At first, despite missing home, the thrill of being in Beijing near our great and beloved leader Chairman Mao completely overwhelmed me. Here I was, part of the Beijing Dance Academy, with Madame Mao our honorary artistic director. My family, my relatives, the people in our village and commune, even the Shandong Province officials themselves, would all have enormous expectations of me: from this moment onward, I would have an "iron rice bowl"-a good job and enough food for life.
On the way to our academy on the bus that day we detoured to Zhongnanhai, where Chairman Mao, Madame Mao and all the top government officials lived. It was a huge complex, right next to the Forbidden City, with barbed wire and high, faded red-gold walls. Security guards stood beside huge red wooden doors, their hands firmly grasping their semi-automatic guns. Guards seemed to be everywhere, spread evenly along the walls, ready to pull the trigger on anyone who might pose a threat.
I simply couldn't believe I was here! Here, where our god-like leader slept, worked and made all his important political decisions. What was it like in there? I wondered. I could see many tall trees inside, and I'd heard that there was a fishing pond there, called Daiyutai. I imagined it had lots of different fish in it, and it must surely be round, like the image of Mao, our sun.
I was stunned with the sheer scale of Beijing: enormous buildings, endless street-lighting, wide smooth streets, nothing like the muddy dirt roads we had in Laoshan County. And the men and women-their Mao-style jackets looked so smart! I could see very few patches on their clothes. And the number of cars, buses, jeeps, bicycles-it simply shocked me. How could there be so many bicycles in one city! Officers in army uniforms directed the flow of traffic, but nobody seemed to pay much attention to the traffic lights themselves. I was completely fascinated. I'd never seen traffic lights before.
As the bus pulled into Tiananmen Square, my heart leapt. I could see long rows of gigantic light-poles. I could see an ocean of people. I immediately noticed the Gate of Heavenly Peace on our left and the grand building of the People's Congress on the right. They were so familiar-I had seen them in so many pictures: even in my collection of Mao's buttons at home there was one with Chairman Mao smiling and waving at me from the top of the Gate of Heavenly Peace. It made my spine shiver. Tiananmen Square was our great symbol of communism. It was here, on the Gate of Heavenly Peace, facing millions of jubilant people, that Chairman Mao declared the birth of the People's Republic of China on October 1949. It was a date that all the children of China had etched into their minds.
For our first day in Beijing it was sunny, and the combination of body heat from the crowd, the sunshine and the smog made the Square warm. Our bus wasn't allowed to drive too close to the centre, so we got out and our political heads and teachers herded us towards the Gate of Heavenly Peace. People swarmed everywhere, many stopping to take pictures, so it took some time before we could get close. Then one of our political heads told a security guard that we were from Madame Mao's school. That mention alone was enough, and he happily let us into the security area surrounding the Gate of Heavenly Peace, so we could pose for several group photos.
It was only once I settled back onto our bus that a sense of insecurity began to overwhelm me. I sank down into my seat and looked out the window. The buildings around the Square seemed to stare at me. Why are you, peasant boy, here in this magnificent city? Throughout my childhood I had always dreamt of coming here. I had always believed I never would. Yet now I was here, among fifteen million people. I felt like a feather swept up in a whirlwind. I was only eleven years old. Nothing could have prepared me for this.
Our bus travelled through the city streets and gradually the tall buildings of Beijing were left far behind. We drove on and on, heading, we were told, towards a village called Zhuxingzhuang, about one hundred and twenty miles away. The name meant Zhu's New Village and it was to be our new home.
The wide, open fields of the countryside seemed to invigorate me. The fields here were flat compared to the layered fields surrounding my home town, but there were enough similarities in the countryside to relieve my anxiety just a little. It was a long drive, and one of the teachers suggested we sing propaganda songs as we went along and this too temporarily kept my attention.
Eventually, just as our bus turned into a drive, the political head proudly announced, "We are here! Our school is on the left."
I could see tall, bare trees on each side of a driveway (it was February and still bitterly cold) and within a couple of minutes our bus turned towards a metal-barred gate which had bright red letters over the top of it: Central 5-7 Performing and Arts University. The numbers, our political heads explained, referred to 7 May 1970, when Madame Mao delivered a famous speech to the arts and education communities, using Chairman Mao's philosophies to encourage all intellectuals to engage, both physically and mentally, with the three classes: peasants, workers and soldiers. They were golden words to the Ministry of Culture, so they proposed that Madame Mao should be the artistic director of this new university, and that it should be located in the heart of the communes, where future artists could learn and work among the peasants every day. In such an isolated site, surrounded by communes and fields, students would be protected from any negative influences from the city. Madame Mao supported this idea and the project quickly received the central government's backing.
Our bus came to a stop inside a compound and we all filed out. A small group of officials and teachers helped the girls with their luggage before we were all taken inside a new three-storey building. I smelt fresh paint as we entered, an overpowering, unfamiliar smell, but the teachers didn't seem to notice. Before we climbed upstairs to the second floor, one teacher read out our names and divided us into groups according to our age and gender. I was put in the younger boys' class.
There were three stairways: we went up the centre one and I noticed next to the other stairs there were two bathrooms, one for each sex. The teachers explained things as we went. The boys' bathroom was divided into two sections: the outer section was for washing and there was only cold water there. We were told that we had to collect our hot water from the boiler-room near our canteen. Water coming through pipes, instead of having to carry buckets from the well! I thought it was amazing!
Next we were shown our bedrooms. There were four rooms, two for boys and two for girls, and about ten or eleven of us to a room. The beds were crammed in so close together. It would be a luxury to have a bed all to myself, but I knew I'd still miss my brother's smelly feet and long for the security of my parents.
We were allowed a few moments to put our personal belongings away, so I put my snakeskin and the smelly dried shrimp and my other items in a little bedside chest of drawers next to the bed I was allocated. Then I got out my niang's precious handmade quilt and carefully folded it on top of the bed. Then all of us, all forty-four students, were taken to the sports-ground near the canteen by our three political heads. They organised us into four straight lines according to height, the smaller ones at the front and the tallest at the back. I was the second smallest boy in my line.
Once everyone was standing quietly, the head of our academy, a broad, strong man in a green army uniform, started his lecture. "Students, I am your director and you can call me Director Wang," he said in a rusty, deep voice with a distinct southern accent. He looked around. I could see his scary little eyes. There was complete silence. "On behalf of our beloved Madame Mao, I welcome you to the Central 5-7 Performing and Arts University. You are privileged to be chosen to be part of Madame Mao's new school. Do you know what your chances of being chosen were?" He paused. "One in a billion! That's right, one in a billion! You are the lucky and proud children of the workers, peasants and soldiers of China! You will carry Chairman Mao's artistic flag into the bright future. Not only will you receive six years of ballet training, but you will also study Chinese folk dance, Beijing Opera Movement, martial arts, acrobatics, politics, Chinese and international history, Chinese and international geography, poetry, mathematics and Madame Mao's Art Philosophy. What's Art Philosophy you may ask?" He paused again and looked around once more with his scary little eyes. "Art Philosophy is the relationship between politics and the arts. It is Madame Mao's wish that you don't just grow up being a dancer, but a revolutionary guard, a dedicated and faithful servant of Chairman Mao's great crusade! Your weapon is your art. Madame Mao and over a billion pairs of eyes will be watching your progress. The expectation is enormous. The hurdle is high. The task is difficult.
But what you are assigned to do is glorious! "Your parents helped Chairman Mao win his first war. You can help him win his future battles. You will need skills and mental strength. They don't come easily. You will need to work hard every day of the year. Your daily schedules will be posted on the noticeboard on your floor and they will be strictly followed and reinforced." Another pause. "Any who are not up to this important task, raise your hand now!" His head did not move but those scary little eyes moved from left to right, and right to left. Nobody raised a hand. He smiled, which made his already tiny eyes look even smaller. "Good!" he continued. "There are five people working full time to support each of you here. I hope you don't let them, and over a billion other people, down. Now, you can go to your supper."
Director Wang's lecture left me confused and lost. I vaguely understood that we had been assigned an important job, that I was to devote my life to Chairman Mao's revolutionary causes. But this was nothing new. From the first day of school we were told to love, follow and even die for our great leader Chairman Mao. Director Wang's words were clear and authoritative about that, but I couldn't grasp the rest of what he said about art and politics. I wondered whether Chairman Mao's artistic flag was going to be a different colour from the flag of China. I didn't know what to think. All I could think of was standing on my toes in a pair of pointe shoes all day.
Next we were led, in line, to the canteen, a large square room with many tables and chairs in it. By the time we arrived, there were over a hundred students from the opera and music academies already sitting at their tables. It was unbelievably noisy.
We were told we were to have slightly better food than other academy students, because of the physical demands of our training. I saw two big bowls full of steaming food on each table, and on each side of the canteen were several larger tables for bread rolls, rice and soup. We were each given two metal rice bowls plus a small soup bowl, a pair of chopsticks and a soup spoon. Everyone had exactly the same bowls. Easy to get them mixed up, I thought.
We sat down, eight of us to a table, and divided the food evenly between us. On my table, only one girl and one boy looked familiar: I'd seen them on our train trip to Beijing. The others were all from Shanghai and although they talked a lot I didn't understand a thing they said because they only spoke Shanghai dialect. The boy next to me, who was as small as I was, turned and said something to me-I looked at the two Shandong students to see if they'd understood, but they just shook their heads and when I tried to tell him, in my Qingdao accent, that I couldn't understand, he just smiled.
The food looked inviting and it smelt delicious, but I had no appetite. My stomach felt like a twisted knot. I looked out the windows. I could see that it was already dark outside, and the darkness cast a sadness in my heart. The sadness began to creep up and overwhelm me. I forced myself to eat a few mouthfuls of rice but it was tasteless, so I quickly rinsed my bowls, chopsticks and spoon and quietly left the canteen before anyone noticed.
It was cold outside. The grounds were deserted. I could see only a few dim lights between the canteen and our dormitory. I looked up at the distant moon, and a few far-away stars in the night sky. I was afraid to go back to the dormitory alone in this unfamiliar darkness. I looked at the steamed-up windows of the canteen and knew that I couldn't go back there either: they would surely laugh at me. I had to keep going. I thought of my parents and all my brothers back home, and with each step towards our dormitory building, I fought my fear and growing loneliness.
The building was pitch black. All the lights were turned off. With shaking hands I searched for the light switches, but I couldn't find any. Slowly I felt my way up the stairs and eventually found a switch at the top. I got to my room, but I had no desire to turn on the lights there. Instead I groped my way to my bed, dived onto it and grabbed the precious quilt my niang had made for me. I plunged my face into it and wept.
I remember that first night alone so well. I was adrift. My niang's quilt was like a life-saving rope in the middle of an ocean of sadness. I couldn't stop the tears from welling in my eyes and I couldn't stop thinking of my family back home. It would be their evening playtime now: my dia's simple stories, my niang's sewing and my brothers' game of finding words in the wallpaper. I tried to tell myself to stop thinking like this, but I couldn't. I couldn't stop feeling the quilt and smelling its familiar smell. I couldn't stop this unbearable homesickness, like a merciless dark ocean, and me, left in the middle of it, without a lifeline. The rope I was clutching onto wasn't enough. I was drowning, deeper and deeper, and it would be for many nights in those first few months that I would cry myself to sleep.
That was the first night I had ever slept on my own, yet all I wanted to do was transform myself into a bird and fly home to sleep with my family again, in my parents' bed, next to my younger brother's smelly feet, even for just one night. My misery was so intense that I was only vaguely aware of my classmates returning from their supper. To hide my tears, I pretended to be asleep and buried my head under my niang's quilt.
The next morning, I was jolted back to reality. The familiar smell of the smoke as my niang cooked breakfast and her loving voice were not there. Instead there was the harsh sound of the wake-up bell. I was not back home, I was here, alone, somewhere foreign. I looked around the room and remembered every detail of the night before.
There seemed to be loud bells for everything that morning. Speed and efficiency were all important. Strict orders, schedules and rules had to be rigidly observed. And it was still so early-we'd been woken at half past five. We rolled our blankets military- style, and brushed our teeth (a completely new, strangely uncomfortable experience-I had to watch the others to see how they did it). Then we washed our faces and the bell rang again within five minutes to call us outside onto the still dark sportsground.
We soon discovered that every morning would be the same. Each class captain would report that all students were accounted for and we'd jog for half an hour around the open fields, half asleep, every day of the year. I loved the fresh air in the mornings, but at first I found it hard to wake up so early. Breakfast was at seven-fifteen: rice porridge, steamed bread and salty pickled turnips. Never dried yams. Sometimes we even had eggs if we were lucky.
That first morning after breakfast we went to try on our ballet and Chinese folk dance shoes, our white vests, dark blue shorts and royal blue cotton tracksuits. These were all we would need for the next six years, we were told. The ballet shoes had small strips of leather wrapped around the toes and the heels, so only the worn-out leather strips would need to be replaced and the whole shoe would last a long time. The dark blue shorts had elastic on the waist and around each leg. They felt very strange.
Then we were introduced to Chiu Ho, the head ballet mistress, who took us to the shoe workshop for our ballet shoe fittings. It was the moment I had been dreading.
Chiu Ho, we soon learned, was considered one of the most knowledgeable ballet teachers in China. She had been trained by the visiting Russian teachers in the 1950//s, and despite her diminutive size, she was the teacher we would learn to fear most.
In the shoe workshop, Chiu Ho told us to choose the tightest ballet shoes possible because, she said, they would eventually stretch. We were then greeted by a short hunchbacked man who looked so strange that he terrified us, but he was supposed to be the best maker of ballet shoes in China. His workshop wasn't big, but it had racks and racks of ballet shoes, including pointe shoes. There were stacks of leather and cotton fabrics too, and buckets full of shoe glue which had splattered everywhere. A few old sewing machines sat on the workbenches against the walls. It was very crowded, and my eyes immediately fixed on the rows of pointe shoes, for I feared these the most: the time would come when I would have to squeeze my feet into these tiny, tiny shoes.
"Boys first!" Chiu Ho barked. One by one we tried on the ballet shoes. They were so small they cramped my long toes. I couldn't imagine how uncomfortable the hard pointe shoes would be.
"Okay, boys are done! You can all get out of here!" Chiu Ho bellowed.
"What about the pointe shoes?" I asked.
"What about them?" she frowned.
"Don't we have to try them on?" I asked.
She looked at me, then she and the shoemaker roared with laughter. "No, only girls wear pointe shoes!" Chiu Ho chuckled.
I felt like collapsing with relief! I wouldn't have to walk like my na-na after all! But I didn't realise that even the small flat shoes Chiu Ho had given me to wear would be enough to cause permanent damage to my toes.
We spent the rest of that day preparing for the official start of our training the following day. The Beijing Dance Academy, due to Madame Mao's involvement, was, we were told, regarded as the most prestigious dance school in the whole of China and the only one to offer full scholarships which would pay for our food, our board, our tuition and our training clothes. Our parents would have to provide our everyday clothes, blankets and spending money, and a tiny little shop within the academy grounds sold other essentials such as soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and sweets. Madame Mao's military officers would head key departments of the university. These were the "political heads" we had already encountered and we soon learned to be terrified of them too. Even our teachers seemed to show them an unusual amount of respect. They had absolute power and would become our political and ideological mentors.
We checked our timetable for our classes the following morning. Our first would be ballet, followed by Chinese folk dance and Beijing Opera Movement. We would do ballet every morning; other classes alternated on different days. Lunch was at noon. Between 12.30 p.m. and 2 p.m. we would have our midday sleep, a Chinese tradition, and from 2 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. we'd have normal school subjects such as mathematics, Chinese, history, geography, politics and Madame Mao's Art Philosophy. From 5.30 p.m. to 6 p.m. was dinner time, and then for two hours after that we were expected to either study politics or practise ballet. We didn't know, then, that political studies would fill most of our evenings for the next five years.
Next day arrived. My first ever ballet class was at eight o'clock, taken by Teacher Chen Lueng, the tall man from Beijing who'd auditioned us at school in Qingdao. His familiar face was my only comfort.
The studio we were taken to seemed huge and empty with only ten boys and a pianist in it. It was snowing outside and the windows were frosty. There were some heaters along the walls, but they were so inefficient they might as well have not been there. We wore our little shorts and vests, and shivered with cold.
Chen Lueng gathered us in a semicircle. "Can anyone tell me what ballet is?"
We all just looked at each other.
He smiled gently. "Ballet is an art form that originated from dancing in the French imperial courts. It is a universal art form now," he explained. He then told us that our syllabus would be based on the famous Vaganova method from Russia, which had produced some of the world's finest dancers, including Nureyev and Vasiliev.
Everything he said went in one ear and straight out the other. These names didn't mean anything to me at all.
"The first two years, we call them the foundation years, are considered crucial. I'll be your teacher for this period. To start with, I'll teach you some basic positions and exercises. Over the course of this first year, I'll teach you some ballet terminologies. They are in French. The French gave all the steps and movements names. Internationally everyone uses these French terminologies. However, it is Madame Mao's wish that we should give the steps Chinese names as well. Therefore, not only will you learn the French terminology, you'll also learn the Chinese names. I expect you to remember them."
I couldn't believe what I'd heard. French? I had such problems understanding Chen Lueng's Mandarin, let alone French! I had to think of some way to remember the ballet terms though, so when Chen Lueng started talking about the French word "tendu", I tried to remember the sound and immediately thought of the Chinese sounds "Ton Jiu", which means "nine pieces of lollies"- backwards. For "penché", I thought of "Pong Xie", which means crab. Some words I couldn't find any Chinese equivalent for. "Arabesque" was simply not worth the effort. By the time I finally worked out "Ar La Bai S Ker", I had to remember five different Chinese words and that sounded even more ridiculous. Eventually I tried to write the words down in a diary I'd been given, but my Chinese vocabulary was completely inadequate. So I drew little pictures instead. It was the only thing I could do. I was too embarrassed to ask for help. I was so afraid they would laugh at me, this uneducated peasant boy.
During that first ballet class I couldn't feel my toes at all in those tight, tiny shoes and in the freezing-cold weather. Chen Lueng told us to stand with our feet turned out in all sorts of funny ways-he called them first, second, third, fourth and fifth positions. It felt ridiculous. I couldn't imagine anyone in their right minds wanting to watch us do these ugly positions. Surely even Madame Mao would fall asleep if we performed like waddling ducks! I had such difficulty getting my feet to cooperate. They kept rolling inwards.
The studio was very damp and dusty. There was everywhere the smell of sweat and mildew. Through the beams of light I could see millions of tiny dust motes floating in the air. The wooden floor was so old that it splintered, and for our feet to get some grip Chen Lueng showed us how to sprinkle water on the floor using a metal pot, which looked almost exactly like a watering can with many holes in its large, round shower head. We twisted the head to spin the water out onto the floor while walking backwards. To qualify as a student of the Beijing Dance Academy, one had to be able to do this quickly and efficiently.
Everything felt weird in that very first class. We had to extend our arms to the side, palms facing forwards, just below shoulder height, while Chen Lueng walked among us, pushing our arms down and asking us to resist him with all our strength. We held this position for several minutes until he told us to relax. He said this was to develop our arm strength, so our arms would look soft, never strained. This was not dancing, I said to myself. Where were the leaps and skips? How could I possibly suffer this agony for six years? My feet felt so cramped. I couldn't imagine how bad it must be for the girls standing on their toes in pointe shoes.
That first class lasted nearly two hours, but it seemed like for ever. I couldn't wait for the bell to ring so I could take those horrible shoes off and let my cramped toes stretch out. I thought about running in the streets like I did in my commune, or wrestling with my friends. I didn't want to dance. I wanted to go outside and make a snowman and throw snowballs. Our second class that morning was Beijing Opera Movement. Our teacher was Gao Dakun. "Hurry up, you're late!" Gao shouted. "Spread out around the barre!" he barked. "Beijing Opera movements are all about flexibility and suppleness. If you don't have suppleness, you can't be good in my class. Do you understand?"
We all nodded, terrified.
"Good, let's start with your legs up on the barre," he said.
I looked at the barre in front of me. It was as high as my chest.
"What are you waiting for? Didn't you hear me? Your leg on the barre!"
I was one of the three smallest boys in our class. I tried to put my leg up but the barre was just too high.
Without another word Gao walked over to me and lifted my leg. I felt a tinge of pain in my hamstring and automatically bent my knee.
"Keep your knee straight!" He pushed my knee down on the barre. "Now I want you to bend your body forward and try to touch your toes with your head. Stay down there! Don't get up until I tell you so!" Gao ordered.
The pain was excruciating and was increasing at an alarming rate.
"Didn't you hear me, keep your knees straight!" Gao shouted at Zhu Yaoping, the small boy from Shanghai who'd spoken to me at dinner the night before. "Keep your head down!" he told Fu Xijun, another boy from Qingdao. "Okay! Now, let's change legs!"
My right leg was now in such pain that I had trouble even lifting it off the barre. I quickly glanced at the other students. I wasn't the only one suffering.
When I lifted my other leg onto the barre, I knew what to expect this time. So I started to count. I was prepared to count up to fifty. I wondered if I was the only one counting as a way of coping with such agony, until I heard the boy next to me counting too.
Each time, from that first class on, I prepared myself for the worst. I decided I needed to be mentally strong enough to last through at least a hundred slow counts. But if Gao left the classroom to get himself some water or have a cigarette, then the hundred counts would increase to who knew how many. The pain made me want to scream. Often Gao would lean on our bodies and force us down lower. We would be in terrible trouble if we bent our knees. My hamstrings would often tear, but we were not allowed to stop. We were not allowed to scream or cry.
I hated Gao Dakun and his class. I feared confronting him. I dreaded looking at him. Just the thought of his class made my stomach churn. He always seemed angry and he constantly screamed at us. He called us names too. He called me "the boy with the brainless big head", and I hated him even more.
Before our midday sleep on that first day, as we were heading back to our room, Zhu Yaoping, the small boy from Shanghai, slid down the stair rail at our dormitory. It looked fun, so I copied him. We ran up the stairs and slid down the rail, chasing each other, until one of the political heads appeared from nowhere. "What do you think you're doing?" he growled.
We stood there, hearts thumping.
"You are never to do this again! Do you understand? You could break your legs if you fall. This is not allowed in Madam Mao's school!"
There was no fun in this place, I thought. Only rules.
We had other classes that day, but they were just a blur. I couldn't understand the teachers' Mandarin accents, but at least we were to have an early dinner because, we were told, we were going to see the Central Ballet of China perform.
We went by bus to the Heaven's Gate Theatre close to the centre of Beijing. The ballet was one of Madame Mao's model ballets, with the familiar title The Red Detachment of Women. Zhu Yaoping and I sat next to each other. I managed to stay awake for the first act, but during the second I could no longer fight off my sleepiness. My eyelids got heavier and heavier and I eventually fell into a deep sleep. I was woken only by the applause at the end of the act.
I was frightened when I looked around. I didn't know where I was or what I was doing. The trip to Beijing, the whole of the last twenty-four hours, all seemed like a dream. When I recovered from the initial shock, I realised that Zhu Yaoping and all my classmates had already left. Suddenly I had to go to the toilet but by the time I found it there was already a long queue, and then the bell rang and the ushers were urging people back to their seats. I hurriedly followed some people into the theatre but couldn't find my classmates. I panicked. I went back to the lobby again. "I've lost my group, I can't find my seat," I told an usher.
"May I see your ticket?"
"I don't have my ticket, our political head has all of our tickets," I replied.
By this time the lights were fading. The usher grabbed my arm. "Follow me, I'll help you find your group after the performance," and he pulled me into the theatre and found an empty seat in the back row. I was nervous being separated from my friends, but soon tiredness overcame me again and I slept through the rest of the performance. Then, just as the lights came on, the usher pulled me out of the theatre and we waited for the familiar faces of my friends. They eventually emerged two doors away. I was so happy and relieved when Zhu Yaoping rushed up and said something to me in Shanghai dialect. I didn't even care that I couldn't understand a word of it.
On the bus trip back to our university, I began to feel terribly sick. It was as though the whole world was spinning. I wanted to vomit. I told the teacher, who asked the driver to stop the bus, and I hopped off just in time. They put me in the front seat after that, just behind the driver. One of the teachers assured me that I only had motion sickness and I would feel better sitting there. But I'd never been sick when I went on the bus with my niang to visit our grandparents. I felt traumatised, embarrassed, trapped in my own emotionally torrid world.
It was midnight by the time we went to bed that night, way past my bedtime in Qingdao. I thought of my niang, my dia and my brothers, all sleeping together in their own beds, and I felt my homesickness begin to return. After the lights were turned off, I clutched onto my niang's precious quilt once again, covered my head with it, and sobbed myself to sleep.
Every morning was the same. It seemed that I had only just closed my eyes when I heard the ear-piercing scream of the five-thirty bell. I would drag myself to the washing room and pour freezing- cold water on my face to drive away my sleepiness. The jogging, the early-morning exercises and breakfast all happened while I was still half asleep. Only my cold cramped feet, the awkward ballet positions and the French names in Chen Lueng's class would wake me up.
Later that week we had our first Chinese folk dance lesson, with Teacher Chen Yuen. He was younger than the other teachers we'd had so far and wore a pair of spectacles. He seemed friendly, with a funny sense of humour, and he even told us jokes.
In Chen Yuen's class we got to dance much more freely. I particularly loved a Mongolian horse riders' dance we began to learn. But the best part of this class was the four musicians who sat at the front of the studio and played their traditional Chinese instruments. I thought they were beautiful. One played a "piba", which looked like a guitar but sounded hollow and sad. There was also an ancient-looking horn and an "erhu"-a two-string instrument which produced the most heart-wrenching sounds, and the "yanqin", a string instrument so beautiful and powerful that I thought there were twenty different instruments playing at once! I loved it. I loved the passion of their music. I had never heard anything like it. Their music made me want to dance: I could hear the clip-clop sound of the approaching horses; I could hear those Mongolian riders roaming the deserts, and I longed to be free like them.
That same day we had our first politics class too, and I was surprised to find that the campaign to denounce Lin Biao was still in full swing. The Gang of Four's theory was that shit attracts flies, and that Confucius was the shit and Lin Biao was the fly. So a "criticise Confucius" campaign was organised. We were to discuss why Lin Biao was attracted to Confucius and how dangerous this had been to Mao's political cause. Our teacher started our first lesson by telling us all about Confucius. He had already written down one of Confucius' sayings on the blackboard by the time we'd all sat down at our little wooden desks:
When the perfect order prevails, the world is like a home shared by all. Courageous, worthy and capable men are elected to public office and hold posts of gainful employment in society; peace and trust among all men are the maxims of living. All men love and respect their parents and children, as well as the parents and children of others. There is caring for the old and there are jobs for everyone. There is also nourishment and education for the children and a means of support for the widows or widowers, disabled and all that find themselves alone in the world. Everyone has an appropriate role to play in the family and society. A sense of sharing displaces the effects of selfishness and materialism, and a devotion to public duty leaves no room for idleness. Dishonesty and conniving for ill gain are unknown. Villains such as thieves and robbers do not exist. The door to everyone's home never needs to be locked or bolted, day or night. These are the characteristics of this ideal world, the world everyone shares equally.
"Now," our teacher began, "can any of you tell me the hidden evilness in this Confucius saying?"
No one spoke. I was puzzled by the teacher's question. I didn't understand all the words on the board, but there seemed nothing wrong with it to me. Confucius' society sounded beautiful, just like the ideal communist society.
Our teacher continued. "There are several key words that you must be able to detect. For example, `the perfect order`. Whose definition of the perfect order? The rulers`? The emperors`? This is a trap! Confucius wants the poor ordinary people to behave and follow the rules, which were set for them by the rulers, for the benefit of the rulers. Do you see this point?" the political leader asked.
We all nodded obediently.
"My second point: have you realised that Confucius only mentions men. Where are the women? In his mind women are not even worth mentioning! But Chairman Mao says, `Women are half of the sky!` And finally Confucius talks of villains, thieves and robbers. Who did he mean? Could he possibly mean the rulers and the emperors?"
We all shook our heads.
"No! He means the poor peasants and workers who cannot get enough to eat or clothes to wear. They have no choice but to steal. Now do you see these hidden, poisoned agendas?"
We nodded again wholeheartedly. I was amazed. I knew our teacher was right. Why hadn't I seen these hidden, poisoned agendas?
"Now can you see why this little fly, Lin Biao, was attracted to the Confucius pile of shit?"
"Yes!" we all shouted, and our politics teacher smiled triumphantly.
During that class, I heard some baby birds screeching loudly on the rooftop outside, so after the class was over I told Zhu Yaoping, who was fast becoming my best friend at the academy, and we climbed out a small window onto the steep rooftop four storeys high. There we found ten hungry little birds in a nest under a roof tile. They opened their mouths wide and screamed at us for food. Zhu Yaoping wasn't overly interested in them-he just wanted to get out onto the rooftop. But my heart poured out to the little birds and I gently put all of them in my pockets. I'd feed them some of my lunch and play with them for a while before I put them back.
Our next class was maths, the last class before lunch, so I put the birds in my desk. But in the middle of our lesson the birds started to screech-loudly. Very loudly. The teacher was furious when she saw the birds, and told me to get out of her class and report to the political head's office straightaway. I was terrified. I thought they would expel me for sure.
Director Wang looked at me with a stern expression when I arrived at his office. "Cunxin, what do you think you were doing? Do you want to kill yourself, to embarrass Madame Mao? This behaviour of yours will not be tolerated here. This is not your commune! You will study the relevant sections of Chairman Mao's Red Book and write a thorough self-criticism to read to your class."
"I have never written a self-criticism," I replied. "I don't know how."
He looked at me with a tinge of sympathy then. "You must write why you are wrong for climbing on the roof and promise you will never do it again. Make sure you use some of Chairman Mao's sayings as the basis for your reasoning. Say that you regret your actions and that this will never happen again."
I wasn't allowed to go back to my class, so Director Wang let me use his desk while he went to a meeting.
