Mao's Last Dancer

by Li Cunxin

  Later the following month, Mary and I went up to Sydney to see Graeme Murphy choreograph the dance scenes. Watching Chi in some of my favorite ballets such as Don Quixote and The Rite of Spring brought many memories back, reviving some of the glorious highs but also the heartbreaking lows. Chi was a brilliant dancer. It was exciting to watch him. We shared some thoughts together when Chi asked me for advice, and Mary too shared her insights with Camilla Vergotis, the dancer who would play her in the film, a dancer Mary herself had taught at the Australian Ballet.

  The whole filming schedule in China was to take five weeks. The trials and tribulations would be many, and nerve-racking. Even when the filming was complete, the post-production phase would take about seven months, and the release date would still be many months away, perhaps even years. A distributor would have to be found, a musical score written . . . but I knew I had to be patient. And that year would bring many other things for me to experience . . .

  2008 was also the year of the Chinese Olympics, an opportunity for China to showcase its progress to the world. It seemed funny to me—after years of trying to stamp out old superstitions under Mao’s communist rule, when it came to the Beijing Olympics, even the Chinese government couldn’t let go of them. Their insatiable fascination with lucky numbers, especially the number eight, drove them to choose the eighth day of the eighth month, at 8 p.m. of course, for the opening ceremony, and it was nominally the eighth year of the new millennium too.

  My son Tom and I went to Beijing for the last week of the competitions. I’d wanted to take Tom to the Olympics so he might gain inspiration and motivation from the world’s top athletes, and to experience this once-in-a-lifetime historical moment. He loved sports so much that it just seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

  We’d marveled at the breathtaking design of the Bird’s Nest Stadium on the TV, but to actually stand in front of it was something else! We had to shuffle through massive crowds of desperate ticket sellers and heavy police security, but we were awestruck as we moved closer. The sun had set through a haze of pollution, and the bright colors of the Watercube swimming center illuminated the surroundings. I saw the wonder in Tom’s eyes as he looked up at the majestic Bird’s Nest. The imposing grandeur of its intertwining steel structure was too much to absorb. Tom usually hated having his photo taken, but now he just had to stand in front of the camera, with the Cube and the Nest in the background, with his excited smile and his games ticket waving enthusiastically in the air.

  It was an unbelievable experience for both of us. I was immensely proud to be Chinese, even as an overseas Chinese now. There were many memorable moments: when Jamaican-born Usain Bolt broke the men’s 100 meters world record and the 200 meters world record; watching Steve Hooker compete in the pole vault; and when Tom and I were invited into the Athletes’ Village. There we met some of the world’s greatest athletes. I was surprised when a few of them knew me as “Mao’s last dancer.”

  “I can’t believe Steve Hooker has read your book!” Tom whispered, amazed, after the tall, curly-haired Olympic gold medalist had finished talking to us.

  While we were in China we stayed with my best friend, the Bandit, and his family.

  The Bandit and I always pick up where we leave off every time we meet. He and his son Qihan, my godson, met us at Beijing airport, and we were soon catching up with news and laughing and punching each other on the arms. I asked him how he was, and how his health was going.

  “You know me,” he said with a broad smile, “I love good food, and enjoy my beer and wine.”

  “But what about your smoking?” I asked. His wife, Marji, and I had been nagging him about giving up for years.

  The Bandit shook his head and pointed to the cigarette butts in his car. “Can’t stop. Old habit,” he said. I love my “blood brother” the Bandit. I wanted him to live a healthy life. I really couldn’t comprehend how hard it must have been to try to quit.

  The Bandit, fortunately, was a good driver. I watched him weave through the dense, dangerous traffic on the Beijing highways. You had to be a good driver in Beijing, because even though there were strict traffic laws and clear signs, no one seemed to obey them. It was chaotic. My heart nearly leapt out of me when I thought a collision was inevitable, but then both drivers would curse and honk their horns, and drive off as if nothing had happened.

  “How can you do this every day?” I asked the Bandit after yet another heart-stopping near miss.

  “Everyone drives like this! You get used to it!” he replied, and honked his horn again at a driver who’d cut into his lane. “You just hope not too many people drive like that idiot!?”

  I could hear Tom and Qihan talking to each other in Chinese in the back seat. Tom had been learning Chinese at school for over four years by then. I was pleased too, to see Qihan becoming a tall and handsome young man. He was in his second year of high school.

  The Bandit was staying in his father-in-law’s apartment inside the Beijing Dance Academy complex: he and Marji had just bought an off-the-plan apartment in a new residential building project, and they proudly drove me there to show me a model of it: it had seven stages of development and over 800 apartment buildings! It was like a small city.

  The Bandit had done well over the years. He had a souvenir business and traded in collectable stamps and rare coins. Marji was working too, as a general manager in a large foreign-owned hotel chain. Recently the Bandit had invested in shares, but sustained a big loss. He asked me for some trade secrets—how to make a quick profit—and was disappointed when I said there was no quick way to make a fortune in shares. It would take discipline, patience and hard work, just like dancing. But the Bandit’s attitude to the stock market was common in China. How to make fast money was a common conversation topic.

