Daughter of Good Fortune: A Twentieth-Century Chinese Peasant Memoir

by Chen Huiqin

  My husband’s study course was now moved to Baiqiang Brigade, about four li from our village. As the weather turned chilly, he sent home for some warmer clothes. On my way to Baiqiang to bring him clothes, I ran into my husband’s brother’s son-in-law. He dismounted from his bike and walked with me for some time. He asked, “Do you think my father-in-law would hurt his brother? He put his fingerprint onto the confession notes because that is the truth.” He tried to persuade me to convince my husband to “confess.” He said that “confession leads to lenient treatment, while confrontation leads to harsh treatment.” He also tried to persuade me to take a stand against my husband, saying, “The facts prove that he is a class enemy.” I told him that I could not do what he asked me to do and that I believed what was truth would come out as truth in the end.

  When I got to Baiqiang Brigade, the rebel leader took me into a room and said more or less the same things as my brother-in-law’s son-in-law had, asking me to talk my husband into a “confession.” When I told him that I could not do so and that I believed in my husband, the rebel leader said to me that in the whole commune, he had not seen “a more stubborn woman.” Because I refused to do what they wanted me to do, the staff at Baiqiang study course did not allow me to see my husband. They took the clothes and said that they would give them to him.

  As the weather got colder, my husband also sent home for a heavier quilt. I prepared it and Shezhen took it to her father on a bike. When Shezhen got to the study course, they took the quilt and felt all over it for any possible secret note sewed into it. My husband at the time was under “isolated examination.” They were worried about any outside information passing into his hands.

  The rebels did allow Shezhen to see her father. After they had examined the quilt, Shezhen took it into the room where her father slept. Shezhen told me that she saw her father’s makeshift bed with a mosquito net. Onto the mosquito net were hung big-character posters accusing him of being a Jifei agent. Shezhen’s father told her to be careful of the posters. Shezhen said she understood that any tear or damage would be an act of defiance or confrontation and would be an added crime for her father. Shezhen came home, told me her experience, and cried. I cried with her. I did not know how to comfort her.

  The staff at the Baiqiang study course had to take two days off for the New Year’s Day holiday. They sent my husband home for the two days and put him under the surveillance of the rebel leader in our village. On New Year’s Eve, when my husband arrived home, the village rebel leader came and told my husband to empty and clean chamber pots the next day, New Year’s Day. At the time, this job was always given to landlords, who had been the biggest class enemies in a village. Clearly, my husband was now considered a worse enemy than the landlord in our village. My husband replied directly to the rebel leader, “I will not do that.” My husband was so firm that the rebel leader could not do anything to force it. For two days, nobody dared to visit us, for nobody wished to get into trouble.

  After New Year’s Day, it was the Chinese New Year. This time, they did not allow my husband to come home. The staff took turns on duty at the study course. Besides my husband, there were three other men in the study course. My husband spent the Chinese New Year holidays with them. They made rice-stalk ropes for the local production team. My husband became very good friends with one of the three men and stayed friends with him for a long time. This friend came from a landlord family, was educated, and worked as the vet in Zhuqiao Commune.

  In the spring of 1969, the study course ended. My husband, who still denied any connection with the so-called Jifei Agent Organization, was sent to work under surveillance at Lijiang Brigade’s pig farm. The pig farm was about ten li north of our village. He was not allowed to come home.

  In late May, Yan Shoufu, who was working at the commune pig farm, went to visit Lijiang Brigade’s pig farm. My husband asked him to pass a message to me. My husband said that if it was possible, he wanted me to send him some grain coupons. He relied on his monthly allotted coupons for the three meals in the dining room on the farm, but they were not enough, so he was often hungry. Besides conveying the message, Yan Shoufu gave me directions to get to the pig farm.

  The next day, I got up before dawn and walked for an hour to get to the pig farm. I had to ask for directions only once. When I got there, it was before breakfast. A woman was cooking in the kitchen for the workers on the farm. I asked her if Chen Xianxi worked there, and she said yes and showed me where my husband was working at the time. Across a field in which wheat had just been harvested, I saw one man on the top of a pile of crop stalks and another man standing below throwing bundled crop stalks to the man on the top. The woman said the man standing below was Chen Xianxi. I told her that I was his wife and had brought some grain coupons for him. She said she could run and call him back. I thanked her and said no. I gave her the coupons and asked her to give them to him. She told me that he was doing fine and that people at the pig farm and in the surrounding villages respected him and got along very well with him. She said that sometimes villagers and workers at the pig farm brought him homemade foods. I thanked her again and told her to let him know that everyone at home was doing well and that all he needed to do was take care of himself. The woman sent me off with tears in her eyes.

  I returned home and went into the fields on time. I did all of this before the day’s field work started and nobody knew what I had already done that day.

  Summer came and went. As the weather was getting cold again, I prepared another heavy quilt and asked Shezhen to bring it to her father on a bike. I described the way to Lijiang Brigade’s pig farm. Shezhen remembered it and got there fine. There at the farm, Shezhen saw her father. On her way back, a quick storm wetted the dirt road she rode her bike on. She was not very good at controlling the bike and so fell on the slippery road a number of times. When she got home, she was covered with wet dirt. She sobbed and said that she could hardly recognize her father. She said that he had long hair and a long beard. He was thin and his face was dark.

