Mao's Last Dancer (Movie Tie-In)

by Li Cunxin

  Teacher Xiao suddenly understood. We walked down to level two together and knocked on Zhang Shu’s door.

  “There may be a way for Cunxin to go to America after all,” Teacher Xiao said.

  Zhang Shu was amused, but Teacher Xiao handed him the newspaper. He quickly scanned the headline and frowned.

  “We can lobby the vice minister in charge to ask permission for Cunxin to leave!” Teacher Xiao shouted excitedly.

  “The vice minister might be reluctant to take on the responsibility knowing Minister Wang had refused it before,” Zhang Shu said thoughtfully.

  “Can’t we lobby all the vice ministers?” I suggested.

  They looked at each other and laughed. “All five of them?” Zhang Shu shook his head.

  “It would be extremely difficult, but not impossible,” Teacher Xiao added.

  They discussed who the key minister in the ministry was and they decided on Lin Muhan, a well-known intellect in China and a labeled rightist who had been through some horrifying times during the Cultural Revolution. He was now in charge of the educational area within the ministry and a strong advocate for talent. Zhang Shu felt that he would be sympathetic toward my situation.

  I wrote to my family that night and told them I couldn’t go back home just yet.

  Our intense lobbying efforts lasted over two weeks.

  Teacher Xiao told me years later that he and Zhang Shu had even gone to Lin Muhan’s own residence in their final effort to get me back to America. Teacher Xiao made a promise to the minister: within five years Chinese ballet dancers would be the best in the world.

  This time they succeeded. Lin Muhan lobbied the four other vice ministers and signed the permission for me to go to America for one year.

  With passport in hand I went to the U.S. consulate in Beijing as soon as I could, and my visa was granted within days.

  I called Ben. “I can come! Plane ticket, please!” I shouted, my heart blossoming like a flower.

  Two days later I received a phone call from Northwest Airlines. My reservation was confirmed. I was to leave China in three days.

  My last three days were frantically busy. All my friends wanted some special time alone with me. On my last Saturday night, Teacher Xiao invited the entire class to his apartment and cooked us a delicious meal. We all helped with the washing, cutting and cleaning. He even made an egg, apple and potato salad. We banged our glasses together and shouted, “Gan bei!” Teacher Xiao stood up and raised his glass. “I wish to propose two toasts. The first is to all of you for putting up with me for over five and a half years of shouting and carrying on. This may be our last gathering together. I’m proud to be your teacher and I wish you all the best of luck. You’re Chairman and Madame Mao’s last generation of dancers. You have studied under the most strict and disciplined rules imaginable, but this will give you an edge over the others. You’ll be the last dancers of the era.” Teacher Xiao stopped briefly to calm his emotions. “I’ll boldly make a prediction. Your dance training will never be duplicated. Your dancing will proudly stand high in Chinese ballet history.”

  He paused again. “My second toast is to Cunxin’s American trip. I hope you will respect your past and charge toward the future. Perfect your art form. Make all of China proud. Gan bei!”

  This was the very last time our class would ever gather together with Teacher Xiao.

  I felt so happy about going back to America, but I wished that I could go home to my family before I went. I longed to see my parents and brothers again, especially my niang, but I couldn’t take the risk of going back to Qingdao. The possibility of the ministers changing their minds was very real. For the time being I had to be content with the thought of seeing my family in a year’s time.

  I visited my adopted family, the Chongs, that Sunday and tasted their delicious dumplings for the last time. That night at the Beijing Dance Academy, the Bandit, Liu Fengtian, Chong Xiongjun and some of my classmates organized a farewell party. The mood of the whole evening was happy and warm, but there was also a sense of sadness—no one knew if we would ever gather together like this again.

  So in November 1979, a month after my original planned date, I left China for the second time. I didn’t know it then, but it would be many, many years before I could return.

