A Heart for Freedom (5 page)

In the crowd, I saw my dad’s face redden happily with pride as he muttered, “Ayah, it’s all just a kid thing, no big deal.” He searched the sea of faces for me and said loudly, “Ling Ling, where have you gone off to? Come home and eat!”

When his eyes met mine, I saw that the ferocity I had feared so much as a girl was gone, replaced by tenderness, pride, and respect for my having outstripped his expectations. On our way home, for the first time I was not walking behind my dad but side by side with him, and in my heart I let out a long sigh of relief.

* * *

By the beginning of the 1980s, the publishing world in China was filled with new vitality. The days of printing only
Selected Works of Chairman Mao
were over, and many publications appeared to encourage individuality, which was a departure from those that talked only about the Party line. I began to read with so much excitement that I forgot about sleeping and eating.

At a young age, I was impressed by Thomas Edison. His inventions and devotion to discovery made a big impression on my mind. As I grew into a young woman, I began to relate more and more to Madame Curie. I was inspired by the resolute and diligent exploration and experimentation that had led her to achieve extraordinary results, including two Nobel Prizes. Before long I was studying day and night, hoping to emulate Madame Curie’s success.

The first day of ninth-grade physics, I encountered someone who would change my thinking about science and politics forever. As the students settled into their seats, a middle-aged woman walked into the classroom. She stopped at the lectern and looked at us with a concentrated, keen gaze before she spoke, her angular face filled with resolution. She had a robust, vigorous air, entirely different from any other teacher I knew. Her name was Mrs. Qian, and she soon became my best friend, mentor, and enlightened instructor. It was she who helped me learn to think for myself. A few afternoons each week, I stopped by her house after school for a heart-to-heart talk. Gradually, I came to know her unusual life story, how she had fallen from a prestigious family in Beijing to our remote village in Shandong.

Before the Communist victory in 1949, Mrs. Qian’s family was one of the few great capitalist families in Beijing, specializing in the silk trade. Among their enterprises were the silk shops that even today populate the commercial area near Tiananmen Square. In her youth, she lived a life of luxury, with servants attending to her and four younger sisters in the family’s two-story estate. After World War II, when the Nationalists took over, Beijing became a den of iniquity and corruption that was eventually smashed by the Communist Party. As the People’s Liberation Army marched into the capital, Chairman Mao stood on the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Tiananmen Square and declared to the world, “The people of China have now stood up!” Mrs. Qian and her family were among the crowd in the Square that boiled with enthusiasm at Mao’s words.

Not long after liberation, the Communist Party initiated a policy of cooperation between public and private management. The Qian family’s capital was completely nationalized, leaving them only their house. They were just grateful to be part of the exciting new society, which offered so much hope and promise. Little did they know that in 1966, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, their house would be ransacked at night, sealed off, and confiscated because of their capitalist background. The Red Guards subsequently sent Mrs. Qian’s mother to the countryside, on a train filled with so-called rich imperialists and counterrevolutionaries, who for the most part were a bunch of old men and women. To express their hatred for class enemies, the Red Guards commanded the old men and women to kneel on the floor and crawl from one car to the next, while the guards brandished their belts and mercilessly whipped anyone who crawled too slowly.

While Mrs. Qian’s mother was humiliated on the way to the countryside, Mrs. Qian herself was struggling with tuberculosis. She had been accepted into the architecture department of Tsinghua University (equivalent to MIT in the United States), but because she was from a capitalist family, she was not allowed to join the Communist Party at school, nor was she allowed to pursue the study of physics and follow in the footsteps of Madame Curie. Eventually she transferred to the hydraulics department and later married a young air force pilot who had fallen in love with her while she was in the hospital.

One afternoon when I entered Mrs. Qian’s courtyard gate, I ran into a man dressed like a peasant, his dark face wrinkled like a walnut. He was not quite standing and not quite sitting outside the house, smoking a cigarette. He reminded me of the country people I often saw at the bus stop, the ones the city people made fun of for their backward ways and appearance.

After the man had left, Mrs. Qian said to me, somewhat uncomfortably, “That is the father of my children. He fixed a tractor for the production team today and stopped by to see the kids because he was in the neighborhood. Don’t pay attention to what he looks like now; twenty years ago, when he was an air force pilot, he was really handsome and had a great spirit!”

Dumbfounded, I watched the stooped-over man hobble off into the distance. I couldn’t for the life of me relate him to the Mrs. Qian I knew. I’ll never forget the image of that man; it was as if life had squeezed him dry of the spirit and vigor of youth. What kind of force could do such a frightening thing?

Mrs. Qian told me that soon after their marriage her husband had been relieved of all his assignments and accused of committing some political error by aligning with the traitor Lin Biao, who was a vice chairman of the Communist Party and one of Chairman Mao’s closest friends. One day Lin Biao’s plans for a coup against Mao were discovered, and he and his family were forced to flee. They tried to escape to Russia, but their plane either was shot down or crashed in Mongolia, and all on board were killed.

After Lin’s death, his subordinates in the air force were investigated, punished, and sent home. Mrs. Qian and her family were sent to her husband’s hometown—my village of Rizhao. And because they came back with the shame of expulsion, no one in the village, including her husband’s family, dared pay attention to them. Upon arriving in the village, Mrs. Qian was confronted with an earthen house without a courtyard wall. She found a basket and went to the riverbank, a half mile away, to bring back stones as big as her fist, one basket at a time, to build a knee-high courtyard wall.

