God's Double Agent (7 page)

Everyone giggled. “Heidi,” she said, a little more certainly.

Armed with our new, ridiculous-sounding names, we were on our way to teaching English.

As soon as I got settled into my academic life at college, a few other things fell into place. First, I was appointed classroom monitor, which was an even greater honor at the university level. Second, I was the vice president of the Student Union, which was under the leadership of the Communist Youth League of China. Mostly, that meant I’d be tasked with organizing student activities and recording the other students’ attendance and grades.

Of course, I also decided, once again, to start a newspaper.
Not only did I want a platform for all of my many ideas, I loved hearing other people’s ideas and starting campus-wide conversations. I soon approached Heidi with the idea of the paper and asked her to write articles for it.

“Why are you naming it
Ugly Stone
?” she asked, confused at the title.

I’d selected the quite peculiar name simply to get attention. I could tell by her reaction I’d chosen wisely.

“I could really use a writer like you,” I said. At this point, I hadn’t really hit it off with Heidi. Though she was nice, I was too involved in all of my extracurricular activities to be bothered by the notion of romance.

“How much do you pay?”

“I
might
be able to get you a free copy of the paper.”

Heidi’s first article was a social critique of a country that still had a lot of potential despite its recent hard times. She named the article something provocative, like “A Starved-to-Death Camel Is Still Bigger Than a Horse.” That article showed me Heidi was a girl who could write political commentary.

Many of the English students didn’t study much. Quite simply, teachers weren’t going to be wealthy, so why spend so much time in the library? Every year, however, the college chose three students from the graduating class to be government officials instead of teachers. I hoped to be one of those students, so I made sure I earned high enough grades to impress the university and created many activities to gain new friends.

Joseph was a trusted ally and friend. As the class monitor, I’d frequently ask him to assist me in various tasks, and he reliably was able to obey orders and perform tasks on time for me. This allowed me to have enough time to plan chess tournaments, dancing parties, and basketball games.

Lao Wu would join us in our sporting activities. He loved to play basketball and baseball, and the students enjoyed hanging out with him during the athletic competitions. He lived in
the foreign expert regiment building on campus, so he could easily drop by our activities. And he invited us to stop by his place too. He had an open door policy . . . or as we liked to call it, an open fridge policy. He was the only professor I’d ever known who allowed students to drop by his apartment and grab whatever we wanted from his refrigerator. Once, we dropped by his house when he wasn’t there and helped ourselves to his pantry. We ate all of his bananas, and the next day he pretended to be angry. He was so laidback that we knew he didn’t really mind. College, to me, was less academic and more social.

Of course, more than anything—even free food—I cared about international issues. In fact, I’d promised my parents I’d go beyond this paltry teaching degree. At night, even though I was just beginning college, I’d sit on my bunk bed and read huge textbooks on international relations for hours, preparing for graduate school. I even got hold of a Chinese translation of
Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World
by Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the man with the famous birthmark. I’d developed an intense appreciation for this world leader because of his systematic reform thinking. The book was a rare opportunity to be able to really read, understand, and process his thoughts. I remember opening the book like an American child might open Christmas presents, eager and anticipating. The first line grabbed me.

“We want to be understood.”

I read in amazement as Gorbachev criticized Soviet society, wrote that the economy couldn’t create useful goods, described the demoralized Soviet people, and claimed the Communist Party propagated dysfunctional social systems.

One beautiful autumn afternoon, I was walking through the campus on my way to class when someone touched my arm.
When I looked up, I was surprised to see the president of the university, Zhang Ming.

“So, what do you think of
Perestroika
?” he asked, glancing at the book I carried.

I stopped in my tracks, intimidated so much I could neither move nor answer. The president was a well-regarded expert on diplomacy. With a forty-year age gap between us, what could I possibly say to him that would matter?

“I know Gorbachev shouldn’t trust Reagan,” I said, trying to sound confident. The Chinese propaganda department had told me all my life that the United States didn’t want China to be great, so I figured this was a safe response.

President Ming’s eyebrows narrowed. “Do you think his democratic socialism would actually work?”

Apparently, he was writing a paper about his various philosophies on international affairs, and was very interested in conversations that might help him hone his ideas. He’d stopped the right guy. After years of memorizing news clippings, I had an opinion on just about everyone and everything. We stood on the sidewalk and talked in depth about Gorbachev, my palms sweating the entire time. As I shuffled to class after our conversation, I replayed the conversation in my head. Did I say the right things? Did he think I was ignorant?

But the next time I saw him on campus, he noticed me.

“Xiqiu,” he called out. What? The president of the university knew my name? “Drop by my office later. I’d love to hear your thoughts on Afghanistan.”

“Definitely,” I said, with as much poise as I could muster. But as soon as he was out of sight, I ran back to my dorm, scanned over my textbook to make sure I knew everything there was to know about Afghanistan, and went back to knock on the door of his office.

