Life and Death in Shanghai

by Cheng Nien

  The man in charge of the meeting called upon other members of the company’s staff, including the two men who had come to my house in the morning and some junior clerks in Tao Feng’s accounting department, to come forward to speak. One by one they marched to the platform and expressed anger and indignation, repeating the same accusations against Tao Feng made by the speaker during the morning session. The scope and degree of criticism was, I knew, always set by the Party official. It was just as ill advised to try to be original and say something different as not to criticize enough. The Chinese people had learned by experience that the Party trusted them more and liked them better if they didn’t think for themselves but just repeated what the Party told them. The criticism of Tao Feng by other members of our former staff went on for a long time. All those who were allowed to speak were workers or junior clerks. None of the senior members of our former staff participated. They sat silently with heads bowed.

  Finally the man in charge of the meeting took over again. He told the audience that after several weeks of reeducation and “help” by activists, Tao had finally recognized the fact that he was a victim of capitalism and imperialism. Turning to Tao, the man asked in a voice a stern schoolteacher might have used to address a pupil caught in an act of mischief, “Isn’t it so? It was the high salary paid you by the foreign imperialists that turned you into their slave! You sold yourself to them and were ready to do any dirty work for them because of the high salary you received and the money they promised you. Isn’t this the case?”

  There was a hush in the room as everyone waited for Tao’s reaction. But there was no dramatic, tearful declaration of repentance. He merely nodded his head, looking more dejected than ever.

  I thought Tao Feng very stupid to agree that he had sold himself for money, because this admission could open the way to all sorts of more serious accusations from which he might find it difficult to disentangle himself. It seemed to me it would have been much better and certainly more truthful to explain that Shell paid its Shanghai staff the same salary after the Communist Party took over the city as it had done before. Since the government did not intervene, naturally the question of reducing the pay of the staff did not arise. What he could also have said tactfully was that working for a foreign firm did not carry with it the personal prestige enjoyed by government workers serving the people—a point the Party officials would have found hard to refute.

  “Tao Feng will now make his self-criticism,” the man announced.

  Still in a posture of obsequiousness and without once lifting his eyes to look at the audience, Tao took a few sheets of paper from his pocket and started to read a prepared statement in a low voice devoid of emotion. He admitted humbly all the “crimes” listed by the speakers and accepted the verdict that his downfall was due to the fact that he did not have sufficient socialist awareness. He expressed regret for having worked for a foreign firm for more than thirty-five years and said that he had wasted his life. He declared that he was ashamed he had been blinded by capitalist propaganda and enslaved by the good treatment Shell had given him. He begged the proletariat to forgive him and give him a chance to repent. He mentioned the fact that his son was a Party member and had been educated abroad at government expense. His own life of depravity, he said, was an act of gross ingratitude to the People’s Government. He assured the assembly that he now recognized the dastardly schemes of the foreign capitalists and imperialists against Communist China and would do his best to lay bare their dirty game in order to show his true repentance. He said he was in the process of writing a detailed confession of criminal deeds he had committed for Shell, which he would present to the officials “helping” him with his reeducation.

  It was a long statement full of self-abuse and exaggeration. At times his voice trembled, and sometimes he opened his mouth but no words came. When he turned the pages, his hands shook. I did not believe his nervousness was entirely due to fear, since he must have known that he was not guilty of any real crime. After all, Shell had remained in China because the People’s Government had allowed, even wanted, it to be there. And I knew that the company had been scrupulously correct in observing Chinese government regulations. Tao must have known this too. I thought his chief problem was mental and physical exhaustion. To bring him to his knees and to make sure that he submitted readily, those who “helped” him must have spent days, if not weeks, constantly questioning him, taking turns to exert pressure on him without allowing him to sleep. It was common knowledge that in these circumstances the victim broke down and submitted when he was on the verge of physical collapse and mental confusion. The Maoists named these inhuman tactics “exhaustive bombardment.” Many people I knew, including my own brother, had experienced it during the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957. The Party officials remained in the background while the activists carried out their orders. When there was excessive cruelty that resulted in death, the officials would disclaim responsibility for an “accident” resulting from “mass enthusiasm.”

  When Tao had finished, the speaker told the audience that he would be watched to see if his words were spoken in true sincerity. He added that his was only the first meeting of its kind to be held. There were many others like Tao to be dealt with, and Tao himself might speak again. Here he paused momentarily and swept the audience with his eyes. Did I merely imagine that his gaze seemed to linger for a fraction of a moment in my direction? He concluded that it was the duty of the proletariat to cleanse socialist China of all residue of imperialist influence and punish the enemies of the people. Again I thought he turned his gaze in my direction.

  I certainly did not think I was important enough for this whole show to have been put on solely for my benefit. But if it was, it failed to frighten me. The emotion my first experience of a “struggle meeting” generated in me was one of disgust and shame that such an act of barbarism against a fellow human being could have taken place in my beloved native land, with a history of five thousand years of civilization. As a Chinese, I felt degraded.