  My husband returned home from the pig farm in the summer of 1970. He was cleared of the accusation of being a Jifei agent, as were all the others. Just as my husband had said, the Jifei organization had been thoroughly investigated and those who were involved had been dealt with in the early 1950s. Afterward, my husband was assigned to work as a cadre in Chengdong Commune, which was located southeast of Jiading Town. It took more than an hour for him to ride a bike from our village to his new job. He again devoted himself to work. He came home even less frequently due to its distance from home.

  SUICIDE ATTEMPT AND DEATH

  When my husband was shut up in the study course at Dengta Middle School in September 1968, my father was also called away to a study course inside Zhuqiao Middle School. My father’s position as hamlet head before Liberation was now deemed a crime. But more seriously, the rebels also accused him of being a member of the Jifei Agent Organization. The rebels pressured him to “confess” his involvement in the organization as well as to say that he knew my husband was also a member. After the October 1 National Day holiday, there were big banners inside the Zhuqiao Middle School declaring Chen Xianxi a Jifei agent, a counterrevolutionary, and the biggest and most deeply hidden class enemy in Zhuqiao Commune.

  My father denied any involvement with the counterrevolutionary organization. He said that it was impossible that Chen Xianxi had supported any anti-Communist organization, because he worked for the new system from the very beginning. My father said that since Liberation, he had been watching how whole-heartedly Chen Xianxi had been working at his job, which was in the service of the people. My father asked, “How could such a person be a counterrevolutionary?”

  Father had witnessed the irrational craziness of the past two years. The traditional customs he was familiar with had either been destroyed or condemned. He had seen his son-in-law taken away. He had now been accused of being a counterrevolutionary and was shut up in a study course. He could not see an
y way out of such a mess. He was totally disappointed and decided to end his life.

  The following is what my father told me afterward.

  One late night after everybody had gone to bed, my father went out to the middle school grounds and tried to electrocute himself by unscrewing a light bulb on a post and putting his fingers into it. He was repelled by the electricity. He then climbed over the middle school wall and got into a cotton field.

  At the western edge of the cotton field was Xijing River (Xijing He), a major river in our area. This was the river in which Little Aunt, Father’s little sister, did her washing every day. Father chose Xijing River to drown himself so that his sister would identify his body and take him home.

  In the darkness, Father groped his way between fully grown cotton plants toward the river. When he got to the edge of the river and tried to jump in, he tripped on a trailing weed, fell down, and became unconscious. (I believe it was our ancestors who stopped him from taking the action.) When he woke up, it was dawn of the next day.

  He could hear people walking and greeting each other on the road. This was a major dirt road connecting Little Aunt’s village and villages beyond to Zhuqiao Town and to the Coal-cinder Road leading to Jiading Town. Father did not jump into the river then because he was afraid that he would be saved by people walking by and his “crime” would be doubled. At the time, an attempt to commit suicide was considered “stubborn confrontation” with the revolutionary cause. He decided to stay in the cotton field, wait for another night to fall, and then jump into the river.

  That morning, I got up and went to work in the warping shop before breakfast. This was a slack farming season and people were using the time to do their needlework, to spin, and to weave. The warping shop was busy. Little Aunt’s husband appeared at the warping shop on his bike. I was a little surprised and said, “Gufu [Uncle], is there anything wrong? This is very early.” Uncle replied, “Your father has disappeared.” I said, “My father is in the study course.” Uncle said, “It is the study course people who said that your father has disappeared. The staff at the study course center are out looking for your father. We live nearby and heard the news.” I put down my work and walked toward home. Before I reached home, I fell down to the ground and passed out.

  Uncle cried for help. Villagers rushed out. They helped Uncle get me home. Very soon after that, the study course sent a staff member to see if my father had taken the liberty of coming home. The staff member comforted me, saying that I should not think the worst yet. I asked him to take me to Zhuqiao Middle School on his bike, which he agreed to do. At this point, the staff at the study course center were also worried. They were responsible for the personal security of those people under their control.

  On the way to the middle school, I tried to think logically. I knew my father. Mianzi, or “face,” was very important to him. Throughout his life, he lived properly and behaved reasonably. He had never done anything that caused gossip. He was a man of principle and of integrity. If he decided to do something and believed that was the right thing to do, he would not waver. He had now escaped from the study course; returning on his own would totally contradict my father’s personality.

  My world had collapsed once more. Father had kept me at home because he loved me. He gave whole-hearted support to my husband because he believed that the new system was good for the poor and the majority. Now it was my husband and his position as a commune leader that had brought trouble to my family. Without my husband, my father would not have been noticed and would have escaped the study course and the ordeal.

