City Gate, Open Up

by Bei Dao

  Seventh and Eight Uncle lived in a two-story xiaoyanglou, or European-style building, at 698 Huaihai Middle Road. The families of my two aunts, who were sisters, also lived with them, and so the saying, doubling relations binds the relatives. One birth followed another and the children grew and grew, while their house shrank and shrank. A mass of cousins I had never met materialized before me, a screaming swarm, their mouths an onrush of Shanghainese; among them, my loneliness deepened.

  Eighth Uncle graduated from St. John’s University in Shanghai and taught English in a middle school. Seventh Uncle was a pilot, and a hero in my mind. He participated in the Two Airlines Uprising that took place on November 9, 1949, when two airlines in Hong Kong broke off relations with the Nationalist government and, in solidarity with the Central People’s Government, declared a revolt, piloting twelve planes back to the Mainland. During the Cultural Revolution, Seventh Uncle was labeled a “suspected enemy agent” and eventually beaten while serving a prison sentence. Some years after his political rehabilitation, he visited Beijing; upon seeing the misshapen pinkie finger on his right hand that had been crushed, I started trembling down to my bones and, unable to control myself, burst into tears.

  4

  Of all of her siblings, my mother was closest to Eryi, Second Aunt. She headed the nursing department at the Shanghai Hôpital Sainte-Marie. Before liberation, she became a member of the Communist Party. On the eve of liberation, as the personal nurse to the factory director of the Jiangnan Shipyard, Eryi helped to dissuade the director from carrying out an order to demolish the equipment and facilities, and to hand over the shipyard intact to the new regime. In 1950, she was transferred to Beijing to work as a special-care nurse for high-ranking party officials, including Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing — this became the “buried root” that led to her tragic fate.

  Eryi suffered from illness her whole life and never married. She lived plainly and simply, wearing her blue double-breasted Lenin suit with white cloth shoes every day. Though her wages were high, she economized on food and spent little, giving much of her earnings to her relatives’ children. On New Year’s and such occasions she always sent us gifts — clothes, book bags, pencils, among other useful items. During our trip to Shanghai, mother spent the most time with Eryi — the threads of conversation between them spun on without end. While riding a pedicab, I’d sit in the middle, soaking up their quick, thick Shanghainese chitter-chatter.

  Winter of 1968, in the middle of the night, we received an urgent telegram from Shanghai: Eryi had killed herself. Mother wept and wept, until her heart split and lungs collapsed, her pain so great she said she couldn’t bear living another day. According to the rebel activists at Guangci Hospital, Eryi had been under investigation and had killed herself to avoid punishment. Family members weren’t allowed to receive her body and she was quickly cremated without any of us seeing her again. Later we learned that the investigation had something to do with Jiang Qing and the fear that Eryi knew too many secrets.

  I remember standing in line with Mother in the Xidan commercial district in Beijing, waiting for a pedicab, when I suddenly heard her sob. I held back my tears, and quietly hushed her with a cautious “Shhh,” not wanting her to cry for Eryi ever again — Eryi had been deemed a class enemy. I soon grew up and, as the eldest son, became responsible for the safety of my mother and family. For several days winds from the north raged on, fiercely rattling our front gate in the middle of the night. I could hear Mother weeping and weeping, and as if a distant bird, the widow Zheng Ayi’s cries echoed in my mind from across the years.

  Summer of 1957; riding a pedicab through the big streets and narrow alleys of Shanghai, sitting between Mother and Eryi, peeping out from under their bosoms, backs, elbows to see the world streaming by, enfolded in their maternal wing, that warm sense of safety. Of all my relatives, Eryi was the kindest to me, often treating me to the finest-quality two-flavor ice-cream brick.

