by Ping Fu
I wanted to reach out and touch her hand. But after years of struggle sessions and reeducation, I knew better. I shook my head and glanced back down at my wound, picking bits of dirt out of it with my fingernail. “We can’t be friends,” I explained. “I’m the child of black elements, and you are the reddest of the red. I would taint you with my black blood.”
The girl grinned proudly and stated without a hint of fear, “Oh, my family is five generations of red. I’m not worried. My name is Li. What’s yours?”
And that was that: I had my first best friend.
—
Until that day, I had been a loner at NUAA. I had formed casual ties with a few other black elements, but we lived in terror of being punished if we spent too much time together; the Red Guards had told us that we might be accused of conspiring against the Communist cause. Li was not only of red blood, but also very idealistic, often talking about how she wanted to be “Mao’s loyal soldier.” She was right: there was no danger in my friendship with her.
Soon Li and I were joined at the hip, like Siamese twins who couldn’t be more different. Her worker family was so poor that she, like me, had only rice and a few pickled vegetables for lunch, and her clothes were clearly hand-me-downs. But Li had grown up doing physical labor, so she was physically fit and stronger than I was. I was short and skinny, and more emotionally fragile. Li talked all the time, making friends with other kids every day, it seemed to me, telling jokes and laughing robustly. I was quiet and reserved, afraid of talking to strangers. Yet Li accepted me as I was. What’s more, her red blood loaned me status that I never could have attained on my own. For the first time since I’d left my Shanghai home, I could relax into the comfort of another person standing strong beside me.
Even though we were the same age, Li treated me like her little sister. She loved to wrap her arms around me, sheltering me from criticism and showering me with praise. Once, when a group of kids including a few Red Guards began their familiar chant of “broken shoe, broken shoe” as I walked by, Li stepped in.
“Stop that,” she commanded. “You mustn’t say such things about Ping. They aren’t true.” I couldn’t believe it: Li had the power to say no. I marveled at her authority, the way many Chinese people stood in awe of Chairman Mao—she was my hero.
On free days, we would take long bicycle rides across the old city of Nanjing, visiting the green areas and sometimes wandering as far as Sun Yat-sen Park. We talked about friendship and the meaning of life, boys and fights with family members. Finally I had someone with whom I could share my private thoughts, and I rejoiced daily in this gift. However, given Li’s enthusiasm for the Communist cause, I was careful never to utter a word of critique against our government or complain about what had happened to my family in front of her.
One roasting Nanjing summer day, I passed out from heatstroke during a marathon race the Red Guards were forcing us to run. Li helped carry me home to her apartment. I woke up to her mother leaning over me to wipe the sweat from my brow. Her face mirrored the strength and compassion I found so attractive in Li. She pressed a cool stone into the palm of my hand.
“My daughter has told me how brave you are,” Li Mama said.
I gazed at the stone she had given me. It was captivating, with streaks in all the colors of the rainbow and a translucent milky white base. “It’s called a rainflower stone,” Li Mama told me, her melodic voice making me sleepy, as though she were singing me a lullaby. “It is agate made strong and polished smooth by millions of years of tumbling along the riverbed with other stones. You can find rainflower stones all around Nanjing. The red in the stones symbolizes the blood that has been shed by the people’s heroes in times of war.”
I sunk into the deepest sleep I could remember since I had left Shanghai. Li Mama’s story comforted me. When I left the Lis’ home a few hours later, I slipped the stone into my pocket.
That stone became my most precious belonging, inspiring my lifelong passion for collecting rocks and stones whenever I travel. Li Mama’s gift was one of the few items I carried with me when I left China for America over a decade later. I would touch the stone to calm my nerves when I felt anxious or lonely. It served as a reminder, then and now, of beauty in a world where so much around us is rough and crude.
—
My life took another turn for the better shortly after my twelfth birthday. By then, I knew how to forage, grow, and cook my own vegetables, raise chickens, spin silk thread, build radios, march in military formation, remove leeches, operate milling machines, harvest rice, navigate huge cities without a map, and survive in the wilderness. But what little formal academic education we received included almost no science, literature, or art.
