by Liao Yiwu
Later, I lost consciousness again. I was sent to the Fuxing Hospital for emergency care. I had been beaten all over, and my head was bent out of shape. I looked like some evil ghoul. My thin body had become fat from the beating. I seemed to have swollen into someone two or three times the size of the original Li Hongqi. I had gotten a perforated eardrum in my right ear. I had ringing in that ear for years afterward and nearly became deaf. They took off the plastic tape and then forced me to eat burning-hot cigarette butts. Nineteen years have passed since then, but if you take a look, Liao, you can still see the scars they left on the side of my mouth.
After that they said that I was hiding pistols. They wanted me to hand over the guns. I said I didn’t have any guns, only two bullets and one tear gas bomb. They didn’t believe me. “If you don’t give us the guns,” they said, “you won’t see the sun rise tomorrow.”
In the next room, a little rioter—maybe just fifteen or sixteen years old—saved me. He was beaten senseless but suddenly bolted out of the interrogation room like a frightened bird. The police station had a courtyard-like layout. That skinny little kid ran around the courtyard with all the soldiers chasing him, just like a slippery eel. They couldn’t catch him. A platoon leader from the police, shouting angrily, raised his pistol and was about to shoot him when the precinct police captain stopped him, saying, “You don’t have a confession yet, and having him die in the courtyard would be unlucky.” So it went on like that. Finally, everybody was so out of breath that they got tired of chasing him and let him run off. They waited until he got tired and collapsed on the ground. Then they grabbed him and continued the interrogation.
So they got distracted and stopped thinking about you.
In the early morning hours, the police van went out again, looking all over for rioters. I was handcuffed to the pole beneath a basketball hoop in the courtyard, feeling so miserable I wanted to die, but I couldn’t.
A “leading comrade,” a higher-up, came at four a.m. to interrogate the four of us broken-down rioters one by one. The first was the little kid who had run off and orbited the courtyard. He was like a little bird with broken wings now, collapsed and barely able to move. Still, his hands and feet were cuffed to the table legs.
The comrade squatted next to him and asked, “What did you do?”
“I burned a truck,” said the little kid, as if he were talking in his sleep.
“Tell me, just how did you burn it?”
“I lit a piece of cloth with a lighter and threw it under the truck.”
“Not bad. You were very brave,” said the comrade with a smile, while at the same time a leg flew up and kicked the kid in the mouth, causing blood to gush out of his mouth and nose.
“You have all these black-and-blue marks,” said the comrade, ignoring the kick and feigning concern. “What’s that about? Did you fall?”
“You people hit me,” said the kid.
The comrade made as if he hadn’t heard. “Speak louder, child. Did you fall?”
“You people hit me.”
He was knocked unconscious with a punch.
The leader sighed and moved on to the second rioter, chained to the next table leg. He asked him the same questions. This person was powerfully built but not very bright. He answered the questions about the same way as the kid had. The result was also about the same: he was knocked unconscious.
The third rioter was clever and saw that the situation was not looking good, so he said immediately, “I wasn’t beaten. The People’s Liberation Army is an army of justice. They could not be so cruel.”
“Is that right?” said the leader. “Then how did you get those injuries?”
“I hurt myself. I hurt myself.”
“Oh, you hurt yourself so badly?”
“Yes, yes, it was very dark. I couldn’t see my own five fingers in front of me. I fell into a hole.” He was spared a beating, and I followed his example.
What was the food like in prison?
We had two small steamed buns and a steaming hot bowl of the water they used to rinse pots. It was always the exact same thing every single day. Only one day did we have anything different—the day we had lamb. After going weeks without fish or meat, we felt as if we had grown iron hooks in our stomachs, but once we put the meat in our mouths, what a smell. It was meat that the police couldn’t finish and it had been left around for a few days. Fly eggs were hatching in it, but they couldn’t stand to throw it away, so they gave it to the prisoners to improve our diet.
