My Name is Number 4

by Ting-Xing Ye

  But he ignored me. “You are going to be a student at Bei Da”—the short form for Beijing University—“one of the best in China. And I probably will stay here for the rest of my life, being a peasant.” He emphasized the last word, although strictly speaking he was not a peasant; he did not work in the fields.

  “Just drop it,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it any more. We can discuss it when the time comes.”

  “No,” he insisted again. “It will be too late then. I want you to promise now, tonight. Will you abandon me or not?”

  “You’ve got your answer.” I got up and went inside the dorm.

  I didn’t sleep that night. With no preparation, suddenly Xiao Zhao had forced me to make a serious commitment. I had often heard the heartbroken sobbing of those who had been abandoned by their “city hu-kou” boyfriends and had joined in condemning their unfaithfulness. It became clear to me that I would have no option if I was accepted at Bei Da, at least if Xiao Zhao was still on the farm. Duty would now prohibit me from breaking off with him.

  It was ten long days later that the news came. I was in my dorm after the day’s work, fetching my food tin, when Sun knocked on the door and stepped inside.

  “Xiao Ye. I just got a phone call.”

  My tin dropped from my hands, my throat went dry and my temples pounded. “What did they say?”

  A smile broke across Sun’s narrow face. “You’ve been accepted. Go to the sub-farm tomorrow and fill out the enrollment forms.”

  My hands began to shake. Soon my whole body was trembling and I had to sit down. I laid my head on the table and covered it with my arms. I was going to be a university student. Suddenly, unbelievably, a bright ray of sunshine lit up my future. I wished my parents could know, and, thinking of them, I began to weep quietly. Now Great-Aunt could be proud of me. Now the burden of guilt at my replacing her on the farm would lift itself from Number 3’s shoulders. Now I could help my little sister.

  “Congratulations, Xiao Ye,” Sun said, pulling the door closed as he left.

  The word spread quickly and I was showered with good wishes. I was the first ever in our brigade to go to university since we had arrived here six years before. The next morning, after a night without rest, I went to the sub-farm office. My hand shook as I filled out the enrollment paper with my name on it.

  I learned that my acceptance notice had been sitting in a desk drawer since my exams took place, but no one had bothered to tell me.

  It was difficult to grasp the fact that my days as a peasant labourer in the unyielding paddies were over. Except for Xiao Zhao and a few supportive friends, I had no one to say goodbye to. Certainly I would not miss the stark, unfriendly landscape or the northwest wind. I remembered poor Jia-ying. Soon after her transfer to the vegetable-growing team, her brother had come to visit her and the two of them spent the afternoon together in the dorm with no others around, causing some women to gossip behind her back and men to laugh at her in front of her face, accusing her of incest. The shame and humiliation drove her to mental instability and she was sent back to Shanghai. I remembered my four “counterrevolutionary” friends and the ordeal that shattered our unity; the days of unearned ostracism and disgrace; the struggle meetings; and always, the thousands of hours of backbreaking labour.

  I had entered my twenty-third year. Up till now my existence had been controlled by fate, political storm, and loss. Maybe now I could lay my hand on the rudder of my own life and steer out of the bitter sea.

  (Left) my ID photo for the prison farm where I laboured for six years (1968–74) and was persecuted as a “counterrevolutionary.”

  (Right) My Beijing University ID photo, autumn 1974.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Ah Si of the Ye family is going to Bei Da to learn to speak a foreign language.” The news was running up and down Purple Sunshine Lane. Old neighbours came to the apartment to congratulate me and new ones marvelled at what a lucky creature I was. One old woman in the next building, whom everyone called “old chamber-pot cleaning lady,” claimed that she had always known from the shape of my forehead that I had a bright future.

  The only one not thrilled by the news was Great-Aunt. Having always believed that reading and writing were the business of men, she was unimpressed with the prospect of my being a university student. She was getting older and weaker, and all she wanted was for the daughter she had never had to be home again with her after six years.

  Before I left, I went to the hospital to see Number 2. He had broken his leg in an accident at work and had suffered through three operations. Smiling weakly, he handed me a used copy of the Oxford English-Chinese Dictionary.

  “I fished it out of a garbage pail years ago when the Red Guards were on a book-burning spree.”

  How typical of my brother, who loved learning, to put himself in danger over a dictionary.

  Number 3 saw me off at the station. I hugged her for the first time in our lives.

  “I am no longer on the farm, Ah Sei,” I told her. “That means you are free now, too.”

  Weeping freely, Number 3 embraced me again.

  When the train stopped at Wuxi station to discharge and take on passengers, I thought sadly about my parents. I hadn’t been able to visit their grave on my way to Beijing; Auntie Yi-feng had written to me that since the Red Guards had toppled and broken the headstone, the peasants had carted away the pieces and used them for construction, then planted crops on the land, obscuring the grave site.

