by Weijian Shan
Cao Cao was a free spirit, and sometimes she would miss a meal, occasionally wandering off and returning late in the evening. Old Yi somehow found out that she was visiting a breeding stud that lived in another company of Construction Army Corps, about one hour’s walk away, a very long distance for a pig. We had no idea how she found her love. Old Yi joked that Cao Cao was violating the rules, since any contact between boys and girls was frowned upon. But Cao Cao didn’t seem to care, nor did Old Yi obstruct her romance. The next thing we knew, she was pregnant.
Old Yi was happy that Cao Cao was expecting. He took even better care of her as her belly grew larger. In winter she gave birth to a fine litter. I went to Old Yi’s room after work to find her lying on the floor by the fire with a group of pink piglets sucking at her teats. As she lay stretched out, she made low sounds of contentment.
Old Yi told me that he and Huang had had a long night. They had to play midwife to Cao Cao because of her difficult labor. They had to reach inside and pull each piglet out by hand, and a pile of their bloodstained clothes lay on the floor.
Soon Cao Cao was up and about, a group of small piglets chasing after her and stumbling upon one another. It must have been comforting for Old Yi to see Cao Cao have children. He would herd the Cao Cao family into a special area and feed them special meals.
In February, the Chinese New Year approached. Everyone looked forward to a good meal. The thought of eating meat tantalized us, and to our joy the leaders announced the slaughter of a pig. Since there were a few candidates, we never imagined that Cao Cao would be in jeopardy. But the commander decided that she would provide the most meat.
Old Yi, Huang, and all the young women in the company wanted to save Cao Cao, as she had become quite famous. As head of the squad, Huang went to argue with the leaders. He said that Cao Cao should be kept for breeding. Besides, he pointed out, a sow’s meat would not taste good. But his objections were overruled. The leaders couldn’t care less about future generations of pigs. The fact was that regiment rules said that no company could slaughter more than one pig, and Cao Cao was the fattest. The leaders always did what they wanted. Who would listen to someone arguing on behalf of a pig?
I went to the pig squad on the day of the slaughter. Usually, it was the duty of Huang and Old Yi to tie up the pig, and someone from the kitchen would do the butchering. But Huang said he could not find Cao Cao. After everyone was enlisted in a long search, she was found roaming around somewhere. But Huang would not help catch her. There was no help from Old Yi, either, for Huang had dispatched him to the village shop to buy supplies. The butchers had to chase Cao Cao all over the compound and her screams were so loud that she could be heard everywhere.
Old Yi came back after it was all over. If he had any feelings about the loss of Cao Cao, he did not show them, not even to me. When we spoke of Cao Cao some time later, he only quoted a proverb of which Mao was fond: “A man should be afraid of being well known; a pig should be afraid of being fat.”
* * *
It seemed to me that Old Yi never had a temper. He was always calm and kind, smiling to everyone, old and young, boys and girls alike. Nothing seemed to upset him. In contrast, I had such a strong sense of love and hatred that I did not even want to speak to the people I did not like, such as the leaders of the company. I offended them, which was probably why I eventually lost my job as a medic.
I told Old Yi how I called Instructor Zhang a real pig when he flatly refused to allow me a home visit when my father was ill in Beijing.
Old Yi told me he worried about this quality of mine. He said that I should try to learn to be tolerant, and to think before I did anything so that I would not regret it.
I could not understand why he showed such respect to the company leaders. Everyone else despised them. They knew almost nothing about agriculture or anything else. The only thing they were experts on was how to make people miserable. They always asked the kitchen for special meals. And they never worked in the fields.
In Old Yi’s view, the leaders were not bad people by nature. They did not like it in the Gobi any more than any of us did. If they were harsh or unpleasant to us, it was because they were angry about being here in the first place. He said I should try to understand them.
