by Ming Wang
Chapter 3
The Black Dot and My Mother
“Do you want to go to jail? What did you do in school? Don’t you want to live anymore?!” My mother’s eyes were wide with fear.
I had just arrived home from school. I climbed the stairs to the second floor of our dormitory building and was approaching our apartment when she emerged from inside, frenzied and upset.
My lower jaw trembled. I couldn’t imagine what was the matter. How could I be in any trouble? I was a good student, held the high rank of class monitor, was well known and liked, and I hadn’t done anything wrong.
I followed Mom into the apartment where Dad was pacing back and forth, agitated and nervous. He asked me to sit down and told me that my school had just discovered that a student had committed a treasonous and counterrevolutionary act … and I was found to be the culprit!
Being classified as a counter-revolutionary meant jail or even death, so I was petrified. I shivered and cried over the trouble in which I had found myself, and I had no idea at all what I had actually done.
During that time in China, trouble was everywhere. The disastrous famine and death brought about by the Great Leap Forward had proven Chairman Mao was tragically wrong. To salvage the country, several party leaders implemented a number of reforms, and within a few years the economy had started to rebound. But Mao feared he was on the brink of losing his own power, so in response he arrested his top lieutenants and reasserted his authority over the party. He then launched the infamous Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to more forcefully purge all of his opponents, and pursue the creation of a society ruled by the working class, who would be loyal only to him.
The first goal of the Cultural Revolution was to eliminate higher education. Mao himself had received only an elementary-school education, so he hated anyone who was more educated than he was. He regarded knowledge and education as the source of evil and political dissidence, something that must be crushed. Just as I was starting elementary school in 1966, universities across China were all shut down. People with knowledge and education were labeled the “stinking ninth class,” the absolute lowest social ranking, beneath even the criminals, prostitutes, and beggars. Education and urban living were believed to weaken the communist cause, so millions of young people who should have been attending colleges were instead forcefully deported to the poorest corners of the country and condemned to a lifetime of poverty and hard labor. To be deported for the purpose of “re-education through labor” meant working in harsh and impoverished conditions, earning only a dollar or two a month for the rest of one’s life. Such meager wages might buy a spot in a room with a dozen other people and a bit of rice to eat every day. Deportation was a life sentence, with no chance of ever being allowed to return to the cities. Many of these bright young people were never seen or heard from again, and some even committed suicide to avoid such heartless deportation.
In my neighborhood, I watched the parents of an older teenager weep and beg as they pleaded with local communist leaders not to deport their daughter. I saw the father twist his cap in his hands, as the mother hung on him and begged him to do something. And then one day the teenager was gone. There was nothing the family could do, because the government had changed her so-called “registration” to an impoverished and distant area of the country, so she would be forced to live there forever. The registration process was strict, allowing the communist government absolute control over its citizens. A person could only be legally registered in one geographic location, and therefore had to live there. One had absolutely no right to live anywhere else unless the government actually changed one’s registration site. If that teenager hadn’t followed the deportation order and instead had stayed in our hometown, she would have been sent to jail. Food rations were also tied to these registrations, so if the teen tried to live anywhere other than where she was registered, she wouldn’t receive any food rations, and would starve. No one could escape such deportation once the communist cadres changed the location of the registration that was designated by the government. One has no choice but to live in the registered town, and only there, for the rest of one’s life. Over the course of the ten-year Cultural Revolution (or “Cultural Holocaust,” as it is sometimes called), the lives of an estimated twenty million youth were destroyed by this deportation program.
The nation’s young people were also called upon to revive the revolutionary spirit and help Mao get rid of his opponents. Young students had mobilized into a regimen of the infamous Red Guards, denoted by red cloth bands emblazoned with gold script that were wrapped around their left arms. This young Gestapo-like organization was charged with uprooting old traditions, customs, and ideas, and exposing anyone who showed any signs of capitalist, elitist, or bourgeois tendencies. Red Guard students destroyed historic monuments and sites of cultural heritage throughout the country, attacked and humiliated their teachers and principals by parading them through public squares with signs around their necks, spitting on them and kicking them as they passed by. Posters everywhere denounced teachers, and many were jailed or even executed, while others committed suicide. Mobs of kids in excited revolt excoriated and shamed the very people who had been preparing them for the future. Students burned their textbooks and boycotted classes. Schools across the whole country were in utter disarray.
By 1968, the effects of the Cultural Revolution had spread from higher education to all sectors of society. Red Guards, workers, and peasants had overtaken schools, factories, hospitals, and businesses. Those with expertise and authority to run these places were violently replaced with peasants and unskilled workers who were only equipped with their Marxist ideologies. My school, the Second Elementary School of Yan An, had also been taken over by uneducated factory workers who had no idea how to run a school. They ousted our principal and changed our curriculum; instead of science and the humanities, we could only study communist teachings.
