To Save a Five-Flowered Phoenix

The cultivated Peiping gentleman cherishes three things in his quiet walled courtyard: a peng (broad overhead matting) for shade, a goldfish pool for the cool grace of its inmates, and a pomegranate tree for its fruit. With these he can free his mind from such pressing disorders as the occasional boom of cannon outside the town and the runaway inflation inside.

This summer the pleasant pattern for contemplation was threatened. The municipal health department decided to attack the fly and mosquito population by air-spraying the town with DDT solution. Private goldfish fanciers were outraged at the danger to the fish population.

Wrote one: "Professional cultivators in the days of imperial patronage developed more than 20 rare varieties of wondrous beauty . . . Many old established residents . . . have kept up the cultivation of goldfish in their private pools. In my courtyard there are several dozen fish, including the rare Red Dragon-Eye and the Five-Flowered Phoenix ... If this ridiculous foreign project [DDT spraying] is carried out, it will mean the end of all Peiping's goldfish. Then what man will be able to sit under his peng on a warm summer day and study the gentle undulations of fins and tails? The very thought of these beautiful water creatures turning on their backs and floating to the surface fills my heart with deepest gloom." The health department yielded. The air-spray project, it announced, would be postponed until next year. By then Peiping's fish contemplators would be instructed how best to cover their pools during the spraying.

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