The Dragon's Village: An Autobiographical Novel of Revolutionary China

by Yuan-Tsung Chen

  “Soon you will have more and better land,” I said, comforting her as well as reassuring myself. “About nine mu—four times what you have now.”

  She did not appear to hear me.

  “Doesn’t that make you happy?” I persisted.

  “Even if we get more land I can’t till it all by myself.”

  “What will you do then?”

  “We will sell it,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Sell it?” I exclaimed, aghast. “But then when you have used that money up, you will be as badly off as you are today.”

  She paused in her work and gave me a long, hard stare. “No tools, no plow, no water, no work hands—no nothing. We are too poor to till nine mu.”

  Her words were like a slap in the face. All this effort and struggle for the land reform and then she would turn around and sell the land and after a few months be back where she was now. I was going to remonstrate with her but I stopped with my first words. Suffering, want, and ridicule had utterly crushed her spirit.

  She went back to hacking away at the earth with her blunt mattock, and I joined her, working silently while I collected my thoughts. Her last words had been a complaint, but also a query and a challenge. She wanted an answer to the bitter questions in her heart, and I wanted to be sure that I gave her the right answer, if I could.

  Mutual aid, cooperatives, mechanization, electricity, modernization—we had discussed all this in our study classes back in Shanghai. Although the details of these plans were still not clear to me, because I knew next to nothing about farming, I accepted them on trust. It had seemed to me then that the peasants’ problems would be easily solved once they got land of their own and had the will to prosper. Once you had your own plot, what was so hard about raising a good crop on it? I had had no conception of the magnitude of the problems the peasants faced. No wonder the young widow could think only of traditional ways of solving her problems: If you had land and were driven to extremities, you sold it and staved off the final catastrophe for yet another few months. The inadequacy of my answers was clear. There was no way short of a miracle for a poverty-stricken widow with two ailing parents to prosper.

  The day was really breaking now. The sky grew brighter. The bluish-grey mist which shrouded the fields rose and was scattered by the rays of the sun. Soon it cleared completely. The houses, cottages, and hovels of the village, the open fields and distant mountains were revealed under the deep blue sky. In the brightness of the cold North China winter’s day things looked better; even the harsh features of the widow were mellowed. Her figure was still slim except for her slightly thickened hips. Her still-firm breasts bobbed up and down rhythmically in time with the movements of her arms swinging her heavy mattock. The sleeve beneath her armpit was torn. The thick black hair gleamed wet with perspiration. Despite her sorrows and hardships her feet stood firm on the earth. “Some day I will advise her to find a good man and sleep in the warmth of his arms instead of clinging to a piece of cold wood every night,” I said to myself and made a mental note of my resolve. “I’ll tell her, ‘Don’t listen to that nonsense about being burned eternally in Hell if you enjoy life and break these stupid old traditions. Free yourself of vain anxieties about the next life and enjoy this one, the only one you are sure of.’ ”

  Aloud I told her, “You are strong and capable. You can till a few mu and others will help you till the rest. You will get tools to till the land and seed to sow. Soon the peasants will have tractors to do the heavy work. Even a young girl can drive a tractor and plow thirty mu a day.”

  “Thirty mu a day?” the virgin widow repeated in evident doubt. No man in Longxiang could do that, not even the strongest. “But what is a tractor? I suppose that needs an ox to pull it?”

  The sun had risen well over the horizon.

  “I must go and boil water for Father and Mother.”

  I gave the mattock back to her. “I’ll come again. Why don’t you come to one of our meetings and hear about the land reform?”

  She paused and thought for a moment or two, and then turned away without a word.

  10

  Criticism and Self-Criticism

  By early winter, Wang Sha, Cheng, and I had talked with nearly every poor peasant of the township and with many others besides. Most of them were part-time farmers like the blacksmith and carpenter, two peddlers, the local herb doctor, and the “vet” who had no diploma but knew more about animals and their ailments than anyone else around. A core of activists had gathered around us, and when it was made generally known that all landless and landpoor peasants and middle peasants could join and vote at meetings of the Poor Peasants’ Association, we soon had enough members to establish—or rather re-establish—it as the real headquarters of the land reform. From what we heard, all the work teams had made similar progress, and the county leadership and Wang Sha thought the time ripe for us to get together to sum up our experiences and plan our next moves. A conference of all the work teams was called at the county center, twenty miles from Longxiang.

  I looked forward to a chance for a good talk with Ma Li. So much had happened since we’d seen each other. I was eager to share my thoughts with her and compare notes. It was not a matter of personal hopes and expectations, successes and difficulties only, but of the “big picture” too. Had anyone found the right key to unlock the secrets of the villages?

  I also had to admit that after a month in tiny Longxiang with its six hundred people even the dilapidated county town seemed appealing. I studied the conference schedule to see if I would have enough free time to do some shopping, to eat at least one well-cooked meal in a restaurant, and perhaps see a local opera. By the looks of it, it seemed that if everything went as planned I could do all that I wished.