  There was more shouting of slogans, but everybody was already on his feet moving towards the door.

  The same man who tried to keep me from going home for lunch was waiting in the passage. He said to me, “Will you come this way for a moment? Some comrades would like to have a word with you.”

  I followed him to one of the classrooms, where the students’ chairs and desks were piled up in one corner. The man in charge of the meeting and another one who had been on the platform were seated by the teacher’s desk. There was a vacant chair. They motioned me to sit in it.

  “Did you hear everything at the meeting?” the man in charge asked me.

  I nodded.

  “What did you think of the meeting? I believe this is the first time you have attended one of this kind.”

  Obviously I couldn’t reveal what I really thought of the meeting, nor did I want to lie and flatter him. So I said, “May I ask you some questions that have been in my mind the whole day?”

  He looked annoyed but said, “Go ahead.”

  “What organization do you represent? What authority do you have to call a meeting like this? Besides the ex-staff of Shell, who were the others present?”

  Clearly he resented my questioning his authority. Making a visible effort to control himself, he said, “We represent the proletarian class. The meeting was authorized by the committee in charge of the conduct of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution in Shanghai.”

  I asked him to explain the purpose of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution. He said that it was a revolution to cleanse Chinese society of factors that hindered the growth of socialism. He repeated an often quoted saying of Mao Zedong: “If poisonous weeds are not removed, scented flowers cannot grow.” He told me that everybody in China without exception had to take part in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

  “You must assume a more sincere attitude and make a determined effort to emulate Tao Feng and do your best to reform,” he said.


  “I’m not aware of any wrongdoing on my part,” I said, my voice registering surprise.

  “Perhaps you’ll change your attitude when you have had time to think things over,” said the second man. “If you try to cover up for the imperialists, the consequences will be serious.”

  “What is there to cover up? Every act of the imperialists is clearly recorded in our history books,” I answered.

  The man raised his voice. “What are you talking about? We are not concerned with what happened in the past. We are talking about now, about the firm you worked for. Tao has already confessed everything. We know the Shell office in Shanghai ‘hung up a sheep’s head to sell dog’s meat’ [a Chinese expression meaning that the outward appearance of something is not the same as the reality]. We are also clear in our mind about the important role you played in their dirty game. You must not take us for fools.”

  “I’m completely at a loss as to what you’re referring to,” I said. “As far as I know, the company I worked for never did anything either illegal or immoral. The People’s Government has an excellent police force. Surely if anything had been wrong it would have been discovered long ago.”

  Both men glared at me. Almost simultaneously they shouted, “You are trying to cover up for the imperialists!”

  I said indignantly, “You misunderstand me. I’m merely stating the facts as I know them. Why should I cover up for anybody? Shell’s Shanghai office is closed, and the British general manager has left. No one needs my protection.”

  “Yes, yes, the British general manager has gone, but you are still here. You know just as much as he did. Your husband held the post of general manager for many years. After he died you joined the firm. You certainly know everything about it.”

  “It’s precisely because I know everything about the Shanghai office of Shell that I know it never did anything wrong,” I said.

  The other man intervened. “I suggest you go home now and think things over. We’ll call you when we want to speak to you again. What’s your telephone number?”

  I gave them my number and left the room.

  Outside, it was already dusk. There was a pleasant breeze. I decided to walk home on the tree-lined sidewalks by a roundabout route to get some exercise and to think things over.

  When I passed the No. 1 Medical College, I saw my friend Winnie emerging from the half-closed gate, followed by a number of her colleagues. We waved to each other, and she joined me to walk home, as she lived in the vicinity of my house.

  “Why are you out walking at this time of the evening?” Winnie asked me.

  “I’ve just attended a struggle meeting. I’ve been told to take part in the Proletarian Cultural Revolution.”

  “Is that because Shell has closed its Shanghai office? Tell me about it.”

  “I will. Can you join me for dinner?” I asked her. It would be good to hear what Winnie had to say about my experience. She had been through quite a number of political movements and was more experienced than I was in dealing with the situation, I thought.

  “All right. I’ll phone home from your house. Henry comes home very late these days. He has to pay a price for being a professor whenever there is a political campaign. Professors always seem to become the targets,” Winnie said. Henry, her husband, taught architecture at Tongji University.

  “Is Henry in trouble?” I inquired anxiously.

  “No, not so far, thank God,” Winnie replied, taking a comb out of her bag to smooth her hair. “Your servants will have a fit if they see me coming to dinner looking so disheveled.”

  Though she was over forty-five and had three sons, Winnie had kept her slim figure and managed to look attractive in the ill-fitting Mao jacket and baggy trousers she was obliged to wear as a teacher of English and Latin at the medical college. After getting a degree in English literature at a New England women’s college, she and her husband, a graduate of Britain’s Cambridge University, returned to China at the end of the Sino-Japanese War. Henry was appointed professor of architecture at Tongji University and soon became dean of the department. But in those days of galloping inflation, the salary of a professor could not keep pace with rising prices. To supplement the family income, Winnie gave Chinese lessons to Europeans living in Shanghai. Disillusioned by the inability of the Kuomintang government to cope with pressing postwar economic problems and institute reform, they welcomed the Communist takeover in 1949 as an opportunity for peace and stability.