After many tries and some agonising soul-searching, I finally completed my first ever self-criticism:
My dear and respected teacher and classmates, I'm very sorry I climbed on the roof, and even more sorry for taking the poor baby birds out of their comfortable home. The reasons for my action were: One. I heard their screams and saw their widely opened hungry mouths, I felt sorry for them and afraid that their parents wouldn't come back and these baby birds might die. Two. I love birds and always have. But, after speaking to Director Wang, I realise that this is wrong and I should never do it again! Why? Because of the following reasons: One. I may slip and die and this would cause embarrassment for Madame Mao, because I'm her student. Two. Our great leader Chairman Mao said in his Red Book: "Study hard and improve upward every day." By thinking about and playing with the birds, I won't be able to concentrate on my studies like Chairman Mao wanted me to. Three. If I died because of trying to save the birds, I won't be able to serve in Chairman Mao's revolution any more. Four. Also my parents won't be able to ever see me again and my niang will die of sadness. Because of these four important reasons, I promise that I'll never do it again. If you ever catch me doing it again, I'm willing to let the thunder kill me! Chairman Mao's Faithful Student Li Cunxin
I was pleased I'd thought of that last line: "Let the thunder kill me" was a swear word from our commune. But in truth I didn't really believe that playing with the birds would have caused any harm to Chairman Mao's revolution at all. In truth I felt humiliated. I'd never had to do this in my old school.
My self-criticism passed the test easily, and my teacher and classmates burst into laughter when I read that last line. I also had to stand outside our classroom for a whole hour afterwards. "Cunxin, have you fed the poor birds yet?" the boys teased as they walked past, and my face burned with humiliation. I hadn't meant what I'd written. I hadn't learnt anything about serving Chairman Mao. All it made me realise was just how much freedom I was being denied. I would never be able to play with my beloved birds again. Now I was a bird trapped in a cage where even my feet had to conform to the rules.
There were so many different classes to get used to in that first week. Despite the bird incident, I liked the maths class to begin with and I was quick to understand the new equations, but progress was slow and I lost interest quickly. I didn't understand the importance of maths to a ballet dancer and to cope with my boredom I began to daydream. I could hear the Beijing Opera students' voices coming from their studios and my heart wanted to leap out and join them instead. I thought about the Beijing Opera films I'd seen back in our commune, and I dreamed constantly about being a singer. I was often in trouble for not paying enough attention, especially in the ballet classes. My despair and lack of attention dominated my work. My teachers thought I was hopeless.
We also had our first acrobatics classes and Chinese classes in that first week. Acrobatics training was very strenuous. We had to do handstands against the wall, and exercises like bending backwards and lowering our hands to the floor, the ultimate aim being to grasp our ankles. Sometimes the teachers would order us to stay in this position until they allowed us to slowly bend back up to standing position. But the pain made our backs numb and we didn't know which muscles to use to help us get up again. The teachers also made us do a lot of quick backbends to the floor, ten or twenty at a time, non-stop. It's surprising that we were not permanently injured. But our teachers continued, relentlessly. "What you're doing now is merely the foundation work," they would say. "Eventually we'll teach you backflips, front and back somersaults, when your back muscles are stronger."
Chinese class was run by Teacher Shu Wing. He was calm most of the time, but occasionally he would burst into a rage because of our laziness or tardiness. He had elegant handwriting and I often lost myself just watching him write on the blackboard. Words leapt out of his white chalk in beautiful dancing movements. He also taught us poetry, his favourite subject. He would teach us some of Mao's simple poetry, but his real passion was for classical poetry. He would discuss each word in tremendous depth. Sometimes a single word represented a whole fable or event. His talent and knowledge were immense, and his class was one of my favourites. In his class we were told we had to learn Mandarin quickly, or we would be sent home.
Gradually, over the first few days, I began to make friends at the academy. Zhu Yaoping, Jiao Lishang and I were often in the same group of activities. We were the three smallest boys, and although we couldn't communicate well because of our different dialects, we managed in the end. Zhu Yaoping was the liveliest and naughtiest. I liked him. He made me laugh. At nights he slept on the bed next to mine, and he would often get up to tricks. In our first week there, one of the other boys ground his teeth so loudly in his sleep that it kept us awake and drove us all mad. Finally we were so fed up that we tied strings to his wrists and ankles and when we heard him grinding his teeth we'd pull the strings all at the same time. The poor boy. And another night, after we'd had beans for dinner, one of the boys from the older class started to fart. He said he could fart on demand, yes, truly, as many times as he was asked! We were rolling on the floor from laughter. Even one of the normally stern-faced political heads couldn't help laughing.
The first week at the academy slowly came to an end and for our first Sunday a trip to the famous Ming Tombs had been organised. The trip north to Shisan Ling took over two hours by bus and again I suffered from dreadful motion sickness. They had to stop the bus twice. I felt guilty and embarrassed creating such inconvenience.
I still enjoyed the Ming Tombs though. I had never seen so many pieces of jewellery! Colourful rare gemstones, gold and silver, the emperor's and empress's drinking goblets, swords, costumes and crowns. How rich Chinese history was! I was enormously impressed and extremely proud of China 's glorious past. China truly was the happiest and richest nation on the planet.
But even then I began to wonder. If China was such a rich country, why didn't my family have enough food to eat or enough money to buy clothes? I couldn't imagine what it would be like living in a poorer country like America. But of course I didn't blame Chairman Mao. It was Chinese imperial corruption, foreign invasion or Chiang Kaishek's Guomindang regime that were to blame. I was thankful to Chairman Mao, eternally thankful, that he had saved us. Only he would lead us to greater prosperity and happiness.
A week later another trip was organised, this time to the Summer Palace in north-west Beijing, but just the thought of the bus trip there and back was enough to make me feel sick, so I told one of the political heads that I didn't feel well and he gave me permission to stay behind.
I went exploring around the university grounds as soon as the buses had left. There was a small orchard on the south- east corner near the gate-mainly apple and peach trees. They were bare at this time of year, but I could just see some new shoots popping out of the branches: spring wasn't far away. Right next to the orchard was our four-storey studio building, and along the east side were the dormitories. To the north-east, I could see the low, flat-roofed single-storey buildings which were used by the two music academies. They looked just like tiny matchboxes.
To the north, however, there was an empty stretch of land. I was immediately drawn to it and as a curious peasant boy I soon found myself digging my fingers down into the still half-frozen soil to see if there was anything planted, but the soil seemed completely barren. The land was surrounded by a chest-high barbed-wire fence and I could see a row of young weeping willow trees just this side of it. On the other side was an irrigation channel.
I ran over to the willows and began to climb one. These trees triggered such sadness in me. I saw the long drippy leaves and thought of my own sad tears. I wondered if the trees suffered hardship and sadness too. I climbed up and sat quietly inside the long leaves. I thought of all the events which had taken place since I had left my family only two weeks ago.
I leant my head against the trunk and whispered my homesickness and loneliness into the trees. My tears flooded out. They fell down my face just like the leaves of the weeping willows. I sobbed freely. Nobody was there to see.
I felt better after my secret confession to the trees and I knew I would hide in them many times during my first year. I had found my refuge and I would treasure my time there. It became my own secret hiding place.
After a while I climbed down from the willows and wandered to the north-west part of the university grounds. There was a large pigsty there and a vegetable patch beside it. There was also a swimming pool, but it was empty at that time of year. I thought of the time I nearly drowned in the dam back home and the hairs on my neck stood on end. I prayed that the teachers wouldn't make us use this pool in summertime.
I wandered back to the canteen just in time for lunch. I didn't expect to see anyone there, but to my surprise I noticed a boy sitting by himself at one of the music academy's tables. He was a bit younger than me and looked lonely and sad, so I collected my food and walked over to him. "Do you mind if I sit with you?" I asked.
He shyly shook his head.
I sat down opposite him. "My name is Li Cunxin. I'm from Qingdao. I'm a student in the dance academy. What's your name?"
"My name is Zhang Xiaojia," he replied timidly.
"Where are you from?"
" Henan province."
"Why didn't you go with the others to the Summer Palace?"
"I felt sick. What about you?" he asked.
"I didn't feel well either," I replied. "What musical instrument do you play?"
"I'm not playing anything yet."
"Why?" I became curious.
"No one has been assigned one yet. We were told our teachers will test us and then they will decide what instrument we'll learn," he said.
"Did you play anything before you came?"
He shook his head. "They only chose me because of my long fingers -and my parents are peasants. What about you? Did you dance before?" he asked.
"No, I've never danced before. I didn't even know what ballet was. I still don't. I just had long toes and a bit of flexibility. And my parents are peasants too."
"Do you play badminton?" he said all of a sudden.
"What's that?"
"I will show you, just follow me!"
So after lunch I followed him to his dormitory, where he took out two racquets and a feathery flyer from under his bed. We ran outside and played badminton in the space between the two dormitory buildings for hours. We drew a line in the dirt with a stick in lieu of a net. We didn't keep any score, the flying feathery thing just bounced back and forth, up and down, back and forth, and those were the happiest few hours I'd spent since leaving my family. For once we weren't being judged or criticised. We just enjoyed each other's company. Zhang and I became good friends, and that more than anything helped ease the intense loneliness and homesickness we both experienced. I only wished he was in my class.
Before the students left for the Summer Palace that day, the political head of our group had asked me to wash his white shirt while he was out and I happily accepted this job. I wanted to do it well for him-I wanted him to like me. "Use your toothpaste to wash it," he'd said. "Make sure you wash the armpits thoroughly." But the armpits were badly stained by sweat. I used so much of my toothpaste and washed the shirt so many times, but the stains still remained.
When the political head returned I proudly handed him the pressed and folded shirt. But he was not impressed. "I told you to use toothpaste! Just look at the stains!" He shook his head as he walked away.
I was angry. I had used nearly half my tube of toothpaste, which I could hardly afford to buy. I ended up having to cut the toothpaste tube and turn it inside out, so I could use every last bit of toothpaste-all because he'd wanted a clean shirt.
From the minute we arrived at the academy, we were expected to wash and sew our own clothes. At home, my niang had done all our sewing and washing. Having to do this myself only compounded my loneliness. I missed my niang terribly. I so dearly wanted to hear her voice, but I never telephoned the village to speak to my parents. I didn't have the money. Instead I wrote letters, but not too often because that cost money too. My parents wouldn't be able to read my letters themselves, but I knew one of my brothers would do that for them.
The first letter I sent home was so hard to write. I desperately wanted to tell them how much I missed them and how homesick I was, but I knew this would only make my niang sad. Instead I told them about the train trip to Beijing and how exciting everything was. I wrote about seeing Chairman Mao's compound, about Tiananmen Square and the Ming Tombs, about the beautiful jewellery I'd seen and how I wished I could take just one piece home to give to my niang. I told them I had plenty of good food: I could find oil and meat in every dish! How I wished I could share it with them. I told them I had to wash and sew my own clothes, and that I'd left my corduroy jacket in one of the papier-mâaché clothes boxes for Jing Tring to have instead. I didn't think this letter would cause my niang sadness, but I was wrong. My second brother Cunyuan replied soon after and said that when he'd read the letter, my niang had sobbed.
One of my favourite places I'd discovered in the academy was the library. It was only a small room, with just a few shelves of books. There were no foreign books and almost all of the books were picture books-stories about foreign children written by Chinese authors, and the stories were always sad and tragic. Most of them were about struggling coloured children in America and how the whites mistreated them, or they were about the struggle between good and evil. The good characters were always beautiful and handsome. The evil characters always had big crooked noses and fat ugly faces. They were Chiang Kaishek's Guomindang officers and spies, or the foreign enemies. I hated the evil guys and felt so sad for these impoverished coloured children. I often shed sympathetic tears and I felt even more grateful for the heavenly life that Chairman Mao had given us. If our life was heavenly, then these poor children's lives in America must be hell indeed.
There were several different newspapers delivered to our academy too, for the political heads and teachers to read. The People's Daily was the official paper of the government, but there were also the Workers' Daily, the Soldiers' Daily and some other industry papers. All were full of propaganda and all were controlled by the Gang of Four. We could only read them after the adults had finished with them, and by then they were a day or two old, sometimes up to a week old. But still we read the editorial comments-the Cultural Revolutionary ideas and themes, pages upon pages of domestic news, unbelievable human achievement stories that denounced the old filthy ideas of the rightists and anti- revolutionaries. There would perhaps be a couple of pages of sport and less than a page of international news-the information pitifully thin. There was also the Reference Paper, but this was only available to a certain level of Communist Party member and it included slightly more international news and slightly less propaganda. Occasionally though, someone would find an old copy and pass it around.
We'd only been at the academy about two weeks when one day all of us were called out into the grounds, just before lunch. We waited in our usual four lines. All three political heads were looking very stern indeed as they stood on the stairs in front of us.
Director Wang began. "We have discovered a serious misconduct by one of our students," he said. "According to this student, there were others involved in the same misconduct. I want this matter thoroughly investigated!" We all looked at each other. No one knew what he could possibly be talking about.
Director Wang continued. "We have told you before that no one is to touch the Reference Paper. Today, we have discovered a student reading it! I want to know who took the paper from our offices, who read it, and how long this has been going on. This is a most serious matter. The first class this afternoon has been cancelled. You will instead discuss why this is a serious matter and how you should prevent it from happening again. I want the students who have read the Reference Paper to write a self- criticism and to search deep into their souls!"
During lunch, the guilty students went to the three political heads and confessed. I was one of them. I spent my entire nap time trying to work out what crime I had committed just by reading a newspaper. There was nothing in it that could shake my faith in Chairman Mao.
When the bell rang to signal the end of nap time, I was still scratching my head for answers. At least I hadn't actually stolen the paper, I thought. Someone had passed it to me. Thankfully he'd also confessed so at least I didn't have to tell on him. That was something I never wanted to do.
Our afternoon discussions about the matter went by very quickly. Under the guidance of our political heads we discovered several major issues we hadn't even thought of before: we were too young to digest the contents of this newspaper so we could get the wrong impression and our communist faith could be affected; stealing was a serious crime; reading something that was only restricted to Communist Party members and knowingly passing it around to others was dishonest; and finally, we had broken the academy rules.
I wrote my self-criticism based on these four findings and it passed the first time. But deep down I didn't feel good about it at all. I still couldn't think of anything that would affect my belief in communism. Certainly not a newspaper. After all, I'd only read some sports and international news.
Those first few weeks at the Beijing Dance Academy were an agony of loneliness. Nights were the worst. I couldn't wait to get to bed so I could clutch onto my niang's quilt, my only security. I hated myself for it, but the quilt was like morphine, soothing my pain, and in those first months at the academy I became introverted and spoke very little.
I knew I had no choice but to stay in Beijing. My parents, my brothers, my relatives, my friends, my old school teachers and classmates, my village and commune, all of their wishes and expectations made it impossible for me to go back. The loss of face would be unbearable. It would damage my family's reputation for ever. My success was my parents' only hope of breaking that vicious cycle of poverty. I couldn't let my parents down, even if I did feel trapped in a cage of rules, routines and frustration. Every day I couldn't wait for classes to end. Every day I couldn't wait for the year to end so I could return home to see my family and roam the streets and fields once more.
I wasn't alone in missing home. I witnessed many teary eyes among my fellow classmates. The girls sobbed more than the boys. Our political heads and teachers showed more tenderness towards the girls, though. The boys would be laughed at if they were discovered sobbing. The boys were told, time after time, that crying was a sign of weakness.
The city kids seemed to cope better than the country ones. They were more confident and adjusted to the routine faster. The Shanghai kids coped well-they were generally fairer skinned too, but us country kids were darker. I was probably one of the darkest, but fair skin was considered beautiful in China so even there I felt inadequate compared to the others, and I stuck with the students from the countryside.
Our first weeks at the academy weren't made any easier when a vicious virus swept through the school. I was among those who had the severe cough, the sore throat and high fever. Naturally I did what my niang would have done-I took out a few pieces of my precious dried snakeskin and wrapped a green onion in them. I tried to be polite and offered to share it with some of my classmates but it was as though I'd offered them poison. They thought I was evil. So to prove my sincerity I ate one in front of them, but my teachers and classmates were so repulsed they moved quickly away. I lost a few friends over that, but I did notice that their symptoms lasted much longer than mine, despite their expensive pills.
The academy's toilets were another challenge. I appreciated the idea of being able to flush away the poos to who knows where, but the reality that always confronted us was blocked toilets. We had no choice but to poo on top of a hole that was already full of shit, and the smell was revolting. It penetrated through the walls. It lingered in the building. Often I had to run to other floors to use the toilets there and most of the time other students would already be waiting. Toilet rush hours were the worst-in the mornings after waking up, after breakfast, after lunch, after nap time, and the worst time of all was after dinner before the "go to sleep" bell. I would wait until I was absolutely desperate. I would close my eyes, hold my breath and charge into the toilet, trying to breathe as few times as possible.
One day as I joined the queue for the toilet, I saw a classmate of mine standing outside meditating. A dreadful smell pushed through my nose and I knew immediately that at least one or possibly both toilets were blocked.
"How many?" I asked.
"Both of them!" he replied desperately. I backed out of the bathroom, took a deep breath from the open window by the stairs, and charged onto the wee stand.
On my way out, my classmate was still outside taking deep breaths. "Still working up your courage?" I asked.
"I'm sure the smell will damage my health!" He shook his head in disgust, but he too took a deep breath and charged in.
The toilet might have been one of the worst things about the Beijing Dance Academy, but the showers were one of the best. We were assigned to take showers on different days, usually three times a week. We had to get in early though, because the hot water would run out and latecomers were always left with cold showers.
My very first shower was like magic. One of our teachers led ten of us to the changing room, which had wooden benches along the walls for us to put our clothes on. It was very damp, with a pleasant soapy smell. We had to bring along a facecloth, a washing-basin and soap. We had no shampoo. Massive amounts of steam pushed out into the changing room as the class of students before us came out. I hesitantly followed the other boys into the shower. I was a little afraid, but I'd heard some adults in our village talking about this thing called a shower, so I tentatively popped my head under the jets of water. It was wonderful! Warm water streamed down my hair and over every part of my body. I opened my mouth to breathe. Warm water filled it up and it felt so good that I kept my mouth open and let the water glide over me.
I was surprised to see my classmates show no particular reaction one way or another to the shower. Maybe they'd had one before, I thought. But all I wanted to do was stay under all day. Compared with the filthy, cold water in the washing-basin back home, this was a thrilling experience. I wished my family could have the same privilege. I had never felt cleaner. But we didn't know, then, that in winter we would be encouraged to take cold showers, to make our hearts and minds grow stronger.
The food at the academy was also good. Beyond good. We had rice nearly every day and it tasted so glorious because I rarely had it at home at all. And, luxury of luxuries, we had fresh fruit twice a week! Apples, pears and occasionally even bananas. We would get one piece each, or if we were lucky, sometimes even two. I savoured every bite. With enough food to eat for the first time in my life, I was in ninth heaven. I wished I could share the food with my family too: my niang and my dia deserved to have this.
One of the treats we soon experienced at the academy was, once a month, watching documentaries and occasionally a movie. All of the foreign films were from other communist countries. A North Korean movie that I remember particularly well was about a young man who had lost his ambitions for the communist cause, and a beautiful girl, a Communist Youth Party member, who helped him and fell in love with him. What I enjoyed most about this movie was not the politics but the love story. For the next couple of weeks I started to behave differently towards the captain of the girls' class. She was a pretty Qingdao girl with big, bright eyes. I imagined that if I performed badly enough in class, the political head might send this girl to help me, or more excitingly, perhaps she might even volunteer. But all I got was criticism and dirty looks. The longed-for love and attention never materialised.
Within the first month of our arrival in Beijing, we heard that the president of America, Richard Nixon, was to pay an historic visit to China. It was February 1972. People in Beijing were jubilant. The government's propaganda machine went into full swing and the Chinese media boasted of nothing else. This visit by Nixon was confirmation that Mao's communism had won the final battle against capitalism.
I didn't share this euphoria. I didn't care about Nixon. I was too homesick. But I did notice that the attacks on America 's evil capitalist values by the Chinese propaganda machines eased considerably while President Nixon was there.
The first few weeks and months of our dance training I found impossibly hard. I had no idea what I was doing. Nothing made sense, I couldn't do the exercises no matter how hard I tried, and I doubted myself constantly. My torn hamstrings from Teacher Gao's exercises were continually painful and I'd injured my back during the acrobatics classes too. I knew I was destined to fail -it was just a matter of time before they sent me home.
One day we were given some exciting news: Madame Mao was coming to our university in person, in just a few weeks time. Our academy was to prepare some dance exercises and a small group of students would be selected to perform for her.
I wasn't included. I was heartbroken. I had been so excited at the thought of performing for Madame Mao, and now it wouldn't be.
After Madame Mao watched the specially prepared performance, she said to the officials, "The dancing looked all right, but where are the guns? Where are the grenades? Where are the political meanings?" She wanted us to combine traditional ballet steps with some Peking Opera movements, so from that point on our teachers made major changes to our training syllabus. In the middle of a classical plié we had to stiffen our hands into Kung Fu gestures while we were doing port de bras, and we had to finish off with a death-like stare we called "brightening the presence". Our teachers took it all very seriously. We had to prepare these "model" ballets, a combination of Western and Chinese styles that were a monument to Madame Mao's obsession. In reality, it was political ideology gone mad. But our university strictly followed her instructions and policies. We became nothing more than Chairman Mao's political puppets.
I knew that some of our teachers were incensed by this approach, but they had to bury their integrity and their love for Western ballet in their hearts. If they didn't, they would risk being labelled counter-revolutionaries, and be sent to jail or the pig farms. It could cost them their lives.
They knew Madame Mao's approach could never work. In classical ballet training we had to turn our joints out, but with Beijing Opera movements we were required to do the opposite. Ballet steps needed fluidity and softness. Beijing Opera required sharp, strong gestures. But propaganda ensured we believed that the Chinese model ballets were the world's best. They were groundbreaking. They were "uniquely Chinese". Nobody dared to question this, and we continued to do what we were told.
We spent a lot of time at the academy studying Mao's theories. We were expected to memorise every word in his Red Book and relate them to our daily activities. In fact, we spent more time on Mao than we did on ballet and all other subjects combined. Often we were divided into small groups to discuss Chairman Mao's most recent ideas. We were taught to focus on the meaning of each word. Once a student even suggested that if we really understood the meaning of Mao's words, then we wouldn't need to eat. His golden words would replace our daily food. That student received high praise for his remarks from our political head. I just thought he was crazy-he'd never known starvation, that was clear.
We were encouraged to tell everyone about our impure thoughts. We were rewarded for reporting when a fellow student's behaviour wasn't in keeping with Chairman Mao's great political vision. We were even told once, by one of the political heads, that a brave and faithful young Red Guard loved Chairman Mao so much that he informed the police that his parents had Taiwan connections. Both parents were arrested, and their son was upheld as a national hero, Mao's model guard.
I too would have done anything for Chairman Mao. Anything, except tell on my parents. I loved my niang and my dia too much to betray them for my belief in Chairman Mao's revolution.
Madame Mao also wanted us to spend three weeks each year with the farmers, the workers or the soldiers. These were called the "Learning Three Classes" sessions. We had to live and work amongst the peasants or workers or soldiers and at the same time keep up our dance training. At the end of each "learning session" we had to put on a performance.
Our first three-week summer holiday was spent in one of these learning sessions, with the peasants in a nearby commune. How I welcomed the wheat and the cornfields, the smell of manure, the sound of the crickets! Even the raw earth was wonderful to see, but it all made me homesick too. I wanted to go back to my village and catch my beloved crickets and dragonflies again. I wanted both worlds: the good food of the academy and the freedom of my home.
I worked well in the fields, and I was surprised that my classmates from the city had little idea about how to work on the land. I truly believed Chairman Mao was right: if these kids didn't come to the commune and work with the peasants, they would have no idea where their food came from.
We continued to practise our ballet, acrobatics and Beijing Opera Movement every day while we were living with the peasants. We used wire poles and walls for our barre. The dirt ground was uneven and uncomfortable and the scratching sounds of our feet brushing through each movement were unbearable-like fingernails scraping down a piece of glass. Our ballet shoes wore out so quickly and they were always filthy with mud. We even had to do cartwheels and backflips in the fields. Sprained ankles were not uncommon.
We slept and ate at different peasants' homes during our stay, but by the third day so many students suffered stomach cramps and diarrhoea that the school officials had to quickly call in our own academy chef to cook for us. The male students, including me, were assigned to guard our kitchen supplies so nobody would steal them.
"Why would anyone steal our food?" I asked one of our political heads. "Aren't the peasants our role models?"
He thought for a moment. "We are not guarding against the peasants' stealing," he said. "We're guarding against the enemy's evil motives. They might try to poison us. It's the hidden things we must watch for. Do you understand?"
I didn't understand, but I nodded anyway. I saw his expression and knew this was the end of the discussion. I thought that surely by now all our enemies would have been wiped out in all of Mao's campaigns and revolutions.
The weather was still hot when we returned to our university. And shortly after, the dreaded visit to the swimming pool occurred.
"Students who can't swim, raise your hands!" the same political head who'd asked me to wash his sweat-stained shirt instructed. A few hands went up-mine was one of them. Almost all of the kids who couldn't swim came from Shanghai or Beijing. I was the only one from Qingdao who couldn't swim.
"A boy who comes from a city by the sea and can't swim?" the political head sniggered.
I felt the blood rush to my face. I wanted to go back to my dormitory. But I knew I couldn't, so I followed instructions and hesitantly took off my clothes.
"Where is your swimming suit?" the political head asked me. Everyone looked at my practice shorts.
"I don't have a swimming suit."
"Didn't I tell everyone to buy one yesterday?"
I didn't answer. I didn't want to tell him that I couldn't afford one.
He gave me an annoyed look and shook his head. "Okay, everyone. Students who can swim can go now. Students who can't, follow me."
He took us to the shallow end of the pool and demonstrated the so-called "frog-style", or breaststroke. Following his instructions, I tried to swim but my body sank as soon as I started to circle my arms. I kept swallowing water. I looked across and saw my classmates swimming and diving like fish and wished I could be like them. The political leader spent all his time helping the girls. He never looked in the boys' direction once. I dipped my head under a couple of times and my nose filled with water. I wondered if I would ever learn to swim.
But by the end of that summer I did learn, even though I was still constantly afraid of the water. It was a couple of my classmates who eventually taught me.
That summer in Beijing was hot. We had no air-conditioning or fans, and when the heat became unbearable, we slept on the floor in the dance studio. Over twenty of us slept in there, and even with the studio's many windows, the body heat made it difficult to sleep. Mosquitoes would come out in the thousands and zoom around like little vampires. We slapped about frantically, trying to chase them away, and the slapping sounds could be heard throughout the night.
During the second half of our first year, the school added several new classes. One of them was Art Philosophy, Madame Mao's brainchild, the one we'd been told about on that first day, and surprisingly I liked it. It was designed to help us understand the relationship between the arts and politics. Chairman Mao's idea was that the arts should be important political tools.
Our teacher for Art Philosophy was a tall, talkative man. During class one day, he went into one of his little detours, talking about Mao as a brilliant political strategist. "The one political strategist I think was the best ever was Adolf Hitler! Like Chairman Mao, he seized on the psychological needs of an entire nation. He rallied millions of people to go to war for him. He made them believe it was all for their own good. Both Chairman Mao and he are master politicians, brilliant at understanding the peoples' psyche."
I, like most of my classmates, didn't have a clue who Hitler was. I thought he must have been a great communist, just like Chairman Mao.
Our teacher was brave to draw parallels like this, and often his true interests seemed to lie in areas other than the subject he was ordered to teach. He tried to show us how to look at a subject beyond the surface, beyond the obvious. One day he brought a plaster model of a man's head into our classroom. The surface of the model was as smooth as porcelain. He sat the model on his lecture table. "Raise your hand if you think the surface of the model is rough?"
What a stupid question, we all thought. It was obvious the surface was smooth. Nobody raised a hand.
"Now, raise your hand if you think the model has a smooth surface."
Everyone raised their hands. "I think you are all wrong or at best, you are only half right. I want you to look at it more closely and then tell me your answers."
This time there was a magnifying glass beside the model. We looked through it and were surprised to discover millions of tiny holes on the smooth surface of the head.
That class only lasted one and a half years. It was mysteriously dropped after that and I never saw Madame Mao's Art Philosophy teacher again. I once asked one of the political heads about him. "He is no longer needed at our academy," he answered bluntly. "He has been assigned a different job."
Throughout that first year at the Beijing Dance Academy, I was considered a laggard by most of my teachers. I laboured through the days with no aim, no self-confidence, and I couldn't keep up with the pace. It was too much for an eleven-year-old peasant boy. I felt that not a single teacher liked me. I wanted to shrink and run for cover. I longed for my parents' comfort and love, but here there was no one to go to for help. So I pulled myself further inwards, desperately trying to stay afloat, but constantly sinking.
We'd been at the academy for about nine months when our teachers organised another daytrip for us, this time to the Great Wall. Again, fear of motion sickness terrified me, but I wasn't going to miss this opportunity for anything.
It was a windy autumn day. We were given three hours to climb the wall. Its bulk and beauty stunned me. The size of the stones, its breathtaking height into the misty mountains, its endless snake- like meandering-it all made me gasp. I had seen pictures of the Great Wall before, but to actually stand on it, to look upon this incredible human miracle… I shook my head in disbelief. A fable that my niang had once told me immediately came to mind. It was about a poor young man, Wang Shileong, and his bride. Wang Shileong's name meant "ten thousand humans". It was said there was a section of the Great Wall that could never be built unless ten thousand bodies were buried as its foundation. Rumour had it that Wang Shileong's body alone could support that section. When the imperial soldiers buried him under the wall, his new bride stuck a knife through her heart and was buried there with him. I remembered my niang had said that this story portrayed a Chinese woman's determination to remain faithful to her man. "But this principle of faith also applies to a man," she'd said. "You are expected to be faithful to your woman with all your might until death eventually separates you. A girl's heart is pure and sincere. If you treasure her, she will love you unconditionally until the end. But you must never take a girl's love for granted."
I was touched by my niang's story and I admired the bride's strong will and faithfulness. "Wouldn't it be nice to see the Great Wall one day?" my second brother Cunyuan had said. Now, here I was, climbing on the ancient stone steps and wishing that my family could see it too.
The end of our first year at the academy was approaching and the end-of-year exams were coming up. Our possible grades were: excellent, very good, good, below good, above average, average, below average and… bad. Tension was high among the teachers as well as the students. It was judgement day for the teachers as well.
I wasn't worried about my academic classes because I knew I wasn't the worst there, but my dancing classes were another matter.
There were four dance-related exams that year: ballet, acrobatics, Chinese folk dance and Beijing Opera Movement. Acrobatics and Chinese folk dance were less of a worry, because the teachers were kinder and those classes were fun. But for my ballet and Beijing Opera Movement classes I was scared to death. We had to perform in front of academy officials, students from other classes, Chiu Ho and a panel of teachers who had pen and pad in hand.
There were over fifty students, teachers and officials already sitting by the mirrors in the front of the studio on the day of the Beijing Opera Movement exam. The sunlight shone through the windows and I could see the dust entwined in the beams of sunlight. We walked into the room in a line-and upon seeing the many pairs of eyes, I froze completely. My mouth went dry and my tongue felt swollen. It was as though all those eyes were focused on me, and me alone. I even heard the sound of my own breathing and felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck.
