Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

by Jung Chang

  She was also asked about her uncles' Kuomintang connections, and about her relationship with every one of her school friends who, as teenagers, had joined the Kuomintang's Youth League in the period before the Communists took Jinzhou. The guidelines for the campaign classified anyone who had been appointed a branch chief of the Kuomintang Youth League after the Japanese surrender as a 'counterrevolutionary." My mother tried to argue that Manchuria was a special case: the Kuomintang had been seen as representing China, the motherland, after the Japanese occupation. Mao himself had been a senior official in the Kuomintang once, though she did not mention this.

  Besides, her friends had switched their allegiance to the Communists within a couple of years. But she was told that these old friends of hers were now all designated counterrevolution ari My mother did not belong to any condemned category, but she was asked the impossible question: Why was it that you had so many connections with Kuomintang people?

  She was kept in detention for six months. During this period she had to attend several mass rallies at which 'enemy agents' were paraded, denounced, sentenced, handcuffed, and led away to prison amidst thunderous shouting of slogans and raising of fists by tens of thousands of people. There were also counterrevolution ari who had 'confessed' and therefore been given 'lenient punishment which meant not being sent to prison. Among these was a friend of my mother's. After the rally she committed suicide because, under interrogation, in despair, she had made a false confession. Seven years later the Party acknowledged that she had been innocent all along.

  My mother was taken to these rallies 'to receive a lesson."

  But, being a strong character, she was not crushed by fear, like so many, or confused by the deceptive logic and coaxing of the interrogations. She kept a clear head and wrote the story of her life truthfully.

  There were long nights when she lay awake, unable to stifle her bitterness at her unfair treatment. As she listened to the whining mosquitoes outside the net over her bed in the airless heat of the summer, then the autumn rain pattering on the window, and the damp silence of winter, she chewed over the unfairness of the suspicions against her particularly the doubts about her arrest by the Kuomintang. She was proud of the way she had behaved then, and had never dreamed it would become the reason for her becoming alienated from the revolution.

  But then she began to persuade herself that she should not resent the Party for trying to maintain its purity. In China, one was accustomed to a certain amount of injustice. Now, at least, it was for a worthy cause. She also repeated to herself the Party's words when it demanded sacrifice from its members: "You are going through a test, and suffering will make you a better Communist."

  She contemplated the possibility of being classified as a 'counterrevolutionary." If that happened, her children would also be contaminated, and our entire lives ruined.

  The only way she could avoid this would be to divorce my father and 'disown' herself as our mother. At night, thinking about these grim prospects, she learned not to shed tears. She could not even toss and turn, as her 'companion' was sleeping in the bed with her, and no matter how friendly they were, they had to report every scrap of information about how she behaved. Tears would be interpreted as meaning she was feeling wounded by the Party or losing confidence in it. Both were unacceptable, and could have a negative effect on the final verdict.

  My mother gritted her teeth and told herself to put her faith in the Party. Even so, she found it very hard being totally cut off from her family, and missed her children terribly. My father did not write or visit her once letters and meetings were forbidden. What she needed more than anything else at the time was a shoulder on which to rest her head, or at least a loving word.

  But she did get phone calls. From the other end of the line would come jokes and words of trust which cheered her up enormously. The only phone in the whole department was on the desk of the woman who was in charge of secret documents. When a call came for my mother, her 'companions' would stand in the room while she was on the line, but because they liked her and wanted her to get some comfort, they would show they were not listening.

  The woman in charge of secret documents was not part of the team investigating my mother, so she was not entitled to listen to or report on her. My mother's companions made sure that she never got into trouble for these phone calls. They would simply report: "Director Chang telephoned. Discussed family matters." Word went around about what a considerate husband my father was, so concerned about my mother and so affectionate. One of my mother's young companions told her she wanted to find a husband as nice as my father.

  No one knew that the caller was not my father, but another high official who had come over to the Communists from the Kuomintang during the war against Japan.

  Having once been a Kuomintang officer, he had come under suspicion and had been imprisoned by the Communists in 1947, although he was eventually cleared. He cited his experience to reassure my mother, and in fact remained a lifelong friend of hers. My father never phoned once in the six long months. He knew from his years of being a Communist that the Party preferred the person under investigation to have no contact with the outside world, not even with their spouse. As he saw it, to comfort my mother would imply some kind of distrust of the Party. My mother could never forgive him for deserting her at a time when she needed love and support more than anything. Once again he had proved that he put the Party first.

  One January morning, as she was staring at the clumps of shivering grass being battered by the dismal rain under the jasmine on the trellis with its masses of intertwined green shoots, my mother was summoned to see Mr. Kuang, the head of the investigating team. He told her she was being allowed to go back to work and to go out. But she had to report in every night. The Party had not reached a final conclusion about her.

  What had happened, my mother realized, was that the investigations had bogged down. Most of the suspicions could not be either proved or disproved. Although this was unsatisfactory for her, she pushed it to the back of her mind in her excitement at the thought of seeing her children for the first time in six months.