  The residential project the Bandit had bought into was one that truly reflected China today. New building constructions were sprouting everywhere. No wonder the majority of billionaires in China were all in property. But these years of booming manufacturing, building, mining and consumption had also created gross environmental neglect. Air pollution in Beijing was the worst I’d ever seen, despite the government’s efforts to clean things up before the Olympics. A permanent haze of pollution hovered above the city, blocking the sun and obscuring the sky. Olympians were concerned about their health. Even I got a throat infection after only a day, and the stuff I coughed up was black. After years of living in the West, I simply took clean air for granted. Many young people in China now were becoming increasingly concerned about environmental issues such as this, and they knew things would have to change.

  Despite the pollution, however, the 2008 Olympics were spectacular. This gigantic nation of over 1.3 billion had finally emerged onto the world stage. People everywhere seemed to have plenty of cash to splash around. Tom and I saw booming conditions all over Beijing: shoppers crammed into enormous shopping malls, long queues waiting to get into restaurants. “Dad, people have so much money in China now!” Tom said. “Not like when you were living here thirty years ago.”

  But underneath this façade of prosperity I could see troubling signs, and wondered how my family would be affected. I’d often thought that the level of growth in China couldn’t be sustained, and it seemed to be as I’d feared. In Qingdao many foreign businesses had shut their doors. There were horror stories of workers throughout the city who’d turn up for work, only to find the gates of their workplace locked, while the foreign owner of one particular factory had even sold everything and fled, owing months of workers’ salaries and entitlements, leaving behind crippling bank loans and several hundred jobless workers.

  China today has a market of over a billion consumers, and the population of Qingdao is rising at an alarming rate, with a rapidly increasing gap between rich and poor. Millions of migrant workers leave their rural towns and flock to Qingdao to find better jobs. Qingdao had been the host city for the Olympic boating events too, so it had received a large amount of funding to beau
tify the city for visitors. The airport was now large and modern, with spacious lobbies and new check-in counters, a soaring ceiling, and many restaurants and shops. Unimaginable from the days when my friends and I dug half-burnt coal from under the runway and had been frightened away by the soldiers’ bullets. Now, many of the wealthier Chinese fly from Qingdao to Hong Kong, in droves, to purchase their dream products. Even some of my old friends and classmates now wear expensive sunglasses and carry Gucci bags and wear Prada shoes! Coca-Cola and McDonald’s are everywhere. Now people don’t want the brand-name products sold in their local stores, because they might be buying fakes instead of the real thing, so they have a genuine distrust of their authenticity and quality. Even I, who’ve lived in the West for many years, was surprised by the kind of money people were earning and spending in China. Traditionally, the Chinese are the world’s best savers. My parents’ generation saved as much as they could for their children or their old age. But now Western consumer culture has spread like wildfire. I guess no one can blame them: China endured such hardship throughout the last century, and today people are finally able to taste the same wealth and consumerism that had so amazed me when I’d first seen it in America back in 1979.

  Corruption, though, seemed to be everywhere. Money could buy anything—high positions in the military, the police force, in government and even in schools and universities. I’d often hear about dishonest business dealings. Everyone knew the saying: the only way to be successful doing business in China is to have strong “guan xi”—to have good relationships with officials or their relatives. Without “guan xi ” you’ll have little chance of success unless you’re a multinational company willing to buy your way into China, and even then you have to have the officials on your side.

  The Bandit reminded me about my first investment in China: I’d met a successful business friend of his, and started a joint venture in plastic toys, with the Bandit’s friend and a local factory in Beijing. Little did I know that my invested money would be used for expensive restaurants, spas and a luxury U.S. car, and the rest went into the personal pocket of the man the Bandit had trusted as a friend. When we discovered what was happening, the man simply cut the Bandit and me out, and all we got back from our investment was a broken-down van. “It was shocking back then, but now it is just common business practice,” said the Bandit. I hated that terrible experience, and I was glad that my friendship with the Bandit had stayed strong.

  The observations I’d made, the disquiet I felt, all seemed to be highlighted during my stay in Beijing with Tom. It worried me that the Chinese people’s psyche, their values and perhaps their happiness, were changing too quickly. Making money fast became an obsession for many, and their old, good values were forgotten. Some thought nothing of selling their ancient antiques to buy new, cheaply made furniture; people moved away from child-centered families because of the strict one-child policy that, to me, seems to have created a nation of young emperors and empresses with little understanding of tolerance or compassion. Never before had I seen people behaving with such impatience and disrespect. People pushed to the front at taxi and bus stops, with no courtesy for others. But when we were young we had to be polite and respectful to the elderly and to foreigners. I did not see this now, in the new China.

  Jing Tring told me there was instead a sense of frustration and emptiness. He said that he and his wife and five other couples took an annual pilgrimage to a Buddhist temple about two and a half hours by air from Qingdao. They went to pray for their families’ health, happiness and prosperity.

  “Why go that far?” I asked Jing Tring.

  “It’s one of the very few temples in China that we are still allowed to go to,” he said. “It makes me feel good that maybe a god up there will look after us.”

  “Do many people go?” I asked.

