[Spoiler Alert]
For most people, the world of gambling either conjures up glamourous Hollywood movies, like James Bond and Ocean’s 11, or grimy old men in bookkeeper shops betting on the horses. This novel by Yan Geling gives us a mixture here by portraying the stories of big rollers in China, but lifting up their masks and exposing the grubby little men lying beneath, body odor and all.
We’re introduced to the protagonist, a middle-aged single mother living in Macau called Xiao’ou, through a story of how gambling runs in her blood, with the tragic tale of her male ancestor’s addiction. This eventually led to him taking his life and, as a result, his wife became obsessed with wiping out the male line of her family to ensure the defective gambling gene wasn’t passed down.
From there we jump to Xiao’ou’s current job as a junket operator/bate-ficha (壘碼仔/ Cantonese: daap6 ma5 zai2) in Macau; basically, these are the middlemen who bring high-rollers into casinos. Topically enough, while I was penning this review, this story emerged, giving an insight into the real world goings-on behind this fictional account.
We gradually come to learn that despite her supposed scorn for gamblers, Xiao’ou is gambling by proxy, in that she borrows money from the casino on behalf of her clients, and then has to chase up the money with them after paying the casino back on their behalf. She also offers clients the option to treble or quadruple the actual chips on the table, in an under-the-table bet with her, which makes the stakes even higher. Many are subsequently unable to pay and she risks losing big if other debtors collect from the clients before she can.
Two of her clients occupy the majority of the narrative of the book, Duan Kaiwen and Shi Qilan. Despite her attachment to them, the two men seem to share a sociopathic veneer of social grace masking extreme disregard for the people in their lives. While Shi is both an old client and old flame who has already fallen on desperate times by the time the novel opens, Duan is a new client for Xiao’ou. At first, the relationship between her and Duan is quite flirtatious and cordial, but as he gradually reveals the inveterate gambler underneath his facade of sophistication and fails to make good on his promises of payment, their relationship descends into a bitter rivalry. Duan, an architect of some renown, continues to get deeper and deeper into debt, whilst hiding his addiction from his family. Eventually, he abandons his wife (who subsequently has a stroke) and children, moving to North America to escape debt collectors. Things get worse for Shi Qilan too, as, after he loses his wood carving business, his wife leaves him, taking their son with her.
We gradually come to realize, that, where, at the start of the novel, we were observing Shi and Duan in contrast to the protagonist, she is, in fact, very similar to them. She misses out on her son’s life, just to accompany the gamblers with whom she has a strange fixation. There is one point in the novel where this becomes very clear. Despite her fellow bate-ficha Laomao urging her to recoup debts owed by Duan Kaiwen, she instead chooses to continue watching as he gambles more and more:
「她擔心段凱文此刻收手。已經差不多夠還她的債了，他完全可以收手。假如他收了，曉鷗看懸念片的興奮和快感、緊張和驚悚就被釜底抽薪。那她就沒機會看段凱文墮落到底，把人渣做到極致了。假如他馬上就還曉鷗的錢，連本帶利，就可以找回他一向的傲慢莊嚴。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，234頁 // my translation
“She was worried that Duan Kaiwen would resign just then. He already had around enough to repay his debt to her, so he could just quit. If he did, it would put an end to the excitement, pleasure, tension and thrills Xiao’ou was getting from this cliff-hanger. And she wouldn’t have the opportunity to see Duan Kaiwen fall from grace and become a fully-fledged scumbag. If he returned Xiao’ou’s money right away, principal and interest included, he would recoup with it his haughty sense of pride.
There is a sort of dialectic at play, we discover, in which Xiao’ou thinks she’s taking revenge on gamblers, invoking the name of her female ancestor; but in her persecution of them she becomes a mirror image of them. Despite her incredible insight into how the minds of gamblers work, Xiao’ou doesn’t seem to catch herself enmeshed in precisely the same logic:
無非贏了幾手，便自認為找到了感覺，看出了路數，接下去把偶然的贏當成必然，把必然的輸當成偶然。想想吧，一個顛倒了偶然和必然的人會一有什麼結局？就是必然的犧牲品。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，216頁 // my translation
Especially when you win a few hands, you’ll think you’ve got a feel for it, that you can see a strategy, then you see what happened by chance as inevitable, and see what’s inevitable as chance. Think about it, how will it end for someone who has confused chance for the inevitable? They are the inevitable sacrificial lambs.