  In those days, because of the Kuomintang blackout of all news about the Communist area, very few Chinese living in Shanghai had any real understanding of Marxism, the Chinese Communist Party, or Mao Zedong. Almost no one knew about the persecution of intellectuals carried out in Yanan in 1942 or the periodic witch-hunts for “spies of the Kuomintang and the imperialists” in the Communist Party and army. The only source of information for Chinese intellectuals about the Chinese Communist Party before 1949 had been the glowing accounts written by some Western journalists and writers who made fleeting visits to the Communist-held area of China. Most of these men were liberal idealists. They were impressed by the austerity, discipline, and singleness of purpose of the Communist leaders, but they did not have a deep understanding of either the character of these men or the philosophy that motivated them. When the Communist Party intensified its propaganda effort through its underground in Kuomintang-governed cities prior to the final military push to take over the country, its promises of peaceful national reconstruction, of a united front including all sections of Chinese society, and of a democratic form of government sounded an attractive alternative to the corrupt and ineffectual rule of the Kuomintang. And the Chinese intellectuals accepted the propaganda effort as a sincere and honest declaration of policy by the Chinese Communist Party.

  After the Communist army took over Shanghai, women were encouraged to take jobs. Winnie became a teacher at the medical college in 1950. In the following year, Mao Zedong, anxious to put all universities under Party control, initiated the Thought Reform Movement. Winnie and Henry had their first rude awakening. Although they both survived this campaign more or less unscathed, they suffered the humiliating experience of having to make self-criticism of their family background, their education abroad, and their outlook on life as reflected in Henry’s architectural designs and in their teaching methods. Repeatedly they had to write their life histories critically; each time, the Party representative demanded a more self-searching effort. At the end of their grueling and degrading experience, Henry was judged unfit to continue as dean of the architectural department, which was now to use exclusively Soviet materials for teaching. Both Chinese traditional work and architectural designs from the West were scorned as feudalistic and decadent.

  After the Thought Reform Movement was concluded in 1951, Party secretaries were appointed to every level of university administration. They controlled every aspect of the life and work of the teaching staff, even though the majority of them had little education and had never been teachers. Henry and Winnie lived in premises assigned to them, accepted the salary given to them, did their work in the way the Party secretaries wanted. These two well-educated, lively, and imaginative young people, full of goodwill towards the Communist regime, were reduced by Mao Zedong’s suspicion and abuse of the intellectuals to teaching machines. But they were the fortunate ones. Many others from universities all over China did not fare as well. Some were sent to labor camps, while others were thrown out of the universities altogether.

  When the Korean War ended, Mao Zedong’s witch-hunt for dissidents temporarily relaxed. Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, aware of the plight of the Chinese intellectuals, tried then to improve their condition. As a result of a more lenient policy, Henry and Winnie were given a more spacious apartment near my home. There were also fewer constraints placed on their professional activities. Winnie often dropped in to read the books and magazines I was able to have sent from Hong Kong and England through the office or to listen to my stereo records.

&nb
sp; In 1956 Mao Zedong launched the campaign “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom and Let a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend.” The Party secretaries in every organization, and even Mao himself, urged the people to offer frank and constructive criticism of the Communist Party. Believing the Party sincere in wishing to improve its work, tens of thousands of intellectuals and more than a million Chinese in every walk of life poured out their grievances and suggestions. But Winnie and Henry refrained from speaking out. They escaped persecution when Mao Zedong swung his policy around in 1957 and initiated the Anti-Rightist Campaign. He labeled all those who had offered criticism “Rightists.” Many of them lost their jobs, became nonpersons, and were sent to labor camps; others had their pay reduced and were demoted in rank. The treachery of Mao Zedong in repeatedly inviting frank and constructive criticism and then harshly punishing those who gave it completely cowed the Chinese intellectuals, so that China’s cultural life came to a virtual standstill.

  When Winnie and I reached my house, the front gate swung open before I pressed the bell. Lao-zhao was standing there anxiously waiting for my return. He told me my daughter had telephoned to say that she was not coming home for dinner.

  “Please tell Cook Mrs. Huang is staying for dinner,” I said to Lao-zhao and took Winnie upstairs to my bathroom.

  Lao-zhao laid the table for two with white embroidered linen table mats. A bowl of white carnations was in the center of the dining table.

  “Cook said it’s steamed mandarin fish with a green salad. Is it all right?” Lao-zhao asked me. I was usually served either Chinese- or European-style cooking, depending on what my cook was able to obtain at the market.

  I looked at Winnie inquiringly, and she said, “That’s fine. I love mandarin fish.”