Rocking Rock<\/p>\n
By George Jiang<\/p>\n
Yellowish coarse sand and strange rocks stood in the Kulangsu\u2019s washing waves from the Pacific for millions of years. One rock on its northeast beach funnily rocked when someone pushed it. The locals called it the Rocking Rock.<\/p>\n
One beautiful autumn day in 1908, Thomas Silverman, a sailor from USS Arkansas warship moored at the entrance of Amoy harbour, came with twelve of his mates to the Kulangsu islet after a welcome lunch. People on sampans and junks with brown sails gazed at and waved to these Caucasians. Thomas and his mates waved back.<\/p>\n
\u2018Tom, we can find some drinks and girls here,\u2019 Jimmy said.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m not sure\u2019, Thomas answered. They landed on a long granite jetty, and Ah Min, a local man in dark brown silk dress with a pigtail braid, was there. He took a paper fan with calligraphy in his hand, speaking Pidgin English to them, \u2018Hello!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Hello! Drink?\u2019 Thomas said, putting his thumb towards his mouth.<\/p>\n
\u2018OK! Follow me,\u2019 the guy said, taking them to a Mediterranean style house, a club for westerners. Thomas and the other twelve drank lots of local rice spirits.<\/p>\n
\u2018Why are you still here?\u2019 Thomas said.<\/p>\n
\u2018I have no pay from you!\u2019 The pigtail said. Some British policemen stared at them scornfully, drinking Oolong tea from their tiny cups. A piano played \u2018Green Sleeves\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u2018Can you find me some girls,\u2019 Thomas gave Ah Min one dollar note, waving another in his hand.<\/p>\n
\u2018No, sir,\u2019 the man said quietly, \u2018no girls here,\u2019 peeping at those British policemen.<\/p>\n
\u2018What\u2019s fun here on this islet?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018If you give me dat, I\u2019ll take you see deh Rocking Rock!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Rocking Rock? Let\u2019s go now!\u2019 They followed the guy and saw it not long later.<\/p>\n
\u2018Ha! I am Hercules!\u2019 Thomas rocked the rock, and his fellows took turn rocking it. Suddenly, he said, \u2018I am gonna rock it to the sea!\u2019 He tried but couldn\u2019t. Very angry.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m gonna rock \u2013 this \u2013 shit \u2013 to \u2013 the \u2013 water!\u2019 His face, neck and chest went red!<\/p>\n
All laughed! Some seagulls were frightened, flying toward Amoy island.<\/p>\n
\u2018I pay you ten bucks, go to get some ropes for me!\u2019 He told the local guy, who took the money and ran to get some huge jute ropes back for them.<\/p>\n
The sailors tied the Rocking Rock and pulled it, hard and persistently. Splash! It rolled into the sea water. The sailors cheered!<\/p>\n
Suddenly, the hole where the rock had been exploded with a strong lash of air, and dark clouds emerged, spreading into the horizon, and a dark dragon flew out from the sandy hole, gnashing its teeth toward the sailors. They cried and run, toward their boat. People in sampans and junks all held their heads and cried for help.<\/p>\n
The dragon almost caught Thomas, and a Taoist Master came to his rescue. He invoked a secret incantation, waving a peach-wood sword to it. The dragon became a dark air. The Master took out a bottle gourd, and put the dark air into it. The earth was shaking, dark clouds covering the whole islet, with big rain pouring down.<\/p>\n
Thomas and his mates rushed to row back into their USS Arkansas warship, all wet, shivering on the deck. But since then, the Rocking Rock had gone deep into the bottom of water, without witnessing the revolution of China, or the changes of Kulangsu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rocking Rock By George Jiang Yel…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qcwriters.com\/home1\/gjiang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qcwriters.com\/home1\/gjiang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qcwriters.com\/home1\/gjiang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qcwriters.com\/home1\/gjiang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qcwriters.com\/home1\/gjiang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qcwriters.com\/home1\/gjiang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qcwriters.com\/home1\/gjiang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qcwriters.com\/home1\/gjiang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qcwriters.com\/home1\/gjiang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}