Story of Prof. Hou’s Angel
“You
remind me of somebody.” Prof. Hou came directly to me right after class and I
was surprised. It was my first day in the university, and I was still lost in
the fray. During this particular English class, the professor had called me up
to have a short English dialog practice with him in front of the whole class.
The exercise was so simple and dull that it seemed silly to me. The drill went
like this:
What is this?
It is a book.
Is this a book?
Yes, it is a book.
Is this a pencil?
No, it is not a pencil. It is a book.
Now
he seemed to start another dialog.
“You
look very much like an old friend of mine, also in temperament and
personality.” He continued. I suddenly became suspicious. What did he mean?
Temperament and personality? How could he possibly know that much about me! We
had only had that silly English practice! And this professor of mine, whom I
met for the first time, was telling me that he had caught the essence of me!?
Ridiculous!
“Well,
she died a long time ago.”
I
didn’t know what to say.
“Do
you believe in any religion?” He changed subject suddenly. “I get the sense
that you are a very religious person. Have you ever heard of Christianity?”
“Religion?”
Another
surprise. “Does he live on this planet or not?” I wondered. It was an unusual
question to ask of a student of my age, now at a time when the Cultural
Revolution had just ended. For about thirty years, since the 1949 Liberation,
all religions had been, if not banned, harshly attacked by the authorities in
order to promote Communist Atheism and Marxist Materialism in China. And during
the Cultural Revolution, almost all religious practices were wiped out
physically and ideologically. Nobody would talk to a person of my age about
religion. It was not out of fear, but simply because most young people had no
idea of any religion at all. We were born in the years after the
Liberation.
I burst into a laugh. “You are crazy, aren’t you,
Prof. Hou? You must know better than I do that religion is spiritual opium,
Communism is what we young people should fight for.”
Prof.
Hou laughed too.
Suddenly
I felt touched by his recognition of my nearly religious-natured persistence
and the way he talked to me, as if I would understand whatever he would say
despite our generational gap. I wondered how he could see through me.
“No, I don’t believe in any religion. Nobody has
dared, right? But I do know a little about Christianity. My grandparents on
both sides were Christians. One of my grandfathers was even a minister for his
church. My parents were baptized when they were little, but they abandoned it
long time ago. However, I learned biblical stories from them and they kept
reminding me that I should read the Bible as literature and history rather than
a religious doctrine.”
After a moment of hesitation I added, “Actually my
great grandparents on my father’s side were beheaded simply for being
Christians by the Boxers during the Rebellion time at the turn of the century.
They were martyred for their Christ.”
I did not know why I let it out. It had been our
family’s big secret since the 1949 Liberation. It could have caused us a lot of
trouble if people had known.
It was his turn now to be surprised. After all, it
was a rare topic between our two generations, especially in this remote place
far from central China. And I did know something about a religion, a foreign
religion, and even had some personal relations!
“No
wonder I feel you are so much like my friend.”
“What
happened to her?” I asked cautiously.
The classroom was almost empty now, only a couple of
students were still in their seats chatting. Prof. H reached a chair near me
and sat down. He was in his late forties, tall and thin. Behind glasses were
two big deep eyes.
“It
was such a long time ago! I met her when I was still in high school in Beijing.
One day I rode a bicycle to school and on the way I came across a girl who was
also riding a bicycle. She was wearing a white dress, white socks, and white
tennis shoes, like a flying angel. I found her so attractive that I followed
her. I paid so much attention to her that I almost fell from the bike. Well,
you know, boys at that age. We rode on the same street for a while and then
went in different directions. Joyfully, I saw her again the next day, and the
day after, and the next, and next. For a whole semester, I managed to go out in
time to see her in the street. But I never dared to talk to her. She must have
noticed my presence. Occasionally, when our eyes met, she would smile at me,
and I would revel in that smile for the rest of the day. The next semester, she
did not appear. Later I found she had transferred to a different school. For a
long time, I felt lost. I regretted so much that I had not had the courage to
talk to her. I had not even known her name! How stupid I was!
“Two
years later, I was admitted to the Department of English Language and
Literature at Yanjing (Yenching) University (later became part of Beijing
University). To my great surprise and joy, I found that she was also there. My
heart almost jumped out when I realized that we were in the same class. From
then on we became close friends. I knew I fell in love with her, but I did not
dare to tell her, simply because I was afraid I would scare her away. She
seemed so pure and so innocent, like a real angel, that I felt that any mundane
idea would disgrace her. I found myself going to the classroom earlier every
morning to have more time with her before the class began. She was always the
first there to study. We studied together, and spent our spare time together.
One early morning, when I got to the classroom as usual, I saw her leaning her
entire body against the blackboard with face buried in the board and two arms
stretching out, like Christ on the Cross, in deep grief. It frightened me. I
sensed she had some difficult dilemma. When I tried to ask, she shook her head.
