The Fishbone

Must Write Us Down: The Lives Changed by Literary Writing

Wu Yue

Sichuan Peoples Publishing House

June 2023

68.00 (CNY)

This book is a collection of in-depth interviews, discussions, and non-fiction narratives by Wu Yue, an editor of Harvest magazine, on the field of literary writing. The book falls into five parts. The first four parts collect one-on-one interviews and comments on 17 representatives of domestic and international literary writing; Part 5 contains the authors two of literary writing.

Wu Yue

Wu Yue, a member of Shanghai Writers Association, a bachelor and master of Journalism at Fudan University, used to be the Chief Correspondent of Wenhui Daily, and is an editor of the literary magazine Harvest. In spare time, she is engaged in literary criticism and non-fiction writing. She has won the China News Awards and many Shanghai News Awards.

This was a true story that happened in one of the dense alleys around Huaihai Road.

In the Spring Festival of 1985, a Shanghainese took a train for days and nights back to his hometown from Xinjiang. Now, he was sitting in the middle of a round table, lit by the 7W light bulb as much as possible. Please use your experience and imagination to sketch the dishes for this ordinary feast: Alfalfa and chitterlings, eight delicacies in hot sauce, boiled tender chicken in soy sauce, sweet and sour fish. In a few minutes, the man stood up with his hands covering his throat and rushed to the sink in the kitchen. He was sent to Ruijin Hospital nearby, where he was pronounced dead. That night, the cries of his family members were spread to the next ward, where a young lady was woken cold.

The reason was that he had swallowed  a fishbone and it got stuck. Actually, it was a very small fishbone. But he had stayed in Xinjiang for too long and hadnt eaten any fish, so his tongue was not sensitive. My mother announced the answer and made a concise conclusion. Then she stood up to clear the bowls.

I sat there, immersed in the ending of the story. Ripples spread layer by layer, just like a mirage rising in the Gobi desert and saline-alkali land. This is a simple, good story. Its magic lies in the hidden emotions among people attached to a true story. In the southern part of China, fish swim smartly from green water to water tanks, to basins, and to the fine and flexible mouths of people from Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Guangdong. The mouths are good at talking and eating. People in the South are clever, nimble, and versatile. When children are young, they begin to try fresh fish, inspired by adults with expectations. They are taught to move the upper jaw and tongue to spit out the fishbones. Children who can learn it by themselves will be praised as clever. Learning to eat fish is a lifelong skill, like riding a bike and swimming.

I think people who spread this story in the hospital tacitly understood each other on that night in 1985. They spoke for the dead simply and affectedly, accusing that the surface cells of ones tongue had been modified by heterogeneous experience. However, the soft and erratic story made all the facts empty. This reminds me of a scene a dozen years ago when I passed by the demolition area around West Beijing Road and Taixing Road by chance. In the twilight, I saw two red lanterns hanging on a roof about to be torn into a fishbone shape. On both sides of the door were pasted auspicious couplets. When a wild wind blew, it looked like a ghost story. “What is it?” I exclaimed. My companion was not surprised. She told me the funeral was handled as a happy event as the custom went. This showed the wisdom of transfer.

A drizzle fell and was blown to the other side by the wind before reaching our heads.

This took us back to the night in the first lunar month of 1985. The young woman who was tortured by this fishbone and could not sleep well was my mother. She went to Ruijin Hospital at the request of her eldest sister in a letter. Then she went from Nanchang back to Shanghai to accompany her eldest sister, who accepted an operation in the hospital. For this reason, she found it reasonable to live there for free. Then, she took me with her when I was two years old and lived in a narrow room in Shannancun. Outside the window was a foreign-style road that had not been rebuilt before she went to the countryside at the age of sixteen. Although she had long accepted her fate, she often felt sad that she could no longer understand the fashion on Huaihai Road. Her several beautiful elder sisters also voluntarily quit the long catwalk under the French phoenix trees. During the Spring Festival, family members gathered under this roof from Hubei, Jiangxi and Heilongjiang. The natives of Ningbo were lively and talked loudly, exchanging true feelings. These drove away the long shadow of sympathy in the lights of this city. This was the case in every household in those years. After growing up, I no longer asked my mother what she thought of her relationship with Shanghai. For over three decades, she has remembered the fishbone, which marks sadness. This may be the answer.

Anyway, have I cast too many self-righteous emotions on people of her generation? I remember another story my mother told me: It was also in Shannancun. An old man on the third floor opposite liked playing erhu at night. He had a son and a daughter, who were both handsome. One day in the 1970s, my mother was looking out of the window. She saw his daughter come back for a family visit. Her appearance didnt change a lot. It was strange that she didnt talk but used sign language. Neighbors said that she was too tired of farm work and lay in the fields. However, she didnt pay attention to the water perfusion, which caused otitis media. Due to delayed treatment, she became deaf. My mother repeated the essence of this story: A good, beautiful girl went outside and came back deaf.

I quickly asked myself a meaningless question: Did the old man play erhu from then on?

The music roared in my ear. Outside the ruins of the sound, the night waves flowed like the sea.

I think people of the previous generation accepted their current situation because such cruel cases warned them. The pains laid aside were ground by time into tiny powder, flashing like fish scales, inadvertently sailing downward with the inheritance of life.