by Xue Yiwei
Dear Dr. Bethune, I didn’t have the chance to sing for the war hero a second time. A month later, late one night, I was woken up by the heart-wrenching cries of the bride. My eyes looked out into the lonely night. “What happened?” I asked my mother uneasily.
“The war hero gave his young life to the fatherland yesterday,” my mother said calmly. “He will never come back again.”
I found the calm in my mother’s voice frightening. I looked at the darkness and said in my mind that I wasn’t willing to give up my life for anything.
“The martyr’s bride is a widow now,” my mother sighed a long sigh and murmured. “Poor woman.”
I couldn’t get back to sleep at all that night. The wedding of just a month before stayed in my mind. Standing in the centre of the empty bridal chamber, I was singing the song over and over again, the song the war hero would ask me to sing if he could come back.
A Former Actress
Dear Dr. Bethune, when we moved to the city to reunite with my father, the bride had been given the title of Householder of a Revolutionary Martyr’s Family. It was not only a rare honour but it also came with a number of practical perks. For instance, her monthly rice allowance was more than other adult city dwellers. Same for white sugar. And she got almost twice the monthly coal. When I passed by, I saw the certificate issued by the provincial government hanging beside the marriage certificate. I recall the director personally delivering the certificate on a dismal afternoon. He told my mother to show concern for our tragic and lonely neighbour, and he himself also visited often to encourage her to turn her sorrow into something positive. The bride treasured the honorary title so much that she preferred her colleagues to call her the martyr’s bride rather than just the bride.
Yangyang was keenly interested in her story. The next morning over breakfast, he asked my aunt what had happened. How had the pretty bride turned into the raggedy lady we saw by the river? My aunt mumbled something about how she’d made a dumb mistake, as a result of which she’d lost the honorary title and the accompanying perks. She’d even been fired from her job.
Yangyang then asked why the director who’d shown her such concern had not protected her.
A look of disgust appeared on my aunt’s face. “He made the same mistake,” she said, disgusted. “He had assigned her too many revolutionary duties.”
For that reason the director, too, had been relieved of his duties and had been assigned to a forestry centre in a distant mountain region for laogai—reform through labour.
The county put on a variety show every year on New Year’s Eve, and the martyr’s bride served as the announcer. I knew her dream was to join a song and dance troupe and work as a professional dancer. I also knew she loved films and thought she might also have wanted to become an actress. She told me she had seen The Legend of the Red Lantern thirty-two times. This was a blow to my self-esteem for I’d been proud of my own record. Now, almost forty years later, I still remember her pleased-with-herself expression when she told me this.
After breakfast, Yangyang insisted on my taking him to the auditorium in which the variety show was held. He said he’d had a strange dream the night before. He had dreamed of the martyr’s bride and said he now knew where she lived.
The auditorium was being renovated, and Yangyang rushed backstage when we got there. I followed, not knowing what he wanted to do.
He found the ladies’ make-up room, which was locked. We peeked inside, and saw there were a couple of beat-up tables and chairs. Yangyang looked for a long time, sad to see nothing else. “My dream told me this was her home.”
Yangyang’s dream made me tremble from head to toe. Even if there was no trace of the martyr’s bride or anyone else inside, I still thought we’d better leave. But Yangyang did not want to go. Instead, he pulled me onto the dusty stage, where he performed a highlight from The Legend of the Red Lantern, a piece by Wang Lianju, the traitor who leads to Li Yuhe’s arrest.
It was a stylized rendering. “How many times have you seen The Legend of the Red Lantern?” I asked, when he was done.
“Twenty-five times!” Yangyang replied without thinking, as if he got asked this question all the time. Then he asked me how many times I had seen it.
“Thirty times,” I replied without enthusiasm.
My demeanour surprised Yangyang. He stopped performing and looked at me. “Why that tone of voice?” he said. “You won!”
“But . . . ,” I didn’t finish. I didn’t want to tell him I’d lost to the martyr’s bride. Yangyang seemed uninterested in the explanation I hadn’t given. He asked me to be the announcer. He asked me to announce the next number, the even more notable highlight of Hatoyama, the captain of the Japanese gendarmerie who kills Li Yuhe, the hero.
Standing in the announcer’s place, which is where the martyr’s bride stood, I could see how the auditorium must have looked from her perspective. The past and present were suddenly superimposed, and so were she and I. I was sad for that woman who had flustered me so profoundly. I was sad, too, that I couldn’t compete with her in the number of times I’d seen The Legend of the Red Lantern.
Dear Dr. Bethune, you may find it hard to understand how important movies were in your children’s world. At the time, there were only eight movies, which were adapted from the eight model plays. We watched those movies over and over again, in crude theatres or more often at outdoor screenings. We were familiar with all the characters, not only the stars but all the supporting roles, as well. We knew all the dialogue, whether humorous or serious. And we liked negative characters much more than positive characters. We liked to imitate the negative characters, because they were comical and very human. They came in two extreme body types: either obese or skinny. They had other physical features, too, such as narrow, shifty eyes or eyes that protruded so much they looked like they might burst out of their sockets. Stuttering was another common feature of negative characters. They stuttered especially when they were doomed. These negative characters turned the era of the Cultural Revolution, which has come to be called a catastrophe, into a heaven for your children. While we couldn’t change the size of our eyes or the shape of our bodies in order to imitate these characters, it was easy to imitate the stuttering. And not surprisingly, the pupils who did the most imitating ended up with their own stutters.
