by Gao Xingjian
You need to distance yourself from suffering, calmly scan those dim memories, and find in them some bright spots, so that you will be able to investigate the road you have traveled.
They are still young, but do they have to go through your experiences? That is their affair, they have their own fates. You do not take on the sufferings of others, are not the savior of the world, you seek only to save yourself.
18
You find retelling that period quite difficult, and for you now, he of that time is hard to comprehend. In order to look back, you must explain the vocabulary of those times, restore special meanings to words. For example, the proper noun “Party” was totally different from the word used in the saying “The morally superior person comes together with others but does not form a party.” As a child, he often heard his father proclaim this to assert his own moral superiority, but afterward, his father did not dare say this again. At the mention of the word “Party,” his father turned solemn and reverent, and his hand shook so badly that liquor spilled from the cup he was holding. If he had not been so terrified, he would not have tried to kill himself. Such was the greatness and might of the noun “Party.” The great and mighty nation, moreover, ranked below the Party and, needless to say, the place where persons worked, were paid, and ate meals—the “work unit”—belonged to the Party. Thus, a person’s residential permit, grain allocation, housing, as well as personal freedom, were determined by the Party “work unit.” However, this did not apply to the enemy, and hence the word “comrade” assumed extreme importance, and everyone used all means to ensure that that word would remain attached to his or her name. To fail to do so made one an “Ox Demon and Snake Spirit,” who had to be “purged” from the “work unit” and forced to undertake “reform through labor.”
So, whenever the Party decided to initiate a movement to purify the ranks, the people of every work unit fought with a vengeance. Everyone was afraid of being purged: a person could be classified as “Revolutionary Comrade” (twenty-six grades) or “Ox Demon and Snake Spirit” (divided into five big categories). This classification determined whether one had a city residential permit (for people not required to work in agricultural production and who received fixed monthly coupons to buy goods and grain products), whether one had to undergo reform through labor, or whether one was to live or die. And this classification depended on policies that fluctuated according to the bitter infighting of the twenty or so members of the Party Center (usually the Political Bureau and the Secretariat of the Party Center), on their subsequent transmission, and on internal party documents that were inaccessible to people in general. A person’s fate was thus miraculously determined with ten thousand times greater accuracy than the prophecies of the Bible. Failure to comply with regulations constituted an error if minor, and a crime if major, and this was accordingly recorded in a person’s file.
What was recorded in the file was, of course, not simply a person’s life. Wrong words and actions, general political and moral conduct, a person’s written thought-reports and confessions, as well as the verdicts and judgments of the Party organization of the work unit, were collected together and placed under confidential supervision by special personnel. A person was tracked from one work unit to another but did not need to imagine ever being able to see the file.
Also, for example, the word “study” was not the dictionary definition of acquiring knowledge or the learning of a particular skill. No, it referred solely to the eradication of thinking that failed to conform to what had been stipulated by the Party at a particular time. Don’t laugh! The word “private” was interpreted as “individual,” and, by extension, could also mean psychological evil that had to be ruthlessly eradicated. Moreover, the May Seventh Cadre Schools were definitely not schools as generally known in past and present times, in China or elsewhere. Application for enrollment was not necessary, and, once assigned, attendance was obligatory. In the cadre school, people supervised one another while undergoing intensive physical labor designed to snuff out thinking and to punish anyone with an education or capable of reflective thinking. The Party only permitted one kind of thinking, that is, the thinking of the Supreme Leader. At the time, it was the same for Party cadres and ordinary public personnel, including their family members. If one was sent to a cadre school, it was impossible to protest. Like the work unit, the cadre school controlled a person’s grain rations, place of residence, and outside travel. There was no possibility of playing truant, like a child, and, furthermore, where could one hide?
All these terms had their own related vocabulary, enough for compiling a dictionary of words and phrases, but you have no intention of exerting yourself compiling such a dictionary just to benefit historical research.
And, on the subject of history, for example, this so-called Cultural Revolution took place just thirty or so years ago, and yet there were numerous revisions prior to the Party Representative Conference official interpretation of 1981. There were considerable changes of course from Mao’s Ninth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party edition to Deng Xiaoping’s Third Plenum of the Party Central Committee edition, but investigating these changes is, at present, prohibited. Also, the various popular revisions of the history of the Cultural Revolution are all different. Is it the history of the Cultural Revolution by the Red Guard Danian, the history of the Cultural Revolution by Big Li of the rebel faction, or the memoirs of the Party secretary Comrade Wu Tao who fell from political power? Or is it the subsequent appeal by the son of Old Liu who was beaten to death? Or is it the memorial speeches at the ceremony to compensate and exonerate the old commander who starved to death in the political prison he himself had established during the bloody battles? Or is it the history of the suffering of that abstract notion, “the people”? And do “the people” have a history?
