God Is Red

by Liao Yiwu

  Father Zhang quoted a line from the Bible. “Those who honor me I will honor.”

  The news of the papal meeting spread quickly and Father Zhang once again became famous in the Catholic communities in China. He had reached an advanced age but his mind remained sharp. After he returned, he went back home, vowing to continue on a path considered as heresy in China. He built a church in his village with money the Italian government had awarded him for his heroic actions during World War II, and built roads for the village. Father Zhang’s activities triggered a series of controversies in the region. The local Party featured articles accusing him of spreading superstition. Deng Xiaoping ordered the local government to be tolerant. He didn’t want to derail the country’s overall reform movement.

  Liao: In the early to mid–1980s, China experienced a revival of religion.

  Liu: Yes, Catholicism, previously considered “the spiritual opium of foreign imperialists,” was allowed to expand. Catholic preachers could practice in the open. In 1980 about three hundred Catholic leaders in China met in Shanghai, the first such meeting after the Cultural Revolution. The Vatican requested through diplomatic channels that a papal envoy be allowed to attend. The Chinese government rejected the request. Because the Catholic Church was under the jurisdiction of the Religious Affairs Bureau, the premise for any type of religious freedom was patriotism. Father Zhang was outraged and asked government officials to reconsider the Vatican’s request. “The pope in the Vatican is the physical and spiritual leader of Catholics in the world, including Catholics in every diocese in China. He embodies the supreme power of Jesus Christ, and no secular government is in the position to change it with any secular excuses.”

  Because of his stand, Father Zhang became the target of condemnation by the church leaders. Several priests and bishops rebuked him, accusing him of being a traitor to his own country and leading the Chinese Catholics on a dangerous path. It was like a Mao-era public denunciation.

  Father Zhang quoted Paul’s letter to Timothy from the Bible: “[Jesus] appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed by the world, was taken up in glory.” He then asked, “Do you think officials at the Religious Affairs Bureau understand the meaning of these words? They, including many of you, probably haven’t read the Bible. Do you know that revising the Lord’s words is considered a cardinal and unforgivable sin?”

  Considering Father Zhang’s prominent international status, the chair didn’t kick him out of the meeting. Instead, he put Father Zhang’s request to a vote, to show the “democratic” nature of the leading body. When the meeting was asked for a show of hands on whether the pope is the only spiritual leader of Catholics in China, there was total silence—with one lone hand raised, that of Father Zhang. He kept his arm raised throughout the four-hour meeting as the other 351 clerics ignored him.

  Liao: What happened later?

  Liu: Father Zhang walked out of the church, still with his hand raised. It was already dark and the streets were crowded. He looked up to the sky, shouted “Lord!” and then collapsed on the stairs. He was taken to a hospital.

  After the government crackdown at Tiananmen Square in June 1989, Father Zhang openly condemned the use of force. At Mass, he prayed for the dead and wounded. On November 21, a group of bishops and priests who refused to join government churches gathered in Zhangerce Village. They formed the Chinese Mainland Catholic Bishops Conference. Bishop Fan Xueyan of the Baoding diocese was elected chair. The organization was meant to counter the influence of the progovernment Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China. Barely two weeks later, Father Zhang was detained by local police for interrogation. They held him until June 12, 1990. Father Zhang continued his fight for the church’s independence from the state until his death in 1997. He was ninety.

  Liao: What did he inspire in you as a Catholic? Are you willing to follow in his footsteps and preach, despite the dangers ahead for you?

  Liu: I try. I traveled to the rural areas, visited coal mines—one time, I preached the gospel underground, in total darkness—and prayed in cemeteries for children who had died of mistreatment. I have been chased by police many times, and I’ve been in and out of prison several times. The longest jail sentence was eight months. I was forbidden to pray, and each time I did so, they would beat me. They designed all sorts of ways to torture me. My will has weakened. I’m scared to death. I don’t want to die in China. I want to leave.

  Liao: Any luck so far?

  Liu: I lock my door and stay home to pray. I do the Novena Rose three times a day. I hope I can overcome my fear and reach a country favored by God.