So I stopped. A few weeks later, one Monday morning I did not see her. And for
the whole week she did not show up. Then the news came: she had committed
suicide.
“It
shocked me greatly. For many days, I was sick with fevers and dreams of her.
Why? Why? I asked infinite times. When I recovered and went back to school, I
found that the school had launched a university-wide study of Communist
theories and group discussions on her suicide as “self-isolation from the
revolutionaries and the Communist Party”. She was criticized for holding blind
belief in a religion – spiritual opium as described by Karl Marx, and as an
ignorant in realizing the greatness of Communism and the Party. The university
Party and Youth League leaders called on everyone in the university to not
follow her poor example.
“I
began to put the pieces together.
“She
had been a faithful Christian all her short life. When we got into the
university it was just the year of Liberation. The Communist Party and the
Communist Youth League had been calling students to learn Communist theories
and Marxist Materialism, and to actively join the League and Party. At least
twice a week there was a one-hour political study at school. Most students
quickly accepted the theories, and many first joined the Youth League and then
the Party. If a person did not catch up soon enough, he or she would be
considered backwards. I remembered that at those discussions, she had been
always serious and conscientious, honestly wanting to learn and understand.
Once she had mentioned to me that she had wanted to join the Youth League but
felt it difficult to give up her Christian beliefs. It had not occurred to me
that it could become a fatal dilemma for her. She was too honest and serious to
abandon her former faith, and too fragile to accept the revolutionary ideology
under political pressure.
“I
had to go to all of the meetings criticizing her foolish reaction to the Party.
I felt that an extreme injustice had been laid on her. Those attacks on her
made me furious, so I stood on her side and spoke out for her, but only once or
twice.
“After
graduation I was hired by the Department of English Language & Literature
as an assistant professor in Beijing University. A couple years later in 1957,
when the “Fight against Right Opportunism” movement began, my sympathy for the
girl was brought out as a typical Right-wing problem. I was taken off the job
and sent to a farm in the Takalamakan Desert and remained a farmer for
seventeen years before they found me useful to teach English to the
Worker-Peasant-Soldier students in the university a few years ago.
“I
was such a coward that I could not finish myself like she had. She died for her
beliefs, yet I lived like a dog begging for a senseless and meaningless life.
How shameful I am!”
A
long silence fell.
It
was a beautiful and sad story. I felt sorry for the girl and for the Professor.
“I’m sorry for putting such heavy load on you.
You may not understand it, But for some strange reason, I feel that you may
understand it better than anybody else,” he apologized, recovering from his
deep memory.
But
wasn’t he right! I was indeed much like the girl in the way that we were both
idealistically and naively devoted to our beliefs. I was so seriously prepared
to sacrifice my own life for my belief - the exact opposite of her belief –
Communism, when I was at her age.
Story of My Childhood: “Communist
Successors”
“We are the Communist successors
Taking on the revolutionary forerunners’ glorious
traditions
Love our country, love people
Young Pioneer is our proud name
… …”
Humming the song, some of my schoolmates and I were
practicing how to tie a Red Scarf and how to salute the flag of the Young
Pioneer. Miss Wu, a young and pretty teacher, and an advisor of ours was loudly
explaining to us over our humming:
“The Red Scarf represents a corner of the Red Flag;
it was dyed with our revolutionary martyrs’ blood.”
“Keep fingers tight on your right hand and raise the
hand above your head. It means the people’s interest is above all.”
Everything sung and said was so fresh and exciting.
It was the preparation for the elementary pupils to join the Communist Young
Pioneers.
For every child in China in the 1950s and 60s, there
was a single life goal set in three stages, Communist Young Pioneers at age
7-12, Communist Youth League at 15-28, and Communist Party when 18 above. One
would vow all of one’s life to fight for the Communist Ideal each time to be
accepted by the Pioneers, League, and Party.
On June 1, International Children’s Day, 1963, I
participated in the oath-taking ceremony and became a member of the Chinese
Communist Young Pioneers. My father, an artist and photographer for the local
newspaper captured the exciting moment:
We raised our right fist, following Miss Wu:
“I, a member of the Chinese Communist Young
Pioneers, swear under the Flag of the Pioneers: I love the Chinese Communist
Party, love the Motherland, and love all people; study well, exercise well; be
prepared to fight for the cause of Communism!”
The new members put the right hand above the head,
calling out:
“Always be prepared!”
I was so moved by our oath.
I was seven then, and was the first and only one in
my first grade class to be accepted into the Young Pioneers. I was very proud.
When I got home that day, I asked my parents, who
were the editor and artist for the newspaper, what Communism meant. The two intellectuals
found it difficult to explain it to a seven year old.
“It means an ideal society where there is no
exploitation and oppression. There is sufficient material supply for everybody
to share. There is no difference between the rich and the poor. Everybody is
equal.” Looking at my bewildered face, mother said: “Oh, well, you just want to
be a good kid.”