The police knew we would have trouble eating it, so beforehand they gave everyone a lot of antidiarrheal medicine. Because we hadn’t had any oil in our stomachs for so long, no matter how bad the meat smelled, we wolfed it down. That day, just after eating, we all felt a roiling storm in our stomachs and rushed to the toilet right away. We loosened our belts, sat on the toilet, and erupted with crashing sounds. Before the ones ahead had even finished, the next couldn’t wait, holding their stomachs, screaming in pain, wishing that they could throw the person ahead out of the way. Many people couldn’t wait and went in their pants. The whole cell stank with the thick smell of loose stool. The police gave us extra doses of antidiarrheal medicine, and everybody gulped down large quantities of it.
The government knew that the poorer people are, the tougher they are. Even if you were to die, well, what of it? You were less than a watery piece of shit. They would just throw you away. Those hot, hungry, and diarrhea-filled days in such a small cell, with all those bastards, skin sticking to skin, reeking ass next to reeking ass. If one person got sick, soon everyone was sick. Take scabies. If one person started scratching, soon everyone was scratching hard and skin was flying all over the place. Fleas were always poised to attack and everyone would wake up in the middle of the night to fend them off. Just like that, the torture went on and on until one day you got your indictment and then six weeks later your court verdict. I was charged with counterrevolutionary hooliganism, eight years. Robbery, ten years. Stealing ammunition and explosives, three years. The sentences added up to twenty-one years, but they made it twenty altogether.
During that murderous time, no lawyers dared speak for the rioters for fear of being implicated. I didn’t dare appeal. I was afraid that they would bump up the severity of my crime by a level and my head would roll. When I got back to the detention center, I felt total despair. Several prison tyrants, in order to please the government, forced me to memorize the prison regulations. Suddenly enraged, I fought them. That astonished the police. They put me in handcuffs and leg irons. Several days later I was sent to Beijing Municipal Prison No. 1. There they put me immediately into solitary so I could do some soul-searching. It was the size of a doghouse, just nine feet long and six feet wide.
I burrowed in there and got right into bed. I wasn’t allowed to sleep, though. I had to spend all my time memorizing the prison regulations until I could recite them fluently. The summer passed and fall arrived. From a crack in my door, I could see the withered branches and fallen leaves everywhere. I saw prisoners assembling in the yard, singing, “The stars surround you and the moonlight goes with you.”
The June Fourth rioters stayed in Beijing Municipal No. 1 Prison for over a year doing odd jobs. Then we were sent all together to Municipal No. 2 Prison, where we made latex medical gloves. My job was trimming the edges. Everyone worked like machines, repeating the same two motions for over ten hours a day. For example, to test if a glove was airtight, you would blow into it first and then squeeze it with your hands, then put it in a box. Each box held 2,000 pairs of gloves. If three of the gloves in the crate leaked, you would have to do the work all over again and you would be beaten. And if you didn’t fulfill your quota, the police would poke you with high-voltage electric prods and tie you up with thin hemp cord.
Many people’s fingers were deformed by the work, leaving them crippled for life. Two of my cellmates were slow workers. They couldn’t stand it. They broke thermometers and swallowed the mercury. They were s
ent to the hospital to have their stomachs pumped. Their suicide attempts failed.
When I was in jail, my private parts were burned with an electric prod. The same happened to you?
They poked me with the electric prod many times. It felt like tens of thousands of needles stabbing you at the same time. One time the section chief, Little Black Liu, shocked me for half an hour. I howled in agony like a wolf being slaughtered. Little Black Liu got angry. He poked my mouth with the electric prod. I foolishly bit down hard on it with all my strength, and it almost knocked out my front tooth. Later, there were big blisters on the inside and outside of my mouth. I was very hungry but couldn’t swallow anything.