Xiao’ou seems to thrive on being owed, as Shi states towards the end of the novel, after the two of them have become lovers:
「你為什麼老要別人虧欠你呢？！」他有點生氣了。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，343頁 // My translation
「我沒讓別人虧我……」
「你就讓我虧欠你，永遠還不清你，把人家都變成乞丐，你永遠做施主……」
“Why do you always want people to owe you?!” He was a little angry.
“I don’t make them owe me…”
“You made me owe you, and I’ll never be able to pay you back. You turn other people into beggars, and you’re forever their patron…”
She eventually sees her own fixation with gambling when she catches her son at a casino with a group of friends in Macau. She realizes that she is largely responsible for exposing her son to the world of gambling and sees a sort of karma in learning that he has inherited the gambling gene.
她以為幹上疊碼仔的行當是報復盧晉桐，是替梅吳娘報復梅大榕，現在她自己得到報應了。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，350頁 // my translation
She thought that by working as a bate-ficha she was getting revenge on Lu Jintong (her estranged husband), and getting revenge on (her male ancestor) Mei Darong on behalf of (her female ancestor) Mei Wuniang, but now she’d gotten her comeuppance.
Eventually, Xiao’ou gets together with Shi Qilan, who successfully quits gambling (in a “don’t try this at home” moment, she tests Shi’s resolve by taking him to a casino to prove he’s quit). However, although they move in together–much to her son’s disapproval–their love affair is not to last. As Shi starts to put his life back together, he returns to his wife and child. He tries to repay his debts to her, but she throws the money in the sea. Shi then moves to Vancouver with his wife and child, and in the last few pages of the novel, we find out that Xiao’ou has followed him there.
Yan Geling seems to be a master of a funny turn of phrase in her novels and I found myself laughing at many of these.
「自由職業者是個遼闊的灰色地帶，藏龍臥虎，藏汙納垢。」
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，012頁 // My translation
Freelancing was a broad-ranging grey area, with hidden dragons and crouching tigers, as well as hidden filth and concealed dirt.”
This is the juxtaposition of two antonymic idioms, 「藏龍臥虎」 and 「藏汙納垢」. She also has some snark for her own profession as a writer:
「當然年輕時人人都把自己寫的半不拉嘰的句子叫做詩。」
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，035頁 // My translation
Of course, when they’re young, everyone who strings a few sentences together that aren’t completely shit calls it poetry.”
This description of a man’s smile also made me chuckle:
他的笑容像個頭次坐在相館的照相機前面的鄉巴佬，被攝影師吼出來的傻笑。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，201頁 // my translation
His smile was like that of a country bumpkin sitting in front of a photographer’s camera for the first time, with a goofy smile coaxed out of him by the camera operator.
The following passage made my boss laugh when I mentioned it to him, as it rang true of life in a government job, and the dogged obedience and sensitivity one must show to senior ranking officials:
「從科員到科長再一級級爬到副司長地位的老劉幾十年在心裡編輯了一整套各種眼色的光譜大集，什麼眼色他都有詳細注釋。」
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，023頁 // my translation
As he climbed the ranks from officer to section chief, and on again to deputy director of his department, Lao Liu had compiled a catalogue of spectograms of every kind of meaningful glance and he had detailed notes on each one.
Some of this wit, slides into the insensitive times, with this quip about a croupier with Portuguese and Chinese heritage:
「媽閣有不少葡萄牙人的混血兒，這位荷倌混得比較亂。」
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，035頁 // My translation
There were a lot of people with mixed Portuguese heritage in Macau, this croupier was mixed a little messily.
