Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

by Jung Chang

  I had been brought up to be courteous and respectful to anyone older than me, but now to be revolutionary meant being aggressive and militant. Gentleness was considered 'bourgeois." I was repeatedly criticized for it, and it was one reason given for not allowing me into the Red Guards.

  Over the years of the Cultural Revolution, I was to witness people being attacked for saying 'thank you' too often, which was branded as 'bourgeois hypocrisy'; courtesy was on the brink of extinction.

  But now, outside the teahouse, I could see that most of us, including the Red Guards, were uneasy about the new style of speaking and lording it over others. Not many of us opened our mouths. Quietly, a few started to paste rectangular slogans onto the walls of the teahouse and the tnmk of the scholar tree.

  The customers silently began to walk away along the bank. Watching their disappearing figures, a feeling of loss overwhelmed me. A couple of months before, these adults probably would have told us to get lost. But now they knew that Mao's backing had given the Red Guards power.

  Thinking back, I can see the thrill some children must have felt at demonstrating their power over adults. A popular Red Guard slogan went: "We can soar to heaven, and pierce the earth, because our Great Leader Chairman Mao is our supreme commander!" As this declaration reveals, the Red Guards were not enjoying genuine freedom of self-expression. From the start they were nothing but the tool of a tyrant.

  Standing on the riverbank in August 1966, though, I was just confused. I went into the teahouse with my fellow pupils. Some asked the manager to close down. Others started pasting slogans on the walls. Many customers were getting up to go, but in a far corner one old man was still sitting at his table, calmly sipping his tea. I stood beside him, feeling embarrassed that I was supposed to assume the voice of authority. He looked at me, and resumed his noisy sipping. He had a deeply lined face that was almost stereotypical 'working class' as shown in propaganda pictures. His hands reminded me of one of my textbook stories which described the hands of an old peasant: they could bundle thorny firewood without feeling any pain.

  Perhaps this old man was very sure of his unquestionable background, or his advanced age, which had hitherto been the object of respect, or perhaps he simply did not think I was very impressive. Anyway, he remained in his seat taking no notice of me. I summoned up my courage and pleaded in a low voice, "Please, could you leave?" Without looking at me, he said, "Where to?"

  "Home, of course," I replied. He turned to face me. There was emotion in his voice, though he spoke quietly.

  "Home? What home? I share a tiny room with my two grandsons. I have a corner surrounded by a bamboo curtain. Just for the bed. That's all. When the kids are home I come here for some peace and quiet. Why do you have to take this away from me?"

  His words filled me with shock and shame. This was the first time I had heard a firsthand account of such miserable living conditions. I turned and walked away.

  This teahouse, like all the others in Sichuan, was shut for fifteen years until 1981, when Deng Xiaoping's reforms decreed it could be reopened. In 1985 I went back there with a British friend. We sat under the scholar tree.

  An old waitress came to fill our cups with a kettle from two feet away. Around us, people were playing chess. It was one of the happiest moments of that trip back.

  When Lin Biao called for everything that represented the old culture to be destroyed, some pupils in my school started to smash things up. Being more than 2,000 years old, the school had a lot of antiques and was therefore a prime site for action. The school gateway had an old tiled roof with carved eaves. These were hammered to pieces.

  The same happened to the sweeping blue-glazed roof of the big temple which had been used as a ping-pong hall.

  The pair of giant bronze incense burners in front of the temple were toppled, and some boys urinated into them.

  In the back garden, pupils with big hammers and iron rods went along the sandstone bridges casually breaking the little statues. On one side of the sports field was a pair of towering rectangular tablets made of red sandstone, each twenty feet high. Some lines about Confucius were carved on them in beautiful calligraphy. A huge rope was tied around them, and two gangs pulled. It took them a couple of days, as the foundations were deep. They had to get some workers from outside to dig a hole around the tablets.

  When the monuments finally crashed down amidst cheers, they lifted part of the path that ran behind them.

  All the things I loved were disappearing. The saddest thing of all for me was the ransacking of the library: the golden filed roof, the delicately sculpted windows, the blue painted chairs… Bookshelves were turned upside down, and some pupils tore books to pieces just for the hell of it.

  Afterward, X-shaped white paper strips with black characters were stuck on what was left of the doors and windows to signal that the building was sealed.

  Books were major targets of Mao's order to destroy.

  Because they had not been written within the last few months, and therefore did not quote Mao on every page, some Red Guards declared that they were all 'poisonous weeds." With the exception of Marxist classics and the works of Stalin, Mao, and the late Lu Xun, whose name Mme Mao was using for her personal vendettas, books were burning all across China. The country lost most of its written heritage. Many of the books which survived later went into people's stoves as fuel.

  But there was no bonfire at my school. The head of the school Red Guards had been a very conscientious student.

  A rather feminine-looking seventeen-year-old, he had been made the Red Guard leader because his father was the Party chief for the province, rather than because of his own ambition. While he could not prevent the general vandalism, he did manage to stop the books from being burned.