  Wang Sha went ahead of us to prepare for the conference. Malvolio Cheng and I set out together the next day at dawn. It was a fine day in early winter. The morning air was cold and fresh. The sun rose in a cloudless sky and gilded the mountains on our western horizon. I was not walking; I was dancing along the road. Cheng whistled joyfully. We took a shortcut through a grove of pine trees on a sandy knoll.

  “Wait a minute, I’ve got some sand in my slipper,” I called out. I supported myself with one hand on a towering pine. With the other I took off my slipper, but I lost my balance. As I tried to steady myself, the slipper fell out of my hand and rolled a few feet down the slope.

  “Hold on,” cried Cheng. “I’ll get it for you.”

  He leaned down to pick up the slipper. I saw a vein beat fast at the side of his muscular neck. I snatched up a handful of pine needles and dropped them down his collar. Cheng gave a start and twisted his neck to shake off the prickly needles. He frowned at me in a super-villainous way, and I chuckled. We went on our way in high good humor.

  The courtyard of the county office was crowded with work team cadres when we arrived. A musician was playing an accordion and Liao was entertaining the crowd with some sort of Russian or Hungarian folk dance. One moment he was circling the courtyard with his arms outspread, then he was squatting down on his heels, his arms crossed calmly on his chest, throwing out first one leg and then the other. Next he would leap high in the air, clicking his heels together first on one side and then on the other. Finally he whirled in the air and spun like a cartwheel while the accordionist’s fingers fluttered with lightning speed over the keys. When he stopped, he stood perfectly balanced on his two feet, arms spread wide as if it had all been effortless. It was a marvelous performance. When we applauded him a smile lit up his face. Then I saw him cast a shy, sidelong glance at the pretty dancer Chu Hua who had so attracted me at Yang Gui-fei’s hot spring. A blush spread over her face, and I smiled too in sympathy with them. Liao was not much to look at in his dusty cadre’s uniform, but when he danced, his whole being radiated vitality.

  Ma Li greeted me warmly, as I did her, and we could not get the words out fast enough to tell our tales.

  “I’ve heard that when we go back to our vi
llages we’re going to start searching landlords’ houses!” she whispered to me.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Don’t be inquisitive.” She turned around with a short laugh and walked backwards, saying, “They’ll tell us in the conference. We aren’t supposed to know about it yet.”

  By mid-afternoon all seventy of us were gathered together in the largest hall at the county office, which for lack of suitable accommodation was temporarily located in part of an ancient Confucian temple. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to talk at once. Everyone had “unique” experiences, everyone had triumphs, and all had problems. But there was no doubt of the enthusiasm that animated everyone. From the reports given during the two days of the conference we learned that the work teams had indeed more or less kept pace with each other, though no two townships were alike. In some the peasants had moved ahead a bit faster than most, while in others it had taken a bit longer to get going. But no two townships posed exactly the same problems. In a couple of places where there were sizable congregations of Moslems there had been greater resistance to freeing the women and giving them equal rights. In two others, due to the covert influence of the landlords, the work teams had not managed even to organize effective Poor Peasants’ Associations and everything hung fire. The county leadership arranged to reinforce these lagging teams with more experienced cadres. Cheng gave the report of our Longxiang work team and it appeared that we had done only about as well as the average, which was still better than we had thought.

  When all the reports were in, it was clear that in most townships, including Longxiang, the landlords, seemingly quiescent at the start, were now moving on the sly to counter the arrival of the work teams. “Bamboo telegraphs”—swift-flying village gossip—carried news and rumors from village to village. Events were moving to a confrontation. And just as Ma Li had predicted, it was decided that we should keep the initiative in the work teams’ hands by confronting the landlords directly by a search of their homes. The aim would be to unearth incriminating evidence of sabotage of the land reform. On this note we prepared to return to our villages.

  I looked at my watch as we were dismissed. A few hours remained before our departure, and a general hubbub broke out as we began discussing how to enjoy them shopping and sightseeing in the town. The chairman had difficulty making himself heard, but by banging on his table he finally regained our attention. Wang Sha announced that the deputy county Party secretary wished to chat with a couple of dozen of us, all working in villages lying close to each other, while a few other teams would meet separately to discuss matters that concerned them only. A bit mystified, we reluctantly saw our friends move off to enjoy themselves in the town.

  I was delayed a few moments and entered the office to find the deputy secretary—the same one who’d given us that boring lecture on propriety in Xian—seated on the kang, one leg folded under him, the other dangling to the floor. But his uneasiness showed through his exaggeratedly relaxed air. He was smoking one cigarette after another and the butts littered the floor around him.

  “Welcome, welcome,” he said cordially. “Please sit down. Have a cup of tea.” Then he corrected himself with a laugh when he recalled that there was no tea. It would have been a luxury here, with so many people to be served. “Have a cup of hot water,” he offered instead, and without waiting for an answer he rose, opened the Thermos bottle on the office table, and filled several bowls for us.

  We thanked him and passed the bowls around. This broke the tension for a moment, but we wondered why he wanted to talk with us.

  He cleared his throat. “I want to thank you for your work in the land reform. Yes. I thank you personally and also on behalf of the county leadership for your public spirit in coming so far to help us. You are doing fine. Yes. Doing fine.”