This is followed up by another slightly insensitive quip on comparing the attempts by gamblers around the table engaging in the superstitious action of “blowing off” the excess suit symbols from their cards to people with Down’s syndrome:
「一上賭台，人人都是蒙古症兒童，幼稚可愛，牌上那命定的點數在他們出世前都寫好了，是能吹得掉的嗎？」
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，022頁 // My translation
Around the gambling table, everyone was like a kid with Down’s syndrome, childish and cute, with their card totals already written in fate before they were born, did they really think they could blow them off?
The novel also addresses some of the issues in contemporary Chinese society, from the rapid urban development and the underclasses this leaves behind, to anger over food security and corruption. Below, for example, she captures a common sentiment when faced with roadside beggars in Beijing. There are a whole host of theories floated by locals and visitors alike about how these beggars are bussed in and that it’s all a money-making scheme cooked up by crooks. The author tempers this cynicism, however, with the genuine pity felt for those who have fallen to such cynical acts of self-abasement:
就像北京馬路邊上的殘疾乞丐，她明知道那是他們的扮演，但他總是買他們的票，人能這樣扮演就可憐到極致了，不妨那戲當真吧。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，320頁 // My translation
Just like the roadside beggars with disabiliites in Beijing, she clearly knew they were acting a part, but she always bought it; someone willing to act this way was pitiful in the extreme, so one might as well buy the act.”
The impact of China’s rapid urbanization and the disappearance of villages and small towns in the name of progress is also spelled out in the course of the narrative in the discussion of the power of Duan’s signature as an architect:
同一個簽名該到宏大浩遠的項目合約上去著落。同樣的簽名一旦著落該啟動多少入雲的吊車，如海的混凝漿，如潮的一一農民工。是的，這個簽名著落到紙上，多少年輕農夫們從包穀地，從麥田稻田裡走出來，爬一上進城的火車。這個簽名和其他同類簽名一樣，要對中國農村每天消失的村莊負責。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，198頁 // my translation
The same signature would grace contracts far and wide. As soon as the signature touched paper, how many towering cranes would it launch? How many seas worth of cement? How many waves of rural workers. Yes, as this signature graced the paper, how many young farmers would walk out of their maize farms, wheat farms and rice farms and climb on to the train to the city. This signature and many signatures like it, bear responsibility for the daily disappearance of villages in rural China.
In a similar vein to Bo Yang’s (柏楊) The Ugly Chinaman (《醜陋的中國人》) there are parts of the novel that seem to be, if not a critique of the Chinese character, a critique of the current social structure and the rage it inspires in ordinary Chinese people:
現在中國民眾的莫名仇恨和怒氣多大呀？隨時能找個人當靶子打一打，哪怕打兩拳占占便宜也好。民眾總覺得什麼人什麼地方總在讓他們上當吃虧，上的是悶當吃的是悶虧，奶粉假的肉裡注水蔬菜含毒物價房價飛漲貪腐官員輪不著他們清算出拳，一切誤差的事物只能愈來愈糾結地誤差下去，他們不明不白地總在被什麼占著便宜，因此碰到可以罵幾句打幾拳的對象他們就或罵或打，以此不明不白把便宜占回來一點。網路上罵這個罵那個也不過是跟此刻一樣，是小小地占點便宜，因為一種或多種無形而巨大的存在始終在占他們的便宜。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，212頁 // my translation
How great was the inexplicable hatred and the rage of the Chinese people nowadays? You can always find someone to unleash your target practice on , even if it’s just to land two punches to win a cheap advantage on them. People always think someone or something is trying to get one over on them, with a smothering lure tempting one to a smothering loss, whether its milk powder, meat plumped up with water or contaminated vegetables, the soaring prices of goods and houses and the corrupt officials who never get what’s coming to them. These flawed things could only become entwined in greater flaws still, and they’re always feeling like they’ve drawn the short straw somehow, so when they meet someone they can reach, they’ll throw out a few cursewords and a few punches, trying to make up for what they feel they were cheated out of. This is what it’s like online when they say attack with this or that, they’re just trying to get one over on others, because of a kind of, or many kinds of shapeless masses trying to get one over on them.
