The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature

by Yunte Huang

  Lin Chen blushed deeply again. He had simply never thought about these matters and was completely embarrassed by his inability to do anything. “Well,” he mumbled, “I hope that it’s a genuine change and not just some blind confusion.” Pausing a moment, he asked her, “You’ve thought about this for so long and have made such a clear analysis. Why have you kept everything to yourself?”

  “I’ve always felt that there was nothing I could do,” Chao Hui-wen answered. She put her hands across her chest and said, “I look and think, think, and look again. At times I think all night and can’t fall asleep. I ask myself, ‘You’re doing routine office work. Can you understand all of these things?’ ”

  “How can you think such thoughts? I feel that what you’ve been telling me is absolutely correct. You should tell this to the secretary of the District Party Committee. Or write it up and send it to the People’s Dai1y.”

  “Look, there you go again!” Chao Hui-wen’s teeth glistened as she said this with a smile.

  “How can you say, ‘There I go again’?” Lin Chen stood up unhappily and scratched his head hard. “I’ve thought about this many times too. I feel that people should correct themselves through struggle instead of waiting until they’re perfect before they enter the fray.”

  Suddenly Chao Hui-wen pushed open the door and went out, leaving Lin Chen alone in the empty room. He smelled the fragrance of soap and then in an instant she was back carrying a long-handled saucepan. She skipped in like one of those little girls who comb their hair into three braids, took the cover off the pan, and said dramatically, “Let’s eat some water chestnuts. They’re already well cooked. I couldn’t find anything else good to eat.”

  “Ever since I was a child I’ve loved boiled water chestnuts,” Lin Chen responded, happily taking the pan with his hands. He selected a large unpeeled one, took a bite, and spit it out with a frown. “This one is bad, both sour and rotten.” As Chao Hui-wen laughed, Lin Chen angrily threw the squashed sour water chestnut to the floor.

  When Lin Chen prepared to leave it was already late at night. The clear sky was completely covered with shy little stars. An old man singing, “Fried dumplings fresh from the pot,” pushed his cart by. Lin Chen stood outside the doorway. Chao Hui-wen stood just inside, her eyes sparkling in the darkness. “The next time you come there will be paintings on the wall,” she said.

  Lin Chen smiled understandingly and said, “I hope that you’ll take up singing again too.” He gave her hand a squeeze.

  Lin Chen breathed in deeply the fragrant air of this spring night. A warm spring welled up within his heart.

  [Shortly after his lengthy conversation with Chao Hui-wen, Lin Chen talks to Wei Ho-ming and convinces him to send a letter describing conditions in the gunnysack factory to the People’s Daily. The letter is published with an editorial note advising the appropriate authorities to look into the matter. Now Liu Shih-wu moves quickly. He initiates a thorough investigation, and as a result of the findings, Wang Ch’ing-ch’üan is removed from his administrative posts in both the factory and the Party.

  [Lin Chen, however, is still not satisfied. When the standing committee of the District Party Committee meets to discuss the situation in the gunnysack factory, he tells the committee that Liu Shih-wu and Han Ch’ang-hsin should bear responsibility for not solving the problems there sooner. “Indifference, procrastination, and irresponsibility,” he states, “are crimes against the masses.” In a loud voice he calls out, “The Party is the heart of the people and the working class. We do not permit dust on the heart. We should not allow shortcomings in Party organs.” He persists until the District Party secretary tells him bluntly, “Comrade, you get excited too easily. Reciting lyrics is not appropriate to the conduct of organization work.”

  [This is a frustrating moment for Lin Chen. Once again his superiors have ignored his views and called his idealism into question. But this is not the only challenge Lin Chen faces as the story now moves to its conclusion. He must also contend with the complex emotions that his relationship with Chao Hui-wen has provoked.]

