Under Red Skies

by Karoline Kan

  “Laolao, there’s no need to save every single thing,” I’d say, grabbing plates with oil left behind before she poured hot water in them to make “soup.” I took for granted that life would get better and better for me. Laolao’s life had not taken the same path; for her, it had become harder.

  Yet watching how she lived embarrassed me.

  “What if there’s a war and we’re faced with starvation again tomorrow?” Laolao would ask me.

  “Impossible!” I’d shout. “Times have changed. The government doesn’t have the same sort of control anymore.”

  Life had taught Laolao that stability was not guaranteed; nothing was permanent, and that it would be foolish to trust in anything unconditionally. These were lessons my school textbooks couldn’t teach me about China.

  I went back to my room to begin writing. My family’s past was like a rusted box locked in a corner, covered with dust. It was so heavy and worn that nobody wanted to touch it. I knew what to expect inside: endless pain. Yet it was only by opening it that I could understand my family, and myself.

  * * *

  I never had the chance to finish my history project with Laolao. She became ill and insisted on returning to Caiyuan in the winter. She had a cold for a long time, and grew so weak that her lungs became infected. I was worried about her. She coughed and coughed, and sweat accumulated on her brow. She vomited up whatever she ate and had to get a nutrient injection to maintain what little strength she had left.

  “If I die, I want to die at home in Caiyuan, not in this town,” Laolao said.

  I didn’t like it when she talked like that. She had been ill my entire life, but I had never expected her to die. I would never be ready to lose her.

  She also got into the habit of talking to herself in whispers that winter. At first it was just occasional and everyone ignored it, but then she began to do it daily, even when there were guests around. I couldn’t fathom her death, but I grew more and more worried that she was losing her mind.

  That strange winter, people in town also talked about a disease from Guangdong, China’s most southern coastal province. Called SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, it was spreading throughout China and killing people. But without the government’s formal confirmation that it was a deadly epidemic, most people dismissed it as a rumor.

  My friends and I worried about it a lot because it was said that you could catch the disease by talking to somebody who was infected. You’d then get a fever and cough, your muscles would ache, and your immune system would break down in a matter of days. Many felt it was nature’s revenge on the Guangdong people because they were believed to be savages who still ate wild animals like snakes and monkeys—which after the Great Famine was seen as inhumane. People had to piece together their own stories, but the government prevented the real story from existing.

  For months, we were kept uninformed. That year the National People’s Congress had received international recognition because China was finally putting in place a new government after President Jiang Zemin’s ten-year term. Officials were worried that releasing information about SARS would sully the party’s image. Their delayed reaction, and the withholding of information or suggestions on how to prevent the disease, increased our sense of panic. Information about SARS was censored, and no journalist was allowed to report on it.

  But fear of SARS didn’t wait for the government’s approval to spread.

  In Lutai, every family scrambled to the shops for vinegar. The vapor was said to help protect you from the disease. Banlangen, a common Chinese herbal medicine used for curing colds, was sold for ten times its normal price. The streets and markets were often empty; people wanted to avoid crowds and infection. What scared me most was not the disease itself, but the horrid atmosphere it created.

  A shadow of death was cast over my town and many others. The disease felt like an invisible monster, lurking in the shade, that could jump out to eat me at any time. My family and I were helpless because we didn’t know what exactly it was and so had no means to defend ourselves. Mom put vinegar in iron bowls to evaporate on the stove, and only when the rooms were full of the smell did I feel safe.

  It was not until late April that CCTV’s Xinwen Lianbo began to report on the SARS outbreak. The anchors announced that in the capital city of Beijing alone, more than one hundred cases were being logged each day. Uncle Siyong called us and said his compound was sealed off and that no one was allowed in or out. Nobody was allowed to leave the compound unless for urgent reasons that had to be approved by the chief. Beijing schools were closed, and students had to study at home via online videos. Since there weren’t any officially reported infection cases in our hometown, schools in Lutai and nearby villages were still open. But our teachers didn’t give homework in order to “relieve pressure on students and improve their immunity,” as instructed by the local education bureau chief.