Although many of these sentiments can be said to resonate universally, in the course of the novel the protagonist emphasizes what she believes to be Chineseness. She points this out with particular emphasis when it comes Duan Kaiwen, pointing out how different his “Mainland” and “Macau” personalities were, with the weight of his ancestors weighing on the former:
在媽閣和在大陸是兩個段凱文，大陸這個段凱文是中國人中的中國人，內斂到完全沒有情緒信號。他翻牌時的撲克臉也比現在的臉通俗易懂。九億農民的智慧和堅忍凝鍊出一滴晶體，它叫段凱文。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，159頁 // my translation
The Duan Kaiwen from the Mainland and the one from Macau were two different people. The one from the Mainland was the Chinese man’s Chinese man, reserved to the point that there are no tells as to his emotional state. The poker face with which he flipped the cards was more vulgar and easy to understand by far than this. The wisdom and resilience of 900 million farmers condensed, tempered and crystallized into Duan Kai-wen.
She also relates his greed for money to the poverty that has run through generations in China:
他對錢的激情，對橫財的渴望不是他一個人的；幾輩人、幾十輩人都窮夠了，積存起那麼多渴望，在他身上大發作。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，50頁 // my translation
His passion for money, and his desire for easy money wasn’t his alone; several generations… several dozen generations had suffered enough poverty and their accumulated desire had taken hold of him.
Xiao’ou cites the rapid changes of Chinese history as the basis for the urge to get rich quick that people like Duan show in the novel:
從古至今，改朝換代在中國是眨眼的事，因此發財要更快，慢了就來不及了，兵荒馬亂又該過來了。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，124頁 // my translation
From ancient times to the present day, changes in dynasty and era happened in the blink of an eye in China, so if you wanted to get rich, you had to be quick, as if you were too slow, there’d be an uprising on the way.
The notion of Chineseness becomes particularly apparent when seen in contrast to the US. At one point in the novel, Xiao’ou thinks back to the time she was pregnant with her son, when she and her then-husband Lu Jintong were in Las Vegas. She desperately tries to get him to stop gambling, at which point he hits and kicks her and he is removed from the casino by security. When the security guards intervene to protect her, however, Xiao’ou has quite a nationalistic reaction, which instantly puts her back on the side of Lu Jintong:
曉鷗馬上看清陣線，美國對中國，本土人對外國人，外來者對自家人。這種場合下，盧晉桐和她梅曉鷗，太是自家人了，不僅如此，簡直就是亡命天涯的至愛情侶。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，44頁 // my translation
Xiao’ou saw the lines in the sand immediately, it was the US vs China, her own kind vs foreigners, an outsider vs her own. In this situation, Lu Jintong and Mei Xiao’ou couldn’t have been more of a family, and not just that, they were lovers who would go to the ends of the earth for one another.
Las Vegas itself is described as appearing very silly in the daytime, a fake plastic facade masking a more sinister reality:
白天的拉斯維加斯傻呵呵的，全是晃眼的太陽，毫無陰影，花木修剪得如同塑膠仿製品一樣整齊鮮豔，似乎是誠心誠意提供給人們一個美好到虛假的生活環境，誰能想到它藏著那麼多把戲，玩的就是人本性中的醜陋和脆弱；人本性中的脆弱和醜陋都是最貪玩的。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，52頁 // my translation
Las Vegas in the daytime was silly, everything was soaked in dazzling sunlight, with no shadow, the shrubs and flowers were so manicured they looked as tidy and arranged as if they were plastic, in a sincere attempt to give everyone a beautiful but fake living environment. Who would have thought that so many schemes would lurk within it, with the players being instinctually ugly and weak; the instinctual weakness and ugliness of human nature never exhausts of playing.