The village head at the time was a force to be reckoned with. Even though Mrs. Qian was a woman, he assigned her the work of a man. This pampered young woman from Beijing was sent up the mountain to gather wood. She gave it her all, swallowing her pride and not complaining. When she got home at night, one shoulder would be an inch higher than the other, swollen from the heavy loads she was forced to carry all day. She had trouble getting her clothes off because the dried blood held the fabric fast to her flesh. After a year, however, she had become accustomed to the hardest work our remote village had to offer.

An even greater torture for this refined lady from the capital was the monotony of village life. She built herself a desk out of packed earth, pasting several layers of newspaper on top to make a smooth surface. In the winter, when there was little farmwork to do and the peasant men and women sat around smoking their pipes, nursing their children, and gossiping, Mrs. Qian was at her desk working out physics problems. Copying from a portrait in a book, she made a pencil sketch of Madame Curie and put it on her desk to encourage herself.

When the Cultural Revolution finally ended, the education system was reformed and the selection of talented teachers through testing was allowed. Mrs. Qian was the first to register, and she was placed in the best junior high school because of her extraordinary performance on the test. For a little town in the countryside to have a Tsinghua-educated, college-level teacher was a great blessing. When she became my physics teacher, I became the best student in her class; but even more valuable was what she taught me outside the classroom. She had a profound effect on my young mind and life.

4

Tough Love at Home

After Chairman Mao’s death in 1976, people began actively debating and discussing his achievements and mistakes, reflecting on and exploring the country’s values and ideals. Ordinary people, especially younger people like me, began to think more critically about the society we lived in. At the same time, within the government and intellectual circles, an equally robust debate about the principles of government was underway.

I began to form my opinions about whether to enter the Communist Youth League, which was the first step toward becoming a Communist Party member. The Youth League was an organization for good students who had a flawless family background and great potential. About a third of my friends were members. Youth League members were given a special place in Party activities, leading call-and-response chants while holding up their red scarves with one hand at each corner:

Beloved revolutionary martyrs, may you rest in peace,

The Young Pioneers will remember you!

The People will remember you!

The Motherland will remember you!

Let our brilliant red scarves serve as our pledge.

We love the Chinese Communist Party!

We love the Socialist Motherland!

We love the People’s Liberation Army!

We will carry on the cause of Communism!

For years my father had urged me to apply for membership in the Communist Youth League, but I had managed to evade the issue. One night, however, I lost my patience and told him the truth.

“I’m not sure I want to be a Youth Leaguer or a Party member! What’s so great about them? Some aren’t even as good as ordinary people. Look at Mrs. Qian; she’s not in the Party, but she’s a hundred times better than a lot of Party members.”

I saw that my father’s face had become grave. He grabbed me by the arm and shoved me into his room, yelling, “If we don’t straighten out this problem today, you’re staying here! Don’t think of going to school. Once we’ve cleared this up, then you can go. A little kid who’s been reading books for a few days doesn’t know everything in heaven and earth. What gives you the right to say something like that—‘What’s so great about the Communist Party?’ How many Party members do you know? All day you study everything but the good stuff, and the more you study the more confused you are. I’ve gone to all this trouble to give you an education, and what do you do? You’ve studied yourself into foolishness; you can’t even figure out the simplest common sense. This Mrs. Qian of yours, can she measure up to the Communist Party? Did she participate in the Long March? Did she liberate China? What is she, after all, but a middle school teacher! Things are just getting a little better these few years, and only now can she come out and teach. I knew all along you wouldn’t amount to anything. You don’t read the important books; who knows what you’re studying all night? Don’t they teach you Party history in school?”

“No.”

“They don’t? Have you read from Mao’s works? Have you studied Marxism?”

“No.” I felt quite embarrassed, but it was true.

“You haven’t, you haven’t. Whatever counts, you haven’t studied. Someday, this family is going to collapse, and it’s going to be your fault.”

Dad continued to rant and rave, and it was terrifying to see him so upset after I had tried so hard to please him in the past. My academic success and honor student awards had brought so much praise and honor to the family, but now, somehow, my refusal to apply to the Youth League would bring ruin?

My mother, who hadn’t said anything up till then, spoke up in a tone much warmer than my dad’s. “Old Chai, don’t be too angry. Ling Ling has always been a bright and obedient child, and with such good grades. A lot of people wish they had such a child. If she makes a mistake, all she has to do is to make up for it . . .”

When she saw my dad was a little less angry, she turned to me and said, “Ling Ling, your dad has a temper, but he only wants what’s good for you and the family. You don’t know how many families were broken up during the Cultural Revolution just because they complained and reported their thoughts to the Party. Now things are better, but who knows whether in a few years things won’t change back to the way they were then? Your mom and dad have put a lot into this family; we both came out of villages to go to school. When your dad went to school, his family set aside the best grain for him to eat; he had to eat dried sweet potatoes secretly so the landlord’s kids wouldn’t laugh at him. Your grandma didn’t want me to go to school because I was a girl. Every day I came back from school carrying a plow and harrow and a stack of grass to do as many chores as possible so my mother would let me continue going to school. With school, your mother became a doctor and joined the army to follow your father. We have a beautiful family today. . . . Oh, Ling Ling, it wasn’t easy for your mom and dad to get to where we are today. You’re the eldest, and a national merit student. There are so many people looking up to you. Stop thinking of being like Mrs. Qian; you’ll get us all sent back to the countryside, where there was no way to call that a life . . .”

Mom went on and on, until my dad interrupted.

“Enough, enough! Haven’t we told her all this before and she didn’t listen? It doesn’t matter if this kid does well on her tests; in matters of right and wrong, she is a fool. I’m not going to talk all night about this, either. You tell us, Ling Ling, what’s the next step?”