The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up (24 page)

There were also lots of funny tales during that time. Some junior monks in a monastery decided to form a Red Guard rebel group. They tore off their
kasayas
and donned Mao jackets. With their shaved heads, those monks looked very comical. Our group even sent some representatives over to show moral support. The monks dragged the abbot out of the temple, pulling the prayer beads from around his neck, and then replaced the beads with a black cardboard sign. They paraded the abbot and several nuns on the street and had a public denunciation meeting. One monk went up to the podium and accused the abbot of spending too much time reading Buddhist scriptures. They recommended that the abbot should read the revolutionary works of Chairman Mao. Another monk said he once purchased a picture of Chairman Mao from the store and wanted to put it up in the main prayer hall. But the abbot rejected his request by saying that Chairman Mao was not a god, just an ordinary human being. While the young monk was recounting this episode, tears welled up in his eyes. He walked up to the abbot and slapped him in the face. He then raised his arm, shouting: Down with the abbot, the filial descendant of China's leading capitalists. He then turned around to the nuns and shouted: Sister Liu [the senior nun in the temple] is the capitalist's concubine. Down with Buddha, the representative of feudalistic superstitions.

LIAO:
That was ridiculous. Didn't you ever think that you guys had gone too far?

LIU:
I was born into a family of blue-collar workers. The Cultural Revolution offered me the opportunity to finally trample on those elite. It was glorious. I couldn't get enough of it. My youth, my dream, and my passion were all associated with the Cultural Revolution. The most exciting moment in those days was to see Chairman Mao in person, when he greeted millions of Red Guards in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

LIAO:
Tell me how you ended up going to Beijing to see Chairman Mao.

LIU:
Between 1966 and 1967, Red Guard organizations around the country started a nationwide movement to travel and spread Mao's words to the masses. The final destination for the Red Guards would be in Beijing so we could get a glimpse of our Great Leader. My friends and I formed a “Long March Red Guard Touring Group.” We walked hundreds of kilometers to the city of Chengdu. All the hotels in the city had opened up to us. The city had even turned the theaters into youth hostels because there weren't enough hotels to accommodate all the Red Guards. Since we were one of the earliest groups, we managed to get into a nice hotel. All we had to do was to show our Red Guard badges and we could eat and live for free. During the day, we would go out to the local market to buy or swap pins and badges of Chairman Mao. By the way, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, every region and every company designed and produced its own Chairman Mao pins and badges. They became collector's items.

Not long after, we all became bored with Chengdu and decided to board the train for Beijing. When we showed up at the station, the Beijing-bound trains were quite full. My buddies and I climbed in through the windows. Each car was dangerously packed: people lay on the baggage racks or under the seats; many simply stood back-to-back in the aisles. It was hard to breathe. Despite the hard conditions, none of us wanted to get off. It was already September. We had heard that Chairman Mao would greet the Red Guards one more time that year. There was no way we would miss it.

The train finally moved haltingly, but half an hour later, it stopped. Then it moved again. There was no schedule to follow and the train just took its time. Each time the train stopped, the heat inside the cars would become unbearable. But we didn't dare to drink water because there was no access to toilets, which were filled with people who couldn't find a space. We could only use the toilet when the train pulled into a station. Many girls ended up peeing in their pants. When guys couldn't hold it, some simply squeezed close to the window, took out their stuff, and then aimed at the outside. During those desperate moments, everyone was so understanding.

Believe it or not, we were on the train for over forty-eight hours before we finally arrived in Beijing.

We slept inside a classroom at an elementary school. On the night before Chairman Mao's appearance, we were so excited that we couldn't sleep. At about 3 a.m., we put on our green Red Guard jackets and walked for about eight kilometers toward Tiananmen Square. By the time we got there, the main road had already been cordoned off by police. We had to walk around and follow the crowd to another entrance. Tiananmen Square, which is about 440,000 square meters, was fully packed with Red Guards. I looked around and saw a sea of green uniforms and red flags, which were waving in the early morning breezes. Everyone felt so proud, anticipating the most exciting moment to come.

We stood in the square from early morning until noon. Finally Mao emerged in the tower over the Gate of Heavenly Peace. Instantly, the square became alive with the deafening sounds of slogan shouting. We waved red flags and the Little Red Book, crying and chanting, “Long live Chairman Mao.” Mao took off his green army cap and waved it in his hand. Through the microphone, he shouted back, “Long live the people.” You wouldn't believe the excitement that the Great Leader had generated. We felt the Great Leader and the people were one. We stayed in Tiananmen Square for several hours under the hot sun, jumping and screaming. Our adrenaline was running high. Many of us lost our voices and couldn't talk for several days afterward. We were so euphoric, happy, and blissful.

