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Perhaps Mai Lin had it right. Some months before she told me her plan.
She would live as long as she enjoyed life, as long as 'I am walking and
doing!' Finally she would take a boat from Qingdao, the Chinese harbor
'where the sea meets the sky'. Mai Lin would row until she exhausted herself
with rowing; then she would lay down with her hands across her breast.
What could I say? I wanted to know 'How old would you be?'
'Fifty' she had said, 'So I could still row!'
Today,
however, Mai Lin was less melodious. Instead she seemed careful, even somber, as we
blinked our way back into the plaza. Around us we saw what looked like marble benches, and
I almost sat on one before Mai Lin stopped me. She said "See! There a family"
was bringing their urn-box to one of these altars.
They
set the case on the marble slab. It was carved with the usual cranes, and held a
photo of an old soldier. A bald man, the father, bowed to the picture. Then he set out
three tomatoes, three bananas, three cucumbers, and three plums. Of course, I realized,
both three and four are sacred numbers.
A
foot from the altar he piled wax paper, which he lit with a match; then
he prayed with fanning gestures while his wife fed in more pieces, one
by one. His kids scratched themselves, as bored as youngsters at any
ceremony; but the man started crying as the smoke bathed the food and
photo. Within moments the white column floated into the heavens. There
the essence of the fruits would feed his father, the way his father had
fed him...
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