The Fat Years

by Koonchung Chan

  The Church of the Grain Fallen on the Ground had quite a good reputation in Chinese Christian circles, and, since all its leaders had spent time in prison, many foreign Christians came to see them. Li Tiejun and the others were particularly happy to associate with foreigners, but Gao Shengchan was quite wary of this; he was afraid that the Communist Party would charge them with the crime of collaborating with foreign powers. From his exchanges with visitors from abroad, Gao Shengchan realized even more clearly that, although the Christian churches didn’t aspire to secular power, they could still be drawn into politics as in America, where the Evangelical Christians frequently worked on issues with the Republican Party and its right-wing factions that supported the interests of big capitalists. Some Americans had actually come to Henan to see Gao Shengchan and urge him to oppose the Chinese government’s birth-control policies, but he had refused to do so. To this day American Christian church groups have never invited this excellent Chinese Christian intellectual and charismatic leader of the underground church movement to visit the United States, not to mention visit the White House and meet the president.

  What Gao Shengchan was able to do was to insist that the Church of the Grain Fallen on the Ground should not accept monetary contributions from abroad, nor receive Bibles illegally smuggled into China, nor invite non-Chinese pastors to preach in their churches. Some people had actually accused Gao Shengchan of promoting a “No No No” Patriotic Church. Fortunately, up to this point, Li Tiejun and the others had agreed with Gao Shengchan on these important policies; the main reasons being that the Chinese economy was very strong, church members donated a considerable amount of money, and the church had no need of foreign donations and even less need of foreign Bibles.

  There was one sort of positive development that sometimes, however, gave Gao Shengchan a major headache. After joining the church, the faithful had a natural cohesion based on their common identity, and they wanted to express Christ’s spirit of universal love by collaborating on common goals and mutually protecting one another. If some brother or sister in the Lord was in trouble, they felt duty-bound to rush to his or her aid. Gao had heard that there had already been many occasions when collusion between businesspeople and government officials had infringed the rights and well-being of the common people, and when members of the underground churches were among those ordinary victims, their brothers and sisters in the faith organized themselves to resist the business and bureaucratic interest groups. In the mind of the government officials, these incidents could easily be regarded as a confrontation between the believers and the regime. Some local officials already regarded the home churches as a thorn in their flesh and they had put a great deal of pressure on the Bureau of Religion to do something about them. If these incidents kept occurring, they might cause the government to reverse its present relatively lenient policy.

  This was precisely why the appearance of Little Xi caused Gao Shengchan both joy and anxiety. His face became flushed. The Lord must have guided her to them, thanks be to the Lord.

  Ever since the Warm Springs fellowship had been established, he had stood in the yard and guided many lost sheep back into the Lord’s embrace. The difference was that as soon as he saw Little Xi he knew she was not local; she had a certain air of culture about her; she was an intellectual like himself.

  After Little Xi had been in Warm Springs a while, Gao Shengchan saw that she read the Bible quite seriously, and that the questions she asked were very sophisticated and not at all trivial. What she most wanted to understand was why they all believed in God and why the church members, after being suppressed and forced underground, didn’t harbor any hatred—on the contrary, they were even happier than anyone else.

  “Because we have love in our hearts, because we have the Lord Jesus Christ,” said Gao Shengchan in his sermons.

  Little Xi appreciated the mutual concern the brothers and sisters of the fellowship had for one another; it was much more sincere than the class solidarity she had been taught since childhood. This kind of loving friendship recalled to her the intellectuals she’d met in the Wudaokou restaurant during the 1980s. They had also had a similar sort of kindred spirit. Now it was all gone with the wind.

  She could not help wondering to herself, If they didn’t have religious faith, could good people in China still keep on being good? In China’s current conditions, with this political system and prevailing social mood, it’s not at all easy to “guard one’s own virtue alone,” as the Confucian philosopher Mencius advised. What kind of moral and spiritual power can make one want to be good? Without religious faith, it’s just too difficult to be a good person.

  Little Xi didn’t, however, have the urge to believe in religion. All her life she had been a faithful disciple of materialism and atheism and she could not change her mind. Her reason made her resist the claims of theistic religion.

  The only person in the fellowship with whom she could have a high-level discussion was Gao Shengchan, but as the main preacher for all four fellowships, he couldn’t stay in Warm Springs all the time. So Little Xi decided that wherever Gao Shengchan went, she would go with him, listen to his preaching, and ask him further questions.

  There was something else about the fellowship that Little Xi was only vaguely aware of. Those humble and devout disciples of Christ also exhibited a mild form of dogmatic self-satisfaction—we alone know the truth—that made her feel somewhat uneasy. Although Gao Shengchan was very enthusiastic when he preached the gospel, in everyday life he seemed to carry a great load of care and a certain melancholy; he also had to cope with his lameness, and Little Xi felt it was very easy to communicate with him. She decided to get closer to him.

  Little Xi had no romantic notions, but Gao Shengchan certainly did and was even thinking that it was about time for him to take a wife. But Little Xi was not yet a Christian, and all those posts she put on the Internet under the name of maizibusi might cause trouble.