LIAO:
Do you still have the same euphoric feeling you had then?

LIU:
No, but I still cherish those memories. I will never forget them. We were so pure and innocent.

LIAO:
What do you mean you were pure and innocent? Beating up your teachers, smashing ancient relics, and engaging in armed fights among the various Red Guard groups, those were not the doings of pure and innocent people.

LIU:
We were fighting for our beliefs. We were defending Chairman Mao and the Communist revolution. Anyone who obstructed the revolution deserved to be punished. Today, most people no longer have any spiritual aims. Money is everything and people are killing one another for money. Women sell their bodies for money. Corrupt officials sacrifice their principles and violate laws for money. A son can strangle a mother to death to get her money. Money corrupts the soul of this country. Where are the Communist ideals and beliefs? Oh well, my generation was so passionate about Communism. We gave up schooling to engage in the revolution. Later on, when Chairman Mao encouraged high school graduates to settle down in the countryside to receive reeducation from peasants, we followed Mao's holy words, bid goodbye to our parents in the city, and left without any hesitation. In other parts of the world, people in their teens and early twenties were learning science, technology, arts, and literature in colleges. In China, we wasted our younger days plowing and planting in the rice paddies. Now that the Mao era is long gone, people of my generation have become a bunch of useless simpletons. Those capitalists, who used to be the target for persecution, are now ruling the world. The Chinese government calls itself a socialist country, but it has gone full-blown capitalistic. As I have told you, since people like me didn't get to go to college when we were young, we have become the first ones to be laid off. Compared with many of my fellow Red Guards who are still stuck in the countryside, poor and neglected, I'm pretty lucky. At least I have managed to move back to the city.

LIAO:
What's your status now?

LIU:
The company I work for used to be state-owned. It's been insolvent for years, but the government subsidized it. With the current market reform, the government has abandoned state enterprises. My company is on the verge of bankruptcy. Half of the people in my company have been laid off. I work in the human resources department and have managed to stay on. But life is just going downhill day by day. I've been told that a private developer has expressed an interest in buying the company, demolishing the old factory buildings, and building luxury residential houses. Who knows what will happen next. I don't even dare to think about it. Oh well, so far, my life has been a total failure and a waste. I'm already forty-nine. If I lose my job, I can't see myself starting all over again. It's too difficult.

During the Cultural Revolution, I remember we felt we were invincible and aspired to save the whole world with Communism. I would never have imagined that I could end up like this half a century later. I can't even save myself.

THE COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY

There used to be more than twenty political prisoners locked up inside a prison in northern Sichuan. All of the prisoners were participants in the student democracy movement of 1989. They were charged with “propagating and instigating counterrevolutionary activities.” Their sentences ranged from two to twelve years.

Wan Baocheng, who was then thirty-five years old, came from what we call a “red family” because his father was a senior official and had fought with Chairman Mao during the war against the Nationalists in the 1940s. From the way he talked and behaved, one could hardly tell that Wan had a distinguished parent and that he used to be a powerful official himself. During that special time in 1989 when the whole country woke up to the call of democracy, he became an enemy of the Party.

This interview took place in February of 1993 when I was locked up in the same jail with Wan. He was released in 1994.

LIAO YIWU:
Among all those who have been locked up here since the 1989 student democracy movement, you held the highest position within the government. Is that right?

WAN BAOCHENG:
I guess so. Before I landed in here, I was the deputy director of the largest government-owned bank in Sichuan. I was the best of the crop in my field. I used to be an expert on the government's economic policies. Each time the government issued a new policy, I would study it very diligently. I was also a keen reader of the Communist Party official newspaper—
People's Daily.
It was the basic training for a government official. I followed the Communist Party line at all times and avoided making mistakes.

LIAO:
How did a distinguished government official and businessman like you end up here?

WAN:
In May of 1989, I happened to be in Beijing on a business trip. My assignment there was to collect an overdue loan payment. We had planned to send a clerk to do the collection, but the students' pro-democracy demonstrations were at full throttle. The whole country was in chaos. As a measure of prudence, I decided to go myself.

LIAO:
Why did your bank issue a loan to someone way out in Beijing?

WAN:
The company was headquartered in Beijing and had opened up a branch in Sichuan. Then the branch was closed and all the assets were transferred back to its headquarters. Anyhow, I took the train to Beijing at the end of May. It was such bad timing. As you remember, the student demonstrations started in April to commemorate the passing of the former Communist Party secretary Hu Yaobang. Then the demonstrations turned into protests against government corruption and a call for democracy. By the end of May, when the government refused to engage in a dialogue with protesters, the movement spread all over the country. More students poured into Beijing.