In Shanghai as a young girl, I had loved the library more than any other room in our house. During the Cultural Revolution, Chinese citizens were forbidden from reading anything other than Mao or selected propaganda. The Communist education was designed to encourage group thinking and blind loyalty. Anyone with an independent mind who suggested an original or, even worse, contrary opinion was bound to get in trouble. Fortunately, Mao wrote many books and was, in my opinion, a good writer. Still, I was eager to read other authors.
Then, in the summer of 1970, an amiable middle-aged man with a glass eye, short black hair, and a tattered satchel appeared at the door of Room 202. Initially I was wary of this stranger with his one eye always pointing straight ahead.
“I am your uncle, and my name is Wan. Everyone calls me W,” he said, introducing himself and reaching out to shake my hand with a twinkling smile that reminded me of Shanghai Papa’s. I kept my hand on the door, blocking the man from entering the room. I had never heard about him from my parents in Shanghai or in Nanjing.
The man reached into his satchel, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to me. “Here is a letter from your aunt in Shanghai to me. Why don’t you read it?” I opened the envelope, instantly recognizing Shanghai Mama’s handwriting on the outside. As I read the letter, I started to relax a little. Addressing him as W, Mama told him how her family had been separated and sent to the four corners of China to “honor Chairman Mao,” and asked after his health and well-being.
Uncle W explained that we were distantly related. He had come to visit Nanjing Mother while on his annual leave from Tianjin, the city where he had been sent into exile. He showed me a picture of himself in a park with my uncle and aunt from Tianjin, whom I had met before. They were seated together on a bench under a huge magnolia tree, wearing serious expressions and Mao jackets. I relaxed, deciding that I could trust this stranger.
Uncle W had an easy way about him, and I appreciated how he talked to me like an adult. I told him that my mother was not home, but invited him inside. I gestured toward the only chair, which had just three legs. He leaned it against the wall for stability while I looked around for some refreshments to offer him, as any good Chinese host would.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, gazing forlornly at our small bag of moldy rice. “All I can offer you is tea.”
Uncle W’s lips turned upward at the corners. “Please, don’t apologize. I don’t expect much.” His smile then doubled in size. “But wait,” he said, reaching for his satchel, which he had placed on the floor next to him. “I have something for you.”
Uncle W pulled out a small packet of rice candies wrapped in beautiful transparent paper printed with a fruit and flower decoration. He handed the bag to me with a wink. I hadn’t been offered such a treat since the start of the Cultural Revolution. “Thank you!” I exclaimed, tearing open the package and unwrapping one of the sugary delights with as much restraint as I could muster. When the candy melted on my tongue, I felt as though I’d been transported to another world, one far kinder and gentler than my own.
After preparing and serving the tea, I seated myself on the concrete floor on the opposite side of the room from Uncle W. I was craving adult attention after be
ing on my own with Hong for the past four years. Strangely—or maybe not, given the circumstances of our lives back then—this man, fortyish, and I, a near teenager, settled instantly into a comfortable friendship. It felt as though we had known each other for years. Uncle W told me a few stories about my relatives and his adventures in the countryside, and I listened closely, delighted to have a grown-up as a friend.
Hong returned home an hour or two later, and Uncle W greeted her with a gentle hello. Then he asked if we would mind if he stayed with us for a few days. He had the rest of the week off and no place else to go. Hong eagerly agreed; she was more outgoing than I and loved having visitors. I fixed us a simple meal of rice and vegetables for dinner, using the coal stove in the hallway, while Hong set our makeshift table using a wooden stool that I had found in a collection bin.
“Sit,” Hong ordered when the meal was served, pointing to the concrete floor. Uncle W toppled out of his three-legged chair, causing Hong to giggle in her contagious fashion. It seemed to me that he had done this on purpose, to amuse Hong, and I laughed with them both.
