The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up (14 page)

During the day, we were forced to work in the fields. Whenever there was a public criticism meeting, we immediately dropped our work and showed up on the stage in our usual jet-plane positions.

Oftentimes, all the bad guys were strung together and we walked from county to county. Most of the meetings took place in the village square or inside big warehouses. Sometimes, we had to attend smaller meetings at someone's home. That was the most painful. After my usual confession of how I was afraid of light, people would kick us or slap us since we were in close proximity. Some sadistic folks would order me to kneel on wooden boards filled with nails. Kids would pull my hair or ears.

One night, it was almost 11 p.m. I heard a knock on the door. I got out of bed and opened the door. Before I knew what was happening, someone attacked me, blindfolded me, tied my hands behind my back with ropes, gagged me with a piece of dirty rag, and dragged me away like a hostage. I could sense that I was led outside into the field. Then they pushed me down into a big hole on the ground, with lots of loose dirt under my feet. I thought I was going to be buried alive. So I moaned and groaned in despair. A few minutes later, I could feel warm water pouring down on my head. Someone peed on me from above. Then they pulled me out of the hole and took me to a warehouse. Two young guys pushed me against the wall, took the rag out of my mouth, grabbed my head, and banged my face against the wall. My nose was broken like a ping-pong ball. Then I heard a familiar voice behind me: Did you steal the little box from the archives office?

I could tell the voice belonged to Zhao Baoqin, a member of the performance troupe. Realizing that they were only looking for a stolen box, I became somewhat relaxed. I told them no. They took off my pants and whipped me a dozen times until I was bleeding. It hurt so much. After two hours of beatings, they still couldn't get anything out of me. So they let me go. The next morning, I found out that two other disgraced officials had similar interrogations the night before.

LIAO:
Did you ever think of escape?

WANG:
Many times. For several years, I followed the performance troupe. All the actors would sit on the horse-drawn cart. A couple of counterrevolutionaries like me would walk behind the cart, carrying luggage and props. We traveled all over the region, regardless of rain or snow. It was very hard. Eventually, there were rumors saying that all the counterrevolutionaries would be sent to jail. So I discussed this with two other “bad guys” and we planned our escape. I secretly bought a pair of rainproof shoes and a water bottle. As we were ready to implement our plan, my mother showed up. She was in her seventies. As a little girl, she followed the ancient tradition and bound her feet.

My mother carried a small sack of flour, a big porcelain bowl, and some clothes. She stayed at my dorm and waited for me to come back. But an official went to my dorm and told her: Your son is a counterrevolutionary. He is under investigation; you are not allowed to stay with him. My mother was so confused: My son joined the Communist army at the age of twelve. How could he rebel against the Communist Party?

I was then released temporarily so I could find a hotel for her. My poor mother didn't want to spend money on a hotel. She repacked her stuff and left the next day.

In the mid-1970s, after I regained freedom, I used to go visit my mother once a year in the city of Lanzhou. She helped raise my sister's two children. I would send her fifteen yuan [US$2] a month.

Upon her release from the labor camp, my sister was transferred to a rural village outside Lanzhou. She continued to suffer humiliation at public meetings. A couple of times, she ran back to my mother's house in the city to visit her children. But the street committee found out and they sent her back.

My mother died on January 13, 1978. Before her death, she suffered from bronchitis and heart problems. We couldn't afford to put her in the hospital. But a friend of mine, who was also a musician, had married a high-ranking army officer. With her help, the hospital admitted my mother. Three days later, my mother, who used to live frugally in slums, became really uncomfortable and kept saying: Take me home. It's too expensive here. Before I had the chance to move her, she died. I hired a horse-drawn cart, sent her body to a crematorium, and brought her ashes home. She was eighty-two years old. Her hands were like dried tree bark, distorted from years of hard work.

LIAO:
What happened to your sister?

WANG:
She is now in her seventies and looks older than my mother. She is still quite insane, talking to herself all the time. It's horrible.

