1sensei, an old custom in my hometown dictated that a newborn child is given the name of a body partor organ. nose chen, for instance, eyes zhao, colon wu, shoulder sun?.?.?.?i haven’t looked into theorigin of this custom, but i imagine it embodied the outlook of ‘those who are badly named livelong’. either that or it evolved from a mother’s thoughts that a child represented a piece of her body.

the custom is no longer followed, as young parents have no interest in naming their children in suchan unusual way. local children these days are endowed with elegant and distinctive names of tvcharacters in dramas from hong kong, taiwan, even japan and korea. most of those who werenamed the earlier way have adopted more conventional names, most but not all. we still have chener (ears) and chen mei (brow).

chen er and chen mei were the daughters of chen bi (nose), my classmate and my friend. weentered great sheep’s pen elementary school in the fall of 1960. that was during the famine, andnearly all my strongest memories of the time deal with food. i’ve told the story of eating coal. mostpeople think i made that up, but i swear on my aunt’s good name it’s true.

the coal was part of a ton of high-grade ore from the longkou coal mine, so glossy i could seemy face in it. i’ve never seen the likes of it since. wang jiao (foot), the owner of a horse cart,transported the coal over from the county seat. wang, a man with a square head, a thick neck and abad stammer, had a bright look in his eyes when he spoke, his face flushed from the effort. he had ason, wang gan (liver), and a daughter named wang dan (gallbladder). they were twins, and bothwere my classmates. wang gan was tall and well built, while his sister never grew to full size andremained a tiny thing – to be unkind, a dwarf. everyone said she was so small because her brotherhad sucked up all the nutrition in their mother’s womb. after school was out, we ran over with ourbackpacks to watch wang jiao shovel the coal to the ground, where it landed crisply on a growingpile. he stopped to wipe his sweaty neck with a blue cloth he’d wrapped around his waist, and whenhe saw his son and daughter, he shouted: go home and mow the grass.

wang dan turned and headed for home, struggling to keep her balance as she ran, like an infantlearning how to walk; a lovely sight. wang gan backed up but did not run. he was proud of hisfather’s occupation. children these days, even those whose fathers are airline pilots, are not as proudof theirs as he was of his. wang drove a horse cart whose wheels threw up dust as it rumbled along;an old branded warhorse said to have distinguished itself by once towing an artillery piece wasbetween the shafts, while a bad-tempered mule was up front in a harness, a mean animal known tokick and bite. that aside, it was astonishingly powerful and could run like the wind. no one butwang jiao could control it. though many villagers admired his line of work, they kept their distancefrom the mule, which had already bitten two youngsters: yuan sai (cheek), son of yuan lian (face);and wang dan, who had been bitten and picked up by the head while playing in front of the house.

we were in awe of wang jiao, who stood over six-two, with broad shoulders, and the strength of anox. he could lift a stoneroller weighing two hundred jin over his head. but what really wowed us washis skill with a whip. that time the crazy mule bit yuan sai, wang pulled back the brake and, withone foot on each of the shafts, brought the tip of his whip down on the animal’s rump with a crackthat drew blood. the mule reacted by kicking out, but then began to quake as its forelegs buckled andits head hit the ground, mouth in the dirt, rump raised ready for another hit. it was yuan sai’s father,yuan lian, who came to its rescue. it’s okay, old wang, he said, sparing the animal further anguish.

yuan was our village’s ranking official, the party secretary. not heeding his word was not an optionfor wang jiao. after the crazy mule bit wang dan, we eagerly awaited another good show, butinstead of striking out with his whip, wang jiao scooped up a handful of roadside lime and pressed itagainst the girl’s head as he carried her inside. the mule did not taste his whip this time, but his wifedid, just before wang kicked his son.

that crazy mule was one of our favourite topics of conversation. skinny as a rail, the indentationsabove both eyes were so deep they could accommodate hen’s eggs. its eyes emitted a sorrowful gaze,as if it were about to howl. how a skinny animal like that could exert such strength was a mystery.

we were talking about that as we drew up to the mule. wang jiao stopped shovelling coal and glaredmenacingly, backing us up terrified. the pile in front of the school kitchen grew higher and higher,the load of coal on the cart kept getting smaller. we sniffed in unison at the strange aroma in the air, abit like burning pine or roasting potatoes. our sense of smell drew our gaze to the pile of glisteningcoal as wang jiao flicked the reins and drove his cart out of the schoolyard. this time we didn’tchase it out of the yard, as we usually did, even risking the bite of wang’s whip when we tried toclimb aboard to satisfy our desire for a ride. no, we kept our eyes glued to the pile of coal as weshuffled forward. old wang, the school cook, wobbled over with two buckets of water on hisshoulder pole. his daughter, renmei, was also a classmate who, much later, would become my wife.

