Mao's Last Dancer

by Li Cunxin

  Sophie was diagnosed as profoundly deaf. We were in total shock. We couldn’t believe our beloved daughter would never hear music, would never hear all the sounds we took for granted.

  We did everything in our power to find the cause and a cure. From Western medicine to Eastern treatment, nothing helped.

  Just ten days after Sophie’s diagnosis, Mary decided to give up her dance career and devote all her time to teaching Sophie to speak. We were devastated just thinking of what Sophie would miss in life and the enormous task ahead of us. I knew Mary’s sacrifice would end her dance career. To lose Mary in dance was like losing my shadow. It took me a long time to recover.

  But for Mary, her journey with Sophie was just beginning. She poured every ounce of energy she had into Sophie. Each discovery of a new sound, each word uttered by Sophie, was an enormous milestone. But her progress was extremely slow.

  When Sophie was four years old we were told about a new Australian invention called the cochlear implant or bionic ear. After extensive research, we decided Sophie should have the implant.

  I still remember Sophie’s eyes lighting up with excitement when she heard sound for the first time. With Mary’s total dedication and the bionic ear, Sophie made rapid progress in her hearing and speech. She is now in a normal school, learning piano, ballet, jazz and tap. It’s impossible to adequately describe how we lived through this difficult ordeal. Sophie truly is our miracle child.

  In 1992, our second child arrived. Thomas was born with normal hearing and so was our third child, Bridie, who was born in 1997.

  In 1995, after dancing with the Houston Ballet for nearly sixteen years, I decided to join the Australian Ballet as a principal artist and move to Melbourne. I had guest-performed with the Australian Ballet on several occasions and enjoyed working with them, but to leave Ben, who had been my mentor for sixteen years, who was instrumental in the success of my career, was not easy. To leave America, the country that had granted me my freedom, was very emotional. But what helped me through this decision was that the Houston Ballet had been invited to perform in China at the end of that year: I would finish my career with the Houston Ballet in China, the place where it had all started.

  I was excited beyond description about this trip back to China. Finally I would perform in front of my people, show them what I had achieved in the West over the past sixteen years. All of my brothers, sisters-in-law and relatives, over thirty of them, took the long train trip from Qingdao to Beijing to see me dance.

  I performed in the same theater where I had danced my first Swan Lake before I’d left China in 1979. I danced Romeo in Ben’s Romeo and Juliet, and Janie Parker was my Juliet. The Central TV of China broadcast the opening night live—to five hundred million people throughout the country. To see the pride on Teacher Xiao’s face, the excitement in the Bandit’s eyes and to hear Fengtian and my former teachers, classmates and the entire audience cheering was all I needed. My only sadness was that Zhang Shu wasn’t there—he had died from a heart attack a few years before.

  The Australian Ballet was a new challenge for me. I knew that at thirty-four years of age it wouldn’t be easy, but with twenty-three years of artistry in me, with the love and support of Mary, with the unconditional love of my parents, with my newfound freedom, I had nothing to fear. Some of my most satisfying performances happened in those last three years with the Australian Ballet. I felt a sense of ultimate satisfaction, of perfect harmony between artistic and technical knowledge. And the Australian audiences embraced me warmly from the very beginning.

  During my last few years of dancing I began to study finance on the weekends and in my free evenings. It took me three years to complete a diploma with the Australian Securities Institute, and I was offered a job at a major stockbroking firm in Australia. However, the Australian Ballet wanted me to continue to dance. But I was thirty-six years old by then. Most dancers would have retired well before that. So in the end, a compromise was reached: I would be trained as an investment adviser and would continue to dance as a principal artist for a while longer.

  I danced and learned about the stockbroking business for the next two years. But the workload eventually forced me to make a final decision—to permanently retire from dancing. I was thirty-eight years old.