LIAO:
In China, musicians are low-class performers for hire. Few dare to challenge authorities. Many musicians, writers, and artists have become favorites for being the Party's mouthpieces. For example, poet He Jingzhi became the minister of culture for writing revolutionary poems filled with lavish praise for new China. Singer Hu Songhua became famous and enjoyed the “People's Artist” title for thirty-some years for singing one song, “The Song of Praises.” Master Wang, you had superior skills and possess all the qualities to be a “Red” artist like He Jingzhi and Hu Songhua. Yet you ended up getting purged not only in the Mao era, but also under Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin. I guess it has a lot to do with your honesty. Maybe you should learn to be a little shrewd?

WANG:
I have never stopped trying to suck up to the government. But my voice is too loud and my mouth is too big. As I said earlier, my trouble began after the two-hour speech in 1962. For fourteen years, I was detained, interrogated, beaten, humiliated, trampled, and abandoned. Even so, I have always tried to use my music to please those in power. During the Cultural Revolution, I composed many revolutionary lyrics while working in the boiler room. Those lyrics included “The Red Sun in My Heart,” “Revolutionary Rebels Are Not Afraid of Violence,” and “Walking on the Wide Path of the Cultural Revolution.” No matter how hard I tried, the Party never gave a damn. You know, for many years, we Chinese were forced to accept the notion that our beloved Party was more endearing to us than our parents. From my experience, I think the Party is worse than an ugly ruthless stepmother.

LIAO:
I heard your Symphony no. 4 a couple of weeks ago. The symphony combines some local mourning tunes in Anhui Province; I mean the suona music is so haunting. Then there were the angry dissonant sounds of drums and bass . . . Your music is so autobiographical, harsh and dark.

WANG:
Damn right. My music is devoid of tenderness or love. It's like a big dark lake, which contains all the mud, tears, blood, sighs, and screams from its surrounding rivers. That's why it's heavy, deep and dark. Some sissy artists used to say that love is everything. That's total bullshit. When your right to live is being threatened, where do you get love? On June 4, 1989, when soldiers opened fire at students and residents, one thousand shouts of love couldn't even stop a single bullet.

LIAO:
Aren't you a bit too harsh on humanity?

WANG:
In those turbulent times, I craved love and humanity. One time at a public meeting, I stood on the stage in a jet-plane position for four hours. My body hurt and my mouth was dry. After the meeting, an old lady came over and handed me a bowl of water. The bowl was not very clean and the water tasted a little weird. But she was so brave to care for a class enemy like me . . . Many years later, I still think of that bowl of water. Unfortunately, I didn't get too many of those warm and fuzzy things in life.

LIAO:
You look like a tough guy, but you are really quite sentimental and vulnerable inside.

WANG:
From my appearance, people think I'm very tough. I'm tall and have a loud voice. But inside here, I'm constantly begging for mercy from my captors. Time after time, they ignored my begging. In the past, I have requested the government many times to reverse its verdict against me. My requests have gone unanswered for many years.

But, music has sustained me. For many years, authorities in China despised twentieth-century Western music: Igor Stravinsky's works were considered too decadent, Richard Strauss was reactionary, and Dmitri Shostakovich a monster! We were at least fifty years behind the West in musical development. It wasn't until the 1980s that China opened its door to the West. We Chinese finally realized that there was so much that we had missed.

Since the late 1970s, I've been trying to catch up. I have produced over thirty different types of works. I have written Symphony no. 3 and no. 4. I'm writing no. 5 now.

LIAO:
I have read several news stories about the success of your music abroad. Your symphonies have been played in over twenty countries. People here seem to be indifferent to your works. I can't believe you get paid ten yuan [US$1.30] per hour for teaching a class. An orchestra here fired you because playing your symphonies didn't bring them a profit.

