God Is Red

by Liao Yiwu

  Liao: He’s opened a barbershop in the township, where he also does dental work.

  Sun: I introduced him to a visiting dentist from America. Little Sun received training from him. I’m told he’s pretty good at it now.

  Liao: I’ve met quite a few of your students.

  Sun: In the past eight years, I have trained thirty or forty, and we now have a rudimentary rural medical network. While it’s important to have professionally trained doctors available, it’s more urgent and realistic to have people on the ground who have some basic medical knowledge. In the rural areas, when there is an emergency, it takes time for a doctor to get there. Life is really hard for villagers in these mountainous regions, which are hours from the nearest township, and even there the hospitals are poorly equipped and staffed. It’s okay if you are well and healthy. But once a villager gets hit with a sudden illness, he is in big trouble. Many people die each year from what are really minor ailments and injuries.

  Liao: But setting up and running a rural medical network is a government job.

  Sun: The Communist Party is rotten; how can we rely on this government? Some overseas charity organizations have been very helpful, but their help is temporary. Mostly, we have to rely on our own local resources. In 1999 I contacted a charity in Singapore. They sent over three doctors, one from the United States, one from Hong Kong, and one from Singapore. We visited this area. That was when we met another man named Sun. He lives in Dazhuji Village in Zehei County. He had some medical background and was running a small clinic, but he was deep in debt and his clinic was facing bankruptcy. The charity offered financial help. But I think, more important, we gave him the confidence that he badly needed. I said to him: “Foreign aid is certainly good, but you can’t rely on it. You have to figure out a way to use local resources. The best way to do this is to tap into Chinese herbs. They are readily available in the region.” Over the years, Mr. Sun has been able to help others and pay off his debts. He is now doing fairly well.

  Liao: I met two Chinese American doctors at your house in Kunming. Have they been of help?

  Sun: They traveled to the rural regions several times and were willing to make some financial contributions. They have seen what it is like in China’s remote areas. I advised them to stay away from government officials so their money can directly benefit the rural villagers.

  But I have to admit that our help is limited. Many times we are helpless in the face of human suffering. In a remote village in Jiaoxi, I met the village leader who has a large tumor on his neck. Initially, it was a small one and some doctor tried to remove it, but he didn’t root it out. The tumor returned and grew bigger and bigger. When I met him, the tumor had already spread to his left shoulder and the back of his head. It was so heavy he couldn’t keep his balance while standing. It was cancer of the lymph nodes and had advanced to the stage where an operation was no longer possible. All I could do was sit with him. I read to him from the Bible and said, “Your life in this world is finite, but to God it is infinite.” He nodded at me and smiled. I held his hands and stayed with him quietly for an hour. He died the next day.

  One time I was taken to the house of a fifty-year-old woman. She was fighting for her breath and in a lot of pain. She was bleeding internally, and it was too late for any treatment. I asked for a basin of warm water and washed her face and combed her hair. As a doctor, I could do nothing for her. But as a person, I could give her back some dignity. I sat with her, held her hands. Her breathing was heavy, painful. I felt very sad for her. So I whispered: “Big sister, I know that you have suffered a lot in this life. Don’t be scared. Don’t be afraid. It will be over. The gate of heaven is wide open for you. Your sufferings will end there.” Tears ran down the sides of her face, her body twitched a couple of times, and a few minutes later, she passed away. Things happened pretty fast.

  Now, let me tell you an uplifting story. In the summer of 2001, I was traveling in the Jiaoxi region and stopped at a village. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon. After I had rested for an hour, a local official asked if I would see a man who was dying of a mysterious illness. It was a two-and-a-half-hour walk along muddy mountain paths. I slipped and fell several times. It was eight o’clock when we arrived. I remember the sun was setting behind the hills. There must have been about a hundred villagers surrounding the patient’s dark thatched house. A red casket was outside the door, its cover wide open. It was quite spooky. The patient was coughing blood; there were bloodstains everywhere. He seemed to be on the verge of death. His family members told me that he had lung cancer and showed me his X rays. The patient was quite lucid. I gave him an injection to stop the bleeding and asked him for the history of his illness. After an examination, I was sure it was not cancer, but tuberculosis, still quite serious. I didn’t have any TB meds with me. The next morning I set out with the patient’s two daughters for Kunming, which we reached midafternoon, and sent them back with some medicine and instructions on correct dosage. When I called three days later, the casket was gone from his door and his condition was improving. A checkup three weeks later confirmed he was making a speedy recovery.

  Liao: You wander around the rural areas, providing these services to people. How do you support yourself financially? Do you charge people for treatment?

  Sun: In the first two years, a church organization in the United States provided some financial support so I could do my charity work. I developed a close friendship with a young woman at that organization. Later, her boss changed his mind and stopped the financial aid. But I put my trust in God. I don’t have a lot of expenses. The only money I need is for bus or train fares. When I travel from village to village, I stay at the homes of local peasants who feed me a bowl of rice and beans.

  Liao: But that’s not really a long-term plan.