  After the meeting adjourned, Lin Chen was so angry that he didn’t eat supper. He had never thought that the District Party secretary would have such an attitude. His disappointment bordered on hopelessness. When Han Ch’ang-hsin and Liu Shih-wu invited him to go for a walk, as if they were unaware of his dissatisfaction with them, it made him even more conscious of how impotent he was compared to them. He smiled bitterly and thought to himself, “So you had the idea that speaking out before the standing committee would accomplish something!” Opening a drawer, he picked up the Soviet novel that Han Ch’ang-hsin had laughed at, and opened it to the first page. At the top was written, “The Model Life of Anastasia.” “It’s so hard,” he said to himself.

  Chapter 11

  The next day after work Chao Hui-wen said to Lin Chen, “Come over to my place for supper. I’ll make some dumplings.” He wanted to decline, but she was already gone.

  Lin Chen hesitated for some time, and then ate in the dining hall before going to Chao Hui-wen’s home. When he arrived her dumplings were just ready. For the first time Chao Hui-wen was wearing a deep red dress. She had on an apron and her hands were covered with flour. Like an attentive housewife she told Lin Chen, “I used fresh beans in the dumplings.”

  “I . . . I’ve already eaten,” Lin Chen stammered.

  Chao Hui-wen did not believe him and rushed off to get chopsticks. But after Lin Chen repeated for a second and a third time that he really had eaten, she discontentedly began to eat by herself. Lin Chen sat nervously to one side, looking first one way and then the other, rubbing his hands together, and shifting his body. Those inexpressible feelings of warmth and anguish were once again welling up within his heart. His heart ached as if he had lost something. He simply did not dare look at Chao Hui-wen’s beautiful face, shining red in the reflection of her red dress.

  “Little Lin, what’s wrong?” Chao Hui-wen asked, pausing from her meal.

  “N . . . nothing.”

  “Tell me,” she said, her eyes not moving from him.

  “Yesterday I presented my opinions at the meeting of the standing committee. The District Party secretary didn’t pay any attention to them at all.”

  Chao Hui-wen bit on her chopsticks and thought deeply for a moment. “That’s not possible. Perhaps Comrade Chou Jun-hsiang just didn’t want to give his views too lightly.”

  “Perhaps,” Lin Chen replied, half believing, half doubting. Fearful of meeting Chao Hui-wen’s concerned gaze, he lowered his head.

  After eating several more dumplings Chao Hui-wen asked again, “Is there something else?”

  Lin Chen’s heart leaped. He raised his head and looked into her sympathetic, encouraging eyes. In a low voice he said, “Comrade Chao Hui-wen . . .”

  Chao Hui-wen laid down her chopsticks and leaned back in her chair. She was a little taken aback.

  “I want to know if you’re happy,” Lin Chen asked in a heavy, completely serious voice. “I saw your tears in Liu Shih-wu’s office. Spring had just arrived then. Afterward I forgot about it. I’ve been going along living my own life, not caring about others. Are you happy?”

  Chao Hui-wen looked at him with a touch of misgiving, shook her head, and said, “At times I forget too.” Then, nodding her head, she smiled calmly and said, “Yes. Yes, I’m happy. Why do you ask?”

  “. . . I want so much to talk to you or listen to symphonies with you. You’re wonderful, of course. But maybe there’s something here that’s bad or improper. I hadn’t thought about this, and then all of a sudden I began to worry. Now I’m afraid that I’m disturbing someone.”

  Chao Hui-wen smiled and then frowned. She raised her slender arms and vigorously rubbed her forehead. After giving her head a toss, as if she were casting aside some unpleasant thought, she turned away and walked slowly over to the oil painting that had just recently been hung on the wall. She stood staring at it in silence. Its title was S
pring. It depicted Moscow at the time when the first spring sun appears, with mothers and their children out on the streets.