  Every morning before we entered the classroom, a teacher in charge would put an electric thermometer on our head. Our temperature was recorded and noted down in a chart for the school hospital. Whenever anyone felt a little bit uncomfortable, no matter whether it was a teacher or student, they were urged by the headmaster to leave school immediately without needing any approval. Some of my friends faked illness just so they could play hooky.

  I was in seventh grade, and normally my classes would start at 7:30 a.m. and end at 5:30 p.m., but now I left school at 3:30 p.m. at the latest. I wasn’t happy at all with the new schedule. Our final exam was approaching, and we were really behind. My score on the exam would determine whether I could go on to the top-ranking class next year. Students from wealthy families had tutors, but my family couldn’t afford that.

  People didn’t believe it when the premier announced on television that SARS was now under control. At the entrance to Caiyuan, people volunteered to take turns standing guard, in case any strangers tried to get in. The government absurdly sent fitness equipment to the village, which was placed in the chief’s office to encourage people to exercise, as if that could really prevent SARS.

  During my weekend visits to the village, I watched TV with Laolao and we’d listen to updates about the SARS situation in Beijing. She kept a bowl of hot, boiled vinegar in the corner of every room. When the anchors revealed the number of newly infected and the death toll, she furrowed her eyebrows. “Siyong called, but I can’t tell if he’s really well or not,” she said to me. She became increasingly worried, so much so that I feared she was growing paranoid. Yet now I understood why she would; she had lost two other sons.

  Once spring came, we had news from Siyong less frequently, which made Laolao sleepless. She insisted that her other children call their brother. My mom tried to comfort her, saying, “Mother, don’t worry. They’re very safe in the PLA compound. You should trust the country.”

  “Trust the country?” Laolao said. “Nobody in the village trusts the country more than me. I’ve trusted the country my whole life, but has the country taken care of me?”

  It was rare to hear Laolao talking so heatedly.

  “This country took everything away from me. What have I got in return? I got to know the taste of grass and tree bark. In trusting the country, my son Lishui served as a Red Guard and had to do many things against his will, but nobody’s paying for his retirement.”

  Laolao had never complained. She was obedient and quiet, a person who took whatever life gave her and did what women were supposed to do without question. To hear her say these things hurt me. I felt her anger. It was not until she was this old, almost dying, that she could speak out.

  “I don’t care about China anymore. I only care about my children. Call me selfish.” Laolao was so emotional she started to cough.

  “Siyong is fine,” my mom said, patting Laolao’s back to ease her cough. Uncle Lishui pulled the blanket up over her.

  “If he’s fine, why can’t he come home?” Laolao cried. “He said he didn’t have much work recently.”

  “To
avoid infection,” Mom said to console her. “Staying in the compound will keep him safe.”

  The management in a PLA compound was strict. If enforcers said nobody was allowed out, then that was it and Siyong had to obey, but Laolao couldn’t understand it.

  That evening, to avoid upsetting Laolao, we didn’t turn on the television, and the next day, Uncle Lishui called in the doctor to give her an intravenous drip. She was delirious again. In the past fifty years, her health had gone from bad to worse, but she’d only go to the hospital if the village doctor couldn’t cure her symptoms. Hospitals were expensive—they still are—and farmers never had health insurance. The village doctor was self-taught and was also a fellow farmer. I always felt embarrassed when his mud-stained shoes entered my grandparents’ house, but he probably had no time to change clothes between being a doctor and working his cornfield. He was nice, but I wished for more for Laolao. If she had been as privileged as a government worker, for example, she would have had medically trained and qualified doctors to heal her long ago. At least that is how I felt. What a different life she could have had. At that time, I was more certain than ever that being poor was the most unfortunate thing in the world. It would literally kill my grandmother.

  Mom had been right about wanting more than a rural hukou for me, and about moving us to Lutai. Yet I was still considered a farmer’s daughter, and had no other option but to study hard, pass my gaokao to be admitted to a good college, find a decent job in the city, and bury my village identity once and for all.