  Like everyone else, I was supposed to join in the 'revolutionary actions." But I, like most pupils, was able to avoid them, because the destruction was not organized, and no one made sure we took part. I could see that many pupils hated the whole thing, but nobody tried to stop it. Like myself, many boys and girls may well have been telling themselves that they were wrong to feel sorry about the destruction and needed to reform. But subconsciously we all knew we would have been crushed instantly had we raised any objection.

  By then 'denunciation meetings' were becoming a major feature of the Cultural Revolution. They involved a hysterical crowd and were seldom without physical brutality.

  Peking University had taken the lead, under the personal supervision of Mao. At its first denunciation meeting, on 18 June, over sixty professors and heads of departments, including the chancellor, were beaten, kicked, and forced to kneel for hours. Dunce caps with humiliating slogans were forced onto their heads. Ink was poured over their faces to make them black, the color of evil, and slogans were pasted all over their bodies. Two students gripped the arms of each victim, twisting them around behind his back and pushing them up with such ferocity as almost to dislocate them. This posture was called the 'jet plane," and soon became a feature of most denunciation meetings all over the country.

  I was once called by the Red Guards in my form to attend such a meeting. Horror made me feel very chilly in the hot summer afternoon when I saw a dozen or so teachers standing on the platform on the sports ground, with their heads bent and their arms twisted into the 'jet plane' position. Then, some were kicked on the back of their knees and forced to kneel, while others, including my English-language teacher, an elderly man with the fine manner of a classical gentleman, were forced to stand on long, narrow benches. He found it hard to keep his balance, and swayed and fell, cutting his forehead on the sharp corner of a bench. A Red Guard standing next to him instinctively stooped and extended his hands to help, but immediately straightened up and assumed an exaggeratedly harsh posture, with his fists clenched, yelling: "Get back onto the bench!" He did not want to be seen as soft on a 'class enemy." Blood trickled down the teacher's forehead and coagulated on the side of his face.

  He, like the other teac
hers, was accused of all sorts of outlandish crimes; but they were really there because they were graded, and therefore the best, or because some pupils had grudges against them.

  I learned in later years that the pupils in my school behaved relatively mildly because, being in the most prestigious school, they were successful and academically inclined. In the schools which took in wilder boys, there were teachers who were beaten to death. I witnessed only one beating in my school. My philosophy teacher had been somewhat dismissive to those who had not done well in her classes, and some of them hated her and now started to accuse her of being 'decadent." The 'evidence," which reflected the extreme conservatism of the Cultural Revolution, was that she had met her husband on a bus. They got to chatting, and fell in love. Love arising out of a chance meeting was regarded as a sign of immorality. The boys took her to an office and 'took revolutionary actions over her' the euphemism for beating somebody up. Before they started, they called for me especially and made me attend.

  "What will she think when she sees you, her pet pupil, there!"

  I was considered her favorite because she had praised my work often. But I was also told that I should be there because I had been too soft, and needed 'a lesson in revolution."

  When the beating started, I shrank at the back of the ring of pupils who crowded into the small office. A couple of classmates nudged me to go to the front and join in the hitting. I ignored them. In the center my teacher was being kicked around, rolling in agony on the floor, her hair askew.

  As she cried out, begging them to stop, the boys who had set upon her said in cold voices, "Now you beg! Haven't you been ferocious? Now beg properly!" They kicked her again, and ordered her to kowtow to them and say "Please spare my life, masters!" To make someone kowtow and beg was an extreme humiliation. She sat up and stared blankly ahead: I met her eyes through her knotted hair. In them I saw agony, desperation, and emptiness. She was gasping for breath, and her face was ashen gray. I sneaked out of the room. Several pupils followed me. Behind us I could hear people shouting slogans, but their voices were tentative and uncertain. Many pupils must have been scared. I walked away swiftly, my heart pounding. I was afraid I might be caught and beaten myself. But no one came after me, and I was not condemned afterward.

  I did not get into trouble in those days, in spite of my obvious lack of enthusiasm. Apart from the fact that the Red Guards were loosely organized, I was, according to the 'theory of bloodlines," born bright red, because my father was a high official. Although I was disapproved of, nobody did anything drastic, except criticize me.

  At the time, the Red Guards divided pupils into three categories: 'reds," 'blacks," and 'grays." The 'reds' were from the families of 'workers, peasants, revolutionary officials, revolutionary officers, and revolutionary martyrs."

  The 'blacks' were those with parents classified as 'land-lords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionary bad elements, and rightists." The 'grays' came from ambiguous families such as shop assistants and clerks. In my year, all pupils ought to have been 'reds' because of the screening in the enrollment. But the pressure of the Cultural Revolution meant that some villains had to be found. As a result, more than a dozen became 'grays' or 'blacks."

  There was a girl named Ai-ling in my year. We were old friends, and I had often been to her house and knew her family well. Her grandfather had been a prominent economist, and her family had been enjoying a very privileged life under the Communists. Their house was large, elegant, and luxurious, with an exquisite garden much better than my family's apartment. I was especially attracted by their collection of antiques, in particular the snuff bottles which Ai-ling's grandfather had brought back from England where he had studied at Oxford in the 1920s.