  5

  My impressions of that first journey to Shanghai persisted as a confused jumble in my mind, a tumultuous blur of incessant astonishments, the city seemingly a world apart, totally different from Beijing. And yet, beneath the bustling haze I could sense a deeper significance. I realized that being far away from Beijing caused me to see the city of my birth anew; I could discern the limits of its heaven and earth, the extent of its boundaries as well as its possibilities. Much later, I would be forced to flutter here and there, at the threshold of madness, moving from country to country across the globe, though I could always trace my way back to that first journey away from home. At some point during my restless wanderings, I came across this line by the Russian poet Konstantin Balmont: “I arrived in this world to see the sun, to see the blue, blue horizon.” These words instantly pierced me to the core, clarifying the impulse to keep moving, keep on moving, that burned deep in my innermost being since that first journey to Shanghai.

  We stayed in Shanghai for only ten days or so; I started to miss Beijing, miss my friends, miss my home, the hutong, and all the special scents and familiar comforts; I even missed my boring school. For the first time in my life I experienced a feeling of homesickness.

  August 1, 1957, marked the thirtieth annual Army Day Festival. That night my mother along with other relatives took me to Waitan, the Shanghai Bund at the waterfront. On the Huangpu River, numerous warships decorated with colorful lights lined up in formation; steam whistles cried out concurrently; sailors standing along the railings of the ships greeted us with salutes. Suddenly, fireworks tore open the sky, lighting up the surface of the river. Sitting on Seventh Uncle’s shoulders, high above the thronging crowds, I let out a rousing whoop. The next day I turned eight.

  Elementary School

  1

  In the winter of 1957, when I was in second grade at Fuwai Elementary School, my family moved from the Fuwai Insurance Company Apartments to Three Never Old Hutong No. 1, whereupon I transferred to Hong Shan Temple Elementary School.

  The day the teacher brought me into my new classroom, some kids were drumming the desks, others horsing around; in the poorly lit room, all those eyes and teeth sparkled and flashed. I wore a cotton-padded ushanka hat, earflaps sticking out, making me look like a seventh-rank county magistrate. A child transfers to a new school to confront a strange collective hostility, and does anyone care if harm comes to him?

  The Temple of Great Benevolence, once a Buddhist monastery, dates back nearly five hundred years to the Ming dynasty. Among the groves of temples in Beijing, it was small and lacked spirits to protect it, the burning of joss sticks dwindled, and eventually they converted it into an elementary school. When the monks fled, the temple fled too, and by 1965, Hong Shan Temple Hutong’s name was shortened to Hong Shan Hutong, and Hong Shan Temple Elementary School’s name shortened to Hong Shan Elementary School.

  I type Beijing into Google Earth, and like an eagle spiral down, following Tiananmen, the Forbidden City, Shichahai Lakes, Denei Street, until at last arriving at Sanbulao Hutong No. 1, then pan over to Hong Shan Hutong. I click the mouse to zoom in — charging down and ahead, Hong Shan Hutong No. 3 disappears beneath some large trees. An ugly new building stands beside it: the Tian Hong Shan (“Great Benevolence of Heaven”) Hotel. I investigate further but cannot find any information about Hong Shan Elementary School.

  An entire half-century has already passed. Early spring, 1958 — after an abrupt warm spell it turned cold again. The spirit-screen wall that faced the school gate bore the inscription: “Study Hard Day by Day, Soar Higher and Higher.” Outside the reception office, the branches of a crookneck willow tree had started to bud. It slanted through the front of the courtyard, toward the classroom at the northeast corner, where the door creaked open zhi ga zhi ga and a row of small windows tilted east and leaned west beneath a low ceiling. Continuing on to the rear courtyard, past the former ritual purification halls turned into classrooms, past the concrete Ping-Pong tables, to where the
playing field swirled with dust — there, on a brick platform at the foot of the north wall, the principal shouted with forceful enthusiasm, “Raise the flag!” All the uniformed students stood straight at attention and loudly sang in one voice, “We children of the New China / We youthful pioneers / Rise up together, unite / Carry on the work of our forefathers / No fear of difficulties, no fear of any heavy burdens. . . .”