  A few days later, Aunt Zhirong heard Laolao muttering in her bed. “What is it, Mother?” Zhirong asked. She assumed her mother-in-law was having a nightmare.

  Laolao opened her eyes. “There’s poison in the drip.”

  “No…”

  “You all lie to me. Where’s Siyong? He is the only one who doesn’t lie to me.”

  Her mind was gone. Laolao didn’t remember that she had just talked to Siyong on the phone. Soon after, she would mistake me for Chunting. She began referring to my mom and my uncles as evil demons. Strangely, though, her coughing and asthma had disappeared. And her eyes burned with a fierce, sharp gaze.

  When Chunting and I went into her room, she was irritable and shouted loudly about strange things. If I tried to hold her hands, she’d throw my own off her own and shout: “I’m not human. I’m a yellow weasel. I’m here in this old lady’s body just to make a mess for your family.”

  Chunting and I would look at each other, not sure what to say.

  At first, we all thought she was suffering from temporary hallucinations and would soon recover, but she only got worse. By summer, on most days, Laolao didn’t recognize me. Once, when it was just Laolao and me alone at home, she put on a fisherman’s hat, jumped from her bed to the ground, and rushed out the gate. I chased after her.

  She stopped in the yard to break a tree branch. “This is my sword,” she said, waving it at me. “I see you, demon! As a messenger from the gods, I’m obliged to kill you!”

  I was startled, and though I knew she was sick, I felt hurt. Uncle Lishui suddenly appeared and pulled her back from me.

  * * *

  Everyone began to gossip about Laolao’s newfound strength—how she could now hop out of bed with the swiftness of a cat. It didn’t take long before the whole village was talking about her: The huángshŭláng, the yellow weasel, was haunting her.

  The huángshŭláng was once believed to have the power to haunt people, especially women, and encourage them to do absurd, brutal, or evil things. This is what the old people said.

  While I was growing up, of the many stories Laolao told me, my favorites were about the huángshŭláng. Because Laolao had been too sickly to go to school and stayed indoors most days, stories were her way to explore. Tales of yellow weasels were handed down to her by her mother, whose own mother had passed them on to her.

  When I was about six years old, my family spent Spring Festival Eve at my grandparents’ house. We put two tables near the stove. My mom, her little sister, Aunt Shuhua, and Uncle Lishui and his wife, Aunt Zhirong, sat at one table, making steamed buns and dumplings. At the other table, Laoye played Chinese chess with his sons, surrounded by my older cousins. Chunting and I sat with Laolao on the kang, the traditional-style heated bed warmed by pipes running underneath. When Laolao was speaking, we’d become so absorbed in the story that we wouldn’t even hear our aunts calling for us to come and taste the dumplings.

  “In the village where I was born,” Laolao would begin, “a woman had a fight one day with her new daughter-in-law. When the hens clucked, she’d ask her daughter-in-law to fetch the eggs, but the young woman came back and said, ‘There was nothing in the coop!’ For the first three days, the old woman believed her daughter-in-law, but after the fourth day, she became suspicious. By the fifth day, she concluded that her daughter-in-law was stealing the eggs, and told her so. To prove herself innocent, the young woman hid behind the coop before the hens clucked. The hens proceeded to cluck and lay eggs, but within seconds, two weasels jumped into the coop, grabbed the eggs, and quickly jumped back out. The young woman couldn’t believe it! The next day she forced her mother-in-law to come with her to see. The old woman finally stopped cursing her.”

  Laolao said weasels were smart and liked to play tricks on people. They’d do things like imitate roosters crowing to deceive people about the time. The most mysterious thing about the weasels was how they could possess women like spirits, making them do crazy things.

