A Boy of China

by Richard Loseby

Back in London in the 1990s when I used to frequent the Royal Geographical Society, I came across the journals and photographs of a fellow by the name of Ernest Henry Wilson, from Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire. His occupation in 1902 was listed as ‘plant collector’ and he was one of the first Westerners to travel far and wide in the Chinese interior, gathering hundreds of plant species and giving them names, occasionally his own. There are many species of plant life he inflicted with the name ‘Wilson’, though the humble ‘tea brick’ was not one of them. But it was through his black-and-white photographs of porters carrying huge loads of these ‘bricks’ that their existence was first brought to the attention of Victorian England.

  He was an intrepid explorer, so much so that when an earthquake caused an avalanche that broke his femur, he used a leg of his camera tripod as a splint while he was carried for three days to civilisation. Wilson died in a car accident in Massachusetts in 1930, but you can trace his legacy in a great many garden stores today.

  Chan’s mother was an excellent cook and ran a small eating house on the ground floor of their apartment building. We went down there for some Sichuan specialities like chilli hot pot and spicy deep-fried rabbit, after which everyone had a good laugh when my mouth went numb from all the Sichuan pepper. It was intensely fragrant and tasted of citrus, but it made my tongue feel like I’d been sucking on a battery terminal.

  ‘You like hot pot?’ teased Chan.

  ‘Yeth,’ I said. ‘Very nithe.’

  Other than earthquakes, if there is one thing Sichuan is famous for, it’s spicy food. The locals gobble chillies like chocolate, but fortunately they have the good sense to prepare ‘cooling’ dishes as well. One of these is tea-smoked duck, simply because it contains relatively few spices. Chan’s mother had marinated the duck for some hours, then smoked it over tea leaves and camphor twigs, before steaming and then deep-frying it so that it turned crisp. Because it takes so long to prepare, this dish is made only rarely, but my timing was excellent: today was tea-smoked duck day.

  After gorging myself on all this wonderful food, I tried to pay, but my offer was, once again, generously turned down. So I thought I would at least try to leave them with a present of sorts. I’d noticed Chan’s grandfather complaining of swollen ankles and feet, so the next day I found a department store that sold China’s latest invention, ‘The Huawei Heavenly Foot Bath’. It had been advertised on all the buses throughout Qinghai province. I couldn’t be sure of its efficacy, but it was, I hoped, the thought that would count. As it turned out, when I turned up on his doorstep the next day with the box under my arm, Chan’s grandfather couldn’t have been more pleased.

  ‘My grandfather says, every time he bathes his feet, he will think of you,’ Chan said.

  It was an honour I was entirely happy to accept.

  I was unsettled in Kangding, perhaps because no one would answer any questions I had relating to Mao, the march or anything else that could be deemed to be politically sensitive. I stayed only one day more before boarding a bus to Luding to view its famous bridge. On the day of my departure I learnt that an official visit from a junior Minister of Sport and Tourism, no less, was soon to be announced. That went a long way to explaining why so many were out and about, throwing themselves into every sporting endeavour. It also explained why they were so mute on the subject of Mao. I hoped that Luding was not expecting a similar visitation.

  The official story of Luding Bridge recounts that, in 1935, under a hail of gunfire, a small group of Mao’s finest soldiers from the Fourth Army crawled across the bridge and subdued the enemy on the other side, saving thousands of lives. It’s a pivotal moment in Communist history and much glorified by the media; as a result, it draws hordes of China’s Red Travellers to Luding, who swarm through the town buying cheap Mao memorabilia for their trophy cabinets. ‘Red Traveller’ is a term the Chinese bestow upon themselves. Like the term ‘haji’, which Muslims often add to their names once they have made the pilgrimage to Mecca, it is an honorific title. To become a Red Traveller you must pinpoint the key places in Communist history and make your pilgrimage to them — places like Luding. It is a rite of passage for every good and faithful Communist Party member, to prove their devotion to the Great Helmsman and his teachings.