  Ben came to my last performance in Sydney and brought along with him the fondest wishes of everyone from the Houston Ballet. My last performance was as Basilio in Don Quixote. When I had danced this role at eighteen, I bashed through the performance, focusing only on the technical aspect of the role. At twenty-eight, I put all kinds of pressure on myself: I had to perform better than Baryshnikov or Nureyev, but I always came well short of my own expectations. But now, at thirty-eight, I was my own master. I had finally tasted Teacher Xiao’s mango.

  And where are all the others in my story now? Ben retired as the artistic director of the Houston Ballet after twenty-seven years at the reins. I attended his farewell gala in Houston—he had especially choreographed a solo for me to perform. Mary is still the love of my life and is currently teaching and coaching at the Australian Ballet. Elizabeth, I’d heard, remarried and her husband is a pilot. Charles Foster remains a close friend: we are godfathers to each other’s children.

  My friend Dilworth, sadly, died in a car accident in Texas in the mid-eighties, and Lori has since remarried.

  Consul Zhang eventually left the foreign ministry and became deputy mayor of a large Chinese city.

  Zhang Weiqiang also left China for the West, but he didn’t have to defect. Under Deng Xiaoping’s open-door policy, he became a principal dancer with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and has now retired.

  Teacher Xiao has retired from the Beijing Dance Academy but still teaches, coaches and judges international ballet competitions. The Bandit and Fengtian have left their artistic professions and become businessmen in China, like a billion others there. All my brothers are doing well in their own businesses, and their living standards continue to improve. They all wish for more children and envy Mary and me for having three. And my dia in China has just celebrated his eightieth birthday.

  Recently I made a surprise visit to my family in China and showed up at my parents’ doorstep quite unannounced. My niang was cooking in the kitchen. Upon seeing me, she dropped her wok flipper and could only manage to utter, “Ah! Ah! You! It’s you!” She threw her arms around me and hugged me tight.

  PART FOUR

  MY STORY CONTINUES

  2003—2009

  31

  KEEPING HEARTS WARM

  It is now over six years since I made that surprise visit back to see my parents, when Niang dropped her wok flipper in surprise and hugged me tight. Since then I’ve taken my own family to China many times. I’d always wanted my children to keep their links with China, but each time I went to see my parents, I couldn’t help wondering if it would be the last time I’d see them. Niang would say things like, “Your dia and I have lived incredible lives despite the hardship of our earlier years. If it wasn’t for you we would not be so lucky! We have no regrets.”

  During one of my trips home in 2004, my family in China was excited about the planned rebuilding of the village where I’d grown up. It was a two-year project, and on average each villager would receive two or three newly built apartments in exchange for their old dwellings. But there were many different opinions about the value of their properties. Even my six brothers argued among themselves about the offer from the developer.

  I thought they should take the offer and run! I knew China was in the middle of the biggest property boom it had ever seen, but to get everyone in the village to agree, and to issue building permits through various government agencies, and to actually build a whole lot of apartments to house around five thousand people was going to be a monumental undertaking. “It’ll never happen!” I said to my brothers.

  To my surprise, however, two years later, the primitive commune village I’d been born in had indeed gone forever: replaced by rows and rows
of six-storey Hong Kong-style apartments. Now it’s a complex with its own security guards, underground parking, and even small gardens full of greenery and trees. But the ugly security screens and bars on the windows and doors seemed odd to my eyes. My old village had had no need of those.

  The villagers clearly enjoyed their newfound comfort and wealth. They loved all the modern conveniences: air-conditioning, heating, piped water and natural gas. Unthinkable in the old village. And now most families even had extra apartments they could rent out for more income.

  My parents loved their apartment. It was a spacious two-bedroom with wooden floors, a sitting room and dining area. It had a good-sized refrigerator, air-conditioning and heating, and a twenty-inch color TV opposite a comfy L-shaped sofa. Their kitchen had a big, deep sink and a gas cooktop—even an electric kettle and rice cooker! Not as many gadgets as Ben’s kitchen back in Houston in 1979, but they sure were catching up fast in China.

