by Ha Jin
The album also contained photographs of other celebrities. Among them was a thirtyish combat correspondent from the New York Herald Tribune named Margaret Hinton, a tall blonde with the looks of a second-rate movie actress—large vivid eyes, a narrow nose, permed hair, and flashing teeth. She always wore baggy fatigues, aviator sunglasses, tennis sneakers, and an oversize cap. One picture showed she was quite familiar with General MacArthur, whose hand casually rested on the small of her back. Articles about her said that she often got stories other reporters couldn’t get and that she had traveled to the front and even slept with the troops on the Inchon beachhead. Wherever Miss Hinton appeared, she would attract gaggles of GIs who hadn’t seen a pretty blonde for months. Her jeep was the most popular sight to the troops. She must have been a good reporter, having won a Pulitzer for journalism. She had returned to the United States long ago, but still suffered from bronchitis, acute sinusitis, and recurrent malaria, dysentery, and jaundice, all of which she had contracted during her war reporting. In one of her interviews, she claimed she would not marry until she found “a man who’s as exciting as war.” Having read those words, I felt sick at heart. For her, the war had been a publicity stunt, a game. She should have been given a rifle and made to fight like an infantryman so that she could undergo the physical suffering and taste the bitterness of betrayal, loss, and madness. One article even concluded: “Korea is her war.” Who can bear the weight of a war? To witness is to make the truth known, but we must remember that most victims have no voice of their own, and that in bearing witness to their stories we must not appropriate them.
In our compound few men bothered me, because they knew Wang Yong had taken me under his wing. In return for Wang’s protection, I had to do what he asked. I even wrote official letters for him. Compared with the pro-Communists, the pro-Nationalists cared more about formalities, so an official missive had to be elaborate and ostentatiously elegant. They always addressed a superior with his full title; among themselves they used various fraternal terms, like Elder Brother (even if the person addressed was a generation younger), Respectable Brother, and Benevolent Brother. I disliked this sort of decorum, which was feudalistic and ludicrous, but I was familiar with it and could compose the letters with ease. What’s more, now that I was here, Wang Yong often took me along, instead of Dajian, when he met with the Americans. Once in a while he would lend me to the regimental headquarters, especially when foreign officials came to inspect the prison. I didn’t want to hurt Dajian’s feelings, but I had to obey the chief.
Crude and fearsome though Wang Yong was, he worshiped knowledge, especially that from books. Whenever he saw me reading the Bible, he’d cluck his tongue admiringly. He even got me a pocket English-Chinese dictionary, which helped me in my reading. We didn’t have any money, so we couldn’t buy a dictionary, but Wang Yong had obtained one from a Nationalist officer working for the United Nations here. The book had been published in Taiwan just two years before and had hardly been used at all. I signed my name on its title page and cherished it.
My reading speed had picked up, and now I could read ten pages of the Bible an hour. The progress pleased me greatly. I marked all the new words in pencil and reviewed them later on. Intuitively I felt I would benefit from my ability to use English, so I worked hard.
Outside the barbed wire, in the west, a few cherry trees were crowned with pinkish, fluffy blossoms. Beyond them stretched a dwarf orange grove whose fruit grew more visible week by week. Sometimes cuckoos would cry from the depths of the trees. Frequently as I tried, I never caught a glimpse of the birds. On occasion when I gazed at the grove, a few Mongolian ponies, piebald and bay, would appear, grazing and galloping at will. They were probably wild horses.