she was one of the rare children not burdened with the name of a body part, and that was because herfather had attended school. as the one-time head of a commune animal-husbandry station, a carelesscomment had cost him his job and sent him back to his village. he observed us with a wary eye. didhe think we were planning to raid his kitchen? go on, you little shits, get out of here! there’s nothinghere for you to eat. go home and suck your mothers’ teats. we heard him, of course, and evenconsidered what he’d said. but he was just mouthing off. already seven or eight years old, we wereway past nursing at our mothers’ breasts. even if we hadn’t been, our half-starved mothers, with theirflattened chests, had nothing to give us. but we weren’t interested in arguing with old wang. instead,we stood in front of the pile of coal, heads down and bent at the waist like geologists who havediscovered an unusual rock formation. we sniffed the air like dogs searching for food in a rubbishpile. at this point i need to first thank chen bi and then wang dan. it was chen who first picked up achunk of coal and sniffed it, crinkling his brow as if pondering a weighty question. his big, high-bridged nose was a source of laughter for us. after a thoughtful pause, he smashed the coal in hishand against a much larger piece, like shattering glass, releasing a strong aroma into the air. both heand wang dan picked up shards. he licked his to taste it and rolled his eyes as he looked our way.

she copied him by tasting hers and looking our way. they exchanged a glance, smiled, and as if oncue, cautiously took small bites; they chewed briefly before taking bigger bites and chewing likecrazy. excited looks burst onto their faces. chen bi’s big nose turned red and was beaded with sweat.

wang dan’s little nose turned black with coal dust. we were entranced by the sound of coal beingchewed and shocked when they swallowed it. they’d actually swallowed coal! it’s good, guys, hesaid softly. eat up, big brother! she cried out shrilly. wang gan picked up another piece and reallystarted to chew, while she grabbed a large chunk and handed it to him. so we followed their lead,smashing the coal into smaller chunks and nibbling it at first to see how it tasted. though it was sortof gritty, it wasn’t half bad. chen bi picked up a large chunk. eat this kind, guys, he said helpfully, ittastes the best. he pointed to some slightly transparent, amber-like pale yellow coal. that was thesource of the pine aroma. from our nature study class we’d learned that coal formed over millenniafrom buried forests. our teacher for that class was our principal, wu jinbang. we hadn’t believedhim or what the textbook said. how could green forests turn into black coal? we’d thought he andthe textbooks were lying. but the smell of pine trees changed our minds. our principal and thetextbook were telling the truth. all thirty-five students in our class, except for a few absent girls,picked up chunks of coal and started chewing, crunching away, slightly mysterious looks ofexcitement on our faces. it was like improvisational theatre or a strange game. xiao xiachun (lowerlip) turned a piece of coal over and over in his hand, but chose not to eat it, a superior look on hisface. he didn’t eat it because he wasn’t hungry, he said, and that was because his father was thecommune granary watchman.

old wang the cook came out, his hands flour-dusted, and was stunned by what he saw. (my god,that’s flour on his hands! in those days, the only people who ate in the kitchen were the principal, ourpolitical instructor, and two locally stationed commune cadres.) what are you kids doing? old wangcried out in alarm. are you?.?.?.?eating coal? who does that? wang dan picked up a piece and, in atiny voice, said, it’s delicious. here, uncle, try it. old wang shook his head. wang dan, he said, whyis a nice little girl like you acting like these wild kids? she took a bite. it really is delicious, uncle,she said. a red evening sun was setting in the west. the two privileged commune cadres rode up ontheir bicycles. we got their attention, as old wang tried to shoo us away with his shoulder pole. thefellow named yan – i think he was the assistant director – stopped him. with a disdainful wave of hishand and a sour look on his face, old wang stormed back into the kitchen.

the next day in school we nibbled on coal while listening to teacher yu’s lesson, our mouthssmeared black, coal crumbs in the corners. the boys weren’t the only ones either. wang dan taughteven the girls who’d been absent the day before how to eat it. old wang’s daughter, my future wife,renmei, enjoyed it more than anyone. now that i think about it, she probably had a gum disease,since her mouth bled as she chewed. after writing several lines on the blackboard, teacher yu turnedback to the class and asked her son, li shou (hand): what are you kids eating? it’s coal, ma. wantsome, teacher yu? called out wang dan, who sat in the front row, a lump of coal in her hand. hervoice was like that of a kitten. teacher yu stepped down from the podium and took the lump fromwang dan, holding it up to her nose either to smell it or get a closer look. she didn’t say anything fora moment then handed it back. today we’re on lesson six, class, ‘the fox and the crow’. the crowfound a piece of meat and was proud of herself, perched high up in a tree. from under the tree, thefox said, crow, you have such a beautiful singing voice you put all the other birds to shame.

swooning over the flattery, the crow opened her beak to sing and, ha, the meat fell right into the fox’smouth. the teacher led us in reading the story aloud, which we did with our black-as-crow mouths.

teacher yu was an educated, out-of-towner who followed the local custom by giving her son thename shou (hand), using his father’s surname, li. li shou did well enough in the exams to beadmitted to medical school. after graduation he returned to the county health centre as a surgeon.

when chen bi lost four fingers while cutting hay, doctor li was able to reattach three of them.