We were placed on the barre first and before the pianist struck the first note, I was already dripping with sweat. I panicked. I couldn't remember the dance combinations even though we'd been preparing them for four weeks. It wasn't so bad on the barre, because everyone did the same exercises at the same time and I could follow the others, but once we moved into the centre of the floor, the ten of us were broken up into three groups.
I was trembling all over. My legs felt weak and I couldn't remember a single thing. I was in front now and I had no one to follow. I peeked at the mirror and I could see that others were following my mistakes. Teacher Gao Dakun looked at us with such anger, but he couldn't call names out because of all the people watching. As the exam went on I performed worse and worse as the dancing steps increased in difficulty. The agony lasted for over an hour. I wondered what other names Gao Dakun would call me after this!
I knew that exam had been disastrous. I was so distressed that I missed lunch and ran to my weeping willow trees. It was over two hours later that I went back to our dormitory. My confidence was shattered.
When I entered the room full of eyes again the following morning, I noticed our ballet teacher Chen Lueng was already standing by the piano looking very tense. My heart pumped faster. This exam was to be judged mainly on barre work-we spent over three- quarters of our class time on it-and with our thin vest and shorts, I felt every muscle, every technical fault would be exposed and magnified, even the scar on my arm. Each exercise seemed slower and more excruciating than in class. I didn't hear a single note of the music and before I'd even lifted my legs, I could already feel them cramping. Chen Lueng had screamed at us all year for holding onto the barre too tightly, and here I was, gripping onto it for dear life.
Finally the torture of those end-of-year exams was over. We waited for our grades, and I knew in my heart this was not something I should be looking forward to.
I was right. My highest grade was "below good" for maths and Chinese. The rest of my grades were "average", even for ballet, and my worst grade was "below average" for Teacher Gao's Beijing Opera Movement exam, which was no surprise to me at all. Nothing I did would ever please him.
I wasn't the worst student in my class, but with my poor results I was definitely near the bottom and I still felt wretched. We all knew each other's scores because our teachers read them out, loudly, in front of the entire class. My face flushed with each announcement of my low grades. Twenty-two pairs of eyes pierced me like needles. It summed up my miserable first year. I was convinced that soon Director Wang would call me into his office, tell me I was no good, and ask me to go home and never return.
Our first year was finished. Soon I would see my family again. My beloved niang. The Chinese New Year holiday was coming up and the school gave us our food allowance for the month to buy our train tickets home.
Everyone was excited. The school bus even took us on a shopping trip to Beijing to buy presents for our families. I only bought one yuan worth of sweets though, and kept the rest, three whole yuan, to take back to my family. I knew three yuan would make an enormous difference to my dia and my niang, more difference than any number of gifts I could buy.
The last two days before going home seemed excruciatingly long. I counted every minute. I was terrified the whole time that I'd be called up by Director Wang about my poor grades, so I avoided our political heads at all times. But on the final day, just after lunch, I accidentally bumped right into the very person I'd been trying to avoid.
"Ni hao, Director Wang." My faced blushed. My heart thumped.
"Ni hao, Cunxin. Are you looking forward to seeing your family?"
I nodded, petrified. Here it comes, I thought.
"Have a safe trip!" he smiled at me and walked on.
What about my poor grades? What about expelling me? I was so relieved. I became excited beyond description. Now I could think only of seeing my parents and brothers and it made the final hours seem even longer.
On the way to the Beijing train station, my heart raced faster than the wheels of the bus. A political head and two teachers escorted us and again, the grandness of the station and the number of people rushing about amazed me.
We fought our way onto the train and settled in our seats. A siren sounded. The train slowly moved off. My heart was already in Qingdao with my family and the anticipation was unbearable. Thoughts of my parents, brothers, relatives and friends, memories of making firecrackers, images of New Year's Eve, the scent of incense, the flame of candles, the delicious taste of my niang's dumplings, the drinking games and my second uncle's singing-all rushed to my mind. Images lingered-fond memories, wonderful thoughts. Then suddenly I remembered my report card. I imagined the gossip, how humiliating it would be for my family. It would be the most reputation-damaging, face-losing event in the Li family's entire history! How could I explain such low grades? How could I tell my parents that I hated dancing? It was all too confusing and I told myself to worry about it later. I was tired from the exams anyway, and I fell into a deep sleep and didn't wake up until three stops before Qingdao Station.
It was still dark outside when we arrived but dawn wasn't far off. My second brother was going to meet me at Cangkou Station, one stop before Qingdao, because it was closer to our commune. I looked at the familiar countryside gradually emerging in the dawn light and my heart raced faster and faster.
As the train pulled into Cangkou Station I saw my second brother Cunyuan standing among a crowd of people under the dim light. I shot my head out of the train window. "Erga! Erga!" I called excitedly. "Second brother! Second brother!"
He saw me then, and started to run alongside the train. "It's so nice to see you! I waited for half an hour!" he shouted as he ran.
That image of Cunyuan running by the train was so joyful an image that it would remain with me, always.
My dia had walked to work that morning so Cunyuan could pick me up on Dia's bike. Our ride home together took nearly an hour. I sat on the back seat with my legs dangling on either side, my bag hanging over one shoulder, the early morning mist cold on my face.
"How are you?" Cunyuan asked as he pedalled.
"Fine, I'm happy to be home!" I replied.
"Tell me, what is Beijing like?" he asked anxiously.
I told him about the wide, paved streets and the grand buildings. I told him of the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, the Forbidden City and of course glorious Tiananmen Square.
Cunyuan was utterly enthralled. He would occasionally interrupt with a question and ask for more details, so I told him about the polluted air, the vast number of vehicles, bikes and people, hundreds of thousands of people. When I told him about the food we had, he said, "You're making my mouth water! You are truly fortunate!" Then he was silent for a few minutes as though he needed time to imagine what eating such good food would be like.
"Did you meet Chairman and Madame Mao?" he asked eventually.
"Not Chairman Mao, but Madame Mao came to our school and spoke to us!" I replied.
"Oh, you are lucky, indeed, indeed!" he murmured.
I knew he was envious of the lifestyle I had in Beijing and would have loved to have had the same opportunities. So, trying to make him feel better, I told him about the blocked toilets, my dislike of some of the teachers and my dreadful homesickness.
He laughed at me for making such an issue about the toilets. "Surely they are better than our hole in the ground at home. That doesn't even have a roof over it!"
"I like our hole in the ground much better," I argued. "At least the foul smell can escape. Remember our grandfather's toilets in the city?" I asked.
"Not that bad?" he asked.
"Worse, much worse! More people pooing!" I replied, and he laughed. Then he asked, more seriously, "Why do you hate your teachers?"
"They are mean and some shout at us all the time," I replied.
"Have you ever heard of a saying that says bitter medicine isn't necessarily bad and sweet medicine isn't always good for you? Surely if you were good, they would have no reason to shout at you," he said.
"But I'm no good at dancing. I can't concentrate when they shout at me. I just want to come home," I confessed.
He was shocked by this. "Cunxin, just look at the colour of my skin and then look at yours. Within a year your skin has become whiter and mine darker. You don't want my life and my destiny. A peasant's job is the lowest job one can have. This is my first year working in the fields and I hate it already. It is brainless work. My whole body is always covered with mud and sweat and what is my reward? Not enough money to feed myself for a single day! Is this the kind of life you desire? Please, don't tell our parents about your homesickness. Especially our niang-she already misses you so much. She cried every time I read your letter. This last week, she hasn't stopped smiling and laughing and she hasn't slept a single night. Please, only tell her the good things about Beijing."
By this time I could just see our village in the distance.
"Niang started cooking early this morning," Cunyuan continued. "So you could have a bowl of dumplings waiting when you arrived home!"
I knew Cunyuan was right about what I should say to my parents. I made up my mind to keep my sadness to myself.
As we turned into our street, we passed some neighbours. "Welcome home!" they called. Down the street I could see my fifth brother Cunfar and my little brother Jing Tring waving and jumping up and down by our house. They rushed in to tell our niang I was back and within minutes a small crowd had gathered by our gate. As we came closer, I saw my niang come out and my heart pounded with excitement. She wore the same dark blue cotton jacket with patches on the elbows, an apron, and the same patched trousers as always, but she looked older than I remembered. The past year had taken its toll.
I jumped off the bike and tears filled my eyes as we rushed to each other and she hugged me tightly in her arms. "How I missed you!" she cried. "How I missed you! I nearly died missing you!" she kept repeating.
I was in ninth heaven again. This was what I had been dreaming of ever since I left her a year ago.
My fourth aunt rushed out of her house then, hobbling on her tiny bound feet as fast as she could. "Where is my sixth son?"
"Si niang. How are you?" I asked.
"You are whiter and a little fatter than when you left us!" she said proudly.
We all went into our house then. Nothing had changed. I could smell the ginger, garlic and green onion dumplings. I was so happy. All my brothers sat around and everyone talked and talked. It was as though we were trying to tell all our stories of the past year, all at once.
Niang didn't say much, but from the way she looked at me I knew she had missed me terribly. Throughout the day I simply hung around her-I felt safe. I felt loved. I was a little child of hers once again.
"Can I help you wash those shirts?" I asked as my niang was preparing her laundry.
"I'm fine," she said. "Don't you want to see your friends?"
"I'll go later," I replied.
"Did you miss home?"
I hesitated, remembering what my second brother had said. "No, not too much, only a little!"
"That's good. There isn't much to miss back here. Only a hard life!" she sighed.
Just then a couple of my niang's friends walked in. "Aya! Look at him, he has grown!" one said.
"He has become so white," said the other. "Look at his beautiful skin! This would only come from nutritious food. What a lucky boy you are!"
I dutifully answered their questions about Beijing and life at the academy and then escaped to pay my respects to my relatives, neighbours and friends, and to spend the rest of the morning roaming the streets, playing some of the old games with my brothers and friends. I had missed them so much and I felt so relieved to be back.
After lunch, my fifth brother Cunfar suddenly dragged me outside into our front courtyard. "I nearly forgot!" he said excitedly. "I have a present for you. Just wait." He went into our little shed and pulled out a small glass jar. "I've kept my prized cricket champion for you since summer! He has beaten all the crickets in our village and now he is yours!" Proudly he handed me the jar.
"Really?" I held the jar as though it was a priceless treasure. "What did you name him?" I asked.
"The King," Cunfar replied. "He is so handsome, just wait until you see the size of his teeth!"
I carefully opened the lid. "Come on, King," I called and tilted the jar sideways. Nothing happened.
"He won't recognise your voice. Let me try," he said. "Come on, King! You can come out now!"
Still no cricket came out. "I'll kill you if you don't come out!" he shouted impatiently.
"Let me see." I gave the jar a gentle shake and tipped it upside down. The cricket dropped out, dead.
"Oh, my King!" My brother was devastated.
"Don't worry, Fifth Brother. I'm sure you'll find another champion next summer."
"You would have been so proud of him. He fought like a true warrior. His teeth were as sharp as knives. I'm sorry you didn't get to play with him."
I too was sad that the King was dead. From the look of him he'd been a strong cricket.
Later that afternoon, my second brother Cunyuan rode on the bike again to collect our dia from work. Jing Tring and I ran to the intersection at the edge of our village. I was excited to see my dia again, but I was anxious about my grades too and worried about his reaction. I saw them ride up and my dia hopped off in front of us. "You're back!" He smiled one of his rare smiles.
I nodded. That was all he said to me and all I had to reply. I loved my dia dearly and I knew he loved me as well.
My niang had already prepared a special dinner as a welcome treat by the time we arrived home. There was so much excitement! We all sat around the kang and again I explained what my life was like in Beijing and I tried hard to mention only the positive elements of the experience. "We can't match the food you had in Beijing but I hope you still like my dumplings," my niang said as she sat a bowl of steaming hot dumplings in front of me.
"This was all I'd dream about, but we did have dumplings all the time at the academy," I lied. I pushed the bowl in front of my dia, because I knew there wouldn't be enough for everyone."
Liuga, can you count how many times you ate meat there?" Jing Tring asked.
"Nearly every day!" I replied.
Cunsang was wide-eyed with disbelief.
I nodded. There was silence.
"Madame Mao wouldn't let her students starve, would she?" Niang said finally.
A few weeks before I arrived home Cunsang had been accepted by the Chinese navy and he was going to be a sailor on one of the battleships stationed in the Shandong Province area, so we talked about this as well. After dinner I took out the sweets which I had bought in Beijing and everyone tasted a piece. Our dia would keep the rest as gifts. Then I suggested playing our word-finding game, looking for words from the newspapers that covered our walls, and my brothers happily agreed. We had so much fun. It was just like old times.
Before bed, when I was alone with my parents and Jing Tring, I handed my dia the three yuan which I had saved.
"Why didn't you buy something for yourself in Beijing?" my dia asked.
"I thought this would help the family," I replied.
"Zhi zhi zhi!" my niang just sighed. She was sad that I'd felt the need to give back whatever I had to my family.
With my second brother now working in the commune, I could tell that my family's living conditions had improved, even if only slightly. They still ate the same kind of food but now there was a little more for my niang to cook with: limited rations of meat, fish, oil, soy sauce and coal, plenty of dried yams and, once a week, corn bread. And besides the New Year's special food, my niang had cooked me dumplings not once but a couple of times, because she knew they were my favourite. Even so, there was never enough for everyone, and the dumplings travelled from my bowl to my niang's, my niang's back to mine, and then I would pass one to my dia. But he'd move his bowl away and the dumpling would slip onto the wooden tray. Niang would sigh yet again. "Silly boy, just eat them! I know you have good food to eat in Beijing, but you won't be able to have my dumplings again for a whole year!"
I attracted attention wherever I went in my village now. I was a celebrity.
"Did you really see Madame Mao?" one peasant man asked me.
I nodded.
He suddenly grabbed my hands and shook them violently. "It's a privilege! Such a privilege!" he shouted ecstatically.
Many people stopped me like that and asked me about Beijing and university life. I knew they were expecting to hear about glorious, heartwarming experiences, so I found myself telling everyone only the best aspects of Beijing. Everyone wanted to know about the food. I had to glorify everything. They longed to hear something that would give them hope. Hope was all they had and I couldn't let them down.
One day, four of my old friends and I were playing our "hopping on one leg" game when one of them asked me to give them a dance lesson. "Teach us something we can perform in our school show!" he begged excitedly.
I hesitated. What could I possibly teach them?
"Please, please! Help your old friends!" they all persisted.
I knew they would be disappointed if I said no, so after dinner that night we gathered together in the same room where my na-na's dead body had once rested for three days. It was mid- February and still very cold. My friends wore their thick cotton jackets and pants and, under the low-wattage light, they looked just like four enormous cottonwool balls.
"I want to teach you a Beijing Opera Movement exercise," I began. "It will get your legs warmed up first. Otherwise you'll injure yourselves. Let's put your legs on the windowsills." This was the only place I could think of that was roughly the height of a barre.
My friends just looked at me with peculiar expressions.
"All right, let me show you." I put my right leg up on the windowsill.
"See. It's not too hard," I encouraged, and I helped them to put their legs onto the sill as well. But as soon as I'd helped the last friend's leg up the others had already lowered theirs.
"It's too high!" one of them complained.
"Can't we use the edge of the kang?" another suggested.
So we moved to the bedroom and used the hip-high edge of the kang, which was much easier.
"Okay, now straighten your legs and your hips," I told them as I pushed one of their legs straight.
"Ow!" they screamed.
"Now, let's change legs," I instructed.
They lifted their other legs up to the edge of the kang, but all they did was scream and groan. "Can't you teach us something less painful and more fun?"
I could see this was going to be a challenge. I couldn't think of anything that was fun, exciting and painless as well. Out of desperation, I showed them some relatively easy ballet positions.
"I don't know whether you can use them in your show or not, but they're not painful." I demonstrated first, second and fifth foot positions. "You can hold onto the edge of the kang," I told them. They all tried, but their feet caved in every time they straightened their knees.
"Is this all you have learned in the past year?" one of my friends asked.
I nodded.
"Surely it was more fun than this! Come on, teach us something easy so we can impress everyone at the show."
I didn't know how to answer him. Fun? I thought of Gao Dakun pushing our bodies onto our legs, putting the full force of his weight on us.
My friends didn't ask me to teach them any dance movements after that.
My month at home went by as fast as the blink of an eye. I dreaded going back to the rigid routine of the university.
On my last night home, after dinner, when everyone except me and my parents had gone to bed, my dia handed me eight yuan.
"It's too much," I protested.
"Take it. Things are more expensive now. Our lives are looking up with your second brother working." Then, completely unexpectedly, he handed me a sealed envelope. "I was going to get you some sorghum sweets, but I bought you this instead. I'm sorry I didn't have enough money to have it wrapped."
Inside the envelope I found the most beautiful fountain pen. It was deep royal blue, my favourite colour. I could tell it was an expensive one. It would have cost my dia at least two yuan.
"I hope you will use it every day," my dia said, "and every time you use it, you will remember your parents and our expectations of you. I don't know what grades your classmates have received, but I hope you will come home with better grades next year. Don't let us down. Let us be proud."
I had expected my parents to talk to me about my poor grades. I had expected harsher words. But that pen, and the few words my dia said then, caused bigger waves inside me than any accusations could ever bring. He didn't blame me. He didn't accuse me, but I felt I had let him and my whole family down. I couldn't bear to look at him. Instead, I looked at my niang, but she had buried her head in her sewing. I knew that every time I used my dia's pen, his words would echo in my mind.
The train trip back to Beijing this time was a happier experience. Even the settling-in period at the academy was easier because by now all of us could communicate with each other in Mandarin. I couldn't stop thinking about my dia's pen though, and his pride-provoking words. I knew that every time I used that pen, I would feel guilty, because my attitude towards my dancing hadn't changed. I still hated it.
In May that year, Madame Mao visited our university for the second time. This time I did get to perform for her and afterwards we all gathered at the sports ground where, with indomitable authority, she told us to study hard and be good students of Chairman Mao's. Her entourage of cultural officials stood beside her with expressions of the utmost admiration and respect. She told the university officials that the dance students were technically weak. So additional classes were added, including martial arts.
Madame Mao also ordered two young champions from the Beijing Martial Arts School and the Beijing Acrobatics School to join us as model students. They were awesome. I was especially impressed with Wang Lujun. He could master ten back flips in a row with ease. He could do "double flying legs" with incredible height, but his "butterfly" was the most difficult and exciting step to watch. You had to swing your body from right to left, with head and body at chest height, at the same time pushing both legs up in the air in a fanning motion. When the movement was done properly it looked just like a butterfly flying in the air. Wang Lujun could do thirty-two of them in a row! He was legendary.
Although Lujun was good at acrobatics, martial arts and Beijing Opera Movement, he struggled hard at ballet. Because he had come in the middle of that second year, he'd missed learning the basics, and the way the muscles were used in ballet was so different to the way they were used in martial arts. He told me many times that he wished he could go back to martial arts again but, for the same reason as me, he felt trapped. He had a duty to perform and there was no way back.
Lujun was honest and he had a strong sense of fairness. Later he was nicknamed the Bandit and he liked it so much that the name stuck.
One day, later in that same term, I remember the Bandit bought ten fen worth of sweets: his father often sent him spending money and he would occasionally slip a sweet or two into my hand. But this time his class captain found out and told the head teacher. The Bandit was ordered to write three self-criticisms. He dug deep, but he genuinely couldn't think of a single reason why he shouldn't buy sweets. So I gave him some ideas -the ten fen he'd spent on sweets could have saved someone from starvation. Or his selfish action could corrupt his mind. I didn't really believe this, but I had to convince him that it was the only way to get him out of trouble. He had to learn how to survive this psychological brainwashing too. Fortunately, it worked and his self-criticism passed the test.
After that incident, the Bandit and I became good friends, and a few weeks later, to my great surprise, he asked me to become his blood brother, a tradition from the Kung Fu masters' era and a bond that would last a lifetime. But in many ways the forming of this bond often rivalled real brotherly love, so at first I said no. I had six brothers already. I didn't need another. The Bandit was very disappointed, but he wasn't deterred and the following Sunday, he invited me to go for an outing. We got permission to leave the university (without this we were never allowed beyond the gate) and the Bandit took me to a small eatery at the base of a mountain on the outskirts of Beijing. He ordered a small bottle of rice wine and a small plate of pig's head meat-a wonderful delicacy. It was white and full of lard. Delicious! What my niang would give for such a treat! I didn't like the rice wine though, because it was so strong, nearly one hundred per cent proof.
After we'd finished, the Bandit took out a small knife, a piece of paper and a pen. He asked me once again if I wanted to be his blood brother. He had tears in his eyes as he prepared himself for my rejection.
I thought carefully for a while, then told him my real fear, the fear that I couldn't live up to his expectations. I took my six brothers for granted. I had never considered how best to be a good brother.
He laughed at that, and said he loved me for who I was.
I relented. We cut our fingers and dropped some blood into a cup of rice wine and shared the same drink together. We then made up a poem. The rhythm and the sounds of the Chinese words were beautiful, and we worked on it for over an hour. We knew our friendship would be special-life at the academy was so lonely and so tough, the only thing we had was friendship. When the Bandit and I became blood brothers, we knew we were establishing a bond that would ensure our emotional survival for the next few years.
That year, the different academies in our university selected even more students, and our complex in the countryside just wasn't big enough to accommodate them all. So Madame Mao ordered each academy to go back to its old location in the city. We were told to pack our few belongings, because we would be moving out when we returned from our next three-week summer holiday, which would be spent with the workers at a garment factory outside Beijing.
Unlike our academy in the countryside, our new city site was much smaller and very cramped. Boys and girls occupied different sections on the second floor of a three-storey building, with eight students sleeping in each small room. We slept in four-bed bunks with one tiny drawer for our personal belongings. Anything that didn't fit there would have to be stored under our bed. We would share those poky little rooms until we graduated.
We had a new director now too. And there were more new teachers.
On the first day in our new academy, we were told we would have a new ballet teacher, Xiao Shuhua.
Teacher Xiao was a small boyish-looking man. Other teachers called him by his nickname, Woa Woa, which meant baby. "I'm excited to work with you," he said to us in the first class. "Although I'm your teacher, I'm also your friend. We will work together and learn together, and make our classes fun. Not only will I teach you ballet steps, I'll also try to teach you the appreciation of ballet. Ballet is the most beautiful art form in the world. I hope, by the time I'm finished with you, you'll have the same appreciation. We should know each other's strengths and also our weaknesses. For a start, I want all of you to know that your new ballet teacher can't turn. I have the worst pirouettes in the world!"
Teacher Xiao was a happy man with a quick temperament. His happiness and emotions fluctuated depending on how his students performed. He encouraged us to write down our achievements, mistakes, new discoveries, even the combination of dance steps, every day, in our diaries. He was intolerant of laziness and lack of commitment. He would fume with anger if we didn't remember the dance combinations or his individual corrections. But he was also quick to praise and to demonstrate. He had a breathtakingly enormous jump and he was very lean and fit. He always carried a notebook to his classes, with every step and every combination written down in detail.
Although Teacher Xiao's own turning ability was poor, he was determined to help his students perfect their turns, so he embarked on months of turning classes. We would complete our barre work within fifteen minutes and the rest of the two hours would be all pirouettes. The first thing he wanted to tackle was our fear of turning. Sometimes I felt the whole universe spinning around me when I walked out of these classes. Many nights I dreamt about doing multiple pirouettes and the feeling was incredibly exhilarating. It was like a "millet dream", I thought. There was a well-cited fable in China which Teacher Xiao repeated to us many times:
A poor Chinese scholar, on his way to the capital to attend the Emperor's annual scholars' competition, suddenly ran out of money. He was still far from Beijing, and now he had no money to hire a horse. He was hungry and tired and as he passed a small, run-down home he smelled a wonderful fragrance coming from within. He knocked on the door and an old lady stood in front of him. He begged her for some food but she was so poor she only had millet soup to offer him. He thanked her and sat in a corner to rest while the soup cooked. He immediately fell asleep and dreamt that he had won the competition and that he would live a wealthy and happy life with many wives, concubines and children. When he woke up from his dream he believed this was his fate, until he glanced at the millet soup cooking in the wok, and realised that he was in truth just an ordinary man and the things he had dreamt were too good to be true.
"Great things don't come easily!" Teacher Xiao insisted and I thought of his unattainable pirouettes. We worked on three consecutive turns for over a year. It seemed impossible to master. The perfect balance on a high demi-pointe, the shape of the hands, the crisp spotting with our heads, the turn-out of both legs, straight back, pressed-down shoulders-the coordination of all these elements together. So many things to remember! For a long time, it seemed that we would never achieve more than three pirouettes but still Teacher Xiao worked us tirelessly, day in and day out.
Teacher Xiao didn't seem to notice me much in the first two classes. I was shy and physically underdeveloped. He seemed to think I was the one with the least interesting face and couldn't understand why I had been chosen in the first place. But during our third class he apparently noticed something unusual about my eyes. He began to try to find out what kind of boy I was. The more he found out, the more interested he became. He discovered that I remembered every word he said, as long as I was interested. So he made me interested in ballet, and quickly realised that I didn't cope well with forceful shouting, which was common practice among the teachers at the Beijing Dance Academy. Instead I responded well to gentle encouragement. He noticed every subtle improvement I made. He made sure that I knew he'd noticed. He gently and gradually led me into the intricacies of ballet, nurtured me, dealt with my self-doubt and inadequacies with encouragement, and slowly moved me from the back of the class to the front.
Apart from more and more ballet, we also started geography and history classes that year. We spent very little time on international geography. Our teacher tried hard to mention America as little as possible and no one took his class seriously, but I wanted to know about the other countries, even though I had to hide my interest. Our history class also dwelt mainly on China, but here I found the rise and fall of the different Chinese dynasties fascinating, especially the Tang and Ming dynasties with their great art, crafts, porcelain, medicine and splendid poetry.
We had a new teacher for our politics class too that term, Chen Shulian, but we really only studied communist history and Mao's political ideas. We were starved of knowledge from anywhere outside of China. We learnt a little about Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, but only as a backdrop to Mao's great political achievements. "Our Chairman Mao is the one who has brought Marx's communist philosophy to life!" Chen Shulian told us one day. "He is leading us to the first stage of communism."
"Are we in the first stage of communism now?" a student asked.
"Yes, but this is a long road. We have to work hard at it."
Another hand was raised. "What is the final stage of communism like?"
"Oh, it is the ultimate wonderland! There is no starvation, no class distinction, no need to work long hours. There will be total equality. Everyone will work willingly and share equally. There will be no greed or laziness, no cheating or unfairness. We will have the best of everything! It will be total happiness!"
Chen Shulian's vision was like morphine for the sick. It gave us a reason to bear our present harsh conditions. She portrayed Chairman Mao as the greatest political strategist ever, a man who could out-manoeuvre all his political enemies. She rigidly followed the textbooks. It was uninspiring to me but I felt this was an important class all the same if I wanted to become a true communist of tomorrow. Chen Shulian must have impressed her superiors though, because she became the head teacher of our group the following year.
Our Chinese folk dance class became my favourite class that year. I liked Teacher Chen Yuen's jokes. Sometimes he took students to catch frogs in the rice fields, or cicadas at night with our flashlights. On weekends, we would fry the frogs' legs and cicadas in his room on a small electric burner. His hobby was photography and he often invited some of the students to help him.
But during the first half of that year, Chen Yuen's personality suddenly changed. He joked less. He stopped organising out-of- school activities. He stopped his photography and became withdrawn and sad. I didn't understand and asked if there was anything wrong. His answer was always the same. "Nothing is wrong." Then one day, suddenly, he disappeared. Later we heard that he had been discovered engaging in homosexual activities. He was sent to a pig farm in the countryside to cleanse his filthy mind. Homosexuality in Mao's China was a serious criminal offence.
A year later, just as suddenly, Chen Yuen returned to the school as a carpenter. He had lost his reputation, his teaching job, his wife and his position in society. Most significantly, he had lost face. His association with dance had come to an end. He was now in the lowest class of people in China, and his every move was monitored. He had to write a weekly self-criticism and progress report to the Communist Party Monitoring Committee in our academy. I never saw him smile again.
But Chen Yuen's misfortunes went from bad to worse. One Sunday he was using the big machine saw and lost three of his fingers. There was no compensation and he had to pay all his medical expenses. He couldn't use a saw after that and he ended up cleaning the toilets. His loss of dignity was unbearable to watch, even for a young boy like me.
Chen Yuen's replacement was his former teacher, Ma Lixie. Small, thin and animated, he had an unusually loud voice and a habit of rubbing his palms together at furious speed before demonstrating an exercise, as though this gave him courage or inspiration. I learned so much from Ma Lixie. His demonstrations were of perfection. He taught us a Korean crane dance, encouraged us to learn the essence of the dance, every subtle eye and even hair movement to feel like the bird's feathers. He dared us to think the unthinkable and explore the unexplorable. He dared us to be better than him. "Qi//ng c//hu yu lan e//r s//he//ng yu lan," he would say: the colour green comes from the colour blue, but it is the stronger of the two. He challenged us to be the colour green.
That year I also met a new student, Chong Xiongjun, a tall boy with a spotty face, from one of the outer suburbs of Beijing. He was two years older than me. After lunch one day, he asked me if I'd like to spend one Sunday with his family.
"I would love to, but I don't know if my teacher will let me," I replied.
That afternoon I went to one of our political heads to ask permission to go to Chong Xiongjun's home. He said that my parents would have to write a letter to the academy. The academy couldn't take responsibility if something should happen to me, and even if my parents did give their permission, I would only be allowed to go once a month.
A reply from my parents would probably take at least three weeks by the slow Chinese post.
In the following weeks, I received my parents' reply, written by my second brother Cunyuan. They were excited about me going to the Chongs' home, especially my niang, who was happy that I would have a family close by to go to.
Xiongjun and I set off at eight o'clock the following Sunday morning. It took three different buses to get to Chaoyang district, and it was nearly ten o'clock by the time we arrived at their house. Xiongjun's grandmother was outside waiting for us. She gave him a big hug and told him she missed him so much. Xiongjun called her Lau-Lau. She reminded me of my na-na-she was old, small, with bound feet, poor eyesight and very few teeth. She looked at me and smiled broadly. "You can call me Lau-Lau too!"
The Chongs lived in a row of single-storey concrete apartments, very much like the commune layout in Li Commune, except that the space was wider between each row and the apartments were built with concrete blocks. Even the floor inside was concrete.
