Life and Death in Shanghai

by Cheng Nien

  Led by the vice-mayor, we all raised our glasses and toasted the Chinese Communist Party, which had made our rehabilitation possible.

  It seemed the People’s Government in Shanghai wanted to put me in the right frame of mind. They could so easily have given me my certificate of merit when the others received theirs. They did not have to organize a separate ceremony and an elaborate party. I thought they were giving me the treatment usually reserved for foreign government visitors of senior rank mainly because I had applied to go abroad. They wanted me to leave Shanghai with a good impression of the post-Mao government. Even the vice-mayor’s seemingly casual remark that he himself had suffered imprisonment was intended to make me look upon my own unfortunate experience in its proper perspective. He had tried to make me feel that I had somehow joined the distinguished company of veteran revolutionaries and senior officials of the government.

  Next morning, in a corner of one of the Shanghai Liberation Daily’s four pages, a news item appeared stating that I had made a donation of porcelain to the Shanghai Museum. The report called it a patriotic act and added that I had not accepted monetary compensation. Since the Shanghai Liberation Daily, like all the other newspapers, was controlled by the government, which decided what was to appear in its pages, I felt that the Shanghai officials were continuing their efforts to put me in a good mood.

  With the publication of this item of news, I became an instant celebrity. My friends and neighbors, including the Party secretary of my Residents’ Committee, called to offer their congratulations and to examine the certificate of merit, which they told me should be hung up on the wall. People who had avoided me now crossed the street to greet me. Lu Ying, who had criticized my clothes only a few years ago, now complimented me on my neat appearance and asked me where I had bought them. It seemed I had come a long way from the days when I was a nonperson suffering insults and persecution. Yet I had not changed one iota. It was the Party’s policy that had changed.

  When the furor of congratulations had died down, Comrade He, a representative of the Shanghai Federation of Women, came to invite me to join their study group for women intellectuals. I readily accepted her invitation because it meant I would no longer have to attend the rather dull study group meetings of the Residents’ Committee. I hoped the women at the federation would be more interesting and congenial.

  According to China’s Constitution, women and men enjoyed equal rights, but in practice there was a great deal of discrimination. Although in the cities there was no difference in pay or benefits for women doing the same work as men, the great majority of women remained in specialized occupations that traditionally employed women; they were textile workers, shop assistants, hospital nurses, and schoolteachers. The Chinese traditional attitude of a woman’s position being determined by the position of her husband was still upheld. The widow of Marshal Zhu De was the president of the National Federation of Women. Among its local presidents and vice-presidents were wives and widows of other senior veteran Party officials. However, the women who did the actual work of the federation, such as Comrade He, were Party bureaucrats. Like other organizations in China, the Federation of Women was a government organization that orchestrated its members’ activities.

  “We are organizing two study groups,” Comrade He said. “One group consists of pre-Liberation female factory owners and wives of prominent capitalists who used to have jobs in their husbands’ factories. The other group consists of female intellectuals. In this group we also include wives of well-known scientists who have made a special contribution to socialism. After careful consideration, we have decided to put you in the latter group. We think you will find this group congenial.”

  “I hope you will convey to the senior authorities of the federation my appreciation of your invitation. I consider it an honor, and I look forward to coming to the study group meetings,” I told her politely.

  “We are having a joint session of the two groups at an inaugural meeting next Wednesday at two in the afternoon. It’s going to be at the premises of the Shanghai Political Consultative Conference on Beijing Road West. We will be using their premises for our weekly meetings too, and they will invite all of us to their special events. There is also an ‘internal’ shop and restaurant for the convenience of our members,” she added.

  “I’ll be there at two on Wednesday,” I promised.

  She took her leave. As I closed the front gate after Comrade He, I saw Mrs. Zhu coming out of her room to the garden.

  “Was that Comrade He of the Federation of Women?” she asked me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Has she come to invite you to join their study group activities?”

  “Yes. But how did you know?”

  “I’ve also been invited. But I’m going only to the one on the district level. You are going to the one on the municipal level, I suppose?”

  “I’ve no idea which one I’m going to.”

  “If you are meeting at the Shanghai Political Consultative Conference premises on Beijing Road West, then you are going to the one on the municipal level,” she said.

  “Well, it’s just another study group. It makes no difference what level it’s on,” I told her.

  “Oh, it makes a lot of difference. On the municipal level you will be invited to many events that are not open to those on the district level. What’s more, you can use the ‘internal’ shop and restaurant. You’ll be able to get things not available to the general public, such as good cigarettes.”

  I was about to enter my part of the house when she added, “The reason you are invited to the municipal level is that your donation to the nursery school program is the second-largest in the city.”

  “You seem extremely well informed,” I said dryly.

  “You are the subject of gossip in many circles. People are saying you make fine gestures in order to buy a passport to leave the country,” she said, watching my reaction.