With absolutely no understanding to the concept, I
only knew that from now on, I was a child of the Party, must always listen to
the calls of the Party; my mission was to fight all my life (but what did fight
mean?) for the liberation of the three-fourths of poor people and their
children outside China from poverty and suffering. I believed that we, who were
born in New China and grew up under the Five-Star Red Flag, were the luckiest
and happiest kids on earth. Children outside the Soviet Union and the People’s
Republic of China were suffering from the capitalists’ and landlords’
oppression and exploitation. They did not have enough food, or chance to go to
school. It was our Chinese Young Pioneers’ responsibility to help them when we
grew up. Therefore we should study hard and get ourselves ready. And it was a
sacred and lofty cause for us to seek.
It had never occurred to me, of course, that when I
had only two boiled eggs as a special treat for my birthday and my brother had
one, and it was the vice versa for his birthday, whether we were really the
luckiest and happiest children on earth. I did not know that just a couple of
years earlier, several millions people had died of hunger in the country. But
we were convinced we were the luckiest, so we were. Many years later, when my
daughter had her birthday party in our American home with many boxes of
presents, I told guests how I spent my birthdays, and they all looked at me as
if I was just coming back from Hell!
When the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, our
devotion to the Communist Party became specific to Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary
Line versus Vice Chairman Liu’s Revisionist Line. The high school and college
students organized Red Guards. They also helped elementary school kids organize
the Little Red Guards. So I became a Little Red Guard. While the Red Guards did
their revolutionary activities, we Little Red Guards studied Chairman Mao’s
books, recited his Quotations, sang them in songs, danced “loyalty” dances, and
did physical exercises while chanting his famous sayings. We tried every way to
demonstrate our devotion. We painted the character “Loyalty” on walls
everywhere in very large size, in the school and on the streets. We made
paper-cuts of the word “Loyalty” in many different fashions and sizes and
pasted them on our doors, desks, books, etc. Some bigger kids cut their fingers
to write “Loyalty” with blood, some tattooed the character on their chests.
Some Red Guards even tied themselves up and let others whip them so hard as to
test whether they were faithful enough not to betray in future. The revolution
became a religious frenzy.
During this crazy time, schools were paralyzed. We still went to school, but only to study
Chairman Mao’s books and to criticize our teachers. When there were no classes,
especially during the summer and winter breaks, my parents had locked up my
brother and me at home practicing calligraphy and reading books. As artists, my
parents had been severely criticized as “Bourgeois Black” artists ever since
the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. They were so hurt that they decided
not to make their children artists as they had wished before. So they had
stopped teaching us drawing and painting ever since.
In high school during a summer vacation, I had
buried myself in a book titled How the Steel Was Tempered written by Nikolai
Ostrovsky, a Soviet Ukrainian writer in the 1930s, one of a few novels allowed
to be read in China at the time. Based on the author’s own life, the book was
about a Soviet soldier, Pavel, who struggled hard to fight against enemies in
wars with Austrian and German invaders, battles with the White Army, battles
establishing the Soviet Union, political struggles within the Communist Party,
and his physical wounds and diseases, and how he miraculously survived death
four times. Pavel’s extraordinarily tough and heroic spirit moved me so much
that I had read the book several times. Both the author and his character in
the book proved their lives worthy and meaningful. In my diary I copied Pavel’s
words:
“Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to
him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted
years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that,
dying he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause
in all the world- the fight for the Liberation of Mankind.”
I
wrote an essay about the book for the summer writing assignment and handed it
in. The writing teacher graded it 98 points. Both my writing and the score caused
a little sensation. All teachers in the Chinese department thought it was
really a good paper, except that the Chair thought that 95 points would be
proper since nobody had gained 98 from this department. So they argued about
the grade. Finally they all agreed to give me 98. The paper was passed to every
student in the entire 12th grade as a writing sample. I knew it was good,
because I wrote it with my heart, not with technical skills.
The heroism in the story inspired and encouraged two
entire generations – those of my parents and mine. In the novel, Pavel
mentioned the Gadfly, who was obviously the role model for him. I quickly found
the book The Gadfly which was still forbidden at the time. It was written by
Irish writer E. L. Voynich about an Italian revolutionary of the 1830s and 40s.
The main character, Arthur, nick-named Gadfly, was also a tough, tragic, and
heroic guy, who fought fiercely against his former religion – Catholicism and
Austrian rule for a free and independent Italy.