The eight model plays were the political triumph of the most influential woman of the era of catastrophe. Despite how nasty she herself was, the eight films derived from those model stage dramas opened up a miraculous world to your children. They were the popular culture of our time. They satisfied our children’s curiosity and they inspired our imagination.
In fact, revolution itself was a kind of entertainment, a kind of popular culture, as Lenin himself knew. He said that revolution is “a great festival” for the oppressed; this festive metaphor was painted on the massive poster outside the entrance to the factory I passed every day. It reminded me that your great friend had said that “Revolution is not a dinner party.” Discussing this metaphor with Yangyang one day, we both thought it contradicted Lenin’s. In dealing with revolution, your great friend seemed so much more serious than his revolutionary mentor.
Dear Dr. Bethune, before I started writing your biography, some odd associations had occurred to me, and I made some peculiar discoveries. For instance, I assumed you didn’t know who won the Best Actress award in 1938 at the Tenth Academy Awards or why she got the award—for the award was announced in March, when you were already in China on your way to the barren northwest. I was certain, though, that you knew the actress’s name, Luise Rainer, because she also had won Best Actress the previous year. She got the second award because of China, like Pearl Buck. She even got the award because of Pearl Buck. Rainer played O Lan, the farmer’s wife, in the film adaptation of The Good Earth. Did you read the book, which was published in 1931? If so, I have a few other questions for you. Did you watch th
e 1937 film adaptation before you left for China? If so, what was your impression of the German actress that played the O Lan? After you came to China, did you meet peasant women like that? Was the appearance of an actual Chinese peasant village at all similar to the one in the Hollywood film?
Another thing I find quite interesting is that the Tenth Academy Awards ceremony was originally supposed to take place on March 4, 1938. Your birthday! But because of a flood, the ceremony was delayed one week. You were on the way to Yan’an at the time, so this had no effect on you. By the time Luise Rainer won the award for playing O Lan, you had finished the most difficult part of your journey. You were already near the Yellow River. Two weeks later, you reached the “revolutionary Jerusalem” you had dreamed about. The evening you got there, you walked into the cave of our great saviour. For you, this was a great leap on the way to becoming our father. A print of an oil painting of that momentous encounter was pinned up on both sides of our fourth-grade classroom.
One day, in the Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec, I read a long article you sent to a newspaper in Toronto from Yan’an, expressing your deep dissatisfaction with North American women. You said that all they think about is dancing and watching movies and other decadent diversions. In contrast, the Chinese women you met in Yan’an had opened your eyes. Their lives were difficult but also happy, filled with revolutionary fervour. The one who impressed you the most was a famous actress from Shanghai. You praised her in your article for giving up her lavish lifestyle and throwing herself into the torrent of revolution. Her choice was exactly the same as yours. “Is she happy?” you wrote. “She must be, she’s as gay and as mischievous as a squirrel.”
You must surely be interested in what happened to this squirrel. Like you, she made her way to the cave of our great saviour. She became a frequent visitor and eventually made a nest in there. Your great friend’s comrades tended to underestimate the power of people’s sex drive. Thinking that it would damage the revolutionary cause, they tried to stop the union of the squirrel and the great saviour. At this key moment, our great saviour displayed his revolutionary resolution. Ignoring his comrades’ disapproval, he liberated himself from the net of morality and took the former actress to be his fourth wife. Then, riding from victory to victory, he liberated all of China!
Dear Dr. Bethune, your impression of this particular squirrel suggests that you had the same taste in women as your great friend. I wonder if he viewed you as a threat, an adversary on the battlefield of love? I’ve always found it hard to understand why he did not approve your request to stay in Yan’an with all those revolutionary maidens running around, full of ardour for the cause, and with the squirrel there, too, putting in gay and mischievous appearances. You were sent to the front line, where your life became so lonely and monotonous. The front line needed you even more than Yan’an—this was the reason your great friend gave you, but, in fact, he kept a lot of good doctors in Yan’an. So why did he deny your request to stay in the revolutionary Jerusalem? As a historian, I’m getting a whiff of mistrust.
Your article mentions that there were quite a few beautiful young women in Yan’an, but your great friend had eyes only for the actress from Shanghai. Why? This is another question I have been curious about. In traditional Chinese society, which did not respect women very highly, actresses got no respect at all. I believe that the new film industry might be the reason. Just like revolution itself, films were modern, exciting, and more than a bit disruptive of old ways of doing things. When your great friend was involved in revolutionary activities in some of the big cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, and Guangzhou, for example—he must have been attracted by this new art form and noticed its compatibility with his revolution. To conquer a screen idol must have seemed a solid step along the way to conquering the world and a symbol of success for a leader such as he, a man of humble origins but with grand ambitions.
