An infrastructure for self-organising
An attempt to bridge something in the in-betweeness
Scene One: Shanghai, Dockside
Characters: White Impermanence × Mazu
White Impermanence's Entrance Music: "The Life of the Turtle and the Mercy Pond" （“放生池与龟的人生”）– First 30 seconds, then fade out.
Bai Wuchang (standing on the pier under an oil-paper umbrella, sighing): So many souls lost at sea these days... I can't keep up. The King of the Underworld is getting impatient. If only Old Hei could help.
Mazu (walking calmly across the water, peaceful): Don't worry, Wuchang. Matters of the sea are my responsibility. But why isn't your partner here?
Bai Wuchang (shaking his head): You see, Hei Wuchang and I are spirit messengers from the underworld. Like night and day, he and I balance each other — I wear white and guide the good souls to peace, while he, in black, handles the wicked ones. But now, with so many foreigners around, they mistake Hei for their "Satan." Every time he shows up, people panic. It's a real problem.
Mazu (laughing softly): So that's why you came alone tonight.
Bai Wuchang (bowing slightly): I'm very grateful for your help, Mazu. People at sea say you are the protector of sailors and fishermen, especially those from Fujian and Guangdong. With you here, even the lost souls will feel at peace.
Mazu (nodding): All living beings are like my children. Helping them find peace is what I do. But lately, with so many foreigners, fewer people know who I am. Some even mistake me for a Western saint when they see me walking on water. It's a little troublesome.
Bai Wuchang (smiling with a sigh): Looks like even we gods have to "keep up with the times."
Mazu (softly): Yes, we do.
[The two exchange a glance, share a knowing smile, and look out together toward the vast sea.]
Transition music from Scene 1 to Scene 2: "Qijin Mazu" （旗津妈祖） first 30 seconds, then lower the volume and fade out.
Scene 2：Pagu Writting a Letter to Li Shizeng
Pagu (writing a letter, monologue):
Dear Mr. Yuying,
This is Pagu, writing to you from São Paulo. To explain why I seek your advice on tofu, I must begin over thirty years ago.
In 1922, during the São Paulo Week of Modern Art—our centennial of independence—we launched what we called “Cannibalism”: a movement to devour the colonizer's culture using the power of indigenous identity. Back then, I was in love with the poet Oswald de Andrade. Together we plunged into revolution, eventually joining the Communist Party. That was the first taste of idealism.
In 1931, I was arrested for inciting a dockworkers’ strike in Santos—the first of my 23 arrests.
Under Vargas, communists were crushed like ants. I fled, traveling the world: the U.S., the Soviet Union, Japan, China, Poland, Germany, and finally France. In 1935, I was arrested in Paris while operating under a false identity, then deported.
But in Paris, I met comrades in politics and art alike. That’s where I first heard of you—Dr. Toufu. Your efforts to promote tofu in France left an impression. The flavor still lingers in my memory.
Before all this, there was an episode I’ve never dared to speak of—until now. In 1934, I was invited to the coronation of Puyi, Emperor of Manchukuo. Hard to believe, perhaps, that I once biked around the imperial palace with him, deep in conversation. He was elegant, a true gentleman. And I—a secret Trotskyist.
It was then that I obtained 19 soybean seedlings from Puyi and smuggled them back to Brazil. [豆苗出场，活泼] Today, Brazil is a major soybean producer, yet tofu and soy products remain unpopular. Perhaps it is not the crop but the context that’s missing—what you cultivated in Paris: a fusion of culture, nutrition, and ideology. 【大豆精做今天的注脚】
I’ve read of China’s mutual aid societies, the work-study movement—how tofu was more than food; it was a vehicle of resistance, of ecological and political reimagination.
So I write to ask you boldly:
What is the secret of tofu?
Is it technology—or belief?
Awaiting your response with utmost respect,
Pagu
June 9th, 1957
São Paulo
[Lights dim. The envelope is sealed. Li Shizeng enters and leads the group as the scene transitions to the tofu factory.]
Transition music from Scene 2 to Scene 3 (factory work BGM): "Spring is Coming" by Morgan Buckley; duration flexible depending on scene.
Scene 3: The Tofu Factory & After-Work Classroom, 1907
How To Make Tofu:
*Leave samples for each step
- Soak 2400g soybeans for 12hr
- Combine soaked soybeans with (400g/3000ml) 2400g豆18000g水 water in a blender
- Filter blended liquid with a strainer cloth. Raw soy milk will be used to make tofu.
