Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos (40 page)

My brother Yiding, almost three years old, and me, five months old, in Beijing, November 1958. This was the last picture taken before we went with Mama to Hefei.

Yiding and me in Tianjin, 1960, taken at Wondrous Peak Photos just before Mama left me behind to live with Grandma (maternal).

At the sports grounds in Hefei where the professors would be denounced, just before the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1965: my younger brother, Yicun, front with cap, and Yiding, to his left. I am partially hidden in the back.

I am flanked by my brothers, Hefei, 1966. Taken at a studio a few days after Uncle PLA gave me the Mao badge I am wearing. My shirt was buttoned up to hide the bruises left from our encounter.

Posing in front of a studio backdrop of Tiananmen Square with my father and my brothers, Chinese New Year 1970, in Wujiang, where Papa was being kept in the “cowshed.”

Nanjing, 1971, where father and I had been visiting relatives. It is the only picture taken of him during the years we lived in Gao Village.

Graduation picture of the Communist Youth League members from middle school in Gao Village, November 1973. I am in the front row, left.

With Yicun in Wuhu, 1974, in front of the truck that had brought us from Gao Village.

With Xu Yuqing the Communist Youth League leader and student supervisor, in the factory in Wuhu, 1975; note both of us are wearing Red Guard badges.

Washing laundry in front of the converted church where we lived with seven other families in Wuhu, 1976. We all shared the one water faucet on the left.

The high school graduating class members of the Communist Youth League posing in front of its flag and the slogan “We once fought together,” January 21, 1976; I am in the second row, second from right.

Hiking in the mountains in the rain, 1976. I have a stick to scare away the many poisonous snakes.