Unlike the Steel book, which demonstrates a straight
battle between black and white, revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries,
The Gadfly is more complex. It shows a gray area that involves religion,
romance, and a father and son on the opposite sides of the revolution. Both
Arthur, the illegitimate son of a Cardinal, and Montanelli, the Cardinal,
touched me so much. The father, with his deeply hidden love to his son and his
final consent to the death, the execution of his son, looked to me like God
sacrificing his beloved son for the sake of mankind, so sublime and holy. And
Arthur, from a naïve youth to a tough fighter, endured the extreme emotional
sufferings of love to his father and his childhood love, as well as physical
sufferings of disease and injuries, still gave his life to the cause of
liberating his country. To me, Arthur’s cause and character were even higher
and greater than those of the Cardinal’s. I was not only very moved by this
character, but I also completely accepted Arthur’s abandonment of his former
Catholic belief and his choice of revolutionary belief. The Gadfly’s criticism
of religion as being hypocritical and cruel made me believe that religion was
indeed the opium of spirit, and reinforced my belief in Communism. I swore to
myself that I would devote all my life to the cause of the Communist
Ideal.
Soon
after the essay, I submitted an application to join the Communist Youth League.
My Family’s Secrets
One day, in the middle of a class, a fellow student,
our class monitor, was called out. The classmate next to me whispered to me
that the monitor might be called to have an interview to join the Youth League.
I instantly felt insulted. How come I did not know the news! If anybody in this
class would be accepted to the League, the first person should be me. I had
been the best in all subjects in school, except physical education, and
everybody knew it. It was not only that I had the top grades for school, but
also that I was active in all school activities. But now, obviously, I was
being ignored. I went home crying. It was so unfair to me. Is it because I did
not get an A in Physical Education? I knew I had never jumped over the vaulting
box.
My parents responded calmly. “It’s not your fault,
child. It is our family background.” “What are you talking about?!” I
exclaimed, startled.
My parents finally thought it was time to tell me
everything. Mother explained: “Neither my family nor your father’s is of ‘the
poor and lower-middle class’ of peasants or workers. My grandfather is classified
as a landlord, so I have to claim my family background as landlord. Both my
father and your father’s father are classified as ‘officials from the old
regime’. So you have to claim your family background as such. And these will
not help you to join the League.” Yes, I remembered I had filled the
application form with sections of family background for three generations above
me. But I had not realized it would be that relevant.
Mother continued: “Your father and I have been
applying for the Party for nearly twenty years. Once a year we submit our
applications, and each time we are told that we have not been through enough
tests. Neither of us has been accepted yet. And that would affect your joining
the League and later the Party, too. We are sorry about the situation. But we
cannot change our family background. We were born into it. So were you. You
have to be prepared.”
Mother said after a little hesitation: “What’s more,
your grandparents on both sides were Christians. One of my uncles used to be a priest
who committed suicide at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Your
father’s father was the head of a Christian church. And, your paternal great
grandparents were even decapitated by the patriotic Yi He Tuan (the Boxers).
These circumstances are very bad for all of us.”
“What?!”
Wasn’t Yi He Tuan an anti-Imperialism
anti-foreign-religion, and patriotic organization? Didn’t being their enemies,
mean that they were traitors to the country? I was shocked by my sudden
understanding. Now I realized how bad the problem was.
Father started to explain: “Your great grandparents
were martyred. They sacrificed their lives for their belief in Christ.” Mother
said: “Their sacrifice is of foolish loyalty.
Between the country and nation’s interest, and personal belief, they did
not know what to choose, and so became victims of their blindness. But their
sincerities and dedication should be respected.” Father and mother continued to
explain to me that although the Boxers were patriotic, they did over-react to
both the foreign missionaries and fellow Chinese Christians. Later many of them
were also brutally killed by the Qing Empress and foreign allies.
From then on, I never complained about my family
background. On the contrary, I started to make my parents tell me more about
our families.
My maternal grandfather was another “dirty stain” of
the family.
This grandpa came from a better-off peasant family,
also Christian, in the mountains of Shanxi Province. He went to the Shanxi
Institute of Political Science and Law to earn a degree in political economy.
After graduation, he joined a social work team organized by the National Party,
and was sent to be trained in Huangpu Military Academy, the very first and best
known military school in modern Chinese history founded by Sun Zhongshan (Sun
Yat-sien). During six months of study and training he listened to speeches and
lectures by Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kaishek) the president of the Academy, and
Zhou Enlai the political commissar of the Academy. He admired Zhou Enlai so
much although Zhou was the Communist representative. This was the time when the
Chinese National Party and Communist Party were united to fight together
against the warlords, and to bring a unified and democratic government to
China. This time was a hopeful and promising period in the nation’s history.
Grandfather was proud to be part of it. But it also became a disastrous
lifelong burden to him.
Grandpa was an idealist and nice man. Mother often
had a hard time explaining to me why a good man like him was considered a bad
guy. Although he studied political science and participated in the nation’s
most complex political struggles, he was, ironically, never good at politics.
Instead, he turned out to be a victim of politics. Because he had been a member
of the Guomin Dang (the National Party founded by Sun Yatsen and later led by
Chiang Kaishek), after the Liberation he was labeled as a “historical
counter-revolutionary” and sentenced to jail, but later the sentence was
changed to work on a goat herding farm.