WANG:
We are going from a dogmatic Communist society to a commercially driven one. Everyone is busy making money. They don't hear the sufferings and pains of my generation. That indifference doesn't change me or my music. I compose for a different reason. I'm composing a series of elegies for the whole nation, for the millions of victims who died uncalled-for deaths or suffered under Maoism. If Shostakovich's music was testimony to the horrors of the Stalin era, my music will be . . . I don't want to finish the sentence here. I guess my music will come in handy on Judgment Day because it is eternal.

THE RIGHTIST

Feng Zhongci, 75, was my uncle Liao Enze's neighbor and friend. He lives in an apartment building near Chengdu's West Gate Train Station. Feng and his wife have two children, both of whom are married. In the 1950s, Feng was a promising leader of the Communist Youth League at his university. But during the anti-Rightist campaign, he was labeled a Rightist and lived many years in the desert region of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

I visited him on a recent August afternoon. His room was tiny and hot. He acted like an old-fashioned scholar, formal and overly polite. There was no air-conditioning in his apartment.
During our conversation, both of us were sweating profusely, as if we were locked inside a dim sum steamer. Several times, I told him to take off his shirt, but he politely refused, saying it was improper to entertain a guest with a T-shirt on.

LIAO YIWU:
I want to chat with you about the anti-Rightist campaign. I want to know how you became a Rightist.

FENG ZHONGCI:
I don't have much to talk about.

LIAO:
Uncle Feng, I've come a long way. You can't let me leave here empty-handed. You can at least talk about the political climate in that era, can't you? I didn't realize that over 500,000 innocent people were persecuted during that period. Most of them were intellectuals. Some got labeled Rightists simply because they had written a letter to a literary magazine or because they had expressed their doubts about the Communist Party in their personal diaries. That's pretty hard to believe.

FENG:
What happened in the 1950s might seem strange and abnormal today. But in that era it was very common.

LIAO:
Were you one of those who became Rightist because you had spoken out against the Party?

FENG:
Not really. I came from a proletariat family. I was politically active and supported the Party wholeheartedly. At the beginning of the anti-Rightist campaign, I was ready to stand up and fend off any attacks against the Party.

LIAO:
You aren't kidding me, are you?

FENG:
No. I was head of the Communist Youth League at my university. I joined the Party in my sophomore year. Before my graduation in 1957, I was the first one to write an open letter to the Party and pledged to answer Chairman Mao's call and take assignment in the remote poverty-stricken areas. However, the Party secretary had a private conversation with me, saying that they needed politically reliable graduates like me to help with the anti-Rightist Campaign. They wanted me to stay on after graduation and take over the school newspaper. He said, We need to seize this important forum from the hands of the counterrevolutionaries.

LIAO:
If you were so pro-Party, how did you end up being a Rightist yourself?

FENG:
I became a Rightist because of my personal life.

LIAO:
Lifestyle problems?

FENG:
Please don't use that word to judge me. The word “lifestyle” has different interpretations at different times. In those years, you could be executed for having lifestyle problems. For example, if a guy had premarital sex with a female classmate, it could be a serious crime.

LIAO:
If your Rightist label was not lifestyle-related, what was it?

FENG:
I got it because my wife's family fell into the category of “reactionary bureaucrat and landlord.” Her uncle had served in the Nationalist government as a chief of the drug enforcement agency. He was executed not long after the Communist liberation in 1949. Her father, a big landlord, had made a young woman his concubine. So because of her family, my wife, Wenxin, shouldered a huge political burden at college. She tried to concentrate on her studies and kept everything to herself. She was quite antisocial. I was just the opposite, very gregarious. I had many friends. When I was with a group, I felt like a fish in water. But somehow I found myself attracted to Wenxin's aloofness. There was something mysterious and beautiful about her. I just couldn't get over her. I began to hang out with her in 1956.

