, the teacher said:
"You are a virtuous good boy!"
Now all kids began eating the candies. Some were chewing noisily, and some were smacking their lips to enjoy the sweet taste. There were also several kids playing with the sweets in their hands. Drolma, who was in the first grade, put one piece of candy into her bag, and then opened the other one, licked it several times, covered it again and carefully put it into the inner pocket. As the teacher intended to resume her lesson, she asked Drolma after seeing what she did:
"Little Drolma, why didn’t you eat your candy?"
Drolma’s deskmate answered:
"Teacher, she ate nothing. That piece of milk candy ... was placed in her bag."
The teacher: "Why don’t you eat them? Are you going to enjoy them later slowly?"
Drolma: "No, teacher. The milk candy is for my brother. I will take it back to him after school."
Teacher: "Little Drolma, you can eat it. I will bring some for you when I return to the city next month."
Drolma: "No, teacher. I don’t like to eat it. I will leave it to my brother. He is very cute."
The teacher approached Drolma, patting her braids and said:
"How old is your brother? What a lovely boy!"
"Four," Little Droma inclined her head with a smile, exposing a mouth of white little teeth.
The teacher went back to the teaching platform, and said:
"Dear boys and girls, lots of plants, crops and fruits contain sugar; canes from the south are sweet; apple, orange, pear, jujube, hawthorns, rock melons and watermelons are all sweet." All the kids listened intently.
She continued:
"These sweet stuffs already existed hundreds and thousands of years ago. However, it was not until Tang Dynasty that people began to make sugar out of the sweet stuffs."
One student asked:
"Tang Dynasty?"
The teacher went on:
"Tang was a dynasty 1200 or 1300 years ago. At that time, Indian people introduced sugar refining methods to China, and our Chinese people started to have sugar to eat."
Then the teacher wrote on the blackboard: "During Tang dynasty, the Indians brought sugar refining skills to China."
She then led the students to read it over and over again. Outside were the clear blue sky and the quiet autumn mountains. The cattle and sheep were still lingering on the grass slope. Probably tired, the sheep dog sat down under the trees and curiously looked into the classroom.
When school was over, Drolma pulled the skirts of her teacher quietly, and asked:
"Teacher, what is rock candy like?"
Teacher answered:
"Rock candy? Just like small broken pieces of smashed ice."
"Sweet?"
"Of course. That’s why we call it candy!"
The sheep dog strode to Drolma, whining and spinning around her with its tail waving. Drolma bent over, pulled out the fruit sugar, bit it into two halves, and put it near the dog’s mouth. That dog reached out its tongue and licked the fruit sugar repeatedly. Later on, it appeared to be eager to swallow the sugar, waving its head and tail violently to show its coquetry. Droma touched its ears and put the half candy into its mouth.
The teacher said: "This dog is as dear to you as your brother."
Drolma said:
“So said my parents."
She added with a mysterious look: "Teacher, next time if you come with rock candies, please give me one more for my younger brother, okay?”
Teacher smiled: "Little Drolma, next time I will bring you some more. Well, hurry home for lunch now. Your mum and dad must be waiting for you."
Getting close to her home, little Droma saw mum and brother standing before their felt tent. She ran to them and took out the piece of candy in the bag, shouted:
"Mum, brother, milk candy."
The dog ran after her eagerly. Drolma went to her brother, bent over, peeled the paper off the milk candy and put it into his mouth, and said:
"Brother, candy."
Her mother asked: "Where did you get it?"
Drolma answered: "Our teacher brought it from the city. Everybody got two except that Moocuo got one."
Mom said: "Teacher Ah-chin is so good. As an 18 or 19-year-old city girl, she put aside all the benefits to come to this remote mountain village to teach you to read and write. What a Buddha!"
Drolma: "Teacher Ah-chin told me she would bring us rock candies when she goes home next time. She said that rock candies are just like broken pieces of smashed ice, bright and clear as crystals."
Mother: "She has only 20-30 yuan per month for her salary. It will cost all that to buy candies for you, won’t it?"
Drolma said: "We can send a goat to her in the future, okay?"
Mother added: "And a scarf as well."
Drolma dropped her bag, and went to help Mum to carry straw to feed the mare about to give birth. Busy for a while, she suddenly realized something. She took out the half candy which she had carried with her, carefully opened the paper, and lifted it to her mother's lips:
"Mum, taste it to see if it is sweet or not?"
Mum said with a smile: "Mum does not like to taste. Candy is always sweet, just like Buddhas always save people, while a wolf licks a lamb.”
Little Droma had to withdraw her hand. She licked it several times, wrapped the candy and then put it back in her inside pocket.
Several days after that, on the way to school or at home, Droma would quietly take out the half candy to lick it gently. Sometimes when there were no others around at school, she would quietly take it out and lick it a few times. Sometimes at home she would take it out to let her brother lick it a few times and put it back. The sheep dog often stared at Drolma's hands with its big and black eyes, sitting still with an expectant look. Every time this happened, Drolma did not like to ignore the dog. She would take some cooked mutton from her pocket to feed it.
