God Is Red

by Liao Yiwu

  Chairman Mao finally died. The Cultural Revolution ended. I had to go make a living. I tried performing on the street and discovered that people liked my music; I made enough to get by. The police harassed me now and then. They would confiscate my musical instruments or detain me for a few days. As soon as they released me, I was back on the street again. I think they just didn’t know what to do about me.

  It’s been thirty some years since I started my street-musician career. I’m a veteran now. I moved to Chengdu several years ago. The media have written many positive stories about me. But the police still watch me closely, detaining me and levying fines on me. I’m used to it.

  Liao: Why do you have a poster of the Beatles on your wall?

  Wen: I love their songs. Someday, I hope to travel abroad and perform on the streets in America. And when I’m there, I want to find out what kind of eye drops that American missionary gave me. It’s been bugging me for years and years.

  Liao: Still, if you hadn’t lost your sight, you would not have been the brilliant street musician you are.

  Epilogue

  What was in the missionary doctor’s eye drops that almost saved Wen Huachun’s sight? I consulted with Liu Shahe, a well-known historian in Chengdu.

  “Fish oil,” he said. “It’s a commonplace supplement by today’s standards. But for mountain people, fish was rarely on the menu, and fish oil, which helps the body absorb nutrients, was unheard of. Who would have thought that the eyes needed feeding, just like the mouth? Well, Western doctors figured this out, extracted fish oil, and made it into eye drops.” According to Liu, eye drops made from fish oil helped lots of blind people in China before the Communist revolution.

  Chapter 17

  The Orphanage

  I was born under Communism in China and was educated by that system—certain things were “true” and should be accepted, never questioned. And in Mao’s China, religion was “evil” and those who believed in religion were at best deluded and in need of reeducation, at worst cultists or imperialist spies whose aim was to undermine the country. I was brought up believing that Christian orphanages and Christian hospitals were among the scariest places on earth.

  In elementary school, my teacher said that foreign missionaries came to China to enslave and murder the Chinese people. The nuns who ran orphanages were monsters, we learned, and though I later came to comprehend the humorous stereotype of the disciplinarian nun among Catholics around the world, in China, they assumed nightmarish characteristics. Children taken in from poor families were raised in pots, and when they reached their teenage years, the nuns would break the pots and let them out. By then, they had become pygmies and would be forced to sit on a table all day and pray to their “God.” The pygmies were never allowed to run around.

  In the course of my research, I came across an old news story issued by the state-run news agency, Xinhua, on June 5, 1964, and written by a journalist named Zhong Yuwen. It usefully illustrates how Christian missionary work was used in cultivating a wider hostility toward the West:

  THE WORLD HAS CHANGED

  Visiting a Children’s Hospital in Nanjing

  June 5, 1964

  On International Children’s Day of June 1, many young elementary school teachers and students came to visit the Nanjing Municipal Children’s Hospital. Upon their request, a doctor shared with the young visitors the hospital’s history.

  In the 1940s, after ruthlessly exploiting and brutally oppressing its people for many years, the Nationalist government and other reactionaries initiated a civil war, plunging the country into chaos and bringing more hardship to its people. Many families had been ruined. Thousands of innocent children became orphaned. At that time, at the instigation of foreign imperialists, a group of foreign nuns, cloaked in religion, arrived in the city. Their ultimate goal was to service the counterrevolutionaries. They put on a so-called benevolent face of charity to win over people. They built a house near Guangzhou Road and started a “Sacred Heart Children’s Home,” adopting abandoned children. They abused the children and turned the Sacred Heart Children’s Home into a hell on earth and a children’s death camp. They ruthlessly reduced children’s food ration, adding a little milk to half a pound of thin rice and pea powder gruel every day. For a one-year-old, they only fed them rice gruel four times a day. For three or four year olds, they fed the same thin rice gruel three times daily. As a consequence, children suffered from malnutrition. They looked thin as dry wood sticks. Osteoporosis was prevalent. Many three-year-olds had problems straightening their backs; some four-year-olds still couldn’t walk. Many three-year-olds only weighed five to six kilograms. The nuns never took good care of the children and most of them had been afflicted with eczema and bed sores. Crying was supposed to be a child’s instinctive behavior but many children didn’t even have the strength to cry. They lay there silently, waiting to die. The mortality rate there was over 70 percent. When children died, those so-called philanthropists would murmur the following line with delight: “We should be happy for their deaths because their souls will land in heaven.”

  In addition to abusing children physically, the nuns also poisoned their minds. Every morning, older children were forced to kneel on the cold cement floor of the church and pray, asking for God to forgive their sins. They constantly invoked God to intimidate children, asking them to beg God for forgiveness. As a consequence, children lived in constant fear and had very low self-esteem. The nuns also gave the children English names, such as Maria, Andrew, Philip, and Matilda, imposing foreign education on them so they would remain ignorant of their own motherland. In this way, the children could easily be enslaved by the imperialists.