  Many obstacles needed to be overcome on the way to school. Leaving the front gate, two tigers immediately impeded the path: one the white-yam roasting shack in the middle of the road, the other the breakfast hut facing it at the entrance to Huazhi (“Flowering Branch”) Hutong. The burned odor of roasting yams, the fragrance of the oily smoke wafting from woks, zhi zi zhi zi sizzling away — one simply couldn’t move another step forward. I broke free and redoubled my siege, and with much difficulty left the hutong and crossed the street, only to run head-on into the little grocer’s shop that guarded the entrance to the Temple of Great Benevolence Hutong on the northwest corner. I unconsciously rubbed my pockets, swallowed lots of saliva, and forged on. At last I reached the school gate, but a street hawker welcomed me — he resembled a master magician of yore, changing shape with a slight shake, as he displayed an array of snacks on the spot — dried fruits, rock candy, haw flakes, cinnamon sticks, and on and on — causing one to drift away, no spirit remaining to defend the dwelling. Then, at the critical moment, the school bell resounded.

  I fear that cast-iron bell was the only surviving temple treasure left in the whole school; dong dong dong it chimed through the thick fog of the dynasties — we stood up or sat down, started class or ended class. The sound of the bell that symbolized time, sliced time into pieces, while also encouraging us to ignore time — within the very clanging of the bell we whooshed along, growing into adolescence. First grade little steamed bean bun, one whacked one leaps up. Second grade little speck, one smacked one wink-winks. . . . Save for avoiding “hanging back” (that is, repeating a grade), we just needed to rise in the ranks, turn around, and denigrate the incoming students.

  2

  I was known in school for my comic cross-talking skills. I remember the sketch I performed, “Confusing Descriptions,” I had first heard on the radio. Later, I found the original script in the magazine Folk Arts and, with a dictionary, phonetically annotated each unfamiliar character, one by one, until finally committing it to memory as ripe as a melon that rolls from the vine. Those were days of confusing descriptives, and copying this and copying that in our class compositions, more than anything else we’d copy an assortment of vacuous, ostentatious adjectives.

  Ascending the platform on the playing field, my scalp felt numb, legs and stomach cramped; the crackling feedback of the microphone gave me a moment to breathe and think silently in my heart: “Being onstage, just think of the area before you as a watermelon patch.” Indeed, it worked like a charm — my mouth released a torrential stream, once unleashed no restraining it, the whole audience rolled with laughter. For a week I was the school celebrity, countless gazes acknowledged and cast away. Frankly, being a celebrity is nothing special — it just unsettles the heart and mind. Another week passed and not another glance fell in my direction: I felt a sense of loss, as well as a feeling of lightness, as if a heavy weight had lifted from me.

  I switched my trade to recitation, memorized Gao Shiqi’s poem “Song of the Times,” which I had cut out from the newspaper. Gao Shiqi, a broken-in-body-but-not-will popular science writer, wrote poems with scientific overtones that foamed to a froth. Standing on the platform, I first silently contemplated the Watermelon Patch Sutra in my heart, then lifted my voice: “O, the times . . .”

  In fourth-grade Chinese, I wrote my first poem, bricolaged together from a number of poems published in the official newspaper of the CPC, the People’s Daily, using an assortment of weighty-sounding phrases, such as “the wheel of history rolls forth,” “imperialist lapdogs,” “mantis arms blocking the cars,” “communist tomorrow”. . . . Alarmingly, this was due to the influence of Gao Shiqi “observing the times.”

  The cost of advancing with the times initially involved hunger. During the three-year period of hardship, people would often gather in groups to relax, a respite that served as “collective food for the spirit.” This was when the rumor spread that everything good to eat our Soviet Big Brother had hauled away by train. Everyone burned with indignation, slapping their fists and rubbing their palms — and slowly, expending basic physical energy made us even hungrier.