But Little Black Liu still hadn’t had enough fun with me. He called over three collaborationist prisoners and wrestled me down to the floor. He then had a chair put over me and sat on it, so I was wedged between the legs of the chair, unable to move. They took off my pants, exposing my buttocks. Little Black Liu took the electric prod in his hands, holding it perpendicular to the floor, and aimed it right at my anus. I couldn’t help squirming like mad, but besides my neck I couldn’t actually move my body at all, as if everything had been screwed tightly together. My urine and shit all came out. Little Black Liu yelled over and over, “Bad luck, bad luck.” He had me turned over and then shocked my cock. The pain was unbearable, like a knife jabbing into me. Those bastards got very excited. They were even singing.
Did that affect your ability to have sex?
This question is too humiliating. I don’t want to talk about it.
The Prisoner of Conscience
In China, a prisoner of conscience is someone who dares to go up against the government, not because of any particular political program, but out of a simple sense of justice, an uneasy conscience about what’s happening. Li Hai—fifty-two years old, still single, the hair on his temples going white—was a prisoner of conscience. Having been an older graduate student at Peking University, an epicenter of the movement, he was involved in it from start to finish.
To interview him, I was back at 798, Beijing’s old factory district turned artist colony, where I had first met Wu Wenjian. Using the pretext of a visit with Wu and some other artists, Li and I quickly slipped away from the large group and found an empty room. I closed the door, and Li said it was best to lock it, so I locked it.
* * *
Li Hai: I used to have a good memory but now it isn’t any good. I’ve forgotten many people and events. I recognize faces but don’t remember names. I often get lost in my own neighborhood. When I have a conversation with someone, I suddenly feel that the other person is far away, as if he had just come from outer space.
What is closest to you?
June Fourth. June Fourth is yesterday. It will always be just yesterday for me. It’s not like I have any thoughts. I have none at all. I got out of prison a long time ago but I’m still afraid. I’m afraid when I cross the street. I’m afraid when I go shopping in a little store. When I talk with my neighbors, I’m always looking this way and that, as if I were doing something I should be ashamed to be seen doing in public. One day a friend coming up behind me called my name. His voice was a little loud, and it frightened me, so I bolted. I’m not a coward, but I need to adapt to my environment.
Are you from Beijing?
I was born and raised in Beijing. I grew up in a nice environment. I liked to read books. After the Cultural Revolution ended, I passed the entrance examination for Nanjing University. After graduation, I taught for six years. In 1988, I passed the examination for the Peking University philosophy department. In 1989, I came into contact with the student movement and got involved.
Peking University was the center of the nation. The “Triangle” at the center of the Peking University campus was the eye of the storm. At the Triangle, that palpable sense of freedom of speech somehow stirs whoever passes by. When Hu Yaobang died, funeral scrolls, memorial essays, funeral poetry, and portraits of the deceased man covered the walls of the Triangle. Many people gathered there, lining up to go to greet the family of Hu Yaobang, going to the mourning hall to present flowers and bow three times before his portrait. I went there, too. I couldn’t stop myself from weeping.
Hu was the symbol of Chinese reform. For Chinese people, he was like Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. But Deng Xiaoping played political games, supporting him for a while, then attacking him later. Hu died an angry man. But that phony dwarf Deng appeared at the memorial meetings and praised Hu to the skies.
He was also a tyrannical dwarf. He was Mao Zedong’s plaything. Now it was his turn to play with others as Mao had played with him.
That’s why a movement to mourn Hu Yaobang arose spontaneously among the people. On April 17, marchers from all the universities in Beijing went out into the streets to demonstrate. Peking University was among the slower ones to act. It was about midnight, and people had changed to go to bed in the dormitories, when suddenly we heard waves and waves of wailing coming from the depths of campus. I’m not exaggerating one bit. It was as piercing as the howling of a wolf. It came from every building and every corner of campus.
