A Heart for Freedom (8 page)

When Wang told me this story, I felt like one of those villagers who had longed to hear the Word of God. Though religion was outlawed in China when I was growing up, to me it was neither foreign nor intimidating. As I listened to Wang, I was strongly attracted to that powerful spiritual force. How much I wanted to be a part of those people who had such a strong devotion. I also realized I was strongly attracted to Wang and his peaceful demeanor. In my longing for love, I developed a huge, secret crush on him. But unlike Carmen, who could be so open with her emotions, I was shy and buried my feelings deep within. In my mind, Wang was like Apollo, shining and mysterious—someone I could admire but not get close to.

6

The Cost of Love

On Saturday nights at Beida, the weekday seriousness was replaced by youthful exuberance. In the mid-1980s, a newly popular thing on campus was a weekly dance in the student cafeteria. After all the tables and chairs had been pushed against the walls, the students formed an electrifying crowd, swirling and swinging, or stepping on each other’s toes, under the bright lights. I loved the movement of the dance. When the music played, I could close my eyes, let my body melt into the pulsing beat of the rhythm, and release all worry and control. For me, it was a new form of freedom.

One Saturday, when I went to the dance with my young friend from Hunan, I was surprised to see one of my colleagues from the student government there, a tall, handsome young man named Qing, who was a good student in physics and reminded me of a younger version of my father. Qing was not one for flowers and poetry, but he was a practical, solid, and steady young man. Like my father, he was strong and kind, a man of few words. Working together at the student government office provided a natural environment for us to get to know each other without the shyness and embarrassment I often felt around other boys.

One day Qing walked me back from class, and in his typical, straightforward way said, “You can see what kind of person I am. If you like what you see, would you be my girlfriend?”

In those days, agreeing to become someone’s girlfriend was the equivalent of getting engaged in America. It was a commitment. We didn’t date different people and then decide to go steady. Being boyfriend and girlfriend meant we could have lunch and dinner together between classes, and go to the library together in the evening to study. And it meant that sometime after we both graduated, we would get married. Qing’s directness was refreshing, and his solid character made me feel protected and safe. I agreed to become his girlfriend.

Qing was not the first boy to express interest in me. For many, finding a girlfriend seemed to be part of their college curriculum. With all my campus activities, I got to know a lot of nice young men, but I politely and carefully managed to keep them at a safe distance without hurting their feelings or breaking up the friendships. Shy and reserved, I carefully guarded my heart for that special one, the one who would bring true and everlasting love, the kind of love I had read about in stories like
Romeo and Juliet
,
Gone with the Wind
, and
Doctor Zhivago
.

In my mind, I had a romantic image of my future love. He would be shining, handsome, strong, brave, kind, and tender—the kind of man who would devote himself to me no matter how difficult the circumstances. Together we would overcome every obstacle, and nothing would ever tear us apart.

Qing was not the perfect love of my imagination, but from the world’s point of view, he was a good man—bright and stable, with a promising future. Part of me felt I should say no to the proposal and wait for my shining knight; part of me felt that maybe I didn’t deserve perfect love and I should settle for the best the world had to offer.

One fall evening during my sophomore year, after a student government meeting, when everyone else had left, our hugs and kisses turned into something more. Neither of us knew exactly what was happening. When we parted ways, I ran back to my dormitory, feeling my face burning as I thought about what I had done. It was a feeling I had never experienced, and it was a bit frightening. I remembered one young couple who had been expelled for dating and being caught together. Boys and girls still had separate dormitories, and the old ladies dutifully locked the doors to the girls’ dorms at a certain specified hour. Later on, the dating rules were loosened at Beida, but any intimate encounter was like playing with fire. I was determined not to let it happen again.

One evening toward the end of the semester, Qing returned from a party where he’d had a few drinks. Whether it was actually the drink or just an excuse, I don’t know, but he began pressuring me, which was unlike him. In retrospect, I wish I would have been stronger to resist him; but my traditional upbringing taught me to be accepting and not reject him or hurt him.

