The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up (20 page)

LIAO:
Do you think those who persecuted you in the past will tell their children about the past?

ZHANG:
I doubt it. Do you think murderers would brag to their children about their “heroic” past? Even the Communist Party now seldom mentions its past and encourages people to move forward. We are moving forward. Last year, one of my grandchildren, the one who is a senior government official here, held a banquet in the dilapidated courtyard of my old house. We prepared over ten tables and invited all the former landlords who had shared a similar fate. The majority of them had passed away. Their descendants came. We also invited some former revolutionaries who showed great humanity during the many political campaigns. I specifically asked my daughter to invite our former tenant and helper, Mr. Sun, to sit at the head table, next to me. During the Land Reform campaign, the work team members repeatedly told him to denounce us publicly and beat us. But he just sat there, refusing orders. He was persecuted for not drawing a clear line against the landlord class. On that day, I personally thanked him in front of everyone, and kept putting food on his plate. I told my grandchildren to take care of his family and donate money to support his granddaughter's education.

That banquet became the topic of the village. Many people weren't invited. They simply watched on the side. The younger generation had no idea what that meant. But the older ones certainly knew. We even lit firecrackers and prayed for good luck. We used the occasion to claim our family name back and to appease the sad spirits of my murdered relatives. After the banquet, I called my college-educated grandchildren together and asked: Was it too showy? They said, There is no need to worry, Grandma. Let bygones be bygones. Our family has finally seen a new day.

THE VILLAGE TEACHER

Sixty-nine-year-old Huang Zhiyuan was a friend of my father's. He grew up in Chengdu, and left home in 1965 for a teaching job at a small village in the mountainous region of Yanting County. In 1984, he became tired of the tough rural life, quit his job, and moved his whole family back to Chendgu. Without a
hukou,
or a city residential permit, he had a hard time finding a regular job and lived in constant fear of being caught by police. In recent years, as the government gradually phases out the
hukou
system, Huang's life is changing for the better. He now owns a grocery store and the business is doing fairly well. He visited my family recently. I asked him about his former life as a village schoolteacher.

LIAO YIWU:
How did you end up teaching at a rural school far away from home?

HUANG ZHIYUAN:
I entered college in 1961 and graduated in 1965, right before the Cultural Revolution. At that time, we were not allowed to choose our future jobs. The decision was made by the university. Since my family ran a small business before the Communist takeover and we were not classifed as the proletariat, I wasn't eligible for a work assignment in provincial government or large state enterprises based in the city. Young people in that era were quite gullible and obedient, especially those of us with questionable family backgrounds. When I heard that the Party entrusted me with the task of using my knowledge and skills to help make a difference in the poor countryside, I accepted with gratitude. I saw my new job assignment as a chance to redeem and cleanse my tainted family history. At the graduation ceremony, I said in a speech that if the Party wanted me to block enemy gunfire with my body, I would dash forward without hesitation. Just to show you how fanatical we were.

LIAO:
Your remarks certainly echoed young people's ideals of that era. By the way, as a city guy, it must have been quite a challenge to settle in Yanting.

HUANG:
At the beginning, I was quite excited. I felt like I was starting a new chapter in life. My destination was Shanya High School, which was affiliated with Shanya People's Commune in Yanting. So I bid goodbye to my parents, tucked my graduation speech inside the breast pocket of my Mao jacket, and boarded a long-distance bus with two classmates of mine.

About seven hours later, I woke up from a nap and began to see totally different scenery. The bus bounced along on the rutted country road. I had never seen such a shabby road before. It was like in a World War II movie. Around dusk, the bus broke down. The driver got off and checked the engine. He couldn't fix it. So he sent a fellow passenger who was from that area to inform the commune leaders that some city students had arrived. The guy literally ran for over fifteen kilometers to relay the message. About two hours later, a tractor rumbled into our view. It had been sent by the county government. We anxiously jumped on with our luggage. As the tractor lurched forward, I could see the steep cliffs hanging over our head. The lonely moon was high up in the sky. Occasionally, we would encounter a huge piece of rock sticking out, blocking half of the road. The tractor would slow down and scrape past it carefully. Thank heavens, the commune was not too far. Otherwise, I would have suffered a heart attack before I got there.