So he became herdsman. However, it did not help him
escape his troubles. Each time there was a political movement, he was the
target. He sincerely criticized his political mistakes and wrong class
standpoint, and swore he would work hard to study Chairman Mao’s theories and
understand them. But still, when the next movement came, he had to “dig deeper
into the soul” to find more bad thoughts. At those meetings, some people would
jump on the stage to beat and kick grandpa to show clearly their appropriate
and fierce attitudes as against this counter-revolutionary.
After the Cultural Revolution, grandpa was finally
set free. Not until then did we learn that he had survived those terrible
ordeals by practicing an ancient tai-chi exercise.
I did not know how much he was tortured and
distorted on the inside until he was dying. The day before his death, after
several days in a coma, he started talking and waving hands in the air as if
writing something. My mother and uncle could not understand his words, so they
called grandma. Grandma bent down and listened. “He said he needs a pen and
paper to write his self-criticizing report”, grandma announced. I burst into
tears when mother told me the story. I suddenly hated the Communist Party and
its inhumane policy. How can a Party and its government torture a person’s soul
to this degree? A conversation with grandpa came to my memory. Once he and I
talked about ideologies and political systems in the world, he said: “I still
think the Three People’s Principles - Nationalism, Democracy, and People’s
Livelihood, is better.”
Grandfather died of cancer. When he was on his sick
bed, he left words on the tape recorder to me and a cousin of mine, who was
also in the States: “Come back as soon as possible. Do not sell yourself for
the American Imperialists.” I did not know whether I wanted to laugh or
cry.
Grandfather’s Jesus
I have never met my paternal grandfather. Not even
my mother had seen her near-legendary father-in-law. He died young, a little
over fifty. I remember the first time I saw his photograph hanging in grandma’s
living room when I was little, I thought him funny. He was wearing a long
Chinese traditional robe, typical Western glasses, kind of small and round with
thin golden frames, shining black leather shoes, with short hair, and he was so
young. How weird! I laughed. I had known that he had had been the Chief of the
Post-Office of the capital city of Shanxi Province, a high official position.
He looked handsome and rigorous. But why not a white suit, like the ones I saw
in the movies, that suited his look and social status? It was strange.
Grandma told me that there used to be a painting of
Jesus hanging on the wall, painted by Grandpa. Jesus had big deep eyes, long
curly hair to the shoulders, but weirdly, also a Chinese goatee on his chin.
When people asked why Jesus looked half foreigner half Chinese, grandpa always
said: “This is Jesus in my mind. He is a man of all people, not just of
foreigners, but also of Chinese. Mine is a Chinese Christ.”
Grandpa was a good amateur artist, so I imagined
that his painting must not be too bad. But why half foreign and half Chinese?
Did he try to combine a Saint of the West and a Wiseman of the East to create
an ideal Jesus of all mankind?
Besides painting, grandpa had also
designed his church building, which was again in a style that combined Western
and Chinese styles. Right before the Cultural Revolution ended, I had visited
my grandmother, and she took me secretively to see the church from a distance.
The church was made of stone. On top of the building there was a small pointed
tower that used to have a cross on it. The glass windows were all long and
narrow. My father told me that the tower and glass windows were in the Gothic
style. The rest was all in typical Chinese fashion in the way that it exchanged
the usual orientation of east-west axis of churches in the West, for the
south-north orientation of a three-thousand-year Chinese tradition. The ground
plan was not exactly a cross but a T-shape. There were also two adjacent
courtyards with round gates in a Chinese classical garden design. The church
was taken over by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, and converted
to residential housing divided into many small units.
A few years ago, I learned that the church was taken
back by the municipal administration as a cultural heritage site for
protection. Nothing would please Grandpa more.
Grandfather was born to a peasant family in Shou
Yang county, Shanxi province in the last few years of 19th century. His
Christian beliefs were inherited from the family. According to the family’s
oral narrative, my grandfather’s father was a descendent of a general of
Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1850-1872), a rebellious and short lived government
against the Qing Dynasty. The rebellious organizations were growing out of
Christian organizations in the Guangdong (Canton) and Guangxi provinces in
south China, so the members were supposed to be Christians. After the failure
of the Heavenly Kingdom, the families and relatives of the Kingdom officials
did their best to escape persecution, and hide in the mountains of the northern
provinces. So my grandfather’s father came to a remote mountainous village as a
Christian. Only recently I learned that many villagers in that area, including
my great grandparents, very likely joined a British Protestant mission named
Sheo (Shou) Yang Mission, after the county’s name, or SYM.
In 1900, when the Boxer’s Rebellion spread to many
provinces in China, killing foreign missionaries, Shanxi became the center for
killing both foreigners and Chinese Christians because of its large Christian
population. My great grandparents were loyal Christians. When the Boxers came
to their village, Christians were brought to an open space on a hill, and asked
whether they wanted to give up their foreign god and fight against foreigners.