  After a few moments Chao Hui-wen turned back and sat down quickly on her bed, holding on to the railing with one hand. In an exceptionally quiet voice she said, “What are you saying? Really! I couldn’t do anything so rash. I have a husband and a child. I haven’t told you anything yet about my husband.” She didn’t use the more common term “loved one,” but emphasized the word “husband.” “We were married in 1952 when I was only nineteen. I really shouldn’t have married so early. He had come out of the military and was a section head in a central ministry. Gradually he became rather slick, competing for position and material rewards, and failing to cooperate with others. As for us, all that seemed to be left was his return on Saturday evening and his departure on Monday. According to his theory love was either exalted or it was nothing. We quarreled. But I’m still waiting. He’s now on assignment in Shanghai. After he returns I want to have a long talk with him. So, what is it that you want to say? Little Lin, you’re my best friend. I have great respect for you. But you’re still a child—well, perhaps that’s not the proper term. I’m sorry. We both hope to lead a true, real life. We both hope that the Organization Department will become a genuine Party work organ. I feel that you’re my younger brother. You wish that I would become more active, don’t you? Life should have the warmth of mutual support and friendship. I’ve always been frightened by cold indifference. That’s all there is to it. Is there anything more? Can there be anything more?”

  [. . .]

  Chao Hui-wen opened her briefcase, took out several sheets of paper and leafed through them. “I have some things that I want to show you this evening. I’ve already written up the problems that I’ve seen in the work of the Organization Department over the past three years and have put down my own thoughts about them. This . . .” She rubbed a piece of paper in embarrassment. “This is probably pretty laughable. I’ve set up a system for competing with myself, a way to let myself see if I’ve done better today than I did yesterday. I’ve drawn a table and if I make an error in my work—such as copying a name incorrectly on the notice of admission to the Party or adding up the number of new Party members wrong—I put down a black ‘X.’ If I go through a day without making any mistakes I draw a little red flag. If the red flags continue for a whole month without interruption, then I buy a pretty scarf or something else as a reward for myself. Maybe this is like it’s done in kindergarten. Do you think it’s funny?”

  Lin Chen had been listening in a trance. “Absolutely not,” he said solemnly. “I respect your seriousness about yourself. . . .”

  When Lin Chen prepared to leave it was again already late at night. Again he stood outside the doorway. Chao Hui-wen stood just inside, her eyes sparkling in the darkness. “This is a beautiful evening, isn’t it?” she asked. “Do you smell the sweet scent of the locust tree blossoms? Those common white flowers are more refined than peonies and more fragrant than peach or plum blossoms. Can’t you smell them? Really! Good-bye. I’ll be seeing you early tomorrow morning when we throw ourselves into our great but annoying work. Later, in the evening, look for me and we’ll listen to the beautiful Capriccio Italien. After we’re done listening I’ll cook water chestnuts for you and we’ll throw the peelings all over the floor.”

  Lin Chen stood leaning against the large pillar by the door of the Organization Department for a long time, staring at the night sky. The south wind of early summer brushed against him. He had arrived at the end of winter. Now it was already the beginning of summer. He had passed through his first spring in the Organization Department.

  A strange feeling surged up in Lin Chen’s heart. It was as if he had lost something valuable. It was like thinking about his inadequate accomplishments and slow progress over the past several months. But no, it was not really any of these. . . . Ah, people were so complicated! Nothing fit Liu Shih-wu’s expression, “That’s the way it is.” No, nothing was the way it appeared, and because of this, everything had to be approached honestly, seriously, and conscientiously. Because of this, when unreasonable or unendurable things were encountered they were not to be tolerated. They were to be struggled against, one, two, or even three times. Only when a situation was changed could the struggle stop. There was definitely no reason to be disheartened or downcast. As for love, well . . . All that could be done was grit one’s teeth and quietly suppress these feelings in the heart!

  “I want to be more active, more enthusiastic, and certainly more strong,” Lin Chen said quietly to himself. He lifted his chest and took a deep breath of the cool night air.

  Looking through the window Lin Chen could see the green desk lamp and the imposing profile of the late-working District Party secretary. Determinedly and with impatience he knocked on the door of the leading comrade’s office.

  1956

  (Translated by Gary Bjorge)

  * Literally, the name means “Liu, the world and me.”