  After the Communists came and liberated the city, those children were rescued. Acting on the demands of the great masses, the people’s government punished the foreign imperialists according to law and took over the Sacred Heart Children’s Home, providing medical care to the children. Under the care of the Communist Party, the children grew up healthily, like seedlings in drought being showered with blissful rainfall. In 1953, the government converted the place where Chinese children were abused by foreign imperialists into a children’s hospital. Under the care and encouragement of the Communist Party, doctors and nurses have contributed their share to the cause of protecting the health of Chinese children.

  I shared this story with my historian friend, the seventy-five-year-old Liu Shahe, who lives next to the Benevolence Temple in downtown Chengdu. He said that the Communist government was not the first to concoct lies and stir up hatred against Christian missionaries:

  Liu Shahe: As a child, I used to hear that Catholic nuns were vampires who sucked blood from poor Chinese children and plucked out their eyeballs to use as decorations. People began to spread unfounded rumors way before the Boxer Rebellion, an anti-Christian movement in Northern China from 1898 to 1901. There was a notorious incident in Sichuan province. In 1896, a Christian hospital, which is now the Chengdu No. 2 Municipal People’s Hospital, was mobbed by local residents who claimed doctors had lured gullible children into the hospital with candies, then killed them, soaked their bodies in pickle jars, and ate their flesh. Several hundred angry residents smashed the windows and took over the hospital. All the doctors and nurses fled and some hid inside a church on Shaanxi Road. Residents eventually attacked the church and set it on fire. In the end, it turned out that one resident had passed the hospital lab and saw tissue samples of a dead baby stored in formaldehyde. The story took on a life of its own as it spread among the public.

  Liao Yiwu: Hostility against missionaries continued under Communist rule.

  Liu: The government propaganda machine perpetuated those rumors and spread new lies to stoke hatred against Christians and force people to relinquish their religions. The Xinhua report you showed me was a perfect example.

  In the pre-Communist days, especially around World War II, many Americans, including diplomats, military personnel, and missionaries, came to Chongqing and Che
ngdu. They built airports, hospitals, and many orphanages. In the spring of 1945, Chengdu was hit by a cholera epidemic. Bodies littered the streets. All the coffins were sold out, and hospitals were packed with dying patients. A French Christian hospital on Ping’anqiao Street opened its doors to the public, and patients swarmed in. When all the beds had been taken, patients crowded the hallways and spilled over into the courtyard. French doctors and nurses worked day and night. When they ran out of drugs, they administered oral and IV rehydration solutions. Sometimes, when patients were brought in, it was already too late. The Christian doctors and nurses still wouldn’t give up and tried their best to save lives.

  I used to know an American nun. Since her first name started with M, which sounded like the Chinese word “Mann,” we all called her Sister Mann. She had lived in Chengdu for many years and offered free training and workshops for young women who wanted to be midwives. As you know, in the old days women growing up in wealthy families didn’t want to take midwifery as a career, whereas those from poor families might want to do the job but didn’t have money to attend midwifery school. As a consequence, the infant mortality rate in Sichuan province was high. Of course, the Nationalist government also engaged in similar projects, but I think Sister Mann’s contributions were more prominent. She belonged to an American Christian mission hospital here. This Sister Mann was also a writer and published several books. You probably have heard about writer Han Suyin [Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing], who maintained close relations with the first generation of Chinese Communist leaders. In the late 1930s, Han Suyin worked at the same hospital as Sister Mann. The two became good friends. Han practiced her writing on Sister Mann’s typewriter. After the Communist takeover in 1949, Han Suyin went to practice medicine in Southeast Asia, but Sister Mann stayed in Chengdu and continued running her workshop. She saw Chengdu as her permanent home. In the early 1950s, the government required all schools to hang portraits of Chairman Mao in classrooms. As a Christian, Sister Mann rejected the government demands. The local leaders came to talk with her, to persuade her to comply. She wouldn’t budge. One day, while Sister Mann was away, the leaders pasted a poster of Mao on the wall above the blackboard. When she came back, she noticed the poster and was outraged. She found a ladder, climbed up, and ripped the poster off. That greatly offended the authorities. Local leaders openly accused her of being an imperialist spy and kicked her out of the country.

  Sister Mann returned to the United States, and Han Suyin went to visit her in the 1960s. Han found out that Sister Mann had no interest in politics. She never badmouthed the Communist Party. She didn’t rip down Mao’s poster for political reasons; she simply believed the secular government should not place its authority above that of God.

  Liao: Was this attitude prevalent?

  Liu: Sister Mann’s story is not unique. When the Communist government rose to power, they rewrote history and portrayed Western Christian missionaries as monsters and saboteurs. Many missionaries who had worked and lived in China for decades were forced out of the country. All their charity work was used as evidence against Western countries, which the government claimed attempted to colonize and enslave the Chinese people. Christianity is thriving again in China. It is the job of historians and writers to uncover the historical truth and explain it to the public.

