Book review: Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman

Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman: This book sure has a lot of qi!

This week I went back to a much-loved book, the memoir of a young English teacher`s two-year stint in Changsha, in the Hunan province of China. It was written in the late 80s and went on to become a cult classic, following which there was a film of the same name. Salzman being one of the handsomest writers ever, played himself in the film.  Which was not a patch on the book.

What a book.

Written with the lightest but most heartwarmingly real touch ever, the chapters form  a charming collage of Salzman aka Teacher Mark aka Sima Ming`s (his Chinese name) trip through the (cliché
alert!) impenetrable Oriental maze. He didn’t come to the country all that wet behind the ears though; a Yale scholar, Salzman majored in Chinese literature,  was a student of the Chinese martial arts and had started learning calligraphy as well.

This is the China of men carrying shoulder poles and hanging baskets and trading in maos (cents). The title refers to the twin styles of martial art Salzman  learned and refined while in Changsha. Having had the good fortune to meet one of China`s popular martial arts exponents Pan Qingfu
(who starred in the cult Shaolin Temple film and is known as Iron Fist),  Salzman cajoles his way into the former`s classes and learns Chinese boxing, ending up with learning the forms of the Long Sword, too.

Master Pan has come by his name  because he keeps pounding them on an  iron plate nailed to a concrete wall! After a spell, Salzman also takes up the Wudan style of Chinese boxing,
specifically the slower,  fluid and graceful Tai Chi, learning to move his hands like silk.

In between, he is busy improving the English of his students (No, you can`t say `may I enjoy
you,` it`s `may I join you.` No,  it`s not `go play with yourself,` its `play by yourself`),  practicing wushu for as many as ten hours every day, tuning an old piano for a fellow teacher, going fishing with his new boat friends, learning calligraphy… and most important of all, learning how `to eat bitter,` to endure suffering. It`s no wonder Salzman`s two years in China pass swiftly.

The strength is in the story here. Salzman adopts a deliberately non-judgmental, sketching the character portraits of the people he meets with much detail and much indulgence. There are the stereotypes of course: the teacher with a heart of gold and crusty exterior who mothers Salzman throughout his stay (and also telle him: You laugh a great deal during your lectures. Laugh less. If you laugh too much you will have digestive problems), the unsophisticated and happy fisherfolk who live on boats, the rude, rule-quoting officials,  men and women; the palpable official fear of `Western corruption,` even the shy beauty who (momentarily)  steals Salzman`s heart.

Real nuggets of life in the rural China of those days is wrapped in beguiling sentences. His struggles to get some meds to treat ordinary athlete`s foot from Hong Kong, is an eye-opener to the strictly controlled China of heretofore. Since all diseases have been officially driven out of the People`s Republic, how does one treat an condition that does not exist?!

Another revealing passage is the one where one of his students innocently ask him how it feels to belong to the country that dropped an atom bomb on innocent people. That could have led to major awkwardness but Salzman and one of his students quickly deflect and shoo away this particular white elephant in the classroom. Salzman also not infrequently faces the Campaign for the Elimination of Cultural Pollution.

And yes, the similarities of life there and life here abound,  right from the way people hang half out of local buses to the guru- shishya parampara Salzman forges with all his teachers.

Read it if you haven`t read it. Re-read it for a fresh appreciation of a story well told.