Besides, he pointed out, the leaders could make my life wretched and I would not be able to do anything about it. If they did not want you to have a home visit in three years, then you would not see your parents for three years. Sometimes, Old Yi advised me, it was worth it to swallow your pride. “You don’t lose a piece of your flesh when you call him Commander,” he reasoned.
Old Yi told me that he was a carbon copy of me when he was young—passionate and emotional. He used to always speak his mind. But this attitude had led to a lot of suffering. He had now learned never to get emotional about anything.
In his youth, Old Yi had been one of the first students at the new Air Force Academy of Guangxi under the Nationalist regime. It must have been in the 1940s or even earlier. He had been a good student. But as graduation neared, a dispute erupted between the students and the authorities, and the students decided to boycott the final examination.
In a military academy, anyone who disobeyed orders could get into serious trouble. But the students remembered the old saying, “Punishment cannot be meted out on all.” They decided that if there were an investigation to find the ringleader, everyone would stand up. The authorities could not punish everyone.
Sure enough, everyone was summoned to an academy-wide meeting. The chief instructor demanded that the ringleader stand up. As planned, Old Yi sprang to his feet, expecting everyone else to follow suit. But he suddenly felt lonely. Everyone else had remained in his seat. Only one other person in the entire room had stood up with him.
The other person turned out to be a nephew of Bai Chongxi, the provincial military commander and governor. Obviously, he had nothing to fear. But Old Yi was not allowed to graduate with his class. Although he graduated a year later without losing his rank, he learned a bitter lesson.
Since then, he said, he had had many similar experiences. Someday I, too, would become seasoned and hardened. But he did not want me to risk smashing my head against a wall to learn a lesson.
Since he was always so careful about everything, I wondered once if he had ever done something that he regretted. He answered that he regretted to have passed the chance to join the Communist Party.
A colleague of his from the CAAC told me that once Old Yi flew an aircraft back in a dense fog with fuel running out. Everyone thought that the aircraft would be lost, because with the primitive equipment aboard there was no way for him to land safely. Accidents were not uncommon in those days. He could try to crash-land in the peasants’ fields outside the airport, but people would probably be killed and the aircraft destroyed.
Miraculously, after approaching the runway several times, he managed to land the aircraft safely. He was given a big award for saving the plane. Because of this, his Party secretary had tried to recruit him.
He did not hold anything against the Party, Old Yi told me, but he did not want to join. He told the Party secretary that he could serve the interests of the Party very well as an outsider. As a Party member, one had to attend Party meetings and obey the Party discipline. Old Yi did not want be bound by these strictures. Despite being assured of a “Party ticket,” he passed.
During the Cultural Revolution, this decision came back to haunt him. Old Yi became the target of class struggle. His children suffered because of their father’s “black” family background. There was little Old Yi could have done about his past—he had, after all, flown for the Nationalists—but they would have fared much better had he not declined to be a Party member. Yes, he concluded, he would not regret his choice if it were just him. But he had inadvertently caused his children misery.
The day after he told me about the regret of his life, Old Yi said he had had a nightmare. He dreamed he was being dragged onto the stage of a cl
ass struggle session. As he bent low to hear the charges, a Rebel cited the crimes he had committed against the Party. He was reminded that he came from a landlord family, that he had been a Nationalist Party member, and that he had flown bombers to bomb the “liberated areas” controlled by the Communists. For all they knew, he was a Nationalist spy who had pretended to be a member of the uprising against the old regime.
Old Yi related his dream calmly, but I could tell that he was disturbed. He had never mentioned his family background or his membership in the Nationalist Party to me. He said as a military officer it had not been unusual to become a member—indeed, it was mandatory. He had defected to the Communists because he was disillusioned with the old regime.
Many years later, I learned that Old Yi had been physically beaten by the Rebels who had accused him of plotting to defect to a foreign country. Of course, no evidence was offered, nor was he given a chance to defend himself. His accusers tore apart everything in his house but found nothing; they beat him to force a confession.
