After one has taken a chicken’s life using only the crude instruments at hand: a tennis ball, a high powered air cannon, and deadly aim; the world changes. Soil and trees are suddenly real, solid things. The summer days, while blue on blue on blue, seem warmer and closer to the skin. One minute a chicken was alive, taunting me with nervous energy; then there was bright light, the blur of a yellow tennis ball, and it’s over.
Silence.
There is me standing proudly beside my tennis ball cannon at the Li/Miao Minority Cultural Village Park. There are the resentful stares of the six other Americans—all girls. I can’t high five anyone. All I have is the electricity of the moment and a fallen fowl. Soon some of those girls, getting over their initial shock, begin to form words with their mouths. “How…How could you,” the first and most annoying of them finally stammers.
Suddenly, I realize I am part of their culture shock. I have been in China for a year now, and they have been here less than a week. A chicken done in by a tennis ball seems almost natural to me at this point. It’s not my fault. It’s just something that happens here. I imagine last week they were carefully licking and sealing pre-addressed envelopes with donation enclosed to PETA.
“How could you?” They are now collectively whining, feeding off of each other. “What did that chicken do to you?” “What are you going to do with a dead chicken anyway?” “Grow up” “That is the most heartless, cruel things I have ever seen.” “I’m going to be sick.” “You are Satan.” “I’m going to cry.”
During their short time in China they have felt foggy, disoriented, and lost. Now they recognize a collective cause and feel themselves quickened by it. What’s more, they don’t have to worry about insulting the culture because this is me, Jamie Doom. I should know better. Things seem clear to them, and they are gleefully angry.
I, on the other hand am feeling the opposite of guilt at this moment. I feel quite pleased with myself. The chicken was moving when I shot it.
“It’s just one of those things,” I finally offer. “I’m walking around the Li/Miao Minority Cultural Village Park minding my own business, buying trinkets, watching traditional dances, drinking out of a coconut, and then I run into this.”
I make a broad motion at the scene in front of us, which is three cannons facing a small field where five soccer balls hang from ropes about two feet apart. About twenty feet away, in the corner of the field, a chicken lies motionless. New, curious chickens are now strutting in to check out the commotion. My trigger finger has a sudden familiar itch.
“Ask any man in the world what he would have done. The conditions were…well…too perfect. I paid my money for the target practice. One minute I’m shooting tennis balls at the old soccer balls hanging there. I’m pretty good too—I’m not missing; then the next moment, out of the corner of my eye, I see a chicken. And I was polite about it. I asked the Traditional Li/Miao Minority Cultural Village Park Tennis Ball Cannon Supervisor lady if I could kill the chicken with one of the tennis balls. I asked her in perfect Chinese. I even bargained with her. Oh she had moxy—all gold teeth and Hainanhua. And we settled on a fair price, more than fair—40 Yuan—which is like five bucks. And you were all standing right there through this whole negotiation, and you didn’t say a word in protest.”
Silence.
“Oh, what’s that? Well, maybe you should learn Chinese.”
One of them is crying now. They only met me for the first time the day earlier. They will be teaching English with me to the Li/Miao minorities for a month in Baisha. They think I am an animal. They are all from Alabama , where I would think the chicken population has little to no rights. This chicken died quickly, with minimal pain. It was clean shot—very clean. I defend myself out loud.
“It was a clean shot. Clean, I say.”
More eyes water.
Then, I try a different tactic. I shrug my shoulders.
“Hey, you say potato; I say…kill chickens with a tennis ball…?”
I realize my reasoning is weak here and keep talking. “I saved all of you from that chicken. It’s called bird flu, and it’s real. I was trying to be cool about it since you just got here, but that chicken looked crazy, ok? There it is. It seemed to be having bird flu symptoms, you ungrateful, ungrateful ingrates. Good thing I know how to use an air cannon with tennis ball modifications. Ever seen Old Yeller? Bird Flu is like that, except …well I don’t even want to talk about.”
Just then my new gold-toothed friend, the Traditional Li/Miao Minority Cultural Village Park Tennis Ball Cannon Supervisor lady, arrives at my side holding the dead chicken up to my face.
“Bu yao ,” I say and push the chicken back. I smile as I do this. I tell her it’s hers. She tells me they will cook it that evening and say lucky words about me while they eat it. I paid 40 Yuan—more than she paid for it—to kill one of her chickens so her family could eat it. It’s a sweet deal for her. If I feel bad, it’s only because I know I am perpetuating the stereotype of wasteful, rich foreigner. But at this moment if I stuck the dead chicken under my arm and whistled off to the van, my six new friends from Alabama would hate me much more than they did now.
Instead, I sigh and rock back on my heels. I notice two sturdy looking chickens hiding behind a log and feel the 80 Yuan burning a hole through my pocket. I turn quickly and run towards the trinket venders—my work here is done. But I do need some authentic Li/Miao Minority Cultural Village Park back scratchers and about 20 more fans.
I have always wanted to kick a chicken. That is well documented here. But this… well, this was better than I could have ever imagined. As I rode away from the Traditional Li/Miao Minority Cultural Village Park, muffled Alabama-tinged sobs were soon drowned out by the sound of the road and that crazy, mad hum in my brain.