The Chongs' apartment had three rooms. The entrance room was used as the kitchen, dining room and living room, and the rooms on each side of the entrance room were the bedrooms. There were no doors between each room; instead they had black cotton curtains. There was no toilet, only one outside the building which was shared by about twenty families.
I soon learned that both of Xiongjun's parents worked at a local glass factory. His father reminded me of my dia, a hard worker and a man of few words. His mother seemed a little younger than her husband and, like my own niang, she was the personality of their family.
We played cards after our tea, a game called "Protecting the Emperor", which at first concerned me a little. I thought it sounded very anti-revolutionary. Then I helped to make dumplings. Xiongjun's mother was surprised. "Look at Cunxin's dumplings. They are so pretty and I bet they will taste good too."
"Ma, if you keep embarrassing my friend, he won't come again!" Xiongjun said.
That day was also the very first time I'd tasted beer. It was room temperature because there was no refrigeration, and my first mouthful was all foam.
"Do you like it?" Xiongjun asked, laughing at me because the beer made me cough.
"Yes, I like it a lot," I replied, but I felt very light-headed after my second glass.
Besides the dumplings and the beer, we also had a dish of freshly caught fish, stewed with soy sauce, vinegar and different spices, cooked until the bones were soft enough to eat. It was delicious. Xiongjun's mother was a good cook and I could tell they had spent a lot of money on this meal. They were clearly in a much better financial position than my family. Here there were two full salaries feeding five people, and plenty of food.
After lunch, his father took us all to the glass factory where he worked. There I saw hundreds of thousands of crystal clear marbles in huge piles, and special machines which heated the glass up and pulled it into thin threads. I loved playing marbles at home and they were expensive to buy, so I asked Xiongjun's father if I could keep one as a souvenir and take it home to show my brothers. Without a word, he went over to talk to the gatekeeper and when he came back I couldn't believe my ears. "You can have a pocketful of them," he told me.
"Really?"
He nodded. I was so excited when I put my hands into the huge pile of glass marbles. My brothers and my friends would be amazed. There would be enough to give one each to my brothers, cousins and even a few to my best friends. I held the shiny balls in my hands and looked at Xiongjun's father again. "Are you sure?"
He nodded once more and smiled. I was beside myself with excitement. It was as though they were balls of gold.
That Sunday with them was the best Sunday I'd had since leaving home. They made me feel like I was a member of their own family. Before I left that day, Xiongjun's mother handed me a small bag of dates. "I hope you like our family. You will come back again, won't you?" she asked sincerely, holding my hand tight.
I nodded excitedly. I only wished I could go home to see my own family on Sundays too.
The next Sunday visit was a whole month away and I longed for it to come sooner. But after my second visit the bus fare had nearly eaten up all my spending money and I knew that I couldn't ask my parents for more. The third time Xiongjun invited me to his home I had to make an excuse. "I don't feel well, I can't go."
He was very disappointed and went without me.
The next month I tried to make another excuse.
"Are you still my friend?" he asked.
"Yes, of course."
"Don't you like my family?"
"Don't be silly, of course I like your family." I felt dreadful not telling him the truth.
"Are you embarrassed by my mother's praises of you?" he persisted.
"No, you have a wonderful mother!"
"Then why don't you come? When you don't come, they think we've had a fight and that you don't like me any more. I had to defend myself! Please come, everyone is looking forward to seeing you again."
Tears welled in my eyes. I looked away. "I can't afford the bus fare. I only have eight yuan for the entire year. I can't ask my family for any more."
"Why didn't you tell me earlier! I have enough money for both of our bus fares. My family will kill me if they find out that you couldn't come because I had the money and didn't pay for you!
Come on, the bus will be full if we don't hurry."
We left around nine o'clock and the queues at the bus stop were so long that by the time we arrived at Xiongjun's home it was nearly noon. But, as before, my day with the Chongs was filled with happiness and affection. "The dumplings aren't the same without Cunxin's involvement," Xiongjun's mother said at lunchtime.
Before we left that day, Xiongjun's mother handed me two yuan. "For your next bus fare. Make sure you leave earlier next time or I'll have no one to help me make the dumplings," she said.
At first I refused to take the money, but she insisted. "This is the best two yuan I have ever spent. Take it!"
Along with the Bandit, Xiongjun became one of my closest friends. I formed a strong relationship with each and every one of the Chong family. Everything the Chongs made for Xiongjun, I also received a share of, and I continued to visit them regularly throughout the next few years. They unofficially became my adopted family.
I went home to my own family in Qingdao for the Chinese New Year holiday that year, and this time I went with much improved grades. Chinese New Year had always been my favourite time of the year, but now it was even more special because it was my one chance to see my family and friends once more. My family could never visit me in Beijing. Just one return train ticket was equal to half my dia's salary for a whole month.
I brought back some Beijing sweets and a bag of jasmine tea from the Chongs as gifts to my family, and the marbles were an enormous hit among my brothers and friends. "They are the most beautiful marbles I've ever seen!" Jing Tring cried with excitement. He flew outside and proudly showed them to all his friends. He even placed them under his pillow that night.
My family shared the sweets and tea with some of their relatives and friends and they were deeply touched by the Chongs' generosity. In the end they had only enough tea left for one pot to have themselves, on the eve of Chinese New Year. My niang declared that this was the best tea they had ever had.
My holiday month at home went by too fast. My parents and brothers showered me with love and affection. Their lives hadn't changed much from the year before but I did notice some friction between my second brother Cunyuan and my parents. A few days before I was to leave for Beijing, my parents made Cunyuan write a thank you letter to the Chongs to express their appreciation for looking after me. Cunyuan had to rewrite it several times because my parents weren't satisfied with the words he used. Two nights before my departure, just as our niang sat on the kang after dinner, Cunyuan read his latest version.
"And if you don't like it, write it yourself!" he said, annoyed.
"It's better than the last one," my niang said, "but it's still not deep enough. Can't you say something like, `We are so touched by your generosity that we could have kowtowed for you if you were here`, but without actually saying that?"
"Why don't you cut your heart out and send it with Cunxin to show them?" Cunyuan was growing angry.
"I would if someone else could wipe your bottoms for you when I'm not here any more!" she replied.
"If you really want to show the Chongs your heart, why don't you give Cunxin to them, like you did Cunmao?"
"Watch your tongue!" Our niang gave him a stern look.
"You would give us all away before Cunxin. He is our family's crown jewel," Cunyuan continued.
"You are all my treasures," our niang said. "I love each one of you. I would rather die than give any of you away!"
"Hnnng!" Cunyuan was sounding bitter, disgruntled.
"Hnnng what? Have I done any less for you?" our niang asked him.
"Yes! You let your other sons go and pursue their futures! Except me! I can't even marry the person I love!" Cunyuan was shouting now. "Why should I be kept at home? Why can't you let me go to Tibet?"
"Haven't we explained to you before? We need you here," our dia waded into the conversation.
Cunyuan looked at our dia and hesitated. Our dia's words were indisputable in our family. They represented a certain kind of finality.
But Cunyuan was too emotional and wouldn't let it go. "So, I'm the one being sacrificed! Why don't you just say that I'm the least important of all your sons!"
"Can you repeat what you've just said?" my dia asked calmly. I could tell he was trying hard to contain his rage.
"I said…"
Whack! Dia reached over and slapped Cunyuan on his face with such enormous force that I feared his jaw might break.
"I dare you to repeat such ungrateful things about your niang!" Our dia then leapt off the kang and charged at my second brother.
"Stop it! Stop it!" Our niang stood between them. Cunyuan was holding his face, stunned. A moment later he came to his senses and fled.
Our dia was still raging with anger. "I can't believe we have such an ungrateful son!" Niang was sobbing by this point. "What have I done wrong with him? What have I done wrong?"
We sat there in shock, soaked with sadness. I was deeply upset by Cunyuan's accusations against our niang. I couldn't believe he was so angry. I couldn't understand why. But I did feel sorry for him. I had heard about the central government wanting more young men to go to Tibet and Big Brother Cuncia had suggested to our parents that Cunyuan should go. I'd thought the whole issue had been resolved by now.
My niang was upset and teary all through the next day.
"How long has this been going on?" I asked her when the two of us were left alone.
"Ever since your big brother wrote from Tibet a few months ago," she replied.
"Why don't you let him go?" I asked again.
"He has just started working. We need his income for us all to survive. How can we lose him so soon after we have lost your big brother to Tibet? We just can't afford to! The best thing for him would be to marry that nice, steady girl your big aunt introduced him to," she sighed.
"Couldn't he send money back from Tibet?" I asked.
"Have we seen a single fen from your big brother in Tibet? He can't even feed himself from what the government gives him!"
We both fell into silence. Now I understood.
"You are the luckiest person with enough food to fill your stomach," my niang continued, "and now the Chong family likes you!" Then she became more serious. "Never forget where you come from," she said. "Work hard and make a life of your own. Don't look back! There is nothing here except starvation and struggle!"
Cunyuan didn't come home for the next two days. I was worried. I knew our parents were worried too. He came back on the morning I was to leave for Beijing. He looked terrible, as if he had not slept for the two days since he'd run away.
Everyone was quiet at breakfast that day. "Take care, be good. Listen to your teachers. See you next year," my dia said to me before he left for work. Soon after, Cunyuan rode off on Dia's bike and told me he would be back in time to take me to the train station.
Nearly two hours later he finally arrived home and handed me a small brown paper package. "You can open it when you're on the train," he said.
I recognised the wrapping paper from the only county department store and I knew he would have ridden all this time to get there and back.
When it was time for me to leave, my niang walked outside to the gate with us. "Write as soon as you arrive or I'll be worried sick!" she said. She turned to Cunyuan. "Be careful, especially on the narrow roads. Just stop if you see a truck coming."
"Why do you care?" Cunyuan muttered under his breath.
"Niang, I'm going now," I said to her, trying to defuse the tension.
She didn't say anything. Tears welled in her eyes. I hesitated. Maybe I should have asked her sewing friends to come.
Cunyuan wanted to leave earlier than was needed, so I sat on the back seat of my dia's bike and waved at my niang, at my brothers, relatives and neighbours. I tried hard to fight back my tears. Maybe it was the distraction of Cunyuan's situation, but I felt slightly easier leaving home this time. Cunyuan rode away as fast as he could as though this would release his anger and frustration.
Once we were on the main road, I asked him how he was. He didn't reply. He just pedalled harder. About halfway to the station he hopped off the bike and said, "Let's talk."
Now I understood why he wanted to leave home so much earlier.
"I'm sorry you had to witness this unpleasantness," he said as he pushed the bike off the road. It had been a crisply cold morning when our dia had left for work, but now it was mid-morning and the sun had made it warmer. The train wasn't scheduled to arrive for at least another two hours and we were about half an hour away. Cunyuan took out a small bag of tobacco, rolled a cigarette and sat crouching against a concrete power pole.
"Are you all right?" I asked, trying to find something to say.
No answer. He puffed his cigarette furiously. I could tell from the movement of his chest that his emotions were like a rough sea. All of a sudden he dropped his cigarette, hid his face in his hands and sobbed. I didn't know how to comfort him, so I just rushed up to him and held his shoulders.
"Why me?" he said. "I should never have been born!"
I felt helpless. There was nothing I could say.
Eventually he lifted his head. "Why won't our parents listen to me and let me go to Tibet? Why won't they let me marry the person I love? What have I done to deserve such treatment? What is my future here? Should I be satisfied to work in the fields for the rest of my life? Tibet is the only opportunity I have to do something with my life. At least I could get a government- sponsored job and see what's out there! Look at our big brother, look at you, and then look at the rest of us!"
"I wish I could give you what you want. Can't you talk to them again?"
He shook his head. "I've tried so hard to convince them both about Tibet and my marriage. They don't want to lose another labourer in our family." He rolled another cigarette, then continued, as though he was talking to himself. "I dived into the dam on the Northern Hill one day last summer. I thought of staying under the water and never coming up. Maybe I will have a better life in another world." He sighed. "Why do we have to live in this world? There is no colour in this life! I wake up early every morning before the sun is up, I go and work in the fields. Under the burning sun, in the pouring rain, in the freezing snow and with an empty stomach, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks of the year, no Sundays off, no free days. I only come home to sleep. My dreams are the only comfort I have and most of those are nightmares. Often I am too tired even to remember my dreams. I'm twenty-four years old! There is no end to this suffering!"
I crouched beside him and listened in shock and with an ever more saddened heart. I wished I'd had a magic cure for all his problems but I knew there was none. Millions of young people were going through the same agony and despair all over China.
"Let's not talk about my situation any more," he said at last. "How are you coping at the academy? Are you happier there this past year?"
"It's getting better. But I still miss home. I even miss the harsh part of life sometimes," I replied.
"But surely there is nothing here you would miss! I'd give anything to be in your position."
"Why don't we swap?" I teased, trying to cheer him up.
"The Beijing Dance Academy would laugh their teeth off if they saw my bowed legs! But to see Beijing would be a great privilege. Go back and work hard. You have the opportunity of a lifetime. Your brothers can only dream of it." After a brief pause, he asked, "Do you still like cricket fights?"
I nodded. Why, suddenly, would he ask me about cricket fights?
"Remember how great you feel when your cricket is victorious. Have you ever put yourself in the shoes of the losing cricket?"
I shook my head.
"Sometimes I feel like I am the losing cricket and I cannot escape. Life is the victorious cricket, chasing me around until it hunts me down and slowly chews me up. Did you ever have this feeling?"
Again I shook my head.
"I always imagined that as long as I could fight, I would be able to find a way out, but I'm not sure any more. I'm fighting against life, the life I was given, but not the life I desire."
I was speechless, silenced by his despair.
We arrived at the station and soon the rattling train slowly rolled towards our platform. A couple of my friends popped their heads out of the windows looking for me, and my brother passed my bag in to them.
It was time to part. We just stood there and looked at each other. There was still much that I wanted to say. I wanted to hug him but I couldn't possibly-it wasn't the thing to do for the opposite sex in China, let alone the same sex. "I'm going now," was all I said as we stiffly shook hands.
As the train moved away I could see him wiping tears from his face. I stuck my head out the window and waved. He just stood there, like a statue, until we moved out of sight.
I squeezed onto the bench seat beside my friends. I answered my friends' questions about my holidays, but my brother's aching voice kept echoing in my ears. Suddenly I remembered the parcel he'd given me. I took it out and untied the brownish strings. It was a box of sorghum sweets with a note attached, roughly written. "These are for your friend Chong Xiongjun's family," Cunyuan had written. "They represent your six brothers' mountain- weight of gratitude and our sincere thanks for their kindness in looking after you… Please forgive me for the last two days. What I want in life can only remain a distant dream. I beg you to forget it…"
I lost control then. I tried to stop the tears but the harder I tried the more they welled up and I covered my face with my handkerchief.
"What's wrong?" Several of my classmates became very concerned.
I didn't know what to tell them. "I just want to be left alone," I said.
I found myself trying to answer Cunyuan's unanswerable questions. I thought of the dying cricket trying to escape from his tormentor with neither the will nor the physical condition to do so. I felt sick. I felt an enormous swell of compassion for my poor, trapped brother.
My grief for Cunyuan continued to overwhelm me all through my journey back to Beijing. "There has to be a solution! There has to be a solution!" I kept telling myself. But I knew there was none. Poverty itself was his problem and I began to realise how enormously privileged I was to have got out of Qingdao. For my brothers it wouldn't matter how hard they worked or how long they persisted, little would change in the end. They would most likely be in the same situation, twenty, thirty or fifty years from now.
When the sun set and the stars began to appear I felt exhaustion overwhelm me. I asked my friend Fu Xijun to swap seats with me so I could sit against the window.
I knew now, with sudden shock, that I could never go back to the life I used to have. I would always miss my parents' love and my brothers' company, but I knew deep in my heart that my future now lay ahead, not behind. This trip home had once and for all stripped off the fantasy of the ideal countryside life I'd always thought was possible. What my second brother was going through in his mind was far worse than the lack of food, the starvation. His soul was dying. If I hadn't got out I too would have faced the same fate.
I fell in and out of sleep throughout that trip back to Beijing. We kept swapping seats so each of us could have a turn leaning against the window, but for the last three hours of the trip I was wide awake. I thought about the year ahead. I was looking forward to facing the challenges. A mysterious voice sounded in my ears: "Cunxin, you are privileged. You are lucky. Go forward. Don't be afraid and don't look back. There is nothing back there, only your family's unconditional love and that will always propel you forwards."
But now, for the first time, this voice wasn't my brother's voice. It wasn't my dia's. It wasn't even my beloved niang's. This voice was my own.
In the spring of 1974, when I was thirteen, the Beijing Dance Academy was invited to go to Tiananmen Square to hear our beloved Chairman Mao speak.
This was an opportunity beyond my wildest dreams! I was so excited I didn't sleep at all the night before. I'd only ever heard Chairman Mao's voice over a loudspeaker in our commune or on a radio at the academy. I had memorised so many of his sayings from his Red Book and I had four large volumes of his communist theories by my bedside, the guiding principles of my life. I was so lucky to be born in the time of Chairman Mao, our living god, and now I was going to see and hear him in person!
Suddenly a sense of shame overwhelmed me. I hadn't been good enough to deserve this honour! I twisted and turned all night. I kept repeating in my head the first words I had ever learned at school. "Long, long live Chairman Mao." When I was a little boy I truly believed he would have goddesses accompanying him and there would be clouds surrounding him, just like a real god.
I woke up very early on the morning of the rally. I had extra energy. I was dressed in my best Mao jacket and ready to leave by six o'clock.
The bus journey to Tiananmen Square took us nearly an hour. No motion sickness for me that day. We could hear an extraordinary noise as we got close-loud drums, cymbals, trumpets, instruments of all kinds mixed in with the exuberant, feverish shouting of propaganda slogans. We were led by security guards, wading through a sea of red banners, an ocean of people. It was like an enormous carnival. A joyous celebration.
The organisation must have been meticulous. There were police everywhere and they strictly controlled our every movement. Clearly no mishaps would mar this nationally publicised demonstration, a demonstration of a people united in their devotion to Chairman Mao. Everyone was assigned a location-there was no seating, but packing millions of people into Tiananmen Square took time, so various groups were there to play music and entertain us. The excitement was contagious. Emotions were at fever pitch. I had never been in a crowd where people were so open and friendly. This was the happiest moment in all of our lives. And, reinforcing our sense of Mao's godliness, it was a brilliant, sunny day.
After a few hours of almost unbearable anticipation, the moment arrived: Chairman Mao, Madame Mao and the rest of the Gang of Four, the Premier of China, Zhou Enlai, and many other central government leaders, appeared on the podium of the Gate of Heavenly Peace. Rippling to the distant boundaries of the Square, the crowd cheered, clapped and jumped like a crazed animal. The ground vibrated under my feet. The entire world would hear this! Millions of people shouted, "Long, long live Chairman Mao!" Everyone wore red armbands and red scarves. There were thousands of red banners and flags with "Long, long live Chairman Mao" written on them. People sang and danced, eagerly clutching their Red Books in their hands.
I experienced an extraordinary sense of belonging, a sense of being in the presence of some divine being. I was so proud to be a young Guard of Chairman Mao. Tears rolled uncontrollably down my cheeks. I looked around. I saw others too, weeping with joy and pride. It seemed like hours before Chairman Mao gestured for us to sit down and, following the ripple through the crowd, we immediately obeyed.
Mao spoke for no more than half an hour, his familiar voice seducing us through the many loudspeakers placed around the Square. His speech was constantly interrupted by thunderous applause. We went up and down, down and up, like yo-yos, our ovations many times longer than his speeches. He spoke with the heavy accent of Hunan, which made it difficult for me to understand him, but I didn't mind: I knew, as everyone else in China knew, that we would study his speech in its entirety for at least the next few months.
Many hours after his speech we were still in the Square, singing and dancing for pure joy.
Soon after that momentous visit to Tiananmen Square, we went on another trip, this time to an area on the outskirts of Beijing called Pingu. We were told it had similar terrain to Dajai, a model area where peasants cultivated fruit trees and crops in rocky mountainous conditions. We were told that the most precious gift one could take to Dajai was a bucketful of soil.
Learning from the peasants was reaching fever pitch at around this time. Besides taking small trees, and two bucketfuls of soil, every student was asked to fill a pocket with soil as well, as a symbol of this most precious gift.
I was so excited about going to Pingu. I imagined green wheat and cornfields spreading over the mountainsides, luscious fruits hanging down from the branches of the trees. No one could have prepared me for the disappointment to come.
I suffered through dreadful motion sickness on the uneven and winding mountainous roads for over five hours on the trip to Pingu. But when we arrived I was shocked to see nothing but brown, bare hills and a few sprinkled patches of green. Many tourists were there too, paying homage to the great miracles of this Dajai-like place. But there were more visitors than plants. A local guide showed us some pictures of the abundant wheat and corn at harvest time and told us we'd come in the off-season, but I wasn't convinced. I was a country boy. I knew nothing would grow on those rocks, not even weeds. Even if they put our soil over the rocks, one heavy rainfall would have washed it straight down the mountain. Of course I didn't dare question Mao's directive, but I did wonder if Mao had ever come to see places like this for himself.
In the second half of that year the head of the Communist Youth Party at our academy asked me to apply for membership. This was indeed a privilege. Only the most politically devoted students could join. I was flattered and surprised.
I handed in my application and then had to have private heart-to- heart discussions with three different party leaders. I also had to read a thick party manual, full of communist ideals, which were already familiar to me from the Red Book. When the committee felt comfortable with me they assigned two members to sponsor me. My friend Fu Xijun was one of them.
After the final vote of all the Communist Party members, five new members, including me, found ourselves standing under the flag of China with Mao's Red Book raised by our faces, pledging our allegiance to the Communist Youth Party: "I willingly and proudly join the Communist Youth Party. I swear to love Chairman Mao, love the Communist Party, love my country, love my people and love my fellow colleagues. I will respond to the party's calling and strictly observe all party rules. The party's interests come before mine. I'm ready to give my all, including my life, to its glorious cause. We are dedicated to the principle of bearing hardship and letting others enjoy the fruit of our work…"
From that moment on I officially became a Communist Youth Party member. My life now had true purpose-to serve glorious communism. Once again I felt a powerful sense of belonging, of being closer to our beloved Chairman and Madame Mao, of being wholeheartedly embraced by the Communist Youth Party and of feeling a new beginning from that day forward.
I took my role as a Communist Youth Party member very seriously. This had been my political destiny from birth. I was one step closer to becoming a full Communist Party member, my ultimate political dream. Now I could contribute to Mao's political cause more effectively, enthusiastically participate in all of the party's agendas and try my hardest to make a difference whenever I could.
But politics was constantly changing around us-Mao knew the Gang of Four was incapable of managing China 's economic affairs and by 1974 Mao felt increasingly threatened by Deng Xiaoping's popularity. Deng Xiaoping's reputation was spreading fast. Within the walls of our academy, however, the influence of Madame Mao was still paramount and she alone controlled our political education.
Madame Mao might have been pleased with our political development but she still wasn't happy, apparently, with the standard of our dancing. The Vice-Minister of Culture, an ex-principal dancer with the Central Ballet of China and famous for dancing the leading role in Madame Mao's model ballet The Red Detachment of Women, was asked to do something about it. So he sent another retired principal dancer from the Central Ballet, Zhang Ce, to be the new vice-director of our academy in charge of technical standards. Zhang Ce brought back one of his former teachers, Zhang Shu, to be head of the ballet department.
Zhang Shu was one of the founders of Chinese ballet, along with Chiu Ho and Chen Lueng, and was widely considered one of the most knowledgeable ballet experts in China. He was a small man with an even temperament and he often watched our classes and occasionally taught us. From the very beginning he seemed to notice me and I found out that he'd even told Teacher Xiao that I was one to watch.
One day, soon after Zhang Shu's arrival, I lay on my bed reading the Monkey King story, a Chinese classic and one of only a few stories we were still allowed to read. As I lay down I felt something hard under my thin cotton mat. When I put my hand under it I found a thin book. It looked very old and when I flicked through it I saw that it was all in a foreign language. I couldn't understand any of the words of course, but there were quite a few pictures in it too-all of different ballet poses. It seemed to be a schoolbook of some kind. The young teenagers' ballet positions were beautiful and their figures were exceptional. I was especially impressed by a boy posing in arabesques. He was wearing a light cotton vest which looked like ours, with black tights, white socks and shoes. His lines were clean and extended. His placement was perfect. He seemed no older than me. I wished that one day I would be good enough to demonstrate in a book just like this, for the next generation of dancers.
I didn't know for certain who had put that book under my mat, but I had a rough idea and I knew it would be far too dangerous to show the book around. Whoever put it there would have wanted me to keep it to myself.
Zhang Ce's and Zhang Shu's arrival at the academy marked the beginning of our new focus on technique. Extra time was devoted to dancing and some of our academic classes were dropped. Like Zhang Shu, other experienced teachers who had previously been accused of being rightists were now rehabilitated and allowed to return. One was a Russian ballet expert who spoke very good English and who had also translated several Russian ballet books into Chinese before he was labelled a rightist. He'd had to do the lowest and filthiest jobs while he was in the countryside, but his only crime had been his knowledge of Western arts.
Around the same time another "anti-revolutionary" also came back to our academy from the brain-cleansing camps. He was a piano tuner, about fifty years old, with large ears that curved forwards. He'd been recalled because all the pianists had complained so profusely about the out-of-tune pianos and because there simply wasn't anyone else the academy officials could hire who wasn't classified either as a rightist or an anti- revolutionary. That piano tuner tuned and banged on the piano keyboards all day long. He took his time and always walked with his head lowered, constantly afraid that if he ran out of pianos to tune, he would be assigned cleaning, washing or any number of other lowly jobs.
The Russian ballet expert was not as lucky. He had to sweep, clean and scrub floors, walls and toilets. One day he was assigned to push a heavy two-wheeled cart while some of us loaded it with soil mixed with horse manure. Some of my classmates began calling him "the filthy rightist" and accused him of being too slow and lazy. I couldn't stand it-I didn't know what crime he had really committed, but after a few trips of pushing the heavy cart I could tell he was exhausted and I volunteered to help.
"Thank you, young man," he said quietly.
"You're welcome," I replied.
"What is your name?"
"Li Cunxin."
"I will always remember it!" he said, profoundly grateful.
The next day, during one of our political meetings, I was accused of being weak because I'd felt sorry for the rightist.
"I wasn't feeling sorry for him," I lied. "I wanted to make the process faster so we could contribute more to the peasants."
In the second half of that same year, our academy auditioned some music students. They'd already had some music training and had come from all over China. I never understood why they didn't go to the music academy instead, but they didn't and they lived in a couple of small crowded rooms in our own studio building. One of the violinists in that group, Liu Fengtian, was also a good hairdresser. I often asked him to cut my hair because I couldn't afford to go to a professional hairdresser. He was the first person ever to use a pair of scissors on me. Before that we roommates cut each other's hair with a pair of blunt hair clippers, and our hair often got caught in the middle of the clippers. The only way to get it loose was to pull the hair out.
Needless to say it wasn't a very good look but we were thankful all the same. A haircut was always a painful experience before Liu Fengtian's arrival. He was a good violinist who played with real passion. I loved watching him practise on the sportsground. He became one of my closest friends.
It was in this third year that my attitude towards dancing finally changed. For the first time since I had come to the academy I felt confident in my ballet class. I began to do well with our two new, technically difficult steps for the year: the single tour en l'air and the triple pirouette. With Teacher Xiao's gentle nurturing I made noticeable progress. I worked hard and listened to every word he said. I tried to understand the essence of his corrections and wrote down my new discoveries in my diary every day. I practised on the side or behind the first group, even if it was not my turn, and my rapid improvement surprised many of my teachers and classmates.
My progress in ballet also helped me in other classes, especially in acrobatics. Now I was making good progress with backward somersaults, which I had been terrified of the year before. But one day, as I was doing one, I thought the teachers were waiting and ready to support me. I was wrong. They had turned their attention to another student. I took off, then suddenly panicked because I couldn't feel their hands supporting me. I crashed down from shoulder height, my back and head landing on the hard wooden floor, which was covered only by a thin threadbare carpet. I was knocked unconscious.
When I recovered I looked up to see my teachers and my classmates leaning over me with anxious, panicky looks. My head and neck throbbed with pain.
They carried me to my bed and told me to have a good sleep. At lunchtime, the Bandit and Fu Xijun brought me a bowl of noodle soup with an egg in it-a special treat if you were ill. We had to have the academy doctor's written report to be allowed such special food.
No official assistance, no medical care, no X-ray was offered. I was told to go back to my normal routine that afternoon. But my neck pain was intense and persistent.
By the next Sunday I was no better and the Chongs took me to a 75-year-old lady, a local healer, who massaged my neck and cracked it with amazing force. A few days later the pain disappeared but my neck was never the same after that accident and it often gave me problems. Regardless of injuries, however, the teachers in our acrobatics classes believed in working under harsh conditions. Once they even made us do our class, including somersaults and backflips, in the snow. Luckily for us, Teacher Xiao complained to the academy director and lessons in the snow never happened again.
A few weeks before our mid-year exams, Teacher Xiao finished our class late one day and I was desperate to go to the bathroom before our next class. I only had ten minutes and as usual there was a long queue. I was a couple of minutes late for Gao's Beijing Opera Movement class.
He stopped the music. "Here comes my prized student with the brainless big head! Why are you late?" he shouted.
I had intended to apologise sincerely to him and explain why I was late, but to my great surprise, entirely different words came out. "I'm not a brainless big head! I do have a brain!" I was so angry and short of breath that I stuttered badly.
"Get out of my class! Get out! Never come to my class again!" He pointed at the door and his face was red with fury.
I ran to our dormitory and sat on my bed. There were no tears. I was in such a rage that I simply felt like killing him. He had treated me unfairly. He had called me names. He hadn't even noticed my improved attitude over the last few months-he probably never would.
I couldn't just stay in my room though-I feared he might report me. I had to do something, and I had to act fast.
I ran to Teacher Xiao's office and found him alone, reading. I stuttered my way through my story, telling him what had happened with Teacher Gao, and he listened attentively.
"Sit down," he said when I'd finished. "Cunxin, I understand your anger and I think Teacher Gao was wrong. He shouldn't have called you names. I will go to Director Xiao and tell her what you have told me. If Teacher Gao goes to her, she will at least have both sides of the story and I will carry a little more weight than you. However, before I go to Director Xiao, I would like you to do a difficult task for me," he said.
"What?" I asked, puzzled.
"I want you to go to Teacher Gao and talk to him."
