*baozi (b-ow-suh): Chinese steamed buns. They can be filled with meat, noodles, tofu, veggies, or red beans.
The Salad Lady’s Sign
The neon street signs of Xining’s Muslim district had just started to blink on when Jiahao rounded the corner and saw the woman with the sign. She sat in front of the baozi shop on a straw mat, one foot tucked under her body while the other dangled over the cement step. Her chestnut brown hair was tucked into a loose braid, but a few wisps had escaped to frame a kind face with eyes that crinkled at the corners.
She had already drawn a crowd, more likely due to her skin color than her sign, which read: Tell me a story, and I’ll give you 1 yuan in clumsily painted Mandarin. An elderly woman sat across from her in a wicker chair, one hand lifting a translator to her face as if drinking from a stream. Her granddaughter stood to the left, scrolling through her phone, while the rest of the crowd stood at a respectable distance, listening with their hands clasped behind their backs.
Curious, Jiahao slowed, the burn around his lips fading as he swallowed the last of the noodles he’d dug out of the trashcan. Almost as soon as he’d slurped the last one, shame flooded his body. He should have brought the food home to his sick grandmother. If his father had been there, he would have scolded Jiahao, saying that if he couldn’t redirect his energy and control his hunger, he was no better than the dogs he had chased away to gain the noodles in the first place.
But his father had died in a motorcycle accident last year. As for his mother, nowadays she rarely surfaced from her bottles long enough to care what Jiahao did. As far as happy families went, he had only memories, and his grandmother’s endless stories.
His eyes flickered to the woman’s sign: Tell me a story, and I’ll give you 1 yuan.
The baozi shop sold 10 steamed buns for 7 yuan. A meal like that would easily make up for Jiahao’s selfishness. They might even stretch the baozi into next week.
Resolved, Jiahao joined the watchers as the two women continued a stilted conversation via translator. Eventually, the foreign woman smiled and leaned forward, laying a hand on the woman’s shoulder. She spoke aloud in a language that sounded simultaneously harsh and measured to Jiahao’s ears—like a beat he couldn’t place. She looked the old woman directly in the eyes, but Jiahao had the feeling she wasn’t speaking to the woman at all.
She finished and stood, giving the Chinese woman a hug. Smiling from ear to ear, the older woman bowed at the waist, pressing her fist into her opposite palm.
Jiahao’s eyebrows went up, along with much of the crowd. That kind of bow was reserved for a master—the highest sign of respect. Without offering an explanation, the old woman took her granddaughter’s hand and hobbled away.
The foreign woman returned to her seat, smiling in invitation, but no one stepped forward. Despite his resolve, Jiahao himself hung back. He’d hoped the crowds would disperse so he could talk to the woman alone, but instead they all stood watching.
The woman caught his eye and beckoned. The men to his right and left glanced down, laughing in derision when they realized whom she meant.
Not understanding their reaction, the woman gestured again. Jiahao’s cheeks burned with shame. Did the entire city know of his family’s disgrace?
He was about to turn and run when gentle hands pushed him forward. A voice in his ear said, “It would be a dishonor to refuse her,” and Jiahao glanced over his shoulder to see a kind man—also foreign—with brilliant green eyes.
Jiahao weighed his options and quickly decided that his grandmother’s health was worth the embarrassment.
“My name is Sarah,” the woman said in broken Mandarin. “What is yours?”
“Salad?” Jiahao repeated. What a strange name!
“Sa-rah.”
Jiahao tried to mimic the sounds she was making, but they sounded so much like the word for salad that he finally gave up, deciding to call her the Salad Lady in his head.
“Do you have a story to tell me?” she asked via translator.
He nodded. “How many can I tell?”
She looked surprised, yet pleased. “As many as you would like.”
She showed him how to work the translator, but when Jiahao raised the phone to his lips, he froze. His mind had gone completely blank. He desperately wished he had paid more attention to his grandmother’s stories.
As soon as he thought about his grandmother, his lips burned as if in remembrance of the shame of eating all the noodles, which in turn reminded him of the story of the prime minister who tricked three evil generals into committing suicide using only two peaches. Smiling, he related the story, pausing every so often so the Salad Lady could read the translator.
He had barely finished the tale when a commotion made them both look up. Two policemen had pulled up in three-wheel car.
Jiahao leapt up, almost upending the chair, and raced away. At the corner he slowed, allowing himself one glance and the smallest sliver of regret for not collecting his yuan, then sped through the crowds, pushing toward the alleys that led to his home.
* * * * *
The next afternoon, Jiahao found himself once again roaming the streets in search of food. His grandmother had been asleep by the time he’d returned, but his mother had given him a drunken tongue lashing.