  Laolao believed these stories, as well as those about gods and fairies. A week before the Spring Festival, Laolao would place fruits, steamed buns, and candies in front of the shrine for the zaowangye, the kitchen god, to protect the family from harm. On the night before the Spring Festival, she’d put portraits of menshen, the gate gods, on her gate. The two gods had red faces, round eyes, and raised eyebrows. They held swords and stood ready to fight off evil spirits.

  My parents’ generation also had crazy stories, which they often used as ways of explaining things.

  One Saturday, when I arrived at Laolao’s house from Lutai, Aunt Zhirong grabbed my arms to stop me from entering Laolao’s room.

  “Hush, Chaoqun, Laolao’s sleeping, finally! Your uncles are on their way to the daxian, the witch in Fengtai Town. Let’s hope we can get her to help.”

  This sort of talk was nonsense to me, but Zhirong said the witch was their last hope for healing Laolao. “None of us would like to believe it, but what else can we do?” Aunt Zhirong gently tapped my shoulders.

  She then pulled up her sleeve and showed me her wrist, which was bruised with the imprint of teeth.

  That morning, when Aunt Zhirong had offered a bowl of congee—a kind of porridge made of rice or other grains—to Laolao, she grabbed the bowl and threw it to the floor like a madwoman. She then pulled Zhirong over by the hand and bit down hard on her.

  The doctor said Laolao had cerebellar atrophy, which meant that part of her brain was damaged and that’s why she had trouble behaving normally. The explanation was that psychological trauma and physical sickness together had caused her mental breakdown. The psychological trauma most intrigued me. I believed that what killed my grandmother was how much she had suffered by coming of age as a woman in a time and in a country that had been so politically turbulent, and often life-threatening. There was no cure.

  * * *

  When Laolao fell asleep, my heart felt as if it would never recover. I sat near her bed for a long time. I had so many questions for her, but she was no longer able to answer them. It was not always easy for me to understand her, even after I knew more of her story. She was sixty-five when I was born, and her life remained dramatically different from mine.

  I would never forgive her for not helping Mom get into college, as much as I loved Laolao. In the 1960s, although China advocated gender equality and encouraged women to become as educated as men, it was not a big deal if girls didn’t go to school. The old ways died hard: Wome
n were supposed to get married, not educated. Grandmother had not been educated, and she created the same fate for Mom, who didn’t start school until she was nine years old. She was in the same class as her younger brother, Siyong. After ninth grade, although Mom was a better student, Laolao and Laoye let Siyong go to high school and kept my mother at home.

  “That was so unfair!” I said loudly to my grandmother when I heard this.

  Laolao was shocked by my reaction. To her, it made perfect sense. “We didn’t have any other choice,” she said finally.

  “You did have a choice, but you gave the chance to your son.”

  “That was not a choice, Chaoqun. How could I let a girl steal my boy’s opportunity? Women go with their husbands; that’s the law of nature. She would be fine; he would not. Have you ever heard of it being the other way around?”

  “It would not be stealing, Laolao,” I said, flinging my hands in the air. “The opportunity belonged to my mother! She was a better student.”

  Grandmother was not moved by what I said. Her eyes turned back to the socks she was sewing, and she said calmly, “You’re lucky. When you go to school, you’re not competing with your brother. Make full use of that opportunity, little girl.”

  At those times, Laolao disappointed me. I wondered why my grandmothers and other women of their generation safeguarded the male-dominated social system. Why had they shown no mercy to their daughters on life-changing decisions like education and career opportunities? I knew they loved their girls. If Laolao had one piece of candy, she gave it only to her granddaughters, after the boys had left. That was her way of loving us. But when it came to dreams, future, fortune, and status, only boys qualified. Why couldn’t she see this wasn’t right? This plagued me.

  In traditional Chinese culture, if the boys were successful, they could bring money to the family, and the family’s status was based on their sons’ achievements. Investment in daughters equaled investment in another family. And it was not the wives and mothers who had a final say. But the rules in China were changing. Like my mom, women had begun working outside the home. Mom had been my inspiration throughout in all of this because she had chosen her own way and played by her own rules. After Laolao’s death, I started making plans to take it a step further.