Mao's Last Dancer

by Li Cunxin

  Next we were led, in line, to the canteen, a large square room with many tables and chairs in it. By the time we arrived, there were over a hundred students from the opera and music academies already sitting at their tables. It was unbelievably noisy.

  We were told we were to have slightly better food than other academy students, because of the physical demands of our training. I saw two big bowls full of steaming food on each table, and on each side of the canteen were several larger tables for bread rolls, rice and soup. We were each given two metal rice bowls plus a small soup bowl, a pair of chopsticks and a soup spoon. Everyone had exactly the same bowls. Easy to get them mixed up, I thought.

  We sat down, eight of us to a table, and divided the food evenly among us. On my table, only one girl and one boy looked familiar: I’d seen them on our train trip to Beijing. The others were all from Shanghai and although they talked a lot I didn’t understand a thing they said because they only spoke Shanghai dialect. The boy next to me, who was as small as I was, turned and said something to me—I looked at the two Shandong students to see if they’d understood, but they just shook their heads and when I tried to tell him, in my Qingdao accent, that I couldn’t understand, he just smiled.

  The food looked inviting and it smelled delicious, but I had no appetite. My stomach felt like a twisted knot. I looked out the windows. I could see that it was already dark outside, and the darkness cast a sadness in my heart. The sadness began to creep up and overwhelm me. I forced myself to eat a few mouthfuls of rice but it was tasteless, so I quickly rinsed my bowls, chopsticks and spoon and quietly left the canteen before anyone noticed.

  It was cold outside. The grounds were deserted. I could see only a few dim lights between the canteen and our dormitory. I looked up at the distant moon, and a few faraway stars in the night sky. I was afraid to go back to the dormitory alone in this unfamiliar darkness. I looked at the steamed-up windows of the canteen and knew that I couldn’t go back there either: they would surely laugh at me. I had to keep going. I thought of my parents and all my brothers back home, and with each step toward our dormitory building, I fought my fear and growing loneliness.

  The building was pitch-black. All the lights were turned off. With shaking hands I searched for the light switches, but I couldn’t find any. Slowly I felt my way up the stairs and eventually found a switch at the top. I got to my room, but I had no desire to turn on the lights there. Instead I groped my way to my bed, dived onto it and grabbed the precious quilt my niang had made for me. I plunged my face into it and wept.

  I remember that first night alone so well. I was adrift. My niang’s quilt was like a life-saving rope in the middle of an ocean of sadness. I couldn’t stop the tears from welling in my eyes and I couldn’t stop thinking of my family back home. It would be their evening playtime now: my dia’s simple stories, my niang’s sewing and my brothers’ game of finding words in the wallpaper. I tried to tell myself to stop thinking like this, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop feeling the quilt and smelling its familiar smell. I couldn’t stop this unbearable homesickness, like a merciless dark ocean, and me, left in the middle of it, without a lifeline. The rope I was clutching onto wasn’t enough. I was drowning, deeper and deeper, and it would be for many nights in those first few months that I would cry myself to sleep.

  That was the first night I had ever slept on my own, yet all I wanted to do was transform myself into a bird and fly home to sleep with my family again, in my parents’ bed, next to my younger brother’s smelly feet, even for just one night. My misery was so intense that I was only vaguely aware of my classmates returning from their supper. To hide my tears, I pretended to be asleep and buried my head under my niang’s quilt.

  The next morning, I was jolted back to reality. The familiar smell of the smoke as my niang cooked breakfast and her loving voice were not there. Instead there was the harsh sound of the wake-up bell. I was not back home, I was here, alone, somewhere foreign. I looked around the room and remembered every detail of the night before.

  There seemed to be loud bells for everything that morning. Speed and efficiency were all important. Strict orders, schedules and rules had to be rigidly observed. And it was still so early—we’d been woken at half-past five. We rolled our blankets military style, and brushed our teeth (a completely new, strangely uncomfortable experience—I had to watch the others to see how they did it). Then we washed our faces and the bell rang again within five minutes to call us outside onto the still-dark sports ground.