During the Cultural Revolution, people were “rebelling,” whereas before that people were “making revolution.” However, after the end of the Cultural Revolution, people avoided talking about rebelling, or simply forgot that part of history. Everyone has become a victim of that great catastrophe known as the Cultural Revolution and has forgotten that before disaster fell upon their own heads, they, too, were to some extent the assailants. The history of the Cultural Revolution is thus being continually revised. It is best that you do not try to write a history, but only to look back upon your own experiences.
At the time, he was impulsive and stupid, and the bitterness of having been duped was like swallowing rat poison. If it had been swallowed, then vomiting should have been able to get rid of it. In theory, it was simple, but repeated vomiting still couldn’t completely get rid of it.
Righteous indignation and political gambles, tragedy and farce, heroes and clowns, were created through people being manipulated. Blah! Blah! The high-sounding righteous words, discussion, and vilification, all proclaimed the words of the Party. People lost their own voices, became puppets, and could not escape the big hand behind, which controlled them.
Now, when you hear impassioned speeches, you secretly smile. Slogans calling for revolution and rebellion give you goose bumps, and as soon as heroes or fighters appear, you quickly step aside. All that fervor and righteous indignation should be fed to dogs. You should have fled that arena for baiting animals to tear at one another long ago. It is not for you. Your domain lies only between paper and pen, writing not as a tool in the hands of others, but simply to speak to yourself.
You strive to collect memories. The reason he went crazy at that time was probably because the illusions he believed in had been shattered, and the imaginary world of books had become taboo. Also, he was young, had nowhere to dissipate his energy, and couldn’t find a woman for his body and soul. Sexually frustrated, he simply stirred the water in mud puddles.
The utopia of the new society, like the new people, was a rewriting of a legend. Now, when you hear people lamenting the destruction of their ideals, you think to yourself that it was a good thing they were destroyed. And wh
enever you hear anyone loudly proclaiming ideals, you think it is some quack peddling dog-skin bandages again. If someone prattles on and tries to convert you, or preaches to you, you quickly say sure, sure, see you some other time, and, with luck, slip away.
You no longer engage in polemics and prefer to go off to have a beer. Life is irrational; so, must a rationale be formulated for human existence before people can be people? No, you simply narrate, use language to reconstruct the he of that time. From this time and this place you return to that time and that place, using your state of mind at this time and this place to tell of him at that time and that place. Probably this is the significance of this investigation of yours.
He originally had no enemies, so why was it necessary to find them? It is only now that you realize that if there still are enemies, they are dead-and-buried shadows left in your heart by Old Man Mao. And you simply have to walk away from them. There is no need to tilt at shadows, to fritter away the little life that you still have.
Now you are without “isms.” A person without “isms” is more like a person. An insect or a plant is without “isms.” You, too, have a life and will no longer be manipulated by any “isms,” and you prefer to be an onlooker living on the fringes of society. Unavoidably, there will be perspectives, views and tendencies, but, finally, no particular “isms.” This is the difference between the you of the present and the he that you are investigating.
19
The first battle between Red Guards broke out in the main courtyard of the workplace. In the middle of the day, when people were coming out of the building to go to the dining room, a Red Guard from outside came and put up a poster on the courtyard wall. He was stopped by a security guard. Some Red Guards from the workplace came and tore down the poster.
The cocky youth with glasses was surrounded on all sides, but he loudly protested, “Why can’t I put it up? Putting up posters has been authorized by Chairman Mao!”
“That’s Liu Ping’s son trying to overturn the verdict on his father, don’t let him get up to mischief!”
A security guard motioned to the gathering crowd and said, “Don’t crowd around here, go off and eat!”
“My father’s innocent! Comrades!” Shoving aside the guard, the youth held his head high to address the crowd. “Your Party committee has changed the general direction of the struggle away from Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line, don’t let them hoodwink you! If they aren’t up to something underhanded, why are they scared of posters?”
Danian squeezed his way out of the crowd of silent onlookers and said to some Red Guards of the workplace, “Don’t let this stinker pose as a Red Guard, take off his armband!”
Holding high his arm with the armband and protecting the armband with his other hand, the youth went on to shout, “Comrade Red Guards! Your general direction is wrong! Boot out the Party committee and make revolution, don’t be accomplices of the capitalists! All of you comrades who want to make revolution, go look inside the university campuses, they are proletarian rebel territories. You are still under the White Terror out here—”
The youth was pushed back against the wall. He turned to the crowd of onlookers for help but no one dared to come to his rescue.
“Who is your comrade? You turtle grandson of the fuckin’ landlord class, how dare you pose as a Red Guard? Take it off!” Danian ordered.
A scuffle broke out for the armband. The youth was strong but could not fend off several people tackling him. First his glasses flew to the ground and were instantly trampled, then his armband was pulled off. This self-assured, confident successor to the revolution was now propped against the wall, cowering, his arms protecting his head. Then, falling on his haunches, he began to wail uncontrollably and was instantly transformed into a miserable pup.