Desperate to stop Lu from gambling, she takes a taxi to the hospital in a way of escalating her threat of abortion. On the way she makes an interesting critique of the indifference of the taxi driver, who seems concerned but can’t be bothered to follow through on his concerns:
司機有些擔憂地看著她。她明顯不正常，明顯地發生著一個悲劇故事。拉斯維加斯天天發生大故事，每個故事都有犧牲品，司機管不過來，跟她再見了。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，52頁 // my translation
The driver looked at her with concern. It was clear something was off about her, she was part of some tragic story. Dramatic stories happen everyday in Las Vegas, and every story has its sacrificial lamb, and the driver couldn’t muster up the effort to care and bade her farewell.
However, conversely, once she is in the hospital, she starts to resent the Americans for their concern for her and efforts to protect her. She feels they can’t read her actions as the empty threats they are and that she sees as a normal part of relationships in China. She largely characterizes their behaviour as part of their national character, in opposition to the “Chinese” reaction, which she sees as more sensitive to her emotions:
曉鷗眼淚怎麼也止不住。護士叫她孩子：孩子你太不快樂了！曾經梅吳娘一定也這樣不快樂過，不快樂得能去殺人。五代人之後，梅曉鷗一樣殺死自己的孩子・世上還有比殺自己的孩子更絕望的女人嗎？
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，53頁 // my translation
Xiao’ou couldn’t help but cry. The nurse called her child, “Child, you’re really not happy, are you!” Her ancestor Mei Wuniang must have been equally unhappy at one point, so unhappy she committed murder. Five generations later, Mei Xiao’ou was to kill her own child too. Is there any woman more desperate than one that kills her own child?
The nurse is unable (understandably we might think) to understand the drama going on in Xiao’ou’s head and Xiao’ou has some biting remarks for the nurse’s good intentions:
拯救者的使命完成得很好，使她這一天內容充實。她抱住曉鷗，千篇一律地說著此類場合中都會說的句子：「一切都會好起來的！」她大哭起來。挽救和被救怎麼這麼擰巴？拯救者怎麼這麼不想懂被救者？被救者怎麼才能讓拯救者懂得中國就是發明藕斷絲連這個成語的地方？
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，54頁 // my translation
Her saviour mission successfully complete, she felt fulfilled for the day. She hugged Xiao’ou, repeating over and over the kind of words that were always said in these situations, “Everything will be alright!” She started crying. How could saving and being saved be this awkward? Why did the saviour have no interest in understanding the person they were saving? How could the person being saved make the saviour understand that China was the place that invented the saying “lotus roots may break, but the fiber remains joined”?
The lotus roots analogy is a common phrase in China to refer to how attachments remain despite two people breaking up. Xiao’ou is aware of her irrationality, but still resents the American people’s failure to recognize her true intentions:
曉鷗此刻又哭起來，她哭自己不識好歹，浪費護士的好心，躺在這裡開始怨恨，怨美國式救援太強勢，使她不好意思衝出簾子跟盧晉桐破鏡重圓。盧晉桐鬥不過美國人民，弱小地退出去了。美國人民簡單的善良和熱忱不允許藕斷絲連、愛恨不清；這是個非黑即白的民族。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，54頁 // my translation
Xiao’ou started to cry again, weeping for her inability to see right from wrong and that the nurse’s kindness was wasted on her. As she lay there, she started to feel hatred, hatred for the American urge to save people, which had shamed her from charging out from behind the curtain and reconciling with Lu Jintong. Lu Jintong was no match for Americans, and, weak as he was, he retreated. The simple friendliness and warmth of the American people didn’t allow for break-ups that weren’t clean, there was no room for love/hate relationships; they were a very black and white people.
Interestingly enough, while she’s in the casino, Xiao’ou puts the security guards’ reaction to Lu Jintong’s violence down to their obsession with unborn children, and points to this rather thorny concept as what she believes to be the American character:
她這才明白全世界人民中數美國人民最愛兒童，哪怕是尚不成形的兒童。在美國人民這才是一道殺手鐧。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，45頁 // my translation
It was only then that she realized that Americans loved children the most of all people around the world, even if they weren’t yet fully formed. Children were the real trump card for American people.
