Egon Erwin Kisch, the Raging Reporter: A Bio-Anthology

Chance Visit with Eunuchs

·Chance Vi~it with Eunuch~ It was one of those summer strolls inthe vicinity of Peking that have nothing at all to do with Peking and its vicinity. Our brain was crammed with impressions, our eyes overexposed. Here was apagoda, fourteen stories high; the roofs floated in the ether like fourteen malachite-green parallel waves with golden crests; there a brightly painted triumphal arch vaulted over the path. We barely glanced at the pagoda and arch; we were tired of being constantly·delighted. On such strolls, this mood is apt to vent itself in a conversation about " the Chinese landscape. There is no Chinese landscape, observed one of us. The western mountains here, they're just mountains, nothing more. They couldjust as well be mountains in Switzerland or in the Eifel. The fields? Fields are cornyellow everywhere, and meadows green everywhere. His adversary in conversation-tomorrow the roles could be reversedcites something specific: the shape ofthe poplar trees, the silvery gleaming strips ofthe rice fields. And this caravan ofnodding camels-do you also find that in Switzerland or in the Eifel? No, but in Turkey or in Africa! You've got to admit that it's only in China you see such porcelain fences and the catafalques in the fields! They've got nothing to do with the landscape. They're architecture. Maybe you'd also like to include in nature the Tiger Bridge and the Ming tombs? Egon Erwin KilCh, the Raging Reporter So we talked, for the sake of talking. As we did so, we kept moving ahead, always in the same direction, up the top of a temple mound and down again on the opposite side. In the valley a wall cut across our path. Possessed by the stubbornness of the aimless, we insisted on sticking to the direction we were going in and strode along the wall in order to reach a place where it would leave our path free again. After a hundred paces, there was a wide opening; it was the gate of a dairy farm through which-our direction, our direction!-we had to pass. Dogs jumped all around us, yelping; they kept chasing about us, at a distance of three paces, cowardly and aggressive at the same time. They stopped, waiting, when we stopped, at a distance of three paces. An escort like this wasn't exactly pleasant. "One should always carry a stick along," we said. Nevertheless, we soon forgot about the dogs. The people who were coming toward us resembled each other in an odd, disturbing way. With each new encounter this similarity became all the stronger, until finally it was .uncanny. They were all elderly women, evidently farm workers. Some were leading cattle on a rope, others were carrying sacks on their backs or walked past with rakes and pitchforks. They were wearing dark-blue trousers, as is the custom among working women in this country. However, contrary to all convention, their upper bodies were naked, their breasts hanging down shamelessly. The matrons were conversing with each other, and although they weren't yelling, their voices sounded shrill, or, to be more precise, a shrill static accompanied each sound. A sturdily built woman stood atop a wagon piled with straw; her face was etched with countless little wrinkles. Below, people were working grain in the old biblical and still-new Chinese way: the grain ground in the treadmill is thrown upward with awooden shovel; the weight ofthe grains causes them to fall vertically to the threshing-floor, and the light chaff, blown away like a cloud of dust, lands on the ground a few paces to a side. All the work was done by the old women. Their chins wobbled loosely in theirjaws. Their heads were shaved clean, except for a"bun" on the crown, a tuft of hair so thin, so gray, that itrevealed the advanced age of its wearer. There was no evidence of infirmity; they all went at their work hardily. 180 ~ . Chance Vilitwit~'Eunuchl Then suddenly we w,ere surprised and confused by asmall action, which at the same moment afforded us aglimmer ofunderstanding: one ofthe women, her back turned to us, relieved herself, standing-standing the way mendo. "Whom does this farm belong to?" we askedanother old woman, who for a long time now was creeping around us, together with the barking dogs. She came closer: "We are officials ofthe imperial court...