My great grandparents and few others refused, and so were beheaded right there.
Their oldest daughter and son-in-law, who happened to be visiting from another
village, were killed along with them. My grandfather was about three years old,
his elder brother six, and his younger brother, only a few months old. The
three kids were thrown from a high cliff by the Boxers. The little brother
died, but the two elder brothers survived, saved by some trees. A fellow
sheep-herdsman found the boys that night and hid them in a remote mountain cave.
Later, when the Rebellions were suppressed, they were sent to an orphanage run
by the British Baptist Missionary Society in Shanxi. The second eldest sister,
who had been sent as a child bride to a family in a different village and
therefore escaped the massacre, was paid by the orphanage to take care of her
brothers.
In the orphanage the children began to learn and to
speak English. The sister now became the parent. While she took care of her
little brothers, she also studied with the brothers. She was given an English
name: Grape. Grape was so good that she was sent by the church to further her
studies at Bridgman Girls’ School in Beijing, established by American
missionary E. J. Bridgman with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions. After her graduation, she went back to Shanxi to teach. But sadly,
not long after that, she got tuberculosis. She was put in isolation, not to be
visited by anyone. The brothers tried many ways to see their sister, but were
unsuccessful. Once they even climbed a tree near their sister’s room and tried
to jump in through the window, but were caught and punished. Even at her death,
the brothers were not allowed to see their beloved sister.
Before Grape’s death, she was already engaged to a
son of the Provost of Shanxi University (founded by British Baptist Missionary
Timothy Richard) for love, not by arrangement. However, because of some church
politics, Grape’s church did not agree her marriage to the young man whose
father belong to a different church. So Grape died very unhappy.
Grandpa was also smart and studied hard. He was
always the best in school, especially good at drawing and painting. An English
minister liked him so much that he adopted him. When grandpa was old enough,
the minister had arranged a position at the Royal Academy of Art in London for
him to go and study art. To everybody’s surprise, he refused the offer. He was
stubborn and simply said: “I am Chinese, why should I go to a foreign country
to learn”. When the minister retired, he asked grandpa to go back to England
with him. Again he refused. Again, “I am Chinese” was the answer.
Grandpa had strong opinions about foreign
missionaries and Christianity. He was hurt by the church’s interference in his
sister’s marriage and his visit to see his sister for the last time. As he
grew, he had witnessed more serious conflicts between the foreign occupants and
native Chinese. Although he benefitted from the foreign missionaries, he sensed
deeply that many did their charity work from a supercilious point of view, as
if saying: “You poor things. You need to be rescued. You are not as good as us,
but we will help”. He had his dignity and felt insulted. He did appreciate what
the foreign missionaries had done for him and his family. He also thought
Christianity was a good religion. He often said how good it was that people had
gotten more open-minded from learning western culture, and how wonderful that
the Christian Chinese women liberated themselves from foot-binding and could
even go to school, etc..
He had actually established, almost single-handedly,
a church with the name “Church of Real Jesus”. He had spent all his savings to
build the church and his spare time to serve for the church. He baptized all
eleven of his children and many others. Interestingly, he did not give any of
his children Christian names but pure Confucian names. Many people in the city
were drawn to the church simply for his Chinese interpretation of the religion.
He was known as being kind and generous, even the beggars knew where they were
certain to get food. And his house was always open to the poor. Many years
after his death, during the most depressing period, the Cultural Revolution,
when all religions were repressed, a young man, disguised as a beggar, traveled
from Henan Province to grandpa’s house looking for the founder of the “Church
of Real Jesus”. My grandma, scared to death, covered his mouth with her hand,
pulled him into the house, and warned him not to mention a single word ever, or
both he and my family would be dead.
Grandfather started his career as a simple postman.
Because of his intelligence and hard work, he was promoted quickly. He was sent
to Zhengzhou in Henan province and Lanzhou in Gansu province in charge of
helping establish the post offices in the two provincial capital cities. Back
home, in a competition for the Chief position, he won the first prize, beating
a native English speaker, a Japanese man, and a few Chinese competitors. One of
the major requirements for the competition was English. And he had excelled in
it.
When grandpa had become quite established and was
well-off, he learned that the herdsman who had saved him and his brother from
the Boxers was still alive and poor he sent for the person and gave him 500
dayang, a large amount of money that could support one for several years.
Unfortunately, the guy never went back to work but spent the money drinking and
gambling. He boasted to people how rich he was. In less than a year, he was
robbed and killed. When grandpa heard the news he was so regretful that he kept
saying “I’ve killed him; I’ve killed him”.
Grandfather remained a faithful Christian all his
life. But he faced dilemmas all his life. To me, his photo and the portrait of
Christ he had painted, although it looked so funny, might have been serious
interpretations of his philosophy.
In late 1980s, when I was accepted by a university
in the United States and planning to leave for the US, everybody in the family
expressed same emotional sigh: What would grandpa say if he had been alive?
