Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING
face....You were too big to come out between her legs, so the mid­
wives had to slice her nearly in two and pull you out like a fatty tape­
worm. You weighed over ten pounds, and you had bloody hair down
to your shoulders.”
I shivered when she said that.
“Bifang your mother named you, though heaven knows I tried to
persuade her to choose something else. ‘Good-reputation jade’ sounds
like an advertisement poster, in my opinion, what pleases the ear of
those who don’t know better. ‘Bifang, bifang, buy your bifang here!’
Ha, fang pi would be a better name to call you, a fart, yes indeed,
that’s what you were, all right, a stinky little fart that shot out of her
bottom.”
Sweet Ma held up a hairpin for me to see but not touch. “She
named you Bifang because your father gave her this ugly thing to
commemorate your successful birth.” It was a hairpin with a hun­
dred tiny leaves carved out of bright imperial-green jade. Within the
branches were peony blossoms made of tiny diamonds. The shining
hairpin, when placed in the hair, suggested a glorious spring. Upon
seeing that hairpin for the first time, I knew why she named me Bi­
fang: I was her precious jade, her budding treasure, her glorious
spring. Bifang.
Sweet Ma tried to change my school name as well. “I like the name
Bibi,” I said. “Father calls me that.”
“Well, there’s nothing good about that name, either. It’s especially
common. Your father had a Dutch customer whose wife was named
Bibi. He asked the Dutch lady if that was an unusual name in her
country. And she said, ‘Heavens, no. “Bibi” can be French, it can be
German, Italian even, so really, it is found everywhere.’ And your fa­
ther clapped his hands and said there was an expression that meant
exactly that: bibi jie shi—can be found everywhere. If it was found
everywhere, he said, to be polite, it must be popular, very much in fa­
vor. To my way of thinking, if it’s found everywhere then it must be
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