"I don't want to go near him! He hates me!" I jumped up from my seat.
"I know how difficult this will be, but I want you to give it a try. Have you ever told Teacher Gao how you feel about him calling you names? Are you the only boy he has singled out?"
Teacher Xiao's questions made me think. I wasn't the only student Teacher Gao shouted at and called names.
"Sit down, Cunxin," Teacher Xiao said again. "I want to tell you a story…"
One of the guards in an emperor's palace went to his teacher and wanted him to make him the best bow-shooter in the land. The teacher told him to go away. The guard returned every day and begged his teacher to teach him. Day after day, week after week, month after month the guard came. He came in the rain and he came in the snow. After one whole year, the teacher was moved by the guard's perseverance and determination and finally accepted him as his student. The teacher asked him to pick up a heavy bow and hold it up. After a few minutes the guard's arms started shaking with tiredness. The teacher made him carry very heavy loads in each hand every day. After a while when he picked up the heavy bow again it felt like a feather in his hands. One day he asked his teacher, when would he teach him how to shoot an arrow? The teacher told him that he wasn't ready yet and instead asked him if he could see anything far into the sky. He looked up and looked as hard and as far as he could but couldn't see anything. His teacher told him to look at a tiny little spider in a far-away tree that he could hardly see. He kept focusing on it with one eye at a time. Gradually he began to see the spider clearly and eventually when he used both of his eyes the little spider seemed as large as his shield. His teacher said that he was now ready to teach him how to shoot an arrow. Soon the guard became the best bow-shooter in the land.
"Remember, Cunxin, nothing is impossible," Teacher Xiao said. I left Teacher Xiao's office full of hope. I ran to Teacher Gao's office as soon as our next class was finished. He was just coming out of the door, with bowls and chopsticks in hand, going to the canteen for lunch.
"Teacher Gao, may I talk to you for one minute?"
He looked at me angrily. "Better be brief! Come in!"
Once I closed the door he said, "Why were you late for class today?"
"I was waiting to use the toilet," I replied.
"Why wasn't anybody else late? Are you the only person needing to go to the toilet?" he asked.
"I tried to hurry but there wasn't any toilet available. I'm sorry."
"If you showed as much enthusiasm for your dancing as for the toilets, you wouldn't be where you are with the standard of your dancing," he fumed. "Okay, I accept your apology. Now, go to lunch!" He rose, ready to go, but I didn't move.
"Teacher Gao, could I tell you something?" I said.
"What?" he asked impatiently.
"I don't like you calling me the boy with the brainless big head. What if I had called you the teacher with the brainless big head?"
His face turned from red to green and back to red. He sat back down.
"I know I haven't been good at your classes and my dancing standard is poor," I continued, "but I was very homesick then. Now my attitude has changed. I want to be a good dancer. I hope you'll give me a chance and judge me by my future work."
He was speechless.
After what seemed a very long time he said, "I'm sorry that I called you something I shouldn't have. I won't in the future as long as you work hard. Any other issues?" he asked.
"No." I stood up and just as I was walking out he asked, "Cunxin, are you going to be able to do your split jumps in the exam?"
"I will," I replied.
I ran down the stairs three at a time. I felt light. I wanted to fly into the air and sing happily like a river bird. I ran to the teachers' section of the canteen and saw Teacher Xiao waiting in line to collect his lunch. I gently tapped him on his shoulder. I smiled at him and he smiled back. We both knew what we meant.
My confrontation with Teacher Gao was the first time in my life that I had really faced a problem and tried to solve it. The problem was like a real tiger before I confronted it and a paper tiger once it was solved. My confidence began to grow.
By the beginning of June, every class was preparing for our mid- year exams. Academy officials would attend these exams-and there was intense competition among teachers, especially in the ballet department. The third and fourth years were especially crucial because teachers would select students as their "talents" to spend most of their time and attention on. The exams were always nerve-racking, with twenty or thirty teachers and school officials, plus thirty or forty students, all sitting in front of us. In this third year, however, and for the first time in my ballet exam, some teachers began to notice me, especially Zhang Shu, the head of the ballet department. I felt good about myself in that exam too, and Teacher Xiao came to me afterwards and said, "Cunxin, well done, I'm proud of you. Your diligent work for the past six months has paid off. I hope you'll keep it up."
After lunch that afternoon, after I had confronted Teacher Gao, while everyone was taking their naps, I quietly slipped into one of the studios and started to practise my split jumps for our Beijing Opera Movement exam. I had such problems with this step. Even the Bandit couldn't figure out what was wrong. We had to jump into a split on the floor and bounce right back up again, without using our hands. Half of the class could do it and the other half couldn't. I couldn't. But I had to. I'd given Teacher Gao my word.
I limbered my legs on the barre and started to practise. After a number of fruitless tries I suddenly discovered something. Even before I started jumping into the split, my hands were already subconsciously preparing to protect me. My lack of self- confidence didn't give my body a chance. So I tried putting my hands behind my head when jumping into the split. My body kept falling to the side, so I turned my front leg out and my balance was corrected. Next I turned my attention to bouncing up from the split position without using my hands. This was far more difficult to overcome. Every time I did it I would feel nothing but pain in my hamstrings and I couldn't find the right leg muscles to get me up again. I simply had to use my hands.
After many tries I still hadn't made any progress. But I kept telling myself, "I've given Teacher Gao my word! I've given him my word!"
The pain in my hamstrings increased and so did my frustration. I was angry with myself. I nearly gave up several times. Out of total desperation, I hit my thighs with my fists. "Stupid you! Why aren't you smarter?" I screamed at myself. "Why can't you figure this out?"
Just hitting my thighs didn't seem to be enough, so I went to the barre and banged my hand on it. The barre shook and vibrated in protest. "Yes, you might be able to help," I said to the barre. I held onto the barre with both hands and did my split jumps underneath. At first, I used my arms to pull me up from the split position. Gradually I relied on my arm strength less and less. Eventually, muscle by muscle, I discovered which muscles in my legs were useful and when my hands were finally off the barre I had made my breakthrough.
I was overjoyed. I ran to the centre of the studio and jumped into the split and bounced up again, into the split and up. I jumped and bounced and jumped and bounced like a madman. Even the hamstring pain was bearable now. I couldn't believe I had done it.
In my soaking wet practice clothes, I flew down the stairs and quietly slipped back into our dormitory without anyone noticing.
In the exam that afternoon, after I successfully completed the split jumps, Gao Dakun's face showed utter disbelief, and I smiled to myself in triumph.
My improvements and small achievements over the next few months were like winning battles in a war. I worked harder not only in Teacher Gao's class but in all my classes. Teacher Gao treated me with respect and he never called me "the boy with the brainless big head" again.
From then on my confidence grew and grew. My exam grades improved remarkably. Teacher Xiao gave me a "good" grade and even Gao gave me a much-improved "above average". But I knew there was still much more to do. I wanted to be among the top students in my class. I wasn't sure how long this would take but I knew I would get there eventually. I had the bow-shooter's image from Teacher Xiao's fable stored firmly in my mind and I was determined.
That year we experienced one of the worst autumns in Beijing since our arrival in 1972. Because of massive fuel shortages over the years, virtually every tree in and around Beijing had been cut down and the strong winds blew up the treeless soil on the outskirts of the city, covering the ancient capital in dust. We called it Beijing Dust and once the strong winds started to whirl we would avoid the streets as much as possible. If we had to go out we wore small white facemasks to shield us from the dirt. Some people wore sunglasses too, but I could never afford a pair of those. When Xiongjun and I returned from his family on Sundays, our facemasks were always covered with dust and pollution. But we had to wear them, or by the end of the day we would be coughing up thick black mucus. The next Chinese New Year holiday, on my trip home, I visited my fourth brother Cunsang on his battleship. It was February 1975. He had been in the navy for a year and was well liked by his superiors and his fellow sailors. He was stationed in Qingdao that year and the commander of the ship asked the chefs to cook me a delicious meal. I had to earn it though, by performing for them on the big metal deck. They applauded everything I did but I could tell they were bored with my pliés and arabesques: the backflips and the martial arts movements were much more interesting, and they were so impressed when I told them I had seen Chairman Mao and even met Madame Mao in person.
After lunch Cunsang and I sat on the edge of the ship's deck with our legs dangling over the side. It was a beautiful winter day, with the sun warm on our heads. I asked him if he enjoyed the sailor's life.
"No, I hate it," he said simply. He missed home, especially his girlfriend Zhen Hua, and couldn't stand being apart from her for much longer. He was now only two years into his standard four- year service. He told me that his political mentors in the navy wanted him to apply for Communist Party membership. They'd said promotions would follow but that he'd have to stay longer than the four years before he would be considered for such enhanced privileges.
Cunsang told me he would not serve beyond his four-year term. He wanted to marry Zhen Hua as soon as he retired from the navy. Then, all of sudden, to my great surprise, he leaned forwards and dived gracefully into the sea. The deck was far, far above the surface of the water. He called out for me to dive down too, but when I looked over the edge I froze with fear. Eventually one of Cunsang's sailor friends brought me a pair of shorts and a white cotton vest for me to change into, then lowered me down to the freezing water with a rope. Within minutes my teeth started to chatter uncontrollably and my lips had turned purple.
Cunsang had to ask his colleagues to pull me up, but he swam on for another half an hour. I sat on the deck, shivering, wrapped in towels-and Cunsang never mentioned his unhappiness again.
Teacher Xiao went to Qingdao too for a few days that New Year's holiday, and paid a surprise visit to my family, driven by the desire to know his students' families better. Our third year was now completed and Teacher Xiao had been teaching me for one and a half years.
He arrived at our house one day just as we were about to have lunch. The special New Year food had virtually been depleted and there was no time or money for us to go shopping. Our dia was home for lunch that day and our parents were embarrassed to serve what was left to my teacher. "Can you wait for about half an hour, so I can prepare you a better meal?" my niang begged.
"Please, Auntie, this is not what I'm here for and I'm so hungry." Teacher Xiao hopped onto the kang and sat between Cunfar and me, legs folded like us in the lotus position. "The reason I came unannounced was so that you wouldn't have to prepare a special meal just for me. I want to eat what you normally eat. This way I can truly experience what your life is like."
That meant experiencing dried yams, a few pieces of leftover corn bread, pickled turnips and sorghum soup. Teacher Xiao started with a piece of corn bread.
"Tastes good!" he said, out of politeness, but my niang took this to heart and immediately started to pile pieces of corn bread in front of him.
"No, no! I can't eat this much! Besides, I want to taste this- what do you call this?" he said enthusiastically.
Oh no, I thought. Not those.
"Dried yams," my niang replied.
Sure enough, he gagged on the first piece and had to drink a great deal of sorghum soup to wash it down. But the sorghum soup didn't taste too good either. I couldn't help thinking it was funny, but I didn't dare laugh out loud.
I showed Teacher Xiao around the village after lunch-he was shocked at our poor living conditions. "Cunxin, you must be thinking about your family constantly while you are in Beijing?"
"Yes. I think about them when I'm eating-meat, fish, rice or fruit. I wish I could help them," I replied.
"You can," Teacher Xiao said.
"How?"
"By working hard and becoming the best dancer you can! I have watched you over the past year and a half, Cunxin. I have no doubt that you have the inner strength to become a special dancer. Now I understand where that inner strength comes from. The strength of your parents' character is in you. It is the most valuable quality anyone can possess. If you are ever in doubt about your own abilities, all you need to do is think of your parents and what they have gone through. Your desire to help them is your incentive to work hard." He paused, with passion in his eyes. "Cunxin, I would dearly love to make you see ballet through my eyes. The subtleties of each step! The elegance of each movement! Ballet is one of the most refined art forms in the world!"
"But I can't do the high jumps or turns," I said. "Actually, I have nothing special to make me a good dancer."
"Cunxin, nothing is impossible for a determined human being. Physical imperfections are easier to overcome than mental deficiencies. Remember the bow-shooter fable?" he said. "Nothing is impossible if you put your heart and soul into it! Let's make your family proud! Become a good dancer, the greatest dancer you can be. Starting next year, I expect to see nothing less than the best from you."
It was true that Teacher Xiao's fable of the bow-shooter had left a deep impression on me. But from that day on it became an inspirational driving force. Whenever I met difficulties or challenges in my dancing, like the split jumps, I always went back to this fable for my basic inspiration: hard work, determination and perseverance. That day, Teacher Xiao's words had touched me deeply, and I knew that he cared.
I returned to start my fourth year at the Beijing Dance Academy later that February of 1975.
Before class one morning, Teacher Xiao called me to his office. "Cunxin, you have had a great last year. I'm very happy with your work and the progress you have made. I hope you can keep it up. Don't let any outside influences pull you off track." He hesitated for a moment and I wondered why he was saying all this.
Then he continued. "I may not always be your teacher, Cunxin. There are people out there who feel that I am not good enough. Some of them have the power to replace me. There's not much I can do." He paused again and I could see he was holding back tears. "All I want you to know is that even if I'm no longer here to teach you, you should continue to work in the same way. I have no doubt you will have a bright future."
My heart sank with shock. I couldn't bear to lose Teacher Xiao! He had been my mentor, my only mentor, the only teacher in whom I could confide. He was like a parent to me.
"Is there anything I can do?" I asked.
He shook his head. "I've tried to convince them. But it's up to the academy officials. Now, go to your class. You'll be late," he said.
I felt tears form in my eyes. I had been looking forward to this year's work with Teacher Xiao. He was the teacher who had taught me to love dance. He was the one who could make me succeed.
"Cunxin," he added, just as I opened the door to leave, "I would like you to concentrate on your jumps this year, whether I'm your teacher or not. I'm not talking about average jumps. I mean brilliant jumps, gigantic jumps. Your turns can wait until next year."
I nodded, with a stomach full of sadness, and ran quickly to my next class. But I kept hearing Teacher Xiao's voice. I couldn't get it out of my mind. I didn't know what I would do if I lost Teacher Xiao. I can't lose him! I kept telling myself.
After lunch I went to Zhang Shu, the head of the ballet department. He liked me and I felt sure he would listen. "Teacher Zhang, Teacher Xiao is a good teacher. He's the best I've ever had," I said.
He frowned. "What are you talking about, Cunxin?"
I didn't want to say that Teacher Xiao had told me about his possible dismissal, so instead I made something up as quickly as I could. "I heard rumours from some students that Teacher Xiao may no longer be teaching us."
Zhang Shu smiled gently. "Don't worry, no decisions have been made at this point. Every teacher likes to teach talented students. Don't be concerned. Just concentrate on your studies," he said.
"But Teacher Xiao is everything to me! Without him, I'd be back in the commune already. He made me like ballet! He showed me how beautiful it is. I'll be lost without him!" I tried hard to control my tears.
"What do your classmates think of him? Do they all agree?"
"Yes, one hundred per cent!" I replied without hesitation.
"All right, I will take your feelings into consideration."
I left Zhang Shu without knowing if my words would make any difference at all, but I was determined to try anything in my power to keep Teacher Xiao. And, as the weeks and months went by, Teacher Xiao remained as our ballet teacher, and I was happy.
With Teacher Xiao's encouragement I worked on my jumps daily. I worked hard in class but I knew my progress was still too slow. I would never have big jumps with my flat feet, I was told by some teachers. But Teacher Xiao never lost faith and I never lost my will.
During that year, Teacher Xiao again worked us hard on our pirouettes and I finally overcame my difficulties. I felt good about myself-now I could complete three consecutive pirouettes consistently. Then, after class one day, Teacher Xiao said, "Cunxin, I want to see you do five pirouettes from now on. No more three pirouettes!"
I thought I hadn't heard him properly. "Teacher Xiao, you mean four pirouettes."
"No, I mean five," he replied, challenging me. "Don't think, just do it. I would like to see you do ten pirouettes one day."
My mouth dropped open. I wasn't sure whether to laugh at his madness or cry. He must be kidding, I thought. I only just felt comfortable doing three pirouettes without fear of falling. Ten pirouettes was completely crazy.
"Cunxin," he said, as though reading my mind, "to be the best, first you have to dare to try! Nothing is impossible as long as you're not afraid to achieve it. I don't want you to be the best in your class. I want you to be the best in the world."
Teacher Xiao's words echoed in my ears for days. He was talking about a standard of dancing that was far, far above me. These were things I could only dream about. No, ten was too many pirouettes even to dream about! How could a fourteen-year-old peasant boy think about being the best in the world? But Teacher Xiao's challenge was like a new seed which implanted itself in my mind. From that day onwards, I had an aim and a vision. I wanted to be the best dancer I could possibly be.
That year, our academy was chosen to participate in an important public performance, the first for Madame Mao. We were to dance an excerpt from China 's most famous ballet, The Red Detachment of Women. I thought this ballet was brilliant-all about Chairman Mao's army and their bravery, with the dancers doing leaps and turns with guns and flags and grenades: I loved it.
The whole academy was ecstatic about the coming performance. Everyone was vying for a part. The role of the hero, Chang Qing, a captain of the Red Army, was given to the Bandit. I was among five boys chosen to play the peasant boy, the "little fat boy". The name had nothing to do with his appearance, and eventually I was selected to be second cast to a slightly older boy. But still, I was just so happy to be one of the final two.
Chen Lueng, my first ballet teacher, was the rehearsal master for this performance. One day during rehearsal he suddenly switched me and the older boy around and I became the first cast. Both of us were shocked. The Bandit was very happy for me but I clearly saw the disappointment in the other boy's eyes. I felt terrible. I had taken something precious away from him. I went to Chen Lueng after the rehearsal and told him that I would be happy to remain as second cast.
"Cunxin," he said, "life is not meant to be fair. As an artist you have to remain honest to your art form. You are better than him and deserve to be seen. If I didn't do what I felt was best for our art form then I would have failed as a teacher. You should stop dancing now if you don't want to be the best."
Deep inside I knew Chen Lueng was right and his words affected me. I knew ballet was an art form based on honesty. The audience could see a good dancer from miles away.
I went to the other boy and told him I was very sorry for taking his place.
That was my first career break and I worked very hard on that role. Teachers started to notice me more. The role didn't just give me a rare opportunity to perform in front of Madame Mao: it also gave me confidence.
The role of the little fat boy didn't require any technically difficult dancing. The most challenging thing was a number of death-like "brighten the presence" stares. The scene we were to perform for Madame Mao was called "Chang Qing Zhi Lu", or "Chang Qing showing the road". For our entrance the Bandit and I walked on with furiously fast heel-toe Beijing Opera walks. I lunged in front of him dramatically with a gun in my hand and both of us looked right into the audience with our death-like stares. No movement was allowed, not even a breath or the blink of an eye. Then I had to play this embarrassed gesture, to scratch my head because my gun was exposed, which always triggered whispers of laughter from the audience. I was told that Madame Mao laughed too when I scratched my head. I was happy that Madame Mao laughed and I practised the scratching head bit so many times to make it as convincing as possible.
This was also the year I started to do better in other classes, especially Chinese. I grew to love Chinese class and our teacher Shu Wen very much. He was a true intellect. He taught us with passion.
One day in his class we were studying a fable that was half a page long. It took Shu Wen a whole week to help us unravel the meaning and intricacies of the story. It was about a young farmer who had wasted his precious planting season because he'd waited and waited for a blind rabbit to run into a tree and kill itself after another had done so on the edge of his land. "I have discovered the secret of getting food without physical work!" the farmer assured his wife. "I'll bring home a rabbit every day and we'll have meat to eat for ever." But no blind rabbits came. By the time he realised his stupidity, it was too late. The crucial planting season was over and his family's savings were gone.
Again the essence of this fable left its mark on me. Nothing comes easily. There are no shortcuts. Things only come when one works for them. Time should be treasured.
,7t4n4 For the following photos, I have included the written text which is listed below each photo in the book. The photos are not included.7'
My classmates and myself, centre front, wearing Mao's Red Guard scarves. This was taken in early 1972, in Laoshan.
The New Village, Li Commune-the world of my upbringing. This photo was taken in 2002-nothing much as changed since I was born.
Proudly wearing Mao's army uniform, in January 1974-aspiring to become a true and faithful follower of the communist ideal.
My beloved niang washing, forever washing, in the courtyard of our home. This was taken when I went back to China in 1988.
My first lonely day in Beijing, posing for one of our group photos in Tiananmen Square -I am in the front row, fourth from the right.
The Beijing Dance Academy -my world for seven long years. Here it is in 1997-again, nothing much had changed: the studio building is on the right, hot-water boiler room and teacher's rooms in the centre, and the canteen to the left.
Hai Luo Sha, one of our political ballets, with me and "Chairman Mao".
Rehearsing Hai Luo Sha with Teacher Zhang Shu in 1976. In the background are Mao's grand words: "Have your country in your heart and the world in your vision".
First contact with the West-Zhang Weiqiang and I in New York in 1979.
On the steps of the Vaganova Ballet School in Leningrad -my first trip to another communist country.
Defection. 29 April 1981. Being freed from the consulate with Elizabeth Mackey and Charles Foster.
Finally at ease as the Western prince-Sleeping Beauty in 1984.
With Barbara Bush at the White House in 1991. She was instrumental in bringing my parents to the US and in fostering my relationship with China.
Applying my makeup for a performance with the Houston Ballet-a new identity, a transformation: what would my niang and dia think of this? I lived in another world now.
In Glen Tetley's Rite of Spring-making the giant leaps I'd always dreamt of.
The Esmeralda pas de deux with Mary, in 1990, in a gala performance at the Sydney Opera House.
My beloved family in Melbourne in 1997-my wife Mary and our children Sophie, Thomas and Bridie.
After our mid-year exams that year, we all sat in a circle on the floor and Teacher Xiao read out his report on the progress of each student. Then we were allowed to grade Teacher Xiao's performance. A couple of students criticised Teacher Xiao for raising his voice and shouting at them. Teacher Xiao gracefully apologised. But when the bully Li Ming accused Teacher Xiao of favouritism towards Fu Xijun and me, he lost his temper. "I am proud to have the integrity to be fair to the diligent students. Anyone who has achieved something deserves praise and encouragement. Xijun and Cunxin have made huge progress. Learn from them."
Li Ming's face turned from white to red, then from red to a funny shade of ash. I didn't know whether he was embarrassed, angry or ashamed. Maybe he was all of those things. I was certainly embarrassed by Teacher Xiao's praise in front of the class, but still, his acknowledgement meant a lot to me and his words continued to encourage me.
We started our pas de deux classes in the second half of that year. I liked this class-it was my only chance to touch the girls. At first, the girls and the boys were on different sides of the studio. Then we were paired by our teacher according to size and strength. I secretly wished to be paired with the girls I liked, of course, but that was as close to the girls as we got. As soon as the music ended we would go back to opposite sides of the studio.
In the second half of that year, some ballet films were shown to us. They were Russian and had previously been banned. We weren't supposed to learn anything technical or artistic from them: we were just supposed to criticise the story. Giselle, for example, was clearly a story from a rotten capitalist society. We endlessly criticised the pathetic peasant girl Giselle who did nothing with her life other than desire the jewellery and lifestyle of the wealthy. We analysed her pursuit of filthy material values. We laughed at her naïve love for the deceitful Prince Albrecht. How stupid and disgusting she was to turn her back on the peasant who truly loved her. "You can tell this ballet was designed by a capitalist," our political head said. "He has glorified the rich and portrayed the peasants as whores. What a contrast to our model ballets! Our three classes of people are our heroes!"
We were all Mao's faithful children, and we all wholeheartedly agreed with our political head, but I couldn't help quietly admiring Albrecht's brilliant dancing. The dancer was Vladimir Vasiliev from the Bolshoi and the images of his dancing left me gasping for air.
During the Cultural Revolution almost every new creation in art was a joint project. Many new works had to have a Communist Party leader as one of the main creators or it would never get off the ground. There would normally be more than one choreographer, set designer, lighting designer and composer for any Chinese ballet and the final product always looked as if the various parts didn't quite fit together. Individualism was firmly discouraged. The Red Detachment of Women, which we'd performed for Madame Mao, was one of these ballets and it took eight years to complete. But once I'd seen the beautiful Giselle I began to doubt The Red Detachment of Women was quite so artistically brilliant.
It was during our busy end-of-year exam preparation time, in January 1976, that the Premier of China Zhou Enlai died. Several long remembrance and reflection sessions were organised at the academy to commemorate Zhou's great contributions to China. I was surprised to see so many of my teachers sobbing.
Right after Zhou's death, Deng Xiaoping was arrested. Mao appointed Hua Guofeng to succeed Zhou Enlai but it soon became clear that Hua Guofeng was an ineffective leader. He was a follower, a puppet of Mao and the Gang of Four. The Gang of Four immediately organised a "Denounce Deng Xiaoping" campaign. He was labelled an old rightist whose motive was to corrupt the communist system and eventually overthrow it. Some of his speeches were published and I learnt one of Deng Xiaoping's most famous sayings: Bu guan shi bai mao hai shi hei mao, zhuo dao lao shu jiu shi hao mao. "It doesn't matter whether the cat is white or black, it's a good cat as long as it catches mice." But many people only half-heartedly participated in the "denounce Deng Xiaoping" campaign. In fact, it almost backfired. Rumours began circulating about Madame Mao's male concubines. She was frequently accompanied by a handsome retired dancer, or a retired opera singer, a movie actor or a ping-pong champion. People started to notice. I could sense a huge tide of resentment developing against the Gang of Four.
Around the same time we started to rehearse another model ballet and this time I was chosen to be the main character. The ballet was called The Children of the Meadow, a Lei Feng type of story about the new generation of children under Mao and their devotion to his cause. Some dancers from the Central Ballet of China came to teach us the steps and I was awe-struck by the dancers' technical abilities. Even the "little bouncing ball" himself was there, a dancer from the Central Ballet of China known for his incredibly fast turns and jumps. He was such an inspiration-I vowed to reach his standard one day too.
We rehearsed one act of this ballet for several months and then performed it initially in our academy theatre. I received some encouraging comments about my performance-my biggest fan was one of the chefs from our canteen! I had no idea about different aspects of performing and no stage fear at all. But this changed quickly when, a week later, we were bussed to an industrial city near Beijing called Tangjing to perform for the public. During the opening night performance my brain went completely blank. I couldn't think. I didn't know what I was doing on stage. I couldn't even remember what happened afterwards. All I could remember was that I had forgotten the steps. My partner looked at me and I realised I was just standing on stage doing absolutely nothing. That was my first stage fright, at age fourteen, and I would never forget it.
After that performance the head of our ballet department Zhang Shu spearheaded an important project which we began in 1976. We were to create a full-length ballet, our academy's first such project, and everyone was excited about the auditions. The story was about a teenage brother and sister whose parents were captured by the Guomindang army and hanged on an old symbolic tree called Hai Luo Sha. The ballet was named after the tree. After the parents' death the two brave young children were separated and joined different factions of the Red Army. At the end of the ballet they came back with Mao's armies, reunited, and killed the murderers of their parents.
I was overwhelmed and utterly surprised to be chosen as first cast for the lead role. All of a sudden I was the envy of the entire academy. The pressure was immense but the opportunity for me to dance in a new creation was beyond my wildest dreams.
The choreography took over six months. We rehearsed every afternoon. Day in and day out we repeated many new steps and sweated over many movements, only to find out it wasn't what the choreographers had in mind. I changed three to four soaking wet T-shirts every day. My legs started to cramp. Out of compassion one of the choreographers brought me cups of warm sugared water to replenish my lost energy. Sugar was such a rarity in China -an immense treat.
There was no doubt this role was technically very demanding. I worked hard but different choreographers had choreographed different sections of the ballet and I had to listen to three different people's instructions at once! It was so confusing. The ballet underwent changes right up to the last minute and on the opening night, in front of thousands of eyes, my nerves turned my muscles numb. My whole body trembled. My legs felt weak. I was exhausted even before the curtain went up. On my grand entrance I was supposed to perform this explosive series of giant leaps but my legs felt like noodles dangling in the air. The second half of the ballet went better but the difficult dancing parts were mostly in the first half and, naturally, the person who played Chairman Mao received most of the applause.
I was disappointed with myself beyond description. I had let the whole academy down. I had let Chairman Mao and Madame Mao down. I went to all three choreographers and apologised. I went to Zhang Shu the next day and asked him what I could do for my nerves. "Experience, only experience will help you," he said.
The end of this year was the first and only time that we went to see the army stationed outside Beijing: there were several elite divisions and about ten of us were assigned a soldier each as our mentor to accompany and instruct us every day. Their daily schedule was strict and we had to keep up with them. At five o'clock we were dressed, washed and outside in line on the parade ground within five minutes. Our Beijing Dance Academy 's strict schedule meant that we had met that kind of efficiency before, but still, waking up at five was hard. We jogged and practised our morning routine before breakfast and practised our dancing on any flat surface we could find. Then we joined some of the soldiers' training activities for the rest of the day. We learnt how to walk, turn, stop and run the military way. We even learnt how to fall and crawl under imaginary tanks and enemy gunfire. Many of us had bruises all over after those first few days. We learnt how to hold guns too-important for our political ballets, we were told. We spent days at target practice and my eyes became so tired, but again I thought of the bow-shooter that Teacher Xiao had told me about and I was determined to practise hard.
Grenade throwing was one activity I wasn't good at, no matter how hard I tried. We practised with fake grenades at first but after a few days my shoulder joints were swollen with nagging pain. On the day we were scheduled to throw the real grenades we first had to throw a fake one so our throw could be measured. I pumped myself up with courage. I imagined a group of enemies standing in front of me. This was a life and death situation. I gathered all my strength and threw the fake grenade out with all my might.
It fell way short of the target, embarrassingly short. It didn't even carry over twenty yards. But I wasn't the only one-many of my classmates also failed to reach the required distance. The academy officials wisely cancelled our real grenade-throwing event, just in case.
Apart from the gun shooting I didn't really enjoy my military experience at all. I spent the whole time longing to return to our academy routine. I wanted to get back to my leaps and pirouettes.
This was the same year that I was elected as one of the three Communist Youth Party committee members and vice-captain of my class. Then one day a Communist Party official at the academy called me into his office. "Cunxin, you have done a good job at the Communist Youth Party. You have set a wonderful example for all the students. Although you are still too young to join the party, we would like you to start thinking about it now. Communist Party members are the purest and strongest communist believers. We believe you have that mental strength. The party would like to educate you to become a true Communist Party member, to carry the party's torch, to raise the country's flag every day, every hour, every minute. The responsibilities are enormous but Communist Party members are a glorious breed of human being."