Half century earlier when he had such a chance, he so adamantly refused. He
could have had the very first Master or Ph. D from abroad in the family. Now I
would the first. I wanted to tell him that the world had changed, I would go,
but I would always remember that I am Chinese.
I
do not think that religious beliefs can be passed on through genes, but
everybody in my family liked to say that I was very much like the grandpa:
devoted and persistent.
Revelation in the Desert
The pursuit of the Communist Ideal made me join the
army of Educated Youths with great enthusiasm. Upon high school graduation,
except for those who were the only child at home, all graduates had to go to
the countryside to get a peasants’ re-education. I did not have to go because
my brother had gone to a commune several years earlier, but I insisted on
going. It was the Great Leader Chairman Mao’s call. How could I stay home and
not participate in such a great movement for young people? I believed that, to
send educated youths to the countryside and remote areas, and let them live
with the peasants, learn the peasants’ feelings, and help the peasants, was
Chairman Mao’s great strategy for the country. We young people should respond
to this bright call. To do so was a way to test our spirit and our faith to the
Party and Chairman Mao.
At the farewell meeting, I was asked to give a
public speech. In front of several thousand students and their parents, I swore
that for realizing Communist Ideal, I would live with poor peasants, work with
them, and take roots in the countryside for the rest of my life. I promised
from my heart. And I did believe that the realization of the Ideal was not far
away with our great efforts.
The farm I and twenty-some fellow students were sent
to, was called Happiness Farm under Happiness Commune, about 200 km from home.
It was on the edge of a small oasis in the southern part of the Taklamakan
Desert. Although it was part of the oasis, one rarely saw anything green. Our
dormitories were surrounded by the desert. What we saw, smelt, and touched
everyday were sand, sand, and more sand. I was not discouraged by such a boring
and dull environment. Instead, I would occasionally pick up a few dandelions to
decorate our six-girl dorm room. Those small yellow flowers made me cheerful.
But, seeing the extremely poor conditions of the
farmers’ lives, I submitted my application to be a member of the Chinese
Communist Party, to demonstrate my determination to stay with these people and
improve their lives there. On the farm, I worked extremely hard. Every day, we
went to the fields to plough, or hoe, or carry crops, or clear the fields, in a
most primitive way. After a day’s work, I would visit the farmers to do
acupuncture for the sick kids and adults. I had been to a training workshop for
acupuncture under my mother’s advice before moving to the farm, so I was
prepared for the job. There was absolutely no access to any medical facility or
personnel on the farm. It would take several hours of driving in an ox-cart to
get to the nearest clinic in the headquarters of the Commune.
A seven or eight year old boy had suffered from
severe Rheumatoid arthritis. He could not walk easily and his knee was already
deformed. His brother had to carry him to school on his back. After I did
acupuncture for him for about six months, he could walk to school by himself. A
young woman had amenorrhea for a few years, and after my acupuncture for only
two weeks, she was cured. We both got very excited. There were also other
patients who sought my help. I found my life filled with meaning.
One cold winter day, around 4 o’clock in the
morning, we got up and each one of us was given two pieces of corn bread and we
went out deep into the desert. Our work that day was to cut wild grass and
bushes for making composite manure.
It was the first time I walked this early in the big
desert under the dark blue sky. Chilly, but clean, air cut through my lungs. I
felt good. Looking up, I clearly saw the Milky Way, the Big Dipper, the Stars
of the Cowherd and Weaving Maid (Altair and Vega), and many constellations I
could not name, brightly filling the sky. It was beautiful. The sparkling sky
and dark solid earth connected at the horizon. In between, the dark night
looked dangerously unpredictable and mysterious. Wrapped in such an atmosphere
full of poetry and philosophy, anyone, even those who had the least sense of
beauty, would gasp their simple but marveled reaction. And anyone, whether or
not they understood philosophy, could sense how humankind was tiny and humble,
and the universe vast, sublime, and infinite.
It took us more than an hour’s walk before sunlight
started to appear. In the desert there grew nothing but a kind of thorn bush,
called “camel thorn” by local people. They grew so sparsely that they spread
wide into the desert. We soon split into many different directions because the
bushes did not grow close together. We reminded each other to keep close enough
that we would not get lost. Gradually, we could only hear but not see each
other. I helped two girls who were heading home put the tied-up bundles on
their backs, and went further into the desert to gather more bushes. When the
sun rose high, I sent the last person off, who actually insisted that we go back
together. But I did not feel I had enough, so I told her to leave first, and I
would catch up soon. I did not know how much time had passed before I had
gotten a big hill of a pile in front of me. I jumped on it hard to press it
tight and small, and then tied it. The bundle was still bigger than I was, and
it was so heavy that I had to kneel down and lean my back against the load,
crawl a few steps on hands and knees before my hands could reach a higher part
of sand dune, and then gather up my strength and stand up. It was a big load.
