Introduction

It’s traditional on this sort of occasion to reflect on the past, ponder the future or even to think about the present.

At another significant birthday I did talk – or commence to talk – about the past and mentioned some of the sayings that men I had worked with in the highlands of Tasmania had used. One of them involved a word which once was considered very rude but now I think just borders on the rather unacceptable.

Anyway most of the diners were so intrigued that that word could be succeeded by “poley” that the conversation – almost the rest of the evening - became a practice session “rude word, poley”

Anyway I’ve decided not to talk about the past. Possibly what I am talking about is the present or the future. I’ll let you decide. The subject is the picture on the place card in front of you. On your invitation card it included the words “In stormy weather a good pond and a birthday cake seemed to settle the fish”.

That card also included the phrase Is that all folks?

I’m not going to discuss that other than to say I think it’s pretty self-explanatory and compelling. I found it particularly compelling when I realised that Elizabeth Taylor who died recently was only 17 years older than me. If I want to get done all I want to, I thought, I better get on with it otherwise what has been to date will be all. So one of the things I hope to be doing this year is to learn Mandarin in Taiwan which fact has I guess a little bearing on what follows.

Activities, rituals and ways of being

In my travels I have seen a lot of different ways of doing things. All those cultural samenesses and differences played out in daily activities and rituals often, but not always based, in a religious belief system.

These have included:

· Russians celebrating their history of loss and occasional successes at Naval day in Vladivostok

· Perahera’s in Sri Lanka with marching elephants and people hanging from poles with hooks in their skins

· The ritual of “cleaning” your face with hands to mark the end of, and to give thanks for, a meal

· Sufi’s tying bits of cloth to trees or limbo-ing under tree trunks in Uzbekistan

· The love of horse and horse riding in Kyrgyzstan and Chile

· Chinese playing chess or cards in the streets and parks

· Old graffiti in Jordan and new graffiti all around the world

· Different foods and drinks like Kymmis and besh barmak in Kyrgyzstan or sea urchins in Korea

· Russians drinking vodka on the night train to Khabarovsk. Explaining almost apologetically “This is what we do Tim, we’re Russian”

In Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China I had the pleasure of being introduced to aspects of daily live in Chengdu by some Chinese people who befriended me.

I was reminded of Chengdu and these friends when I was thinking about this dinner.

That in turn - or perhaps more correctly – they in turn - reminded me of Richard Brautigan who wrote In Water Melon Sugar, The abortion, and of course Trout fishing in America.

Trout streams [or at least fish in water] – I’ll get back to that.

In Chengdu

Chengdu of course is where they have the panda research station. Though that actually doesn’t have a place in what I’m about to relate there are activities and rituals associated with the research station which are worth learning about. Perhaps that could be for another time.

Like many Chinese these Chinese friends had adopted English names which of course made remembering their names much easier for me. But choosing names from a culture that is not your own can have some unexpected results.

Thread had chosen a name by that naming-by-opposites approach which we often use for choosing nicknames. Like Lofty for a person who is quite short. As he was bald and as he also thought that the word for a single hair would be a thread he decided that his name would be Thread.

I also met Napoleon. Napoleon is now working in New Zealand. He had chosen a name which, he said, had associations with determination, strength, bravery and stature but he was now coming to realise that in New Zealand those associations were not only not very obvious but that the name Napoleon had other connotations which were not quite along the lines he’d expected.

In Australia I have met children of post-war immigrants named after their new country – or part of it. I’ve known a Victoria who luckily was not born in New South Wales or any of the other states or Territories, a Tasman and an Austra.

One of the men I met in Chengdu had been abandoned at birth and placed in a storage cupboard. When he was choosing an English name his foster parents suggested something that might be reminiscent of his origin – the place from which they had rescued him. He chose Storage as his English name.

Storage had married Quite Happily – a very nice young woman who, unfortunately I only met a few times. People would say of Storage that he had married quite happily which of course he had.

It was Thread and Storage who spent most time with me. I’m going to mention some activities which are illustrative of life in Chengdu and which help explain – I hope – the image on the invitation.

Fish farming

Fish farming is of course how they get the fish for the fish ponds but it is a very important part of the economic activity.

Basically farming involves buying some fish when they are quite young and planting them around the hospital grounds. It’s as simple as that.

First they place the fish head-first in the ground so they don’t get disturbed by passers-by.

As they grow they gradually turn upright and face east, the direction of the rising sun. They are sort of heliotropic though they don't follow the sun. Japanese fish turn earliest of course.

After a few more months they flop to the ground and start flapping their fins. They then put the fish into huge ponds where they grow into fish or crustaceans as needed.

No holes have to be dug but spacing has to be fairly precise because too close and the fish would look at each other rather than down and as they grow they'd become misshapen. Sometimes they'd even merge with the other fish and you might get two-headed or two-tailed fish.

The planting technique is all in the wrist. You get the fish in a horizontal position, stroke it until it calms a bit and when it is perfectly still - even momentarily perfectly still - you flick your wrist. With the other hand you firmly but gently force it to look straight at the ground.