In the morning, when his grandmother was most alert, he’d crawled into bed with her and begged for a story, which she’d whispered in his ear as his mother had shuffled and groaned around the barren kitchen, pulling scraps into a soup that was sour to eat but muted Jiahao’s screaming hunger… at least for a few hours.
Now, striding through the streets of Xining, he felt free. First, he went to the baozi shop, where the owner told him the Salad Lady had spoken to the police then packed up her chair and sign and left. He could not tell Jiahao where the lady was staying, nor where she might sit today.
Disappointed, Jiahao’s steps turned toward his familiar haunts. The owner of the noodle shop near the temple shooed him away; the baker saw him coming and flashed a warning look. Smells blended all around him: the acrid taste of cigarette smoke with incense to keep the mosquitos away, broth and noodles with boiling cabbage, green tea with chili pepper.
Stomach grumbling, Jiahao turned the corner to his favorite haunt, where the shop owner’s daughter sometimes took pity and passed him the scraps of her midday meal. To his surprise, he instead saw the Salad Lady, this time sitting cross-legged, her sign propped on one knee.
Recognizing him, she waved him over.
“I am so glad to see you!” she said into the translator. “I was worried when the police came yesterday.”
Jiahao had been worried about her. He was glad she was safe.
“Why did you run?” she said.
Jiahao shrugged. He didn’t want to explain how frequently the police came to his front door. “May I tell you a story?” he said instead.
She nodded. Joining her on the mat, he quickly repeated the story his grandmother had told him.
She pressed two yuan into his hand. “For yesterday and today,” she said, then checked her watch. “I must go.”
“Where will you be tomorrow?” Jiahao said, disappointed that he would not get the buns that day.
“By the arch. Will you come?”
Nodding, Jiahao raced away, stopping at the corner to wave goodbye.
* * * * *
He returned every day that week, for four straight days. Each time she handed him a yuan he tucked it into his pocket, where his mother would not find them.
On the seventh day, Jiahao woke eagerly. He had managed to tell the Salad Lady six stories, and had saved up six yuan—one more and he could buy baozi.
It took him longer than usual to get out of the house. First, his mother had had an unusually sober night and took him to task about everything from his appearance to how he occupied himself. Jiahao did his best to remain respectful, though internally he burned with anger. Of course he would rather have gone to school, but with his grandmother sick and his mother unable to take care of her, how were they supposed to live?
To make matters worse, that morning his grandmother was too sick even to open her eyes. Once he finally managed to escape, he spent the entire 5 km jog to the river trying to come up with a story to tell the Salad Lady. Luckily, she was late, so Jiahao settled on top of a piece of broken concrete, dangling his legs through the rebar and wrinkling his nose against the smell of human refuse and fish as he wracked his brain for a story.
Lunch came and went. Afternoon came and went.
Finally, around sunset, Jiahao began to doubt he’d picked the right place. Tucking his hands into his pockets, he picked his way along the riverbank. A horizontal sun shot golden rays at half-constructed apartment high-rises, transforming them into walls of orange fire.
Even concrete looked pretty at this time of day. Jiahao normally would have stopped to admire the splendor, but today he worried. Where was his friend?
A man fell into step with him. “Hello.”
Jiahao squinted. “I know you,” he said finally, recognizing the man who had pushed him to talk to the Salad Lady.
The man nodded, eyes twinkling. Jiahao had thought they were green at first, but in reality they were a mix of brown, green and a little bit of blue. His hair was longer, hanging in a small mane around his face, and his beard was scraggly and short.
“I am a friend of your Salad Lady,” he said. “She had to go away suddenly, and wasn’t able to say goodbye. She asked me to meet you here.”
Jiahao frowned. “Is she safe?”
The man laughed. “Yes. It was simply time for her to move on to the next city.”
Jiahao looked at his toes. Now he would never get his last yuan, but more than that, he would miss the Salad Lady. She had been his only friend in the city.
“Why don’t you tell me your story?” the man said.
Jiahao sniffed up a tear, wiping his eye surreptitiously on his sleeve. What he’d decided to tell wasn’t a story, exactly, but a recurring dream. In the dream, he was inside a gilded temple while thousands of red prayer ribbons fluttered from archways of blue, green and yellow. The dream always started with Jiahao standing frozen near the incense burner, where worshippers lit sticks of incense and stuck them inside a bed of coals. Taoist gods his ancestors had worshipped for generations sat all around; but the thought of approaching any one of them made him sick.