  ZHAO SHULI

  (1906–1970)

  Founder of the Potato School of fiction, Zhao Shuli was best known for his realist stories about village life, rendered in clear, plain language, charged with light folk humor. Born into a hardscrabble peasant family in Shanxi, he was trained as a teacher but also had an interest in local folk theater. A political radical early in life, he joined the Communist Party in 1937. His works, including the short story “The Marriage of Xiao Erhei” (1943), his novella Rhymes of Li Youcai (1943), and his novel Sanli Wan (1955), were all regarded as shining examples of literary outpouring in the wake of Mao’s speech at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art in 1942. He became a target of political persecution during the Cultural Revolution, and after several years of imprisonment, public humiliation, and brutal abuse, Zhao died in 1970.

  The Unglovable Hands

  The training corps of the Big Millstone Mountain Brigade, the White Cloud Ridge Commune, had been established when the brigade was still an advanced agricultural cooperative, and its goal was to teach skills to people who joined farm production for the first time. During that period of the advanced cooperative in 1956, a number of women and young students who had never participated in farming joined the workforce, but their work was below standard. Hence Director Ch’en Man-hung proposed that a training corps be established, that two old farmers of high productivity serve as instructors, that some low-yield land be set aside as the training fields to train the unskilled. After the proposal was approved by the Administration Committee, a few scores of low-yield mu on top of the Big Millstone Mountain and several parcels of orchard land in the gulch on the southern side were designated as such; Ch’en Ping-cheng, father of Director Ch’en Man-hung, and old orchard-hand Wang Hsin-ch’un were selected as instructors. Ch’en served as coordinator and Wang as vice coordinator, and the corps’ members were assigned to various villagers as coaches. When commune members encountered unexpected difficulties with their work or when their coaches could not help them, they would then seek the advice of Ch’en or Wang. Even though the purpose of the corps was to train new workers, there were exceptions: (1) workers who had trouble with certain tasks might register for the classes when those tasks were taught; (2) those who could not perform certain tasks well or those recommended by the Evaluation Committee because of bad work attitudes were also included. Those in the last category, during this training period, would be denied full credit for each workday, which would be calculated on a 60 percent basis. It was a sort of token punishment for those who could have performed better but didn’t.

  Coordinator Ch’en Ping-cheng was already a man of seventy-six. In general, most men of his age should not participate in any major physical labor, but he was especially hale and hearty. As a young man, he could do the work of a man and a half; now in old age, he was the better of most young men in terms of strength. In the winter of 1958, when communes were established, the Big Millstone Mountain was classified as a brigade, and its leader
was Ch’en Man-hung. The brigade soon had its Respect-Old-Folks Home, and the Evaluation Committee recommended that Ch’en Ping-cheng retire and live in the home. After three days in the home, the old man felt that light tasks such as stripping hemp stalks and picking cotton were not demanding enough to deplete his energy, so he asked to leave the home and to resume his job as coordinator of the training corps.

  Old Man Ch’en Ping-cheng’s skill as a farmer was considered first-rate, not only in the Big Millstone Mountain but also in the whole White Cloud Ridge area, which had cited him as an exceptional, exemplary worker. The stone dikes that he helped build never collapsed; the fire in the smoldering fertilizer pile that he had helped stack up never went out; and he was second to none in common tasks such as plowing, seeding, hoeing, and harvesting. When he taught in the training corps, he insisted not only on standards but also on proper style, claiming that if the style was not correct, the work would be below standard. For instance, in second-hoeing, he stressed that the tiller must bend his body to a certain degree, slant his body and feet to one side, and hold his feet steady. Also his hands must tightly hold on to the hoe, firmly strike the ground, and not allow the hoe to shake in any way. The standard was that the hoe must strike close to and around the seedling but not cover up any area yet undug. In piling dirt around the seedling, the tiller must, to the utmost extent possible, make a small mound with no more than three strikes of the hoe, and the top of the mound must be flat rather than pointed. As he lectured, he demonstrated to the trainees; sometimes he repeated the instructions more than ten times before he would allow them to do any work. Because of his many rules and regulations, they would remember one rule and forget another. Sometimes they stood too straight or moved forward incorrectly. Sometimes they hoed haphazardly, complicating simple chores. Old Man Ch’en Ping-cheng kept reminding one trainee, then another; he also frequently interrupted their work by giving another demonstration.