Z.G. instructs. “Concentrate! Your turnip doesn’t look at all like the one on the table. Look at it! Really look at it! What do you see?”It’s been hard for us not to notice Z.G.’s impatience, but even I feel exasperated and disappointed. A few days ago, Party Secretary Feng Jin informed us that he’d received word from the capital that our time in Green Dragon is done. Z.G. and I are to leave in the morning and make our way south to Canton for a fair of some sort. He’s happy to leave. We’ve been here for two months and the villagers still refuse to hold their brushes the correct way. They ignore what Z.G. says about the amount of ink to soak into their brushes, and the paintings themselves have a crude quality.“Everyone examine what Tao has painted,” Z.G. says. “He uses his brush to put down what he sees. You can see clouds moving across the sky. You can see cornstalks bending in the breeze. You can see a turnip!”We all know that Tao is in a different category from the rest of us.