I nodded dutifully and left his office confused. To join the Communist Party was every young person's dream. But when I heard his words about a glorious breed of human being I began to wonder. I thought of the Communist Party members I knew: some were special people like Teacher Xiao and Zhang Shu. But there were also some I didn't want to be in the same company with, such as some of the political heads. And besides, with my increased interest in ballet I had little time for long meetings. Lately I'd even started speeding up the meetings I chaired at the Communist Youth Party and I'd even been considering relinquishing some of my responsibilities. When I asked Teacher Xiao and Zhang Shu about this conflict between the endless meetings and my dance practice, both of them advised me not to give up my political position. It was important for my artistic future, they said. Later, much later, I was to discover their advice had been right.
Soon after Zhou Enlai's death, there was a massive earthquake in the coal-mining city of Tangshan, about a hundred miles east of Beijing. Officially, over two hundred thousand people were killed and over a hundred and fifty thousand injured. There were rumours that this earthquake was an unlucky sign, a sign of hard times and unrest ahead. It happened in the middle of a long, hot summer, while we were preparing for our mid-term exams. Millions of victims were homeless and all the hospitals in many cities were filled. Several older buildings fell down in Beijing too. Our academy was considered an old building, so we had to vacate it and live temporarily in tents in Taoranting Park. Tremors went on for two whole days. Torrential rain poured down relentlessly. Shops in Beijing ran out of plastic covering for people to use as temporary shelters. We left our building in such a hurry that many students didn't even bring their clothes. It was wet and freezing at night and we had very little food: biscuits and dried bread for two days.
My second brother Cunyuan was a volunteer at the local hospital in Qingdao looking after some of the earthquake victims, who came in by the trainload. Those victims were so shocked that any loud noise at all would terrify them, Cunyuan told me. One knocked a hot-water bottle onto the floor in the middle of the night. It exploded and sent the earthquake victims into immediate panic- they started to scream and tried to run for cover and that in turn caused the whole building to shake. One of the nurses tried to calm them down by blowing a whistle but that made the situation even worse. Panic turned to utter terror. People became desperate. A few poor injured victims jumped out of the building and killed themselves in an attempt to escape.
Then, later that year, the unthinkable event…
Our beloved Chairman Mao died.
China paused. The whole nation mourned. It was early September and I remember gathering in front of a loudspeaker on the sportsground and hearing the announcement of his death by his successor Hua Guofeng. We cried our hearts out. I thought of my na-na's death. But this time, crying for Chairman Mao, it was like a religious experience mixed with a certain fear. I had worshipped Chairman Mao. His name was the first word I had learnt in school. The words from his famous Red Book were embedded in my brain. I would have died for him. And now he was gone.
The day after we heard about Mao's death, the Bandit and I gathered at a quiet corner of our academy grounds and sat on a concrete ping-pong table to talk about this shocking news. China 's future was now uncertain. Mao's death could only mean immense insecurity. As a young Red Guard, I was plunged into grief. I felt lost. There hadn't been much colour in China before, but now things would be bleak indeed.
"There will be total chaos in China soon," the Bandit said despondently. "There will be civil war, maybe even the old chieftain warfare will return again. We should be prepared!" he said, becoming emotionally charged.
"Where would you go to fight a guerilla war!" I said, amused.
"Back to the mountains of Shandong Province of course!"
"I'm not sure I want to leave ballet and live in the mountains for the rest of my life," I replied.
"Where is your courage? Didn't Chairman Mao fight many years of guerilla warfare?"
"Yes, but you don't have to be a guerilla to serve the communist cause. Our best weapon is ballet," I argued.
But the Bandit wasn't convinced. "Only guns will determine the final outcome!" he said.
We went on, arguing philosophically for a while about wars and communism and politics. "All right," he said, "who do you think will be our next leader?"
"I don't know. Who do you think?" I asked.
"Hua Guofeng, Chairman Mao's chosen successor, who else?" he replied.
I laughed. "I think someone with stronger military backing will be China 's next leader!"
"You don't think Hua Guofeng has military backing? Don't you think Chairman Mao would have secured military backing for him before he died?"
"I don't know. Hua Guofeng came from nowhere. He doesn't have a military history."
We talked about which leader in the central government did have a military history. We thought of three. Suddenly I shouted, "What about Deng Xiaoping?"
"Shh!" The Bandit looked around and made sure there was no one close who could have heard. "Are you crazy? He has just been disgraced! His reputation is damaged for ever. Besides, if Chairman Mao didn't like him, we shouldn't either."
Both of us sank into our own thoughts. I knew what he said made some sense but I didn't agree with him entirely. "Deng Xiaoping did very well with the economy while he was managing it and he has a military history," I said.
"How do you know he did well with the economy?" he asked.
"The standard of living improved in my home town."
This was true. My family's living standard had gradually improved under Deng's leadership and some of the seasonal planning decisions had been handed back to the peasants.
"Do you think Madame Mao will become our next leader?" the Bandit asked.
I shook my head. "Haven't you heard the rumours about her male concubines?"
"Do you believe them?"
"No, but if there are rumours like this in Madame Mao's own academy, just think what people are hearing all over China."
A month after Mao's death, on 6 October 1976, our academy received another enormous shock. The news came casually. Madame Mao was arrested along with the other members of the Gang of Four. I felt like an abandoned child.
The Gang of Four were removed quickly and easily. Neither the military nor the police backed them. At our academy we carried on our normal routines, except when the political heads were removed, which meant no more political studies and more time to practise our dancing.
Hua Guofeng made no attempts to change the direction which Chairman Mao had set for the country. For the first six months of his government, it was business as usual. But everyone could feel that change was inevitable. The military may have adopted a low profile but few people knew what was really going on.
In the meantime, my dancing had caught Vice-Director Zhang Ce's attention. All of a sudden, not only was I Teacher Xiao and Zhang Shu's targeted student, but now Zhang Ce's favourite. The end-of- year exam was so enjoyable that I could have done it again and again, even with all the future uncertainties in China. I had found my confidence at last.
I was nearly sixteen by now. It was the time when our academy doctor told me that I had to have my tonsils removed. I'd had repeated infections over the years, so I was placed on a threemonth waiting list.
On the day I went to hospital I was not allowed to eat or drink anything. The scheduled time for the operation was 9 a.m. but the doctor didn't see me until noon. Then a nurse poked some acupuncture needles into my body-the Chinese anaesthetic. I had no idea what to expect.
During the hour-long operation I could feel the pain, the cutting sensation, and I lay there as the blood gushed down my throat. It felt as though the doctor was using a very dull knife. I thought of the poor pigs in my home town and how I used to watch them being slaughtered on my way to and from school.
I was exhausted when I was wheeled out of the operating room. I could not talk and my throat was so swollen that it felt as if there was a big hot ball stuffed down it.
The nurse took me back to my room where the Bandit, Fu Xijun and Xiongjun were waiting for me. They'd sneaked out of the academy to visit me, and they'd brought me two thermoses full of popsicles. I loved popsicles but I didn't feel like eating them that day. My throat throbbed relentlessly. Still, the Bandit insisted I eat at least two to keep the swelling down. He'd had his tonsils out the year before and he said I should be thankful -both medical technology and doctors' skills had improved significantly since last year, he said.
What significantly improved technologies? The useless needles? The dull knife? I couldn't imagine anything worse than what I'd just been through. But I didn't say anything-it was too painful to talk.
That night I couldn't sleep. The pain was excruciating and there weren't any painkillers. How I wished my niang was there to comfort me.
July 1977: our sixth year at the Beijing Dance Academy. We were allowed to go home for our three-week mid-term summer holiday this year, but we had a choice: we could stay back and practise if we wanted to.
I wrote to my parents and told them I had decided to stay. Of course I dearly wanted to see my family and I missed them: the thought of the cricket sounds, catching dragonflies, eating my niang's dumplings, all seemed so tempting, but this was the first time I felt happy staying on.
During these three weeks a campaign to apprehend the followers of the Gang of Four started. The Vice-Minister for Culture along with all other key cultural ministers were arrested. Our vice- director, Zhang Ce, and Director Xiao of our academy were also apprehended. I will never forget Zhang Ce's desperate face as he walked out of the academy gate. He had done nothing wrong except be appointed by one of Madame Mao's followers.
Now he was disgraced. Tension and uncertainty floated in the air.
I was determined, however, not to let these events distract me from my practice. I had to concentrate. Zhang Shu and several other teachers stayed back at the academy too and I asked them to coach me.
One day Teacher Xiao suddenly appeared in the studio when I was practising my turns. "How are you, Cunxin?" he asked.
"Fine. I thought you wouldn't be here this holiday?"
"I just thought of something that might help you with your pirouettes," he said. I was still working on five consecutive pirouettes and was having tremendous problems breaking this crucial barrier. Teacher Xiao knew I was going to work on it throughout the holidays, but after less than half an hour of practice, my pirouettes were getting worse and I was getting increasingly frustrated.
"Why am I so stupid! Why can't I do five?" I slumped onto the floor.
"If five pirouettes were that easy to achieve wouldn't every dancer in the world be doing it? Cunxin, have you ever tasted a mango?"
"No." I wondered what he was talking about this time.
"Mango is the most wonderful fruit with the most unique taste! One can only get it in certain parts of the world and only for a short season. I want you to treat pirouettes like a mango. If I gave you a mango now, what would you do with it?" he asked.
"Eat it," I replied.
He laughed. "You deprived boy!"
"Why? Wouldn't you?" I asked.
"Why so impatient? I can understand that you want to taste the mango eagerly but the fun is in the process. First I would admire the unique shape, notice the colour, enjoy the smell. I would feel the weight, cut the skin and savour the fragrance.
Perhaps I would taste the skin and even the nut if I were daring. Now comes the ultimate satisfaction, the pulp. Yes, you need to enjoy every step of the process, taste the many layers of the fruit and enjoy it for its full value. I want you to treat pirouettes in the same way. Be daring! Discover the secret and essence of pirouettes. If you don't go all the way and taste the pulp, someone else will. I dare you!"
Teacher Xiao and his mango triggered my imagination and I challenged myself to go a step further, to experiment with new feelings. I poured my passion into it and I started to enjoy each step of the process.
This was the first time I had three weeks to myself at the academy. I spent most of my time practising, slept late some mornings, skipped breakfast often; I went to Taoranting Park, ran around the lake and watched people practising tai chi. I played Chinese chess and card games with a few other remaining students, and I visited the Chongs. I even had the shower room all to myself for a whole half an hour one day.
The three weeks allowed me time to think about the future and to reflect on the past. Now I laughed at the image of that sad, introverted little boy who'd been so afraid to stand on his toes all day in a pair of pointe shoes. I couldn't believe that now, less than six years later, I was the vice-captain of our class and one of the heads of the Communist Youth Party. Now I pursued excellence in my dancing. I took pride in my own challenges.
The three weeks passed quickly. I enjoyed every minute. I couldn't wait for the second half of the year because I had set myself even higher hurdles now, and I was desperate for the chance to try to overcome them.
The rest of the students returned from the holidays and our study resumed as normal. Later that term a former graduate of the Beijing Dance Academy and a close friend of Teacher Xiao's, Yu Fangmei, returned from Japan and brought back a television, a video player (something so new that we'd never even heard of one before) and some video tapes as gifts to the ballet department. There were videos of Baryshnikov, Nureyev, Margot Fonteyn, even two American-trained dancers including Gelsey Kirkland. At first these videotapes were shown to the academy officials and teachers as "reference" only. Students were not allowed to be exposed to such bad Western influences.
I passed Teacher Xiao in the hallway one day shortly after Yu Fangmei's visit. "I wish you could see Baryshnikov dancing one day!" said Teacher Xiao eagerly.
I had heard a little about this Russian ballet star. He was the ballet world's new phenomenon. "Is he better than Vasiliev?" I asked.
"Yes! Yes, from the technical point of view. I have never witnessed a more spectacular dancer!" Teacher Xiao said, and he shook his head with amazement.
"Is there any way I can get to see those videos?" I asked hopefully.
"We've discussed this already," Teacher Xiao replied. "The officials are worried about capitalist influences. Let me speak to Teacher Zhang again."
A couple of days later, during an afternoon rehearsal, all the senior students were called to a studio on the third floor. I immediately noticed the television and video player sitting on a bench in front of the mirrors.
Zhang Shu waited for the excitement to calm down.
"Baryshnikov is probably the most outstanding ballet dancer in the world today. The sole purpose of watching these tapes is for you to learn from him, to make you understand what today's world dancing standard is. This is not, I repeat, this is not for you to learn about the Western world's lifestyle! By watching Baryshnikov, you will realise how hard you have to work to reach this same standard of dancing. Today, we'll show you Baryshnikov's own production of Nutcracker and The Turning Point.
I was captivated with Baryshnikov. I had never seen anything like Nutcracker before. I couldn't believe how beautiful the music was. Baryshnikov and his partner Gelsey Kirkland danced to a standard far beyond what I thought any dancer was capable of. During the five-minute break between videos, not one of us left the room: everyone was afraid of losing their spot. How could anything rival Nutcracker? I thought. But I was wrong. The video of The Turning Point totally blew me away. I was mesmerised. I couldn't take my eyes off Baryshnikov. My heart leapt with each one of his astonishing jumps and accelerating turns. His movement was graceful, his execution brilliant. For the first time in my life I saw how truly exquisite ballet could be.
From that moment on I loved ballet with a passion. I dared to believe that if Baryshnikov could dance like that, then so could I. I was sixteen years old, but I was impatient. I felt a new sense of urgency. I scrapped my previous standards and set new ones. This was how I could make not only my parents but also the whole of China proud.
Now I raced through my meals so I could get back to the studio to practise my jumps. I woke at five every morning. I strapped sandbags to my ankles and hopped up and down the four flights of stairs in our studio building. I practised my leaps, covering every inch of whichever studio was vacant. I was obsessed. I wanted to fly like the beautiful birds and dragonflies, so I wrote the word "fly" on my ballet shoes to remind myself of my goals. I embarked on endless sit-ups and exercises everywhere I could find a flat surface and a few minutes to spare. People thought I had gone mad but I didn't care. I had only one desire now-to dance like Baryshnikov.
By the end of 1977, my sixth year, after all of my exercises, practice and determination, my jumping ability had improved, but I still wasn't the best. I knew there was a long way to go. It was then that Teacher Xiao started to challenge me with my turns.
I couldn't turn naturally but my newfound inspiration with my jumps made me work harder and harder. I set impossible goals for myself. One night I had an idea. When everybody was asleep I went to the studio, with a candle and a box of matches. I put the lighted candle at one end of the studio and started to practise my turns. The candle threw only a faint light in front of me. It was hard, but I thought if I could turn in the dark, then turning in the light would be easy. I couldn't take the risk of turning the light on, of my teachers catching me staying up so late, but I continued, night after night, relentlessly. By the end of the term I had left shallow indentations in the studio floor where I had endlessly, repeatedly, turned.
Many people were very surprised to see my rapid improvement, but not Teacher Xiao. One night, he did catch me practising my turns. It was way past lights-out time and I thought he would be very angry but instead he said he wasn't surprised and he kept my night-time practice sessions a secret between us.
I realised too, around the same time, that I couldn't do a perfect split either and knowing the importance of being able to have that flexibility I worked hard on my hamstrings. I once fell asleep in bed in the split position and when I woke I had to be helped up by my classmates because I couldn't feel my legs at all. One of the teachers told me then that I had big thighs and that I would never do principal roles with thighs like mine. I was depressed for so long about this. I even wrapped plastic around my thighs so they would sweat and become thinner.
By now I was practising in those studios five times a day compared to the usual once-a-day routine of the other students. I practised when I first got up. I practised before class, at nap time, at afternoon rehearsals and after dinner just before bedtime. When I ran out of dry T-shirts, I would practise bare-chested. Even my ballet shoes would be soaking with sweat. "I thought I worked hard as a student-I practised three times a day, but five times is unheard of!" Teacher Xiao said, amazed. Then, more seriously: "Please look after your health. I want to see you last the distance."
By this time, Mao's chosen successor Hua Guofeng was under house arrest and Deng Xiaoping became the leader of China. I felt a dramatic change of attitude within the Beijing Dance Academy. Previously, Deng Xiaoping had been denounced for his slogan about the cat: but now this idea came back in full force. He didn't care which system China used as long as it worked for China.
We had a new academy director too, Song Jingqing, who decided that our six-year course of study would be extended for another year. We wouldn't graduate now until February of 1979. We'd wasted too much time, she said, studying politics instead of dance. Director Song believed that another year was needed to concentrate on the pursuit of technical excellence alone.
So even by the beginning of 1978 I could feel the real impact of Deng Xiaoping's reforms. He was the first person who had dared to say that to follow Mao's every word was wrong and that the political campaigns and studies must be stopped. Some Communist Party members were sceptical and so were many others. The Cultural Revolution had left such horrifying memories. Why should they believe new policies now? China was unsure, and too numb to act quickly.
It was during our last year at the academy that we began to openly practise our art form without being accused of being an unbalanced student. Political pressure waned. Selected Western books, films and performing groups began to appear in China. Getting hold of a foreign book or watching a foreign "coloured film" soon became an obsession. We were desperate for Western knowledge. If we came across a book with sex scenes in it we'd secretly copy it, every word by hand, under our blankets, in torchlight, and pass the copies around. How thirsty we were for foreign literature and how fascinated we had become about the Western world!
Deng Xiaoping's new policy created a breath of fresh air within our academy but it was strangely foreign at first. The required bi-weekly Communist Youth Party meetings were reduced to once a month and no one questioned it. My conflict between attending meetings and practising ballet was resolved. The Communist Party's pursuit of new membership slowed and political party leaders no longer had the same influence. The pursuit of material things, that capitalist tumour, began to take on a different meaning. Maybe it was because the Beijing Dance Academy was one of Madame Mao's strongholds and her influence was so deep for so long, but it took a while before we started to embrace Deng's new policies wholeheartedly. For me, however, this extra year of study turned out to be my best yet. We started to watch some old Russian ballet films such as The Stone Flower, Swan Lake and Spartacus. We saw famous ballet stars like Galina Ulanova, Maya Plisetskaya and of course Vladimir Vasiliev. We were even allowed to watch that famous Russian defector Rudolf Nureyev dancing with one of the Western world's most respected ballerinas Margot
Fonteyn. Images of these extraordinary, inspiring dancers stayed in my mind for many, many weeks.
It was around this time, when reading Western ballet books was no longer a crime, that I asked Teacher Xiao if he had been the person who had left that ballet book under my mat in the third year.
"Did you like it?" he smiled enthusiastically.
"Thank you," I nodded and I meant it from the bottom of my heart.
Late 1978. Just months away from graduation. On a Saturday night in the biggest dance studio on the fourth floor our teachers organised a party and all the senior students were invited.
It was no ordinary party. It was a waltz party. There were colourful clothes, long dresses, people there I'd never met before, even a few officials from the Ministry of Culture. And there was a strange round silver thing which looked like a landmine, a ball turning slowly from the ceiling and spinning out hundreds of different colours and shapes from the lights. It was wonderful! We were totally entranced. Dancers led their partners elegantly across the floor. Teacher Xiao was the star and many ladies were immediately taken with his style.
After watching the dancing for a while I gathered enough courage to ask a teacher to show me how to waltz. She explained the basic foot movements, and that male dancers should lead, but it was impossible to avoid stepping on her feet! I kept treading on her toes and apologising profusely.
I might have been hopeless in my first waltz but I enjoyed it enormously. It was the first time I had heard such beautiful, romantic music. This never would have been possible under Madame Mao's directorship, I thought. Under Madame Mao any kind of waltz would have been considered a corrupt influence and would have been banned along with every other form of Western filth. But now things were different. Such freedom was refreshing, unique.
Other things changed too. We began to watch more and more foreign films. We would find any possible way to get into the heavily guarded theatres where these "coloured films" were shown. Fake theatre tickets were made. Wigs and moustaches were stolen from the costume shops of the academy. Once we got into the theatre we would find every possible way of staying there for the next screening. We would hide behind the window curtains, behind the doors, behind the screen on the stage, even in the toilets. Anything to get to see those films. Years of isolation from Western culture and suppressed sexual freedom had found their outlet.
One day the Bandit meticulously glued the torn halves of some used theatre tickets together. We whitened our hair and slipped into the theatre with our fake tickets without being detected. The place was packed with people, crammed to both sides, and it was dingy and dark. The Bandit and I sneaked to the centre and sat in the aisle. We didn't have rehearsal until three, plenty of time to finish the movie and get back. But neither of us had a watch. "Lujun," I whispered. "How will we know when it's time to go?"
"Don't worry, I have an internal clock," he said confidently.
I was going to say more but the movie had started. It was an American movie about a love triangle. The translated Chinese title was Hurt Too Much To Say Goodbye. Two inept translators, a man and a woman, provided mediocre translation over a pair of microphones but they often forgot to translate and we, the frustrated audience, were left to guess for ourselves most of the time.
I couldn't believe the colourful clothes the women wore in these movies. So different to how Chinese women dressed. I did wonder if the high-heeled shoes were comfortable though. They looked just as bad as the pointe shoes.
Some of the actresses were breathtakingly beautiful but they all looked so much alike. It was in this movie that I witnessed a kiss for the very first time. My heart raced, my blood boiled when I saw that kiss. I wondered what it would be like-really kissing someone.
The Bandit's internal clock didn't work. By the time the movie had finished we were late for our rehearsal and we ran as fast as we could back to the academy and quickly changed our clothes.
As we approached the studio I heard Teacher Xiao's voice. My heart immediately sank. Teacher Xiao was the last person I wanted to offend.
Teacher Xiao turned and looked at us and, without changing his expression, went on coaching the other students. I was embarrassed beyond description. I glanced furiously at the Bandit: I wanted to pull his internal clock out and smash it to pieces.
"Cunxin, come to my office after your next break," Teacher Xiao said at the end of the rehearsal.
I spent the whole of the next rehearsal thinking about what I should say to Teacher Xiao. If I told him the truth he would be thoroughly disappointed with my lack of discipline. I still hadn't decided what to say when I knocked on his office door.
Teacher Xiao got straight to the point. "Why were you late?"
"I went to a movie," I stuttered. I had to tell him the truth.
"I had a feeling you had gone to a movie, but although you have told me the truth it doesn't take any of my disappointment away."
"I'm sorry, Teacher Xiao. I thought I would be able to make it back in time for the rehearsal but I didn't realise it was so late. I promise it won't happen again."
He looked at me intently for a few moments. "Cunxin, this wouldn't have surprised me if it had been any other student. But I am extremely surprised and disappointed that it was you! I don't question your dedication but I do question your judgement. I don't care if you watch a hundred movies in your spare time but classes and rehearsals are your learning opportunities."
I nodded. I knew I was unquestionably in the wrong.
Then in a different tone Teacher Xiao asked, "What was the movie?"
"A coloured film."
"What's the name?" he asked.
"Something like Hurt Too Much to Say Goodbye," I replied and lowered my head.
"Any scenes without clothes?" he asked seriously.
"No, only kisses," I replied.
"Okay, off you go." He shook his head as he spoke but I could see a subtle smile. I was glad I was honest with him. I could never have lied to him. Not to Teacher Xiao.
"Coloured" movies weren't the only distraction in those last few months. I was besotted with a girl from Shanghai called Her Junfang as well. We would often pass secret adoring looks to each other and when she acknowledged my gaze my heart would race at a thousand miles an hour.
One night we secretly met in a dark studio. I could sense her unease. I felt my face burning. The air seemed so thick that I found it hard to breathe. We would be expelled if the teachers discovered us.
"How was your holiday?" I whispered.
"Fine, how was yours?"
"Good. I brought you some sorghum sweets," I replied.
"Thank you, I like them. I brought you some Shanghai cakes."
We edged closer to each other. Suddenly we heard the door of Zhang Shu's office open and we froze. My heart was suspended in the air.
To our great relief his footsteps went in the opposite direction. We only had a few minutes to get away, so we nervously exchanged our gifts and quickly tiptoed out of the studio.
When I finally sat on the edge of my bed in the dark with Her Junfang's gift in my hands, my heart was still pitching like a rough sea. I hated myself for being such a coward, for not holding her when I had the chance. I couldn't believe that I had forgotten all the passionate words I had rehearsed in my mind before our meeting. And we never had the opportunity to get close to each other again.
About the same time the Bandit confided in me about his own passionate love for a classmate of his, Zhou Xiaoying. But in his efforts to pursue her he had somehow paid more attention to her girlfriend instead and she had fallen for him. We tried to guess each girl's feelings but after more than an hour of heated debate we got nowhere.
"I think a face-to-face talk would be better. That way she can see and feel your emotions and sincerity," I said.
"She would never agree to meet with me alone! She's too shy!" He shook his head hopelessly. "I love her with all my heart. My love for her is the purest thing on earth. I wish I could cut open my heart to show her how sincere and pure it is!"
I had no idea the Bandit loved Zhou Xiaoying that much.
"Can you speak to her for me?" he asked suddenly.
"Are you crazy?"
"Please, I beg you! If I lose her I will kill myself!" he said.
I saw tears in his eyes. "Okay, I will speak to her," I heard myself saying.
But by the next day the Bandit had changed his mind. "She will think that I am gutless having you represent me. And your political career would be in trouble if anyone found out. No, I can't let this happen," he said. Instead he'd decided to write a blood letter.
A couple of days later he rushed up to me and I immediately noticed one of his fingers wrapped in a white bandage. "You did write her a blood letter, didn't you?" I asked.
"I did!" he replied with excitement. "I think it will show my heart and passion better. It's all up to fate now."
But Zhou Xiaoying never replied to that blood letter. Both Zhou Xiaoying and her friend threw hateful looks at the Bandit whenever they met, as though he had betrayed both of them. He was devastated. I knew how much he loved her but there was nothing I could do to help. He continued to pursue her for several more years, to no avail.
By now, with the exception of the Sundays I spent with the Chongs, I used almost every spare moment to practise. My diaries were full of notes about dancing which I wrote after every practice class. I learned more in that one year than in the previous six years combined.
Around the time when we were preparing for our graduation the London Festival Ballet came to perform in China, one of the first professional companies allowed to perform under Deng Xiaoping's "open-door policy". They came to perform with us at our academy theatre and everyone talked about the "big-nosed people", the foreigners.
I had such problems trying to distinguish one big-nosed person from another. They all looked alike, whether they were in the movies or in dance videotapes or there in person. I had to remember what clothes they wore to differentiate them. If they suddenly changed costume between scenes I would be totally lost. And they seemed to speak so fast, without any commas or stops. One of the foreigners who came was an eighteen-year-old dancer called Mary McKendry and she watched me dance the "Three Little Boys Dance".
The Festival Ballet performed Giselle, and two mixed programs, including Harald Lander's famed Etude. I loved Giselle and by now we didn't have to analyse its political content. I wished I could watch this kind of dancing every day: it was astonishingly expansive and the big-nosed dancers' artistic interpretations and discipline quickly gained our respect. Etude too was one of the most technically challenging ballets I had seen-I longed to perform it, to learn more about Western culture, to work with these great choreographers.
Our graduation exam preparations went on for over three months and everyone worked very hard. Our final average grades would determine which dance company we'd get into. The Central Ballet of China would select only the top graduates. Others would be sent to cities far away or to provincial song and dance troupes.
A month before our final exam Teacher Xiao came to me and said,
"Some teachers say I have allowed you to do too many solos in your exam. Most students will do one or two, only one student is doing three. I think six might be too much for you. I don't want to burn you out," he said.
"No, I want to do all six!"
"Are you sure? Because once I hand my submission to Zhang Shu it will be very hard to change."
"Yes, I'm sure I can do it," I replied confidently.
He thought for a moment. "All right, but just remember, try to find the secret of doing every step as easily and effortlessly as possible. That is what dancing is all about."
To prepare six solos for my graduation exam was difficult but I thought of what Teacher Xiao had said and I went into every detail of every step, trying to taste the pulp of the mango. Each solo required a different technical and artistic approach. The first was from one of Madame Mao's model ballets, The White- haired Girl, and I was to dance with an imaginary grenade in my hand, ducking enemy bullets with fast, crisp movements. I worked hard on my two political solos but my real passion and love was for the Western classical solos. In those, however, I had such problems with a double tour en l'air and to achieve good height as well as complete the two turns down to kneeling position in the flash of an eye was an enormous challenge. My right knee was grazed and bleeding from constant landings and often I would pull splinters from my skin. I also developed painful shin-splints from trying to perfect the double cabriole in Giselle. Images of Baryshnikov, Nureyev and Vasiliev continually inspired me. But with this double cabriole all my previous approaches failed. I wasn't even tasting the skin of the mango. You have to work smarter, you have to get to the delicious pulp, I kept telling myself.
A few days before the exam I made the breakthrough. I had to dramatically change my weight distribution in the air and bend my body backwards as far as my flexibility allowed. When I finally got it right the feeling was sensational.
In the end I did perform all six of my solos and I enjoyed every step I danced. After seven years at the academy I even mastered eight consecutive pirouettes, occasionally ten. And now here I was, one among the last generation of Mao's dancers about to graduate.
For our graduation performance our academy wanted to revive Swan Lake for the first time since the Cultural Revolution. It was a difficult task-all the records on Western ballets, including Swan Lake, had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. It was one thing to put together just one solo from a ballet like Giselle but quite another to reproduce a full-length ballet.
Teachers had to recollect details from past performances of many years ago, but miraculously this collaboration worked and resulted in the complete ballet being produced. I was thrilled to be chosen as third cast for Prince Siegfried. I concentrated on nothing but my rehearsals. I worked on my weaknesses and focused on my goals and, by the time the teacher in charge of the rehearsals finally decided who was to dance the leading role on the opening night, I had been chosen as first cast.
As I rehearsed my role as Siegfried I asked my friend Liu Fengtian what he thought of my portrayal of the prince. He said my dancing was good, but I didn't look Western enough. I looked like a peasant boy pretending to be a prince. I knew what he said was true. Deep down I knew I had no idea how I should portray him. I had no problem with the dance steps but I knew nothing of European royalty. Even my teachers didn't know how a prince would carry himself. We knew only about our comrades and our political causes, but what a prince represented was in direct conflict with the values of communism.
In desperation I watched a few old Russian films so I could study a prince's walk, the way he held his arms and hands and how he looked at people. I even permed my straight hair (the costume department took care of that) so I could make myself look and feel more like a prince. But how could a Chinese peasant boy understand a Western prince's arrogance, his passion and his love? Our culture had always taught us to hide our emotions.
I danced that opening night of Swan Lake at the Beijing Exhibition Hall. The performance went well. But I couldn't get rid of the peasant prince image and I was not satisfied. My aim was to eventually be as good a prince as even the Western dancers. But I knew that would have to come from within. I knew that only experience and maturity would determine whether I could be that handsome prince and not just a poor peasant boy acting out a role.