  His cigarette was burning to the end. He took a last frugal puff, holding the short stub carefully at the very tip between two fingers. After the hesitant pause he continued:

  “Before you came, we wondered whether you city people could adjust to life here or not. Writers, artists, actors, dancers, we thought, are rather special people, unused to hardship, especially those from a big city like Shanghai. But all of you are working hard and have accomplished a lot.” He paused again and then, remembering that he was not supposed to be giving a lecture but just having a chat, said, “I’m afraid I’m boring you again.” His face, bronzed by years of work in the countryside, in the fields and the mountains, suddenly showed embarrassment.

  “I hope we haven’t disappointed you.” Wang Sha’s laugh was a little strained.

  “Oh, no. I’m sure not.” Then he turned to Wang Sha as our representative. “I think that’s all I want to say now. Just, ‘Thank you.’ You will excuse me now, I hope. I have a few words to say to some of the other work teams.”

  He seemed very anxious to leave us in Wang Sha’s charge. Something had gone wrong, and our group must have gone more wrong than the others, otherwise Wang Sha would not be devoting all his time to us this afternoon. A buzz of conversation broke out as soon as he closed the door but ceased immediately as Wang Sha began hesitantly to speak:

  “You have heard what the deputy secretary said. We are working hard, and doing fine. But as our host, he did not think it polite to tell us where we had gone wrong; he left it to me. Let me put it this way: We can work harder and better and we must avoid making mistakes.”

  “What precisely do you want to tell us? We won’t feel hurt. If we’ve done anything wrong, I’m sure we all want to know what it is.” It was Ma Li speaking. She glanced around at us as if asking if everyone agreed with her.

  “I’m sorry to take up more of your time. I know you want to go out and enjoy yourselves during the small amount of free time that you have. You deserve it. But what we’re going to speak about now is most important for future work. There is going to be a direct confrontation with the landlords and we must be well prepared for that. We must have strict discipline. We must act as if we were real soldiers, because this is a real battle. There is real fighting going on in Korea. American planes are dropping Guomindang leaflets calling on the landlords and the people to oppose the land reform and reporting that the cadres and peasants are committing all sorts of atrocities as they take the land from the landlords. Arms are being smuggled in to the reactionaries and our army is having to guard the coast across from Taiwan.

  “We here are far away from these events, but you can see for yourselves that we are all part of the same battle.

  “Unfortunately, some comrades have forgotten the discipline that we have been told about again and again both in Shanghai and in Xian. We can’t allow that to pass easily. Today three people will criticize themselves. Who will speak first?”

  There was a moment’s silence. We had had quite a few of these criticism and self-criticism sessions back in Shanghai. Every two or three weeks those who worked in the same department got together to hold one. It was a cross between a family council, a group therapy session, and a Roman Catholic confessional. One could bring up any topic: work, marriage, love affairs, sins committed in fact or in one’s head, anything under the sun. There were all sorts of ways of communicating one’s thoughts, the consciousness of one’s transgressions, anxieties, and criticisms of others. This was not something new to us, but this was the first time we had been called to such a meeting here in Gansu. We wondered who had been “undisciplined” and how seriously. Where? When?

  Someone coughed discreetly either to distract attention or to cover up his confusion. It was the amateur archaeologist Hu.

  “Shall I speak first?” he asked Wang Sha, half rising to his feet.

  “Go ahead, please. But there’s no need to stand up.”

  “Well, as you all know …” He lowered his eyes and searched for something on the floor of the office before looking up and proclaiming, “Well, I am always very proud of our ancient culture.”

  “What has that got to do with your mistakes?” a voice interjected queru
lously.

  “Well, one afternoon I picked up a piece of pottery near the courtyard I live in. I inspected the pattern on it. It could be Tang pottery or even earlier, a piece from the Han dynasty.”

  The amateur archaeologist began to describe his find with growing relish. His eyes and eyebrows danced. His fingers traced patterns in the air.

  “To the point. Let’s hear about your mistake.”

  The young man who had interrupted before spoke again, but this time he stood up impatiently, legs wide apart, hands on hips. He was an actor who usually played the role of a young factory worker or a dashing guerrilla fighter. With a heavy dose of sarcasm in his voice, he added, “If you would be kind enough to cut a long story short, we might still have time enough to take a look around the town.”

  “I am coming to the point. Well, I thought that if I could identify it, I could send it to the Palace Museum in Peking. It might lead to some important discovery.”

  “Are you praising yourself or criticizing yourself?” another voice asked.

  “I am not praising myself. I am presenting the facts. Now you have interrupted me. I’ve forgotten where I was.” And he scratched his head perplexedly.

  “You were in the Palace Museum,” someone said helpfully.

  “Ah, yes. I thought I could send it to the Palace Museum if I could identify it. But how was I going to do that, I asked myself. The farmer whose cottage I share is a poor peasant. Yes, there I take a firm class stand: I live with a poor peasant, and I’m glad of it.” Realizing that he was boasting again, he stopped short. “Anyway, my host told me that there was a landlord nearby who had a very good library. He suggested that I might find a suitable reference book there.”