by Lisa See
“Your ch’i yun—breath resonance—is good,” Z.G. says, “but as the great leader himself has observed, this kind of art can no longer be pursued as an ideal in and of itself. So, are you using tradition to serve the present? No question. Your need is great in this moment and I can see that. I look at your work and I’m not sure if I see feudal dregs or fragrant flowers, but you could learn from me.”
I don’t understand half of what he’s said. How does he see feudal dregs or fragrant flowers in my couplet? But it doesn’t really matter for now, because I’ve passed his test.
“It’s a good thing you came today, because I’m going to the countryside to teach peasants art,” he announces. “You’re coming with me as my helper. I was given enough rice coupons for my … trip that I can share them with you. People in the countryside won’t know how ignorant you are.”
The countryside? Every decision I take sends me farther from everything and everyone I know. I’m fearful but also excited … and honored.
AN HOUR LATER, Z.G. hands his two pieces of Long March luggage to his chauffeur, who packs these bags along with my suitcase and several other boxes and satchels filled with art supplies into the trunk of a Red Flag limousine. Then the chauffeur drives us to the dock, where we board a ferry bound for Hangchow. Once we’ve dropped our bags in our cabins, we go to the restaurant. Z.G. orders for us, and the food is pretty good. While we eat, he tries to explain a bit of what we’ll be doing and I try to prove myself to him.
“We’re at the end of a campaign called Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom—”
“And Let a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend,” I finish for him. “I know all about it. Mao encouraged artists, writers, and, well, everyone to make criticisms against the government in an effort to keep the revolution fresh and growing.”
He gives me another one of those looks I can’t interpret.
“As part of the campaign, artists like me have been asked to leave our studios, meet the masses, and experience real life,” he continues. “We’re going to Green Dragon Village in Anhwei province. It’s one of the new collectives. They are—”
“I know about those too!” I exclaim. “I read about them in China Reconstructs. First there was land reform, when landowners gave their land to the people—”
“Confiscated and reallocated is more like it.”
“That’s not what I read,” I counter. “You should be proud of this accomplishment. After more than two thousand years, the feudal system of ownership was destroyed—”
“And the landlord class eliminated—”
I speak over his sour comment. “Then the masses were asked to form mutual aid teams of five to fifteen households to share their work. Two years ago, the collectives started. Now one to three hundred households have been brought together to share the labor and the profits.”
“That’s a pretty simplistic way of looking at it.” Again, I can’t help noticing his dry tone. “But you’re more or less correct. Anyway, I’m going to Green Dragon Village. After that, we’ll just have to test the climate when the time comes.”
He turns and stares out the window. I try to remember if I know anything about Anhwei province. Isn’t that where the movie The Good Earth took place? I practically grew up playing in the set of Wang’s Farmhouse, which had been part of China City, the tourist attraction where my parents worked. A peasant farmhouse will be familiar to me: chickens pecking outside the front door, wooden farm tools, a simple table, a couple of chairs.
In Hangchow, we stay at a guesthouse—clean enough but with a squat toilet down the hall for everyone to share. Z.G. takes me to a restaurant on the lake. We chat about the meal: fish soup with rice noodles, pea greens, and rice. He calls me Joy and I call him Z.G. For dessert, we have fritters made with corn fresh off the cob and sprinkled with powdered sugar. After dinner, we stroll along the lakeshore. My stomach and heart are full as I walk next to my birth father. Here I am, in China, by a lake shimmering pink as the summer sun sets. Weeping willows drape their tendrils into the water. I can’t decide where to look or what makes me happier—seeing our two shadows lengthening before us or his face in the soothing light.
Joy
A SPRIG OF BAMBOO
THE NEXT MORNING, my first Sunday in China, I’m unsure what will happen. All my life I’ve gone either to the Methodist mission or church for Sunday school and services. Even when I was in Chicago, I went to services. But today? Z.G. emerges from his room looking very different. He no longer wears his elegantly tailored suit. Instead, he wears loose trousers, a short-sleeved white shirt, and sandals. He sees me in a pair of pink capris with a sleeveless white blouse that Auntie May bought for me at the Bullock’s sale last year. She said the outfit looked “crisp, fresh, and young,” but Z.G. doesn’t appear to care for it.
