Free Ocean of Words by Ha Jin

pasted on the walls on each side of the door: THE ARMY AND THE PEOPLE ARE UNITED LIKE FISH AND WATER / WITH SOARING ASPIRATION WE WELCOME ANOTHER SPRING . I didn’t think Scribe Niu Hsi had done a good job in making the poetry, but we were army men and shouldn’t be fastidious about words. Inside the room twelve square tables were set in three lines, and at the center of each table four candles, as thick as grenades, stood burning. The room was ablaze with a swarm of flames.
    On the army side, all the battery commanders and political instructors and the officers in the Battalion Headquarters attended; on the villagers’ side, all the local powers were invited, including the head of the blacksmith’s shop and the only doctor at the village clinic. All together there were about ninety people. The dishes were not fancy, but they were substantial: stewed pork, scrambled eggs, fried cutlass fish, horsemeat balls … Wine was plentiful — three full vats stood against the wall. After Commissar Diao and the Party secretary of the production brigade, Liu Ming, made their speeches, people started to enjoy themselves.
    As the heads of the army, Diao and I were obligated to go to every table and to propose toasts, but Diao had little capacity for liquor, so we had arranged beforehand that I would carry out the obligation alone. Holding a green enamel mug, I made my way from table to table.
    I met Dragon Head and his men at the eighth table, the noisiest one. They ate meatballs with their hands and had a large basket of cutlass fish in the middle of the other dishes. At the corner of the table lay a short braid of large garlic, which they had brought for the feast.
    “Merry Spring Festival, Dragon Head,” I said with a smile.
    “Happy holiday, Commander Gao.” He raised a huge bowl, which looked like a small basin, and took a gulp.
    “Let us drink to our solidarity,” I proposed.
    “Sure, glasses dry.” Seeing me hesitating, he said, “Why?You don’t want to? My bowl’s three times bigger than your mug.”
    Without a word, I drank up the mugful of corn liquor and then held the mug upside down.
    “Good man!” they cried in one voice.
    Dragon Head raised the bowl to his mouth and started drinking. A purple vein was quivering on his neck. I watched him with admiration.
    When he finished, one of his men said, “Brother Dragon can swallow a sea.”
    We shook hands, and his eyes shone with happiness. When I returned to my table, Commissar Diao awaited me there. We agreed that everything had gone well. He wanted to leave early to visit the men in the batteries. I told him that I wouldn’t hang around for long and would go to the Third Battery soon. Apart from wishing the soldiers a happy Spring Festival, we would also make sure that everything was in good shape, because our battalion had been ordered to stay in first-degree combat readiness during the holiday. For a whole week everybody had to sleep with his clothes on.
    The village’s show team arrived and started performing in the front of the room. A man in light green silks and a woman in pink, both with painted faces, were wheeling around, singing in turn the local opera The Couple’s Twirl. The woman sang:
    Watermelons here are big and sweet,
    We club roe deer in our backyard,
    Pheasants sneak in to steal wheat,
    Fish jump into pails and splash hard.
    But take me with you, my sweetheart,
    On your three-horse cart.
    We shall journey, never apart,
    Never apart, never apart …
    I was about to leave, but Dragon Head came to my table with the large bowl in his hand. Behind him came Wang Si, carrying a plastic gasoline can containing white spirits. “Commander Gao,” Dragon Head said, “I like … like your way of drinking. Let’s have a-another.” He held out his bowl and Wang Si filled it. A wart protruded beneath Wang Si’s ear like a squashed fly.
    “Dragon Head,” I said, “you shouldn’t drink more. We’re in combat readiness now.”
    “This stuff