Over three months passed. The prairie and the mountain village had been covered with heavy snow. The village school seemed completely isolated except for some wild geese flying southbound in the blue sky occasionally. Only when the female teacher took all the children out of the classroom to bask in the sun, did there emerge some energy halfway up the mountain. At that moment, the sheep dog always stayed near Drolma. The dog was getting more friendly to the teacher. It often ran to kiss her feet and rub her trouser legs. One day near noon, the teacher found Drolma standing before a pile of forage grass. She walked and over talked to her:
"Little Drolma, I'm so sorry. I promised you to bring some rock candies. A few months passed, but I couldn’t get any. It was a palm-sized town, and not enough supplies for everything."
Drolma replied with a grin:
"Teacher, we still had candies."
She took out the half candy to smell and then gently licked it. The dog was beside, listening to their talk. It turned its head toward the teacher when the teacher was talking, and then turned to Drolma when she was talking.
School was over, and she walked home alone with her dog after a short shared journey with some of other students, as her house was far away. The wind rose from humming at first to roaring. The huge cold air was quickly spreading all over the whole grassland and mountains. It made Little Drolma shiver. She put her hands into her sleeves, pulled in her neck and ran to a cliff for shelter. When the dog heard the huge wind, it hesitated for a while at first, and then followed its little master to trot to the shelter under the cliff.
That cliff was dozens of meters high, like a tall black tower. The winding path, on which little Drolma often walked, was to the south of the cliff. Beyond the path was a dozens-of-meter deep valley. In spring or summer, the valley would be full of grass, flowers and trees; in autumn a clear stream would be running down there and many birds would be singing. But it was winter now, the whole valley was covered in silence. Luckily there were some rays of sunshine, shining and bright, opposing the gloomy sternness so as not to turn the chilly silence into dead silence. The cold cliff was too steep. Even the dog dared not go close. The dog shrank back as close as possible to the shelter cliff.
Little Drolma sat beside a huge rock, hugged the dog in her arms, pulled out some broken pieces of mutton to feed the dog. She kissed the dog. Lifting its bright and gentle eyes, it looked at Drolma, whined for a while and turned to the west-side of Drolma. Drolma suddenly felt a bit warmer. She did not want to go home until the wind became weaker. Taking out the text book, she read aloud:
Under the pines I questioned the boy.
“My master’s off gathering herbs.
All I know is he’s here on the mountain----
Clouds are so deep, I don’t know where…”
She read it several times, then she took out the half candy, opened the paper, and licked it a few times.
Suddenly there came a burst of tiger and leopard roars in the distance. The sheep dog made several barks. Little Drolma was so surprised that her candy dropped onto the ground from her hands. The candy rolled away a few feet and landed onto the slope of the cliff, which was just a few feet away.
Little Droma searched for the candy and finally found it lying in a stone nest on the slope. The dark red candy paper was very obvious in the noon-time sunlight. Drolma slowly moved to the cliff top, knelt down, stretched out one arm to reach the candy, but she failed several times. The dog also followed her closely. That dog cowered, lying there with anxious looks.
After a while, sweat came out on her head. With her second try, she finally got it in her hand. Smiles came back to her reddish face. She hastily straightened up to lift her knees to move toward the cliff. Probably with a leg numbed, she swayed and fell down into the valley. The sheep dog was totally shocked. It wanted to go down to the bottom of the valley, but it only pawed the ground anxiously with fear. It made up its mind several times to rush down, but it stopped at last. The dog wandered for a while on the windy path, and ran a dozen of metres in both directions to the east and west. Finding a place with a gentle slope, it went down the valley, trampling on the cracked pieces of ice. It finally sniffed in the right direction and quickly ran to little Drolma.
Drolma was lying on a pile of pebbles. Her dog shoved at her hand and her face worriedly. It waved its tail and barked affectionately at Drolma. Although it waited for a long time, the dog didn’t get any response from little Drolma. It began to head back to the winding path and hurried back to the village school.
In the school kitchen, the teacher had just finished her lunch and was putting the remaining noodles and pickled vegetables back into a very old dark cupboard. When the dog ran over, it kissed her feet and trouser legs, shoved its head into her knees, raised its begging eyes accompanied with its barks and whines, and looked up at the teacher. The teacher smiled:
"Little Droma came to school so early today. Why not going home for lunch? Come here, all the leftover noodles are for you."
Upon saying this, she served a bowl of noodles from the cupboard, and poured it into a pot in the corner. But the dog had no interest in it. It kept making low whines with an anxious and restless look on its face. When it tugged her outside by her pants, the teacher shouted outside:
"Drolma, little Drolma, does your sheep dog want me to teach it to read?"
Just then, a student came in: "Teacher, Drolma is not here, only her dog."
The teacher felt something wrong. They walked out of the door with the dog. The dog ran in front of her and looked back from time to time to check if the teacher was following or not. They hurried to the cliff. The dog looked back at the teacher, and ran along the gentle slope into the valley bottom. The teacher followed. Seeing Drolma lying on a pile of pebbles, she called out: “Little Drolma”. The dog got there one step earlier than the teacher. It shoved up her with its mouth, and looked up at the teacher. The teacher kneeled down, only to find that the blood running from her nose had been frozen into ice. Her small face was purple with freezing. Her eyes were closed. Tightly clutched in her left hand was the half fruit candy.
Photo: Gregory Hayes/Unsplash