After we had eaten, Uncle W asked us if we would like to hear a story. I had been making up bedtime stories for Hong ever since I had arrived in Nanjing, so we welcomed the idea. Hong and I climbed onto our single mattress and gazed expectantly at Uncle W.
“Have you read any authors from other countries? Non-Chinese authors translated into Chinese?” Uncle W asked, as he slid a ragged paperback with an unfamiliar title out of his satchel. Our jaws fell and our eyes shot wide open when we caught a glimpse of the forbidden treasure: a foreign novel. I couldn’t help from reaching out to touch its wrinkled cover, which contained a picture of a handsome white man holding in his arms a dark-haired beauty in a crimson dress. “This is a love story, and it takes place in America,” Uncle W said, as he thumbed open the book. “It’s called Gone with the Wind.”
Before reading from the novel, Uncle W gave us a bit of context. The story was about a man and a woman who fell in love but could never find a way to be happy together. This was at a time when Americans were fighting over whether people should be allowed to own slaves, he explained. To me, the battle sounded like the Chinese Civil War, with Mao’s Communist troops battling Chiang Kai-shek’s army: a fight for the freedom of the worker. But the love story was completely foreign territory. The only connection I could find to this aspect of the tale was recalling Shanghai Mama and Papa’s joy at seeing each other when he returned home from work each day.
At times, Uncle W read passages directly from the book. At other times, he summarized several pages of text. Hong and I listened with rapt attention as our minds were opened to a whole new world—one where feelings and opinions were expressed openly without fear of repercussions. Eventually, our sleepiness got the better of us, and we fell into a peaceful slumber.
I had recently been assigned to a job at a nearby factory, and the next morning I rose early to walk to work. Hong went to a study session with kids her own age. That evening, I raced home to our dorm room. When I found that Uncle W had prepared dinner for us, I nearly wept. It had been so long since anyone had taken care of me.
“It’s called Soup of Chicken Soup,” Uncle W said. I squinted into the pot, where I saw nothing but a few greens floating in water. The rich grassy smell tantalized me. I gave Uncle W a skeptical look.
“Don’t you know what Soup of Chicken Soup is?” Uncle W teased, raising his eyebrows. I shook my head. “It comes from the olden days, when cooks used to prepare chicken soup for the emperor. They weren’t allowed to have any for themselves, so they would take just a spoonful of the broth and use this as a base for their own soup.”
I grinned and dipped my spoon into the pot. The broth’s savory flavors tickled my taste buds, setting off fireworks in my mouth. It reminded me of Shanghai Mama’s cooking. “It’s delicious,” I said. “How did you make it?”
Uncle W explained that he had picked the vegetables, wild Chinese spinach, from where they grew like weeds on the abandoned soccer field and along the old Nanjing city wall. He had mixed them with water and a bit of MSG. “It isn’t even Soup of Chicken Soup, really.” He laughed, a deep rumble starting from his belly and rising up to his throat. “More like Soup of Weed Soup!”
I laughed along with Uncle W. As I did, my entire body relaxed. All at once, I could breathe more deeply and smile more broadly. I sensed that now I had a new friend and confidant, an adult I could trust. There were so many questions locked inside my head that wanted to be answered.
—
For the next several days, we followed the same pattern. In the morning, I would go to my factory job and Hong would go to her study sessions. When we returned home in the evening, we would enjoy a simple meal prepared by Uncle W, then race to bed so that we could listen to him read from Gone with the Wind.
One afternoon, I came home early. Hong was still out, and Uncle W and I fell into a deep conversation. “Why don’t we talk about you?” he asked earnestly, after sharing a few stories of his life prior to the Cultural Revolution. “Tell me more of what life has been like for you.”
