Excerpt from So So Wisdom: The Misplaced Teachings of So So Gai By Matthew J. Goldberg
(The following is taken from the Introduction: My wife and I had discovered some long misplaced teachings of So So Gai in a Chinese library. Lao Zi, my new friend, tells us what he knows about this mysterious philosopher.)
Gai So So was born around 1865 to a family of rabbit traders near the northern city of Harbin. Desiring the best education, the promising young student applied many times to the prestigious Wai Go Academy of Food and Thought prior to his acceptance. Apparently, he was doing well in school, and was even a starting player on the checkers team, before he was expelled over a terrible incident his sophomore year. While engaged in a dispute with his Ancient Literature professor, he thoughtlessly spilled the remnants of his pupu platter on the professors new trousers.
So So wrote about this in the distinctive rhyming couplet style that he so mastered.
Old Man Chu chew out my ass And banish me from future class. Disgraced and despondent, So So spent several years in Shanghai, working mostly as a bicycle repo man before he returned to writing. He was said to have written hundreds of poems in Mandarin, but sadly none were ever published. Ever resilient, So So Gai found great reward in a variety of activities that would come to define both his lifestyle and his English writings. While studying English surreptitiously with a small band of expelled students, he worked for many years as a hustler, winning money playing a variety of popular Chinese games. In fact, So So Gai made quite a reputation, and quite a living, as a vicious competitor in Chinese chess, Chinese checkers, Go, ping-pong and badminton.
While playing badminton for some yen (the modern Chinese currency is called the yuan, but I, like So So, often write it as yen), he met his future wife after his errant shuttlecock got stuck in one of the young beautys nostrils. Alas, So Sos marriage to Mei Be Not only lasted 19 days. The poet offered two bitterly poignant couplets about this painfully short union.
Marry that woman my mistake Face like phoenix, heart like snake.
All the dinner never nice Bad dog woman burnt my rice.
So So Gai would never remarry, although he never went too long without female companionship, successfully wooing his women with his poetry and his mastery of Chinese competitions. And when his own abilities did not do the trick, he would contact former lovers of his good friend, Wang Bai Bai.
Shortly after his divorce, So So eschewed Chinese writing and wrote solely in English. Perhaps, because he was expelled by academia and rejected by his native publishers, he looked to the West for acceptance. Only my theory, of course.
And, what of his English writing? Although even a cursory examination reveals his writing to be sloppy, broken English, his command of the language was extraordinary for a foreigner of that era. But ever the perfectionist, So So Gai prosaically wrote about his difficulties in mastering the new language.
I have no trouble with ls and rs, but it is that (expletive deleted) v that causes me such wexation.
He also offered this couplet that hinted at his frustration at not being able to conquer English as easily as he may have conquered one of his female badminton partners:
Rules of grammar make head spinning Tense will changing while hair thinning.
My fast friend Lao Zi acknowledged that So Sos command of English was far from perfect, but he put it in perspective with this rhetorical question. Mr. Goldberg, how many of your contemporaries can flawlessly write poetry in Mandarin?
His relative command of English intact, So So returned to Beijing for the last decade of his life. Continuing to write and play games, he regularly gave poetry readings to a small circle of loyal English students. He also convened a group of small-time hustlers in an activity he called, Badminton For Yen. In his last years, he moved the gang indoors to play Bowling For Yen, but he appeared stifled by the lack of fresh air.
So So Gais final years were apparently full of disappointment as he never was able to fulfill two of his dreams. Indeed, his works were never published, and he never got to visit America, (more specifically, Yonkers) where his cousin Hao Yu Dun managed a slipper factory. So So waxed philosophical about the latter disappointment:
If woyage to U.S. is not to be My heart still joy from fantasy.
So So Gai died in 1907 in a small Beijing apartment, childless and penniless, but not completely dispirited. It is believed that his final moments were spent with Wang Bai Bai, listening with great interest as his buddy read the names from his very thick black book. ***********************************************************
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