  The apartment was well lit by large windows in each room. My brothers and I had wanted to make sure that Niang and Dia would have the best of the modern amenities: their very own toilet, shower, washing machine and dryer. I’d called my parents the day they’d moved in. I was so happy for them. “Never, in all our lives,” Niang said, “did we dream we’d be so lucky!” She was ecstatic with pride.

  But not everything went smoothly. My second brother, Cunyuan, told me that some villagers had refused to accept the developer’s offer, and saw their houses become a pile of rubble overnight. The local government controlled all the permissions, and no one could do anything about it. From the expressions on the faces of my other brothers, I guessed that Cunyuan had been one of those who hadn’t agreed with the offer, but overall he too was happy with his three new apartments. Cunyuan and his three girls could live in one and rent out the other two for much-needed income.

  The rebuilding of our old village had other consequences for families though. In spite of this modernization, the older generation moaned about the loss of community feeling in the new complex. The traditional strong family unit used to be the backbone of the Chinese community, but with the disappearance of our village and others like it, that too was going. One elderly widow from our village received her three brand-new apartments in exchange for her old commune house, and was elated about her sudden change of fortune. Finally, she could live comfortably for the rest of her days! Then the trouble came . . .

  The widow had three daughters and a son, all married with their own families. Traditionally, her son would inherit most of her wealth and care for her in her old age. So of course she transferred two of the three apartments to her son’s name. Her three daughters could divide up the remaining apartment between them. But the daughters were enraged. In their more modern way of thinking, the three apartments should have been shared equally. They blamed their brother for manipulating their mother into this. Soon they stopped talking to each other. Now they are completely estranged.

  This was just one of many unhappy stories from my old village. Many other things have also changed for my parents in this new, rapidly changing China. One day, four years ago, my niang and dia were getting ready for their usual after-lunch nap. Dia always preferred to sleep on a hard wooden bed, a little like the kang we’d slept on in the old village. Soon after he’d gone into the bedroom, my niang heard a loud thud. “What are you doing?” she asked from her comfy L-shaped sofa.

  There was no answer.

  That old deaf thing, my niang thought. In recent years, my dia’s hearing had gradually become worse.

  “What was that sound?” she asked with a louder voice.

  Still no answer.

  So my niang opened the bedroom door, and found her husband of fifty-nine years struggling on the floor, gasping for breath.

  She screamed and rushed over to him, and quickly realized she needed to phone for medical help. But for years she’d relied on her husband to make the phone calls. She hadn’t bothered to remember any of her sons’ phone numbers!

  Out of desperation, Niang ran and knocked on her neighbors’ door. With their help she got my dia up, and called my seventh brother, Jing Tring. Together they managed to get Dia into the hospital: he was there for two weeks in the end, receiving medication, some acupuncture and also some massage to relieve his condition. And with the improved medical care in China, Dia did recover much of his mobility, but not his speech. He had suffered a stroke.

  Throughout his life, Dia was known as a man of few words. Even so, losing his ability to speak was devastating. He’d never had the opportunity to learn to read or write. By losing his speech he’d effectively lost all forms of communication. Before his stroke, my parents would spend their days socializing with their fellow villagers, or go on day tours to nearby scenic places. But mostly they would enjoy endless discussions, all the gossip of the world news they heard on TV programs, and they would chat over tea, happily together, about local events. As my niang’s eyesight and health had worsened, my dia gradually took on the basic cooking too, so somehow their roles in the household reversed. It was such an ideal and happy environment they’d created for themselves. But how would their lives be from now on? Dia’s stroke was a warning bell for the rest of the family. His health was deteriorating and we all knew it.

  Back in Australia, my family and I now live in a rambling, Federation-style house in Melbourne, opposite a beautiful park. So unlike my first termite-infested home in Houston! And it’s walking distance to our children’s schools.

