Barbarian Lost (18 page)

We take a moment. Min is happy to be going on the record about his intellectual pursuits. I'm similarly happy. This is rare stuff that he's explaining. I am also perpetually curious about the Cultural Revolution. For her part, Viv tries to share our enthusiasm for the conversation, but she's too busy translating to share in our giddy excitement.

At one point, I interrupt her to ask her to ask Min if he considers himself a radical. He shies away from the qualification, explaining that he's merely describing a history that is precisely moved by radical ideas. And that perhaps the Chinese have a different threshold for radicalism than westerners, who have known great comfort and stability in recent years. But, he adds, of course this too is changing as material conditions in China are greatly improving. As recent and dramatic as the Cultural Revolution was—or even the Tiananmen Square events, for that matter—they are quickly being erased from memory by comfort.

He then returns to Mao and explains that at times, the chairman was a rigid proponent of traditional practices. At other times, he called for the toppling of all monuments. Over the years, Mao shifted toward a more and more radical position. He began to feel that abusive patterns of behaviour were so ingrained in the popular ethos, all beliefs had to be dismantled, that a reorganization of material conditions might temporarily correct social ills. But the traditional ills of China were like a cancer that would soon
re-emerge if not constantly contained. This is why he came to believe in the need for an entirely new type of human.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Mao began to fear that the revolutionary structure itself might be infected and might serve as the locus for the perpetuation of old evils. Deep down, Min says, Mao was also fighting to keep his personal narrative central to the People's Republic. Again and again, Mao came up with radical new initiatives. But his schemes mostly failed. Each time, he blamed the failures on the influence of the pragmatists, whom he thought were vehicles for perpetuating the wrongs of the past. The implementation of his bold schemes was never brave enough, the chairman concluded. This is why he began to believe that the party bureaucracy could not be relied on to bring about the necessary and fundamental change. It had to be fomented directly among the people, especially the young, with the chairman at the helm, of course, leading the nation's children toward a world that was shiny and new.

This in a nutshell is the logic behind the Cultural Revolution, Min explains. But even during the revolution, the pendulum would sometimes swing toward the pragmatists. And ultimately, the pragmatists came out of this period on top. Passions were consumed and the people were exhausted. The people had probably lost their capacity for belief in Mao's vision.

Min goes on to say that he remains fascinated by this period and the ideas that led to it; it really has no parallel in history—a leader using the people to destroy the very government he created.

Then Min describes his work of compiling stories about the Cultural Revolution. “You and I are sitting here and we suddenly decide that our boss is a self-centred profiteer unworthy of authority. With that, we march down into the street toward our place of
work, along the way convincing others of the need to act. By the time we get there, we're a small mob. We climb up to the boss's office and remove him on the spot and designate one of us to take his place.” He pauses for effect, then adds, “Can you imagine this? This kind of drama happening all over the place?”

“It almost sounds as if you like this period,” I say with a smile.

He explains that he likes to study it. “For an intellectual, it's fascinating,” he says.

He tells us that for years now he has been compiling and collecting street-level dramas of the Cultural Revolution, similar to the scenario he just described. The passion and audacity of the exchanges are unlike anything else, he says. The human character is on display in all its fury and splendour. “I guess I am moved by these moments of pure possibility,” he confesses, “the willingness to transform everything.”

Min tells us that he has conducted interviews with people but prefers the written records. Apparently, descriptions of innumerable events were written down at the time—semi-official transcripts or even private accounts.

“That's ironic,” I say. “The period advocated rejecting the past and you're recording it.”

“I'm a believer in balance,” he counters, “and now China is creating the most facile and easily packaged past. People can't live without the past, so it's manufactured for them. Simple, mass produced and ready to use. You're well aware of these forms, I'm sure. But I have made myself a scribe of the dream of pastlessness. As a reminder of what we're capable of, both good and bad.”

“You're a believer in extremes?” I venture.

“Without extremes there's no middle.”

“Yet you seem a mild-mannered intellectual.”

“That's because all of my pursuits are intellectual. But the Cultural Revolution attempted to blur the distinction between action and intellect.” Min then comments how the cult of outside ideas is growing more and more prevalent in China. Still, for all but a minority, it's a materialistic, superficial pursuit.

He turns back to the chairman. In Mao's early years within the party, Min explains, he was struggling for influence with people who had been educated in Japan and the West. People who were often in close communication with Moscow. From the beginning, at an almost instinctive level, Mao felt change had to start where the Chinese past was in many ways still present and unaltered by outside influence: the countryside. Here was a realm beyond the intellect, a realm of action. The presence of the past was authentic and brutal. People clung to repetition and superstition like a drowning man to a log in a river. In the face of great suffering, the past gave them their only assurance that somehow life goes on.

But the past is also a tool of manipulation; it can be used to control and oppress. The indolent and rich can tailor the past to be comfortable and flattering. The corrupt can use it to dominate. The liberation of the peasants from the past is a kind of explosion. As the people lift their heads from the ruts and the muck, an immense amount of raw power is unleashed. Mao saw this.

“But when we look around,” I say, “sure we see Mao on the currency and Mao on the buildings, but is this really Mao's China? I see Deng's China.”

Min admits that Mao's destructiveness set forth among the Chinese an idea of freedom. All had to be questioned. Maybe this was necessary, Min says, then adds, “I'm an optimist. It remains to be seen where China is headed. All agree that something big is happening to China. Some say it started with Mao; others, before
him. Some think it's for the better; some, for the worse. Some see possibility opening, some see it closing. Some might worry that we are losing our way. I do not. Things are changing.”

