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“I love to think of Yu combing these wild reaches and incorporating them into an empire that would one day become China. Besides,” he added, “Yu was a mathematician like myself. That amused me.”
“How can you possibly know if he was a mathematician?” Hulan asked. “He may not even have existed.”
“I think we should trust the historical accounts found in the Shu Ching, don’t you?”
“I don’t understand what that is, exactly.”
“It’s one of the world’s oldest books, and it’s still in print.”
But that didn’t mean she knew its importance, and this realization surprised him.
“It’s a series of historical documents that covers nearly two thousand years of history up to 631 B.C.,” he explained. “The Tribute to Yu canon records Yu’s nature as a man and a leader. It’s here that you first hear about the Nine Tripods and how the bronze work describes each province’s resources and riches.”
Michael fell silent. The rain, which had let up considerably during the day, now pelted the roof, and thunder sounded in the distance. He put down his wineglass and continued. “One thing I think is extraordinary about Yu was his vision of engineering. Da Yu chih shui. ‘Yu the Great controlled the waters,’” he translated, although she understood the words. “He who controls the waters of China controls the people. Think about dikes, canals, dams, sluice gates, locks, cofferdams. When these aren’t working correctly, then crops are flooded, methods of communication fail, territorial lines are lost—all of which lead to the destruction of empire. Yu was the first to figure that out, and the central government still believes it.”
“So he was a leader, a good businessman, a great engineer—”
“And a mathematician, as I said. Yu developed the Luo script, arranging numbers so that whether added vertically, horizontally, or diagonally they all come out to the same aggregate of fifteen.”
“I remember doing that puzzle as a child.”
“So do I, and so do a lot of kids all over the world. Today we can look at it as a childish puzzle, but Yu figured it out more than four thousand years ago. He also created the Chinese lunar calendar. You had to know that.”
“No.”
“It’s called the Xia calendar in honor of the dynasty he founded!”
“But I didn’t know he developed it.”
He shook his head, truly surprised at her ignorance.
“Wine was created during Yu’s reign. Did you know that?”
“I told you I know nothing about him.”
“Right, but wine? That’s big! Of course a man like Yu would have to be contemptuous of luxury and pleasure. So this great thing is created, he tries it, and decides it’s too harmful for his people.”
Hulan tapped a finger on the rim of her wineglass. “But I see you haven’t exactly followed Yu’s advice.”
“You’d be surprised,” Michael said. “And I’ll tell you about that one day too, if you’ll let me. But first may I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“I’ve been telling you things that any child in China should know.”
“‘If not for Yu, we all would be fishes,’” she recited. “I only heard it for the first time at lunch the other day.”
“How can that be? Did it have to do with the Cultural Revolution?”
“My ignorance? In part. I was sent to the countryside when I was twelve. I left China soon after that and didn’t return until I was twenty-seven. Whatever I knew as a child I’ve mostly forgotten. It’s a shortcoming, I know.”
As she watched him consider this, Hulan realized that tonight she’d spoken more openly with him than she had with her own husband over the last year. When Michael Quon looked at her, he didn’t see her dead daughter, her dead father, the dead women in the Knight factory, the dead mother on the square. Hulan knew she was mixing her Americanisms, but to Michael she was a clean slate, with no baggage.
Finally, as though no time had passed, he said, “You could look at it another way. You were given an opportunity, and you learned a whole set of abilities and volumes of expertise
that make you very different here. You are different. You realize that, don’t you?”
She’d lived with that knowledge every day of her life, and it wasn’t just because she’d spent her formative years abroad. She was born a Red Princess in a society that was supposed to be classless. She’d kept her individuality in a society where individuality was often singled out for punishment. She was different in her neighborhood, different at work, different from the people she’d known in the countryside, different—as Michael said—from most people in China.