  Chapter 16

  The Blind Musician

  Wen Huachun is a blind street musician in Chengdu. He lives on the second floor of a run-down building in a sparsely furnished apartment; there’s a table, four benches, an old television, and an array of musical instruments Wen says he had made himself. Wen is an accomplished player of the two-stringed erhu. On the wall next to the window is a large poster of the Beatles.

  A poet friend, Jiang Ji, had heard about my project and, on March 25, 2006, took me to meet Wen. I’d seen him perform, singing and playing the erhu while pedaling a homemade organ, in the Baiguolin district where I live, and I even had tossed him two yuan one day when he sang “Stepping into a New Era.” There’s a line I particularly like: “The new leadership carry forward the cause of our pioneers and lead us into a new era . . .”

  We were met at the entrance to the building by Wen’s wife, twenty years younger than he. She comes from a rural village. Her pretty face exuded warmth and determination. She said she was attracted to his talent and strong personality and knew she would spend the rest of her life with him. After their marriage, she bought a flatbed tricycle with which she pedals her husband and his musical equipment around the city. “I’m his wife, chauffeur, nanny, bodyguard, and eyes,” she joked. Wen must have heard our talking in the hallway and opened the door. I recognized that smiley face right away.

  I told him about hearing him perform “Stepping into a New Era” and mentioned it seemed to be popular among blind street musicians: I’d heard it performed in Urumqi in the far northwest and in Beijing, but I liked his version best because he used blaring amplifiers. Wen said with mock aggression, “Are you making fun of us?” I laughed, “Would I dare?”

  Wen Huachun: You know, times have changed and society is moving forward. We have to watch our backs and be optimistic about the future. Coping with the Communist Party is like handling a big tiger. You can pat and brush it, but you must be gentle. If you brush in the wrong direction, you’ll be in big trouble. I think this applies to both the blind and normal people. We have to “step into a new era.”

  Liao Yiwu: Tell me about your life. How did you lose your sight?

  Wen: I was born on December 8, 1944, in Huangjiaoye, on the south side of Chongqing city. As an infant, according to my mom, I had perfect eyesight. Everyone liked me because I never cried. I remember my mother taking me to wedding banquets and people around the table treating me like a dish, passing me around and smacking their lips to tease me. The hosts would always fill my pockets with candies. I also remember chasing and catching chickens in the yard. Even now, I can still see in my mind the old streets and the stores near my house. My grandma used to carry me on her back. She bought me tofu soup from street vendors. Then, in September 1947, before I turned three, my nanny realized I had what the locals called “rooster eyes.”

  Liao: What’s that?

  Wen: I could see fine in daylight, but at night, nothing. I was like a rooster. It was like my eyes were covered with a heavy curtain that couldn’t be lifted. I don’t know if you notice, when a rooster looks at something on the ground, it tilts its head. When I was going blind, I would do the same, tilting my head and trying to see. Sometimes, my neck would crane forward. Eventually, I couldn’t see anything at all and would cry and rub my eyes.

 
; Liao: Was it some kind of infection?

  Wen: I don’t know. My parents were busy with their business in the city. I was raised in the countryside by a nanny. In those days, children were not treated like they are today. My nanny had several children of her own. She had to farm in the field during the day and do house chores at night. She breast-fed me during breaks. So I spent most of my days crawling around on the floor, my face covered with dirt and mud.

  But you know how people in Chongqing love spicy food! I started eating spicy food at a very young age, before I could even walk steadily. I would carry a big bowl of rice topped with a thick layer of red peppers. They were so hot that sweat and snot and tears streamed down my face. It was so good. People who didn’t know me would have thought that I was being punished for some misdeed. On summer days, I would sit around a hot pot and dip raw meat in hot spicy broth. My clothes were soaked with sweat. I would strip down to my underwear. When my parents moved me back to the city, they had to take a whole jar of peppers away from me because I broke out in a rash all over, on the corners of my mouth, inside my armpits, and on my back. There were two big red sores on each side of my temple, as big as peanuts. I kept scratching them, and they became infected. They had to take me to see a doctor. Seeing how painful it was, they forbade me from eating spicy food. I refused to eat and would smash my bowl in protest. So maybe it was too much hot food that caused my blindness.