  “Do you mean to suggest that the People’s Government is an agency for selling passports?” I asked, trying to appear incredulous. Actually I was rather amused by what she was telling me. The Chinese people are extremely sharp and cynical. They believe fine gestures and noble behavior are always motivated by selfish designs.

  Rather alarmed, Mrs. Zhu said hastily, “Nobody is saying the People’s Government would sell passports.”

  “Good! In that case, there is no point in trying to buy one, is there?” I did not wait for her reply but went inside.

  I thought Mrs. Zhu was jealous because in her view I had somehow got ahead of her.

  The Political Consultative Conference was a United Front Organization, a part of the campaign for national unity. The appointed delegates had no real voice in affairs of state. In theory they were there to be “consulted”; in practice they were there merely to add an affirmative voice to decisions already taken by the Party. The organization in Shanghai was housed in a large mansion that was once a part of the famous Zhang family garden. Other palatial mansions in Shanghai were often relics of the days of foreign domination. This particular house, however, enjoyed a certain revolutionary mystique, as it used to be the clandestine meeting place for prominent supporters of Sun Yatsen before the revolution of 1911, which established the Chinese Republic. The large garden with its lake and many pavilions had long disappeared. Other buildings had been added, and the mansion itself had been turned into an assembly hall on the ground floor and conference rooms upstairs. At the entrance to the lobby was the “internal” shop, and in a corner of the garden was the restaurant. Both establishments were nonprofit organizations run by the state for the convenience of the delegates.

  After I left Shanghai, I met many Europeans and Americans who thought Communist China was an egalitarian society. This simply is not true. The fact is that the Communist government controls goods, services, and opportunities and dispenses them to the people in unequal proportions. The term “internal” was used for goods and services available to officials of a c
ertain rank and a few outsiders on whom for one reason or another the government wished to bestow favor. I have heard the term “internal internal” used to describe goods and services reserved for the very senior officials, especially in the military, who seemed to get the first choice and the lion’s share of everything. Though the salary of a member of the Politburo was no more than eight or ten times that of an industrial worker, the perks available to him without charge were comparable to those enjoyed by kings and presidents of other lands. And the privileges were extended to his family, including his grandchildren, even after his death.

  The members of the Federation of Women study group were not really important in the eyes of the government. We were courted by the Shanghai government to accommodate the new political trends: national unity embracing the capitalist class and the “open door” policy of the Four Modernizations. Nearly all of us had some ties with Chinese living abroad. The government was being kind to us in order to win the support of our relatives and to create an image of tolerance for the Western democracies. As far as those “perks” were concerned, they were minimal; even so, I became the envy of my friends and relatives. And they did not hesitate to ask me to buy things for them at the shop or to bring special food home from the restaurant. Soon I discovered that every member of our study group had the same problem. It was an embarrassment I was glad to leave behind when I finally departed from Shanghai.

  A-yi was very proud that I had been invited to join the study group of the Federation of Women. She thought I had at last achieved the ultimate in respectability: not only received back into the ranks of the people but also raised by the government to a select group. On the day of the inaugural meeting, she served lunch early and hovered around me to make sure I wore clothes she approved of.

  “I think the pale gray. You look so nice in that,” she suggested.

  “Not the navy blue?” I took the navy blue trouser suit out of the closet.

  “No, pale gray is better. Much younger-looking. I wish you would dye your hair. You would look so much younger if you had black hair.”

  I put the navy blue suit back in the closet and took out the pale gray. She smiled with satisfaction and went into the kitchen. “Tell me all about it tomorrow,” she said.

  About seventy women, all middle-aged or older, were present at the inaugural meeting of the study groups. We sat in a large, clean conference room with high windows that admitted ample daylight and sunshine. We were served hot green tea in covered glasses. One of the vice-presidents of the federation welcomed us and spoke to us about the Four Modernizations Program, which, she said, had been first proposed by the late Prime Minister Zhou Enlai at the Tenth Party Congress and approved by the late Chairman Mao Zedong. Then she praised our Wise Leader Chairman Hua for smashing the Gang of Four and paving the way for the realization of the Four Modernizations Program. Like all official speakers, she repeated the same ideas, almost in the same language, contained in Party resolutions and speeches by leaders in Beijing.

  After we had duly applauded the vice-president, a woman in her early fifties, smartly dressed in a black trouser suit, was introduced to tell us about her recent trip to the United States with her husband, a former capitalist. She apologized for being hoarse and said that she had lost her voice from making many speeches since her return from abroad. Her popularity as a speaker was explained by the content of her speech. She not only described life in the United States as rather less than desirable due to muggings, drugs, drunkenness, and costly medical service, but she also told the audience that in spite of being offered a lucrative job in America, her husband had decided to come back to China to continue his work as chief engineer of the factory he had handed over to the state. Her husband’s greatest ambition was to serve the Four Modernizations Program and to do his part in the effort to make China strong, she said. When she had finished, we applauded heartily.