(100g for practice). The soy pulp(okara) + flour+egg for a soy pan cake.
6pm
- Cook soy milk on medium heat until it boils (stir consistently)
- 1hr
- After boiling, turn heat to low. simmer 5 mins. 假熟
- Turn off heat, let stand 2-3（or more)mins. until the Bean curd skin will harden on the top layer - you can remove and eat!
- When the liquid has cooled to suitable temperature for add firming agents.
- 80-85Celsius for Nigari, firm tofu
盐卤Nigari: Magnesium chlorid-MgCl₂
- 88-98C for GDL, soft/silky tofu
内酯GDL：Glucono delta-lactone
- 10 mins
- Add firming agent in small dashes, do not stir too much. Liquid will start to coagulate within a few minutes.
200g 熟豆浆 - 5g Nigari/
384g 熟豆浆 - 1g GDL
(内脂加入量为豆浆的0.25%-0.3%)
- 10 mins
- Let it stand for 5 minutes
- For firm tofu Pour the coagulated tofu through a strainer cloth into a tofu mold (if you don’t have a tofu mold, use a container that allows liquid to drain at the bottom) -20mins
- Wrap it tightly with the strainer cloth and place heavy object on top. (Leave for 30-40 minutes)
- For silky tofu, make coagulant liquid, and pour cooked soymilk into the coagulant, and wait for 15-20mins?
场景四 邵可侣家的客厅 1920s
【无名指BGM: 钢琴曲Goldberg variations, glenn gould 20s.】
无名指：
I was once Jacques Reclus’s ring finger. I had once leapt across piano keys.
During the First World War, in a single explosion, I was swallowed by blood and earth. After I was gone, he could no longer find a home in music.
I heard he turned to books, to distant languages and unfamiliar ideas.
His quiet Parisian salon filled with strangers —anarchists, exiles, revolutionaries from the East.
They brought no scores, only rhythms of resistance: politics, community, soybeans, and freedom — a different kind of harmony.
And I, remain in the corner of that room, with the presence of Li Shizeng, Jacques Reclus, Ōsugi Sakae, Madame LEE, née Clémence, Pyotr Kropotkin.
Listening like a ghost, I am a finger that will never return to the hand.
李石曾站起，手持手写讲稿，微微颔首。
LI SHIZENG (quiet, deliberate):
Comrades, thank you for being here today. Today I am going to share my recently developed thoughts on Soybean, which is “Soybeans and the Ecological Path to Anarchism.”
The soybean, native to East Asia, is a gift of Heaven and Earth. It is bountiful without violence, nourishing without exploitation, and enriches the soil instead of depleting it. It asks no labor from beasts, no blood from slaughter. Its value lies not only in its complete nutrition—offering a full alternative to meat without the shedding of life—but in its political economy.
Soybeans, you see, are not merely a foodstuff. They are an alternative form of social relation, an organizing principle of ethical life. If we promote soy, and the cooperative methods to cultivate and process it, we can begin to sever our dependence on the state, capital, and the colonial trade order.
Ecology is politics. What we eat is what we become.The empires no longer conquer only with ships and armies—they do so with diet, with sugar, with alcohol, and with opium. If a revolution does not begin at the level of food, it merely cracks the shell of power, leaving the marrow untouched.
I established a Tofu factory here, not culinary curiosities—it was a gesture toward what I call a Dietary Republic Without Government. When I established the “Work-Study Movement” here in France, it was not just to bring Chinese youth into the factories. It was to show that the hand that learns can also cook, clean, and grow. That a revolutionary must feed himself without masters. Anarchism must not stop at tearing down governments. It must propose viable forms of self-sufficiency. The soybean is such a form.
He looks at Kropotkin, a faint smile on his lips.
Peter, your Fields, Factories and Workshops taught me much: “Mutual aid is the law of nature.” But I ask: Can we not go one step further? Not just mix manual and mental labor—but ground it in the soil itself, the microbes, the bean?
Peter Kropotkin (Russian accent, slow and precise)
(With a furrowed brow, then nodding gently)
Mr. Li, your words—like your tofu—are humble yet forceful.
I have long championed the smallholding peasant economy, as in Fields, Factories and Workshops. Your perspective—beginning with the foodstuff itself—challenges me.
But tell me: the soybean still requires land. And while private ownership persists, who controls that land?
How will you prevent the “Soybean Baron” from becoming the new landlord?