  Now, suddenly, Ai-ling became a 'black." I heard that pupils from her form had raided her house, smashed all the antiques, including the snuff bottles, and beaten her parents and grandfather with the brass buckles of their belts. The next day when I saw her she was wearing a scarf. Her classmates had given her a 'yin and yang head."

  She had had to have it completely shaved. She wept with me. I felt terribly inadequate because I could not find any words to comfort her.

  In my own form a meeting was organized by the Red Guards at which we all had to give our family backgrounds so we could be categorized. I announced 'revolutionary official' with great relief. Three or four pupils said 'office staff." In the jargon of the day, this was different from 'officials," who held more senior positions. The division was unclear, as there was no definition of what 'senior' meant. Nevertheless, these vague labels had to be used on various forms, all of which had a space for 'family background." Together with a girl whose father was a shop assistant, the children of 'office staff' were branded as 'grays." It was announced that they were to be kept under surveillance, sweep the school grounds and clean toilets, bow their heads at all times, and be prepared to be lectured by any Red Guard who cared to address them. They also had to report their thoughts and behavior every day.

  These pupils suddenly looked subdued and shrunken.

  Their vigor and enthusiasm, which they had had in abundance up to now, had deserted them. One gift bent her head and tears streamed down her cheeks. We had been friends.

  After the meeting I went over to her to say something comforting, but when she raised her head I saw resentment, almost hatred, in her eyes. I walked away without a word, and wandered listlessly through the grounds. It was the end of August. The Cape jasmine bushes spread their rich fragrance. It seemed strange there should be any scent at all.

  As dusk was descending I was walking back to the dormitory when I saw something flash by a second-floor window of a classroom block about forty yards away. There was a muffled bang at the foot of the building. The hazy branches of some orange trees prevented me from seeing what was happening, but people started to run in the direction of the noise. Out of the confused, suppressed exclamations I made out the message: "Someone has jumped out of the window!"

  I instinctively raised my hands to cover my eyes, and ran to my room. I was terribly scared. My mind's eye fixated on the blurry crooked figure in midair. Hurriedly I shut the windows, but the noise of people talking nervously about what had happened filtered through the thin glass.

  A seventeen-year-old girl had attempted suicide. Before the Cultural Revolution, she had been one of the leaders of the Communist Youth League, and had been a model in studying Chairman Mao's works and learning from Lei Feng. She had done many good deeds like washing her comrades' clothes and cleaning out toilets, and frequently gave talks to the school about how loyally she followed Mao's teachings. She was often to be seen strolling deep in conversation with a fellow pupil, with a conscientious and purposeful look on her face, carrying out 'heart-to heart duties with someone who wanted to join the Youth League. But now, suddenly, she had been categorized as a 'black." Her father was 'office staff." He worked for the municipal government, and was a Party member. But some of her classmates who found her a 'pain," and whose fathers were in higher posts, decided she should be a 'black." In the last couple of days, she had been put under guard with other 'blacks' and 'grays' and forced to pull grass out of the sports ground. To humiliate her, her classmates had shaved her beautiful black hair, leaving her head grotesquely bald. On that evening, the 'reds' in her form had been giving her and the other victims an insulting lecture.

  She retorted that she was more loyal to Chairman Mao than they were. The 'reds' slapped her and told her she was not fit to talk about her loyalty to Mao because she was a class enemy. She ran to the window and threw herself out.

  Stunned and scared, the Red Guards rushed her to a hospital. She did not die, but she was crippled for life.

  When I saw her many months later on the street, she was bent over on crutches, her eyes blank.

  On the night of her attempted suicide, I could not sleep.

  The moment I closed my eyes, an indistinct figure loomed over me, smeared with blood. I was terrified and sha
king.

  The next day I asked for sick leave, which was granted.

  Home seemed to be the only escape from the horror at school. I desperately wished I would never have to go out again.

  17. "Do You Want Our Children to Become Blacks"

  My Parents' Dilemma (August-October 1966)

  Home was no relief this time. My parents seemed distracted, and hardly noticed me. When Father was not pacing up and down the apartment, he was shut in his study.

  Mother threw one waste basketful of crushed paper balls after another into the kitchen stove. My grandmother also looked as though she was expecting disaster. Her intense eyes were fixed on my parents, full of anxiety. Timorously, I watched their moods, too afraid to ask what was wrong.

  My parents did not tell me about a conversation they had had some evenings before. They had been sitting by an open window, outside which a loudspeaker tied to a street lamp was blasting out endless quotations of Mao's, particularly one about all revolutions being violent by definition – 'the savage tumult of one class overthrowing another." The quotations were chanted again and again in a high pitched shriek that roused fear and, for some, excitement. Every now and then there were announcements of 'victories' achieved by Red Guards: they had raided more homes of 'class enemies' and 'smashed their dogs' heads."

  My father had been looking out at the blazing sunset.

  He turned to my mother and said slowly: "I don't understand the Cultural Revolution. But I am certain that what is happening is terribly wrong. This revolution cannot be justified by any Marxist or Communist principles. People have lost their basic rights and protection. This is unspeakable. I am a Communist, and I have a duty to stop a worse disaster. I must write to the Party leadership, to Chairman Mao."