  It was at this stage in their relationship that the Zhang Family Village incident occurred.

  Many peasant families in Zhang Family Village were members of the Christian fellowship. A short while earlier the township government, in collusion with a business interest group, had violated their rights and enclosed their land. When the other brothers and sisters in the fellowship discussed this situation, Little Xi was particularly enthusiastic. She explained many legal concepts to them and urged them to defend their legal rights. When everybody learned that she had studied law, they greatly admired her knowledge. They planned out a three-part strategy. First, they would go to the county court and file a suit against the township government; second, they would stage a protest demonstration in front of the township-government headquarters; and third, they would make a real-time record of the demonstration and put all the evidence of the township government’s corruption on the Internet for wider distribution. This last move was because Little Xi told them, “The Internet is the people’s Central Discipline Committee and virtual Public Security authorities.” But some were worried that if they acted this way, the church would be drawn into the peasants’ rights defense movement, with hard-to-predict consequences.

  Gao Shengchan talked to Li Tiejun about these developments and asked Li to dissuade the fellowship members from broadening the scope of the Zhang Family Village incident. Who would have imagined that Li Tiejun would turn around and criticize Gao Shengchan? “Old Gao,” he said, “when I have something to say, I say it. Everybody now believes that you and Little Xi are a couple. But she’s become Big Sister Gao—she’s the outside, and you’re the inside. This maizibusi woman is speaking on your behalf!”

  A love that passeth all understanding

  As they entered Henan Province, Fang Caodi began to recount the many coincidences that had occurred in his life. “Lao Chen, do you believe in coincidence?” he asked.

  Lao Chen thought that as a writer of fiction he had to rely on coincidence, but in real life he felt that the value of coincidence was overestim
ated. He didn’t need to answer Fang Caodi very often because Fang would just keep on talking anyway. Fang had not stopped talking since they had left Beijing that morning. So in answer to this particular question, Lao Chen just shrugged.

  “I knew I didn’t have to ask you,” said Fang Caodi. “As a writer, you must believe in coincidence. You know that life is just like fiction, everything is coincidence—if not I would not be driving into Henan with you today.”

  “Have you read the American writer Paul Auster’s novels of coincidence?” Lao Chen asked out of curiosity.

  “No,” said Fang, “but I’ve read the mystery stories of Seichō Matsumoto. Without coincidence there’d be no fiction.”

  “Fiction is one thing,” said Lao Chen, “and real life is something else. Most coincidences are probably predestined. On the surface they look like coincidence, but in the background, ‘Heaven’s net is wide-meshed, but nothing can escape it,’ as old Laozi said. Cause and effect are always there, and there are always clues, but most of the time we can’t see the clues.”

  “A really perceptive analysis, Lao Chen,” said Fang, “really perceptive.”

  “Wow!” exclaimed Lao Chen, looking at his cell phone. “Zhang Dou has found new posts by maizibusi on three Web sites. One says that she’s finally swept away the ghost of 1983. Another says that she’s in W County in J City in H Province helping some peasants defend their legal rights. Hu Yan’s text said that that church is in Jiaozuo in Henan. That’s J and H. All we have to do is find W County.”

  “Wen County,” said Fang, “it must be Wen County. Because I’ve been there—it’s another coincidence.”

  “Then let’s just head for Wen County,” said Lao Chen, reluctant to dispute Fang’s logic, and setting the GPS.

  Gao Shengchan’s college classmate Liu Xing was the vice minister of the Jiaozuo Municipal Committee Propaganda Department. He was in charge of media propaganda. When Gao Shengchan called him in the morning, Liu Xing immediately and with no hesitation invited him to the Yiwan Hotel for dinner. “We can have a good talk then,” Liu said.

  If it had been two or three years earlier, Liu Xing would not have wanted to be seen in public talking to Gao Shengchan, but after the last change in the local administration, when he hadn’t been promoted, he knew now that his career had reached its high point. He was already fifty years old. He hadn’t made it into this new leadership group, so he didn’t have any future prospects for promotion. So now what difference would it make to be seen having dinner with his old college friend?

  Fang Caodi and Lao Chen had lost a few hours visiting Happy Village, and so it was already nine o’clock in the evening when they reached Jiaozuo City, too late to go on to the Warm Springs township. They had to stay overnight in the Jiaozuo area. By the time Fang Caodi, at Lao Chen’s insistence, had registered at the four-star Yiwan, in a private room in the hotel’s restaurant Liu Xing and Gao Shengchan had already had a few rounds of drinks and were about to begin a serious discussion.

  Gao Shengchan told Liu about the trouble his church was facing—that some of the brothers and sisters in the fellowship had become involved in the Zhang Family Village land-rights dispute, and that things were likely to get more heated. Religious affairs came under the Bureau of Religion and not under Liu Xing’s department, so Gao Shengchan could discuss the situation with him just as an old friend. Gao Shengchan knew that he could not start off by asking Liu Xing to show him how to solve his problem. If he did, Liu Xing certainly would not want to tell him the truth about anything. Gao Shengchan simply told his friend about his problems and then they went on drinking and chatting, waiting for Liu to say something important.

