Free A Loyal Character Dancer by Qiu Xiaolong Page B

goods, like a flea market in the United States.” Chen continued plying her with information. “With so many people coming here, eating places appeared, convenient, inexpensive, but with a special flavor.”
     
    The snackbars, food carts, and small restaurants seemed to fill the air with a palpable energy. Most appeared to be cheap, low-class, in sharp contrast to those near the Peace Hotel. A curbside peddler spread out skewers of diced lamb on a makeshift grill, adding a pinch of spices from time to time. A gaunt herbalist measured out ancient medicinal remedies into a row of earthen pots boiling under a silk banner declaring in bold Chinese characters: medical meal.
     
    This was where she wanted to be, at a clamorous, chaotic corner that told real stories about the city. Fish, squid, and turtles, were all displayed alive in wooden or plastic basins. Eels, quails, and frog legs were frying in the sizzling woks. Most of the bustling restaurants were full of customers.
     
    They found a vacant table in a bar. Chen handed her a dogeared menu. After looking at the strange names of the items listed, she gave up. “You decide. I’ve never heard of any of them.”
     
    So Chen ordered a portion of fried mini-buns with minced pork stuffing, shrimp dumplings with transparent skin, sticks of fermented tofu, rice porridge with a thousand-year-egg, pickled white squash, salted duck, and Guilin bean curd with chopped green scallions. All in small dishes.
     
    “It’s like a banquet,” she said.
     
    “It costs less than a continental breakfast in the hotel,” he said.
     
    The tofu came first, tiny pieces on bamboo sticks like shish kebabs. In spite of a wild, sharp flavor, she started to like it after the first few bites.
     
    “Food has always been an important part of Chinese culture,” Chen mumbled, busily eating. “As Confucius says, To enjoy food and sex is human nature.’”
     
    “Really!” She had never come across that quotation. He could not have made it up, could he? She thought she caught a slight suggestion of humor in his tone.
     
    Soon she became aware of curious glances from other customers—an American woman devouring common food in the company of a Chinese man. A pudgy customer even greeted her as he passed their table with an enormous rice ball in his hand.
     
    “Now I have a couple of questions for you, Chief Inspector Chen. Do you think Wen married Feng, a peasant, because she believed so devoutly in Mao?”
     
    “That’s possible. But for things between a man and a woman, I don’t think politics alone can be an explanation.”
     
    “Did many of the educated youths remain in the countryside?” she said, nibbling at the last piece of tofu.
     
    “After the Cultural Revolution, most of them returned to the city. Detective Yu and his wife were educated youths in Yunnan, and they came back to Shanghai in the early eighties.”
     
    “You have an interesting division of labor, Chief Inspector Chen. Detective Yu is busy working in Fujian, and you stay in Shanghai to enjoy delicious snacks with an American guest.”
     
    “It is my responsibility as a chief inspector to welcome you on the occasion of your first trip to China, and of the first instance of anti-illegal-immigration cooperation between our two countries. Party Secretary Li made a special point of it. ‘Make Inspector Rohn’s stay in Shanghai a safe and satisfactory one’ are my orders.”
     
    “Thank you,” she said. His self-mockery was apparent now, which made their talk easier. “So when I go back home, I’m supposed to talk about the friendship between our two countries, and the politics in your newspapers.”
     
    “That is up to you, Inspector Rohn. It’s the Chinese tradition to show hospitality to a guest from a faraway country.”
     
    “In addition to entertaining me, what else are you going to do?”
     
    “I’ve made a list of Wen’s possible contacts here. Qian Jun, my temporary assistant, is arranging