The wedding is to be held in a distinguished and fancy old hotel. It occupies a sizable area of the French Quarter. The location is spectacular. Upon passing the tall walls of the complex, one enters into a green sanctuary of perfectly manicured lawns and showy trees. The hotel is a series of grandiose but low-storeyed stone buildings. It's like a film set: the feel of luxury harks back to the 1920s and 1930s. A few details, however, hint at our current era—ultra-slick lighting and roomy elevators lead to exquisite rooms, the rooms of fancy hotels the world over.

Our event is held away from the main hotel in a separate garden pavilion. The guests are seated at two rows of tables on either side of a central walkway; at the front is an area for the ceremony. Viv and I are seated with Chinese-based westerners and their local wives, along with Allen and Lito, accompanied by their girlfriends. The ceremony interweaves moments of English mirth with Chinese customs. The humour of the Western components falls flat—there is many an expressionless Chinese face. The best man's speech, full of friendly mockery, makes for some especially tense moments. In China, weddings are about survival in this world and beyond; through them, families are strengthened and lineages are secured. So there's not much room for jest in a wedding ceremony.

It's clear that the bride and groom love each other. I can see she watches him carefully. She cherishes his subtlety and wit, his awkward outbursts of passion and his deep-seated belief in singular
pursuits of heart and mind. She gently smiles as she watches him. This is a man whose core she admires and who brings out tender feelings in her. She wants to help him thrive and prosper and wants to be there when it happens. She sees so much potential in him.

He looks forward and focuses on the ceremony. From early on, I know, she enraptured him. Although she's soft and feminine, he's awed by her steely determination. He concentrates hard on the tasks at hand, trying hard not to screw up; he wants everything to be flawless. He so very much wants her approval and admiration. He feels that for her he'll become stronger and better.

Allen rises to read a poem to the audience. How much Chinese have I heard by now? A lot. All the sounds, really—so many notes drifting through my head, often leaving no trace. Perhaps I've grown to know and love some of the more familiar ones. Maybe I'm now thrilled to bounce along with the right tones applied to the simplest words.

The sounds of the words of this old poem, carefully spoken by diligent Allen, are more intoxicating than anything I've yet heard. It's the Chinese language that one rarely hears, the one required by classical poetry, full of curves and shimmies, accelerations, drop-offs, sharp pauses and surprises.

“It's an old poem from the Han dynasty times,” Viv quietly tells me. “It's very beautiful. It says something like: ‘Even if the snows come in summer, / the mountains sink away, / the birds stop singing, / my love for you will not falter.'”

The banquet is sumptuous. Shanghai cuisine is a luxury cuisine, replete with tasty and rare morsels in delicate and sweet sauces: Cold braised honeycomb tripe in sweet gravy. Live shrimp drowned and poached in wine. Sweet pickled radishes masquerading as chrysanthemums. Duck's tongue off which one sucks the
meat from a minuscule wishbone. The little cold dishes pile up in front of us, soon followed by a series of main dishes: Crab with egg and red roe. Braised fatty pork. Fried whole fish with sweet-and-sour sauce. It's impossible to imagine finishing it all. At the Chinese banquet, one picks slowly at the many dishes and intersperses bites of food with much alcohol. This way, huge amounts can eventually be whittled down. But no sooner is one dish cleared than another appears in its place.

Allen and Lito's girlfriends are very pretty. Clearly, both men have game. Allen's companion is from Sichuan, a place celebrated for its beautiful and vibrant women. She's tall and extroverted. She tells me in passable English that she's a junior executive at a successful cosmetics company that's in the process of going national. With her unmistakable confidence, she seems the right match for Allen.

Lito's girlfriend also seems unusually suited to him. She exudes a kind of wounded grace. She, like her man, is pure Shanghai. She speaks no English and says little. She watches everything unfold with a kindly torpor, yet behind her foggy and benign demeanour she gives off glimmers of depth. I observe her attending quickly to the people around her and particularly solicitously toward her man, who's festive this evening and has been drinking with abandon. Her laughing, squinted eyes and gentle smile seem to hide some great sadness that has stunned her to the world and made her ready to accept anything. I imagine her as an opium smoker—unlikely in today's Shanghai, but a fanciful way to account for her odd and intriguing countenance.

Next to me sits the red-faced Englishman who was so indignant on the football pitch. He's accompanied by his wife, a slight Chinese woman, and their daughter, a cute and well-behaved toddler. No
sooner has the girl carefully picked her way through some choice morsels than she and her attentive mother quietly take their leave for the night.

The Englishman engages me.

I learn he teaches business at a professional college. He had been a middle manager for a company in northern England. He looks the part: short, stout, pink-fleshed and balding. He's a team player, but one who likes the game to have clear and identifiable rules. A pleasant and straightforward bloke at first, he's soon off on an angry tangent. China's clearly getting to him.

When the topic of what I'm up to here—conducting some kind of research—is raised, he launches into an exposé of his views. China doesn't impress him one bit, he says, admonishingly. It has a long way to go as a society before it'll be up to his standards. His students, he tells me, are supposed to be educated and promising young people, but they're absolutely without imagination. Get them to learn something that they can memorize and they'll apply it unfailingly, he explains, then firmly concludes: “But ask them to express themselves about a novel subject, to analyze something in a personal way, and all you get is complete rubbish.”

He'll not have me chalk it up to poor English skills either. Or even to a different view of the educational experience: school as a place where one goes to listen and not to talk, where one should not speak one's mind but rearticulate the teachings of the master. No, these may be factors, he says, but the flaw is not superficial or even escapable. It's who they are.

He blames it on Confucius: “Not a day goes by that I don't wish the codger never existed,” he tells me.

I can't help but laugh. This really gets him going.

“Just look what Confucius gets the Chinese to do,” he says, scowling. “It has made them the world's greatest hypocrites. Everything is a lie. A front for what it's supposed to be. You can't always behave as you're told to behave. It means there's no real responsibility!”