* * *

During the winter break, while I was home to visit, my mother observed my exceptional fatigue and took me for a blood test. When she came back with the news that I was pregnant, my father was furious. He was so mad, it was as if the sky had fallen. All I can remember is that he locked me in his bedroom again, like he had during the big fight we’d had when I was in high school. But this time I didn’t fight him. I felt terrified and ashamed. This time I had become a disgrace to the Chai family, the family for whom I had worked so hard to bring respect, honor, and glory. I was ashamed that now, before I could finish school, I would have a child. A flurry of terrifying thoughts came to my mind. For the first time in my life, I had gotten into something I couldn’t get out of by myself. I was really scared.

The next morning, my dad woke me up early and took me on a bus to a town two hours away—to a clinic where they would perform an abortion. Even though there was a hospital about twenty steps from our house, my dad was so ashamed he would only take me to a place where no one would know or recognize us.

After my father registered me, I was taken into an operating room, where a middle-aged woman was waiting. She wasn’t mean, just matter-of-fact, as if accustomed to this kind of operation. The room was cold. With no anesthesia, she inserted a long tube into my body, and I felt the pain of cutting and heard the sucking sound of a vacuum. I was in agony, but I couldn’t move or cry out. Next to me, an empty bottle began to fill with pinkish white foam. I felt the blood drain from my face, and my heart was in shock. As I felt I was about to faint, I heard the woman’s harsh voice.

“Are you okay? If you can’t do it, I will leave and come back later.”

“Oh, please don’t leave,” I begged. “Just finish it.” I could not imagine having to go through this procedure again. Clearly not pleased, she looked at my face carefully and then continued for what seemed like a century before the noise finally came to an end.

When she left the room, I looked at the bottle by my side. It was filled with redness.

Half an hour later the woman came back and told me I could go. I managed to walk out of the room and saw my father in the lobby. When the woman told him the procedure was finished, he nodded and started walking. I followed along behind. Pain and shame engulfed me. We went back to the bus and rode the two hours home without saying a word.

That evening, the pain became even more profound. I lay in bed, listening to my father’s angry outbursts as the tears ran nonstop down my face. I was mad at myself for giving in. I was mad at Qing for making demands. Now I was paying the price. And it was my family who would bear the shame.

As smart as we Beida students looked to the rest of China, we had no knowledge of how to protect ourselves from the most basic risks in life. We spent all our waking hours learning and preparing for tests, and we had no sex education at home, in high school, or in college.

When we had studied the reproductive organs in a high school biology class, all the girls blushed and looked at the floor, while the boys stopped their silly acts and paid rapt attention. The classroom was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I was simply too embarrassed to remember anything we were supposed to learn.

Even if I had known everything about how reproduction works, there was simply no place to acquire protection. In China, couples could not purchase contraception unless they were married. Sex was a subject nobody talked about; yet young men and women were thrown together on college campuses, hundreds of miles from home and away from their family network of support. Disaster was bound to happen, and it did. Although Chinese society was puritanical in its expectations, it left a vacuum for how to prepare for and deal with our youthful emotions.

* * *

Qing did not learn about the pregnancy or the abortion until I was back on campus. He was sorry and treated me tenderly. We talked it over and hoped we could put the pain behind us.

I soon became busy with my transition from the geology department to the psychology department, and time flew by. A year later, after the memory of the pain and shock had faded, an innocent hug and kiss caught both of us by surprise and led to my becoming pregnant again. This time I was even more upset. I blamed Qing, but inside I was angrier with myself for allowing it to happen. I wrote a letter to Qing’s family and told them. His father came to Beijing, and we were all embarrassed and upset. There was no discussion of any options—unlike America, there
were
no options. Under the one-child policy, unmarried couples were not allowed to have children. In addition, pregnant couples would be expelled from the university and sent home, where they would suffer social disgrace and be assigned to meager jobs. That would be their future. All the years of study, preparation, hope, and dreams would be gone. Qing’s father was well aware of the consequences. He took me to a nearby hospital, and this time I was given anesthesia before the abortion. I never told my own father what happened.