  Obviously her speech was a political message the government wanted the people to hear, but I did not think its purpose was to malign the United States. The government was probably embarrassed by the crowds outside the American consulate general waiting to apply for visas. Her speech was useful to discourage would-be emigrants. In fact, the newspaper had already published several stories of young people who had gone to the United States as immigrants only to find that they could not get jobs or be assimilated into American society. Disappointed, they returned to Shanghai. To their surprise and joy, they found their old jobs waiting for them, and their Party secretaries gave them a hero’s welcome. The stories invariably ended with the young people pledging to work hard for the Four Modernizations Program.

  For over a year I was a member of the study group organized by the Federation of Women. We studied the same documents and speeches the Party gave out to study groups all over the country. We joined the delegates of the Political Consultative Conference to hear speeches by prominent officials on subjects ranging from cultural affairs to international relations. And we made use of the shop and restaurant with self-imposed restraint so that we did not appear too eager to take advantage of or abuse the privileges accorded to us.

  There were thirty-two women in my study group; the average age was just below sixty. The leader was the seventy-year-old wife of a vice-mayor. Comrade He was one of two Party officials designated to oversee our meetings, take notes of the proceedings, and guide the discussion should it stray from its appointed course. But the vice-mayor’s wife was an experienced chairman, and the rest of us were intelligent enough to know what was expected of us. Our study group activities went along smoothly, never causing Comrade He and the other young officials from the federation a single moment of embarrassment or anxiety.

  Though I never once spoke at the study group meetings of the Residents’ Committee, I had to say something every week at the federation meetings. The youngest member of our group, a writer of fifty, was called upon to read the government document we were to discuss. Then it was up to us, seated around a large conference table, to respond. To be overeager to speak was considered just as uncouth as a refusal to talk. If one spoke first, one might say the wrong thing; if one spoke last, one might find that all the right remarks had been made already.

  The reading of the document was generally followed by a few minutes of silence while we gazed at our note pads as if seriously considering what we had just heard. Then our chairman, the vice-mayor’s wife, would offer a few hints to guide our discussion. After another moment of silence, one of the bolder ladies would take a sip of tea and raise her head to speak. Others followed. Gradually everybody added something. I generally tried to make my banal remarks in the middle of the discussion, but sometimes I did not succeed. Then I would hope to be overlooked and get away with just listening. However, either Comrade He or the other federation official would always ask me, “What do you think?” and I would have to make a contribution. To speak at the study group was an art. Obviously one could not afford to be original, and there were only a limited number of ways of saying the same thing over and over again. We generally chose to be boring rather than different.

  As I got to know Comrade He better and found her free of the class prejudice that inhibited relationships between Party officials and people like myself, I tried to enlist her help to get Meiping’s murderer brought to justice. She was extremely sympathetic and introduced me to a female official from the newly reestablished United Front Organization of the Shanghai Party Secretariat. Comrade He brought the official, Comrade Ma, to my apartment to see me one evening.

  After I had told the whole story, Comrade Ma promised to discuss the matter with her superiors. A few days later, she came again with Comrade He.

  “I’ve been instructed to inform you that your daughter’s case will be dealt with in due course. There are many cases of mysterious death in Shanghai, and many families are appealing to the government for clarification. For instance, the former director of our department was supposed to have committed suicide. Now his family has raised dou
bts and provided evidence to show he was probably murdered. Cases like that, which happened so many years ago, are very difficult to clarify. Even when you can prove death was not caused by suicide, you still have to locate the person or persons responsible. Who is going to point an accusing finger at another man who might be working in the same organization? And even when someone is ready to step forth and denounce someone else, can we really believe him?”

  “It does seem difficult,” I conceded. “But I believe it isn’t impossible to find the culprit if the government is determined to do so.”

  “You must trust the Party and the government. In the not too distant future, there will be an official verdict on the Cultural Revolution. After that, our work to clarify all residual problems will become easier,” Comrade Ma told me. From what she said I understood that since the Cultural Revolution had not yet been officially repudiated, the Revolutionaries who had committed the crimes could not be denounced, because they committed the crimes in the name of the Cultural Revolution. What Comrade Ma did not say but everybody in Shanghai knew was that many Revolutionaries had joined the Party in the meantime and become officials. It is much harder to confront a Party official than an ordinary person.

  The two ladies took their leave, and I accompanied them to the front gate. I thanked Comrade Ma for coming and promised her that I would wait patiently.

  I did not see Mrs. Zhu standing in the dark on her terrace. After I had closed the front gate, she stepped off the terrace and came towards me. “Were you talking about your daughter?” she asked.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, we were talking about her,” I said.

  Since I had been bringing Mrs. Zhu special cigarettes from the “internal” shop at the Political Consultative Conference, our relationship had become more cordial.

  “Well, my son told me that the man responsible for her death has been taken into custody. It seems he was involved in several other deaths too.”