After a breakfast of rice porridge, rice cakes stuffed with spicy greens, fresh loquats, and strong tea, we take another boat up a small river to Tun-hsi, where we hire a pedicab to the bus station. Tun-hsi is tiny compared with Shanghai and rather featureless compared with the beauty of Hangchow. The town’s buildings are modest in size, and there doesn’t seem to be any real industry here. It looks to be the place where people in this area bring produce and other homemade commodities to sell and trade. We arrive at the bus station, and it’s positively alive with travelers and goods. I see people in ethnic dress—wearing blue tunics, colorful woven headdresses, and hand-wrought silver jewelry. I hear dialects I can’t understand, which is strange because we’re still so close to Shanghai. People stare at me, but instead of turning away, as so many did in Shanghai, they greet me with broad—often toothless—grins.
We board a rickety bus. The passengers—smelling of garlic and increasingly sweaty—carry crying babies, live chickens and ducks, bags of produce, and jars of pickles and salted things that reek, ooze, and stink up the bus as the day wears on. I look out the window across fields sweltering under the hot sun. Soon the road narrows, then turns to dirt. We’re climbing into low-lying hills. I ask Z.G. how much farther to Green Dragon Village.
“I’m not sure. I’ve never been there. I’ve been told it was once a prosperous village. We’ll be staying in a villa.” He juts his chin. My father Sam used to do that instead of shrugging. “I’m unclear what that means.”
Z.G. says Green Dragon is 400 kilometers from Shanghai. That’s something like 250 miles, but the road—if you can call it that—is so bad that we’re just creeping and bumping along. After a couple of hours, the bus pulls to a stop. The driver calls the names of several villages, including Green Dragon. We’re the only two people to get out. I have my suitcase. Z.G. has his bags and boxes. We’re on a dusty track in the middle of nowhere. Finally, a boy riding a donkey-pulled cart comes along. Z.G. talks to the boy. I don’t understand this dialect either, but I catch a word here and there. Z.G. helps me into the back of the cart. Then he throws in our bags and climbs up next to the boy, who, in turn, whips the donkey. On the right, I see men and women working in rice paddies. In the distance, a water buffalo pulls a plow through a water-soaked field. This is such a different world, and for a fleeting moment I wonder if I’ll be able to do this—live in the countryside, learn to work in the fields, even help Z.G.
It’s about five when the boy reins in the donkey and lets us off the cart. Z.G. straps a couple of satchels to my back and then he does the same to himself. Then we pick up our bags and begin a long, slow hike up a path, over a small hill, and down into a narrow valley, where elm trees provide shade. We pass a hand-painted sign that reads:
CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR ANIMALS.
BE HARMONIOUS.
RESPECT THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND.
We enter the Green Dragon Village Collective. Willow trees blow softly in the wind. A public square—an open area with a single large tree planted in the middle—lies ahead. A young man sits on a rock at the edge of the square, keeping lookout, his elbows on his knees. His feet are bare. His hair is so black that it glints blue in the sun. Whe
n he sees us, he jumps up and runs over.
“Are you Comrade Li?” he asks.
Z.G. nods. “And this is my daughter.”
The young man’s face is open. His teeth are white and straight. His shoulders are broad and strong under his cotton shirt. “I am Feng Tao,” he says. “And I’m ready to learn.”
“It is I who am hoping to learn from you,” Z.G. responds formally.
Z.G. speaks the same rough country dialect that he used with the boy in the cart, but as I listen to this simple exchange, I begin to pick up the nuances in the tones and pronunciation that make this speech pattern different from the Wu dialect of Shanghai or the more standard Mandarin of the region.