  In our different boarding nurseries, we seldom saw our father, either. He was constantly away in the countryside.

  On the rare occasions when he was back in Chengdu, he would send his bodyguard to bring my sister and me home on Saturdays. He never had the two boys fetched because he felt he could not cope with them, they were too young.

  "Home' was his office. When we got there he would always have to go off to some meeting, so his bodyguard would lock us up in the office, where there was nothing to do, apart from competing at blowing soap bubbles. Once I got so bored I drank a lot of soapy water and was ill for days.

  When my mother was told she could go out, the first thing she did was jump on her bicycle and speed off to our nurseries. She was particularly worried about Jin-ming, now two and a half, whom she had hardly had any time to get to know. But, after sitting around unused for six months, her bicycle's tires were flat, and she was barely out of the gate when she had to stop and get some air put in them. She had never felt so impatient in her life, as she paced around the shop while the man pumped up her tires in what seemed to her a very lackadaisical manner.

  She went to see Jin-ming first. When she arrived, the teacher looked at her coldly. Jin-ming, the teacher said, was one of the very few children who had been left behind on weekends. My father had hardly ever come to see him, and had never taken him home. At first, Jin-ming had asked for "Mother Chen," the teacher said.

  "That's not you, is it?" she asked. My mother acknowledged that "Mother Chen' was his wet-nurse. Later, Jin-ming would hide in a corner room when it was time for the other parents to come and collect their offspring.

  "You must be a stepmother," the teacher said accusingly. My mother could not explain.

  When Jin-ming was brought in, he remained at the far end of the room and would not go near my mother. He just stood there silently, resentfully refusing
to look at her.

  My mother produced some peaches and asked him to come over and eat them while she peeled them. But Jin-ming would not move. She had to put the peaches on her handkerchief and push them along the table. He waited for her to withdraw her hand before he grabbed one peach and devoured it. Then he took another one. In no time the three peaches were gone. For the first time since she had been taken into detention, my mother let her tears fall.

  I remember the evening she came to see me. I was nearly four, and was in my wooden bed which had bars like a cage. One side of the railing was let down so she could sit and hold my hand while I fell asleep. But I wanted to tell her about all my adventures and mischief. I was worried that once I fell asleep she would disappear again forever.

  Whenever she thought I was asleep and tried to slip her hand away, I gripped it and started to cry. She stayed until around midnight. I screamed when she started to leave, but she pulled herself away. I did not know that 'parole' time was up.

  11. "After the Anti-Rightist Campaign No One Opens Their Mouth"

  China Silenced (1956-1958)

  Because we now had no nurses and my mother had to check in for her 'parole' report every evening, we children had to stay on in our nurseries. My mother could not have looked after us anyway. She was too busy 'racing toward socialism' as a propaganda song went with the rest of Chinese society.

  While she had been in detention Mao had accelerated his attempt to change the face of China. In July 1955 he had called for a speeding up of collective farming, and in November he abruptly announced that all industry and commerce, which had so far remained in private hands, were to be nationalized.

  My mother was thrown straight into this movement. In theory, the state was supposed to own enterprises jointly with the former owners, who were to draw 5 percent of the value of their business for twenty years. Since there was officially no inflation, this was supposed to represent full payment of the total value. The former owners were to stay on as managers and be paid a relatively high wage, but there would be a Party boss over them.

  My mother was put in charge of a work team supervising the nationalization of over a hundred food factories, bakeries, and restaurants in her district. Although she was still on 'parole," and had to report in every evening, and could not even sleep in her own bed, she was entrusted with this important job.

  The Party had attached a stigmatic label to her kongzhi shi-yong, which meant 'employed but under control and surveillance." This was not made public, but was known to her and the people in charge of her case. The members of her work team knew she had been detained for six months, but did not know she was still under surveillance.

  When my mother was put in detention, she had written to my grandmother asking her to stay on in Manchuria for the time being. She had concocted an excuse, as she did not want my grandmother to know she was being detained, which would have worried her terribly.

  My grandmother was still in Jinzhou when the nationalization program started, and she found herself caught up in it. After she had left Jinzhou with Dr. Xia in 1951 his medicine business had been run by her brother, Yu-lin.

  When Dr. Xia died in 1952 ownership of the medicine shop passed to her. Now the state was planning to buy it out. In every business a group, made up of work team members and representatives of both employees and management, was set up to value its assets so the state could pay a 'fair price." They would often suggest a very low figure to please the authorities. The value placed on Dr. Xia's shop was ridiculously low, but there was an advantage to this for my grandmother: it meant that she was classified only as a 'minor capitalist," which made it easier for her to keep a low profile. She was not happy about being quasi-expropriated, but she kept her own counsel.

  As part of the nationalization campaign, the regime organized processions with drums and gongs and endless meetings, some of them for the capitalists. My grandmother saw that all of them were expressing willingness to be bought out, even gratitude. Many said that what was happening to them was much better than they had feared.

  In the Soviet Union, they had heard, businesses were confiscated outright. Here in China the owners were being indemnified, and what was more, the state did not just order them to hand over their businesses. They had to be willing. Of course, everyone was.

