rural miners make robot

I was speechless.

‘Aside mine, there’re other families.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Others living in the same mountain. You see, we run a mine of our own.’

My eyes grew wide. ‘Do you have someone who’ve learned mining science?’

‘No.’ Lu again shook his head. ‘Just dig. No need to learn mining.’ And before I answered, he added, ‘Don’t mind the mine.’

I should have known he was just one of the rural homemade miners. Family business. And instead of mining they now came to making robots. Chinese people couldn’t be that naive. Populism. It may hurt.

‘Yeah, maybe we are affected by past history, that we believe we can make steel from ore just by burning a big fire.’ Lu showed his wit of reflection.

‘Do you think it’s plausible?’

‘Possible?’ He nodded, ‘Only if you have faith.’

I tried to disagree but, just by looking at his face, I knew I could hurt this fellow by saying so. After all, he now took me as the future being that visited him. Then I resisted my own reaction.

native homemade robot

‘Quake has something to do with anything. We’re living on the crust. The underworld rules us all.’

‘Are you part of the underworld?’ I asked.

Lu was silent. His expression prompted me into thinking he was one of them.

We kept the silence for such a duration that when I tried to resume the dialogue, he quickly broke in, ‘I am on a journey to find the beads.’

‘Who make the robot then?’ I asked.

‘I have a family. They’re doing it.’

‘They know how to do it?’

‘Again, it’s not rocket science.’ Lu was cooled down a bit. ‘It’s native homemade robotics. ’

future me telling other people to find me?

‘Listen, I am a writer.’ I said. ‘I have ideas of someone coming back from the future, that’s not totally my plot. To tell the truth, what you’re saying about an infant robot is somewhat similar to an idea I have in mind these days, though I haven’t designed it to be the sixth mascot of this year’s Olympic Games.’

While I was intending to continue, Lu said quickly, ‘It’s okay. Maybe you should know, the being once said you’re closely related to it. Therefore I came for you...’

‘He knows me?’

Lu's eyes were wide open, and spoke in a made-believed tone, ‘Maybe it’s the future you.’

‘He looks like me?’

‘Not really. I can’t really figure out his face.’

‘What else did he tell you?’ I tried to convince him, ‘I mean, if I were him, then the queer logic of time travel allows me to ask about myself, right? ’

Lu smiled, ‘It makes sense. He told me to find some beads.’

‘Beads? Hand-made?’

‘Mmm, I don’ t know because I haven’t found them. They should be somewhere in the faults torn open by the quake.’

‘So the quake had something to do with it.’ I said.

Gao Zeng or Gt or the being?

‘They are everywhere.’

I shook my head, ‘You see, it has to be everyone being a secret agent in order to make them everywhere. Not everyone is interested in spying on others.’

‘There was a time when most of the people spy on others, even within the family.’

I stared at him, ‘You have that experience?’

‘No. But my ancestors did.’ Lu looked around, ‘I guess you’re the man.’

This again frustrated me. ‘I am? Who is me then.’

‘Gao Zeng, alias Gt, the one who wrote, or is still writing about the lotus robot.’

Curious as I am, I asked cautiously, ‘Where do you know about my book, from the website or the blog?’

Lu’s answer stunned me, ‘From someone who will come back to me from the future, and he had.’ He paused, trying to make me believe, ‘I was visited by this being, I don’t know whether it’s a he or she, and then I was told about the possibility of an infant robot.’

‘Wait,’ I waved him to stop, ‘this is my plot. How come you know it?’

Lu seemed angered, 'I just told you about the sixth mascot and you said that's your plot...'

Then it suddenly dawned to him, and he tried to verify something, 'you know that being?'

I tried to figure out the causal relationship before answering.

That’s part of my conversation with this man Lu.

The reason I cited them is because I want to tell the world about this strange incident. It is about a mascot prepared for this year’s Olympic Games by a rural craftsman. It is intended as a surprise, a robot made in China, among the first of its kind.

Chinese had had the mechanical know-how to drive wooden ox and horse long before the West did the alike. Those were Lu’s words.

‘I started this because I like robotics. It can be traced far back into more than a millennium ago. Westerners don’t know it because they’re so absorbed in themselves. Japanese robotics leads the world. It represents a major trend in the science. And remember, Japanese culture originates from China, the old Cathay. So why should anyone be surprised if a Chinese like me makes an archetype of the robot mascot?’

Before I could say anything, Lu whispered, ‘The earthquake on 12 May let me have a little more time, as the secret agents seemed absent these days.’

‘Secret agents?’ I asked.

rural robotics

Lu nodded, ‘You got it.’ Upon my suspicious tone, he said, ‘Of course you don’t mean to believe it. The fact is, I got inspiration from the underworld. Somehow they told me how to use the pressure of silicon layers to form necessary metals.’

I was bewildered. ‘You mean like coal or petroleum?’

Lu agreed.

‘Who told you that, underworld scientist?’

‘I don’t suppose you can accept it. Me neither, at first. But then I find it feasible. I don’t need to have the exact know-how, just make it, placing the ore into the layers. It’s like...’ Lu pondered for a while before going on, ‘you don’t need to do all the computer programming to make a robot move. You can just have the joints, the hand and a driving force to throw out a javelin.’

‘Like insects.’

‘Yeah.’ Lu smiled.

‘You know, that’s a major trend in developing robotics.’

‘That’s why I’m using this easier and efficient way to make robots.’

‘Can you finish it? There are only around forty days before the Olympics.’

‘Forty-one days, actually. I’m trying my best.’

a craftsman making a mascot

‘Excuse me, what’s your name?’ I changed the subject and asked.

‘Call me Lu,’ The man paused, ‘I come from Lu Xiang, you know, the pace where Lu Ban lived.’

‘And Lu Ban is...’

Lu stared at me, somehow not used to a response of not knowing who Lu Ban was,‘The patron of craftsmanship.’

‘Oh, Master Lu.’ I recalled. ‘What’s the color of this would-be sixth mascot? ’

‘Brown, the color of earth.’

‘Isn’t there already a mascot in more or less the same color?’

‘Orange, that is. Mine is brown.’

‘Brown because it’s from clay or underground?’ I tried to resume a disconnected topic.