Given his experiences at the hands of the Rebels, I think that Old Yi must have been happy in his exile with us. Life was hard, but no one bothered him here. He was glad to have friends like myself, even though, as a teenager, I could not appreciate how difficult it must have been to be separated from his wife and children. He was respected by everyone here, including the company leaders, because of the dignified yet modest manner in which he conducted himself, and for the diligence with which he was doing his job as a pig herder.
One of my most cherished memories of Old Yi is from the summer of 1971, when the company was engaged in the hard work of digging the Dongba Canal. One day, it was scorching hot and the drinking water we brought with us was quickly consumed. We sent someone back to the barracks to fetch some water. Two hours passed and he had not returned. We were so thirsty that some people had collapsed. Then somebody standing on the bank called out, “Water is coming!”
I saw a tall, lean figure with a shoulder pole moving slowly in our direction. The boy we had dispatched, Yang Shengchen, was much shorter. As the figure got closer, I recognized Old Yi. He had carried two full buckets of water weighing over 50 kilograms (∼100 pounds) for 10 kilometers (∼6 miles) under the burning sun.
We all rushed to greet him. He stopped, put down the buckets, and wiped his forehead. He was soaked in sweat and his face was mottled pale and red. We all asked what had happened to that damned Shengchen. Old Yi reported that he had suffered a heatstroke. Since there were no other men around, Old Yi had taken it upon himself to bring us water.
Before we started to drink, someone suggested that we wet a towel and let Old Yi wipe his face. Against his objections to the waste, we stood and watched him wipe his face. I can still remember his expression of content as we gulped down the precious water. He was like a father to all of us.
* * *
In the spring of 1973, Old Yi left the farm for Hohhot. It was a time of “implementing new policies.” His old work unit had been taken over by the military, and those for whom there was no evidence of crimes were allowed to return to work. They were needed to run the airline. All the employees of the CAAC were issued air force uniforms and prepared to report for duty.
I was happy and sad at the same time—happy that Old Yi was finally able to leave this terrible place and that he could rejoin his family after so long, but sad because I would miss his company and his teachings so much.
Old Yi comforted me, saying that the road ahead was still long. All happy things eventually came to an end, as did all sad ones. “There is no banquet that doesn’t end in the world,” he said. But our friendship would endure, because it had been forged in a time of hardship.
Many of us turned out to say goodbye to Old Yi and his group. They left for the train station in an open truck. Old Yi looked very different in his air force uniform, like an old general, with white hair peeking from under his cap. He was smiling and waving. The truck started to move. A cloud of dust engulfed it, and it was soon out of sight.
A few months later, a friend of Old Yi’s came back to settle some business. He said that on the trip home their hard-seat section of the train was so crowded that the two of them had to share one seat. Since he was the younger man, he had insisted that Old Yi sit. Then he had an idea: He went to the head conductor and claimed that he was a guard to Old Yi, who was his commanding officer. At that time, Chinese military uniforms did not bear any insignia to indicate rank, and Old Yi, with his straight back, white hair, and uniform, looked like a high-ranking officer indeed. The conductor hurriedly ushered them into a first-class compartment, where they rode in comfort all the way. Old Yi never found out why they were treated so nicely.
Sometime later, I received a parcel in the mail. It contained a book titled The English Duden: A Pictorial Dictionary. I opened it to find pages and pages of illustrations, each identified and described in English. The book was inscribed to me: “Comrade Weijian to kindly keep. Gifted by Yi Kong on November 18, 1973 in Hohhot.”
Soon he retired and went back to his hometown, Guilin, in Guangxi Province, to live on a street named Long Yin (“Hidden Dragon” Road). I lost touch with him after that.
Chapter 16
Half the Sky
A Korean friend and his wife once invited my wife, Bin, and me to have dinner at their home in the United States, where he was studying. His wife was a great cook, and all of us enjoyed the food as well as the lively conversation during dinner about various subjects. My friend would get up from the table from time to time to help her serve the food and clear away the dishes.