  I spoke to the woman at the Luding Bridge information desk and asked her for details on the battle. But before answering my question she asked, beaming with self-importance and pride in her own linguistic ability, what language I required it in.

  ‘English,’ I said in English.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she replied.

  ‘I’m sure. Why?’

  ‘Because the German version is longer and there is a song.’

  With that, she started to sing a song in German about the Battle of Luding Bridge. It had been translated from the original Chinese by Otto Braun, a German Communist who was a military advisor to Mao in the 1930s. Otto was actually a spy, making sure the Soviets weren’t the only ones with a hand to play in the formation of a Communist China. He went with Mao on the Long March, was known by the Chinese name Li De and took a Chinese wife, though apparently she had to be ordered to marry him — Chinese women were wary of foreigners and considered them unclean. Perhaps because there was little in the way of romance in his life, Otto sought a creative outlet in composing military ballads.

  ‘English will be fine,’ I said to the woman, and she then recited the story from memory:

  ‘The Luding Bridge was built many centuries ago, made with heavy iron chains that stretched across the river. On each side the ends were embedded under great piles of rock, while thick wooden boards were lashed over the chains to make the road of the bridge. However,’ she said, raising a finger in the air for dramatic effect, ‘upon their arrival the brave men and women of the Red Army found the boards on their side were missing, leaving only the bare iron chains swinging across the chasm.

  ‘Down below, the river waters ran fast and furious, breaking with unimaginable force against the boulders that rose from the riverbed. White foam flew high into the air and the roar of the rushing torrent was deafening. Not even a fish could swim against that water. Crossing by boat was out of the question. The bridge had to be taken, but on the opposite bank, with a regiment of troops in support, an enemy machine gun waited for them. The Sichuanese never imagined the Reds would try to cross using the chains alone. It was madness. But the Reds were desperate and, one by one, 30 Red soldiers stepped forward to risk their lives.

  ‘The attack began at four in the afternoon. Together, the Red Army buglers blew the charge and every weapon the Reds possessed was fired at the enemy positions. Carrying Tommy guns and knives strapped to their backs, with a dozen grenades apiece tucked into their belts, the Red heroes, led by Commander Liao, climbed across the swaying chains into a storm of bullets. Behind them came the officers and men of 3rd Company, each carrying a thick wooden plank. With each plank, though, they paid a heavy price.

  ‘Snipers shot at the Reds climbing high above the water. The first hero was hit, and fell to his death in the current below, then a second, and a third. But when one was killed, another warrior stepped up to take his place. Never before had the Sichuanese enemy seen such bravery — men and boys ready to give up their lives to ensure the safety of their comrades. But each board that was laid down gave protection to the Reds and so, little by little, they came nearer. The enemy bullets began to bounce off the planking and the Sichuanese grew fearful.

  ‘At last, one Red crawled up over the bridge flooring and tossed a grenade with perfect aim into the enemy redoubt. The enemy Nationalist officers ordered their soldiers to tear up the rest of the planking, but it was too late. Instead they set them on fire with kerosene, though even this did not hold back our heroes. The Reds crawled forward on their hands and knees through the flames, tossing grenade after grenade into the enemy machine-gun nest, until the Nationalist guns were silent and their soldiers had fled.

  ‘A handful of men gave their lives
that day, many others were burnt and wounded, so that thousands of their comrades could cross the bridge over the treacherous Dadu River and escape to safety. By the time the Nationalist reinforcements arrived, the Red Army had vanished into the mountains.

  ‘Did you like it?’ she asked finally, taking a sip from a mug of tea that was kept hot by a ceramic lid decorated with red dragons.

  ‘Amazing,’ I replied, though it was more her ability to remember it all so well that impressed me.