Then, soon after that performance, an event occurred that would change my life for ever.
Officials from the Ministry of Culture informed us that a fine choreographer and brilliant teacher, the artistic director of the Houston Ballet, was to teach two master classes at our academy. He was part of the first cultural delegation from America ever to visit communist China. The choreographer's name was Ben Stevenson.
Twenty students, including me, were selected to attend Ben Stevenson's classes. Ben seemed to enjoy teaching at our academy and I was exhilarated with his approach. Compared to our restrictive training, his seemed so much easier and freer. He approached dance mainly from the artistic aspect, emphasising relaxation and fluidity of movement rather than strict technique. I found him fascinating and inspiring and my body felt good while I performed in his classes.
After the second class, Ben offered our academy two scholarships for his annual summer school at the Houston Ballet Academy in Texas. It was incredible, unbelievable news! The chance to leave China, to see the West! Nobody believed that this could be true. But Ben was told that he couldn't choose the students himself. The academy would nominate who would go: we would have to wait and see.
Ben gave the invitation letter to the academy officials in March and he expected the students to be in Houston by July.
Then the two students were chosen. One was a boy called Zhang Weiqiang. The other was me.
We were ecstatic. So was the whole school. It was too impossible to be true! How could I be going to America? How could I?
The academy officials thought it would be difficult for us to obtain our passports and visas that quickly, so they didn't pursue the matter seriously until they received a phone call from the Ministry of Culture a few weeks later. None of them knew then that Ben Stevenson had powerful friends in America. One was George Bush who had just finished serving as the first US envoy to China after President Richard Nixon's visit in 1972. And his wife Barbara Bush was a trustee of the Houston Ballet. Both were serious balletomanes and both were well respected by the Chinese government. George Bush had formed a good relationship with Deng Xiaoping: his political connections would no doubt ensure the acceptance of this scholarship invitation. And it did. Zhang Weiqiang and I were granted permission from the Ministry of Culture to go to Houston very quickly indeed.
Zhang Weiqiang and I went to the Beijing Passport Bureau as soon as we possibly could. The police handed us two application forms and we were told to write down both our Chinese and English names. Zhang and I looked at each other. We didn't have any English names.
"Write your name in pinyin then," the policeman said.
Pinyin was invented by the Chinese government to help foreigners pronounce Chinese words. But it was based on Latin pronunciation, not English, and I didn't have a clue how to write my name that way. So I just put my family name first, as usual in China, and wrote "Li Cunxin" on my application form.
"Is this your real birth date?" the police officer asked when he read my completed forms.
I had written 10 January 1961. "Yes. What do you mean `real`?" I asked.
"Is it your Chinese calendar birthday or the official calendar birthday?" he asked.
My family had always used the Chinese calendar, never the official calendar. It had never occurred to me that government agencies used the same calendar as the rest of the world.
"No good," the police officer said when I told him. "We need the official calendar. You'll have to go and find out before we can issue you a passport."
But that date was the only birthday I knew. My parents wouldn't know either, because most babies in the countryside were delivered at home and local records would state the Chinese calendar date only. Peasants never used the official calendar for anything. It wasn't until much later that I discovered my official birthday was set as 26 January.
Zhang knew his official birth date though. His application was fine.
I began to panic. I was nearly in tears. I had to get my passport and visa in time for the summer school in Houston. I couldn't miss this opportunity! I begged the police officer, "Please, Comrade. Who would care when my exact birthday is? I don't have enough time to find out. I will miss this opportunity to serve our country!"
He hesitated then. "All right," he said eventually and I sank with relief.
Our visas were approved by the American consulate in Beijing in a matter of days. We were overwhelmed with excitement. But once the euphoria faded away, panic struck. Zhang and I could speak no English. How would we ever understand the Americans?
An English tutor gave us a crash course for a few days, starting with the English alphabet and ending with simple phrases such as yes, no, good morning, hello and goodbye. I used Chinese words to help me pronounce the English words, like I'd done to learn the French ballet terms, but they sounded ridiculously Chinglish and I really had no idea how I would make myself understood.
We also had to go into the Ministry of Culture to be briefed by the officials. The head of the Educational Bureau, Wang Zicheng, met us briefly. He spoke with a gentle, persuasive voice. "Work hard while you're there, show your American hosts how hard Chinese people work. Don't forget that you're representing China and the Chinese people. Treasure this opportunity. Bring back knowledge. Resist capitalist influences and make sure you exercise your communist judgement." He shook our hands and left but his assistant continued to lecture us. "Be polite at all times. If you don't understand what people are saying, just say "yes" and smile. Never say "no". Never. "No" is a negative word. People might be offended." She too told us not to let filthy Western influences into our pure communist minds. Everything we did or said would represent China and the Chinese people.
She then took us into a room which contained a few racks of used Western-style suits and ties. She said they had a small supply mainly used for government delegations going to foreign countries. We had never worn a suit before, only Mao's jackets, but we were told to borrow a suit each from the ministry. We tried quite a few on but all were too big for our skinny bodies. We ended up choosing the smallest suits but the shoulders still came halfway down our arms and we had to fold the sleeves up. We also borrowed two ties and a suitcase each.
Zhang and I, to our utter astonishment, soon became a news item in China. We were the first official exchange artists between China and America since Chairman Mao took over power in 1949.
I telephoned my parents for the first time since leaving home all those years ago. I rang from Director Song's office. My second brother Cunyuan came to the commune phone first. "Ni hao, Erga!" I screamed excitedly into the phone.
"Ni hao, Cunxin! What's wrong?" he asked, sounding concerned. Something dreadful must surely have happened for me to use a telephone.
"Nothing! I am going to America for six weeks!" I replied.
There was silence. "Really? You're joking," he said.
"No! I'm not joking. I am going to America with another student," I replied.
"My brother is going to America!" he screamed loudly to the people in the commune office. I could hear a roar of cheers.
"I can't believe this!" he continued. " America! I heard everyone there carries guns. If they don't like you they'll just shoot you. And everyone has cars. Niang is here…"
"Jing Hao!" my niang called.
"Niang, how are you?" I asked. I was so happy to hear her voice.
"I'm fine. Are you really going to America?" she asked breathlessly.
"Yes, I'll be leaving in a few days."
"Ah! Why didn't you tell us earlier? We could send you some apples and dried shrimps to take on the road," she said.
"I am going on a plane. I was told no food is allowed on the airplanes."
"On the airplane? Wo de tian na! How unthinkable! My son is going to fly on the airplane!" I heard her say to the people in the office and there were more cheers.
"Ask him how many hours will it take to get to America?" I heard one of the commune leaders ask.
"Tell that Uncle, I was told that I have to fly to Tokyo first, the capital of Japan, and then it will be something like twenty hours to America."
"Please be careful. Stay away from the evil people in America. Don't they kill coloured people there?" my niang asked, sounding worried.
"I'm going with another student. We'll look after each other. I've also met the American dance teacher from Houston. His name is Ben. He seems nice."
"Just be careful. These foreigners are wild! They are different from us. Don't trust them."
I wasn't surprised by my family's concerns about America. For so many years we had been told that the West, especially America, was evil. We'd heard of nothing but the mistreatment of black people, the violence on the streets, the use of firearms. Even I, who had read a few books about America since the downfall of the Gang of Four and didn't totally believe what I had learnt in the past, was still suspicious and apprehensive.
I could never have imagined, however, that this conversation with my niang and Cunyuan was the last one I would have with them for many long years.
In the last few days before we were due to leave, the whole academy became excited for us. Teachers and classmates constantly congratulated us. We were called into Director Song's office once again. She was all smiles. She gave us the familiar lecture, told us to study hard, to show the Americans our work ethic. Never to lose face for our great nation. Never to allow Western influences to penetrate our staunch communist values.
Our day of departure finally arrived. That morning, eight of my friends including the Bandit, Chong Xiongjun and my violinist friend Liu Fengtian, went out to a nearby café and brought back some pig's head meat, some red sausages, pickled vegetables, watermelon and a few jugs of warm beer. They had to smuggle the beer into the academy: we would be in trouble if we were found out by the teachers. For two hours we would enjoy our food together, our companionship, before the academy's jeep took us to the airport. We speculated about what America would be like. I promised I would tell them everything when I returned. "Don't you let a big-nosed girl kidnap you over there!" said the Bandit. How he wished that he was allowed to go to the airport with me.
When it was time for Zhang and me to leave, our friends fought over carrying our luggage to the jeep and in the commotion the Bandit quietly shuffled something into my hand. "Read it on the plane," he whispered.
I quickly slipped the paper into my pocket. Before we stepped into the jeep, our friends, teachers, everyone, came forward to shake our hands. Teacher Xiao was very emotional. "Yi lu ping an!" He wished me a safe trip and shook both of my hands hard. "Cunxin! Cunxin! I know you will make China proud! Bring back new knowledge! I can't wait to share all your discoveries when you return!"
The last to say goodbye was the Bandit. Tears filled his eyes and he couldn't speak a single word.
"Six weeks will disappear before you know it!" I said to him.
As the jeep pulled away from our academy buildings, the last thing I saw was the Bandit's tear-stained face.
I'd never been to an airport before, except the abandoned military airport near our village where I'd tried to dig up half- burnt coal as a small boy. But this Beijing Airport was not what I had expected at all. It was strangely quiet compared to the hustle and bustle of Beijing Station. Everything was orderly.
We were hours too early and the check-in counter wasn't even open, so Zhang Shu, the head of our ballet department who was accompanying us, took us to a little canteen and bought us each a Coca-Cola. We'd heard all about Coca-Cola-the most successful invention of the Western world. We couldn't believe we were about to taste some. I took a big mouthful and swallowed it eagerly. Too eagerly. I nearly choked with all the fizz. So did Zhang Weiqiang. We looked at each other and laughed. Our first Western experience, an American icon, and I didn't like it at all.
We said goodbye to Teacher Zhang before we checked through immigration. Zhang Weiqiang and I were now on our own. We sat on the bench in the waiting room and looked at each other. We hadn't a clue what to do. We looked out the window towards the huge airplane with "China Airlines" written on it. I had never seen a plane so close. It was gigantic. It was overwhelming. How could a heavy thing like that ever get off the ground?
When the time came for us to board, several uniformed airline people escorted us downstairs to a bus which took us out to the plane. As we moved closer the plane became bigger and bigger and bigger. I felt like a tiny insect.
We walked up the steps and as we entered the plane a pleasant cool air seemed to cover me completely. I liked it but I wondered where on earth it was coming from. And I couldn't believe how big the inside of the plane was! Rows and rows and rows of colourful seats.
Eventually we found our seats and waited nervously for something to happen. When it did, I nearly suffocated with excitement. I looked out the window. I saw the accelerating engines. My heart was pounding. My stomach churned-I didn't know whether to laugh or to scream. I could never have imagined this! My heartbeat raced faster and faster, my excitement flew higher than the clouds! Here I was, leaving behind our great nation of communists with its steadfast beliefs and ideology forever supporting us. I felt unbelievably proud.
Our plane levelled out and once I was over the shock of the take- off I began to explore and investigate everything I could. Movies to watch! Music to listen to! And a hostess to serve us beautiful meals: rice with fish, Japanese noodles. The hostess asked us what kind of drinks we would like. I chose something called Sprite this time.
We were treated like royalty. I felt bad just sitting there being waited on and letting someone else do all the work. What would my niang say? So I offered to help the hostess wash the plates. She just looked at me with a very strange expression. "No, thank you," she said.
This must be a millet dream, I thought. Too good to be true. But I pinched myself and it hurt. I was like an ant in a hot wok. I couldn't stay still for a minute. I went through the contents of the seat pocket in front of me and found a little bag which contained unbelievable luxuries: a miniature toothbrush, toothpaste, a pair of socks and eye covers for sleeping. Zhang and I even kept the safety card as a souvenir. It had a picture of the entire plane on it! What would my niang and her sewing circle think of this! How could they even begin to imagine it?
I looked around and noticed that most of the passengers on the plane seemed to be Chinese, government officials most likely. Many of them gave us rather surprised looks, no doubt wondering how two young students could be so privileged to be flying overseas. Very few government officials were allowed overseas, let alone students like us.
With all the excitement of the take-off I had forgotten about the Bandit's note. I opened the white envelope he had given me and a small piece of paper slipped out. It was a poem:
As blood brothers, the departure of one will never wane the love in our hearts. Not fortune or money, but only the pursuit of innocence and honour, will strengthen the love in our hearts.
I thought of the past seven years and our hard and lonely life at the academy. Without the Bandit and his friendship, my life there would have been unbearable.
The three-hour flight to Tokyo went by very quickly. We were told we had to get off the plane for a couple of hours at Tokyo Airport. I couldn't believe we had travelled so far in only three short hours. But once again Zhang and I didn't know what to do. We were too afraid to leave the gate area in case we missed our flight, so we just wandered around or stood together until it was time to board. I happened to glance up at a coffee-stand's price list and noticed that a cup of coffee cost US$3.00. I did a quick calculation. That was nearly half a month's salary for my dia! Perhaps I had got the numbers wrong. I did the sum again. No, that was right. I could only look at the list in total astonishment.
This time we boarded a Northwest Airlines plane and walked directly onto it through a sort of tunnel without having to walk up any steps at all. This plane was even bigger than the first. Much bigger. This was something called a jumbo jet, we were told. It was awesome. There were endless rows of seats and we were, amazingly, ushered to an upper deck. Blankets and pillows were neatly placed on the seats and there were more gift bags and more flight safety cards for us to keep as souvenirs. There were even magazines which we couldn't read but we did look at the pictures. A beautiful car was splashed across two pages with $35 written below it. Perhaps this was how much it would cost the Americans to buy this magnificent car, Zhang and I pondered.
This time over half of the passengers in our cabin were foreigners. I noticed a strong smell of perfume from some of the women and I couldn't quite get used to it. The combination of watermelon and beer at my farewell party caused me a great many trips to the toilet too. I thought the hostess must have thought something was wrong with this Chinese boy who kept going to the toilet all the time.
It was impossible for me to believe that I was actually sitting on this gigantic airplane on my way to the West. I looked down at the thick beautiful clouds and thought I was in the ninth heaven.
I was so excited, but neither Zhang nor I had a clue about what was waiting for us.
Our plane began to descend through thick cloud. We were about to land in Chicago. All of a sudden I remembered those few pages from the book about the steel tycoon in Chicago, the book I'd found on the street in our commune, years ago now, the one that had stirred up such curiosity in my heart and mind. I longed to see if the little knowledge I had learnt from that book was true about this Paper Tiger country.
Zhang and I got off the plane and collected our luggage. Then we just stood there in our oversized suits and looked around. We didn't know anyone except Ben Stevenson. How would we recognise the person who was supposed to meet us?
People around us collected their luggage, came and went, while we became more and more nervous. What if nobody showed up?
Suddenly I saw some people standing behind some glass windows on a second floor, and there was Ben, jumping up and down like a yo- yo, trying to catch our attention, with a card with my name written on it in Chinese. Zhang and I were overjoyed. Ben came to meet us just outside Immigration.
"Ni hao," he said, one of the few Chinese phrases he knew. "Hello," I replied, one of the few English words I knew.
Ben asked us some questions and I tried to use the words from my dictionary to show him how ecstatic I was, but Ben was just happy to share our excitement with nods and smiles and when we couldn't understand his words we just smiled more and said yes. My dictionary became my best friend from then on, but I had at least learned some expressions already: "Oh dear me" and "Upon my soul". They'd be very useful, I thought. I also knew a few propaganda words and some communist expressions which might come in handy. And although my English was not good, Zhang's was even worse and I ended up translating for him as well.
We boarded a flight to Houston and with Ben by our sides we began to relax. As we flew over the American landscape I noticed how green it was and that it was neatly divided into squares by straight roads and streets. We saw many little square patches of blue too. Ben said they were swimming pools-he mimed swimming and drowning motions with his arms. He made us laugh but I could hardly believe there could be so many swimming pools in just one area. The contrast with the bareness of China was so amazing that I started to wonder once again about America 's prosperity and the stories we'd been told.
When we arrived at Houston Airport we were met by Clare Duncan, head of the Houston Ballet Academy, and two Houston Ballet board members: Preston Frazier, a very tall man who spoke softly, and Richard Holley, a medium-sized man who spoke loudly. They handed Zhang and me a small bunch of native Texas flowers and a cowboy hat each. Zhang and I hesitated. We didn't know whether to accept these gifts or not-we were suspicious. We simply didn't trust these Americans. But I was the assigned leader of the two of us, because my political standing was higher than Zhang's, so eventually I told Zhang to accept the gifts. It was the first time anyone had ever given me fresh flowers.
The Americans' happy smiles also made us nervous. This is not what it is supposed to be like. Something is wrong here. They are our enemies. Behind their smiling faces will be a hidden agenda. I'll find out what it is soon, I said to myself.
Like the inside of the plane, the airport was surprisingly cool. I thought we had been given the wrong information about Houston 's hot weather and I was thankful we had our jackets on. But the pleasurably cool air didn't last long. As soon as we walked outside an intense and humid heat, like a hot wet blanket, overwhelmed us. I found it hard to breathe. Then one of the ballet board members, a woman Ben introduced as Betty Lou Bayless, ushered us into her car and it was cool in there too. Betty Lou was an elegant, softly spoken lady with a kind face. Her car was so comfortable, so smooth. This was the first time I had ever been in a car. Such luxury could only be enjoyed by government officials in China and I felt incredibly privileged. I could hardly contain the excitement in my heart.
When we passed downtown Houston and saw all the modern office buildings and the spectacular skyline I thought to myself, if Houston looks this prosperous, what would New York and Chicago be like? Nothing I had seen so far matched the dark, decaying, depressing picture of America that the Chinese government had painted in my mind. Instead I saw high-rise buildings, wide clean streets, a green and orderly environment. I knew our foreign hosts could maybe fake their behaviour, but they simply couldn't have built these buildings just to impress us. I was confused. Someone had lied to us about America being the poorest nation in the world and China being the richest nation. It seemed to be the opposite. But still I was confident I would eventually find many things about America that I could hate.
We arrived at a large house in a fenced complex with a security gate and guards. Zhang and I were ushered through a big sliding glass door-and my jaw dropped…
I saw a huge room, beautiful beyond belief, with pastel colours, sofas and matching chairs. And mirrors, giant mirrors. There was carpet too-beige, soft and bouncy. To the left I saw a kitchen- and my jaw dropped even lower. A refrigerator stood against the wall, as tall as me and four times as wide. And an electric stove and two sinks. And there seemed to be many other things-gadgets whose purpose I couldn't even imagine. The kitchen was simply enormous. So many wooden cabinets on the walls and under the counter. Has the Western world gone mad with all this? Did they have a robot toilet to wipe their bottoms? I couldn't help myself from being constantly shocked. Everything was new. Even the air smelt new.
Ben showed us around and led us upstairs to our bedroom, which had two single beds in it, a small walk-in closet and the same luxurious carpet as downstairs. There was a chest of drawers and small tables with lamps beside each bed. It even had its own bathroom with a human-sized bathtub! I had never used a bathtub before. Couldn't be more beautiful than a shower. Couldn't be.
That first night in America we were taken to a local Chinese restaurant called "The Mandarin". A Chinese lady greeted us at the door with rather broken Chinese. She wore a long black silk gown and she had a heavily made-up face. I thought she looked more like a Beijing Opera singer, but she smelled so strong! She must have poured a whole bottle of perfume over herself.
The restaurant was very crowded but we were taken to our own private room. Clare Duncan and the two gentlemen we had met at the airport, the quiet Preston and the loud Richard, were there too, as well as two other friends of Ben's, Jack and Marcia. Both Ben and Richard joked throughout the night and made everyone laugh. But Zhang and I knew we were facing six possible class enemies here. We didn't know what attitude we should have towards these people. If this were China they would have been killed or jailed under Mao's regime simply because of their wealth. But here they were, relaxed, joking and laughing like they were having the time of their lives.
We had a couple of tasty Tsingtao beers from my home town, the first time I had ever had one, and as the evening progressed we gradually let our guard down just a little and joined in the fun. Ben ordered many delicious dishes, including Peking Duck. I'd never had Peking Duck before either, and it just melted in my mouth. Here we were, having two Chinese icons right here in America. No one is going to believe me back home, I thought. I noticed too that these Westerners called Beijing " Peking " all the time-even that seemed odd.
Many courses later, Ben asked us if we were still hungry. We didn't understand what he was saying, but we remembered that we had to keep smiling and saying, "Yes, yes!" just as the Chinese officials had told us. But more and more food kept arriving. Eventually I just held my head and shouted, "Oh dear me!" and everyone burst into roars of laughter.
In desperation I went to the Chinese lady who owned the restaurant. "Can you please tell Ben to stop ordering any more food? Our stomachs will simply burst!"
"But he hasn't even ordered dessert yet," she said.
"What dessert?"
"Sweet dessert. Don't you have them after dinner in China? American people love their dessert," she replied.
I'd never heard of such a thing called dessert.
By the end of the evening we had so much leftover food on the table I asked Ben if we could take it home. I couldn't bear the waste. I thought of all the starvation in China. But everyone that night seemed to admire our slimness and I couldn't understand why. In China being thin was a symbol of poverty and being fat meant you had money to buy good food. Later I discovered that many people in America went to expensive diet clinics to lose weight. I could easily help them, I thought, just by sending people to China and feeding them those dried yams for a while.
When we got back to Ben's place that night I had my first bath. The water soaked my body and soothed my every nerve. I even let the water come over my face and I blew bubbles like a child. It was incredible. I couldn't decide whether I liked the shower or the bath better. The bed was a different matter though. The soft bouncy mattress was very uncomfortable!
When I woke up next morning I had to pinch myself to make sure that everything was real. When I heard Ben's voice downstairs calling us for breakfast, I knew it was true. I was in America. For six whole weeks.
Ben had already cooked us some bacon and eggs. "Would you like some English muffins?" he asked.
Zhang and I exchanged horrified looks. "No, thank you!" we replied quickly. What a terrible thing for Ben to offer us for breakfast, I thought to myself.
This time Ben was puzzled. "What's wrong?" With the help of my dictionary, I replied. "Muffin meaning horse shit in Chinese."
Ben roared with laughter. "First `Oh dear me` and now `horse shit!` We're going to have a lot of fun this summer," he said.
Next he offered us some orange juice. He sliced several oranges and by the time he had filled up three glasses he had used nearly ten! I felt like a criminal drinking that precious glass of juice. My family had never even seen an orange before. And it was the first time that we'd ever tasted bacon, toast, butter and jam too. We had masses of food. Ben couldn't believe where it all went. He had to cook another packet of bacon and fry more eggs. It was as though we hadn't eaten for eighteen years.
After breakfast we went straight to the Houston Ballet Academy which was within walking distance of Ben's apartment. The academy was in an old single-storey brick building shared with the Houston Ballet Company. There were four medium-sized studios.
Clare Duncan, the head of the academy, took us around and introduced us to the teachers and students. It was the first day of the summer school and it was like a zoo in there. Zhang and I were completely confused. Everyone looked alike and their names were impossible to remember.
"Ballet class, when?" I asked Ben, with the aid of my dictionary. Seeing all the students dancing and hearing the music made me eager to begin.
"You can start today if you like," Ben replied.
The only word I understood was "today", but that was enough.
When I looked into the studios I noticed all the male students wore black tights, white T-shirts, socks and shoes. The only pair of tights I had was given to me by one of my teachers back in China. He'd got them from a British ballet dancer and they were bright blue. Zhang had a white pair of tights-I wasn't sure where he'd got them from.
"No pants," I told Ben after I found the word "pants" in my dictionary.
"You don't need pants for class." Ben was puzzled.
"Pants, pants!" I repeated as I demonstrated a plié and pointed at my legs.
"You don't need pants, you only need ti… oh, tights!" Ben shouted excitedly.
"Yes!" I wasn't sure what the word tights meant but it looked like Ben had understood so I smiled broadly.
Ben quickly organised for us to go to a dancewear shop. Ben had given Stephanie, the company manager, enough money to buy Zhang and me two pairs of tights, dance belts and a pair of ballet shoes, over two hundred dollars worth each. I quickly did a currency conversion: two hundred dollars was equivalent to over two years of my dia's salary. How could I justify Ben spending two years salary on my dance wear! "Do you realise how much these tights and shoes cost?" I said to Zhang.
"No. How much?" he asked.
"Over a thousand yuan!"
His jaw dropped then too.
It was lunchtime when we arrived back at the academy and a Houston Ballet board member, Louisa Sarofim, was already waiting to take us to lunch at a nearby restaurant.
From the way the restaurant owner treated Louisa, I knew we were about to have lunch with yet another class enemy. The restaurant was amazingly elegant and cool, with fresh-cut flowers everywhere.
We were handed a menu each. I couldn't read anything except the prices and nothing was below $14.95. Since Louisa was going to pay, I thought I should be modest and not order anything too expensive. I didn't want to leave a bad impression. I told Zhang of my intentions. "I will do the same," he said.
We chose two of the cheapest items on the menu. I hadn't any idea what I'd ordered but I was confident that in a restaurant of this stature we wouldn't be left starving.
Minutes later, the waiter placed a small plate of green salad in front of me and a small bowl of green soup in front of Zhang. I still remember the look Zhang gave me. I forced out a smile and quickly turned my eyes away.
"Are you okay?" Ben asked, concerned.
"Okay!" I replied brightly. Zhang just nodded. Louisa probably thinks we're so thin because we don't like to each much, I thought. I poked my fork into the greens and tasted a leaf of my very first salad. "Good taste!" I said to Zhang, trying to encourage him.
"Good taste!" Zhang replied and forced himself to finish his green soup. Luckily the waiter kept circling our table with freshly baked bread.
Louisa dropped us back at the studio and Clare Duncan showed us to the men's dressing-room. I put on the tights we had bought that morning. They felt very soft and comfortable compared to my bright blue pair from home.
The studio was packed with dancers when we arrived. On the centre barre the students moved up to make room for Zhang and me. Then Ben walked in. I remember he wore a T-shirt with " London " written on it and a pair of silk-like black pants. His energy and his passion for his teaching seemed to inspire everybody. During the class I kept a keen eye on other students and to my surprise I discovered Zhang and I compared well to the others. The precision of our technique was high and this could only have come about from the strict discipline of our Chinese training.
There were students here from England, Canada and other places, a result no doubt of Ben's international reputation as a teacher, choreographer and artistic director. Our schedule was full each day. There were many classes-ballet, character, modern ballet, pas de deux, body conditioning and choreographic workshops. I wasn't sure what to expect in the modern ballet class, but our Chinese folk dance classes and tai chi movements made it easy for us to find some common ground. The body conditioning class was different-it was based on something called Pilates, and I could see it would help me understand my own body and deal with my physical weaknesses and injuries.
Everyone in the classes seemed to be busy making new friends. Zhang and I couldn't remember their names or understand what they were saying but we were warmly embraced by many of the students. We were even given fifty dollars per week as a living allowance. I never dreamt of having that amount of money in my entire life! Eight months of my dia's wages! I tried to save as much money as possible from that living allowance so I could help my family when I returned to China.
We soon discovered that Ben was a very good cook and he also loved entertaining, so we were surrounded by people all the time we were there. That meant a lot of nodding and smiling on our part. Zhang and I were not bad cooks either and we were a big hit in the kitchen. We were so used to handwashing everything, though, that we hardly used the dishwasher or washing machine. After breakfast one morning Ben had to rush to a board meeting and he told us to put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and turn it on. When I opened the cupboard to get the dishwashing detergent there were quite a few boxes of powder for me to choose from. Naturally I chose the biggest box, filled the dishwasher with laundry powder and turned it on. A few minutes later the whole kitchen was foaming. Masses of foam covered the kitchen floor and I was sent into a total panic.
During that second week in Houston, Ben's good friend Barbara Bush invited us to her house for lunch. I remembered she even had an indoor pool. She apologised for Mr Bush's absence: he had to attend a presidential rally in California that day.
I felt very privileged to meet Barbara, but her husband was such a high-profile politician that I was deeply suspicious of her hidden political agendas. Would she try to corrupt our political beliefs? I mentally prepared myself. But all we received was generosity and friendliness. Barbara didn't seem like a politician's wife at all. She reminded me of my niang. She was elegant and generous, and talked about China very fondly.
That day we'd been asked to bring our swimming suits. We didn't have any, so Ben had to buy them for us, like so many other things. Barbara and Ben chatted happily while Zhang and I swam in her indoor pool where the water temperature was perfect, a pool owned by one of the most powerful ladies in America. I could never have dreamt of this.
Barbara also had a little dog called Fred. She adored Fred. She'd even taken him to China with her while Mr Bush served as the first envoy. She talked about her dog as though he was a child. She told us that Fred was a very intelligent dog. I thought that if her dog had been a dog in my home town, someone would have eaten him for dinner.
We went to board member Louisa Sarofim's house a few times too. I couldn't believe her wealth. When I saw her garden, her pool and the surroundings I thought I had just walked into a well- maintained park. She took us inside and I saw some of the most beautiful paintings I had ever seen. Ben told me later that most of the paintings were worth millions of dollars. A million dollars? The number was too enormous for a Chinese peasant boy to comprehend. She must have more money than a god, but she was so nice and unpretentious and she loved ballet and took immense pride in the Houston Ballet's developments. The amount of wealth surrounding ballet in America seemed amazing to me. There was money everywhere. Once I even saw a ballet board member leave a hundred-dollar note on the table after a meal. Of course I quickly tapped him on the shoulder. Didn't he realise he'd left a hundred dollars behind? But he simply nodded his head and walked out. It blew me away. Over a year's worth of my dia's hard, hard work and it was simply left on the table. Sometimes I heard people talking of hundreds of millions of dollars, but again, such numbers didn't exist in my vocabulary. The financial and cultural gaps were simply too great to comprehend.
During the first week of the summer school, Ben arranged for us to attend an English language course and I began to learn ten to fifteen new words a day. I carried a piece of paper everywhere I went, with my new English words written on it. The most effective place for me to learn them was in the toilet. My English improved quickly and I ended up translating for Zhang. Clearly he should have spent more time in the toilet.
I was constantly surprised by how much freedom the American people had. One day in the dressing-room one of the students from New Orleans noticed my Mao button on my dance bag.
"Do you like your Chairman Mao?" he asked.
"Yes, I love Chairman Mao!" I replied with my fist over my heart.
"Well, I don't like our president Jimmy Carter. I don't think he's a good president at all," he said.
"No good? Jimmy Carter?" I asked, amazed.
"No good." He pointed his thumb down.