More than 10 years later, we visited with them at their home in Seoul, South Korea. It was palatial in comparison with where they had lived in the United States. In addition to my friend’s salary as a professor, they both came from wealthy families, and lived quite comfortably. But this time around, Suzy would not sit at the table to eat with us. She was busy cooking, serving the dishes, and pouring drinks. My wife and I repeatedly asked her to sit down to eat, but she declined. Her husband made no effort to invite her to the table.
Puzzled, I asked him why. Don’t forget, he told me, that we’re in Korea now. It was traditional in Korea for women to not sit at the table with men and guests. My wife and I protested, especially because we were so close with the couple and used to eat together in the United States. “Don’t be so old-fashioned,” we politely chided our host. He only smiled and reminded us that Korean traditions had come from Confucianism. “We had learned it from your ancient ancestors,” he said.
That Confucianism still reigned so supreme in modern Korea surprised me, especially considering the fact that our friend had been educated in the United States—and had a PhD, no less. But what he said was true. I remembered my visit to my mother’s home village decades earlier, and how my own grandmother, aunt, and sister would not eat until the men had finished their meals. This tradition was in keeping with Confucius’ teachings, which espoused the need for everyone to obey social and domestic hierarchies and their own positions in them. Confucianism required the respect and deference of the young to the old, of women to men, of men to their superiors, and ultimately of all to the emperor. Of all the schools of thought that proliferated in ancient times, Confucianism had prevailed in China because it suited the emperors the best. It legitimized the existing social and political hierarchy, put everyone into his or her own place, and promoted social harmony. Emperors since the Han dynasty in 206 BC had loved the sage and his ideas, as did the rulers of Korea, Japan, and other neighboring countries.
The Communist Revolution was supposed to change all that, as the revolution itself was aimed at overthrowing the existing social and political order. Unsurprisingly, the Communist Party had promoted gender equality throughout its history. While men still dominated its leadership, there were many women revolutionaries enlisted in the Communist cause, some of whom had taken part in the epic Long March of the Red Army and had risen to prominence. Gender equality was e
nshrined in the first constitution of the People’s Republic, adopted in 1954. Mao had famously said, “Women hold up half the sky,” although he might not have been the first one to use those words.
In spite of the official promotion of gender equality, old traditions die hard. Confucianism remains deeply rooted in China, including the social bias against women, as it does in many other countries influenced by the Confucian culture.
* * *
I was sitting outside our barracks reading one lazy Sunday afternoon when a military jeep of the kind usually reserved for high-ranking officers sped noisily into the compound and came to a screeching halt. Our camp did not have anything faster than a horse or more modern than a beat-up bicycle. We did not see many vehicles, let alone a military jeep. Everyone rushed outside to find out who was paying us a visit.
To our amazement, three uniformed policemen, pistols in their holsters, got out of the jeep. They strode purposefully toward the second platoon’s barracks. I hadn’t seen a policeman since I left Beijing, and I followed the crowd after them. They marched inside one of the dormitories and came out pushing Zhang Zhiqiu, nicknamed Er Gou (Second Dog), ahead of them. Holding his arms tightly, they escorted him to the commander’s office, one officer on each side and the third following close behind.
Old Duan, the deputy commander, let the policemen and Er Gou inside, but stopped the crowd from following them. He would not answer our questions. But a story quickly spread among us: Er Gou had raped his girlfriend.
It had been rumored that Er Gou and Cui Hua (not her real name) had been “friends” for some time. As “talking love” or dating was forbidden, any rumor of this type was usually just that: a rumor. Anyone who wanted to “progress”—which meant anything from joining the Party to going back to the city—would never allow himself or herself be the focus of such gossip. But Er Gou, a boy from Beijing, never seemed to care. He did not seem to have any desire to join the Communist Youth League. He occasionally got into fights.