From behind, one would only see a bundle of bushes moving.
I started to move. It took many minutes before I
suddenly realized that I should check the direction to make sure I was heading
home. There were no roads, no trails, only endless desert. I was afraid that I
might not be able to put the bundle back on my back again, so I hesitated for a
while, deciding if I should drop the load. But my instinct told me to do it
right away. So I dropped the load and climbed to the highest sand dune nearby.
When I got to the top of the hill and looked around,
I instantly choked and collapsed; my heart was beating wildly and my legs
shaking. A great panic fell over me. All directions looked exactly the same.
There were neither signs of life, nor signs that showed the way home. For a
long time, I could not make a sound out, or stand up.
Hoping that there were still some fellow students
left behind, I tried my best to put my strength together and started calling
loudly, “Is there anybody here!” “Can anybody hear me?” No sooner than I began
to shout, did I realize that I had completely lost my voice. I could not make
any sound. I lost my strength. I tried again. “Hello! Is there anybody?” This
time the sound was swallowed by the vast space.
Calling out at the top of my lungs, but not hearing
a sound, was a surreal feeling, a dream scene, an extremely exaggerated mime
show. Desperation overwhelmed me and I
began to think about death.
The stories about the desert flashed through my memory
like a slide show. Many spoke of how people had lost their way in the desert
and could never get out, to be found as mummies years later. Many others spoke
of how the wind moved sand dunes from one side of the road to the other side
overnight, but they looked exactly the same as before, and fooled people into
going the wrong direction, finally getting lost completely. And even some
well-prepared explorers were often reported to vanish in the desert. I knew
now, that they were not jokes. They were very real. Everybody in the region
knew that it was not funny to be lost in the desert. The name of the desert,
Taklamakan, meant “a place one can go into, but can never get out”.
“But I’m too young to die, and cannot die like
this.” I was nineteen. I had to find a way out.
The sun above me reminded me that it was about
noontime, and I had several hours to try and get out before it got dark. I
struggled to stand up. Every direction still looked the same, everything
reaching to the end of the sky. I slid down the hill, and looked around.
Nothing helped. Afraid of wandering away from this point, I climbed to the top
of the hill again and hung my food bag on a stick as a sign of my base, and
slid down again. Now I started walking around among the sand dunes. Something
caught my eye. Goat shit. And then, donkey shit. My heart almost jumped out of
my throat. I knew I found a ray of hope. Soon I found donkey and sheep tracks.
Their footprints meant I might have found a trail. I crawled on the ground
studying the prints. But, the more prints I found, the less confidence I had.
There were too many of them. And worse, they pointed in all directions.
Finally I decided that I would try four directions
in turn by walking into each for about ten minutes and make marks on the ground
with a stick. With my decision, I felt a little relieved. So I went to the hill
to fetch my food bag. I sat and began to eat my lunch. The two corn breads were
frozen, too hard to bite. I put them under my arms to warm them up. I still had
some water in a military canteen (luckily it was not summer), partially frozen.
Little by little I finished one piece of bread.
I started to walk with a stick marking a long line.
I changed my direction two or three times before I saw condensed footprints of
animals and even faded human footprints. I did not forget my big load of bushes
– the whole purpose of my life at this moment. So I went back to my base, and
again, I knelt down and leaned my back against the load, put the arms into the
rope loops, straightened up, bent a little bit forward, crawled a few steps on
hands and knees, and then held the weight and stood up. I got out the death
trap of the Taklamakan.
Some years later, when I sat in the university
library reading Jack London, I felt like saying to the author: “Hey, buddy,
I’ve been there.”
I did not know how long it took me to get out of the
desert. I did not have a watch. When I suddenly saw the trees surrounding the
village, I staggered. I said to myself: “Don’t fall. Stay up. Don’t fall. You
are safe now.” When I arrived to the
village it was late afternoon. I was too exhausted to even step up to the
weight scale only three inches from the ground. Two guys had to pull me up. One
guy reported: “220 jin (about 240 lbs).” They helped me take off the load and
weighed me again: “100 jin (110 lbs.).” So I had carried a load of 130 pounds,
20 pounds heavier than myself.
I did not explain to anybody why I came back so
late. I did not want to talk casually about my life and death experience to
those who had not had a similar experience or to those who would not
understand. I needed time to myself to think and digest the meaning of it. It
was such a sudden enlightenment for me that I began to think more realistically
about the meaning of life, and began to examine the ideal I, or we, the whole
generation of mine, had been striving for.
I thought about my great grandparents’ saintly but
blind loyalty and sacrifice for their belief in Christ, and then my own naïve
beliefs and actions in “realizing the Communist Ideal”. Millions of educated
young people were wasting their knowledge and intelligence, and sacrificing
their lives for nothing. My enthusiasm for pursuing the Ideal faded away.
(Started in 1998 and revised in 2014)