  We soon discovered that every morning would be the same. Each class captain would report that all students were accounted for and we’d jog for half an hour around the open fields, half asleep, every day of the year. I loved the fresh air in the mornings, but at first I found it hard to wake up so early. Breakfast was at seven-fifteen: rice porridge, steamed bread and salty pickled turnips. Never dried yams. Sometimes we even had eggs if we were lucky.

  That first morning after breakfast we went to try on our ballet and Chinese folk dance shoes, our white vests, dark blue shorts and royal blue cotton tracksuits. These were all we would need for the next six years, we were told. The ballet shoes had small strips of leather wrapped around the toes and the heels, so only the worn-out leather strips would need to be replaced and the whole shoe would last a long time. The dark blue shorts had elastic on the waist and around each leg. They felt very strange. Then we were introduced to Chiu Ho, the head ballet mistress, who took us to the shoe workshop for our ballet shoe fittings. It was the moment I had been dreading.

  Chiu Ho, we soon learned, was considered one of the most knowledgeable ballet teachers in China. She had been trained by the visiting Russian teachers in the 1950s, and despite her diminutive size, she was the teacher we would learn to fear most.

  In the shoe workshop, Chiu Ho told us to choose the tightest ballet shoes possible because, she said, they would eventually stretch. We were then greeted by a short hunchbacked man who looked so strange that he terrified us, but he was supposed to be the best maker of ballet shoes in China. His workshop wasn’t big, but it had racks and racks of ballet shoes, including pointe shoes. There were stacks of leather and cotton fabrics too, and buckets full of shoe glue, which had splattered everywhere. A few old sewing machines sat on the workbenches against the walls. It was very crowded, and my eyes immediately fixed on the rows of pointe shoes, for I feared these the most: the time would come when I would have to squeeze my feet into these tiny, tiny shoes.

  “Boys first!” Chiu Ho barked. One by one we tried on the ballet shoes. They were so small they cramped my long toes. I couldn’t imagine how uncomfortable the hard pointe shoes would be.

  “Okay, boys are done! You can all get out of here!” Chiu Ho bellowed.

  “What about the pointe shoes?” I asked.

  “What about them?” She frowned.

  “Don’t we have to try them on?” I asked.

  She looked at me, then she and the shoemaker roared with laughter. “No, only girls wear pointe shoes!” Chiu Ho chuckled.

  I felt like collapsing with relief! I wouldn’t have to walk like my na-na after all! But I didn’t realize that even the small flat shoes Chiu Ho had given me to wear would be enough to cause permanent damage to my toes.

  We spent the rest of that day preparing for the official start of our training the following day. The Beijing Dance Academy, due to Madame Mao’s involvement, was, we were told, regarded as the most prestigious dance school in the whole of China and the only one to offer full scholarships which would pay for our food, our board, our tuition and our training clothes. Our parents would have to provide our everyday clothes, blankets and spending money, and a tiny little shop within the academy grounds sold other essentials such as soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and sweets. Madame Mao’s military officers would head key departments of the university. These were the “political heads” we had already encountered, and we soon learned to be terrified of them too. Even our teachers seemed to show them an un
usual amount of respect. They had absolute power and would become our political and ideological mentors.

  We checked our timetable for our classes the following morning. Our first would be ballet, followed by Chinese folk dance and Beijing Opera Movement. We would do ballet every morning; other classes alternated on different days. Lunch was at noon. Between 12.30 p.m. and 2 p.m. we would have our midday sleep, a Chinese tradition, and from 2 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. we’d have normal school subjects such as mathematics, Chinese, history, geography, politics and Madame Mao’s Art Philosophy. From 5.30 p.m. to 6 p.m. was dinner time, and then for two hours after that we were expected to either study politics or practice ballet. We didn’t know, then, that political studies would fill most of our evenings for the next five years.