Though life was relatively safe here, it was not insulated from political struggle. Our peace of mind was often interrupted by sessions designed to intensify our hatred for the Communists, those Red Bandits. Study groups met regularly, and we were made to read Chiang Kai-shek’s China’s Destiny and Sun Yat-sen’s booklet The Three People’s Principles (referring to nationalism, democracy, and the people’s livelihood). Every week we spent a day airing our grievances against Red China and the Soviet Union. The prisoners sat in rows, and one by one we talked about the crimes perpetrated by the Communists. Someone said his uncle had been executed only for selling a bit of opium on the streets. Another claimed that his parents’ house, a stone mansion, had been confiscated by the village government, which later had it torn down, its stones used to build a dam at a reservoir. A man, obviously fond of drink, went so far as to claim that the Communists had shut down all the wineries in his hometown. The secretary of our battalion said his father, who had owned just ten acres of land, had been executed by the Communists as a landowner while he himself was serving in the Red Army. His superiors didn’t tell him about the execution—they even changed the contents of a letter his sister had written him so as to keep him in the dark.
Story after story, the prisoners indeed had endless grievances. During these sessions, organized mostly by the Oppose-Communism-and-Resist-Russia Association, everyone had to say something to condemn the Reds. A thickset man once argued that on the whole the Communists were villains, but they had done a few good things, for instance banning opium, containing inflation, and treating women equally. The other inmates were furious, saying he was sympathetic toward the Commies, and at night some men got hold of him and beat him up. I felt that these men, though opposing Communism, had been so affected by the Red Army’s indoctrination that they couldn’t help acting like the Communists in some ways. They had banded together mainly because of their fear of the uncertain future. They had traveled too far on the anti-Communist road to retrace their steps. I suspected that in the eyes of the Nationalist government, they might not be trustworthy either, because they had served in the Red Army, thus having betrayed their original Nationalist masters.
One afternoon in the “airing grievances” session, the medic said something almost incredible, though there must have been some truth in the story. He told us: “When our former division suffered heavy casualties near Wonsan, we rushed over to evacuate the wounded men. There were hundreds of them lying on a hillside. I was naive and just went ahead bandaging those crying for help. But our director told us to check the insides of the men’s jackets first. If the insignia of a hammer crossed by a sickle was there, that man must be shipped back immediately and given all medical help. So we followed his orders. All those men who had the secret sign in their jackets were Party members. We left behind lots of ordinary men like ourselves.”
The audience remained silent for a good minute after he finished speaking. I knew the medic and didn’t think he had made up the story. Wang Yong broke the silence: “The Reds used us like ammo. Look at the GIs, they all wear flak vests on the battleground. The U.S. government cares about their lives. How about us? What else were we wearing besides a cotton jacket? How many of our brothers could’ve survived if they’d put on the vests like the GIs? Recently I came across an article. It reports that General Ridgway says the U.S. forces could absolutely push the Communist armies all the way back to the Yalu, but he won’t do that because he doesn’t want to sacrifice thousands of his men. Just imagine: what if the People’s Volunteer Army could drive the Americans down to the Pacific Ocean? Wouldn’t Mao Zedong sacrifice every one of the Volunteers to accomplish that goal? You bet he would. Didn’t he already send us here to be wasted like manure to fertilize Korean soil?”
“Down with Communism!” shouted a man.
The audience followed in one voice and thrust up their fists.
“Reseize the mainland!”
Hundreds of men roared in unison again.
Wang’s analogy of us as human fertilizer revived thoughts I had been thinking for a long time. True enough, as Chinese, we genuinely felt that our lives were misused here, but as I have observed earlier, no matter how abysmal our situation was there were always others who had it worse. By now I und
erstood why occasionally some Korean civilians were hostile to us. To them we had come here only to protect China’s interests—by so doing, we couldn’t help but ruin their homes, fields, and livelihoods. From their standpoint, if the Chinese army hadn’t crossed the Yalu, millions of lives, both civilian and military, would have been saved. Of course, the United States would then have occupied all of Korea, forcing China to build defenses in Manchuria, which would have been much more costly than sending troops to fight in our neighboring country. As it was, the Koreans had taken the brunt of the destruction of this war, whereas we Chinese were here mainly to keep its flames away from our border. Or, as most of the POWs believed, perhaps rightly, we had served as cannon fodder for the Russians. It was true that the Koreans had started the war themselves, but a small country like theirs could only end up being a battleground for bigger powers. Whoever won this war, Korea would be a loser.