  When I got to the middle school, they still had not found my father. They were using various ways to comb the river behind the middle school for the body. I tried to jump into the river, believing that was where my father was. Too many people were present and they stopped me. I cried loudly, calling my father and asking him why he had left me and why he had not taken me with him. I rolled on the ground and fainted many times. Crowds of people watched. The staff members finally persuaded me to return home to wait for further news. Somebody took me home on a bike.

  In early afternoon of the same day, Little Aunt’s husband came to my house on his bike again. He told me that my father was alive and had now returned to the study course. I replied, “Uncle, I know you are trying to comfort me, but this is no use. I do not believe it.” Uncle said he was telling the truth and offered to take me to his home so that I could talk to Little Aunt. Uncle said, “Your Little Aunt saw your father herself and would not deceive you.” I sat on the rear seat of Uncle’s bike and went to his house immediately.

  This is what happened. As my father sat in the cotton field waiting for night to fall, he heard people walking on the road say that what had happened to the Chen family was a tragedy. They said Chen Zhengqi, my father, was a nice man. He had a wonderful family before this Jifei event. Now this family is broken. Chen Zhengqi has now committed suicide. His son-in-law is shut up in a study course and has been accused as a counterrevolutionary. The saddest of all is his daughter. She has been crying and rolling in the dirt since early morning. She fainted many times. They also said that she may not survive such a blow and, unless guarded day and night, she could easily find a way to end her life. People sighed and said, “What would happen to the children? They are not old enough to take care of themselves.”

  Such talk awoke my father to an important reality: it was easy for him to end his life, but his death would kill me and ruin our family. He knew his returning alive would ruin his “face,” but compared to his love for me and his family, his own “face” was less important. He decided to return and live for the sake of me and my children. With his face, hands, and clothes covered in dirt, he walked out of the cotton field, crossed the bridge, and went directly to Little Aunt’s house, which was just on the other side of the river.

  When Little Aunt saw him, she could not believe he was real. She said to herself that she had been crying since early morning and now must be deluded and seeing the ghost of her big brother. The sister and brother embraced each other and wept together. Little Aunt warmed some water and my father cleaned himself and changed into clean clothes, which belonged to Uncle. He then walked back to the study course in the middle school. Little Aunt convinced me that my father was alive and had returned to the study course. I went there, asking to see him, but was refused.

  After this event, my father was sent to the soy-sauce factory where he used to be an accountant. He was no longer trusted, so he now worked in a soy-sauce bottling workshop. He worked under surveillance and had to write “thought reports.” Father told me later that he did not mind the work in the workshop.

  The soy-sauce factory, a commune-run business, had expanded and also made chemical fertilizer. The rebel leader at the factory was a vicious man. He made my father stand in the downside of the wind when a load of chemical fertilizer was being emptied out. Workers at the fertilizer section wore special masks provided by the factory when the hot, steamy chemical fertilizer came out; it was known to be poisonous and had a strong, choking odor. The rebel leader made my father take in the odor as his punishment. The process of emptying out the load took about forty-five minutes and my father had to stand for forty-five minutes and take in the poisonous, choking odor. This treatment lasted a whole month. During the month, my father was not allowed to come home and so I had no idea that this was happening.

  During that month, I went to Zhuqiao Town for various things several times. I usually went early in the morning before field work started. On my way to Zhuqiao, I would go past the factory where Father was. A couple of times, I saw him standing inside the factory gate looking out. I saw him and he saw me. I did not go in, nor did he try to come out to meet me. I knew any meeting would cause more trouble for him. I continued walking, but could not help having tears in my eyes.

  When the whole Jifei fiasco came to an end, Father returned to his accountant position. This time, he was assigned to work at the Zonghe Factory of Zhuqia
o Commune. The major product of the factory was bean noodles.

  By June 1971, Father was complaining about an uncomfortable stomach and began to throw up whatever he ate. I urged him and finally accompanied him to see a doctor in the People’s Hospital. A gastroscopic exam determined that Father had stomach cancer, which was already at a very late stage. He was operated on and three-fourths of his stomach was cut off. But the doctors said that the cancer had already spread to the remaining portion of the stomach. At that time, radiation treatment was available, but we were told that it could not be performed on the stomach. The doctors said that if Father was taken good care of he could live one to two more years. They added that the best way for me to express my filial piety was to buy and cook whatever Father wanted to eat.

  I did my best to take care of Father. Exactly one year later, in July of 1972, Father started to complain about stomach problems again. We consulted with specialists at Shanghai Tumor Hospital as well as doctors at the People’s Hospital. They all concluded that Father could not be operated on again and advised us to resort to traditional Chinese medicine for help.

  By mid-August, Father said that he did not want to take the herbal medicine anymore because it did not help at all. After that, one day, with me present, he said to his mother with a smile on his face, “Linshe represents me. She will take care of you on my behalf. When we came to this world, we already knew that we would leave this world one day.”

  To me, Father said, “I suggest you do not go into the fields. Keep me company and we shall spend some time together. I have lived a complete jiazi, a sexagenary cycle,2 and I am very content with my life. Your mother was a good and kind woman. You make me happy. I have no worries or concerns.” He smiled a little and added, “I don’t want to see tears. Life is a natural process and it ends one way or another.”