The minute I walked out of the train station, which was fairly close to Tiananmen Square, I could feel the tension. People from all walks of life joined the students and the whole city was paralyzed. Since the government media blocked out news relating to the demonstrations, rumors that people heard through the grapevine were getting more and more dramatic. One minute, you heard someone say that the air force had been mobilized and would parachute troops into Tiananmen Square for the crackdown. Another minute, you heard that a pro-student general, supported by several senior Chinese leaders, had started a coup.

My mind was pretty much all set, and I didn't believe any of those rumors. My father used to serve in the Communist troops under Mao and he pledged full loyalty to the Party. Somehow, I must have inherited some of the loyalty genes from him. People around me were all in a frenzy, but I chose to stay calm and focus on my work.

I went directly to the company's headquarters. The building was empty. There was one person at the reception desk. She told me that the managers and staff had gone to Tiananmen Square, waving banners and flags to show support for the students. So I left and checked into a hotel near Cuiwei Road in downtown Beijing. My room was on the second floor, with the window facing a busy intersection. I could see residents and students march by under my window. Before dusk, I went downstairs and watched people gather in small groups, exchanging the latest news and rumors. Someone standing on a wooden box said about thirty thousand soldiers would enter the city to keep order. Another one in the audience argued that there would be twenty thousand. Anyway, things around the hotel didn't quiet down until after midnight.

I stayed inside my room reading work-related material. The next day, I went back to the company again and couldn't find anyone. So I decided to postpone my trip back for another two days. On the night of June 3, 1989, I could see that the street outside my window was getting more and more crowded. The hotel was eerily empty because all the staff members had left to join the students in the street. Someone was standing on the stairs of the front entrance, and was delivering a speech on how to set up roadblocks to stop tanks from entering the city. The crowd got denser by the hour. I had never seen people so passionately involved since the Cultural Revolution. But for me, nothing changed my long-standing support for the government. I continued to be nonchalant and even went to bed earlier than usual.

Later that night, the commotion outside the hotel became louder. I got up, closed my window, and went back to bed. I kept reminding myself that I was a government official and shouldn't join the mob outside. So I took a sleeping pill and soon I was out cold.

I was awakened by loud gunshots outside. I remember going to the window, and I saw soldiers shooting and tanks rolling in the street. Like I have said, I had never seen anything like that in my whole life. During the Cultural Revolution, when different factions of the Red Guards were fighting against each other, some gunfights were involved. But this was nothing like that. On that night, the ones carrying guns on the street were our own soldiers. They shouldn't shoot at innocent citizens. Their guns should have been aimed at our enemies outside China. I wanted to check to see what was going on, but I was still under the influence of the pill. My head was heavy. I soon fell asleep again.

At about ten in the morning, a loud knock on the door woke me up. It was the cleaning lady. She walked in and started to scream: Sir, how could you sleep under such conditions? Look at your window. I looked in the direction of her finger, and saw the window had been hit by a stray bullet and glass was shattered all over the floor. Thank heaven I hadn't stood by the window long that night. Otherwise I would have been shot dead. The cleaning lady told me that a guy on the tenth floor had reached his head out to yell at the soldiers on the street. He was hit by a bullet and died. When I heard this story, blood rose to my head. I couldn't be an outsider anymore.

LIAO:
So you changed your views about the student movement.

WAN:
Yes. I looked out of my window and saw the wreckage on the street. I saw hundreds of helmet-wearing soldiers patrolling the street. Every couple of minutes, there would be a tank rumbling by. A young civilian guy was running on the street. The soldiers ordered him to stop. I could tell that the guy was scared. He stopped for a few moments, but then started running to escape. One soldier raised his gun and shot at him from behind. The guy fell forward, and then plopped down, motionless. It was like in one of those war movies. I don't think my dad, who fought in the Chinese civil war, had witnessed such horrible scenes before—a soldier killing an unarmed civilian.

I was stunned. The cleaning lady pulled me from the window and asked me to go back to bed. She warned me: The soldiers have become crazy. If you get hit by a stray bullet, it will be your tough luck. Nobody is taking responsibility.