  Otherwise, the most interesting thing about the story was the way the Communists had fabricated such a gargantuan lie around the capture of this insignificant bridge. From my research I knew the truth to be far less dramatic, something that was confirmed to me later by an elderly, slightly stooped man I met on the footpath by the river. He carried a wooden cane which he tapped on the ground as he walked, as if he were on ice and was unsure of its thickness. When I came close he stopped, straightened himself and greeted me curiously, interested to know who I was. His face lit up when I answered and there came a flurry of the usual questions, which I was well used to by now. It was quite some time before I managed to ask a question of my own — whether he knew anything about the bridge’s history, for example. Quite proudly, he explained how his father had witnessed the crossing. The Red Army had simply arrived one day and crossed the bridge without incident, watched by the local inhabitants, who took pity on the bedraggled columns of soldiers and offered them rice and water. No shots were fired and not a single casualty was suffered, amongst the soldiers or the villagers. The only losses were the stores of food the Red Army confiscated when they departed a few days later.

  ‘They took my father’s pigs,’ he muttered sadly, looking into the distance over my shoulder, ‘and paid nothing for them in return.’

  He zipped up his dark green padded jacket and hugged himself, shivering slightly in the cool breeze that had suddenly enveloped us.

  ‘Winter is coming,’ he said. ‘Where will you sleep tonight?’

  I told him I didn’t have a place in mind. I had arrived at the station and put my old army kitbag in storage. There was nothing in it I needed. Everything of importance — camera, toothbrush, soap, passport, journals and money — I had with me in a shoulder bag.

  ‘Then come with me,’ he said.

  He took my arm and we walked side by side a short distance to a panelled gate painted in reds and yellows that stood head-high between two houses. With an arthritic hand he reached through a hole in the gate and fumbled with a latch until the gate opened, revealing a series of shallow steps that descended towards and ended abruptly at the river. In a small eddy of water, and tied by a stout rope to a wooden post in a rock, nestled a wooden, clinker-built rowboat.

  ‘Get in,’ he said, gesturing in the general direction of the vessel. I looked at the fast-flowing river and wondered how safe it was, but the old man seemed not to have any concerns at all. It was as if this was as mundane a daily chore as putting out the cat or collecting the mail. So I stepped into the middle of the boat, sat down on a wooden seat and waited as the old man took his place at the stern. There was a short tiller attached to a rudder that he gripped tightly with the bony fingers of his right hand.

  ‘Now,’ he announced, ‘pull the rope.’

  I examined the heavy line that was tied to the bow, and which then disappeared into the murky green river water in front of us. Obediently I tugged at it, raising it out of the water slightly and then held on as our little vessel edged forward. I assumed there would be further instructions. After all, there were no oars, so it seemed to me there must be some mystery form of propulsion yet to be revealed, otherwise we’d be at the mercy of the current, save for what steerage the little rudder might provide. But there were no further orders. The old man merely untied the remaining line that anchored us to the little dock and let it go.

  Instantly we were picked up by the flow of water and swept away from the bank, out towards the middle. I held on with grim determination to the line and, as the tension came on, it lifted even more from the water, revealing that it was tied to the opposite bank, 100 metres upstream. With the old man steering us in the same direction and the current pushing us there as well, we sped sideways across the river. Within another 30 seconds we had safely crossed and were edging closer to the opposite bank, where another set of stone steps awaited. With a soft thud the rowboat bumped against them, the motion of the water holding us in place as I found another length of cord to secure our vessel more permanently. I clambered out and stood on the steps, looking back at the place we had come from, a good 40 or so metres away. The old man had effectively ‘swung’ the boat across the river like a pendulum. If that wasn’t miraculous enough, as he gripped the handrail and mounted each stone step one at a time, I realised suddenly that it wasn’t just old age he had to deal with, it was his lack of sight. He was almost completely blind, which explained a number of things: the cane stick, the way he often looked off into the distance or down at the ground when talking — which I had simply taken as the eccentric habits of an elderly Chinese gent — and the way he held my arm as we walked. All these hurdles he seemed to just take in his stride, never complaining about the difficulties that might have tried the patience of much younger, sighted people.