Many people actually opened their windows, cupped their hands in the shape of a bullhorn, and made long, drawn-out howls. People in the opposite dormitory would howl back. Then people streamed through the corridors from all directions to gather at the Triangle until it was overcrowded. Some wore strips of white cloth wrapped around their foreheads, a traditional symbol of mourning. Someone emerged from the crowd to direct traffic. From the twenty-eighth floor of a building, someone unfurled a giant banner with the words “Chinese Spirit.” We followed that banner and marched through the streets in great numbers, yelling slogans as we marched. More and more people joined our ranks as we walked for miles toward downtown. A little past four in the morning we reached Tiananmen Square.
That sounds like how, at the start of the Cultural Revolution, millions of Red Guards from all over China gathered at Tiananmen to be received by Mao Zedong. They also went to Tiananmen a little past four in the morning.
There’s no comparison. The first time, they were gathering for a personality cult. This time, it was to promote democracy. The ghostly old imperial city of Beijing was suddenly overwhelmed by the excitement of the crowds. Some martial arts expert from who knows where took over the banner and, in a flash, leaped from the ground to the base of the Monument to the People’s Heroes. They hung the “Chinese Spirit” banner where everyone could see it.
Then the student leader Wang Dan called an open-air meeting, attended by over a thousand people, to discuss what to include in the petition that would be presented to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The petition started with eleven items and then was reduced to seven. If I remember correctly, these included ending restrictions on the press, eliminating corruption, and so on. Later we lined up to go to the eastern entrance of the Great Hall of the People. We sat there on the ground all day and all night, but nobody came out to receive us.
China is a dictatorship, so it doesn’t have any mechanism for dialogue with the people other than repression. Everyone sat at the foot of the steps bored stiff, staring straight ahead. We didn’t eat or sleep. The heat of the day alternated with the cold of the night. We held out with nothing but hearts full of passion and patriotism. Gradually, some Beijingers started coming to see us, then more and more surrounded us until we were completely encircled by layers and layers of people. Beijingers are more politically aware than people elsewhere in the country, so many volunteers came to give us presents of bread, fruit, and Popsicles. A disciplinary patrol organized on the spot formed a circle around us to keep order.
We were attracting a lot of attention. The officials couldn’t stand it any longer and finally at dusk they opened the door a crack to receive our petition. We felt like a load had been lifted from our shoulders, so at first light we withdrew back to the campus. We didn’t realize things were far from over. Wave after wave of protest arose after that
. Another student sit-down strike took place at the New China Gate of the Zhongnanhai leadership compound. We rushed over to support them, but the People’s Armed Police drove us back. The students naturally wouldn’t stand for that, so there was a lot of pushing and shoving on both sides. The People’s Armed Police got angry and started punching and kicking. I yelled, “Stop punching people!” A fist flew into my face, which swelled up fast, and I looked like a panda. Some students were beaten up much worse and had blood all over their heads. Others were kicked in the testicles and doubled over in pain.
That was the famous New China Gate attack. Afterward we withdrew. The official news we heard on campus was that the armed police hadn’t hit anyone but had patiently persuaded people to disperse peacefully. What bullshit. My face was proof of that. That incident was a turning point. Tens of thousands of students started hurrying down to Tiananmen Square for sit-down strikes and demonstrations. On April 21 the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party held a memorial for Hu Yaobang in the Great Hall of the People. The students again sent Guo Haifeng and two others to present their petition. Nobody paid any attention to them, so they knelt down on the steps. After Chinese Central Television broadcast that scene live, it shocked the entire country.
The memorial was an internal meeting held by the Communist Party, and the people were not allowed to participate. Our tiniest shred of will was being completely ignored, so of course we knelt. We didn’t imagine the Party could become so enraged when losing face. Shame can only lead to anger, so that led to the April 26 editorial in People’s Daily, “We Need to Make a Clear Stand Against Turmoil.” That folly poured oil on the flames, leading directly to the big march on April 27. All of Beijing emptied into Tiananmen Square. People say that a million people were there.