Well, I didn't care. During the next few days, I showed up on the street and talked with those who had witnessed the government brutality on the night of June 4. I visited two hospitals and saw students and residents who had been wounded by bullets. However, when I turned on the TV in the evenings, there was no mention of the massacre. The official version was that the Chinese soldiers had defended the capital from a small handful of “hooligans” and that nobody was killed. To me as an economist, the most important thing was honesty. I felt the urge to write. I jotted down everything I had seen and heard. In the past, I had only written numerous accounting reports or office memos. Overnight, I became a different kind of writer. My pen was flying. Sometimes I wrote with total outrage, and other times with tears streaming down my cheeks.

Within a week, I finally finished the draft of my article. It was seven pages long. I corrected some grammatical errors and rewrote some passages. Since we didn't have computers then, I had to hand-copy the draft neatly on fresh paper. I called my article “An Eyewitness Account of June 4.” Before I left Beijing, I secretly went to a store and Xeroxed one hundred copies.

On the train back from Beijing, I began to distribute the article to my fellow passengers. It was about a week after the government crackdown. All the student leaders had been placed on the government's most-wanted list. Police were on heightened alert and constantly searched the train cars for former leaders who were on the run. I was very cautious. Luckily, many people pitched in to help. By the time the train pulled into my hometown station, I had given away all the copies.

Life became normal again. I took a couple of days off and then resumed my work at the bank, as if nothing had happened. In the back of my mind though, I was nervous.

In the following month, every employee at the bank was forced to condemn the student movement and to pledge support for the Party. Many people who were privately outraged at the government massacre had to show compliance in public. Protesting against the government was like throwing an egg against a big rock—a futile attempt with big personal loss. Everyone was supposed to read articles from the
People's Daily
and toe the Party line. At staff meetings, I also voiced my support for the government's decision. As the deputy director of the bank, I had to take the lead in the brainwash movement. At the end of the month, since no employee at my bank claimed any involvement in local demonstrations, we all ended up with a handsome bonus. I knew that many people had joined the demonstrations, but nobody reported on the others.

As time went by, I almost forgot about what I had done in Beijing, but the police didn't. Two months later, I think it was in August, my director called me into his office. When I walked in, I saw two other strangers in there too. My director said, Mr. Wan, please confess everything you did in Beijing. His words sent cold chills down my spine. Almost instinctively, I pretended to be dumb: Director, you know very well what I have done. Upon hearing this, my director's face turned red and he said: Unfortunately, we don't know what you have done.

Later on, I found out that the police had obtained the article from several passengers who had helped with the police search. They had been following me for quite some time. After I was detained, many people refused to believe that, as a shrewd official, I could have been involved in something like that. At a briefing to the city council regarding my case, the municipal Party secretary even defended me by saying: It's impossible. He was born into a revolutionary family. His father and I joined the Communist army in the same year. Mr. Wan Junior is also a good Communist. He was admitted to the Party at the age of eighteen. He grew up under my nose and has always been a good boy and an excellent banker. It can't be true. The Party secretary even pleaded: This kid is a rising star. Please don't make the wrong charges and ruin his career.

The police, becoming impatient with the defensive remarks of my family and friends, invited my relatives to an office and showed them my article and the testimonies from the hotel staff and passengers on the train. Everyone was shocked. Embarrassed by the good things he had said about me, the Party secretary signed my arrest warrant.

Faced with the evidence, I had no choice but to confess. Luckily, I didn't have an accomplice and my case was relatively simple. But instead of admitting any wrongdoing, I openly declared that what I had written in the article was true. That was when the shit hit the fan. My dad's former colleagues—I mean those who held important positions in the city, my boss at the bank, and even leaders at the Public Security Bureau—came to the detention center to reason with me, and to persuade me to retract my statement. They advised me to plead guilty by claiming that some evil people had forced me to make up shameless lies to slander and sabotage the reputation of soldiers guarding Tiananmen Square.

I told both the interrogators and my dad's friends: As a Party member, I swear to Chairman Mao that everything I wrote is true. One interrogator banged on the desk and said: You are no longer a Communist Party member. They have expelled you. But if you admit your crime and be cooperative, we will reduce your sentence. I wouldn't budge: As a Communist Party official, honesty is something I live by. The interrogator was furious: Mr. Wan, don't be so fucking arrogant. You used to be the deputy director of the city's largest bank. That was your past. Right now you are nothing. I didn't buy his attitude: I'm not a corrupt official. Don't you dare speak to me like that! He replied in a cynical tone: You would have been lucky if you had been involved in a corruption case. At least your dad could use his connection to bail you out. You could still go home and live a normal life. In China, you know as well as I do, once you get involved in a political case, your whole life is done. Don't you understand? I snapped back: Since this is a serious political case, I can't admit any wrongdoing. Otherwise, it will be like dumping shit all over my head.