ŌSUGI SAKAE (grinning):
Mighty indeed! But what of taste, Shizeng-san? Can soybeans feed the fire of revolt? Or only the belly?
LI SHIZENG (gently):
We must ask—what kind of fire do we feed? Soy is not bland. It is deep. It waits. Mutual aid in root and rhizome. The bean takes nitrogen from the air and shares it with the soil. It needs no army to conquer. It needs only time. Fermentation is a slow rebellion.
[客厅里众人的鼓掌声]
【无名指BGM: 钢琴曲Goldberg variations, glenn gould】
无名指带领大家走着转场, 走到停
Reclus sat silently in the corner, lifting what remained of his right hand. I know he felt me still. I continued to flow in his veins—memory turned into blood. I was no longer pain. I was reminder.
He could have stayed in Paris.He could have bowed in concert halls under the soft lights, his black hat perfectly shaped, playing Schubert.
But he lost me. And in doing so, he gained a new ear for a different kind of rhythm.
Perhaps I was a sacrifice.
Or perhaps I was a key.
The smallest of his limbs, yet the lever that turned the whole course of his destiny.
So he went to Shanghai.
And I…
I remained inside him, pulsing gently.
Not as pain, but as a whisper.
I was once part of you.
I was lost.
And through that loss, something else began.
场景五，劳动大学
Monologue of the ring finger:
Now, here we are, in Shanghai, 1927. The Labor University has just been founded through an alliance between Chinese anarchists and the Kuomintang. It is a work-study institution. Its aim is to cultivate a new kind of Chinese person - equally developed in both intellectual and manual labor. This vision is too well aligned with Jacques Reclus’s ideals. Here, every day, left-wing intellectuals are engaged in discussions about revolution, about the birth of a New China.
However, I feel something else coming. A sour wind. Jacques may not be embraced now, but the state, which he and all the other revolutionary intellectuals are dreaming is being born, will one day spit him out. Like a seed mistaken for a stone. And I, the missing one, can only ache in advance.
But for now, let us linger a while in this Shanghai filled with ideals and hope.
And who gathers around him? The brush-wielding idealist Xu Beihong, and his wife Jiang Biwei who Jacques had a strong crush on. cough cough.. we have another artist Pan Yuliang, Xu Beihong’s rival. And we have Vasili Eroshenko, a blind writer, translator, linguist, traveler, poet…but mostly well-known as an esperantist, the Anarchist language in the 20th century. And Lu Xun, most well known revolutionary writer in 20c’s China, who slices illusions with ink. Well, these are not musicians, but they play a fugue of ideas.
CUE: 指头退场
【音乐：国际歌中文版the internationale】
The classroom is modest. A long wooden table holds a mix of French and Chinese books. Posters drawn by students hang on the walls: "Build the Future with Your Hands," "Knowledge Belongs to the People." Outside, workers' songs drift in faintly.
Jacques Reclus looked up from his notebook. Around him sit Luxun, Eroshenko, Pan Yuliang and Xu Beihong.
Xu Beihong: This country is an ox yoked in circles. It plows, it bleeds, it never arrives. The question is: how to unyoke it?
Pan Yuliang: The problem isn’t only the yoke, but the one who built it—and the one who profits when the ox falls. Revolution isn’t just freedom from the yoke. It’s learning how not to build one for someone else.
Luxun: You want to talk about revolutions? The people don’t read manifestos. They read faces. They read hunger. And when hunger is too loud, it eats the revolution too.
Eroshenko: I've heard news from the students—what happened in Gaza. It's not only bombs. It’s the hunger, the cutting of water, electricity, the silence that follows.
Lu Xun (quietly) : Infinite distance. Countless people. All related to me.
Pan Yuliang: That line always cuts deeper when we say it here. In Shanghai, we can’t even “protect” our students from being suppressed by the police, from being deported from their country!
Reclus: I thought I came to escape Europe’s wounds. But I brought the wound with me. I see now—it’s not the place, but the structure. The machineryā of forgetting repeats.
Pan Yuliang: So we ask again—what is solidarity? Not pity, not charity.
Eroshenko: Solidarity is not a feeling. It is an action. Maybe we translate their poetry. Maybe we could do fundraising to support families in GAZA. Maybe we support the BDS movement in other places. Maybe we speak out, even if only in the small classroom.
ALL: From the River to the Sea!
[The crowd falls silent; only the workers’ singing from outside the window can be heard. End scene.]
场景六，1909万国食品博览会
【音乐：Les Nouveaux Parisans】
叫卖！