The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up (12 page)

THE COMPOSER

I first heard of composer Wang Xilin in 2001 when I was in Beijing for a book release party. While I was chatting with friends, Wang's name came up because the Beijing Municipal Government had just banned his concert series. Liang Heping, a guest I met at the party, had known the composer for many years. This is what Liang told me:

The Cultural Department of the Beijing Municipal Government had signed a contract with Wang Xilin in 1997, promising to raise funds and host a series of concerts featuring the composer's symphonies in 2000. Over the years, preparations went smoothly. A well-known Swedish violinist had been invited to grace the opening in Beijing.

At about 9 a.m., November 24, 2000, the rehearsal was about to start. As a courtesy, Conductor Tan Lihua invited Wang to say a few words to members of the orchestra. Wang, dressed up nicely for the occasion, walked up to the stage and declared in his resounding voice: The twentieth century is finally behind us. In the past hundred years, we witnessed many unforgettable events, such as the two world wars and the great many innovations in science and technology. However, I believe that the biggest event in the twentieth century is the fact that Communism has been painstakingly pursued and then relentlessly abandoned by mankind. Wang's remarks met total silence, but he was too preoccupied to even notice the shocked reaction. He bowed politely and exited the stage.

One week later, authorities in Beijing suddenly notified him that his concerts had been canceled. It was then that Wang realized the stinging consequences of his big mouth. He stormed into Liang's home, stamped his feet, and said regretfully: Damn, I should have added “except in China” to my statement . . .

During the Chinese New Year in 2004, I had the opportunity to hear Wang Xilin's Symphony no. 4 at Liang's house. The symphony, named
Sorrows of the Century,
had been banned three years before. Liang also played tapes of the composer
singing Chinese folk songs as well as his improvised speeches. While listening to the tapes, I felt a strong urge to meet this legend.

With the help of Liang, I finally met Wang Xilin at the end of January. Wang, 67, was quite capricious. During the six interviews I had with him, Wang was shedding tears at one moment and then playing old tunes on his violin the next. He said those old tunes helped stimulate his fading memories.

WANG XILIN:
I remember seeing an old Soviet movie. I've forgotten its name. It was made during the temporary political thaw following Joseph Stalin's death. In the movie, a kid questioned his father who had served as a prison guard under Stalin. The kid asked: When you worked inside the gulag, did you ever shoot any prisoner in the back? The father refused to answer but the kid kept pressing for answers. Eventually, the father couldn't stand the guilt and committed suicide by jumping out the window of his apartment building. This scene has stayed in my memory for many years. It reminds me of what happened in China under Chairman Mao. Nowadays, when I look at people walking on the street, I keep thinking to myself: Have they ever persecuted or tortured others? Have they ever betrayed their comrades and trampled on the bodies of others to advance their own political career? How many parents are being haunted by their blood-tainted hands?

LIAO YIWU:
How do you assess your own past? Can we start from the beginning?

WANG:
I joined the Communist army in 1949, when I was only twelve years old. I was a boy soldier and grew up in the big revolutionary family of the army. Those adult soldiers literally raised me. Since I was so young, the commander assigned me to a group of army musicians and performers, who taught me how to play all sorts of traditional musical instruments. Our job was to entertain the troops stationed in the northwest. I picked up things fast and soon made quite a reputation for myself. As I got older, the Party saw the potential in me and sent me to a music school run by the Central Military Commission. In 1957, I was admitted to the Shanghai Music Academy.

LIAO:
It was quite a smooth ride, wasn't it?

WANG:
I was really lucky. My civilian life started after I entered college. However, I still wore my military uniform and was quite active in the newly launched anti-Rightist campaign. Soon, I was elected chairman of the student union and head of the Communist Youth League. I despised those students whose sole focus was to study music, especially Western music. As a devout revolutionary, I treated the college as a place for political campaigns and physical labor. I frequently cut classes and volunteered myself at local communes nearby, working in rice paddies or digging canals. During the Great Leap Forward in 1958, we built a furnace in the middle of the college playground and tried to produce iron to support the country's industrialization campaign. It was so crazy.

In the first three years, I didn't learn much about music. It wasn't until 1960 that things started to change. The Great Leap Forward turned out to be a big disaster. The Party was forced to adjust its policy, and Mao's radical ideas temporarily took a backseat. Normalcy returned to school.

LIAO:
Since you missed so many classes, what did you do?

WANG:
It was like waking up from a weird dream. I looked around and saw some of my schoolmates, whom I used to call “the bourgeois musicians,” were getting attention from the Party. Musicians, such as pianist Yin Chengzhong, became celebrities and patriots after they had won awards at international competitions. My classmates began to look down on me, treating me like a country bumpkin who seemed to major in physical labor.

It was also at that time that my family got hit with political problems. My physician brother had lost his sanity and starved to death in the famine. My sister, a former government official in the northwestern city of Lanzhou, was labeled a Rightist. She appealed her verdict, but the provincial government downgraded her even further, making her a counterrevolutionary. It was very upsetting. I decided to shun politics and focus on learning some practical skills. I began to take a strong interest in composing. In my final year, I met a professor who had just returned from the Soviet Union. Under his tutelage, I made rapid progress in Western music composition and soon became the top student in my class.

LIAO:
I heard that you composed a well-known quartet while you were in school.