  Sun: People are really kind. Some peasants insist on paying for treatment—ten or twenty yuan. Those requiring more complex treatment offer two hundred to three hundred yuan. I have some contacts willing to let me pay wholesale for meds, and the money the peasants give me covers those costs. In the past two years, some doctors abroad have learned about me and are interested in what I do. They contribute medicines, and the two Chinese American doctors have rented a place in Kunming to use when they are here; I look after their patients when they are in the United States.

  Liao: I stayed at their office once.

  Sun: The place can accommodate six people at a time. There are enough doctors in big cities. I think I’m going to spend the rest of my life here. It fits me perfectly.

  Epilogue

  In 2009 Dr. Sun caught the attention of Yunnan government officials, who accused him of harboring “ulterior motives” by treating the poor for free and subsequently banned his medical mission in Yunnan. Meanwhile, after Liao published Dr. Sun’s story on an overseas Chinese website, he received an invitation from a Chinese church in the United States to talk about his work. He arrived in the United States in 2009 but has not been allowed to return to China. He now resides in California, trying to improve his English skills and seek missionary opportunities in Africa.

  Chapter 9

  The Martyr

  Above the Great West Door to Westminster Abbey in central London stand ten statues recognizing Christian martyrs of the twentieth century from around the globe. One of those statues is of Wang Zhiming, who lived and preached in Wuding County in China’s Yunnan province and served the ethnic Miao. Arrested in 1969 for his religious work, he was executed in 1973. He was sixty-six years old. Wang Zhiming’s story was well known within the Christian community in Yunnan, but outside the circle most Chinese have never heard of him. His family members, many of whom have continued his cause, rarely talk to the mainstream media.

  I first heard of Wang Zhiming in December 2005, when I was traveling in Yunnan with Dr. Sun, who was an acquaintance of Wang Zhiming’s son, a well-known Christian leader. I tracked him down in January 2007.

  The church in Xiachangchong Village, Gaoqi
ao Township, is an impeccable white, with a pink roof, and reminded me of a magic castle against the backdrop of high mountains. Leading to it are raised muddy paths, along one of which a local villager led Dr. Sun and me. We followed him up and down hills and through gullies of bush and vine. Near the village entrance stood Wang Zisheng, the son of Wang Zhiming. He had been tipped off about our arrival and greeted us like long-lost brothers, shaking hands, patting shoulders.

  Wang Zisheng, born in 1940, had just turned sixty-seven. He was short, sturdy, like a tree stump, with a big cotton hat. We followed another path that snaked around the village before reaching his courtyard house, a chaotic “farm” with pigs, dogs, and chickens all about and the pungent smell of their doings assailing my nose. When Wang Zisheng opened the door to let us into the house, a mother hen and a dozen chicks slipped between our feet and vanished inside.

  The first interview, taking place inside the house, lasted four hours. After we bid him good-bye and walked out of his courtyard, Wang’s wife caught up with us, tucking some oven-baked buckwheat cakes into our hands. I never felt so hungry and gobbled them up right away.

  Six months later, as I was transcribing the interview, I noticed that half of Wang’s stories had been accidentally erased from the tape. I examined the machine back and forth, banging my head against a wall. During the previous ten years, I had done more than two hundred interviews. That was my first accident.

  Out of desperation, I phoned Dr. Sun, begging him to arrange a second interview. So on August 5, 2007, I traveled to Kunming and met up with Dr. Sun.

  The mishap with Wang Zisheng’s tape was only the beginning of a series of misfortunes. On the way to Kunming’s bus terminal, I left my bag on the backseat of the taxi. The bag contained some of my most prized possessions—a flute that had followed me for many years, a camera, a new tape recorder, my notebook, and some of my favorite music CDs. Visiting the police station and phoning the taxi dispatcher produced nothing. I had to press on with my task. I reorganized myself, purchased a new tape recorder, and returned to the bus station only to find it jammed with people on their way to a nearby festival.

  The whole world seemed to have risen up against me, and while Dr. Sun suggested we go another time, I stubbornly refused. We finally persuaded a truck driver to take us. As we sat in traffic jams due to a harrowing accident, I bowed my head and prayed like a Christian, asking God if he was testing my patience and confidence. Before dusk, as our truck was approaching the white church building with the pink roof outside Wang Zisheng’s village, my heart was filled with gratitude.

  Wang was tending crops in the field. He looked a little confused when he saw us. As we slowly walked to his house, the sun was disappearing behind the mountains. Then two rainbows suddenly emerged in the sky, forming a colorful cross. For a few minutes, I became distracted by the unique natural phenomenon.

  The lightbulbs glowed weakly inside Wang’s cavernous room, so we all sat on the porch outside. Amid the attacks of swarms of post-summer-rain mosquitoes, our second interview started. I checked and rechecked my tape recorder. It was working.

  By nine o’clock, I finally completed my mission and felt an overwhelming sense of relief. Fortunately, erasing an interview from the tape could be made up with the help of devoted friends like Dr. Sun. But what if we, as a nation, collectively lose our memory of our past?

  Liao Yiwu: Why is it that Christianity has become widely accepted in the Miao villages?