  I followed him up the steps until we came to another doorway painted in the same bright colours as the one on the other side. This one creaked open on rusty hinges and soon we were standing in a cobbled stone alleyway between two houses, both two-storeyed and made of vertical planks of a dark timber that was papered here and there with faded posters advertising old DVD movies. Above our heads were shuttered windows and from one I could hear a kitten mewing. Two middle-aged women sat on some stone steps outside a wide doorway and they smiled and nodded as we passed between them to go inside. It was dark, and for a moment I was the one holding onto the old man’s arm as my eyes adjusted. Fortunately we soon came to an internal courtyard that was open to the grey sky and I could take in the surroundings more easily.

  The courtyard was about 10 metres square and its floor was laid with the same cobblestones as those in the alleyway. It looked clean and recently swept. At the centre was a deep well that was sheer-sided, except for small brick extrusions every foot or so that could be used as a ladder by the very nimble. Nearby was a red plastic bucket tied to a length of rope; when the old man’s cane touched it, he raised his voice in anger and called for its immediate removal. One of the ladies from the front steps appeared, hurriedly picked it up and dropped it halfway down the shaft, before securing the rope to an iron ring on the lip of the well. Hearing this, the old man grunted and we shuffled over to some seats against the courtyard wall. There were several wooden doors around the perimeter, all firmly shut, that looked well used and slightly askew. I asked where they went and he said this was where his family members lived. He had a grandson who was married and lived with him in the apartment directly opposite us. His grandson’s wife’s family lived behind the door on the right, and the corner door to our left led to a spare room that he said I could sleep in for the equivalent of a few dollars.

  ‘I will get them,’ he whispered, nodding towards the women, ‘to remove the goat.’

  Chinese tourists stare in awe at the Luding Bridge

  The entrance to old man Hsu’s house, Luding

  With that, he barked out some more commands and in due course the goat was led from where it had obviously taken up residence and was then shackled to the iron ring on the well, where it remained for the rest of the day, forlornly chewing on the husks of a dried corn cob.

  The old man’s name was Hsu Teh-Huai. He was 72½ — a good age, he noted, smiling — and had been a teacher all his life, even through the Cultural Revolution, when the Communists had persecuted teachers and sent many, including him, onto the land to work. He had never given up his classes though. He simply moved them from the schoolroom to the outdoors, where he taught physics and chemistry amongst fields of barley and rice. Eventu
ally the Communists let him go back to the school in order to lecture on Party-approved subjects — he didn’t say what, but judging from the smirk on his face he must have ignored those orders and continued with his own syllabus.

  ‘Do you like science?’ he enquired.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied.

  He nodded, then tapped at the ground with his cane. ‘It is real and solid, like this stone. You can stand on it, build on it. The Communists would have me teach lies instead, and you can’t build anything of substance on those.’

  Under Mao in the 1960s, anyone who didn’t rebel alongside the Red Army was labelled a ‘rightist’ and such people were often sent away for re-education, or simply shot. As with many revolutions, it was the young intelligentsia, fresh from their universities in the big cities who became the most ardent supporters, calling themselves the ‘Red Guards’ and spouting forth slogans and political rhetoric that it was risky to ignore, and downright dangerous to disobey. They were organised, their numbers were in the millions and growing by the day, and in some cases they were armed with more than just righteousness. They were a militant mob, hellbent on ridding their world of any perceived threat to their leader, Mao Tse-tung. Often those who were singled out for punishment were prominent writers, artists, scholars and other professionals such as doctors and teachers.

  I asked Hsu if he had suffered during this period, and he held out the little finger of his left hand. Most of it was missing, chopped off, he said, by a young man who accused Hsu of being privileged and ‘bourgeois’.

  ‘I don’t think he knew the meaning of the word,’ he said, somewhat bitterly.

  I looked at Hsu’s clothes and saw the careful needlework repairs that kept sleeve attached to shoulder and pocket connected to breast. There was nothing ‘bourgeois’ about him at all. Far from it: judging from the roughness of his hands, he had clearly been no stranger to hard work through the years.