  Our eldest daughter, Sophie, successfully completed her final-year subjects at high school, even Chinese. It had always been my dream for my children to speak Chinese, but because of Sophie’s deafness, I’d given up that dream for her. Mary and I thought that if she could just speak English properly we’d be happy. I’d never spoken Chinese to my children over the years, fearing it would disrupt and confuse Sophie’s learning of English, so I didn’t really expect her to follow through with this. I knew how difficult the Chinese language was, even for Chinese people, let alone a foreigner, and a profoundly deaf foreigner as well. Sophie’s cochlear implants do give her some hearing, but she hears mechanical, imperfect sounds. For her to differentiate the many intonations of Chinese would be extremely difficult. But Sophie persevered, completed her course, and is now fluent in Chinese.

  Sophie also told us that she wanted to complete one of her Year 12 subjects ahead of time, so she’d have fewer subjects to concentrate on in her final year. “So which subject would you like to tackle?” Mary asked.

  “Dance,” Sophie replied.

  Mary and I looked at each other. Oh dear me! Not dance. Anything but dance, I thought. We knew that would be difficult, too. Sophie would never be able to hear the subtleties of the music. But again, she was determined. And to our astonishment and pride, she received the Victorian Premier’s Award, and one of the highest scores in the state, for dance. We were overjoyed. Sophie was beginning to making her dreams a reality.

  Mary is still coaching at the Australian Ballet, teaching the next generation of great dance talents, and she has also been a guest teacher with other ballet companies and schools around the world. Mary has well and truly reclaimed her passion for dance, but our children have always come first in her decision-making. Her love and devotion toward them have been simply incredible. She has always been the strength behind my success, and the success of my family.

  Our son Tom started Year 11 in 2009, too. Mary and I always thought he had a dancer’s physique, but we never managed to get him into ballet. Sport was the thing for him. He loved playing sports: Australian Rules football, soccer, tennis, and even basketball, which he’d picked up in America when he’d gone on a six-month scholarship three years ago to St. John’s School in Houston. He’d made great friends there, both in and out of school, and he’d joined the tennis team and loved American sports like baseball and basketball. He’s followed the Houston Rockets, his favorite basketball team, ever since. But tennis was the sport he worked hard
at and was most passionate about.

  Tom had always known of the positive influence America had had on me—and now he too was gaining a fondness for that country. Mary and I were both so pleased that Tom had learned much about discipline and independence from his time in Houston. He’d suddenly grown up. It had been such a self-assuring experience for him. And one day, as if to prove this, about a month before we were to leave for China, I heard a commotion in the kitchen. “Li! Come here, Li! Quick!” Mary was shouting excitedly.

  Recently we’d placed a height marker on our kitchen wall for each member of the family. For years we’d waited for Tom to grow taller, but he’d always been one of the smallest boys among his classmates. Even my brothers in China had given up hope of him ever challenging my title as the tallest man in the Li family.

  But that day I rushed into the kitchen and there was Tom, smiling broadly with his boyish face, standing against my marker on the wall. He was taller than me. He’d just turned sixteen.

  Our younger daughter, Bridie, had just turned eleven by then, and had started Year 6. She was the most agile of all our children, born with unusual flexibility, and for this reason Mary enrolled her in gymnastics when she was six. She quickly rose to the higher levels and was placed in the elite group of young gymnasts. But what to do with Bridie’s gymnastics became a constant dilemma. We wanted her to realize her full potential in something she enjoyed, but as dancers we knew just how time-consuming and lonely a life of professional gymnastics could be. We didn’t know if she would want to continue, so Mary and I decided to pull her out for a while, and if Bridie was still pining for gymnastics after two weeks, we would let her continue. Bridie, however, quickly moved onto ballet, tap, jazz, and tennis: all the things she’d never had time for, and was back to her old, lively self, full of energy.

  And what about my brothers in China? How have their lives altered since 2003?