LIAO:
I can imagine the challenges of dating someone who was incompatible with you politically. My sister used to date a military officer during the Cultural Revolution. Before a military officer or a government official got married, the Party had to conduct thorough background checks on the future spouse's family before granting approval. My sister's boyfriend had to break up with her because my grandfather used to be a landlord. In your case, how could her questionable family background make you a Rightist?

FENG:
This is how it all started. Initially, I tried to get together with Wenxin in the name of helping her with political studies. During our study sessions, I would engage her in conversations about art, music, and our families. Gradually, she began to open up to me. One time she told me that she was very close to her father's concubine. I immediately warned her to strengthen her political standing by separating herself from the decadent concubine of a landlord. She didn't say anything. One day, she suggested that we take a stroll outside the campus. After we were out on the street, she led me to a courtyard house inside a deep alleyway. She didn't tell me who we were visiting.

As we entered the shadowy courtyard, I saw a woman squatting by a well, hand-washing clothes. She had long black hair and long slender fingers. She had quite an elegant figure. When she smiled, her pale face exuded a kind of sadness. That woman was Wenxin's stepmother, the concubine. She poured tea for us. Wenxin then begged her stepmother to play the piano for us. She wiped the dust off a piano in a corner of the living room and played a variation on “The Sky in the Communist Regions Is Brighter”—the revolutionary song that we had sung hundreds of times in large groups. She probably did that to ingratiate herself with me. She either knew I was a diehard Communist supporter, or she simply wanted to show that she was in tune with the times. Strangely enough, that uplifting revolutionary song totally changed character under her long elegant fingers. The tune became rottenly bourgeois, with so much tenderness, elegance, and sadness, as if it had been a woman's whisper and sigh on a quiet starlit night. For a brief moment, I was mesmerized.

After I walked out of that courtyard house, I began to question myself. As a Party member and the head of the Communist Youth League, how could I have succumbed to her decadent music so easily? Where did my political upbringing go?

LIAO:
Were you really that radical?

FENG:
Yes. I was. But, on the other hand, I was a college student. Before 1957, the stuff they taught at colleges was not as radical and dogmatic. We had some access to Western books and were allowed to listen to Western music, which had some positive influence on me. Anyhow, as I was wrestling with my political beliefs, Wenxin grabbed my hand and said: She likes you. Otherwise, she wouldn't play the piano for you. I said angrily: This was the first time that I had come into contact with a member of the decadent ruling class. Are you trying to corrupt me? So I turned around and walked away. Wenxin was still standing inside the alleyway, which seemed darker and frightful. To me, she was like someone standing in the shadows of the past. She caught up with me and said: Let me tell you the story of my stepmother. Before she married my father, she had a lover. He was her music teacher. Her family strongly opposed the relationship because the teacher didn't have any money. Eventually, she bowed to her family's pressure and became my father's concubine. After their marriage, my father realized that he couldn't really change her mind about her music teacher. So he gave up on her. After the revolution in 1949, she and my father filed for divorce. Then she went to look for her lover, who had relocated to the central city of Xian. When she got there, she found out that her lover had already died of tuberculosis. All she saw was his tomb. The experience devastated her. Two months later, she returned to Chengdu and has lived alone since. Before my father passed away, he had forgiven her and gave her that courtyard house. She had never gotten over the death of her lover and started to lose her sanity. She would cry and laugh for no reason. Since she and I were of similar age, I felt a lot of sympathy for her. I come occasionally to take care of her.

After listening to Wenxin's story, I was kind of touched. It was like a bourgeois movie produced during the pre-Communist days. So, I asked her: Why are you telling me this? She shrugged her shoulder: I try to bare my heart to the Party. You can report me if you want. I don't care.

I felt so hurt by her mean remarks. I turned my head away to hide my tears. At that moment, I also experienced something that I had never felt before. I was in love with Wenxin.

LIAO:
Did the Party interfere in your love affair?

