Beijing on the Scales

At half-past four in the morning, the sky wasn't fully light yet, murky grey like the cooling embers in a hearth. Old Zhang rubbed his bleary eyes, shuffled in his cloth shoes, and carried his chipped enamel mug out to the courtyard tap. The faucet sputtered twice before reluctantly spitting out a thin, ice-cold stream of water.

"Well, another day," Old Zhang murmured to himself at the water stream, the white puff of his breath like a tiny dragon in the dim light, vanishing in an instant. The shared courtyard he lived in, like countless others in Beijing, woke early and slept early. Life here moved like the growth rings of the old locust tree by the gate, round and round, slow and steady.

Back in his room, the kettle on the stove began to whistle. Old Zhang steeped a pot of strong tea and, nibbling on half of yesterday's leftover hard steamed bun (mantou), turned on the radio. The announcer's clear, standard Mandarin voice cut through the static: "...It is reported that Mr. Huang, from an undisclosed location, recently weighed 718.8 jin, once again breaking the record for 'China's Heaviest Man'..."

"Whoa!" Old Zhang nearly choked on his mantou. "Seven hundred and eighteen point eight jin! That... how many of me would that be?" He glanced down at his own slight paunch, estimating he weighed maybe 150 jin – less than the decimal fraction of the record holder. He took a sip of hot tea, the heat leaving his tongue a little numb. The number turned over and over in his mind, like a heavy scale weight. Seven hundred eighteen point eight jin – what did that even conceptualize? How many bags of cement? Or maybe two fully grown pigs? Old Zhang couldn't fathom how a human frame could support such mass. Could the bones even hold? Walking? Forget about it; moving a single step must require tremendous effort.

Wang Da Ma from next door emerged with her sewing basket, ready to catch the early light for a few stitches. "Listening to the radio, Brother Zhang?"

"Yep," Old Zhang replied, setting down his mug. "Talking about some guy, over seven hundred jin, broke the record."

"Good heavens!" Wang Da Ma exclaimed, nearly dropping her thimble. "Over seven hundred jin? Isn't he practically a mountain? What does he eat to get that big? Such a waste of food!" Her focus, instinctively, always landed on the necessities of life, a common trait among the hutong residents.

"Who can argue with that," Old Zhang mused, taking a sip of tea. "But then again, it's probably not something he wanted, right? Maybe it's some kind of illness."

"Illness? What illness makes you that fat? I say it's just laziness and greed!" Wang Da Ma scoffed, lowering her head and working her needle rapidly. "Nowadays, life is good, so people can't control their appetites. Not like back in our day, we couldn't have gotten fat even if we wanted to."

Old Zhang didn't respond. He remembered occasionally seeing news like this in the papers, usually accompanied by a photo – the person lying on a specially reinforced bed, an indefinable expression in their eyes. Was it pain? Numbness? Or the helpless resignation of being stared at? Suddenly, the word "record" felt less glorious and more like a needle, piercing not just the 718.8 jin of flesh, but also stinging the conscience of the onlookers.

Just then, Zhao Lao Si, the neighborhood scrap collector, pedaled his tricycle into the courtyard, his voice booming: "Collecting old newspapers, old books, bottles, cans—"

Old Zhang waved him over. "Lao Si, come take a break, have some hot tea."

Zhao Lao Si didn't hesitate, leaning his tricycle against the wall and accepting the mug Old Zhang handed him, downing several gulps. "Thanks, Brother Zhang. Heard the news today? That 'Number One Fat Man,' he's even heavier!"

"Heard about it," Old Zhang replied. "What do you make of it?"

Zhao Lao Si grinned, revealing two rows of smoke-stained yellow teeth. "Make of it? Just watch it, like everyone else! It's a spectacle, it's got news value! Think about it – the papers report it, TV shows it, we're sitting here talking about it – aren't we all just adding to the buzz? Maybe he'll even get advertising gigs out of it!" He paused, his tone a strange blend of envy and self-mockery. "It's one way to get noticed, right? Unlike us, working ourselves to death, who even knows our names?"

Zhao's words made Old Zhang's heart skip a beat. It was true; these days, anything could be turned into "value." A weight exceeding 700 jin had become a label, a symbol, a curiosity to be consumed and talked about. The person behind the weight – their feelings, their struggles, their hardships – seemed crushed flat, blurred by the sheer magnitude of the number. A chill crept over Old Zhang, not from the morning air, but from deep within his heart. He recalled the numb onlookers described by Lu Xun, observing others' suffering to extract some cheap, vicarious thrill. Now, in this era, the onlookers remained, though the stage had shifted from the execution ground to the screen, from the street corner to the web. The medium had changed, but the cold detachment of watching from a safe distance felt hauntingly familiar.

"But he's still a person," Old Zhang muttered under his breath, "a living, breathing person."

Zhao Lao Si paused for a moment, then grinned again. "A person, sure. But once you're 'Number One,' you're more than just a person. Right, Brother Zhang?" He handed the empty mug back, hopped onto his tricycle. "Right then, gotta keep moving!" The chain clattered as he disappeared out of the hutong entrance.

The courtyard fell quiet again, save for the soft shush-shush of Wang Da Ma's needle moving through fabric. The sun finally broke free from the horizon, casting golden rays onto the grey brick walls, lending a warm hue to the ancient courtyard.

Old Zhang stood in the center of the yard, mug in hand. His mind was no longer fixed on the astonishing number, but on a vague, immense, virtually immobile figure. He tried to imagine the heart beating inside that massive frame, the soul it harbored. Did that soul feel crushed, suffocated, yearning for a sliver of lightness, a moment of freedom?

This scale, it wasn't just measuring the weight of the "Number One Fat Man"; it seemed to be invisibly weighing the conscience – or the indifference – of this city, this era, every single spectator. Old Zhang sighed and finished the rest of his tea. It had gone cold, leaving a slightly bitter taste, much like his current state of mind.

Beijing was fully awake now, bustling with traffic and the cacophony of urban life. News stories would arrive like the tide and recede just as quickly. That 718.8 jin record might soon be drowned out by newer, stranger headlines. But Old Zhang felt that some things couldn't be weighed on any scale – things like human dignity, like the basic, warm compassion that ought to exist between people.

He turned and walked back into his room. Light, easy music was now playing on the radio. Yet, the heavy number seemed to echo in his ears, along with Zhao Lao Si's unsettling words: "Once you're 'Number One,' you're more than just a person." They felt like a splinter, not deep, but naggingly painful. In this vast city of Beijing, where exactly did people register on the scale? He didn't know. He couldn't figure it out. Perhaps, he thought, this was simply life – a bit absurd, a bit helpless, like a drama with no final curtain.