  PART THREE

  THE WEST

  20

  RETURN TO THE LAND OF FREEDOM

  I felt only total exhaustion as soon as the plane soared into the air. The past few months had worn me out, and even up to the last seconds before the plane took off I feared that the Chinese government might still change its mind and I would be dragged off the plane and back to Beijing forever.

  The thought of never being allowed out of China again was terrifying. I so desperately wanted a freedom of expression and thought that I couldn’t have in China. I so desperately wanted to conquer the ballet world. And here was my chance. Now I wouldn’t have to dance for Mao’s communist ideals. Now I could dance for myself, my parents, my teachers and my friends back in China. The communist influence was fading fast.

  Janie Parker, one of the principal dancers of the Houston Ballet, picked me up from Houston Airport. I’d briefly met Janie toward the end of the summer school three months before, and I remembered her sunny personality. I was so happy to see her again.

  Janie drove me back to Ben’s place through perfect autumn weather. I thought of the filthy, dusty Beijing air and I opened the car window to let the fresh, clean Houston air gust against my face, my long permed hair flying wildly in the wind. For a second I thought this was not real. I wasn’t meant to be back here again.

  I took a deep breath. My spirit felt free.

  I was to stay for twelve months, but even then I knew that America the second time around would be a totally different experience. My beliefs were now completely altered after my experience with the Ministry of Culture and after having the time to think about what I’d seen in the West. Now I knew, with absolute certainty, that I had been manipulated by Chairman Mao’s communist propaganda for many years. My personal contribution to communism had never been important. I was just one of over one billion other Chinese people used as a political puppet and I felt deeply betrayed.

  My first month back at the Houston Ballet Academy was a trial-and-error time—I kept discovering and experimenting with new things. Ben continued to let me stay with him, and I continued my relentless pursuit of both English and dancing. I carried my list of new English words with me everywhere. But there were also the classes and rehearsals during the day and keeping up with Ben’s busy social schedule in the evenings too. So soaking in the bath or sitting on the toilet remained the best times for me to memorize new English words. I tried to record something in my diary at least every other day, first in Chinese, but then as I increased my English vocabulary, my diary became 50 percent Chinese, 30 percent English and the rest was French ballet terminology.

  Ben started rehearsals for Nutcracker soon after I arrived back in Houston. Ben’s Nutcracker was completely different from the Baryshnikov version I’d seen on the video back in China, but I immediately fell in love with it. It had the freedom of expression I’d been longing for. I did two solo roles, both requiring only straightforward dancing and no acting, but I was so thankful to be in it: it was my first ballet with the company dancers.

  It was through Nutcracker that I first noticed Lori Langlinais. She was in her early twenties, a talented dancer and a beautiful girl, full of life. Her contagious laugh reminded me of my niang’s. We quickly became good friends, she treating me like a little brother and I regarding her as a big sister even though we had huge difficulties communicating with each other in those early weeks. We used to call each other “Big Ballerina” and “Big Ballerino.”

  Within those first few weeks I made many new friends, including Keith Lelliott, another dancer who was staying at Ben’s place, and principal dancer Suzanne Longley. With Christmas now approaching, one of Ben’s friends who had become my
friend too, Preston Frazier, bought me a children’s book about Christmas. With the help of my dictionary and some of the pictures I worked out that on Christmas Eve this long silver-bearded man called Santa Claus would ride on a sled pulled by nine reindeer, all with very strange names. I remembered the one called Rudolph, because of Rudolf Nureyev, but what was even stranger was that Santa Claus went down people’s chimneys and put presents in children’s stockings! Sounds like a capitalist version of Lei Feng, I thought, the humble soldier Mao had promoted in China as one of his model communists. This must surely be Western propaganda. And what was even more amusing was that Jesus was born to a virgin. How bizarre!