Old Liu was also dragged out, tottering and stumbling, from the building and denounced in the courtyard. But he was an old revolutionary who had experienced a lot in life and did not buckle like his son. Holding his head high, he tried to speak, but, immediately, Red Guards pushed his head to the ground so that his face was covered in dirt and he could do nothing but keep his head down.
Squashed in the crowd, he witnessed in silence what had happened, and in his heart he chose to rebel. He slipped out during worktime and went around the university campuses in the western part of the city. At Peking University, which was thronging with people, among the posters covering the buildings and walls, he saw one by Mao Zedong: “Bombard Their Headquarters—My Poster.” When he got back to his workplace office, he was still fired up. Late that night, when nobody was around, he wrote a poster. He did not wait for people to come in for work to collect signatures. He was afraid that by morning, when he was more clear-headed, he might not have the courage. So he had to put up the poster in the middle of the night, while he was still fired up. The masses had to heroically speak out to overturn the verdicts on people branded as anti-Party.
In the empty corridor of the building, some old posters rustled in a draught; this sense of loneliness was probably necessary to support heroic action. The impulse for justice sprang from a sense of tragedy, and he had been thrust into the gambling den, although at the time it was hard to say whether he wanted to gamble. In any case, he thought he had seen an opening and there was something of gambling with life in being a hero.
The stalwarts, branded anti-Party at the start of the Cultural Revolution, had not been able to raise their heads, and the activists following the Party committee had not received directives from their superiors, so when people saw the poster they remained silent. For two whole days, he came and went alone, drowned in feelings of tragedy.
The first response to his poster was from the manager of the book warehouse, Big Li, who phoned to fix a time to see him. Big Li and a thin youth, a typist called Little Yu, were waiting for him in the courtyard in front of the kitchen.
“We agree with your poster and we can work together!” Big Li said, and shook his hand to confirm that he was a comrade-in-arms.
“What’s your family background?” To be a rebel also took into account a person’s family background.
“Office worker.” He did not explain any further. Such questions always made him feel awkward.
Big Li looked at Little Yu, as if to ask what he thought. Someone came with a flask to get hot water, and the three stopped talking. They heard the water filling the flask and the person walking off.
“Tell him about it.” Little Yu had approved.
Big Li told him, “We’re setting up a rebel Red Guard group to fight them. Tomorrow morning, at eight o’clock sharp, we’re holding a meeting at the teahouse in Taoranting Park.”
Another person came along with a flask, so the three of them parted and went their separate ways. It was a clandestine association and not to attend would be a sign of cowardice.
Sunday morning was very cold, and the pellets of ice on the road crunched underfoot like broken glass. He had arranged to meet with four youths at Taoranting Park in the south of the city. His workplace was far away in the north, so it was not likely that he would meet anyone he knew. The sky was gray and overcast, and no one was in the park, because all forms of enjoyment had been stopped during this abnormal period. As he trudged along the road crunching the ice, he felt as if he had a divine mission to save the world.
The tables by the lake were deserted and inside the teahouse, behind thick cotton door curtains, only two old men were sitting opposite one another by the window. When everyone had arrived, they sat outside around a table, each warming his hands on a mug of hot tea. First of all, each gave his family background as was required for rebellion under the red flag.
Big Li’s father was a shop assistant in a grain store, his grandfather used to mend shoes but he was dead. At the start of the Cultural Revolution, Big Li had put up a poster about the Party branch secretary, and for this he had undergone correction. Little Yu, the youngest, had come straight from middle school to the workplace, where he had been wor
king as a typist for less than a year. Both of his parents were workers in a factory, but he had been expelled from the Red Guards for getting to work late and leaving early. Another, Tang, worked as a motorbike traffic officer and before that he used to drive a car in the army. His family background was impeccable but he had a glib tongue and, according to him, the Red Guards had expelled him because he was keen on practicing comic dialogue. Another person wasn’t present because he had to take care of his sick mother in hospital. Big Li conveyed the message that the person unconditionally supported rebelling and fighting the restoration faction.
Finally, it was his turn, and he was about to say he lacked the qualifications for being a Red Guard and that it wasn’t necessary to include him in their group. However, before the words came out of his mouth, Big Li waved his hand and said, “We all know your stance, we also want to unite with revolutionary intellectuals like you. Those present today are core members of the Red Guard of our Mao Zedong’s Thought!”
It was as simple as that, and there was no need for further discussion. They, too, regarded themselves as the successors of the revolution, and it was right for them to safeguard Mao’s Thought. It was indeed as Big Li said, “In the universities, the rebel group has already thrashed the old Red Guards, what are we waiting for? Victory will be ours!”
That very night, back in the empty workplace building, they put up the manifesto of their rebel Red Guard group. Big posters targeting the Party committee and the old Red Guards were posted in the corridors of every floor of the building down to the main hall, and out in the main courtyard.