"Shh…!" I looked around nervously. "You not scared people listen to you talk about your big leader this way?" I asked in my broken English.
"No, why? I can say anything I like about our president. This is America."
"If I say bad thing about Chairman Mao," I whispered, "I will go jail and may be killed," I sliced my finger dramatically across my neck.
"You're kidding!"
"Yes, it is true!" I replied.
"You know," the student continued, "Ronald Reagan, he's the governor of California and wants to be the next president. He was only a Hollywood actor before."
"Actor?" I didn't understand what "actor" was so I took out my dictionary. An actor who wants to become the president of America? Surely I had translated incorrectly. Ben choreographed a dance for Zhang and me over the next few weeks using George Gershwin's music. We had such difficulties understanding what Ben wanted us to do in the rehearsals though. Everything was so relaxed and our minimal understanding of English made it intensely frustrating for Ben. Zhang and I could easily complete the difficult and challenging turns and jumps but taking an effortless walk across the studio without turning out our feet or pointing our toes was a real challenge. At one point during a rehearsal Ben grabbed my arms and shook my entire body. "Relax, relax!" he shouted. Then he rushed over to Zhang and did the same. Zhang's shoulders will pop out of their sockets any minute, I thought. When I finally got the hang of what Ben wanted, it felt like I was cheating. It was too easy and casual. It didn't feel like dancing at all. But I could feel the gradual progression and developments in Gershwin's music and I could feel Ben's choreography naturally meshing into it.
By the end of our six-week stay I had started to relax. I began to make friends among the students, the dancers in the company, the balletomanes and even some board members. Each weekend we had to report to the Chinese consulate officials. One of the senior consuls was Zhang Zongshu, and his wife was a translator in the consulate. They were assigned to look after us.
It turned out that Ben had decided to ask Consul Zhang if I could come back to work with the company again.
Once more Ben's influence worked. Consul Zhang and the Chinese consulate sent a favourable report to the Ministry of Culture. I was granted permission to return for a whole year to work with the Houston Ballet, only two months after my scheduled return to China. There were also discussions about the possibility of Zhang Weiqiang's return too.
The thought of being able to come back to America made me happy, but really it sounded completely unbelievable. I was so grateful to the Chinese government. I felt that they really cared for me. For me, a peasant boy. Communism truly was great.
For our last few days in America, Ben took Zhang and me to Washington DC and New York. We didn't do much in Washington except pose for photos in front of the White House and the Kennedy Center. In some ways I was disappointed. I had expected to see a massive number of security guards with machine guns around the gate and the fence, just like I'd seen in Beijing on my first day there. But there were only a few guards standing by a small gate, looking rather relaxed. They even let us stand next to the fence to have our pictures taken.
We stayed with two close friends of Ben's while we were in New York. They were involved with television and they had two skinny, funny-looking dogs that sang while one of them played the piano. Those dogs would be eaten back in Qingdao too.
Ben rushed Zhang and I around like mad to see as many of the great sites of New York as possible-the twin towers, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the theatre district: I was in awe of this hustling, bustling city. Everything surprised and impressed me-the gigantic buildings, the number of cars, the cleanliness compared to Beijing. But it was the little things that left deeper impressions on me. A friend of Ben's showed us a thing called an ATM. I was speechless when twenty-dollar bills began spewing out. I'd seen a lot of electrical appliances in Houston but to see money coming out of a wall was beyond my wildest imaginings.
Just like any tourist, with our limited money we bought a few souvenirs such as "I Love New York " buttons, postcards, and mugs with big apples on them. My favourite was a T-shirt which had my face and "I Love New York " printed on it, a present from Ben. But we found New York scarily expensive. I couldn't stop comparing everything to China and thinking about my family's poor life back home.
After New York we returned to Houston for our last two days before heading back to China. People gave us farewell gifts. My heart filled with ambivalence with each goodbye. Ben had made our stay such a positive experience and he was proud to have arranged for the first two Chinese cultural exchange students to come to America. He had been thoughtful and generous, protective and kind. He had poured special interest into our dancing. I knew I could never repay him. So by the time Zhang and I said our final goodbye to Ben at the airport, we felt sad to be leaving a special friend.
On the plane I thought of the possibility of returning to Houston in only two months time. I thought of how I'd felt about America and its people before I came. I laughed when I remembered my initial suspicions.
But most of all I thought of those dark, scary images of capitalist society and how they had now been replaced by an entirely different picture in my mind. China 's most hated enemy and the system it represented had given me something that was my heart's desire. Now I was frightened. Now I was confused. What should I believe? What communism had taught me? What I'd seen and experienced? Why had Chairman Mao, Madame Mao and the Chinese government told its people all those lies about America? Why were we so poor in China? And why was America so prosperous?
I kept resisting my doubts all the way home on the plane back to China. I tried to tell myself that my strong communist faith was still unshakeable, but I knew I was lying to myself. I knew I had to believe what the Chinese government wanted me to believe, or at the least I had to pretend to. All this made me even more afraid. I was never supposed to question my communist beliefs and I never, ever thought that I would. So I kept telling myself that I was happy to return to China, because that's where my parents, brothers, friends and teachers were. That's where my roots were. I'm the fish and China is the pond. I can't exist anywhere other than China.
But still the doubts persisted. I had now tasted freedom, and I couldn't lie to myself about that.
The first thing I did when I returned to the Beijing Dance Academy was to tell Teacher Xiao, Zhang Shu, the Bandit and all my friends about my new discoveries in dance: the Gershwin pas de deux, the Martha Graham technique, the body conditioning classes. I simply couldn't hide my excitement and enthusiasm. I had decided, however, that I wouldn't say anything at all about how much I liked America. I especially wouldn't mention the sense of freedom I had experienced. I desperately wanted to but I knew it would give the authorities reason enough to deny me permission to return to America. I wouldn't take that risk. As an old Chinese saying goes, "The wind will carry the words to other people's ears."
The freedom I'd experienced in America occupied my mind constantly. In China, Chairman Mao and his government's absolute authority could never have been challenged. We didn't have individual rights. We were told what to do, how long to work each day, how much we would be paid, where we would live and how many children we were allowed to have. I struggled with my communist beliefs: memories of America were so fresh. What if I were to have that same freedom? What could I do with my ballet then?
Eventually I talked myself into believing that if I had stayed in America any longer I would surely have seen so many bad things about capitalism that I wouldn't have liked America at all. Even so, I was surprised that I was wavering after spending only six weeks there. How could eighteen years of communism be so easily influenced by six short weeks of capitalism? Without Chairman Mao I was lost. He was my god. Would I still die for Chairman Mao? Now I wasn't sure.
I also started to question certain aspects of our ballet training in China. I became frustrated at the lack of freedom in my teachers' thinking. I began to feel once again like a trapped animal. I couldn't wait for the two months to pass so I could go back to America and continue my learning.
As soon as we returned, Zhang and I had to report to Director Song of our academy and to the Ministry of Culture who required a written report from us about our American trip.
"Would you like to meet this evening to work on the report with me?" I asked Zhang.
"Why don't you just write it yourself," replied Zhang. "I trust you."
But I told him that I needed his help because our report would require a certain degree of deception if we were to avoid any suspicion from the officials.
"Write what you have to write. I will understand," Zhang said.
I was happy that Zhang trusted me to complete this task but I found it very difficult to write bad things about America. I simply couldn't think of any. So I made up some bad things about "rotten capitalist influences". First I described the daily routine at the Houston Ballet Academy and the new experiences in Ben's ballet classes. I emphasised the goodwill Zhang and I had generated for China. Then I put a considerable amount of time and effort into describing the diseased aspects of America. I described the restaurant owner from Taiwan as one of our class enemies, with her strong perfume smell, her thick makeup and her plastic smile. I described a black neighbourhood in Houston, the decaying houses and leaking roofs. I said it was infested with flies and mosquitoes and that people slept outside on mats on a dirt floor. Only a privileged few lived in air-conditioned luxury homes. I expressed sorrow for the poor black people of America. I emphasised our superior communist system and Chairman Mao's valued principles.
"This is great! Thank you, Cunxin!" Zhang said enthusiastically after he'd read the report.
But I wasn't happy. I felt angry that I'd had to do this at all.
When we handed in our report and returned the borrowed suitcases, ties and suits to the ministry, Wang Zicheng's deputy also asked us to relinquish any living allowance we'd been given.
Zhang and I were completely shocked. "We spent most of the money on food while we were there," I replied. I didn't tell her we'd also spent some of it on gifts for our families and friends.
"I want every remaining dollar here by tomorrow," she demanded.
So being good and honest Red Guards we gave all our remaining money to the ministry the following day. But I was desperately disappointed-I had planned to give that money to my family. They needed it more than the ministry did.
Going back to America so soon meant that I wouldn't be able to see my parents until after my return the following year. I knew they'd be eager to hear from me, so I wrote them a letter. "I will miss you dreadfully," I wrote, "especially upon New Year's Eve. I will raise my glass full of Tsingtao beer in a faraway foreign land and drink to your health and happiness. I will kneel and kowtow to you. If you sneeze, you will know that it is probably because I am mentioning your names. I hope you will understand how much I want to come home and tell you all about America. There is so much to tell it would take me too long to write it all down. Please be patient and wait for another year and before you know it I'll be back. I have brought presents back for you. I will bring them home next year. I am sending along with this letter a flight safety card so you can see the picture of the plane that I flew on. They are the most beautiful, awesome things in the world. I was flying so high above the clouds. I wish you could have the chance to fly in them one day. I'm sending with this letter all the love in my heart to all of you. I want to tell Niang that I miss her dumplings and all her delicious food. With all the expensive food I had in America, nothing tastes as good as Niang's dumplings."
On the third day after I returned, Zhang Shu the ballet department head asked me to teach a master class to all the ballet teachers in the academy to show them what I had learned while I was away. Teach my teachers a class? I felt nervous about that, but it went well and I continued to participate in most of our practice classes and rehearsals while I was getting ready to reapply for my passport. Our passports had been taken back by the ministry as soon as we'd arrived home.
I was happy to see my good friends at the Beijing Dance Academy again, especially the Bandit. I gave him an "I Love New York " button and some postcards from the cities I'd been to. He wasn't sure he'd be able to wear the button in public, but he loved it all the same. "How do you say, `I love New York ` in English?" he asked excitedly. "I wish I could have the privilege to see New York one day!"
"You will," I replied, but I knew that was very unlikely.
"You didn't fall in love with a pretty big-nosed girl while you were there?" he asked suddenly.
I laughed. "No, don't be silly. Of course not! What about you? Over Zhou Xiaoying yet?"
He shook his head sadly.
"What did you do with the rest of your holiday?" I tried to divert the conversation away from Zhou Xiaoying.
"I went home to see my father and mother. They all asked about you! They are so proud of you going to America and they want me to bring you to Hezi to spend a holiday with them some time." Hezi was his home town and reportedly where Confucius was buried. It was something the Bandit always boasted about.
"I will come after I get back from America next year," I replied.
"Tell me, what do you really think about America?" he asked.
I hesitated. I wasn't sure what to say. I wanted to tell him about the freedom I had tasted but I knew this would only lead him to misery. "There were many clean and wide streets, a lot of cars, tall buildings and good living standards," I said instead. "But the best thing was Ben. He was so nice and kind and I love his teaching." Then I told him about the White House, about New York, the ATM machine and all the electronic gadgets. He was especially surprised and excited about the ATM machine.
"Did you see anyone carrying guns on the street?"
"No," I replied, but I didn't want to talk about America any more. I told him I hoped he'd have the chance to see it all for himself one day, and quickly changed the subject.
I received my visa papers from Houston towards the end of the second week and immediately went to the Ministry of Culture to reapply for my passport. But when I arrived the deputy had some devastating news. "Cunxin," she said casually, "I've just received a directive from the minister's office. The minister has changed his mind. He has refused your request for a passport."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"The minister is concerned about potential Western influences. He thinks you are too young."
"But I've been there once already and the Western influence did nothing to me! Didn't you read our report?"
"Yes, I did. It is very good. But the minister has made up his mind."
I walked out of the building in total despair.
As soon as I arrived back at our academy I charged into Director Song's office. "Director Song, did you know about this?"
"Yes, but only this morning."
"Why?" I pressed.
"The minister thinks you are too young to go to America by yourself. It is a dark and filthy world out there," she replied.
"But the minister already gave me permission before I left America!" I said, full of emotion. "I have to go back! To learn more from Ben's teaching, to serve our country better!"
"I understand your feelings. I'm disappointed too. But you must trust the decision of the party. You shouldn't question the wisdom of the minister's decision. Now, go and carry on with your normal activities. You are only a tiny part of the communist cause. Forget your personal desires. And if you don't mind, I have work to do."
I left Director Song's office frustrated and angry. I walked right out of the academy. By this time they were more relaxed about senior students coming and going, so the security guard didn't stop me. I didn't know where I was going or what I was going to do. I just needed time to think, so I bought a five-fen entry ticket to Taoranting Park. I walked faster and faster. I broke into a run and ran without any thought or purpose, trying to drive away what was in my mind and heart. I ran like a blind, scared tiger. It was as though a beautifully sunny day had, without warning, turned dark and unfamiliar. All I could see was a neverending road, leading nowhere, only closing into a circle, a circle that was full of misery. My heart was racing, my legs were cramping and I gasped for air. "I have to get out!" I kept telling myself.
Along the edge of the lake there were many weeping willows. I was still fond of willows, but ever since we'd moved back to the city I hadn't had the need to confess to the trees any more. Not like when I was eleven and homesick, back in the early days. Now, seeing the willows swaying from side to side in the breeze, I longed for refuge once again. I climbed onto a small tree and in under the cover of the leaves. I spoke to the weeping willows for the first time in five and a half years. How could my opportunity to go back to America be taken away so easily, just like that? Those six memorable weeks, the things that I saw and experienced…
America was real. America was out there and I had seen it. The plane trips, the cars, the cowboy hats, the "bloody" steaks, the raw salad, the ballet classes and the Gershwin music. It was all so vivid and close. And now the ground I was standing on had disappeared from under me. I desperately tried to think of the real reason why the minister had suddenly changed his mind. Was it my report? Did I write too many good things about America? Perhaps Zhang got jealous and said something unfavourable to the ministry? Or was what I'd been told by the deputy true?
I had no answers, but I knew I would do everything I could to find out the truth. Calm down, Cunxin, I told myself. Think of ways to persuade the minister to change his mind.
I went back to the academy just before dinner. "Teacher Xiao is looking for you!" the Bandit shouted from a distance as soon as he spotted me. "Are you all right? You look terrible," he asked as soon as he noticed my face.
"I'm not allowed to go back to America," I replied.
"Why?" cried the Bandit.
I couldn't say. Tears choked my throat. I ran to Teacher Xiao's office and knocked on the door.
As soon as I closed the door he rushed up to me and hugged me tight. "I heard the news, I'm sorry," he whispered.
I was stunned by his hug at first. Hugging still wasn't a communist thing to do. "Why, why, why did he take it away from me?" I sobbed. "What did I do wrong?"
"Sit down," Teacher Xiao said. He pulled a chair out from under his small desk and lit a cigarette. "According to Director Song, the minister feels that you are too young to go to the West for a whole year."
"Do you think this is the real reason?"
"It appears this is the only reasonable explanation."
"But he gave me permission to go back before I returned! What made him change his mind?"
"I don't know. Teacher Zhang and I asked the same question."
"Is there any way we can find out?" I persisted.
"You never give up, do you?" Teacher Xiao smiled.
I shook my head.
"Teacher Zhang and I have convinced Director Song to send a petition to Minister Wang to see if he will change his mind. I don't know whether it will work. All we can do is wait," he said.
"Thank you, Teacher Xiao," I said.
"Don't thank me. You need to thank Teacher Zhang. He did most of the talking. We both felt that after only six weeks in America your dancing had already improved enormously. I can't imagine what a year would do for you. To miss this opportunity would be an unforgivable mistake. Ben Stevenson can offer you opportunities we cannot offer you here. Now, go to dinner. Otherwise there will be nothing left," he urged.
I didn't hear back from the ministry for over a week. Then, on a Tuesday, Zhang Shu called me into his office. Teacher Xiao was already there. As soon as I entered the room I knew the news was bad.
"Cunxin," Zhang Shu began, "we have just been informed by the ministry. Our petition has been turned down. I'm so sorry."
My heart was bleeding. I tried hard to hold back my tears.
"Cunxin," Teacher Xiao said, "Teacher Zhang and I have decided to give you permission to take three weeks holiday to visit your family. You haven't seen them for nearly two years. I'm sure they are really missing you."
"Thank you," I said, and stumbled out of Teacher Zhang's office.
A door to a whole new world had shut right in front of me and I could do nothing more about it. All I wanted to do was go to sleep. I was tired and I was devastated. Just as I'd done on that very first night at the Beijing Dance Academy seven years ago, I plunged onto my bed and pulled my niang's quilt over my head. The bright possibilities of ballet and a political career had lost their lustre. My self-doubt resurfaced and I lost all my mental strength and will.
I couldn't understand why not going back to America was affecting me so much. I became angry with myself for being so selfish. I was lucky to go to America once and I should be satisfied and thankful. But a stronger voice kept rising above all other voices in my mind. "I want to go back. I want to study with Ben. I want to improve my dancing and most importantly I want to taste that precious freedom once again."
I jumped out of bed and ran to Teacher Xiao's office. "Teacher Xiao, do you know where Minister Wang lives?"
He frowned. "Yes, why?"
"I want to see him."
"I don't think he will see you even if you do go to his residence. I think you would be better to go to the ministry and make an appointment with his assistant instead."
"I don't think his office will let me make an appointment. He has already refused my case twice and it would take too long for his office to schedule me in. I don't have that much time to waste. Besides, he is not a tiger. He won't eat me, will he?" I added, remembering what Teacher Xiao had said to me once about Teacher Gao.
"You and your memory," he said. "I will never underestimate both your memory and your resolve." So he wrote the minister's address on a small piece of paper and handed it to me. "Good luck," he said.
The following evening I took two different buses and fortyfive minutes later arrived at Minister Wang's residence.
It was an impressive compound with high walls and a tall, metal- barred security gate. There was also a guardhouse and a military guard with a semi-automatic machine gun at the ready.
"Hello, Comrade," I said to the guard as confidently as I could. "I'm Li Cunxin from the Beijing Dance Academy. I'm here to see Minister Wang."
"Do you have an appointment?" he asked.
"No, I don't," I replied honestly.
"Go home if you don't have an appointment," the guard growled.
"I only need to see him for one minute. Please, it's an urgent matter," I begged.
"No, go home. You cannot see the minister without an appointment. Move! If you don't move, I'll have you arrested."
I left, angry and humiliated. This was not how comrades should treat each other.
But I was back the following night. This time, a different guard was at the gate.
"Hello, Comrade. I'm Li Cunxin from the Beijing Dance Academy and I've just returned from America representing China. I was told to meet Minister Wang tonight," I lied.
"What time is your appointment?" he asked.
"I'm not sure. Our academy made the appointment for me."
"Wait a minute. What did you say your name was?" he asked.
"Last name is Li," I replied, hoping he wouldn't ask for my first name. Li is a very common last name in China, so maybe someone else with the last name of Li had an appointment with the minister that night, I prayed.
"What's your first name?" the guard asked.
No such luck. "Cunxin," I said.
"I don't see any appointments made with the minister tonight," he said, checking the appointment book. "Are you sure you have come on the right night? The minister is attending a banquet. He won't be back until late."
"I'm sorry, I must have the date wrong. Thank you," I said to the guard. I walked to the end of the street and turned the corner, then sat on a stone doorstep and waited for the minister's return. I took out my list of twenty new English words and tried to memorise them. Then I went over what I was going to say to the minister, keeping an eye out for his car.
By midnight I was freezing and tired and there was still no sign of the minister's car. I ran to the nearby bus stop to shake off the cold and caught the last scheduled bus back. I missed the last connecting bus, so I had to run for half an hour after that to get back to the academy. The security guard was already asleep and I climbed over the gate as quietly as a cat.
The next day after our ballet class Teacher Xiao called me to his office. "Cunxin, I'm worried about you. Why don't you give yourself a break?"
I shook my head and told him what I'd done the last two nights. "I won't give up until every possible avenue has been explored," I said defiantly.
I could see tears in Teacher Xiao's eyes. "Cunxin, for all the years I've known you, I have never once doubted your determination. But here you are not dealing with internal factors. You are dealing with things beyond your control. Like a flea trying to overpower an elephant. Just give yourself a break. There will be another opportunity in the future."
"Isn't there any other way?"
Teacher Xiao shook his head. "The minister rarely reverses his decisions. Your situation is the least of his worries."
But still I would not give up. On the third night I returned to Minister Wang's residence and this time I doubled my list of English words to forty and wore more clothes. I was prepared to wait all night for a chance to see the minister.
The same guard from the first night greeted me. "Hello, Comrade. Do you have an appointment this time?"
"Yes, one of my teachers has made an appointment with the minister's deputy and I was to meet him tonight at seven-thirty," I said matter-of-factly.
"Wait here."
My heart thumped and my face turned red and I hated myself for lying. If it weren't for the darkness the guard would have easily detected my guilt simply by the colour of my face.
A few minutes later, the guard came back. "You can't even lie properly! Go home and don't come back again until you have a proper appointment. Otherwise I'll shoot you."
I noticed the guard was in a better mood than the first night. "Comrade, I'm sorry that I have to lie to you but I must see Minister Wang, even just for one minute." I told him the reasons why I wanted to see the minister. I begged him to put himself in my shoes and to give me a chance. "I promise that I'll only take one minute of his time."
"Okay, but I don't know when the minister will be back and I can't guarantee that he will see you."
This time I didn't have to hide at the end of the street. I walked back and forth, memorising my forty English words and going over what I would say to the minister for the hundredth time.
Just before ten o'clock the guard called me over. "Xiao Li, I am going inside at midnight. If the minister is still not back by then I can't guarantee my replacement will let you hang around."
"I understand," I replied.
Then he hesitated. "What's America like? Tell me a little," he asked quietly.
"What do you want to know?" I asked.
"Anything!" he replied eagerly.
I told him about the cars, the tall buildings, the ATM machines…
"People can get money out of a machine in a wall?" He was very amused.
I was mindful not to show too much enthusiasm about America. When I told him about the guard at the White House with no machine guns, he was amazed. "You must be joking."
"No, it's true. Security is very lax there."
"What is the White House like? Is it really white?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied, trying to sound as though I didn't care much about the White House at all.
"I can't believe they let a Chinese ballet student get so close!" Under the dim light I could see his expression of disbelief. To leave no doubt in his mind about my commitment to communism, I told him that I despised our class enemies in America and that I was sympathic towards the American poor. But I could tell he was more interested in hearing about things like ATM machines.
About an hour later, two bright headlights appeared from one end of the street.
"Stand aside, this is him," the guard said and quickly walked to the driver's side. I couldn't hear what he said but a couple of minutes later the minister's car drove through the entrance and the guard pulled the gate closed behind.
"Sorry, Xiao Li. The minister didn't want to see you."
"What did you tell him?" My heart was still palpitating.
"I told him why you were here and that you'd been here for several nights. But all he said was `Drive on`. He was rather annoyed."
I walked away under the faint streetlight. My whole world had crumbled. That was my last chance, my very last chance. I would never go back to America now. I had been beaten at last. How naïve you are to think your existence would mean so much to the communist cause! I told myself. Do you think an important leader such as Minister Wang would spend a single second thinking about you, a mere peasant boy? How foolish to believe everyone was equal in China. I had believed this communist doctrine for so many years. But in the minister's eyes I was no one. He didn't even bother to glance out of his car at this eager and pathetic boy.
I thought bitterly of the minister riding away in his flashy car. I thought of a story we'd been told at school about Mao not eating pork, of him deliberately suffering hardships just like the rest of us, and I seethed with rage.
I realised then that China was like any other nation on earth. There was no equality. But I, like all the Chinese people, had given Chairman Mao and his government our unwavering support for many, many years. I never questioned them. What choice did we have? The media was totally controlled by the government. One couldn't escape their brainwashing. "Cunxin, you've been manipulated all these years. It's time to wake up. The government and Minister Wang are no longer there for you. You have to look after yourself. You only have one life to live."
I went back to the academy and lay awake until the early hours of the morning.
I don't know what time I finally fell asleep. I didn't hear the wake-up bell in the morning. I didn't wake when the Bandit shook me at lunchtime, and I slept through the morning classes and afternoon rehearsals. I felt someone putting his hand on my forehead to feel my temperature. "Cunxin has a fever," I heard them say. My throat throbbed. My bones ached. My entire body was burning. But the most painful thing was my memory of the night before. Sleep was the only thing that would cure me of my misery and my shaken beliefs. I held onto my niang's quilt for dear life.
Finally I heard the voices of Teacher Xiao and the Bandit. "Wake up, Cunxin, wake up!"
I forced myself to open my eyes and look at their kind, caring faces. Tears welled in my eyes and I began to sob. "Leave me alone. I want to go back to my dreams."
"Cunxin, just listen to me now!" Teacher Xiao said. "You have two choices. Think of this as a card game: you can simply give up and stop participating or you can play on and see what happens. You have a long life and career in front of you. There will be many triumphs as well as setbacks, but if you give up now you will never taste the mango!"
I looked first at Teacher Xiao and then at the Bandit. I burst into uncontrollable sobs. My anger, my disappointment, my injured pride and my shattered beliefs all forced their way out at once. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
The next day, from Director Song's office, I made a phone call to Ben Stevenson in Houston. "I can not come," I told him. "My big leader in government say no." Once more my heart was bleeding with pain.
He asked me some questions I didn't really understand. The only words I detected were "why", "disappointed" and "sad". I kept asking him to repeat. Eventually he screamed down the phone in sheer frustration. "You! Come! Later!"
"No. Big leader say no. I. Write. Letter. For you."
After I had spoken to Ben, I immediately phoned my village and asked for my parents. "Fifth Brother, it's Cunxin. I am coming home."
"Aren't you going back to America?" he asked, surprised.
"No, not any more," I replied.
"Why? What's wrong?"
"Nothing wrong. I will explain when I get back. Tell our parents not to go spending money on special food for me," I said.
"Are you all right? Did you do something wrong?"
"No. I didn't do anything wrong. I'm all right. The Minister for Culture thinks I'm too young to go back alone. I have to go now. I will call you once I get my train ticket." I quickly put the phone down. I didn't want him to hear me crying.
For the following two days I was very emotional. I couldn't wait for the sun to go down so I could clutch onto my niang's quilt and quietly shed my tears.
Two days later I purchased my train ticket, ready to go home for a three-week holiday. But that afternoon, as I was mindlessly scanning through the People's Daily, a headline caught my eye. "Minister Wang, the Minister for Culture, will lead a delegation to South America for five weeks."
I pulled the paper to my chest as though I had found a treasure and immediately ran to Teacher Xiao's office.
"Teacher Xiao, Teacher Xiao! Read this!"
"Yes. I've read it already. The minister is going to South America for five weeks. What's strange about that?"
"Who will be in charge of the ministry while he's gone?" I asked.
Teacher Xiao suddenly understood. We walked down to level two together and knocked on Zhang Shu's door.
"There may be a way for Cunxin to go to America after all," Teacher Xiao said.
Zhang Shu was amused, but Teacher Xiao handed him the newspaper. He quickly scanned the headline and frowned.
"We can lobby the vice-minister in charge to ask permission for Cunxin to leave!" Teacher Xiao shouted excitedly.
"The vice-minister might be reluctant to take on the responsibility knowing Minister Wang had refused it before," Zhang Shu said thoughtfully.
"Can't we lobby all the vice-ministers?" I suggested.
They looked at each other and laughed. "All five of them?" Zhang Shu shook his head.
"It would be extremely difficult, but not impossible," Teacher Xiao added.
They discussed who the key minister in the ministry was and they decided on Lin Muhan, a well-known intellect in China and a labelled rightist who had been through some horrifying times during the Cultural Revolution. He was now in charge of the educational area within the ministry and a strong advocate for talent. Zhang Shu felt that he would be sympathetic towards my situation.
I wrote to my family that night and told them I couldn't go back home just yet.
Our intense lobbying efforts lasted over two weeks.
Teacher Xiao told me years later that he and Zhang Shu had even gone to Lin Muhan's own residence in their final effort to get me back to America. Teacher Xiao made a promise to the minister: within five years Chinese ballet dancers would be the best in the world.
This time they succeeded. Lin Muhan lobbied the four other vice- ministers and signed the permission for me to go to America for one year.
With passport in hand I went to the US consulate in Beijing as soon as I could and my visa was granted within days.
I called Ben. "I can come! Plane ticket, please!" I shouted, my heart blossoming like a flower.
Two days later I received a phone call from Northwest Airlines. My reservation was confirmed. I was to leave China in three days.
My last three days were frantically busy. All my friends wanted some special time alone with me. On my last Saturday night, Teacher Xiao invited the entire class to his apartment and cooked us a delicious meal. We all helped with the washing, cutting and cleaning. He even made an egg, apple and potato salad. We banged our glasses together and shouted, "Gan bei!" Teacher Xiao stood up and raised his glass. "I wish to propose two toasts. The first is to all of you for putting up with me for over five and a half years of shouting and carrying on. This may be our last gathering together. I'm proud to be your teacher and I wish you all the best of luck. You're Chairman and Madame Mao's last generation of dancers. You have studied under the most strict and disciplined rules imaginable, but this will give you an edge over the others. You'll be the last dancers of the era." Teacher Xiao stopped briefly to calm his emotions. "I'll boldly make a prediction. Your dance training will never be duplicated. Your dancing will proudly stand high in Chinese ballet history."
He paused again. "My second toast is to Cunxin's American trip. I hope you will respect your past and charge towards the future.
Perfect your art form. Make all of China proud. Gan bei!"
This was the very last time our class would ever gather together with Teacher Xiao.
I felt so happy about going back to America but I wished that I could go home to my family before I went. I longed to see my parents and brothers again, especially my niang, but I couldn't take the risk of going back to Qingdao. The possibility of the ministers changing their minds was very real. For the time being I had to be content with the thought of seeing my family in a year's time.
I visited my adopted family, the Chongs, that Sunday and tasted their delicious dumplings for the last time. That night at the Beijing Dance Academy, the Bandit, Liu Fengtian, Chong Xiongjun and some of my classmates organised a farewell party. The mood of the whole evening was happy and warm, but there was also a sense of sadness-no one knew if we would ever gather together like this again.
So in November 1979, a month after my original planned date, I left China for the second time. I didn't know it then, but it would be many, many years before I could return.