stop thinking that we're better than that’ ‘Then why don't we go out and start begging?’ the woman snaps. ‘I guarantee we'd make more than we do now. Look at all the beggars who live in Western-style houses.’ ‘You can say that if you want,’ reasons the troupe leader. ‘But you'd never make it as beggars even if you had to. Comrades, try to make do. I damn near had to kiss Lao Lan's arse for the extra five hundred. I'm a drama-school graduate, I'm supposed to be an intellectual. Back in the 1970s, a play I wrote even won second prize in a provincial contest. But if you'd seen how I degraded myself in front of Lao Lan's lackeys, well, I'm ashamed of the sickening talk that came out of my mouth. Afterwards, when I was alone, I actually slapped myself. And so, assuming we are all reluctant to give up this bit of income and still cling to this poor, pedantic art of ours, we must all endure a bit of humiliation to do what we've come to do and, as you said, when there's no hot water drink it cold, when you have to do without rice and vegetables eat bread. And if there are no stools please stand. Actually, standing is better, for you can see farther.’ The young boy, the one made up to look like the legendary celestial Prince Naza, scoots between me and the Wise Monk and leaps onto the back of the Horse Spirit. ‘Aunty Dong,’ he cries out brightly, ‘come up here, it's great! ‘You're a silly little meat boy,’ the Qingyi says. I'm not a meat boy, I'm a meat god, a meat immortal,’ he says as he bounces up and down atop the horse. Its water-soaked, crumbling back soon gives way and the frightened boy quickly slides off. ‘The Horse Spirit's back is broken,’ he shouts. ‘That's not the only thing that's broken,’ the Qingyi says as she surveys the temple. ‘The whole place looks like it's about to collapse. I hope it doesn't tonight and make meat patties out of all of us.’ ‘Don't worry, miss,’ says the man with the goatee, ‘the Meat God will protect you, for you are his mother! The troupe leader runs in with a rickety chair. ‘Get ready to go on stage, meat boy,’ he says and places the chair behind the Qingyi. ‘Sorry, Xiao Dong,’ he says, ‘but this is the best I've got.’ The meat boy dusts himself off, rubs his hands to clean off the mud, bounds out of the temple and mounts the wooden steps to the stage. The drums and the cymbals fall silent and give way to the two-stringed huqin and flute. ‘I've come to rescue my mother,’ the meat boy says in his high voice, ‘travelling day and night,’ and then runs to the centre of the stage as he finishes his line. Peeking through the gap between old blue curtains behind the stage, I see him turn a couple of somersaults. The drums and the cymbals set up a raucous din that merge with the crowd's ardent shouts of approval for the boy. ‘I cross mountains, ford rivers and pass through a sleepy town—to see a physician of great renown—he prescribes a concoction for mother mine—what a mix of ingredients—croton oil, raw ginger, even bezoar, a strange design—at the pharmacy I hand up the slip—the clerk demands two silver dollars for this trip—from a family with no money to enjoy—causing agonizing distress for this dutiful meat boy.’ He rolls about the stage to display his agonizing distress. With the beat of drums and clang of cymbals all round me, I feel like he and I have fused into one. What's the relationship between the story of the meat-eating Luo Xiaotong and the me who's sitting across from the Wise Monk? It's like some other boy's story, while my story is being acted out up on the stage. In order to get the concoction for his mother, the boy goes looking for the woman who buys and sells children to offer himself up for sale. The child merchant mounts the stage, bringing with her a happy, humorous air. Her lines all rhyme: ‘A child-seller, that's me, my name is Wang. My clever mouth takes me far and long. A chicken, you know, can be a duck, a donkey's mouth on a horse's arse is stuck. You'll believe me when I say the dead can run,