After the tractor dropped us off near the center of the Shanya Commune, we suddenly found ourselves alone. It was pitch-dark. Electricity was still an inaccessible modern luxury. Mr. Wang, who came to pick us up, said people still used kerosene lamps. There was but one street, with shops on both sides. In the distance, we could see flickering lights coming from one shop. We were told it was the local blacksmith's. The occasional banging and clanking from the shop made the surrounding area seem eerily quiet. It was like walking on the moon.

Like a tour guide, Mr. Wang began to tell us stories about the blacksmith's shop. It was originally a Buddhist temple. Next to the temple was a small hill of rocks. A statue of the Buddha sat on the top. The statue was about eight stories high. For the past hundred years, worshippers had flocked in from hundreds of kilometers away to pay tribute. The village of Shanya was built around that temple. Gradually, as the population grew, the village expanded into a township. After the Communist takeover in 1949, local officials called on people to eliminate any superstitious or religious practices. They converted the temple into a blacksmith's shop. At the time when we arrived, the statue of Buddha was completely neglected, but the temple, or the blacksmith's shop, had become quite busy and prosperous. During planting and harvesting season, the shop would stay open until midnight. Farm tools that needed to be fixed piled up like a small hill.

Anyhow, after we passed the blacksmith's shop, we were right there in front of the commune office compound. The Shanya Commune Party secretary came out to greet us and welcomed us into the commune. One official brought out the kerosene and gas lamps, and within minutes, the conference room was brightly lit. Then the cook came in, carrying our dinners on a huge tray—two plates of sweet potatoes and five huge porcelain bowls filled to the brim with corn porridge. Pickled vegetables floated on the top.

The Party secretary raved about the food, which featured three treasures of Shanya: corn, pickled vegetables, and sweet potatoes. The sweet potato, normally stored in a cellar, was the local staple food for half of the year. Since sweet potatoes can cause heartburn, locals ate them with pickled vegetables; pickled Napa cabbage and bok choy balance the unpleasant effect of the potatoes. Later on, I found out that Yanting tops the nation in the number of stomach cancer cases. Medical experts believe it is directly linked to the traditional diet of sweet potatoes and pickled vegetables.

LIAO:
On the night of your arrival, the local folks were really genuine and nice.

HUANG:
They were flattered by the fact that urban youths were willing to work in isolated areas like theirs. Before we left for the school, the Party secretary said: The mountains are high over here. Life is tough. Changing the world is not as easy as scenes in a movie. Please be prepared to bear hardship.

LIAO:
How was the school over there?

HUANG:
It wasn't bad. We had more than thirty teachers and half of them had college degrees. We even had veteran teachers who had taught in colleges for many years. They were sent down there in the late 1950s because they had been convicted as Rightists. Despite the fact that we were all graduates of top universities in China, no one complained or felt that we were overqualified to teach at a poor rural school. People were truly passionate about building a new Communist society.

The Shanya High School was started by a local scholar at the end of the Qing dynasty, around 1910. The classroom building and the auditorium took on some of the Western architectural styles. The courtyard houses, which served as dorms for both students and teachers, were built in a traditional Chinese manner with arched eaves. The buildings survived the war against Japan and the civil war against the Nationalists. Not far from the school was a pond with tranquil green water. The pond was hemmed in by mountains and was used for irrigation and as an outdoor swimming pool. There was a big orchard next to the school. The commune put the orchard under the jurisdiction of the school principal, who instructed students and teachers to work on fruit trees in their spare time.

LIAO:
You started teaching at the time of the Cultural Revolution, when students in cities were busier beating up their teachers than learning science and history. What about Shanya?

HUANG:
Chairman Mao did a great job in spreading the revolution. We were soon caught up in the movement. Initially, I was asked to teach Chinese and math. Soon, all that was permitted to be taught was the chairman's Little Red Book. Chairman Mao's quotes were treated like the words of God. We had to read them three times a day and check out our daily behavior against his teachings. Unfortunately, his quotes were not enough to empower the students to solve problems in math, chemistry, or physics. But nobody dared to say anything. I knew a teacher who specialized in Chinese literature. He liked to teach a classic essay, “The Admiring Qualities of a Pine Tree,” written by a well-known Chinese general. However, when that general lost favor with Mao, that teacher was labeled a counterrevolutionary.