  Next day arrived. My first ever ballet class was at eight o’clock, taken by Teacher Chen Lueng, the tall man from Beijing who’d auditioned us at school in Qingdao. His familiar face was my only comfort.

  The studio we were taken to seemed huge and empty with only ten boys and a pianist in it. It was snowing outside and the windows were frosty. There were some heaters along the walls, but they were so inefficient they might as well have not been there. We wore our little shorts and vests, and shivered with cold.

  Chen Lueng gathered us in a semicircle. “Can anyone tell me what ballet is?”

  We all just looked at each other.

  He smiled gently. “Ballet is an art form that originated from dancing in the French imperial courts. It is a universal art form now,” he explained. He then told us that our syllabus would be based on the famous Vaganova method from Russia, which had produced some of the world’s finest dancers, including Nureyev and Vasiliev.

  Everything he said went in one ear and straight out the other. These names didn’t mean anything to me at all.

  “The first two years, we call them the foundation years, are considered crucial. I’ll be your teacher for this period. To start with, I’ll teach you some basic positions and exercises. Over the course of this first year, I’ll teach you some ballet terminologies. They are in French. The French gave all the steps and movements names. Internationally everyone uses these French terminologies. However, it is Madame Mao’s wish that we should give the steps Chinese names as well. Therefore, not only will you learn the French terminology, you’ll also learn the Chinese names. I expect you to remember them.”

  I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. French? I had such problems understanding Chen Lueng’s Mandarin, let alone French! I had to think of some way to remember the ballet terms, though, so when Chen Lueng started talking about the French word tendu, I tried to remember the sound and immediately thought of the Chinese sounds Ton Jiu, which means “nine pieces of candy”—backward. For penché, I thought of Pong Xie, which means “crab.” Some words I couldn’t find any Chinese equivalent for. Arabesque was simply not worth the effort. By the time I finally worked out Ar La Bai S Ker, I had to remember five different Chinese words and that sounded even more ridiculous. Eventually I tried to write the words down in a diary I’d been given, but my Chinese vocabulary was completely inadequate. So I drew little pictures instead. It was the only thing I could do. I was too embarrassed to ask for help. I was so afraid they would laugh at me, this uneducated peasant boy.

  During that first ballet class I couldn’t feel my toes at all in those tight, tiny shoes and in the freezing-cold weather. Chen Lueng told us to stand with our feet turned out in all sorts of funny ways—he called them first, second, third, fourth and fifth positions. It felt ridiculous. I couldn’t imagine anyone in their right minds wanting to watch us do these ugly positions. Surely even Madame Mao would fall asleep if we performed like waddling ducks! I had such difficulty getting my feet to cooperate. They kept rolling inward.

  The studio was very damp and dusty. There was everywhere the smell of sweat and mildew. Through the beams of light I could see millions of tiny dust motes floating in the air. The wooden floor was so old that it splintered, and for our feet to get some grip Chen Lueng showed us how to sprinkle water on the floor using a metal pot, which looked almost exactly like a watering can with many holes in its large, round showerhead. We twisted the head to spin the water out onto the floor while walking backwards. To qualify as a student of the Beijing Dance Academy, one had to be able to do this quickly and efficiently.

  Everything felt weird in that very first class. We had to extend our arms to the side, palms facing forward, just below shoulder height, while Chen Lueng walked among us, pushing our arms down and asking us to resist him with all our strength. We held this position for several minutes until he told us to relax. He said this was to develop our arm strength, so our arms would look soft, never strained. This was not dancing, I said to myself. Where were the leaps and skips? How could I possibly suffer this agony for six years? My feet felt so cramped. I couldn’t imagine how bad it must be for the girls standing on their toes in pointe shoes.

  That first class lasted nearly two hours, but it seemed like forever. I couldn’t wait for the bell to ring so I could take those horrible shoes off and let my cramped toes stretch out. I thought about running in the streets as I did in my commune, or wrestling with my friends. I didn’t want to dance. I wanted to go outside and make a snowman and throw snowballs.