FENG:
Not at the beginning. Luckily, very few people knew about our relationship, and my meetings with Wenxin were not that frequent. Then, in 1957, Chairman Mao introduced the campaign called “Let one hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend.” Many intellectuals responded with enthusiasm. Through lectures, published articles, and big-character posters people around the country began to voice their views and question the leading role of the Party. Initially, Chairman Mao welcomed the criticism. With his endorsement, local officials were quite tolerant. Meanwhile, the dissenting voices from intellectuals got louder and the criticisms became more severe and radical. Some even suggested the end to the one-party rule and called for the establishment of a Western-style democratic system. I still remember the remarks of Ge Peiqi, a well-known scholar from the Beijing People's University. In one of his articles, he said that China belonged to the six hundred million Chinese, including the counterrevolutionaries. China didn't belong to the Communist Party alone. It was wrong for the Party leadership to assume that “the Empire is mine and I am the Empire.” The Communist Party shouldn't be too arrogant, naively thinking that if the Party collapsed, the whole country would collapse. That was not the case. Those who opposed the Communist Party were not traitors . . . Ge just went on and on. Criticisms like Ge's had far exceeded the government's limit of tolerance.

At my university, many students actively joined in the national chorus of criticism. Like I mentioned before, Wenxin was a quiet girl and had never been active in politics. But I encouraged her to speak her mind. Eventually, with my repeated encouragement, she summoned her courage and stood up at a departmental meeting. She said: The Communist Party has long advocated the idea of democracy and equality. That meant students with a nonproletariat family background should be able to enjoy equal rights. During my four years at the university, I have endured all types of discrimination. I was denied the opportunity to join the Communist Youth League. I work really hard and have gotten top grades. But I have been accused of being a bourgeois scholar. Chairman Mao has said on many occasions that the Party should offer a way out for children of nonprogressive families, as long as they draw a clear line between themselves and their landlord or capitalist parents . . .

After Wenxin finished, I clapped my hands loudly, but only a few people joined in the applause. I could see displeasure on the face of many student leaders. I had always followed the Party line closely. At that meeting, I miscalculated. I naively thought that by speaking her mind, Wenxin could get other people to understand her better. She could get more sympathy from her classmates. Little did I know that I had gotten Wenxin into trouble.

One month after Wenxin's first public speech, the political climate turned dramatically. Chairman Mao came out and declared that the movement had brought out the most dangerous class enemies who had previously been in hiding. With those remarks, the anti-Rightist campaign followed. One after another, many intellectuals fell from grace. The purge soon spread to my university. Students were mobilized to expose and report on their classmates and teachers. The school authorities compiled a list of those they considered to be potential Rightists and distributed it to all the departments. The Party secretary asked students and faculty to select the Rightists through voting. Wenxin became a top candidate for Rightist.

LIAO:
Wasn't it ironic that people were actually asked to decide who should be persecuted by casting their votes?

FENG:
Yes. In this way, the decision would reflect the will of the people. On the day when the vote was cast, the Party secretary of my university showed up and presided over our department meeting. Of course, there were lots of grievances against me. Some questioned my relationship with Wenxin. Since I was on his priority list for promotion, the Party secretary defended me furiously with blatant lies. He said: Comrade Feng contacted Wenxin frequently upon secret instructions from the Party. Many of you here might have thought that Wenxin is a quiet student. But she harbors deep hatred for our new China. That snake, in the form of a beautiful woman, has finally been exposed in broad daylight. We wouldn't have been able to accomplish this without the hard work of Comrade Feng. The Party is considering granting Comrade Feng the honor of “Outstanding Leader of the Communist Youth League.” I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Wenxin stood up, looked in my direction with extreme anger. Her face turned ashen and then she collapsed to the floor. Ignoring the stares from people in the room, I carried her in my arms and dashed to the school clinic. Even as I was doing that, the Party secretary continued with his lies: Comrade Feng is doing the right thing. Even though Wenxin is a member of the enemy, we need to help her out of our revolutionary humanity.