Tao takes the satchels off my back and guides us into the center of the square to the shade tree, which has fragrant white flowers that look like sweet-pea blossoms. I don’t see a single electric or telephone pole. There are no cars or motor scooters, yet a slight odor of gasoline cuts into the crisp, green-smelling air. Chickens peck at the ground, just as I expected. Tall, thin trees edge a stream to my right. The leaves shimmy in the light breeze. Across the stream, a path leads up a hill dotted by small—tiny—buildings. Those would have to be the real versions of Wang’s Farmhouse. To my left is a high gray wall.
Tao ushers us along a path paralleling the wall until we come to an elaborate gate with a mirror hanging above a carved frieze. We step through the gate and into a courtyard. Dried pig legs and a string of dried fish hang on the wall—and this is still an exterior wall.
Tao calls out, “Kumei, come quickly! They’re here.”
A young woman pushes through a door. She’s about my age and carries a boy of four or so on her hip. Two braids tied with scarlet wool swing on either side of her head. Her cheeks are ruddy. She’s shorter than I am, but her body is far more solid and strong. She’s a pretty girl, except for the raised scars that run down her neck and onto her left shoulder and arm.
“Huanying! Huanying! Welcome! Welcome!” she chimes. “I’m Feng Kumei. You’re going to live here with me. Have you eaten?”
Yes, I’d like a meal, some tea, and a shower, but I don’t have that opportunity, because Tao says, “But everyone’s waiting.”
“Then please take us directly to where we are to work,” Z.G. responds.
We leave our bags with our clothes in the courtyard. Kumei puts the little boy down and tells him to go back inside. After he runs off, the four of us troop outside, walk along the wall to the square, and enter an adjacent building with a tiled roof and upturned eaves.
“This used to be the ancestral temple for the landowner’s family and the rest of the village, because everyone here shares the family name of Feng,” Tao explains. “Since Liberation, we’ve used the temple for meetings. Come. Come.”
He motions to me. Something about the way his fingers beckon makes me follow him closely. Although from the outside there seemed to be a massive roof, the interior of the temple is more of an open-air courtyard, which allows the last of the day’s summer light to stream in. Huge wooden pillars painted blood red support those parts of the roof that rim the courtyard. The middle of the floor is sunken and filled with water. Carp swim desultorily. Green moss covers the stones. The pond gives a feeling of coolness, although the air temperature is no brisker or less humid than anywhere else I’ve been. Even with the open roof, the smell of gasoline lingers, but again, I haven’t seen any cars, motors, or engines since I’ve arrived.
People—young, old, men, women, and children—sit on the stone floor along the hall’s edges. The women are dressed almost identically, in loose blue pants and short-sleeved blouses with a tiny floral print. A few wear kerchiefs over their hair. Most have braids. The men also wear loose blue pants, only with sleeveless undershirts—the kind my father and uncles wore when they sat around the dinner table on hot summer nights but what my girlfriends in Chicago always said was a marker for bad boys, like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire.
A well-fed man steps forward with his hand extended. He looks to be about thirty-five, and he has puffy half moons of fat under his eyes. “I am Party Secretary Feng Jin, the highest-ranked cadre in the village,” he says. After shaking hands, he points to his wife, a plump woman perched on a stone bench, her heavy legs spread wide like a man’s. “That’s my wife, Sung-ling. She’s the second-ranked cadre. We’re in charge of all activities in the collective.”
Z.G. tips his head in greeting. “My daughter and I are honored to be here—”
“No one said anything about a daughter,” Party Secretary Feng says bluntly.
“She received permission to come with me,” Z.G. assures him. Until now, I hadn’t realized that maybe I shouldn’t have come with Z.G. or that I might be a problem for him, and I try to keep my face as impassive as his. “She also wants to learn and observe from real life.”
The Party secretary eyes me suspiciously—I really need to get some different clothes—but after a long moment, he shifts subject and tone. As he speaks, it’s as though his words are meant less for us than for the villagers. “After Liberation, our great Chairman ordered all temples, shrines, and monasteries closed. Diviners and fortune-tellers were banished or arrested. Folk songs, operas, and love songs were banned. Feasts and festivals were discouraged. It’s my duty to make sure these rules are followed, but I change with the government. If I’m told to reopen the temple for village meetings, then I obey. If planting songs are once again allowed, then so be it. I’ve now been told we’ll have art lessons.” He motions to the peasants sitting and waiting. “We’ve done our work in the fields and are ready to learn.”
