My Name is Number 4 (26 page)

Authors: Ting-Xing Ye

BOOK: My Name is Number 4

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“A
h Si of the Ye family is going to Bei Da to learn to speak a foreign language.” The news was running up and down Purple Sunshine Lane. Old neighbours came to the apartment to congratulate me and new ones marvelled at what a lucky creature I was. One old woman in the next building, whom everyone called “old chamber-pot cleaning lady,” claimed that she had always known from the shape of my forehead that I had a bright future.

The only one not thrilled by the news was Great-Aunt. Having always believed that reading and writing were the business of men, she was unimpressed with the prospect of my being a university student. She was getting older and weaker, and all she wanted was for the daughter she had never had to be home again with her after six years.

Before I left, I went to the hospital to see Number 2. He had broken his leg in an accident at work and had suffered through three operations. Smiling weakly, he handed me a used copy of the Oxford English-Chinese Dictionary.

“I fished it out of a garbage pail years ago when the Red Guards were on a book-burning spree.”

How typical of my brother, who loved learning, to put himself in danger over a dictionary.

Number 3 saw me off at the station. I hugged her for the first time in our lives.

“I am no longer on the farm, Ah Sei,” I told her. “That means you are free now, too.”

Weeping freely, Number 3 embraced me again.

When the train stopped at Wuxi station to discharge and take on passengers, I thought sadly about my parents. I hadn’t been able to visit their grave on my way to Beijing; Auntie Yi-feng had written to me that since the Red Guards had toppled and broken the headstone, the peasants had carted away the pieces and used them for construction, then planted crops on the land, obscuring the grave site.

I wondered if my parents would be proud of me now, and vowed that some day I would return to the land offish and rice to find their grave and raise a stone again in their memory.

AFTERWORD

A
fter three and a half years at Beijing University studying English Language and Literature—and after still more political turmoil—I graduated and was recruited by the national government to work as an interpreter in Shanghai. I interpreted for official delegations from Africa, Europe, Thailand, Australia, Great Britain, the United States, and Canada, meeting, among others, kings, prime ministers, presidents, the First Lady of the United States, and Queen Elizabeth.

When I was thirty-five, I came to York University in Canada as a Visiting Scholar and decided to stay. I left the university and worked as a baby-sitter, office assistant and bank clerk. I published my first book in 1997.

As soon as I gained my Canadian citizenship and could travel back to China without fear of reprisal for my defection, I went to Qingyang and raised a new monument on my parents’ grave.

I am now a full-time writer and return to Shanghai often to visit my family.

GLOSSARY

bourgeois:
a critical term for not following Party policy and for being counterrevolutionary.

capitalist class:
one of the social groups identified by the Communists, referring to those who used to be business owners before the Communists gained power in 1949. The term also applied to the family members of the business owners.

capitalist roaders:
Party officials who fell out of Mao Ze-dong’s favour and were accused of betraying Party policies and taking the path of capitalism.

class struggle:
fights between various social groups identified by the government, mainly between the working class and the capitalist class.

da-zi-bao, xiao-zi-bao:
posters, forms of political expression used by people to voice their support of Party policies or to attack political rivals.

Deng Xiao-ping:
moved in and out of power at Mao’s whim. He regained importance at the end of the Cultural Revolution, and became top man after 1977.

the Five Blacks:
a category of politically “un-pure” people including former landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, rightists, and former capitalists.

the Five Reds:
a category of politically “pure” people including factory workers, poor and lower-middle-class peasants, soldiers and officers of the People’s Liberation Army, Party officials, and those who died for the revolution.

the Four Olds:
old culture, old customs, old habits and old ways of thinking, attacked during the Cultural Revolution because they would drag China back into the pre-revolutionary past.

Gang of Four:
(Si Ren Bang)
Jiang Qing, Wang Hong-wen, Zhang Chun-qiao, and Yao Wen-yuan. Before the Cultural Revolution, they were low-ranking officials. They used the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to gain power.

Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR):
a political movement launched by Mao Ze-dong in 1966 to renew the spirit of the Communist Revolution that established the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Mao feared that China was slipping back into the old ways. The ten-year movement was primarily used to keep Mao and his supporters in power.

hu-kou:
a booklet normally held by the head of a family which listed the name, birthday, gender, and political background of everyone who lived in the household, along with their relationships to one another. The
hu-kou
was also a person’s official registration document for residence, either rural or urban. It was extremely difficult, almost impossible, to have a rural
hu-kou
changed to an urban one.

Jiang Qing:
Mao Ze-dong’s fourth wife and member of the Gang of Four.

9th Communist Party Congress (April, 1969) in Beijing:
this was a big event. A congress was supposed to be held every year, but the 9th was the first since 1956. Here Mao Ze-dong and his supporters consolidated their power and firmly established the Cultural Revolution. Lin-Biao was named Mao Ze-dong’s successor.

Lin Biao:
a military leader who fought for China’s revolution for 22 years. He held several positions of power in the government and communist party, and supported the Cultural Revolution. In 1971 he was accused of plotting to overthrow Mao Ze-dong. He died with his family in a plane crash while trying to escape from China.

Little Red Treasure Book:
actually titled
Quotations from Chairman Mao
—excerpts from Mao Ze-dong’s writings.

Liu Shao-qi:
President of the People’s Republic of China 1959–1966. During the Cultural Revolution he was branded Number One Capitalist Roader and thrown into prison where he died in 1969 after three years of physical abuse and mental torture.

PLA:
the People’s Liberation Army in reality included all military services—army, air force, navy.

purge:
a political term describing the removal of one’s opponents from their positions, usually by execution or imprisonment.

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Doubleday Canada and colophon are trademarks.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Ye, Ting-xing, 1952–
My name is number 4 : a true story / Ting-xing Ye.—Abridged ed.
Abridged edition of: A leaf in the bitter wind.
eISBN: 978-0-385-67386-0
1. Ye, Ting-xing, 1952–. 2. China—Social conditions—1976–2000. 3. China—Social conditions—1949–1976. 4. Women—China—Biography. I. Ye, Ting-xing, 1952– Leaf in the bitter wind. II. Title.

Maps: William Bell

Published in Canada by
Doubleday Canada, a division of
Random House of Canada Limited

Visit Random House of Canada Limited’s website:

www.randomhouse.ca

v3.0

Table of Contents

Other Books by this Author

Dedication

A Note on Chinese Pronunciation

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

Map