This bears comparison to Democratic critiques of Republicans in the US, suggesting that they only care about children until they are born. However many pinches of salt you might want to take with the American profession of love for the unborn, this is put in contrast with a very transactional approach to pregnancy from Xiao’ou and Lu Jintong, as Xiao’ou attempts to guilt him out of gambling with the threat of abortion:
盧晉桐怎麼反應的？他嬉皮笑臉叫她別搗亂，看看他這不贏了嗎？他深知這小女人不會幹打胎那種損事。她不會早早失去殺手鐧，不然以後還有什麼好使的能挾制他？她和所有活在別人婚姻陰影中的女人們一樣，有孩子才能有與婚姻共存的一個準家庭。再說白一點，孩子是她一生的銀行帳戶，她可以細水長流地從那個帳戶裡支取衣食住行。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，43頁 // my translation
How did Lu Jintong react? He laughed dopily and told her to stop stirring up trouble. See if he wins this one? He knew clearly this little woman wouldn’t do something harmful like getting an abortion. She wouldn’t want to lose her trump card so soon, otherwise, what would she use to coerce him down the road? She was the same as every other woman living in the shadow of someone else’s marriage, a child was the path to marriage and a proper family. To put it more baldly, the child was a bank account, from which she could withdraw bit by bit money to clothe her, feed her and keep her in house and home.
Another thing I found amusing in the novel was the author’s play with the concept of 「不好意思」 (“bùhǎoyìsi” – used for “excuse me” or “sorry” when expressing minor embarrassment) in the course of the novel, with the protagonist observing of Duan:
「是不好意思表達他的不好意思。」
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，020頁 // my translation
He was embarrassed of expressing his embarrassment.
Later, she goes on a bit of a rant about 「不好意思」, which actually reminded me of the general lack of affection for the term in China vs its popularity in Taiwan, reminiscent of how Americans respond to the English habit of saying sorry a lot:
「曉鷗掛上插卡電話。再聽一個「不好意思」她就會精神錯亂。「不好意思」舶來二十多年，村姑們變成了售貨員、前台小姐、餐館服務員都對你「不好意思」。二十多年來「不好意思」把中國人的廉恥和責任感都「不好意思」光了。藏在「不好意思」後面的是麻木不仁、無動於衷、厚顏和不在乎，出了紕漏，一聲「不好意思」，全然既往不咎，自己給自己的仲裁早於你的責備已經出來了，我都不好意思了，你還有什麼可怪罪的？
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，154頁 // my translation
Xiao’ou hung up the pay-phone. If she heard another “Sorry” she would lose her mind. “Sorry” this import of over 20 years, has seen village girls turn into sales assistants, counter girls and waiters, all flooding you with “sorry.” In twenty years, “sorry” had “sorried” away all of the Chinese people’s humility and sense of duty. Hidden in “sorry” was numbness, indifference, and a hard-nosed lack of care. When something goes wrong, they just come out with a “sorry,” and bygones are supposed to be bygones. They’ve already negotiated a settlement before you even take issue with them, “I already said I was sorry and you’re still coming for me?”
As well as the corruption mentioned above, there are also some references to politics in the novel. One of her clients is a deputy mayor and a party member, and Shi Qilan makes a comment on the equalizing effect of the gambling table:
「賭台前面，副市長和老百姓一模一樣，」老史笑笑說，「黨員和我們這個無黨派人士也一模一樣啊。」
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，336頁 // my translation
“In front of the card table, the deputy mayor was just like any other member of the public,” Shi said laughing, “Party members and non-party members are exactly the same.”
When I worked for Want China Times, we used to translate a lot of articles reporting on the vices of corrupt CCP officials who had been caught up in Wang Qishan’s corruption purges. Although the scale of the corruption revealed was always on an ostentatious scale, these “corruption purges” were largely factional maneuvering, suggesting that these officials are only the ones whose crimes were publicized due to falling out of favor and that this corruption could be far more widespread.