  Chapter 18

  The New Convert

  Shangshuyuan used to be home to a Catholic seminary, the Seminarium Annuntiationis, construction of which was begun by Bishop Marie-Hulien Dunand, a French missionary of the Chengdu diocese, in 1895. It took thirteen years to complete, a vast building in the gothic style covering eighteen thousand square meters that turned out a generation of priests to serve southwest China. A century later, it was a crumbling edifice. The excesses of the Cultural Revolution helped hasten what wind and rain were already doing. When I first visited in early 2000, it stood naked and lonely and skeletal.

  In May 2008, as two newlyweds, the groom in a black suit and the bride in a Western-style white wedding gown, posed for portraits in front of the site, the earth began to shake and the remaining structures of the chapel collapsed around them. Within seconds, what had been left of the Seminarium Annuntiationis was gone. Pictures spread quickly on the Internet. The 2008 Sichuan earthquake claimed the lives of nearly seventy thousand people. It was a powerful quake, more powerful than even the Red Guard.

  On the afternoon of January 13, 2010, while having tea with my sister in Bailu Township at Shangshuyuan, I overheard a group of fashionably dressed young men talking about the Sichuan earthquake and was drawn into their conversation. It emerged that one of their number, Ho Lu, who was twenty-four, had recently become a Christian, and when he admitted that the quake “still creeps me out” and suggested we change the subject, I asked if he would talk about what led him to Christianity.

  Ho Lu: I started going to church with my mother when I was a child. Then, when I was in high school, I was quite a rebel. I hated everything my parents did to me, and I gave up on the church. But over the past two years, I think I have been getting more mature and decided to go back to church. I was baptized six months ago.

  Liao Yiwu: So, you came full circle.

  Ho: I guess. I figure we probably have to run many circles in life, but the more circles we run in, the more confused we become. Look at those old ladies in the park. Every morning and evening, they hang out, do weird dances, practice tai chi and do aerobics, and sing their hearts out to some Chinese operatic tunes. They swing their butts and do all sorts of weird stuff. I sometimes wonder why they bother. Do they want to get rid of the fat around their fleshy tummies? Do they hope to live forever?

  Liao: Hey, hey, be nice. They could be your parents, or grandparents.

  Ho: Whatever. My dad is a Buddhist, and my mom believes in Jesus. My grandpa teaches ancient Chinese literature at the University of Sichuan. Each time I visit, he’s swaying his head and reciting some ancient prose or poems; he loves Taoist philosophy and constantly blabbers to me lines from Zhuangzi, the Taoist master. “In the northern darkness there is a fish and his name is Kun. The Kun is so huge I don’t know how many thousand li he measures. He changes and becomes a bird whose name is Peng. The back of the Peng measures I don’t know how many thousand li across . . . blah, blah, blah.”

  Anyhow, three religions are practiced in our home. Everyone does his or her own stuff. Why can’t they form a uniform family religion so we don’t have to fight all the time? It’s kind of strange. As a kid, I would go with my dad to Buddhist temples and mimic the gestures and facial expressions of the Buddhist statues. I would sit cross-legged in lotus positions, with my eyes closed. I made adults laugh so hard. When I was with my mom, I would attend services at an old church. People sang hymns. It was kind of grand and cool.

  I prefer Christianity. Buddhism is too regional, secular, and not cool. Those old men and women, those wealthy businessmen or government officials, go to the temples, burning incense and praying for trivial stuff, such as more money, more promotions, and more luck. Taoism is way too highbrow, not attainable. I think Christianity is the only one that’s all encompassing. Jesus was crucified, and his blood redeemed us of our sins. Imagine how painful it was for him, but he did it for the salvation of humanity.

  My parents filed for divorce a few years ago. I remember they used to argue about religion all the time. My mom wanted my dad to give up Buddhism and turn to Christianity. My dad totally ignored her. My mom would ask my dad to give some serious thought to Christianity. My dad would shoot back by saying, “I don’t need to think further. Buddhism is suitable for Chinese like me.” My mom wouldn’t cave in. She would go, “Buddhism came here from India. Look at what Buddhism has done to the two big poor and backward countries.” My dad would go: “Okay, please go ahead and use your Christian faith to make China a wealthy and advanced country. I’m happy where I am, backward and poor.” My mom would end up shaking her head and saying: “It’s so degrading to live with a pagan under the same
roof.”

  Liao: When did your mom become a Christian?

  Ho: When she was pregnant with me.

  Liao: In 1985? That was a few years after the government relaxed its control over religion.

  Ho: My mom found God quite by chance. An old friend introduced her to a Protestant church nearby. She went there a couple of times for Sunday services. She felt inspired. A seventy-year-old minister baptized her. Many people were there to watch. My mother was a high school teacher. She teaches Chinese. In those days, it was a big deal for a high school teacher to be converted. Many people didn’t approve.

  Liao: Sounds like your mother belongs to a Three-Self church.

  Ho: Yes. I saw a sign posted on the entrance. It states the church is part of the Chinese Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Mom’s church is quite old, with over one hundred years of history. The minister started serving in the church way before the Communists came. He just passed away. You should see the inside, very cool, old with traditional decor.