  To improve school meals, the cafeteria decided to raise two pigs out on the playing field. When the final bell chimed, nearly every boy in the school made it the object of his pursuit, the two animals chased all over the place, leaping railings and walls, both thin as a bag of bones, eyes a menacing glint — they seemed more like dogs than pigs. In the eyes of the pigs, mankind had gone totally insane: Once the bell clanged, humans stormed out the doors and windows, hurtled and pounced over one another, each one with a savage look in his eyes, emitting the flashing green pingpingpingping signal of a carnivore.

  3

  On the surface, it seemed that the principal and teachers were in charge of the school, but prowling beneath appearances a different system of power thrived, feeding on force and violence.

  One day, in the classroom by the playing field, a fellow student Lei and I copied out the “blackboard news” onto the chalkboard. The afternoon sunlight felt pleasantly warm; the fragrance of pagoda-tree blossoms drifted through the air. Most of the students had already gone home, the campus grounds very peaceful and quiet. At first we worked together quite cheerfully, talking and laughing; then a dispute arose over the spacing of the layout, a few sparring exchanges tossed back and forth, and without warning, out of the blue, Lei charged at me, fists raining down upon my head and face. Golden petals flitted before my eyes; from within a haze of pain I could vaguely make out the twisted, malevolent smile on his face. The injustice I felt knew no bounds; my eyes brimmed with tears, but I held them back, refusing to let one drop tumble out.

  This was the gist of the fist-clenched truth. Instinctually, I learned the law of the jungle, the crucial point being to seek a protector. A student in our grade, Li Xiyu, played on the school soccer team as a striker. Squat with short limbs, his looks weren’t worth talking about, face a pugnacious hunk of meat, squinty eyes made it seem like he was always asleep; one moment he’d be calm like a napping lion, the next he’d strike with ferocity — local hooligans feared him to roughly the third degree.

  I don’t know how it happened, but after hanging out once or twice, Li Xiyu became my protector. A kind of natural power dynamic develops between individuals, its causes very tricky to discern. In this case, it possibly had something to do with the fact that most of the students were from the poorest strata of society, whereas Li Xiyu’s father was a high-level engineer and so we shared a similar family background. He lived in a single-family home not far from school, with a private gate, private courtyard, and a huge jujube tree that was the envy of the neighborhood. He even had his own bedroom, an unimaginable luxury in those days. At his home he seemed very ordinary, very easygoing, like a well-nurtured, well-educated, well-behaved child.

  Then one winter morning I entered the classroom as usual about fifteen minutes before the first bell. Students chatted and laughed around the stove, warming themselves. Li Xiyu came over to greet me, passing me a baked bun he said he had buttered for me on top. His excessive eagerness and strange grin put me on the alert; I declined. He angrily replied, “Not good enough for you? You’re really no brother to me.” It later came out that the baked bun was actually buttered with snot. This incident hurt me deeply, making me realize that, while alive on this planet, one’s dignity was of the utmost importance. From then on I avoided Li Xiyu as much as possible, while at the same time steeling myself for a sudden bloody reprisal. I maneuvered along the half-comatose, squinty-eyed perimeter of his sigh
t; he seemed to be weighing things carefully, he seemed to be wavering. . . .

  A boy joined our class who had just returned from Japan. Lai Desheng also had an older brother, Lai Wenlong, one grade above us. Tall and athletic, the two brothers first swept the school away with their Ping-Pong paddles, then proceeded to smash each record in every competitive sport. As they had grown up in faraway Japan, they weren’t guarded in the least and knew nothing about the subterranean system of power, though no one dared to pick on them. Unintentionally, by imperceptible degrees, they expanded the power vacuum, granting me a cushion of safety. As I lived near them we gradually became buddies.

  The Lai brothers brought back the most advanced technology from Japan. One item, an elaborately designed transistor radio with the finest sound, filled me with awe, its buttons and knobs giving it the appearance of a bona fide detonation device. The other, glossy magazines filled with photographs of beautiful women, sent my imagination into flights of reverie: Who knew this other world existed beyond our daily lives?