Every day at lunchtime, my young classmates and I assembled in the track-and-field area to recite Chairman Mao’s teachings and practice the “loyalty dance,” demonstrating devotion to our beloved leader. Each session was an opportunity for the Red Guards to drill into us the principles of the party and the glorious attributes of its paramount leader. I took my place in one of many long rows of students, all of us dressed in blue pants, white shirts, and red neckties. We moved and marched and spoke in unison. Standing over us and shouting with enthusiasm, the Red Guards reminded us of how Mao had founded modern China, had saved us from the oppression of feudalistic lords and Western powers who had humiliated China for a century and a half, had united a country torn apart by civil war, and had championed the proletariat. We were therefore obligated to emulate him always, and to seek our country’s greater good above all else, even our individual lives.
Living in a one-party system is difficult to imagine for anyone who is used to having choices. In the United States, people are allowed to have opinions about things; they can align themselves with any number of ideologies; and they can vote along a number of party lines. No such choices existed for us in China in those days. We couldn’t even choose to be a member of the one ruling party, the Communist Party, as it was a very difficult yet desirable status to earn because of its privilege and the favors bestowed upon its members. As an ordinary citizen, it was dangerous to be considered at odds with the party. Either we supported the ruling party, or our lives would be at stake. Dissent was simply not tolerated, and dissidents were often executed.
Like all the other students, I couldn’t help but be swept up in the hysteria. When the factory workers who had overtaken my elementary school targeted certain teachers, I had to go along with all the other students. One fateful day, on order of the Red Guards, I wrote on a classroom windowsill, “Down with Teacher Zhao! Long live Chairman Mao!” The Red Guards had singled out this teacher and ordered all of us to oppose and criticize him. I didn’t know why we had to denounce a teacher who was so devoted to his students, but I had no cho
ice except to obey the ruling authorities.
But when I got home from school, my mother’s frantic, fearful questions caused me to regret what I had done earlier that day.
“What in the world did you do at school?” she asked, her voice high-pitched with fear.
She and Dad had heard from someone at my school that I had written something incendiary and counter-revolutionary on the windowsill.
“What did you write, Ming?!” Dad asked, his voice full of anger.
“Nothing bad!” I said. “Just revolutionary slogans.”
“Your teachers found ‘Down with Chairman Mao!’ written in your handwriting. Did you write that?” he asked, his voice quivering.
My face became white and cold. Someone must have smudged the middle portion of the two sentences I had written in chalk on the windowsill!
The school was on the verge of declaring me a counter-revolutionary, an eminent danger to the beloved paramount leader, a threat to the proletarian society, a reactionary who should be jailed or executed!
I was only eight.
Shivering with fear, I re-wrote the two slogans on a piece of paper so my parents could see for themselves that what I had actually written wasn’t counter-revolutionary at all.
Later that evening, after an intense and nervous discussion with Mom, Dad said, “We have to go and talk to the school. If we don’t clear up this misunderstanding, Ming-xu will have a black dot in his file for the rest of his life.”
The “file” was the official record of your entire life. You would never be allowed to actually see it yourself, since it was a secret document held by the Communist Party. Its content documented all of your actions in the past and determined your class and status, your eligibility for favors and promotions, and whether you were a threat to the government and the party.
“How big is the black dot?” I was afraid that this so-called black dot was going to follow me for life!
For many nights I had nightmares of a black dot forming and coming after me. I saw a large blob of calligraphy ink rising up from a bottle on a desk at the local party office, rolling along streets and through courtyards until it found my home, where it would swing itself up the side of the building, reaching the pants and shirts hanging on the laundry contraption, then through the window and into our room, where it would finally find me and haunt me, casting shadows on the wall, just like the puppets had done when they danced on my fingers. It would never, ever leave me alone!
Later on I learned that of course what my father meant by a black dot was not a physical dot, but a statement put in my personal file that would label me a reactionary. As a result, my future would be irrevocably stained. No educational institution would ever accept me, and no company would ever hire me. A black dot in my file in the communist system meant a future of utter darkness. This one accusation, this grave misunderstanding, was set to ruin the rest of my life!
My parents couldn’t sleep for nights on end. From my little bed a few feet away, I could hear them toss and turn, whispering to each other, their voices strained and worried.
“We have another meeting with the school tomorrow,” my mother said one night. “I hope they’ll listen to us. They have to. We just can’t let Ming-xu’s life be ruined like this.”
I couldn’t sleep either. I lay in bed completely gripped by fear, staring toward the window to see if the ominous black dot had yet found me. I knew of older students who had been labeled counter-revolutionaries, had received the dreaded black dot in their files, and had committed suicide. I felt like I was in a free fall, scared and confused. But before I could completely fall apart, my parents quickly reacted to the crisis.
They took me with them to several meetings with school officials in an attempt to gain their pardon.
“Please accept our deepest apologies,” my mother said. “Ming-xu is just a child. He meant nothing by these scribbles which someone else has altered to make them look bad.”
“Whatever you do,” my father pleaded, “please don’t put a black dot in his file. Punish him in any way you deem necessary, but please spare him that mark.”
The Red Guards left us waiting while they held a long, closed-door meeting in another room to determine the fate of the rest of my life. We were filled with dread. Every second we had to wait felt like an eternity.
Finally, one of the school officials returned. “We acknowledge that perhaps Ming-xu did not write these words intentionally,” he said.
