Most of this talk was based on memories, for example recollections of some birthday banquet or funeral feast engraved on a deeply appreciative memory. All this talk, talk, talk would then turn into speculation and boasting. As soon as someone announced that they could eat three pounds of rice in one go, then someone else would announce that they could eat twenty stuffed buns. That was nothing, some superman would interrupt with a snort, he could eat ten pounds of pork fat with two pounds of noodles thrown on top, and so on. Arguments, and assiduous research, would inevitably ensue. Some refused to be convinced, some wanted to take bets, some proclaimed themselves referees, some suggested competition rules, some volunteered to watch over the combatants to prevent them from cheating, for example stopping them from burning the pork fat into crackling, and so on and so forth. This excitement reproduced itself endlessly and identically, and always when meal-times were still a long way off.

At moments like these, the local people would often speak of the year they "opened canteens"-this was the way they generally referred to the Great Leap Forward. They always recalled the past through their stomachs, giving past events a real texture and taste. "Eat grain" meant military service, "eat state grain" meant people going to the city to labor or do cadre work, "the last time they ate dog meat" meant some cadre meeting in the village, "eat new rice" meant early autumn, "make baba cakes" or "kill the new year pig" meant the new year, "there are three or four tables of people here" meant the numbers present at some group activity.

No one had enough to eat during what they called the "canteen" years. Although everyone's eyes were green from hunger, they still had to tramp through ice and snow to repair the irrigation works, and even women were forced to bare their upper bodies, breasts hanging pendulously down as they heaved earth on their backs, wielding red flags, drums, gongs, and slogan boards as they went, to demonstrate their undaunted revolutionary zeal. Unable to manage another breath, third father Ji (I never met him myself) toppled over and died on the construction site. Many young people, in the prime of life, couldn't bear the hardship and fled to Jiangxi. They didn't return for many years.

I later came across a man who had returned to Maqiao from Jiangxi to visit relatives; his name was Benren, and he was about forty years old. He offered me cigarettes, and called me "old chum." In response to my curious inquiries, he said that the reason he fled to Jiangxi that year was because of a pot of maize gruel (see the entry "Gruel"). He'd taken a pot of maize gruel home from the commune canteen, the evening meal for the whole family, but as he waited for his wife to get back from the fields, waited for his two children to come back from school, he felt just too hungry and couldn't help eating his own portion first. Hearing the voices of his children at the mouth of the village, he hurried to divide the gruel into bowls, but when he lifted the lid, he discovered that the pot was already empty. Anxiety turned everything black before his eyes. The gruel had been there a minute ago-where had it gone? Could he have wolfed down the lot without realizing it?

He searched all over the room, disbelieving and panic-stricken: there was no gruel anywhere, all the bowls, dishes, pots were empty, everything was empty. That year there were no dogs or cats who would come and steal food-even all the earthworms and locusts in the ground had long since been devoured.

No sound had ever been as terrifying as the footsteps of his children, growing nearer, and nearer.

He felt that he could not face a soul, let alone tell his wife, and ran panic-stricken to the slope behind the house where he hid in the clumps of grass.

He heard the faint sound of his family's cries, heard his wife calling out his name everywhere. He didn't dare reply, didn't dare release the sound of his own sobs. He never stepped into his home again. He said that he now worked in a valley in southern Jiangxi, chopping wood, burning coal, you know the kind of thing… Ten years had already passed, and he had a new nest of children there.

His original wife had also remarried, and bore no grudge against him, even had him over to her house, cooked him a meal with meat. The only thing was, her two children were shy with strangers; they'd gone to play in the hills and hadn't come back even after it got dark.

I asked him if he still planned to move back.

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized this was a very clumsy thing to ask.

He gave a brief, slight smile, and shook his head.

He said it was all the same, life over there was just the same. He said he might get to be a permanent laborer at the forestry center. He also said that he'd set up home with some other people who had left Maqiao, and their village was also called "Maqiao." The people over there also called Hunanese people "old chum."

A couple of days later, he returned to Jiangxi. A light rain was falling on the day he left, and he walked in front, his former wife following about ten paces behind, probably seeing him off for part of the way. They only had one umbrella, which the woman held but hadn't opened. When they crossed a ditch, once he had pulled the woman over, they quickly resumed their ten paces separation, one in front, one behind, battling forward through the thick misty drizzle. I never saw him again.

*Sweet

: Maqiao people have a very simple way of expressing flavors. Normally, one umbrella term suffices for anything that tastes good: "sweet." Sugar is "sweet," fish and meat are also "sweet," boiled rice, chilli pepper, bitter gourds are all "sweet."

Outsiders have found this hard to understand: was it because their sense of taste was crude, and therefore they lacked vocabulary to describe flavors? Or was it the other way around: had a lack of vocabulary to describe flavors caused their palate to lose the ability to differentiate? Their predicament is virtually unheard of in a country as gastronomically developed as China.

Similarly, there is only one name for all sweet foods: "candy." Candied fruits are "candy," biscuits are "candy" sponge cake, shortcake, bread, cream, absolutely everything is "candy." The first time they saw popsickles in Changle, they called them "candy" too. There are, of course, exceptions: the specialities of the region each have their own name, for example "glutinous rice cake" and "rice cake." Use of the umbrella term "candy" is restricted to all foodstuffs that are Western, modern, or just from distant regions. Most Educated Youth bought biscuits from street stalls to take back home: these were called "candy." This always sounded strange to us, and we never quite got used to it.

Perhaps in the past, Maqiao people had had only just enough food to avoid starvation, and had never achieved a thorough understanding and analysis of food flavors. Years later, I met some English-speaking foreigners and discovered that they suffered from a similar poverty of vocabulary for taste sensations. For example, any piquant flavor-pepper, chilli, mustard, garlic, anything that made your head sweat-was described as "hot." I secretly wondered to myself, did they too, like Maqiao people, have a history of famine that prevented them from selecting their food and differentiating flavors? I can't joke about this, because I know what starvation tastes like. There was one time when, having groped my way back to the village in the darkness, I didn't bother to wash my hands or face (I was covered in mud from head to toe), didn't bother slapping at the mosquitoes (which were swarming densely around me), I just gulped five bowls of rice (each one holding half a pound of rice). After gulping it all down, I still couldn't say what I'd just eaten, what it tasted of. At that moment, I could see nothing, hear nothing, my only sensation was a violent wriggling in the stomach. All those words used by the upper classes to describe taste, all that precise, detailed, flatulent chatter, meant nothing to me.