You probably remember a movie released in 1975 about a Maoist agricultural university. There was a scene relating to students taking a college entrance exam. A student applicant, who was an illiterate blacksmith, failed the exams. But a Communist official examined the hands of the blacksmith and said: These are the hands of a proletariat. The calluses on his hands are enough to make him a qualified candidate for the university. Of course, the student was admitted. That movie triggered strong reaction from students in my school. Many believed that they no longer needed to study for college. For farm kids, working and playing in the field was more fun than learning math and physics.

The headmaster, who was raised in a farmer's family, was a practical man. With the revolution going on, he was very glad to change the curriculum, half a day learning Chairman Mao's teachings in classrooms and the other half farming in the field, where he took the lead by carrying buckets of manure on shoulder poles to the field. Students and teachers all followed his example. During the harvesting season, students worked in the field full-time.

The playground in front of the classroom building was turned into a big grinding platform, with horses and donkeys pulling rolling stones to grind and help separate the wheat from the husks. Peasants even moved their windmills over. It was quite a scene. If students were planning a basketball or football match, they had to coordinate with the production team beforehand.

Anyway, of my twenty years of service there, only five were spent in actual teaching. We didn't start our regular curricula until the late 1970s, when Deng Xiaoping came to power. The nationwide college entrance exam was resumed. Initially, a teacher had to teach all subjects. Later on, when the government required all schools to follow a more challenging curriculum, the school decided to divide the teachers into various groups based on their expertise. I began to focus on physics.

LIAO:
At the onset of the Cultural Revolution, many urban students formed all sorts of Red Guard organizations and rebelled against authorities. What was it like in Shanya?

HUANG:
It was the same as everywhere else. Students at Shanya High School were divided into two groups: the Young Rebels and the Old Loyalists. Both claimed they were the real defenders of Chairman Mao. The only difference is that the Old Loyalists group also defended the commune leadership, whereas the Young Rebels wanted to kick the leaders out of the office. The two groups engaged in serious armed conflict. The peasants also established their own revolutionary organization, the Red Brigade of Revolutionary Peasants. The peasants' group was more practical. They sided with the Old Loyalist faction and wanted some order. As a result, peasants also got into fights with the Young Rebels group. One day, the Young Rebels blew whistles and gathered everyone on the playground, announcing their decision to ban peasants from using the school playground to grind “capitalistic” grain. The students claimed that the playground was the place for Red Guards to conduct revolutionary military exercises. They also prohibited the use of the auditorium as a grain warehouse, saying that the auditorium was the hall for people to practice the revolutionary dances, not to store corn and wheat. Those decisions were devastating to the peasants. Thousands of them got together and staged a demonstration in front of the school. They uttered their angry curses and surrounded the school for several days. The students clutched Chairman Mao's Little Red Book to their hearts, and sang, nonstop, revolutionary songs such as “It Is Heroic to Make Sacrifices” or “If Necessary, We'll Call on the Sun and the Moon to Make a Better World.”

I have to say that folks in the countryside were honest and simple people. They had no intention of hurting the students. Meanwhile, those students, who were articulate and literate, used quotes from Chairman Mao to engage in verbal war. Peasants were not their match at all, but they didn't want to give in. The confrontation lasted several days. Eventually, the commune government, with leaders installed by the Young Rebels, intervened. They dispatched two special representatives to the commune and issued an order to the peasants: If you dare to attack those young revolutionary rebels, all of you will be labeled as counterrevolutionaries. With those threats from the commune, the peasants gradually dispersed like defeated dogs.

LIAO:
Even though your school was so far away from the political centers, you certainly didn't miss any of the “fun” from the Cultural Revolution.

HUANG:
One might think isolated regions like Shanya could be spared. It was equally bad. Remember the famous statue of the Buddha I mentioned earlier? The Red Guards blew the statue into pieces with dynamite. Villagers were really scared, believing that disasters were going to befall them. But two years had passed and nothing happened. On the contrary, the blacksmith's shop, which had been converted from a temple, became so prosperous that it expanded into a farm equipment factory, employing ten blacksmiths. In 1968, when the Young Rebels group was locked in a fight with the local peasants, the blacksmiths sided with the peasants and supported the old commune leadership. The Young Rebels called the farm equipment factory a counterrevolutionary citadel. They would organize a huge rally once a week in front of the factory entrance, singing revolutionary songs and shouting slogans. The blacksmiths would stop what they were doing, line up near the factory gate, and stare at those Red Guards with hostility. Their dark, shiny, and bare-muscled arms and the hammers in their hands were quite intimidating.