In the dream, as Jiahao tried to force his feet to move, a man with a scarred wrist would tap him on the shoulder. Suddenly his legs would work. The man would beckon, and Jiahao would follow him out of the temple and through the city, until they came to a wooden door, which the man would open. Beyond, Jiahao would catch a glimpse of light, but it was more than light, as if all the colors, music, and sounds were contained in each ray. He knew instinctively that to step into that light was like finding a running stream in the desert, except more satisfying, more complete, and more… full than he could ever imagine.
Jiahao would always run for the door. But each time just as he reached the threshold, he would startle awake.
The man with the multicolored eyes listened intently to Jiahao’s dream, tucking his hands behind his back so that he appeared to be one of the philosophizing old men who walked the arch at night. He wore sandals, Jiahao noticed absently, and a strange white robe. Unlike like the Salad Lady, who always got stares, if not bold requests for a photo, this man received little more than passing glances from passersby.
Just as Jiahao’s brain registered that fact, the man stopped. “Wait here.”
Jiahao had hardly noticed where they were going, wrapped up as he was in his tale. To his surprise, he found himself standing outside the baozi shop. The man spoke to the seller, smiling and clapping him on the back like old friends. Jiahao didn’t see any money exchange hands, but next thing he knew, the man was coming down the steps holding out a bag of fresh, hot baozi.
“For you,” he said.
Jiahao tore through the steamed dough and flavorful pork, not caring that it burned his tongue. He was halfway through his second baozi when he suddenly remembered his grandmother and froze.
The man laughed, holding up another bag. “Those are for you to enjoy,” he said. As Jiahao gratefully bit into the baozi again, he added, “The man who owns this shop is my friend. He has promised to give you baozi whenever you have need.”
Jiahao looked up at the man suspiciously, but there was no deceit in his multi-color eyes.
“Now,” the man said, “let’s visit your grandmother.”
Not one to refuse his elders, Jiahao obediently led the man to his home. The man didn’t seem to mind the uneven ground, puddles, or the way the air conditioners dripped dirty water. When Jiahao held aside the door—more of a ratted curtain, really—he ducked easily through, pushing to the back room where Jiahao’s grandmother lay as if he had been there before.
Seeing her, the man knelt, clasping her hand in his own. There was a strange mark on his wrist, Jiahao noticed, like a scar. The low light made it difficult to tell.
He was about to ask about the mark when his grandmother gave a great gasp, shuddered, and lay still. With a cry, Jiahao leapt to her side, reaching for her pulse. To his surprise, it was stronger than it had ever been.
“Zuzu?” he whispered.
Her eyes flickered open. “Jiahao,” she said. “My body… the sickness is gone. I can feel it.” She thought for a moment. “I am hungry.”
Jiahao ran for the baozi. They were still warm.
His grandmother looked over her nose at him. “Where did you get these?”
“I did not steal them,” Jiahao insisted. “The man—”
He stuttered to a halt as his eyes caught up with his gesturing hand. The man with the multicolored eyes had vanished.
Jiahao checked in the main room, even walked out onto the street, but the man had gone. As he stood in the doorway, another foreigner walked past.
“Nihao,” he said, nodding to Jiahao.
His accent was atrocious, so much so that Jiahao hid a smile. The man who had healed his grandmother did not have an accent like that. In fact, his Mandarin was perfect—almost as if he’d grown up speaking it. Strange. Strange, too, to have scars so similar to the ones Jiahao had seen in his dream….
Jiahao flew back to his grandmother, almost sliding on top of her in his haste to be by her side. There, he gushed the entire story about the Salad Lady and the man with the multicolored eyes, speaking so fast that his grandmother finally had to scold him to get him to slow down.
When he got to the part about the dream, his grandmother clutched his arm in a vice grip. “I know this man,” she whispered. “He visited me in a dream and told me that he would come to make me well.”
“If only I had recognized him!” Jiahao wailed. “He must be a spirit of some kind; perhaps even a god. I only wish I knew his name!”
“We will find out,” his grandmother said, gripping his arm. “You and me, Jiahao. We will find out.”
The End
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All characters in the story are entirely fictional. The name Jaihao comes from two Mandarin characters that mean “home, family” and “brave, heroic, chivalrous”. I thought this fit his character well =).
There really is a city called Xining, and it really does have a muslim quarter. There is a shop in this muslim quarter that sells 10 baozi for 7 yuan. I ate there many times while in the city.
My name in Mandarin really does sound like “salad”.
The story of the prime minister who killed three generals with two peaches is Chinese folklore about a very real prime minister. You can read it here, just scroll to the bottom!
The situation with the police coming to diffuse a crowd actually happened to us; we were playing Jason Mraz on our ukuleles and drew a crowd, whoops! No harm, no foul =).
We visited a taoist temple that looks exactly like the one in Jaihao’s dream: (PC: Becca Gutierrez)