Dear Dr. Bethune, the gay and mischievous squirrel that you praised in your essay later became the evil Madame Mao. She was hailed as the standard-bearer for the Cultural Revolution, but she used her immense power not only to destroy culture but also to mangle life. She became a public enemy of the people and was arrested soon after her husband’s funeral. The evidence against her was later circulated across China, purportedly proving in great detail that she had not been a true revolutionary. Her career as a decadent film star had been kept in the shadows and was now exposed for all to see. The incriminating evidence included photographs that had never been seen before, including provocative film posters. Scores of essays exposed her corrupt and debased life as an actress in Shanghai. She seemed to have lived in moral turpitude ever since she came into the world.
The tumult surrounding the death of your great friend and the arrest of his wife delayed our entry into high school by a month. All regular classes were cancelled, but we went to the school auditorium every day to hear the incensed school party secretary read out the incriminating evidence against Madame Mao. When she read the dialogues in the 1930s between special agents of the Kuomintang—the KMT, the party of Mao’s enemy, Chiang-kai-shek—I remember the fury in her voice. “To think that they could talk about a mole on her thigh!” She slapped the desk, and in the severest tone of voice, asked, “What does this illustrate? What was the relationship of that wretched woman to those KMT reactionaries?”
Back in the classroom, we had to discuss the evidence. I remember my female classmates had intense debates about the actress. Some thought she was beautiful, others thought she was ugly, and their hatred of her was unanimous.
After three weeks, we had to deliver a reflection expressing our hatred for the squirrel you praised, dear Dr. Bethune. She was now public enemy number one. This was how our high school careers began.
If you had lived to 1976, and if your praise of that nasty woman had been unearthed, you yourself might well have been taken as a conspirator. Your judgment was faulty. You did not see that the squirrel was in fact a vampire.
But let me return to film. Film was our main childhood entertainment. Before a film was shown, there would usually be fifteen minutes of political propaganda. The slide projector would project political slogans we knew well onto the screen. The first three were of course those with wansui (may you live ten thousand years)—“Wansui, Chairman Mao!,” “Wansui, the Great Chinese Communist Party!,” “Wansui, the Great People’s Republic of China!” Next came “Never Forget Class Struggle!”, “Down with the American Imperialists!,” or “Our People’s Armies are a Great Wall made of Steel and Iron!” Sometimes “Utter Devotion to Others without Any Thought of Self”—a sentence from the memorial your great friend wrote for you—appeared on the screen. After the propaganda, there was “extra programming”—a newsreel lasting thirty minutes. In the early 1970s, so we had had no television yet, the newsreel was the only media through which we could see living foreigners walking around. No foreigners could be seen in our provincial cities, aside from you and the four illustrious, but long-dead, revolutionary mentors whose pictures were pasted on the walls of our classroom.
Then, one particular newsreel changed our relationship with the world. In it, a group of Red Guards at an airfield were welcoming the commander-in-chief of those lily-livered American soldiers represented in our films.
“Welcome! Welcome! A Warm Welcome!” they shouted, waving garlands and dancing. And then we saw our great saviour receive his American guest in his study! What an honour for an American imperialist! We were all proud of the great diplomatic victory of our great socialist country.
I remember that we did not hear either the voice of our great saviour or the voice of his American guest. All we heard was the voice of the narrator. Thirty years later, I was in Montreal flipping channels one evening when I chanced on Larry King interviewing Nixon. That was the first time I had ever heard the voice of the American president we told jokes about. His voice made me feel that our jokes were on the mark.
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We were in the theatre when my mother told me we were going to move to the provincial capital to reunite with my father. This news took away my interest in the political slogans, the newsreel, and the film itself. I felt agitated at the idea of a new school and new classmates. My new life started in the theatre, in a way, and I am still agitated about it today.
A Little Girl
Dear Dr. Bethune, your great friend, our great leader, and the great saviour of all the world’s peoples left us forever on September 9, 1976.
It was a hot afternoon. My father had taken me to the hospital not far from the compound where we lived, to get my eyes checked. A couple of months before this, on the afternoon of Yangyang’s thirteenth birthday—his first birthday since his death—I had felt a throbbing pain in my right eye and then everything went blurry. It had taken me two months to tell my parents, and it was September 9th when my father took me to the hospital for tests. He was impatient, telling me not to dawdle, because he had to go to his office at three o’clock to listen to an important broadcast.
A voluble old woman was sitting beside us in the waiting room, her left eye covered in cotton, while her right eye was very active, peering around everywhere. The picture of Chairman Mao on my father’s bag upset her, and she started to enumerate the bad things in the old regime and the good things in the new society, concluding that her life had been worse than a dog’s under the vicious old regime and that it was only thanks to our great saviour that she had managed to survive and live the life of a human being. The reason she was so upset is that her son had mentioned that recently his colleagues had been wondering why the great saviour had not made a public appearance for such a long time. He said the rumour was being spread that our Chairman Mao, who was to live for ten thousand years, might have health problems, and this made the old woman very angry. She cursed her son and wondered how someone who had already become a father could be so immature, spouting such nonsense. She said there was no chance that our great saviour was in poor health. She said he would live forever.