  Although Liu Xing had downed quite a few drinks, he had been a seasoned bureaucrat for so many years that getting him to talk was like getting blood from a stone, and nobody could get the goods on him. He said that all levels of government were now studying a document from Party Central and they were going to be tested on it. He could recite it by heart:

  “ ‘Our Party’s governing philosophy in the present stage of development is to practice virtuous government for the people and to manage the relationship between the Party cadres and the masses. The Party cadres are the servants of the people and the people are the parents of the cadres. The Party cadres must correctly handle contradictions among the people, establish a dispute-resolution mechanism for contradictions and disputes throughout the entire society, establish an early-warning mechanism to maintain social stability, work actively to prevent and to handle properly all types of collective incidents, maintain a stable and harmonious society, follow the law to crack down severely on all types of illegal criminal activities, and above all, always make the protection of our nation’s security and fundamental system China’s priority number-one core interest.’

  “In other words,” explained Liu Xing, “the government now wants to maintain a posture of solving the common people’s problems. Thus they must not allow the outbreak of any collective incidents to disrupt their harmonious society. The Party officials not only must not provoke the common people, but they must also remain vigilant and have advance warning to head off any possible mass demonstrations, resolve issues before anything happens, make big problems small, and small problems disappear. If the Party cadres lack this early-warning sense and an incident of collective protest occurs, no matter how it is finally resolved, Party officials will have to take the blame in the end.

  “What is one-party dictatorship? Dictatorship simply means that the ruling party has the absolute power to practice strict dictatorship whenever it wants to. At that point, the entire apparatus of state can practice dictatorship against the people or a portion of the people without authorization or any limitation by the people. By the same token, under a one-party dictatorship, when the ruling party wants to avoid trouble, it will try to make the people everywhere feel the paternalistic solicitude of the party-state government. Today China is in a period when the Party wants to avoid trouble. Only the core interest of the Communist Party’s fundamental one-party rule must not waver, however flexible its maneuvers or moderate its methods.”

  Gao Shengchan understood all this only too well. His church had been able to develop without government interference for the past two years because the government’s present policy was to avoid trouble. The officials were all afraid that some mass incident might occur in their jurisdiction, afraid of losing their positions, and so nobody dared to poke any hornets’ nest. And the underground churches were just such hornets’ nests.

  What Liu Xing was saying at this time was quite deliberate, and Gao Shengchan interpreted his words very correctly. His unspoken message was that although the people were afraid of the officials, the officials were also afraid of the people. If news of a possible mass protest became known, it was quite possible that local officials would want to resolve the situation before it escalated. During the preparatory stages of a protest both sides still had room to maneuver, but after the protest broke out, the outcome was unpredictable. If the protesters were charged with “beating, smashing, stealing, and fighting,” suppressed, and thrown into jail, both the officials and the people would suffer. Even if, after the protest, a few officials lost their jobs and were replaced, it would be of no real help to anybody.

  But who should one inform about the possible outbreak of a mass protest? Gao Shengchan pondered. If you’re too open, it’ll become a public incident, and the local officials will lose face; if you’re not open enough, you’ll be ineffective. For example, Liu Xing will just pretend he doesn’t know anything about it because it’s not under his department. Gao Shengchan gloomily ate his after-dinner fruit and wondered, Which official would be worried about this impending incident?

  Of course the township Party leadership was the most directly involved, but if they hadn’t been so fixated about making money in the first place, they would not have created the situation. With the prospect of great financial gains, they would not “shed tears until bein
g measured for their coffins”—they would not give in. There would have to be a real mass protest before they would change their tune. But that was just what Gao Shengchan was trying to prevent in order to protect the interests of his church. He thought it over and concluded that if he was going to let the cat out of the bag he would have to go to a higher level of government—to the county government.

  So then he changed the subject and casually said, “Our Wen County Head Yang is very capable and has a good reputation, no?”

  “Little Yang is young and talented. He’s only in his thirties and has a great future,” said Liu Xing, who had just been waiting for Gao Shengchan to mention County Head Yang.

  Gao Shengchan understood that Liu Xing was telling him who he should go to—to a young official in charge of the county’s various townships and anxious about his future career.

  “Did you know,” Liu Xing said with an upward gesture of his hands, “our mayor of Jiaozuo was transferred here from Fujian? And did you know that County Head Yang was selected for promotion by the mayor? And did you know that at this latest change of government the mayor was promoted again to provincial level?”

  He really is my old classmate, Gao Shengchan gratefully thought to himself, and so he’s making everything clear for me. A new mayor has been promoted from outside the province and he will certainly promote some cadres to fill up his staff, but he won’t use men like Liu Xing who were loyal to the former mayor. County Head Yang is a follower of the present mayor, and as soon as the present mayor is promoted and warms his seat at the provincial government he will move Yang to work alongside him. All that the young County Head Yang has to do is to make certain that nothing big happens in the county in the next couple of months and he can be smoothly promoted to serve as a provincial-level official.