  My nanny came to see me one day, and when I heard her talking in the courtyard, I rushed out of the house, but I was groping my way and tripped and hurt my head. She clutched me to her bosom, examined my eyes in the sun, and said, “It’s terrible. The child has rooster eyes.” The nanny also told my grandma that she had taken me to a fortune-teller once and the master had said disability would be part of my fate.

  So I was probably destined to be blind. But, according to my nanny, the master also saw another possible future as he did his calculations based on the hour, date, and year of my birth. “This child could be a powerful figure, a government official, at least at the county level. But you have to keep him in the countryside until he is three years old. Otherwise, his fate could change. He could end up with a disability either on the face or on his feet.” Unfortunately, my parents brought me back to the city three months before my third birthday.

  Liao: Do you believe such things?

  Wen: I do. My grandma took me to another fortune-teller when I turned four. That person said similar things about my future.

  Liao: What did the doctors say about your sight?

  Wen: I used to have a sister, a year older. She died of smallpox in 1946. Since I was then their only child, my parents really doted on me. They took me to hospitals and spent lots of money on eye specialists. My mother had to pawn almost everything to cover the medical expenses. All the doctors gave the same diagnosis—the nerves in my eyes were damaged. I had tried all sorts of meds—herbs, pills, ointments, injections. I probably saw more than twenty doctors in the space of a year. My parents became discouraged. The family was broke and I was still blind. At that desperate moment, someone recommended we see a foreign doctor, a missionary.

  The friend said the foreigner was a priest and worked for a church hospital on the top of Wang Mountain. He claimed to be doing God’s work. My father was a little skeptical. Would the foreigner treat a nonbeliever? That friend, who was a follower of that foreign religion, reassured my father that God treated every sufferer equally. So we went. The friend took us to the hospital.

  Liao: It must have been a Catholic hospital.

  Wen: I have no idea. In my neighborhood, people call Christianity “yang-jiao” or “the foreign religion.” It was quite popular. The Nationalist government had temporarily moved its capital from Nanjing to Chongqing during the Japanese invasion. Many Americans ended up living in my city. Plus, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his wife were both Christians. Before and after World War II, many Western missionaries came to Chongqing. They built several churches, hospitals, and charity centers. Our indigenous Buddhist and Taoist religions only require people to burn incense and worship.

  Liao: Where was Wang Mountain?

  Wen: It wasn’t far from my home in Huangjiaoya, next to Huangshan in Chongqing, where Chiang Kai-shek used to stay. My parents left in the morning and didn’t come back until late in the afternoon. They brought back a bottle of eye drops. I was playing by the entrance. They told me excitedly: “Baby, sit still. We’re going to wash your eyes.” I sat still. I was tired of being in the dark. For people born with blindness, the darkness is all they know, but I used to be able to see and it was hard for me then.

  Before they used the eye drops, I was washed with a wet cloth—Grandma used up two basins of water—and the area around my eyes was cleaned and sterilized with alcohol-soaked cotton balls my parents brought back from the hospital. The missionary doctor must have told them to do all that. After about a week, I could tell the difference between light and dark, and after a few months I could tell when the sun was setting. It was like light splashing all over me. And I could make out people as shadows and could point at trees. Everyone was crying with excitement, and neighbors rushed over to find out the cause of the commotion. Someone said, “This child is truly blessed. God has performed a miracle.”

  My parents felt very encouraged by the improvement and, as the daily treatment continued, the fog began to dissipate. My grandma prepared a gift so my parents could give it to the doctor.

  Liao: What was in the eye drops?

  Wen: I have no idea.

  Liao: Didn’t your parents tell you the name of the medicine?

  Wen: I don’t think my parents knew either.

  Liao: How much did your parents pay?

  Wen: Not a penny. The doctor said he was doing God’s work.

  My eyesight was improving bit by bit as I turned five. Communist troops were approaching the city. We could hear gunfire and booming cannons day and night. There were Nationalist troops in the city. It took the Communists a long time to crush their defenses. Stray bullets would fly over our roof like locusts, smashing many tiles. No one moved around outside.