If you get it right the fish will immediately become still … like hypnotised ptarmigan.

And this is important. If the fish are unsettled, they won’t mature properly and a very significant part of the Chengdu economy will be at risk. Life in Chengdu won’t be the same. There’ll be social unrest and probably wars and plagues.

There are various methods of settling fish which have become unsettled. The best seems to be to give them something special to eat. Invariably a cake of some sort helps especially if the weather has something to do with the unsettled-ness.

Life in Chengdu

Life in Chengdu is great and when things are going well these are some of the things they do.

Festivals

They have a number of festivals in Chengdu. The most important one celebrates the arrival of various groups from other countries.

They’ve had various waves of arrivals in Chengdu. These include the Mongols, various other local groups Chinese groups [I think they have 50 or so minority groups], Japanese, Koreans, Uighurs and Turkmen.

At the festival you can see lots of events and competitions. These include bamboo embedding competitions, fish pond design and leaf spitting. There is also the waddling-like-an-old Khan competition. It’s a very good competition and requires lots of practice so through the year you can see people practising at all times of the day. I gather this is named after Kublai Khan who became quite fat and gout ridden.

When the first migrant groups came they were welcomed with a show like this. They – the immigrants - said “thank you” to which the locals replied “Don’t mention it” and, combined with dancing, special food and mice just for the new arrivals the festival is now called the “Don’t mention it Festival.”

Leaf spitting

Leaf spitting has been around for a while though nobody is sure when it started or who introduced it.

For leaf spitting, leaves are obtained from a special tree, mixed with various gummy substances and shaped into a boomerang. The small boomerangs are then chewed into a larger mass which the competitors spit that as far as they possibly can.

Really good competitors can often get this mass of leaves to return to them just as a boomerang does. Any competitor that does that has a second - or third - chance of trying a big spit.

After the spitting they collect all the leaves, chew them again and then spit them at the audience. So the wads are used and re-used until either the spitting competitors get too tired or the audience tires of the spitting.

It’s good luck to be hit by a wad.

Otherwise - if you want good luck - you should leave after eight people have been hit.

Fish pond design

They also have fish pond design competitions. This idea was introduced by Richard Brautigan when visiting Chengdu in the late sixties. It was an extension of some of the ideas he had written of in Trout fishing in America. He also introduced the idea of a market in second had ponds or parts of ponds.

Some designs are fairly rudimentary the main idea seeming to be to make holes in ice-blocks and stuff them with as many fish as possible.

Other, more serious competitors, make ponds with well-formed banks, things in the pond for the fish to swim around or hide in and some even have food for the fish. Some people who have been to Japan make ponds with bonsai fish or fish organised in different shapes like Catherine wheels.

At the end of the competition bits of pond are sold as spare parts. If you are lucky you can make a whole pond simply by collecting bits after the “Don’t mention it Festival”.

Depending what bit you buy you may find there is quite a lot of fish in it. Some – maritime people - not surprisingly - are quite good at selecting fish pond parts but others need a lot of assistance and because of this don't often buy pieces of pond.

The scene on the invitation card

So back to the scene on the invitation card.

While life in Chengdu is generally good with lots of fulfilling activities and events – like leaf-spitting and festivals - there are times when life can get somewhat stormy - when the daily activities aren’t quite as fulfilling as they should be.

Thread and Storage told me their way of dealing with this storminess. They are pretty experienced with dealing with ups and downs [or, in this case, downs] whereas Quite Happily’s state of being is such that she doesn’t experience these stormy times much. Pisceans – some of whom have their birthday on 21 February – feel the storminess sometimes which is why Thread and Storage told me how to deal with it.

Apparently this idea was also inspired by Richard Brautigan but when he visited Chengdu in the early 70’s – his second trip - and noticed how unsettled fish were dealt with. It just required applying the same principles to people living in Chengdu, he decided.

And the solution is pretty simple. When you are feeling a bit low, when life is stormy, you leave off the festivals, the competitions and indeed any of the day-to-day. Instead you first find a bit of fish pond. If there is none lying about you can often get it at the equivalent of Savers, maybe at stalls around the Don’t mention it festival, or maybe on line if you want to avoid GST.

Then you get a bit of cake, or salt covered pretzels from Priceline or cheese. You sit down with your pond and these things, eating everything but the pond, and you immediately feel a lot better. As the saying goes, the fish will be settled. In other words life in Chengdu or for you personally will continue as it should.

But when it is very stormy or even very, very stormy you don’t use the cake, or salt covered pretzels from Priceline or cheese. You do however use the fish pond. With that you have a really special dinner like this, with really special company. Then however bad the weather is life will continue as it should and probably will even become a whole lot better.

In giving advice to people feeling various degrees of less-than-positiveness about the future, the people from Chengdu say “In stormy weather a good pond and a birthday cake seemed to settle the fish” even though you don’t eat cake in very stormy weather or worse. And even if the sentences tense doesn’t seem quite right.

Thanks very much for coming. My fish are very settled.

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