He leads us farther into the temple along a wall covered with posters that seem to form a time line of life in Green Dragon Village from before Liberation to now. The first shows Red Army soldiers, smiling and helping peasants repair a break in a dyke. In the next poster, people hold slips of paper. This must be when land was redistributed. Another poster illustrates daily life: a man with a bag of wheat slung over his shoulder, another man screwing in a lightbulb, yet another talking on a telephone, while fat children play at their feet. The slogan at the bottom is straightforward: COLLECTIVIZATION MAKES EVERYONE PROSPEROUS AND CONTENT.
“I’m honored to see that some of my work has come to your collective, Party Secretary Feng,” Z.G. says. “I hope it has been an inspiration.”
“You did these?”
“Not all of them,” Z.G. replies modestly.
The people seated nearby take in deep breaths of admiration. A few cheer and clap. Word ripples quickly around the room. This isn’t just any artist. This artist helped shape their lives.
Z.G. isn’t shy or uncertain as my father was. He bounds up a couple of stone steps, takes a position in the middle of the temple, and addresses the villagers. But before he gets very far, an old woman in the front row calls out, “But what do I do? I know how to grow rice in summer and cabbages in fall. I know how to weave a basket and wipe a baby’s bottom, but I’m not an artist.”
“I can teach you how to hold a brush and paint a turnip, but you have something within you that is even more important to create a great painting,” Z.G. responds. “You are red through and through. I’m here to teach you, true, but I want you to teach me too. Together we will find redness in our work.”
Tao and Kumei help me hand out paper, brushes, and premixed ink poured into saucers. Then Z.G. tells us to sit down and get ready to work ourselves. Yes, he said I would be his helper and that I might know more than the peasants, but I’m happy to learn with the others. This is the kind of equality and sharing I’ve heard about and was hoping for. Z.G. instructs us to paint a sprig of bamboo. I’m pleased with this assignment, because I did it many times in Chinese school in Chinatown. I dip the tip of my brush into the ink and let the bristles glide across the paper, remembering to be light with my strokes without losing control. Next to me, Tao copies the way I hold my brush and with a look of determination bends over his own sheet of paper.
Painting a sprig of bamboo appears to be a simple assignment, and people work quickly. Z.G. circulates through the hall, making comments such as “Too much ink” or “Each leaf should look exactly the same.” Then he comes to Tao and me. He examines my work first. “You cannot be blamed for not understanding the deeper essence of bamboo, but you need to be wary of too much self-expression and too much ink play. With just a few simple brushstrokes you can call to mind the spiritual state of the subject. You want to evoke nature, not copy it.”
I’m disappointed that I haven’t impressed him and embarrassed to be criticized in front of the others. My cheeks burn and I keep my eyes down.
Z.G. moves on to Tao. “You’re very good at the hsi-yi style of freehand brushwork,” he says. “Have you trained elsewhere, Comrade Feng?”
“No, Comrade Li. This is my first time with a brush.”
“Don’t be modest, Tao,” that old woman from the front row calls out again. She gestures for Z.G. to come closer. “Even as a little boy, Tao entertained us with his drawings in the dirt.”
“When he got older,” someone else adds, “we would give him paper and a cup of water to practice painting. He used his finger as a brush. The water would go onto the paper, and for a few seconds we would see mountains, rivers, clouds, dragons, fields—”
“And even the butcher’s face!” yet another says enthusiastically. “Then the water would evaporate and Tao would begin again.”
Z.G. stands there, staring at Tao’s painting, pinching his chin with his thumb and forefinger, seemingly not listening to the villagers’ crowing. After a long moment, he looks up. “That is enough for tonight.” As the others get up off the floor and file out, Z.G. gives Tao’s shoulder a congratulatory shake. I grew up in a household where touching was rare, so Z.G.’s gesture is startling. In reaction to this surprising praise, Tao’s mouth spreads into the same wide and gleaming smile he gave us on our arrival.