  When the bottle of eye drops was empty, and despite the chaos and dangers, my parents insisted on going to get more. They left early in the morning and were back before dusk, exhausted, distraught. With the Nationalist government about to be defeated, all the foreigners in Chongqing, even the missionaries, had evacuated. By the time my parents got to the hospital, it was deserted. Shooting continued for another three days and then, quite abruptly, stopped. My grandma said the Communist troops had taken the city. There were fireworks. People were dancing and singing. Chongqing was “liberated.”

  It was all fate. The founding of the new Communist China robbed me of my sight, but I knew never to say so in public. For the next few years, I could still see light and could see people from their shadows, but gradually I was back in darkness. My parents kept trying to find the cure the foreign doctor had held out to them. Each time they took me to a new Chinese doctor, all he or she would say was that it was too late. My eyeballs were shrinking. If you look at me now, my eye sockets appear to be empty.

  In the end, they gave up and heeded the master’s other warning, that I should learn a skill so I could support myself. I was quite smart back then and quite likeable. It turned out I was good with music, and I liked it, so it was decided I should become a blind musician.

  The street in front of my house was called Artist Street. Many street musicians and performers—dancers, acrobats, violinists, erhu players, and flautists—liked to gather there. I followed the musicians around and picked up some skills. A next-door neighbor, whom I called Uncle Yuan, taught me how to play the flute. Not long after that, I took erhu lessons from Mr. Li, a blind person who lived down the street. Soon I could perform myself. I was far from being a first-class erhu player or flautist, but I could play some tunes fairly well.

  We had to do lots of revolutionary tunes to drum up support for the variou
s national and local political campaigns, such as the war against the Americans in Korea, the Three-Anti movement, campaigns to prevent fire and theft and expose imperialist spies, the Sino-Soviet alliance, the Anti-Rightist campaign, and the Great Leap Forward. We had to do lots of songs, but I learned them very fast. I only needed to rehearse a couple of times and I had them memorized.

  There used to be a song to warn people against imperialist spies: “When it is dark, you need to lock the door. If a stranger knocks, you need to ask, you need to think before you talk. You need to open your eyes and perk up your ears because he might be collecting intelligence.” Other songs encouraged people to rally against the counterrevolutionaries and Rightists.

  The street committee assigned me to be an erhu player in a small orchestra. I had memorized a thousand tunes and earned several awards. During the famine, people were starving, but the government still sent us out to perform. I was quite young. I didn’t get a salary but earned a lot of coupons, which could be exchanged for food, but that only worked when there was food to be had. My family starved several times.

  Liao: What did you perform in the years of the famine?

  Wen: The same old upbeat revolutionary songs, praising the great leadership of the Party and singing about the wonderful life we had. Since I worked really hard, I continued to win awards. At public meetings for disabled people, the street-committee chair would call me to the podium and hand me a red certificate. After the meeting, I could exchange the certificate for a bowl of sweet potatoes. Our performance troupe was disbanded during the Cultural Revolution because so many revolutionary singing and dance troupes were formed. They no longer needed disabled people to perform. So I became unemployed.

  Liao: Were you affected in other ways by the Cultural Revolution?

  Wen: No, at least not at the beginning. I just stayed home, without anything to do. At the tail end of the Cultural Revolution, since everyone was fed up with the limited entertainment choices, some young people started to hang out with me. I taught them to play the erhu, and it got so my house was packed all the time. I would teach them old songs from the 1950s, even some love songs from pre-Communist days. I accompanied their singing with my erhu or flute. Occasionally, I would dig out some old LPs from the attic and play them on an old gramophone. We would also listen to shortwave radio and hear music programs from overseas; we had to be very careful because anyone caught listening to shortwave radio was sent to prison. But young people like taking risks, so we had a lot of fun. Soon, however, the street committee got wind of it and reported me to the police, accusing me of running an “underground club.” Police came one night and searched my place. They took me away for interrogation. They found nothing and I was released. Over the next few years, they would search my place in the middle of the night. I was in and out of the detention center. But since I was a blind person, they found it hard to imprison me.