The novel does touch on the special status of Macao as a special administrative region, with separate border controls and different legislation at times. At one point Duan Kaiwen also suggests that a Beijing judge wouldn’t honor the contract of a Macau bate-ficha. She portrays the Macau proletariat in a particularly negative light:
飛牌飛了十多個回合，段凱文朝胖荷倌打了個 手勢 ：開始吧 。在飛牌期間，賭桌邊上又添了幾個看客。眼神機靈得發賊，姿態中透著底層人的世故，習慣於不學無術又甘心奉獻最低等的功能使他們形成媽閣無產階級的風貌。
After around a dozen free hands, Duan Kaiwen gave a signal to the fat croupier to say, “Let’s start!” In the course of the free hands, a few more people had joined the onlookers around the table. Their expressions were as cunning as crooks, and their bearing revealed a low-life worldly wisdom, gladly playing out their habitual lowly function in a state of ignorance, making them the proletariat of Macau.
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，024頁 // my translation
There is also a passing reference to Taiwan in the novel, pointing to the frequent traffic between Taipei and Macau for gambling purposes:
「停了一會，另一個女廣播員開始呼叫幾個台灣乘客的名字，請他們立即到登機口，飛往台北的飛機馬上要起飛了。都是男人的名字。那幾個台灣男同胞在賭台上迷途忘返了。也或許 他們輸光了錢 ，直接上了去索莫娃或阿拉斯加的遠洋漁船，用 一年生命換一筆高薪，為了還能回到媽閣來收復失去的籌碼 。」
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，013頁 // my translation
After a pause, another female announcer started to call some Taiwanese passenger names, asking them to proceed to the gate immediately, as the flight to Taipei was about to take off. They were all male names. Taiwanese compatriots who’d been so transfixed by the gambling tables they’d forgotten to leave the casino. Or maybe they’d lost their last dime, and gotten on a deep sea fishing vessel bound for Samoa or Alaska, to earn a big sum in exchange for a year of their life, so they could return to Macau to recoup the chips they’d lost.
What’s interesting here is the use of the word 「同胞」 which, as it isn’t used in reference to any other people in the novel. So, even in stating that they are “compatriots,” the need to use the word actually creates a distance in terms of identity.
The novel did get a little monotonous after a while, and although this, in itself, is probably a reflection of the cycle of hope and despair you get when living with an addict, the novel seemed to lose momentum at some point.
One passage that stood out to me, however, compares a mistress’s position “in the gutter” to the wife’s position “on the street.” It’s quite an interesting and detailed metaphor, in which she suggests that mistresses are always aware of the coming downfall of their lovers before their wives find out:
她覺得自己做為下水道比那位做為繁華大街的老婆還要幸運一點，下水道往往比明面上的世界早一點明白災難的臨近，它根據人們扔進下水道的垃圾、死貓死狗死耗子判斷上面的世界給禍害成什麼樣了，給毀掉多少了。它還能根據順流而來的斷枝殘葉流沙汙泥預知山洪快來了，暴雨臨近了。那位老婆住著華廈，但她絲毫不知道華廈已經被挖空了牆腳，隨時會傾塌。你告訴她挖牆腳的內賊是誰，她回你一句「 臭 婊子 」 !
She felt she, as the one in the gutter, was luckier than the wife who paraded in the city throughourfares, as in the gutter, you’ll always know earlier than those in the light of day above ground when disaster is imminent. One can judge from the trash people throw into the gutter, dead cats, dead dogs, dead rats, what disaster will affect the world above and how much shall be destroyed. One can also judge from the broken branches, dead leaves, sand and mud when a flash flood might be coming, or when heavy rains are on their way. The wife, may live in a fancy building, but she seems unaware that the foundations of her fancy building have been hollowed out, and it could collapse at any time. And when you tell her who the crook who hollowed out her foundations is, she replies to you with an “Ugly whore!”