I also realized why some Koreans, especially those living south of the Thirty-eighth Parallel, seemed to prefer the American army to us. Not having enough food supplies or money, we had to press them for rice, sweet potatoes, any edibles, and sometimes we stole dried fish and chilies from under their eaves, grabbed crops from their fields and orchards, and even dug out their grain seeds to eat. By contrast, the Americans had everything they needed and didn’t go to the civilians for necessities. Whenever the U.S. troops decamped, the local folks would rush to the site to pick up stuff discarded by them, such as telephone wires, shell boxes, cartridge cases, half-eaten bread, cans, soggy cigarettes, ruptured tires, used batteries. We thought we had come all the way to help the Koreans, but some of us had willy-nilly ended up their despoilers.
A big-boned man jumped up and declared, “I have lots of bitterness too.” The prisoners had nicknamed him the Capitalist, because he raised a hen, for which, when it was a chick, he had exchanged four packs of cigarettes with a Korean peddler. He tethered the chicken to the back of his shed and fed it grass mainly. In the spring the hen began to lay, but it was so underfed that it could produce only one puny egg every other day. Its owner bartered the eggs for food with the cooks.
“Speak,” Wang Yong ordered him.
“In Manchuria our company was detailed to load trains. We worked for a whole week carrying sacks of soybeans and peanuts into cargo wagons. I asked our company commander, ‘Where’s all this stuff going?’ He said, ‘Russia.’ I asked, ‘Why? Do they give us something in return?’ He said, ‘This is a way we show our affection for our Russian big brothers. They’ll send us lots of machines in the future.’ From then on we worked at the train station on and off for almost a year, but I never saw anything from Russia, not even a nail. Instead, we always shipped stuff to them. From this I reckon the Commies are just a bunch of traitors selling out our country.”
After him, another man began talking about how he had been misled into a battle. He said huskily, “I’m a Chinese, but I’m no Volunteer. Before we came to Korea, our leaders told us the Americans were just paper tigers. They were afraid of night fighting. Their weapons were more advanced, but they didn’t know how to do hand-to-hand combat. Compared with us, they were just pushovers. So we all wrote our pledges. One fellow promised he’d wipe out twenty GIs, another said he’d catch an officer alive, a colonel, and I said I’d blow up three tanks, because I was good at handling explosive satchels and bangalore torpedoes. Then when we came to Korea and got to the battlefields, all the men who’d written pledges were ordered to charge first. Our company commander said to me, ‘Comrade Fan Long-yan, before the battle you volunteered to destroy three American tanks. Now it’s time to honor your word.’ I had no choice but to charge. That’s how I lost my arm.”
“Screw the Reds,” Wang Yong said. “They always brag. Mao Zedong said the whole U.S. Seventh Fleet was a paper tiger. If that’s true, how come the Reds don’t dare to cross Taiwan Strait? Everybody can see that they’re scared by the aircraft carriers stationed there.”
“Yes, there’s no way they can break the U.S. naval blockade,” responded a man with a swarthy face.
“You can count on the fingers of one hand how many warships the Reds have,” added another voice.
“And all those are as obsolete as their mothers’ underpants,” said a broad-cheeked fellow.
Laughter exploded from the audience. I couldn’t help but laugh with them.
In these sessions I also spoke about the horror I had seen in the Red Army. Most of the time I talked about how the Communists valued equipment more than human lives. This sort of endless condemnation was rather crude compared with the way the Communists conducted their political education, in which they always managed to associate people’s personal sufferings with the oppression of foreign imperialism, Chinese feudalism, and capitalism so as to amplify the hatred. Once the inmates here got on the track of voicing their grievances, they could no longer hold themselves back. All kinds of accusations were brought up, some of which were true, some groundless. By rule you had to say something, or you might be suspected of sympathizing with the Communists.