  Most of what I learned about Christmas, however, was to do with shopping. With my limited scholarship money I bought a few presents for my American friends when Ben took me to the famous Galleria shopping mall just three days before Christmas. There was a mass of people there, all gone mad over shopping. Everyone carried enormous numbers of bags and pushed their way around the crowded mall. Christmas trees were everywhere—bells, ribbons, wreaths and all. It was incredible! But most incredible of all was the money. Ben spent nearly five thousand dollars on presents in only a couple of hours. My father’s salary for sixty-five years! My father’s entire lifetime of backbreaking work. My family could live on this amount for over half a century. Ben had spent it on presents in one day alone. It was incomprehensible. It was shocking. I thought of my family and felt sick. How could there be such disparity in the world?

  The Christmas Day party at Ben’s house was a mega-event as well, with over forty friends, dancers and students. Ben had at least one present for every person there. I even received presents from Santa Claus, left in my very own Christmas stocking hanging by the mirror in Ben’s living room. Ben didn’t have a fireplace, though, so I wondered how on earth Santa had gotten in. But secretly, deep in my heart, I wished I could exchange even just a few of those presents for cash and give the money to my family instead. So many years of my father’s earnings seemed tied up in those presents.

  Ben’s Christmas food was a feast too. A huge sizzling turkey, a big shining ham, trays and trays of roasted potatoes, cakes and puddings. I refused to guess how much he would have spent—it was simply too agonizing. I kept telling myself to enjoy it, but all I could think of was dried yams and my family’s survival.

  So many things like this in America shocked me. One day as I was being driven home by Ben’s friend Richard I noticed that he was wearing a sports jacket which looked very smart. But it had patched elbows—and yet he drove a Mercedes. Only the poor wear patched clothes, I said to him. He thought this was very funny. Then he asked me what I would like to do most in America. I told him I would like to be able to drive a car, so he pulled over. “Come on, you drive,” he said.

  “I don’t know how!”

  “Just push on the pedal and watch the road. Easy,” he said.

  I got into the driver’s seat, nervously pushed on the pedal and the car immediately accelerated. The speed took me by complete surprise, so I pushed my foot down harder. I froze. Richard made a desperate grab for the steering wheel and slid one of his legs over to the brake. We were inches away from what appeared to be a very large ditch. “Oh, dear me, my heart is hot!” was all I could say.

  My second driving experience was at Disneyland, this time in a golf cart. Dorio, another principal dancer, asked me to give it a try. Easier than driving a Mercedes, I thought. But I was wrong. I pressed the accelerator and the cart started to move very slowly because we were going uphill. Dorio kept telling me to push my foot all the way down, so I did, but once we got over the top of the hill we quickly gathered speed and before I knew it, this time we really were stuck in a ditch, right between two huge trees. Perhaps, said Dorio politely, he would teach me how to drive properly another time.

  After Christmas, when we’d finished the Nutcracker performances, Ben took me and some other dancers to a beach house in LaPorte, about an hour and a half from Houston, to celebrate the new year of 1980. It was a wonderful party. Ben made a delicious roast beef. Champagne flowed all night and we wished each other xin nian kuai le, Happy New Year. People made New Year resolutions, such as losing weight and so on.

  But after much celebration, much food, champagne and wonderful company, I just wanted to escape for a little while. So with champagne glass in hand I quietly left my American friends, slipped out of the house unnoticed and strode along the beach, thinking only of my niang, my dia, my brothers and my friends back home. I wondered what they were doing just then. I wondered if they were thinking of me. I wondered what their next year would bring. I hoped, for all of them, that it would at least bring more food to eat.

  The summer school that year attracted even more students than the one I’d attended the previous year. My friend Zhang Weiqiang received permission from the Ministry of Culture to come back for that summer school too, plus three more students from the Beijing Dance Academy. I was so happy to see some of my friends again and thrilled that they’d also had the opportunity to come to the West.

  During this second summer school I met an eighteen-year-old girl from Florida called Elizabeth Mackey. At first I didn’t notice her because there were so many people in each class, but then she sat right next to me during floor exercises. I felt self-conscious sitting so close. She wore her long hair loose and I noticed the subtle smell of her perfume, the sound of her breathing.