WANG:
The professor who coached me was a pianist, and composition was not his specialty. So I learned everything from books. I read over thirty different types of books related to quartets, and took careful notes. In the summer of 1961, I literally moved into a music studio, sweated for over forty days, and finally completed a twenty-five-minute string quartet with three movements. I presented my work to Ding Shande, the dean of the academy. His daughter liked it tremendously. She was the head of a female string quartet group. Her group rehearsed and recorded the piece, which became quite popular.

LIAO:
Your hard work certainly paid off.

WANG:
I was surprised by the achievement I accomplished on my own. For the first time, I realized that I had found my calling. After graduation, I was assigned to the China Central Radio Orchestra, which specialized in folk music. I was quite upset because my passion was to compose symphonies. So I told the school authority that I wasn't qualified for the job because I didn't know much about Chinese folk music. At first, they ignored me. I simply stayed at the college guesthouse and bugged the Party secretary every day. Eventually, they couldn't stand it and reassigned me to the symphony orchestra.

LIAO:
How did you get away with bucking authority like that?

WANG:
I was young and quite fearless. That was the only time I lucked out. After I began working at the symphony orchestra, I immediately took on the task of composing my first symphonic piece. First, I requested a piano. Leaders at the orchestra thought I was overly ambitious and arrogant. They turned down my request. One day, I found an old piano in the corner of a warehouse. On the spur of the moment, I called some of my friends and asked them to help move the piano to my office. As we were carrying that big sucker over, I got stopped by an administrator who ordered me to return the piano to the warehouse. I did, but he reported me to the director. I got a terrible reprimand. The director accused me of being too individualistic. He sent me over to a village and ordered me to work in the field for one month as punishment.

In the fall of 1962, Chairman Mao initiated another political movement—the Socialist Education Campaign. Mao referred to the campaign as inviting Communist leaders to come downstairs from the bureaucratic tower and “take baths” to cleanse themselves. The campaign was first kicked off as a pilot project in agencies directly under the control of the central government. In the fall of 1963, the symphony orchestra held a meeting, welcoming staff to pour “hot water” and help “bathe” our leaders.

LIAO:
Didn't Mao do the same in 1957, when he encouraged intellectuals to criticize the Party? He called his tactics “baiting snakes out of their caves.” When people took his bait, he smacked them right on the head.

WANG:
I know. Most employees became cautious and numb to the campaign. At the kickoff meeting, many women nonchalantly knitted sweaters while guys simply lowered their heads, saying nothing. I was this hot-blooded idiot who felt compelled to stand up and offer leaders at the symphony orchestra a “hot bath.”

First, I questioned the Party's policy in music. The Party called on composers to create more revolutionary music, incorporate more popular Chinese folk and ethnic music into our work, and make symphonies easily adaptable for radio broadcasts. I said the current policy was restrictive, shortsighted, and detrimental to the development of Chinese symphonic music.

Second, I criticized the unfair treatment of musicians who had returned from overseas. I used the example of Lin Kechang, a well-known violinist and conductor. He grew up in Indonesia and had graduated from a music university in Paris. When Mr. Lin joined our orchestra, he was put under a deputy director who knew nothing about music. Mr. Lin felt miserable. I said: It's ridiculous to put a political appointee in charge of the works of musicians.

I went on and on for two hours. Initially, I was quite diplomatic and cautious with my words. Then, half an hour into my speech, I got carried away. My mind totally lost control and my criticism became more blunt. While I was talking, I saw the deputy director and several other officials were busily taking notes.

LIAO:
I bet those guys were busy collecting material against you.

WANG:
Yes, they were.

LIAO:
What was the Party's reaction to your speech?

WANG:
Several days passed and nothing happened. Then, a rumor started to circulate, saying that I was the ringleader of a counterrevolutionary clique within the orchestra. I tried to find out more from my coworkers, but people shunned me like a disease. Zhang Haibo, the first flutist at the orchestra, was the only friend who still talked with me. He and I secretly met at a small restaurant one night, and I had the opportunity to vent my frustrations and fear about the rumors. He was very sympathetic and told me to be cautious.

In the next four weeks, I was like an eagle locked up in a cage covered with black cloth, feeling trapped, tortured, and clueless. Finally, in the fifth week, the Party leaders felt they had tortured me long enough with their silence. They sent me a note, saying that the director wanted to see me. When I walked into his office, the director stared at me from behind his desk. That steely look made me nervous. He uttered a sigh, like a father to his wayward son. Well, the director had joined the Communists in the 1940s. He was a seasoned revolutionary. From the look of things, I could tell that he probably wanted to save me.

The director opened his mouth, uttered another sigh, and said softly: Comrade Xilin, do you know that your speech was a serious political mistake? Why didn't you discuss it with me before the meeting? As your supervisor, I could have told you what to say and what not to say. Right now, it's too late. The nature of your mistakes has changed. Your speech has been considered a direct attack against our Party.

His words scared me. I cried. The director continued, You strayed away from the revolutionary path and pursued a bourgeois goal of composing music to pursue fame. You are as arrogant as a rooster, oblivious of the rules and the criticisms of the masses. You removed a piano from the warehouse without permission and created a bad precedent. After receiving reeducation through labor, you still stick to your old ways. You are hopeless.

Several times I felt the need to defend myself, but the director waved his hand to stop me. Then he offered me an olive branch: Despite the fact that you have gone in the opposite direction and seriously hurt the revolutionary feelings of the masses, the Party will open its arms to embrace you, but on one condition—you have to openly admit your mistakes. Comrade Xilin, the Party raised you in the army and sent you to school to study music. Do you know that it takes three thousand peasants working for five years in order to feed and support a student in college? How could you do this to the Party and to the great masses who have fed you?