He and Chiong-dek would go down to a place beneath Sand River Bridge were they practiced -- Li Bun-liong playing his trumpet and Changteh the trombone. The instruments belonged to the Sand River Administration Office, and had been borrowed from the official in charge of encouraging local youth to take up music so a town band could be formed. It wasn't until the day he finally told his mother, privately, that he would be leaving Sand River late that night with Yap Te-chi and his troupe that she finally broke down and wept. She had never understood him: had he become a musician in an opera troupe just to humiliate her? It was not comprehensible to her that the achievements of a performer counted as a kind of social attainment. She didn't know what art was, had never been to school; so this thing she found incomprehensible was exactly the thing Li Bun-liong was most sure about. As for his father, he was a scholar of the old-fashioned sort. He was employed by the town administration office and his life in Sand River demanded that he keep vigilant watch over his social standing. It was inconceivable that Li Bun-liong could tell him he was leaving home to become a professional musician, for he knew that this decision would be a terrible blow to his father's self-esteem -- that his father would find the shame almost unbearable. To let his father know before he left would make leaving impossible. So he could only tell his mother, kneeling before her and begging her to let him go.
And now it was time to tell his younger brother that the artistry pursued at the beginning of one's life would eventually become a means of self-discovery.
Drifting between gigs at the Paradise Club and Easy Street in Sand River, the audience of town councilors and local representatives, farmers association officials and school teachers, and even arrogant farmers who had "made it" and merchants with dollar signs in their eyes, were filled with the self-satisfied belief that the popular tunes Li Wen-lung played were performed for their pleasure. They didn't know he played to justify his existence to himself. They could not be expected to understand such subtlety. The life of an artist resides in giving a true performance -- so in derisively throwing him money in the belief that he was a prop to their expansive emotions and enjoyment, they did not know that for him what was important was acting as a catalyst for the confluence of emotions. Normally, they might think about no more than profit and power, but in Li Bun-liong's eyes, the fundamentals of sorrow and despair were the same for everyone, and in soothing sorrow with music lay the real value of any speculation about sorrow -- like some primitive tribe, who after wild celebrations returned to their hard life of hunting -- so in the muddled chorus of bar girls and customers singing Wishing for Spring, the confluence of human emotions became one with the will to live. He did not know if his brother would welcome this line of thinking, or even accept this unrestrained caprice. Er'lang had always been clever, and in his youth, Li Bun-liong had always been proud of him. He believed that Li'long might be able to understand that self-pity is the main emotional drive in forgiving and forgetting the troubles brought on by a changing world.
PHOTO COURTESY OF CENTRAL MOTION PICTURE CORP.
As Li Bun-liong gradually became familiar with the ways of his profession, frustration with the boring routine made him want to forget the details of this existence. After leaving Sand River with Yeh Teh-hsing and the cabaret troupe, he found that the troupe's change of venue every 10 days or so usually involved a major expedition of 10 or even hundreds of miles from one county to another. They would never just move on to the next town. Initially, he was confused and curious, but eventually understood that these peregrinations across the country were a response to audience psychology. An audience was an animal that constantly sought out the novel, and would easily become bored with the familiar. They wanted something unusual to enliven their monotonous lives; they wanted new faces to stimulate their imagination. But to put on new shows or create variations was very difficult, so these trip across country were really an escape from audiences that knew them. The troupe's survival depended on their being strangers where they performed. On the last night of a run, wearily tying up bundles and dismantling the stage -- work that everyone in the group had to take a hand in -- the cooperative spirit between troupe members could be quite moving. In the cold of the late night; in wind and rain; through gentle summer nights; or in the light of the full moon, the truck parked outside the theater, the work of packing would take place as they prepared to take leave of yet another theater. After the troupe manager and the theater owner settled the accounts, personal belongings would be loaded onto the truck and everyone would take their places. People departed, giving no send off -- the audience with whom they had shared so much laughter and so many tears were already in the process of putting them out of their minds. Dreaming in their beds, this audience had no idea that they were departing. The next day, another troupe would perform at the theater, and by dawn, it would already have people in the market place and the streets advertising the new show. The streets would be lined with the banners of the new troupe, the walls covered with its posters, so the audience would hardly notice that other people had arrived to feed their appetite, remaining blind to the epic events behind the scenes. On the night after the troupe finished its run in one town, everyone would sleep on the truck as it sped away. At these times, nobody would talk. Ensconced each in their niche, they would sleep. The children would not cry. They would cling onto their mother's waists or their mother would hug them to their breast. Everyone, whether man or woman, adult or child, all shared this common fate in silence, head bowed on their chests. It seemed that that night's sleep would last only half a minute. Even if the journey was over hundreds of miles, it passed in a flash. When the truck stopped, everyone would jump off. They would stand looking at the theater, seeing how alike it was to the one they had just left. It was as though they had not moved, and that the whole work of moving had been a charade to deceive themselves. Then they would set up the props again. This work continued from late night until morning. The makeup that was the representation of their stage characters remained on their faces, un-removed. Some of them would keep the makeup on for 10 days at a time or even for a whole month or a whole year. With the rising of the sun on this first day, there was more work than usual to be done. Led by the musicians, they would all parade through the streets to advertise their arrival. The clown would carry a megaphone to proclaim the news, telling jokes and full of exaggerated remarks. After this, everyone would return to the theater to have lunch and prepare for the first matinee. Everything began again -- a 10-day cycle, like the movement of the stars and the change of the seasons, like the universe.
And the shallow waters of Sand River continued to sing their sibilant song.
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