I saw Dragons

...the sacred dragon stands on the little column at the end of our village and ever since the beginning of human memory it has breathed out its fiery breath in the direction of Peking – but Peking itself is far stranger to the people in our village than the next world.

– Franz Kafka, ‘The Great Wall of China’

A referral for psychiatric care was clearly indicated. The statement as tendered to the doctor on duty and responsible for the committal of the patient is reproduced below. A note was appended at the time to indicate that the ‘poetic’ quality of the particular delusions described was not unusual for a patient of this kind. The question was, all things considered now, what kind of patient was this. His delusion having persisted over a long period of treatment, it is vexing to have this question go unanswered.

Case Notes: Presentation

The patient was attired raggedly, as if for some kind of theatrical production, perhaps a Cantonese opera. That had been the first thought. He had rambled in his speech and been only marginally coherent. He might have been drunk when brought in but no tests were conducted. He had had an odd smell about him and seemed extraordinarily dirty.

When he’d first regained consciousness in the ward he had muttered very strangely to himself, but grown louder and louder. His words had been hard to make out to begin with, but became clearer with repetition. He repeated the same formula many times and so it was recorded:

Guan Gong, La Za, Xun Ng Hon, Zu Ba Gai.

Lei yiu ng yiu Min Fen Gong Zai ar? Yiu Guan Gong ho ng ho? La Za le?[1]

Asked his occupation, the man had replied that he was a seller of Min Fen Gong

Zai ‘dough dolls’, those dolls made of flour, stuck on sticks, that parents buy for their children, dolls depicting characters from famous stories. The only other factual detail so far obtained about the man is that his name is Ng, or at least he believes it is. The idea of the dough dolls was in keeping with the idea of the theatre, and led the hospital doctors to wonder if the man had been in a theatrical production of some kind at the time of the trauma which had led to his present derangement. However, no record could be found of any recent production in which such a vendor had been featured.

At first it had been thought that he might have been an actor in a Cantonese opera. Then the idea was entertained that he had been an actor in a production – opera or theatre – which for the sake of authenticity had deployed the traditional hawkers to move about the audience. If either of these suppositions had credence, one might have assumed that eventually the man would have come out of character and been himself or at least adopted another acting role. He has not so far done so. The conclusion reached is thus that the man has consistently believed himself to be a street hawker of Min Fen Gong

Zai, one who did his best trade at the opera. There are no such hawkers in Macao today, nor is it credible that a man of his age could ever have had such an occupation.

The statement taken from the man corroborates all this, nor does it cast much more light on the circumstances in which he came to – or continues with – us. He seems to all intents and purposes an orphan. Here is his statement as far as it was able to be understood. Please note that, no doubt from his extensive stage experience, and the nature of his delusion, his speech had an archaic quality that made it difficult to catch all that he said.

The statement

It was the night of the gate’s opening. There had been theatre to celebrate and I had done a good trade. My pocket was full of coins. It still is. (At this point the man was able to show a string of late Ch’ing cash, of the kind one might obtain at any coin shop in Macao or Hong Kong or across the border.)

All the ceremony was over. All the officials had gone. I went with my sorrows to the chase the dragon. The joy of the town was too much for me. It made me mindful of my own miserable condition. It was because of the loss of my worthless wife and my daughter I sorrowed. Still it was rare that I could afford this pleasure. When I came out of the makeshift shop, one that had been thrown together just for the occasion, I found myself close by the new gate, the gate to the city of white ghosts, Ao Men.

Yes, I was fascinated by the prospect of what lay through there. I was a little unsteady on my feet but I came up square before the gate. Looking through I imagined I could see another world – the world of the foreign devils, the modern world, the future. How often had I heard it from those who had travelled? In China everything is old and nothing changes, in the West just the opposite. In England, in America, everything is in changes and nothing has time to grow old. The gate itself seemed proof of this. What a grand and beautiful object it was. But how grand and beautiful the world of men and heaven over them!

To pass through there! What could it mean? What would I find on the other side? I should not have even dared to think such thoughts. What business had I, could I claim? Of course I had no papers. I have none now. I am no one.

When one lies down and smokes the white powder one feels powerful, yes, but more than that, one feels great benevolence. It is as if I were an emperor and all men my subjects, it is as if none can harm me then. I wish only to do good by all. And so it was on that night, I smiled at those fearsome guards who yawned so noisily now on either side of the gate. And they smiled back and put out their lamps and no doubt within minutes they were asleep.

Darkness now, either side of the border. The hour of the rat or so I guessed. No criers for the hours in so remote a place. Of course I should have turned away. I should have found some awning under which I might have dreamt it all off, woken next morning to my old shabby state, the safe world I knew. But instead like a fool I gazed into the darkness on the other side of the gate. I gazed until it came to light. And out of the light their faces indistinct came beckoning, the faces I mean of my wife and of my daughter.

I was bereft and now I was enraptured, what could I do but follow? The rest – but why should I not tell it, when I see from your face you already think me mad? I followed and they vanished, the two of them, into a crowd of faces less distinct. And still I followed into a blaze like daylight. I had heard of the framed pictures of Europe, I had seen such a frame once, and now I had walked into their picture. When I passed through that gate I was no longer in the Middle Kingdom.

