Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (62 page)

My mother signed many 'confessions," admitting that she had sympathized with a 'capitalist road."  But she refused to denounce my father, and she denied all 'spy' charges, which she knew would inevitably lead to the incrimination of others.

During her detention we were often not allowed to see her, and even had no idea where she was.  I would wander the streets outside the possible place in the hope of catching sight of her.

There was a period when she was detained in a deserted cinema on the main shopping street.  There we were occasionally permitted to deliver a parcel for her to a warden, or to see her for a few minutes, although never on her own.  When a fierce guard was on duty, we had to sit under freezing eyes.  One day in autumn 1968 I went there to deliver a food parcel and was told it could not be accepted.  No reason was given, and I was told not to send things anymore.  When my grandmother heard the news she passed out.  She thought my mother must be dead.

It was unbearable not knowing what had happened to my mother.  I took my six-year-old brother Xiao-fang by the hand and went to the cinema. We walked up and down the street in front of the gate.  We searched the rows of windows on the second floor.  In desperation we screamed "Mother!  Mother!"  at the top of our voices again and again.

Passersby stared at us, but I took no notice.  I just wanted to see her.  My brother cried.  But my mother did not appear.

Years later, she told me that she had heard us.  In fact, her psychopath guard had opened the window slightly so our voices would be louder.  My mother was told that if she agreed to denounce my father, and to confess to being a Kuomintang spy, she could see us immediately.

"Otherwise," said the guard, 'you may never get out of this building alive."  My mother said no.  All the time, she dug her nails into her palms to stop her tears from falling.

21.  "Giving Charcoal in Snow'- My Siblings and My Friends (1967-1968)

Throughout 1967 and 1968, while Mao struggled to set up his personal power system, he kept his victims, like my parents, in a state of uncertainty and suffering.

Human anguish did not concern Mao.  People existed only to help him realize his strategic plans.  But his purpose was not genocide, and my family, like many other victims, were not deliberately starved.  My parents still received their salaries every month in spite of the fact that not only were they doing no work, they were also being denounced and tormented.  The main compound canteen was working normally to enable the Rebels to carry on with their 'revolution," and we, like the families of other capitalist-roaders, were fed.  We also got the same rations from the state as everyone else in the cities.

Much of the urban population was kept 'on hold' for the revolution. Mao wanted the population to fight, but to live.

He protected the extremely capable premier, Zhou Enlai, so that he could keep the economy going.  He knew he needed another first-class administrator in reserve in case anything happened to Zhou, so he kept Deng Xiaoping in relative security.  The country was not allowed to collapse totally.

But, as the revolution dragged on, large parts of the economy slipped into paralysis.  The urban population increased by several tens of millions, but virtually no new housing or other service facilities were built in the towns.

Nearly everything, from salt, toothpaste, and toilet paper to every kind of food and clothing, either was rationed or disappeared completely.  In Chengdu there was no sugar for a year, and six months passed without a single bar of soap.

Starting from June 1966, there was no schooling.  The teachers either had been denounced or were organizing their own Rebel groups.  No school meant no control.  But what could we do with our freedom?  There were virtually no books, no music, no films, no theater, no museums, no teahouses, almost no way of keeping oneself occupied except cards, which, though not officially sanctioned, made a stealthy comeback. Unlike most revolutions, in Mao's there was nothing to do.  Naturally, "Red Guardship' became many youngsters' full-time occupation.  The only ways they could release their energy and frustration were in violent denunciations and in physical and verbal bat ties with each other.

Joining the Red Guards was not compulsory.  With the disintegration of the Party system, control over individuals loosened, and most of the population was left alone.  Many people just stayed idle at home, and one result was an explosion of petty fights.  Surliness replaced the good service and polite behavior of the pre-Cultural Revolution days. It became extremely common to see people quarreling on the streets with shop assistants, with bus conductors, with passersby.  Another result was that, since no one was looking after birth control, there was a baby boom.

The population increased during the Cultural Revolution by two hundred million.

By the end of 1966 my teenage siblings and I had decided that we had had enough of being Red Guards.

Children in condemned families were supposed to 'draw a line' between themselves and their parents, and many did so.  One of President Liu Shaoqi's daughters wrote wall posters 'exposing' her father.  I knew children who changed their surnames to demonstrate that they were disowning their fathers, others who never visited their parents in detention, and some who even took part in denunciation meetings against their parents.

Once, when my mother was under tremendous pressure to divorce my father, she asked us what we thought.  Standing by him meant we could become 'blacks'; we had all seen the discrimination and torment such people suffered.

But we said we would stick by him, come what may.  My mother said she was pleased and proud of us.  Our devotion to our parents was increased by our empathy for their suffering, our admiration for their integrity and courage, and our loathing for their tormentors.  We came to feel a new degree of respect, and love, for our parents.

We grew up fast.  We had no rival ties no squabbles, and no resentment of each other, none of the usual problems or pleasures of teenagers. The Cultural Revolution destroyed normal adolescence, with all its pitfalls, and threw us straight into sensible adulthood in our early teens.

At the age of fourteen, my love for my parents had an intensity that could not have existed under normal circumstances.  My life revolved entirely around them.  Whenever they were briefly at home, I would watch their moods, trying to provide amusing company.  When they were in detention, I would repeatedly go to the disdainful-looking Rebels and demand a visit.  Sometimes I would be allowed a few minutes to sit and talk with one of my parents, in the company of a guard.  I would tell them how much I loved them.  I became well known among the former staff of the Sichuan government and the Eastern District of Chengdu, and an irritation to my parents' tormentors, who also hated me for refusing to show fear of them.  Once Mrs.  Shau screamed that I 'looked straight through' her.  Their fury led them to invent the accusation, printed on one of their wall posters, that Red Chengdu had given my father treatment because I had used my body to seduce Yong.