  Wang Zisheng: Christianity was first introduced to the Miao villages around 1906 with the arrival of two Christian ministers, one from Australia—his Chinese name was Guo Xiufeng; one of my relatives who reads English says his name is Arthur G. Nicholls—the other, an Englishman. I only know his Chinese name: Shi Mingqing. They belonged to the China Inland Mission and came here from Kunming on donkeys. They had traveled for three or four days, and when they finally reached the Miao villages, the two caused quite a stir. The Miao people had never seen anyone with blond hair, green eyes, and a big crooked nose. Both ministers were very tall, much taller than the Miao. They attracted lots of attention.

  Since ancient times, the Miao people have lived in the mountains—farming, hunting, raising silkworms. We were quite primitive, no better than those birds flying in the sky or animals running on the ground. Throughout history, the central government has tried to conquer the Miao tribes.

  The Miao people worshipped all sorts of spirits and ghosts and held to many traditions and customs. Each time we planned an event, big or small, good or bad, we would first burn incense to worship and seek protection from various gods and deities. For weddings and funerals, we had to invite Taoist priests or a shaman to our homes, paying them to perform all sorts of rituals, such as playing gongs, dancing, and chanting to drive away any evil spirits. Families here were as poor as the rats living inside the field burrows, but they all had to put on extravagant shows. If a person passed away, his family would slaughter pigs and goats, inviting everyone in the village to a wake that would last a whole week. At the same time, the family had to provide food and drinks to every visitor. People couldn’t bury their dead right away. They went through rituals to show other villages that they had fulfilled their filial obligations. They also worried that if they didn’t, retribution would come to them later. As a result, a dead person often ended up lying in the casket for ten to twenty days before the burial. Oftentimes, the corpse began to stink and decay.

  The year the foreign Christian ministers arrived, the region was experiencing a terrible disaster, the worst in years—a pandemic. Within a ten-mile radius, there wasn’t a single family that was well-off. There were dilapidated houses everywhere. After a heavy rainstorm, when people’s houses collapsed, they didn’t have money to do the repairs. Humans and animals lived in close quarters under the same roof. When you were poor, you didn’t have the luxury to care about things like personal hygiene. As a consequence, bubonic plague and typhus swept through villages like the wind. People dropped dead soon after they were infected. There wasn’t enough time to bury the dead. Sometimes, three or four bodies would be dumped in one hole. Even so, there were bodies everywhere.

  The two foreigners on donkeys went to dangerous places from where others were running away. As long as someone was still breathing, the ministers would feed them medicines. For those who couldn’t be saved, they would squat beside the dying villagers, bow their heads, and say a prayer for them.

  The Christian ministers also helped people rebuild their houses and restore their lives. They taught locals to segregate the living quarters between animals and humans. They taught everyone how to protect their water sources and pay attention to personal hygiene. They also helped people see through the deceptive tricks of the local sorcerers. Many survivors abandoned their practices of spirit or ghost worshipping and became Christians. As people changed their old ways of living, the ministers began to teach them how to read the Bible and how to pray. In the end, they decided to make Sapushan the base for their missionary work. They built a church, the first in Yunnan province.

  People found spiritual support in the church. Every Sunday, people of different ethnicities—the Miao, the Yi, and the Lisu—would come from all directions and gather inside the church to hear the gospel, to hear the Word of God. On weekdays, they prayed at home or together in their villages. Many parents brought their children, asking the foreign Christian ministers to name them. I don’t remember my grandfather’s original name, but it was changed to Wang Sashi by the Australian minister, Guo Xiufeng. My grandfather’s new name meant “abandon the secular world to pursue the path of the Lord.”

  My father, Wang Zhiming, was born in 1907. That was the second year after the foreign Christians arrived. Our family lived in Bajiaojing Village then, in Dongcun Township in Fumin County. He started attending a local school in 1921, when he was fourteen years old. Three years later, my grandfather transferred him to a school run by the church in Sapushan. He graduated in 1926. He was nineteen. The ch
urch assigned him to teach in schools and preach in Haoming and Lufeng counties. He returned to Sapushan in 1935 and continued to teach and preach in nearby villages. When the resistance war against Japan started two years later, the two foreign pastors left to take up assignments elsewhere. My father was chosen to be the preacher at the main congregation in Sapushan. In 1944 he became president of the Sapushan Christian Association.

  Liao: So Sapushan was where Christianity in the Miao ethnic region started and developed. How big was the parish?

  Wang: It encompassed all the Miao churches in five counties: Wuding, Luquan, Fumin, Lufeng, and Yuanmou. It was the largest Miao parish in Yunnan. Since donkeys were the main means of transportation, preaching the gospel meant days on the road, climbing up and down the mountains. It was very tough. But under the leadership of my father, the parish developed fast. According to documents that I have obtained, before the Communist takeover in 1949, about 5,500 Miao, Yi, and Lisu people were converted and joined the church group in Sapushan. In 1945 my father went to live in the provincial capital of Kunming for three months. He compiled a collection of psalms in the Miao language. That was probably the first Miao hymnal in China.