  Our second class that morning was Beijing Opera Movement. Our teacher was Gao Dakun. “Hurry up, you’re late!” Gao shouted. “Spread out around the barre!” he barked. “Beijing Opera movements are all about flexibility and suppleness. If you don’t have suppleness, you can’t be good in my class. Do you understand?”

  We all nodded, terrified.

  “Good, let’s start with your legs up on the barre,” he said.

  I looked at the barre in front of me. It was as high as my chest.

  “What are you waiting for? Didn’t you hear me? Your leg on the barre!”

  I was one of the three smallest boys in our class. I tried to put my leg up but the barre was just too high.

  Without another word Gao walked over to me and lifted my leg. I felt a tinge of pain in my hamstring and automatically bent my knee.

  “Keep your knee straight!” He pushed my knee down on the barre. “Now I want you to bend your body forward and try to touch your toes with your head. Stay down there! Don’t get up until I tell you so!” Gao ordered.

  The pain was excruciating and was increasing at an alarming rate.

  “Didn’t you hear me, keep your knees straight!” Gao shouted at Zhu Yaoping, the small boy from Shanghai who’d spoken to me at dinner the night before. “Keep your head down!” he told Fu Xijun, another boy from Qingdao. “Okay! Now, let’s change legs!”

  My right leg was now in such pain that I had trouble even lifting it off the barre. I quickly glanced at the other students. I wasn’t the only one suffering.

  When I lifted my other leg onto the barre, I knew what to expect this time. So I started to count. I was prepared to count up to fifty. I wondered if I was the only one counting as a way of coping with such agony, until I heard the boy next to me counting too.

  Each time, from that first class on, I prepared myself for the worst. I decided I needed to be mentally strong enough to last through at least a hundred slow counts. But if Gao left the classroom to get himself some water or have a cigarette, then the hundred counts would increase to who knew how many. The pain made me want to scream. Often Gao would lean on our bodies and force us down lower. We would be in terrible trouble if we bent our knees. My hamstrings would often tear, but we were not allowed to stop. We were not allowed to scream or cry.

  I hated Gao Dakun and his class. I feared confronting him. I dreaded looking at him. Just the thought of his class made my stomach churn. He always seemed angry and he constantly screamed at us. He called us names too. He called me “the boy with the brainless big head,” and I hated him even more.

  Before our midday sleep on that first day, as we were heading back to our room, Zhu Yaoping, the small boy from Shanghai,
slid down the stair rail at our dormitory. It looked fun, so I copied him. We ran up the stairs and slid down the rail, chasing each other, until one of the political heads appeared from nowhere. “What do you think you’re doing?” he growled.

  We stood there, hearts thumping.

  “You are never to do this again! Do you understand? You could break your legs if you fall. This is not allowed in Madame Mao’s school!”

  There was no fun in this place, I thought. Only rules.

  We had other classes that day, but they were just a blur. I couldn’t understand the teachers’ Mandarin accents, but at least we were to have an early dinner because, we were told, we were going to see the Central Ballet of China perform.

  We went by bus to the Heaven’s Gate Theater close to the center of Beijing. The ballet was one of Madame Mao’s model ballets, with the familiar title The Red Detachment of Women. Zhu Yaoping and I sat next to each other. I managed to stay awake for the first act, but during the second I could no longer fight off my sleepiness. My eyelids got heavier and heavier and I eventually fell into a deep sleep. I was woken only by the applause at the end of the act.

  I was frightened when I looked around. I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. The trip to Beijing, the whole of the last twenty-four hours, all seemed like a dream. When I recovered from the initial shock, I realized that Zhu Yaoping and all my classmates had already left. Suddenly I had to go to the toilet but by the time I found it there was already a long queue, and then the bell rang and the ushers were urging people back to their seats. I hurriedly followed some people into the theater but couldn’t find my classmates. I panicked. I went back to the lobby again. “I’ve lost my group, I can’t find my seat,” I told an usher.