We talked and drank through the afternoon. He had worked the fields his entire life and raised six strapping children. Their support had eventually earned him an airy house, an intricately carved double bed, a hand dug well and a shallow cement fishpond filled with gasping fish and floating cigarette butts. He now spent the better part of his day sitting on the floor beside his living room window and watching the goings-on in the village below him. The fishpond was close enough to spit into and in the evenings a long procession of ducks marched down the lane and toppled into the cool water, to splash and flap and jostle happily while waiting for their daily dole of rice.

The village itself was as immaculate and well-cared for as Tang's house, with trash-free lanes and well-bred buffaloes that scarcely twitched their tails when children climbed up on their heads. Elaborate scarecrows adorned every field, though they seemed more ornamental than useful; the village's homemade shotguns and a well-developed taste for meat, no matter what the source, had long since taken care of any birds.

When evening came Tang invited me for dinner and afterwards, told me I could stay.