  “You should see it! Sometimes it is difficult to get a spot to pray! All the good spots and best times are taken by the officials, and people who can afford to pay. We get what’s left. People burn incense, paper money . . . I even saw some crazy people burning real money!”

  “Real money?!” I shook my head in disbelief. A trip like that could easily cost the average worker two months’ wages, all for a sense of spiritual belonging. I couldn’t see how anyone could afford to burn real money!

  That trip with Tom opened up all sorts of new thoughts for me about the country of my birth. My experiences on that trip, during the August of 2008, highlighted just how many differences there now were between the China I remembered from my childhood and the China I was seeing now. I thought of my film and of how that would portray my old China and the lives of all the people I’d grown up with.

  It was wonderful too, that on that same trip to Beijing, I met up again with my old ballet teacher, Teacher Xiao. He’d gathered together a small group of my former Beijing Dance Academy classmates. Many had gone overseas by now, or couldn’t be contacted, but all except two were still involved with ballet, either teaching or in administration at various dance companies.

  We had such a great time reminiscing about our days at the academy. How long it’s been since I was that small boy hugging my niang’s quilt and crying myself to sleep on that first night in Beijing! How hard it was to fill the thirty-year gap since I’d first left China! But after a couple of Gan bei’s, we found ourselves sharing many memories. “Teacher Xiao is some kind of teacher!” one Qingdao classmate shouted. “Just look at his students from the famous 1972 class. Nearly half went overseas to pursue their dreams, including our star guest of honor today!” She jerked her chin at me, and everyone laughed. “Now there is even a successful stockbroker!” More laughter. This classmate had since become the director of the academy’s ballet department.

  Teacher Xiao was now seventy-one years old, but he looked ten years younger than that. “Teacher Xiao, you still look like a Woa Woa!” one of my classmates teased. “Woa Woa”, meaning “baby,” had been Teacher Xiao’s nickname when he’d taught us at the academy.

  Teacher Xiao had been so kind. He’d organized an authentic Northern-style meal—lots of dumplings and noodle dishes—at a restaurant near the academy. The restaurant was new, built with the feel of old Chinese courtyard architecture. A goldfish pond wound through the courtyard, and an exclusive banquet room was reserved for us on the third floor.

  The restaurant manager seemed very attentive to Teacher Xiao. “Does the manager know you?” I asked.

  “Who doesn’t know the famous dance professor?” another of my classmates replied. Indeed, the Bandit told me that Teacher Xiao was now one of the most highly respected ballet choreographers and coaches in all of China.

  There were many questions directed at me that day, about my family, whether my children danced, and what Mary was doing. Everyone was especially interested about the movie and seemed to know much about Bruce Beresford. They were incredibly excited when I told them Joan Chen would play my niang.

  “And I heard Chi Cao is playing you in the movie!” Teacher Xiao said. “I hope he will do you great justice.”

  “You will be very pleased,” I said. “He’s a wonderful dancer.”

  “I am happy!” Teacher Xiao said. “He was like you, a hard worker.”

  Toward the end of the meal, Teacher Xiao raised his glass: “You all know how proud I was to be your teacher. I am proud to hear of your successes in life. Remember what I used to tell you, Cunxin! Nothing is impossible! No matter what you have become, whether you teach ballet or raise pigs or do stockbroking, you have all adapted to the changes life has thrown at you. I am so happy for this gathering. I hope we will soon gather again. And finally, a toast to Cunxin’s film!”

  33

  PAPER WISHES

  It is 2009. The Year of the Ox. Chinese New Year comes earlier than usual, falling in January rather than February. This year, it will be a happy occasion for the Li family. My dia was born in the Year of the Ox, in 1924, so it will be his “Own Life Year” as the Chinese would say. But it w
ill also be a challenging twelve months for those born that year. For our family, though, all we can think of are the coming celebrations. It’s been four years now since Dia’s stroke, and although he’s lost his ability to speak, we’ve still planned an enormous family gathering for him. We’ve been planning it for over a year. So we were all counting the days, weeks and months, with eager anticipation, until we could gather again to celebrate. My parents always enjoyed these family gatherings, especially when the entire family was there: four generations under one roof! They would be so proud!

  I could hardly contain my excitement about seeing everyone again. This excitement never lessened over the years, even though I visited regularly. As I ticked off each day in my diary, I found myself becoming anxious and impatient. I imagined what a happy occasion it would be for all of us. I could almost smell the gunpowder from the firecrackers, and see thousands of tiny little blown-up pieces of red firecracker paper. I could see the beautiful colors of the fireworks, filling people’s hearts with joy, and I could imagine the children’s delighted faces. I tried to guess what tricks my brothers and sisters-in-law would play on Mary to get her to drink those gut-burning Chinese spirits. How Mary would try any excuse to get out of that!

  But most of all I thought of my mother’s delicious dumplings. They would be the highlight of the Chinese New Year. It’s not just the wonderful taste—it’s what they symbolized: a reminder of her love, an unbreakable link to my earliest childhood memories. But my sixth sense was beginning to tell me that this might be the last time for our entire family to be together again. I was worried about my parents, and their health in particular.