The floodgates opened. Here was the invitation that I had been longing to receive—from a parent, a teacher, a neighbor, or any adult, really, whom I felt I could trust. I spilled my tales like grains of rice from an overstuffed bag, scattering them everywhere with reckless abandon. I hadn’t dared mention many of these things even to Li; she was just a child like me, after all, and so red-blooded that I feared what she might think. I shared with Uncle W the story of being taken away from my Shanghai family; of my shock when, instead of finding my birth mother in Nanjing, I had become mother to Hong; and of the crimes I had pinned on my parents during struggle sessions in order to save myself from beatings. Finally, I told Uncle W about the attack on the soccer field two years earlier, and my feelings of shame, terror, confusion, abandonment, frustration, anger, and hopelessness.
Uncle W’s eyes searched my face as I spoke, as if he were looking for clues to my true identity. He asked a few questions, but delicately, so that they never felt intrusive. He was the first one to tell me that I had been raped—and to explain what “broken shoe” really meant. He told me with a compassionate yet firm voice that it wasn’t my fault.
I couldn’t hold back my grief any longer. Tears spilled onto the floor like raindrops. When I paused to wipe the moisture from my eyes, Uncle W reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He handed it to me and said, “You are precious, Ping-Ping. You must always believe that.”
My heart swelled like a rising ocean tide under a full moon. So rarely in the past four years had I heard an encouraging word. Not once since I had left Shanghai had I been told that I mattered. “I am precious?” I repeated softly, my voice rising. I wanted to hear him say it again.
Uncle W patted my arm. “Yes, Ping-Ping, and you always will be. Please promise me that you will remember this. No matter what happens to you in life, you are precious. At some point, you might do something that you later realize was wrong and hate yourself for it. But even then, know that you are precious. You don’t need to earn it; this is your birthright.”
The Communists had taught me I had to be good so as not to be beaten. I was lucky to be allowed to survive. I was held responsible for my parents’ wrongdoings. No matter what I did, I would never be able to change the fact that I had been born with black blood and that I was nobody.
In some ways, what my uncle had just told me seemed too good to be true. Yet I believed him. His words warmed my heart. I knew that I would hold on tightly to this notion and never let it go.
“You will be rewarded someday for your suffering and for your kindness to others,” Uncle W added.
“When?” I asked.
“In little moments,” he replied. “Your rewards will come in little moments of delight that will appear like shooting stars crossing the night sky.”
&
nbsp; —
When it came time for Uncle W to leave, my spirits sank. “Please don’t go,” I begged. But we both knew that he had no choice; he would be hunted down and severely punished if he did not return to his factory labor assignment in Tianjin.
“Will you at least leave your copy of Gone with the Wind with me?” I asked.
My uncle’s brow furrowed as he considered my request. I knew how attached he was to the book; it was a prized possession for an intellectual like him during the Cultural Revolution. In addition, he was concerned for my safety; I risked reprisals, even death, should the Red Guard catch me with such contraband. But looking at my pleading expression, he caved in and handed the dog-eared novel to me, saying, “I suppose you’re old enough to have it. Be careful, though. Don’t let anyone see you reading this book.”
Then Uncle W mumbled, his voice catching, “I’ll write to you, if you like.” When I nodded, he grabbed a pencil from his satchel, took the book, and scribbled his address on the inside front cover before handing it back to me. “I’ll come to visit again, too. Next year, same time, I’ll be here. And I’ll bring more books.”
Uncle W was true to his word. Two days after he left, I wrote him a letter about Gone with the Wind, which I had continued to read every night while hiding under the sheets, the book pressed up against my nose with a flashlight. I had to make up code names for Scarlett and Rhett so the authorities wouldn’t know what I had been reading if they opened my letter, calling them by common Chinese names instead. I said they were survivors because they had adapted to the changes brought about by the Civil War and Reconstruction. I identified with their struggle.
Uncle W wrote back just a few days later, asking questions that made me think more deeply about what I had said. “If the book you’re reading is about survival,” he wrote, “then what makes some people come through catastrophes and others go under? What are the qualities of those who fight their way through difficult times triumphantly?” I wrote him back about the three friends of winter.