Apart from being with my parents, I spent most of my abundant free time with friends.  After I came back from Peking in December 1966, I went for a month to an airplane maintenance factory on the outskirts of Chengdu with Plumpie and Ching-ching, a friend of hers.  We needed something to occupy ourselves, and the most important thing we could do, according to Mao, was to go to factories to stir up rebellious actions against capitalist roaders.  Upheaval was invading industry too slowly for Mao's liking.

The only action the three of us stirred up was the attention of some young men from the now defunct factory basketball team.  We spent a lot of time strolling on the country roads together, enjoying the rich evening scent of the early bean blossoms.  But soon, as my parents' suffering worsened, I went home, leaving Mao's orders and my participation in the Cultural Revolution behind once and for all.

My friendship with Plumpie, Ching-ching, and the basketball players lasted.  Also in our circle were my sister Xiao-hong and several other girls from my school.  They were all older than I. We would meet frequently in the home of one or another of us, and linger there for the whole day, and often the night as well, having nothing else to do.

We had endless discussions about which of the basketball players fancied whom.  The captain of the team, a handsome nineteen-year-old called Sai, was the center of speculation.  The girls wondered whether he liked me or Ching-ching more.  He was reticent and reserved, and Ching-ching was very keen on him.  Every time we were going to see him, she would meticulously wash and comb her shoulder-length hair, carefully iron and adjust her clothes to look stylish, and even put on a little powder and rouge and pencil her eyebrows.  We all teased her gently

I was also drawn to Sai.  I could feel my heart pound whenever I thought of him, and would wake up at night seeing his face and feeling feverishly hot.  I often murmured his name and talked to him in my mind whenever I felt fear or worry.  But I never revealed anything to him, or to my friends, or even to myself explicitly.  I only timidly fantasized about him.  My parents dominated my life and my conscious thoughts.  Any indulgence in my own affairs was immediately suppressed as being disloyal.  The Cultural Revolution had deprived me of, or spared me, a normal girlhood with tantrums, bickerings, and boyfriends.

But I was not without vanity.  I sewed big blue wax-dyed, abstract-patterned patches on the knees and seat of my trousers, which had faded to pale gray.  My friends would laugh at the sight of them. My grandmother was scandalized, and complained, "No other girls dress like you."

But I insisted.  I was not trying to make myself look beautiful, just different.

One day one of my friends told us that her parents, both distinguished actors, had just committed suicide, unable to stand the denunciations. Not long after, news came that the brother of another gift had killed himself.  He had been a student at the Peking Aeronautical College, and he and some fellow students had been denounced for trying to organize an anti-Mao party.  He threw himself out of a third-floor window when the police came to arrest him.

Some of his fellow 'conspirators' were executed; others were given life sentences, the normal punishment for anyone attempting to organize an opposition, which was rare.

Tragedies like this were part of our everyday life.

The families of Plumpie, Ching-ching, and some others were nor hit. And they remained my friends.  They were not harassed by my parents' persecutors, who could not extend their power to that degree.  But they still ran risks by not swimming with the tide.  My friends were among the millions who held sacred the traditional Chinese code of loyalty 'giving charcoal in snow."  The fact that they were there helped me through the worst years of the Cultural Revolution.

They gave me a lot of practical help, too.  Toward the end of 1967 Red Chengdu began to attack our compound, which was controlled by 26 August, and our block was turned into a fortress.  We were ordered to move from our third-floor apartment into some ground-floor rooms in the next block.

My parents were in detention at the time.  My father's department, which would normally have looked after the move, now only gave us our marching orders.  As there were no furniture-removal companies, without the help of our friends my family would have ended up without a bed.

Still, we moved only the most essential furniture, leaving things like my father's heavy bookcases behind; we could not lift them, let alone can them down several flights of stairs.

Our new quarters were in an apartment already occupied by the family of another capitalist-roader, who were now ordered to vacate half of it.  Apartments were being reorganized like this all over the compound so the top floors could be used as command posts.  My sister and I shared a room.  We kept the window facing the now deserted back garden permanently shut, because the moment it was opened, a strong stench would flood in from the blocked drains outside.  At night, we heard cries for surrender from outside the compound wall, and sporadic shooting.  One night I was awakened by the sound of shattering glass: a bullet had come through the window and embedded itself in the wall opposite.  Strangely, I was not frightened.  After the horrors I had been through, bullets had lost their effect.

To occupy myself, I began writing poetry in classical styles.  The first poem with which I felt satisfied was written on my sixteenth birthday, z5 March 1968.  There was no birthday celebration.  Both my parents were in detention That night, as I lay in bed listening to the gunshots and the Rebels' loudspeakers blaring out blood curdling diatribes, I reached a turning point.  I had always been told, and had believed, that I was living in a paradise on earth, socialist China, whereas the capitalist world was hell.  Now I asked myself."  If this is paradise, what then is hell?  I decided that I would like to see for myself whether there was indeed a place more full of pain.  For the first time, I consciously hated the regime I lived under, and craved an alternative.

Still, I subconsciously avoided Mao.  He had been part of my life ever since I was a child.  He was the idol, the god, the inspiration.  The purpose of my life had been formulated in his name.  A couple of years before, I would happily have died for him.  Although his magic power had vanished from inside me, he was still sacred and un doubtable  Even now, I did not challenge him.

It was in this mood that I composed my poem.  I wrote about the death of my indoctrinated and innocent past as dead leaves being swept from a tree by the whirlwind and carried to a world of no return.  I described my bewilderment at the new world, at not knowing what and how to think. It was a poem of groping in the dark, searching.