  My grandmother was confused about how she should feel resentful toward the cause her daughter was engaged in, or happy with her lot, as she was told she should be.

  The medicine business had been built up by Dr. Xia's hard work, and her livelihood and that of her daughter had depended on it. She was reluctant to see it go just like that.

  Four years earlier, during the Korean War, the government had encouraged people to donate their valuables to help buy fighter planes. My grandmother did not want to give up her jewelry, which had been given to her by General Xue and Dr. Xia, and had at times been her only source of income. It also had strong sentimental value. But my mother added her voice to that of the government. She felt that jewelry was connected with an outdated past, and shared the Party's view that it was the fruit of 'the exploitation of the people' and should therefore be returned to them. She also produced the standard line about protecting China from being invaded by the " US imperialists," which did not mean very much to my grandmother. Her clinching arguments were: "Mother, what do you still want these things for? Nobody wears this sort of thing nowadays. And you don't have to rely on them to live. Now that we have the Communist Party, China is no longer going to be poor.

  What have you got to be worried about? In any case, you have me. I will look after you. You never have to worry again. I have to persuade other people to donate. It's part jj of my work. How can I ask them if my own mother doesn't do it?" My grandmother gave up. She would do anything for her daughter. She surrendered all her jewelry except a couple of bracelets, a pair of gold earrings, and a gold ring, which were wedding presents from Dr. Xia. She got a receipt from the government and much praise for her 'patriotic zeal."

  But she was never happy about losing her jewelry, though she hid her feelings. Apart from sentimental attachment, there was a very practical consideration. My grandmother had lived through constant insecurity. Could one really trust the Communist Party to look after everyone? Forever?

  Now, four years later, she was again in the situation of having to hand over to the state something she wanted to keep, in fact the last possession she had. This time, she did not really have any choice. But she was also positively cooperative. She did not want to let her daughter down, and wanted to make sure her daughter would not be even slightly embarrassed by her.

  The nationalization of the shop was a long process, and my grandmother stayed on in Manchuria while it dragged on. My mother did not want her to come back to Sichuan anyway until she herself had her full freedom of movement restored and was able to live in her own quarters. It was not until summer 1956 that my mother recovered freedom of movement and the 'parole' restrictions were lifted. However, even then there was no definitive decision on her case.

  It was finally brought to a conclusion at the end of that year. The verdict, which was issued by the Chengdu Party authorities, said in effect that they believed her account, and that she had no political connection with the Kuomintang. This was a clear-cut decision which exonerated her completely. She was tremendously relieved, as she knew her case could well have been left open 'for lack of satisfactory evidence,' like many other similar cases. Then a stigma would have stuck with her for life. Now the chapter was closed, she thought. She was very grateful to the chief of the investigation team, Mr. Kuang. Usually officials tended to err on the side of overzealousness in order to protect themselves. It needed courage on the part of Mr. Kuang to decide to accept what she had said.

  After eighteen months of intense anxiety, my mother was in the clear again. She was lucky. As a result of the campaign over 160,000 men and women were labeled counter-revolutionaries and their lives were ruined for three decades. Among these were
some of my mother's friends in Jinzhou who had been the Kuomintang Youth League cadres. They were summarily branded counter-revolutionaries sacked from their jobs, and sent to do manual labor.

  This campaign to root out the last vestiges of the Kuomintang past pushed family background and connections to the forefront. Throughout Chinese history, when one person was condemned sometimes the entire clan men, women, and children, even newborn babies was executed. Execution could extend to cousins nine times removed (zhu-lian jill-zu). Someone being accused of a crime could endanger the lives of a whole neighborhood.

  Hitherto the Communists had included people with 'undesirable' backgrounds in their ranks. Many sons and daughters of their enemies rose to high positions. In fact, most early Communist leaders had come from 'bad' backgrounds themselves. But after 1955 family origins became increasingly important. As the years went by and Mao launched one witch-hunt after another, the number of victims snowballed, and each victim brought down many others, including, first and foremost, his or her immediate family.

  In spite of these personal tragedies, or perhaps partly because of the steely control, China was more stable in 1956 than at any time this century. Foreign occupation, civil war, widespread death from starvation, bandits, inflation all seemed to be things of the past. Stability, the dream of the Chinese, sustained the faith of people like my mother in their sufferings.

  In the summer of 1956 my grandmother returned to Chengdu. The first thing she did was to rush to the nurseries and take us back to my mother's place. My grandmother had a fundamental dislike of nurseries. She said children could not be properly looked after in a group. My sister and I looked all right, but as soon as we spotted her, we screamed and demanded to go home. The two boys were another matter: Jin-ming's teacher complained that he was terribly withdrawn, and would not let any adult touch him. He only asked, quietly but obstinately, for his old nurse. My grandmother burst into tears when she saw Xiao-her. He looked like a wooden puppet, with a meaningless grin on his face. Wherever he was put, whether sitting or standing, he would just remain there, motionless.