I felt as if a thousand pounds had been lifted off my shoulders. My parents cried tears of relief.
“But, this is still a very a serious offense,” the official continued. “Ming-xu will have to face certain grave consequences if he wants to avoid a black dot in his file.”
While I did narrowly escape being declared a counter-revolutionary and prosecution, my punishment was nonetheless very severe. Back at school, I was demoted to the bottom of my third-grade class. All of my honors were stripped from me. I was disqualified for a prestigious national award for academic excellence that I had worked so hard to achieve, and had already won in prior years. My classmates didn’t quite understand what had happened, but they knew I must have done something really bad, so they avoided me for months, as if I had an infectious disease. While I was relieved that I was able to avoid the black dot, I still felt utterly humiliated and alone.
My family had always stressed the importance of study and knowledge. Even Chairman Mao himself once said, “Study every day and keep on improving.” Working hard in school was a crucial key to good employment and a promising future. I clung to that belief and kept going even in those dark days, grateful for the love and support from my family. I may have been relegated to the bottom of my class, but together we had fought off the black dot! I figured that as long as I kept studying hard and maintaining top grades, I would be able to get back on my feet again.
My father continued to practice internal medicine at the hospital. In those volatile times, being a doctor who was loyal to the government and had no particular social or financial standing kept him safe and necessary to society. That is, until the Red Guards threatened to close the medical college where he and Mom taught classes.
One night during dinner, one of my mom’s colleagues hurried into our house in a panic.
“We need your help, A-lian; the Red Guards are about to destroy the university and all the labs!” he urged.
Mom bolted up from her stool, ready to run out the door, but Dad held her back.
“Don’t go, A-lian. It’s too dangerous!” he implored.
“I have to go. I won’t stand by while they destroy my lab and classroom.”
She hurried out the door with her colleague. Shortly after that, Dad decided to go himself as well. He told me to stay home and quickly went out the door. He wanted to find Mom and keep her from danger. I ran out behind him and clung to his leg.
“Dad, please don’t leave me alone!” I didn’t understand what was happening and I was scared. Reluctantly he took my hand, and we hurried out of the building and made our way toward the university.
Along the route to the school, a parade of trucks full of Red Guards rolled by. They wore bamboo hard hats and waved metal clubs, shouting revolutionary slogans: “Long live Chairman Mao! Destroy the bourgeois schools! Down with teachers and the stinking ninth class!”
I could sense my father was becoming more nervous. His pace quickened, and I struggled to keep up with him.
“Quick Ming-xu, run!” he shouted over his shoulder. “We have to make it to the university before those trucks do!”
I ran as hard as I could, trying to keep up with his long strides. My lungs burned and my eyes watered. When we arrived at the university gate, my heart was pounding and I could hardly breathe. As I gasped for air, I looked around and saw that a sentry of Red Guards had already arrived and blockaded the entrance. Under a big, bleak, and glaring spotlight, as teachers emerged from inside the university, the Red Guards beat them with iron clubs unti
l they were writhing on the ground and screaming in pain. And they then continued the beatings until the teachers’ skulls cracked wide open. There was blood everywhere. I was so shocked that I squeezed my eyes shut and started whimpering. Dad snatched me into his arms and hurried away.
I peered nervously through squinted eyes to see where we were going. Dad ran to the back of the university, where we stood beneath high walls. It was very dark, but in the moonlight I could see the silhouettes of people climbing over the wall to escape for their lives. I recognized many of them—other professors who worked with my mom. Dad and I waited eagerly, scanning the faces of those climbing over the wall, hoping to see Mom among them climbing to safety. I would never forget the fearful wide eyes and scared stare of one of the teachers when we approached her to see if she was my mother. I had nightmares for weeks afterward, in which a ghostly woman stared at me with wide eyes and that petrified expression.
More and more people climbed over the wall and escaped, but Mom wasn’t among them.
“Dad, can we please go home now?” I asked him over and over again, my voice quavering. I was frightened. What if the Red Guards found us here? Would Dad and I get beaten too?
“Ming-xu! How can we go home when your mom is still inside the school?” he exclaimed, his voice tense and angry. Then, sensing my fear, he patted my back to soothe me, and soon I fell asleep on his shoulder, totally exhausted.
When I woke up, I was lying on the floor of our apartment. I heard moaning and groaning, the sounds of someone in severe pain. I raised myself up and looked toward the direction of the sound, and saw my mom lying on the bed in agony, on top of bloody sheets. I froze, too shocked to know what to do.
When he noticed I was awake, Dad came over and told me that Mom didn’t escape but instead chose to stay behind to protect the lab, which contained decades of her and others’ medical research. When the Red Guards finally found her there, they beat her with their iron clubs until she collapsed in a bloody heap, and left her to die. Luckily, among the Red Guards was one of Mom’s own students who couldn’t bear to see his teacher being beaten to death. Risking his life and reputation as a revolutionary, he carried my mom through a little-known exit and brought her home, where Dad was able to stop her bleeding and bandage her. This young man, to whom our family owed my mother’s life, had already left before I awoke. He never gave my father his name.