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，040頁 // my translation
Another aspect of the novel which seems to be a trope that runs through a lot of popular culture is the idea that depression and creativity are linked. This is one of my pet peeves in literature, and an idea I also discussed when talking about Notes of a Crocodile (《鱷魚手記》) by Chiu Miao-jin (邱妙津) on the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast.
不少富有創作力的人或輕或重地受著這種精神疾病的折磨，比如舒曼、凡．高、拜倫、維吉尼亞．吳爾夫、海明威等等各種文學和藝術天才。他們最佳的創作狀態從某種意義上說是癲狂狀態，超出控制是毀人毀己的。這些藥物可以救天才們的命，也可以保護他們的親人不受他們的暴虐，但會以犧牲他們的最巔峰的創造狀態為代價。就是說，吃了藥的天才們會慢下來，變成「好人」，和尋常人共處而不折磨他們；
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，344頁 // my translation
Many creative people suffer the torture of mental illness to a greater or lesser degree, such as the artistic and literary geniuses, Schumann, Van Gogh, Byron, Virginia Wolff and Hemingway. They’re optimum state of creativity, in some ways, was when they were manic, a lack of control that is damaging both to themselves and others. Medicine can save the life of these geniuses, and can protect those dear to them from their violent outbursts and cruelty, but for this, they sacrifice that manic state of creativity. That is to say, taking medicine slows these geniuses down, and turns them into “nice people,” so that normal interaction with others isn’t torture for them;
You can be happy and write, take meds if they work for you.
A found a few terms of interest in the novel, but I decided to list the most interesting ones below.
A funny linguistic peculiarity is that the Cantonese word 「𨳒」 (diu2/fuck) is a near homonym for the Taiwanese term for “correct” 「著」. In the novel 「𨳒」 is rendered into Mandarin as 「丟」 (to lose/diū).
丟你老母。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，315頁 // my translation
Fuck your mother.
I also found a term I’d never seen before 「磨嘰」, which most dictionaries seem to list as a Beijing dialect word for “dawdle” or “waste time.”
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，351頁 // my translation
「這些急救組織都很磨嘰……」
These emergency service organizations always dawdled…
The English word “follow” is also transliterated as「發落」 in the novel in the passage below:
剛才去了四十幾分鐘，把麻煩暫時平定一下，有口無心地吃幾口溶化的霜淇淋，還要接著去發落麻煩。曉鷗確實是要去接著發落老史，叮囑他不准近賭場一步 。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，038頁 // my translation
She’d been away for over 40 minutes, and put a cork in the trouble for now, she are a few mouthfuls of melted icecream out of politeness, but she knew she’d have to follow up on the issue. Xiao’ou would indeed have to follow up on Shi Qilan, and forbid him from setting foot inside the casino.
A lot of the coverage of China over recent years has been focused on the country’s debt diplomacy efforts in Africa, with some commentators pointing out China’s colonial attitude to the continent. This is certainly the impression that we get from Xiao’ou’s conversation with Lao Liu, as Liu states that China is intent on “teaching Africans how to farm”:
第二個電話是給老劉打的。她說媽閣最近生意清淡了一些，正好偷閒在家抓抓兒子的功課。老劉說他們部裡派人去西非幾個國家考察，要在那裡開大型電廠和農作物加工廠，教非洲人務農。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，136頁 // my translation
The second call she made was to Lao Liu. She said that business had been slow of late in Macau, and that she’d been bored at home picking over her son’s homework. Lao Liu said that their department was sending people to inspect several countries in West Africa, where they were going to build a large electric plant and a grain processing plant, teaching Africans to work the land.
I’ll end on this interesting quote on the self-destructive drive, that one could easily see coming out of the mouth of someone like Slavoj Žižek:
人對自毀從來有一種暗暗的神往，人的飛速進化本身就包含隱隱的自我滅絕。
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，117頁 // my translation
People have always had a dark fascination with self-destruction, and the rapid evolution of man also hides within it a self-destructive urge.