  Throughout the summer school Elizabeth and I kept bumping into each other. Whenever our eyes met, my heart beat faster. I wanted to get close to her but I kept telling myself, “Don’t be silly. Elizabeth is a nice girl. She looks at everyone this way. Remember the Bandit’s unrequited love? Concentrate on your dancing. You are not worthy of such a beautiful girl.”

  I had other things to concentrate on then too. Ben called me one day and said, “Li, Billy has just injured his back. Would you like to replace him and dance with Suzanne Longley tonight?”

  “Me? Dance with Suzanne? Really?” My heart leaped. Billy was a principal dancer in the company. He and Suzanne were guest artists that night, dancing Ben’s pas de deux in the Houston Grand Opera’s Die Fledermaus in an outdoor theater.

  “But I don’t know steps!” I shouted into the phone.

  “I’ll teach you. Hurry up, we’ll wait for you.”

  I threw my practice clothes into my dance bag with shaking hands and ran all the way to the studio. It took me just over three hours to learn every step of the grand pas de deux, and we didn’t finish until late that afternoon. We barely had time to eat before going to the theater for our stage rehearsal at 6:30 p.m. I had never been so nervous in my life.

  “Li, are you feeling all right about doing this performance?” Ben asked. “Because you can still say no.”

  “Yes, I like perform it!” I replied eagerly.

  “Are you nervous?” asked Suzanne.

  “No, not nervous,” I lied.

  I wasn’t just nervous. I was petrified. What if I forget the choreography? What if the audience boos? Will they throw objects at me? Do Americans do that? Cunxin, just remember to breathe and let the music help you. And whatever you do, don’t let Suzanne fall to the ground.

  As the introduction music for our pas de deux was played, Suzanne looked at me with a radiant smile. I forced a smile back. This is it, I thought. The test of your seven years’ training under Madame Mao. Remember your parents. Remember Teacher Xiao. Remember the Bandit and the Chinese people.

  Suzanne and I charged onto the stage. My calves didn’t cramp. I didn’t forget any choreography. I was too nervous to know how well I danced, but Suzanne gave me the biggest hug after the performance and the audience screamed and yelled.

  Ben read me the reviews the next day: America had discovered a new star, from China of all places, they said.

  To celebrate, I was taken out to dinner after the second performance. So many well-wishers wanted to talk to me that it took me forever to finish my meal. The waiter kept
asking me, with a pleasant smile, “Are you done, sir?” How nice, I thought, feeling rather proud. He’s asking me if I’m a dancer. Even this waiter had watched my performance.

  After my success with Suzanne, there seemed to be a magnet drawing me back to the academy. Secretly I was hoping to get a glimpse of Elizabeth. But hardly anyone was there because it was holiday time. Then, to my great surprise, as I passed a small studio, I saw Elizabeth practicing alone.

  “Hello.” She smiled and with my heart racing I timidly entered the studio. “I thought you had gone away with Ben for a holiday,” she said. “Where did you go?”

  “Something called gufton.”

  “You mean Galveston?” she asked.

  “Yes, yes, Gulfston!” I shouted excitedly.

  She giggled. “Why are you back here?”

  “I have lumps.”

  “Lumps?” She frowned.

  “Yes, lumps. Look.”

  She burst into laughter. “It’s called a rash.”

  “Oh,” I murmured.

  “Do you want me to take you anywhere? I have a car.”

  “No, thank you.” I replied politely. Then, suddenly I said, “Yes! I want go Chinatown, see Bruce Lee movie! You can take me?”

  Elizabeth was eighteen then. I was nervous and excited, walking out of the academy with her. I was afraid someone might see us together and tell Ben, but I tried to look calm and casual.

  We went into a Chinese café across the street from the cinema, the kind with small square tables and plastic tablecloths. For the first time in my life I found myself sitting opposite a girl, alone, of my age, a girl I liked. She looked so beautiful.

  “You can call me Liz if you want. What about you? What do your friends call you?” she asked.