  I wondered if my parents would be proud of me now, and vowed that some day I would return to the land offish and rice to find their grave and raise a stone again in their memory.

  AFTERWORD

  After three and a half years at Beijing University studying English Language and Literature—and after still more political turmoil—I graduated and was recruited by the national government to work as an interpreter in Shanghai. I interpreted for official delegations from Africa, Europe, Thailand, Australia, Great Britain, the United States, and Canada, meeting, among others, kings, prime ministers, presidents, the First Lady of the United States, and Queen Elizabeth.

  When I was thirty-five, I came to York University in Canada as a Visiting Scholar and decided to stay. I left the university and worked as a baby-sitter, office assistant and bank clerk. I published my first book in 1997.

  As soon as I gained my Canadian citizenship and could travel back to China without fear of reprisal for my defection, I went to Qingyang and raised a new monument on my parents’ grave.

  I am now a full-time writer and return to Shanghai often to visit my family.

  GLOSSARY

  bourgeois: a critical term for not following Party policy and for being counterrevolutionary.

  capitalist class: one of the social groups identified by the Communists, referring to those who used to be business owners before the Communists gained power in 1949. The term also applied to the family members of the business owners.

  capitalist roaders: Party officials who fell out of Mao Ze-dong’s favour and were accused of betraying Party policies and taking the path of capitalism.

  class struggle: fights between various social groups identified by the government, mainly between the working class and the capitalist class.

  da-zi-bao, xiao-zi-bao: posters, forms of political expression used by people to voice their support of Party policies or to attack political rivals.

  Deng Xiao-ping: moved in and out of power at Mao’s whim. He regained importance at the end of the Cultural Revolution, and became top man after 1977.

  the Five Blacks: a category of politically “un-pure” people including former landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, rightists, and former capitalists.

  the Five Reds: a category of politically “pure” people including factory workers, poor and lower-middle-class peasants, soldiers and officers of the People’s Liberation Army, Party officials, and those who died for the revolution.

  the Four Olds: old culture
, old customs, old habits and old ways of thinking, attacked during the Cultural Revolution because they would drag China back into the pre-revolutionary past.

  Gang of Four: (Si Ren Bang) Jiang Qing, Wang Hong-wen, Zhang Chun-qiao, and Yao Wen-yuan. Before the Cultural Revolution, they were low-ranking officials. They used the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to gain power.

  Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR): a political movement launched by Mao Ze-dong in 1966 to renew the spirit of the Communist Revolution that established the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Mao feared that China was slipping back into the old ways. The ten-year movement was primarily used to keep Mao and his supporters in power.

  hu-kou: a booklet normally held by the head of a family which listed the name, birthday, gender, and political background of everyone who lived in the household, along with their relationships to one another. The hu-kou was also a person’s official registration document for residence, either rural or urban. It was extremely difficult, almost impossible, to have a rural hu-kou changed to an urban one.

  Jiang Qing: Mao Ze-dong’s fourth wife and member of the Gang of Four.

  9th Communist Party Congress (April, 1969) in Beijing: this was a big event. A congress was supposed to be held every year, but the 9th was the first since 1956. Here Mao Ze-dong and his supporters consolidated their power and firmly established the Cultural Revolution. Lin-Biao was named Mao Ze-dong’s successor.

  Lin Biao: a military leader who fought for China’s revolution for 22 years. He held several positions of power in the government and communist party, and supported the Cultural Revolution. In 1971 he was accused of plotting to overthrow Mao Ze-dong. He died with his family in a plane crash while trying to escape from China.

  Little Red Treasure Book: actually titled Quotations from Chairman Mao—excerpts from Mao Ze-dong’s writings.

  Liu Shao-qi: President of the People’s Republic of China 1959–1966. During the Cultural Revolution he was branded Number One Capitalist Roader and thrown into prison where he died in 1969 after three years of physical abuse and mental torture.

  PLA: the People’s Liberation Army in reality included all military services—army, air force, navy.

  purge: a political term describing the removal of one’s opponents from their positions, usually by execution or imprisonment.

  COPYRIGHT © 1997 TING-XING YE

  ABRIDGED EDITION COPYRIGHT © 2007 TING-XING YE

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  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Ye, Ting-xing, 1952–

  My name is number 4 : a true story / Ting-xing Ye.—Abridged ed.

  Abridged edition of: A leaf in the bitter wind.

  eISBN: 978-0-385-67386-0

  1. Ye, Ting-xing, 1952–. 2. China—Social conditions—1976–2000. 3. China—Social conditions—1949–1976. 4. Women—China—Biography. I. Ye, Ting-xing, 1952– Leaf in the bitter wind. II. Title.

  Maps: William Bell

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