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Student translations of: Chinese and Soy Paste Pots by Bo Yang I. Daphne Chang Chinese and Soy Paste Pots by Bo Yang From: The Ugly Chinaman, p. 58-60, Taipei: Yuan Liou 2008 Speech delivered on August 16, 1981 in the Confucius Gallery of Chinatown, New York City Transcribed by a reporter of the Peimei News A culture of any people is like a long, expansive river, surging on and on. However, over time, many foul and filthy things in the river, like the dead bodies of fish, cats, and rats, start to collect and settle to the bottom, prevent the water from flowing freely, and the river eventually becomes a stagnant pool. The more years go by, the greater the accumulation piles up, and the further it putrefies, turning the river into a pot of fermented soy paste, or a pit of sludge, exhaling an acrid stench. The allusion to soy bean paste pots may not get across to you youngsters. These pots were a common sight in northern China, where I was born and grew up. I can’t say for sure what ingredients go into them, but I can tell you the condiment served with Peking Duck in Chinese restaurants is the final result. Soy paste does not flow, unlike the tumbling currents of Yellow River cascading from the sky. Instead, the dead liquid just sits in the pot and evaporates, with its sedimentation increasing in density and viscidity. Our culture, our legacy, is just like this. Nothing in Chinese culture is more characteristic of the paste pot than our political arena, or officialdom. In the past, intellectuals studied with an aim to become government officials. Officialdom, an invisible and intangible entity, was the product of an imperial examination system. As soon as intellectuals passed their exams and entered the officialdom, a stark demarcation line was drawn between them and the common people. Within this system, attaining a position in the bureaucracy was the intelligentsia’s single-minded aspiration. As an old saying has it, “In books are fair maidens and mansi