I always took care not to speak when a tape recorder was on, because some of the speeches were recorded for propaganda purposes. Deep inside, I felt the Communist government had been more responsible than the old regime; it had done some good things for the common citizens and made China a stronger country. At the same time, though, I dreaded the Communists and the way they controlled people’s lives and minds.
There was another kind of political education here that was more harrowing to me. This was known as self- and mutual criticism. We were ordered to admit that one way or another we had helped the Reds and to confess whatever wrongdoing we had committed purposely or inadvertently. We had all served in the People’s Liberation Army, so many men would touch on their past perfunctorily and no one would press them to confess. I was a special case, however, because for almost a year I had been away in the pro-Communist camp. Therefore, one morning in our shed, an entire session, attended by more than sixty men, was devoted to me alone. All kinds of questions were fired at me. What did you do in Camp 8? How active were you in the riot last October? What made you change your mind and come back? How can you convince us of your sincerity? Question after question, it was like attending a denunciation meeting.
I was overwhelmed, even as my mind was flooded with thoughts of my own. What’s the difference between you people and the Communists? Where in the world can I ever be among my true comrades? Why am I always alone? When can I feel at home somewhere?
To my astonishment, Bai Dajian stood up, pointed at my nose, and declared in a gruff voice, “Brothers, I think this man is an agent working for the Reds.”
I scrambled to ask, “Dajian, why are you doing this to me? We used to be good friends, didn’t we?”
“You’re not my friend anymore because you betrayed our Nationalist cause.”
“Confess!” a voice commanded me.
“You’re a Commie, aren’t you?” another butted in.
“Come on, own up.”
“Don’t play dumb.”
Wang Yong got up, came to the front, and stood beside me. He said, “Brothers, let’s stop this dog-bite-dog business. I know how he returned to us. He showed me a letter of recommendation from an American officer based in Pusan. Feng Yan, do you still have it?”
“Yes, I have it here.” I took the letter out of the inner pocket of my jacket.
“Read it to them,” he said.
I read out the letter in English, then translated it into Chinese. That quieted them down. Still Dajian wouldn’t let me off. He came up to me and said, “Show me the letter.”
I handed it to him. He looked at it, but to my surprise, he tore it up and dropped the pieces to the floor. He said through his teeth, “This is a hoax, a fabrication.” His face had lost color and the finger stumps on his left hand were quivering.
I stood there speechless, not knowing how to respond. Why had he nursed such intense hatred of me? He used to be a gentle, diffi
dent man. Why was he so hysterical now? He must have been hurt terribly when I left him. Then it dawned on me that he might still be a passive man, and that he was malicious because he regarded me as a rival.
Suddenly Wang Yong bellowed, “I do it to your mother, Bai Dajian! You dare to destroy a document from the top. I talked with the Pusan POW Collection Center before Feng Yan was sent down, and they told me he was coming to join us of his own free will. Everything was done officially, plain like a louse on a bald head. How can you say this was a fabricated letter? What blackened your heart so? Now, you go to the kitchen and stay in there for a week helping the cooks.”
The audience rocked with laughter. A few men even applauded. Wang Yong came up to me and pulled up the front end of my shirt to reveal my tattoo. “Look, brothers,” he said loudly, “the words we fixed on him are still here. This proves he’s been on our side all the time, don’t you think?”
“Yeah!” a voice rang out.
More people guffawed. It was lucky that I had shown Wang the tattoo a few days before. He went on, “True, Feng Yan made an awful mistake in leaving us last time, but we should give him a second chance, shouldn’t we?”
“Yes, this is benevolence,” remarked an older soldier.
“That’s the word.” The chief took it up. “We’re different from the Reds. We must cherish our brotherhood and treat each other unselfishly so that we can unite with one heart and one mind. Brothers, you all know Stalin popped off a few weeks ago. It’s time to prepare ourselves for the great cause of toppling the Communist world. We shouldn’t just keep our field of vision within our small compound, biting and barking at each other like mad dogs. We must have the vision of a thousand miles so that we can fight all the way back to Beijing and then to Moscow.”