An hour before, had I not lain on my back on a bench chasing dragons? Now I saw dragons, a street full of them, blazing their eyes were. Each sat on a cart, its scales shone as if they were one. Each vast beast growled, hurtled forward into the night. The night was full of dragons. I worried they would chase me but they seemed not to know I was there. I followed them. It was what I had smoked gave me courage.

I followed them and then I realised they were everywhere. This was their town. People rode in them or on them. But whether the people were their prisoners or whether they had tamed them like horses I never learned. Whichever were true I was certain powerful magic was afoot.

Perhaps it was the poppy wearing off, but over time I became more fearful. I worried the dragons might turn to chase me yet. Surely they could see me, there was so much light. But then there were others on the street they did not molest. Then again those were dressed like the dragon tamers or prisoners, whichever they were. The only ones dressed as I was were beggars, they were the only people not in motion. The beggars were blind or crippled or both. When I gave one a coin hoping he would tell me what I needed to know, he laughed in my face. I went on. The night was more full of wonders than I could now account. At every corner I came to I saw the blinding glare of dragons’ eyes. Sometimes they could not even move, so many of them were there. I had to get away, get out of this incessant light.

Through narrow by-ways and smoky lanes I came at last to a crowded square. It was roofed with tin. There was a stage… the opera had been here, had only just finished.

And now on the empty stage I saw my chance… there was a screen and on it I could see a street, a street like any I had known before I had become trapped in this crazy dream. Here was a picture of my world, I had only to walk through this gate as I had walked through the other. Then I would be safe out of the dream, home again. Or so I hoped. I walked across the empty stage. No one minded me. I presented myself before the picture frame. A dusty street of two storied houses. I could smell the noodles brewing ahead of me. I drew a sharp breath but when I attempted to pass through the ‘gate’ the screen on which it had been painted collapsed around me like a sheet. Indeed, that’s what it was. This world was as real – more real to me now – than the one I had left. Now it wasn’t dragons pursuing me, but men. I fled from under the sheet, down more alleys where I saw now the noodles I’d smelt.

Coming away from the theatre I again saw the dragons. I must find my way back, or if not, then onwards to my destiny. It was then I decided I must follow the dragons, I had to keep them ahead of me. I had to chase them, not have them chase me. When I came to the water I saw that the dragons were returning to heaven… I saw them carried away into a cloud, a great procession they were… simply vanishing from their road into the air. High above the sea this was. I dared not follow them…

By now though I had become almost convinced that the dragons could not see me. Perhaps I was invisible? Perhaps I was myself no longer real? Was I a bodiless spirit? Had I become a ghost on entering the white ghosts’ town?

It was in this mind of frantic speculation, I saw the faces again, they were on the other side of the street now. The street was San Ma Lo. Their faces were receding from me, fading back into the crowd. The dragons were between me and them. It was true that my family seemed like spectral presences here, true that the dragons seemed real. But suddenly I knew things were other than they seemed. Now I saw that white lines appeared on the road before me, crossing the dragons’ paths. I followed them, as if by rights.

It was only at this point I recognised that the dragons in this picture I was in were no more real than the dragons in any other picture. I knew I had to follow or lose them forever…

***

That was the end of the man’s account. The next thing he was aware of was being in the ward. He has complained constantly about the brightness of the light here. Several nurses have had to be taken off the ward because he had ‘recognised’ them as either his wife or his daughter, or in one case, both.

As to the idea of ‘dragons ascending to heaven’, it seems plausible the patient had been watching the traffic on the old Macao Taipa Bridge. It had been a night of heavy mist when he was brought in. Perhaps it was the traffic ‘disappearing’ thus into the clouds which had suggested to him a kind of procession.

With regard to the opium references, it is entirely possible that the man might have been under some narcotic influence at the time of his being brought in. No tests having been conducted at the time however, this cannot be verified.

As a ‘reality check’, given his persistent fantasies of the past, the patient was asked if he thought there was anything unusual in the hospital, in the immediate surroundings in which the interview took place. Again, he complained of the light, but claimed that, as he had never been inside a hospital before, he had no expectation of what one might be like.

Asked what the date was, the man told us that it was the eighth year of the reign of Qing Tongzhi Di. This date was found to correspond with 1870 in the modern calendar, which was indeed the year in which the border gate was opened. It is not unusual with such delusional cases, for the patient to have a penchant for accuracy.

Over time the patient has come to seem less disoriented, although his speech has retained its strange archaic diction. There has as yet been no success in our efforts to trace the man through missing persons lists. There are many Ngs missing, but this one fits none of the descriptions for a man of his age.

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[1] The names are the names of theatrical characters (the red faced God of Courage,

Guan Yin’s helper, the Monkey King and Pigsy from The Journey to the West. The ‘Lei yiu…’ is the call of the hawker who sells ‘dough dolls’ to children, for instance to help parents keen them quiet at the Cantonese opera.