The second time around left a deep emotional wound that Qing and I could not heal easily. He became more involved with the Communist Party, and I buried myself in the study of human psychology. As Qing became more rigid in his Party views, I started to have more doubts about our future. By the end of my junior year, our relationship was on the edge.

To any observer, we were the ideal couple—young, smart, well educated, and Party affiliated. China’s best future belonged to young professionals like us. But my vision of the future was less optimistic. I imagined what life would be like with Qing—marrying and settling into a stable career path in China’s upper class of scientists and educators. Once we had kids, the whole neatly dressed family would walk down the street together, the children proud as peacocks, with giant hair ribbons for the girls and toy guns for the boys. (As one of three siblings in my own family, I forgot we would be allowed to have only one child according to Chinese law.) This was the secure life everyone dreamed of, and as long as I dutifully did what I was supposed to do, I would have it. But imagining a traditional Chinese life made me feel claustrophobic. I simply couldn’t breathe in it. I was longing for something more, something different from the life my parents had—something more fulfilling.

Beneath the surface of my day-to-day life, part of me yearned for a mysterious, unknown world that would excite and inspire me. I was still waiting for someone special to lead the way. My father continually urged me to join the Communist Party, but now that I was far removed from his protective influence, I ignored his requests. I knew genuinely good people at Beida who honestly believed joining the Party was the right thing to do as an early step in their life journey in China. Other students joined the Party because it was useful. Membership came with benefits, such as a good, secure job after graduation. But that was not enough for me. The Party was supposed to be the
servant
of the people, but I had my doubts. When I was a child, I always did whatever my parents told me to do, and they had always followed Party instructions. Nevertheless, even as a young girl, I cherished the notion I would live a life different from that of my parents. I sensed the existence of a dynamic force—perhaps even a spiritual force—that held life together. And though I wasn’t a rebel or a revolutionary by nature, I wanted to find out for myself.

* * *

A new spring was flowering in China, and all my friends and fellow students were full of hope for the future, thanks to our beloved leader, Deng Xiaoping. After many years of grief and turbulence, famine and civil strife, he had brought joy back to our lives.

By 1984, eighty-year-old Deng was at the zenith of his popularity and power. He’d suffered many setbacks as a loyal servant of the Communist Party, yet he was still standing. Twice during the Cultural Revolution, Mao had humiliated Deng and banished him to the countryside. His son, Deng Pufang, had been permanently crippled when members of the Red Guards forced him to jump for his life from the third-story window of a building at Beida.

Eventually, however, Deng proved indispensable. Mao brought him back to Beijing—and then overthrew him a third time. But Deng triumphed in the end. After Mao’s death, Hu Yaobang brought Deng out to help clean up the mess left by the Gang of Four. Deng launched education and economic reforms, which won him widespread support, especially from intellectuals. After decades of puritanical self-denial, prosperity once again became acceptable in China. Democratic reform seemed sure to come soon enough.

Meanwhile, Deng made an almost inconceivable decision when he volunteered to step aside to let relatively younger men run the country and Party affairs. This added to his popularity. Deng brought Zhao Ziyang to Beijing and installed him in the role of premier to oversee economic reform on a national scale. Zhao, the political leader of Szechuan, Deng’s home province, had allowed fundamental reforms in the countryside. Deng then named Hu Yaobang to the position of secretary general of the Communist Party. As the head of the Communist Youth League, Hu had become popular throughout China among the younger generation as a liberal innovator always ready to entertain new ideas. Hu had also endeared himself to many older leaders when he helped the country recover from the trauma of the Cultural Revolution.