Several assistants worked busily in the reception area. His chief of staff looked at me suspiciously. “How may I help you?”

“President Ming asked me to come by.” Even as I said it, the very notion seemed improbable. Why would someone of such a high status want to confer with me?

The chief-of-staff walked over to an appointment book and glanced over the entries then back at me. “Is he expecting you?”

He walked down the hall, disappeared into the president’s office, and came back with a more welcoming countenance.

“Right this way,” he said, bowing slightly and motioning for me to follow him.

We walked down the hall and came to a perfectly decorated room.

“Your guest has arrived.”

President Ming was sitting behind a large desk. “Please sit,” he said, gesturing to the sofa. He wasn’t a big man, but his dignified presence filled the room. His forehead had a few deep wrinkles, evidence he’d spent his whole life thinking seriously about the issues of the day. I’d heard that he was beaten up pretty badly during the Cultural Revolution and that he’d suffered from health issues ever since. The sofa was made of old elm wood, with a carving of a dragon in the center of the backrest. I moved a red silk pillow and sat down next to his desk.

“Tea?”

I felt stiff and nervous. Why would the university president be interested in my thoughts? But the special treatment was nice. I knew having a good relationship with the university president might mean my future could be brighter. The administration had so much power over the students’ lives and destinies. For example, if I developed a good relationship with the president, perhaps he would select me to work in the capital city in my province.

“I’d love some tea,” I said.

We instantly connected. Even though President Ming was known to be a very sober man, our conversation that day was frequently punctuated with laughter. I was shocked to discover
I could hold my own with him, and he seemed to be delighted to have a like-minded conversationalist. I could tell I was helping him hone his own philosophies, but I made sure to defer to him. After all, he was the expert.

From that point on, I became the only student in the college who could walk right into the university president’s office, sit down, and have a conversation. It made me feel very important, and I dreamt of getting a high-paying government job. All of my family’s hopes rested on my shoulders. I wanted to do everything I could to continue to earn favor within the administration.

And if I couldn’t earn it, I’d buy it.

Bribery is an age-old Chinese custom, and it’s especially common during a season called the Moon Festival. The morning of the fifteenth day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar is when the moon is at its most round. That day, during my freshman year, I got up early and rushed through the campus. I didn’t want to run into anyone I knew.

The Moon Festival was one of the most important holidays in China, when families united under the full moon to exchange gifts. Usually, the gifts were “moon cakes,” or delicious round pastries filled with salted egg, lotus seed-green bean, sesame, nuts, sugar, ham, or egg yolk. Interestingly, these moon cakes were also a popular way to bribe government officials—when they weren’t made of baked goods. Some were made of solid gold, while others had money or silver baked into the confection. I bought a very nice moon cake of the bribing variety to make sure the deputy party secretary of the English department took notice of me during this time of gift giving.

Before I left the dorm, I took one last look at the moon cake. It had a lotus flower imprinted on the top and looked quite nice in the beautiful box I’d selected. I carefully shut the box, tucked it under my arm, and headed across campus. Bribery was so
common before graduation that students coordinated their calendars to avoid potential awkwardness. Each dorm would have a certain hour to deliver bribes so they wouldn’t run into each other. I didn’t have much money, but my “special” moon cake for the party secretary was worth about twenty dollars. I held the box like it was a bag of money stolen from the bank. After all, I’d never done this before. I approached the administration building, took a deep breath, and scurried up the steps.

The deputy party secretary’s office was located at the end of a long corridor, and I looked at the floor as I shuffled down the hall. I didn’t want to make eye contact with anyone. When I came to his office, I paused as I looked at the door. Was I really going to do this? Was I going to offer a bribe?

Ever since I was a little boy, I talked to myself when I was anxious, and I did so now, without forethought. “Oh, you aren’t worth anything,” I said. “Why would you think you could get ahead this way? You’re just a peasant, so why fight destiny?”

“Is someone out there?” a voice said from beyond the door. I assumed it was an assistant who must’ve heard my mumbling. As I opened the door, I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d planned on seeing the party secretary and handing him my moon cake with a wink or some sort of sign. I wanted him to know that my moon cake was more than just a moon cake.

However, since the deputy party secretary was nowhere to be seen, I had a wrinkle in my plans. I couldn’t very well introduce myself to the assistant, explain that this was a special moon cake bribe, and leave. Absent any sort of plan, I simply said, “Hello. Here’s a moon cake.”

Only after I handed him the cake did I realize he was not an assistant after all. Apparently, the deputy party secretary shared an office with a deputy dean who believed the moon cake was for him. And so, to my everlasting humiliation, he took the cake, thanked me, and I left.

I had just bribed the wrong person.

Even though that didn’t turn out well, I still hoped the administration would look favorably upon me when the time came. I didn’t want to be a teacher, no matter how much the government seemed to be forcing me down that path. If they selected me when I was a senior, I could be a government official and make enough money to help my family, justify my sister’s educational sacrifice, and get my mother good medical care.