When Qin was still a kingdom in the west, there was a king who employed the service of a counselor.
During the interview, the counselor first talked about “the rule of state,” and “the rule of humanity.” Unfortunately, the king was not impressed and nearly fell asleep. Then, to earn his position at the court, the counselor addressed “the rule of might,” which echoed with the king’s own ambition.
The counselor got the job and prepared for five years. But the people of Qin were not happy when they learned about the impending change of their way of life.
“Common folks follow customs, scholars are limited to the scope of their knowledge. They could be decent subjects but could never serve as agents of change. “
The counselor placed a 20-feet-long pole by the south gate of the capital, near the market.
“Any able-bodied man who moved the pole to the north gate shall get 50 gold pieces!”
After someone really earned the easy money within a quarter of an hour, people of Qin saw with their own eyes that the authority of the law, however ridiculous it might seem or sound, came from the counselor, which in turn came from the king himself, which in turn came from the Heaven.
According to the law of Qin issued by the counselor, commoners who fought bravely for the country were awarded with titles and slaves, yet useless nobles, cowards, troublemakers, vagabonds, and slobs were turned into slaves or worse. When the prince himself violated the law, his revered teachers, who were in their 70s, were punished with facial tattoos and caning instead. They probably died of the grave wounds soon afterwards.
It was said that the water of Wei turned red due to the mass execution of prisoners.
Five more years later, Qin became the most powerful kingdom on earth. Apparently, all agreed that the law was good. But the counselor managed to hunt down all those who once complained and exiled them.
18 years later, the king died. The people of Qin instantly reverted to their old way. The counselor was captured, tortured, killed, and quartered after death, a most cruel fate any Chinese could ever meet.
Even in his final moments, the counselor would not realize he had set up a standard for all Chinese emperors to follow in the next two millennia.
Q: What’s the lifelong goal of Chairman Mao?
A: Chairman Mao spent a lifetime fighting against the “three mountains,” imperial-colonialism (and later on, Khrushchev’s social imperial-revisionism), feudalism, and crony capitalism. In short, he, like Che Guevara, wished to liberate the people of China and all over the world from institutionalized oppression.
People love him as much as his enemies loath and fear him.
Q: What’s the Proletariat’s Great Cultural Revolution about?
A: Calling China New China was certainly a good start, but not everything in China would magically change anew with just the names. “Revolution is not about buying people dinner.” “Before [a janitor decides] to wield his broom, dust simply won’t come off by itself.”
Q: Who were hong’wei’bing, or the red guards?
A: Passionate young students, many of whom were ready to “defend Chairman Mao with blood and life.” They were not yet institutionalized and could be way too passionate at times. We would best describe the loose paramilitary organization as a double-edged sword.
Q: Who were gong’xuan’dui, or Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Corps of [city name] Workers (PCW)?
A: Workers loyal to Chairman Mao, who supervised various social organizations and kept red guards in check.
Chairman Mao proclaimed: “Zao’fan/revolution is justified!”
Q: Who were zao’fan’pai, or self-proclaimed “active revolutionists”?
A: Zao’fan’pai were average folks who were not happy with institutionalized oppression in their respective organizations. They gathered together with the intention to replace the local leadership by their own “revolutionary committee.” Some of the zao’fan’pai clearly had personal agenda and ambition.
Q: Why did Chinese people yell “Long live Chairman Mao“? Don’t you know the fact that a human being could not live for tens of thousands of years?
A: We sincerely wished for a long reign of Chairman Mao as we placed our faith in him. With all the havoc and sacrifice, we hoped he could, in his lifetime, usher in a free, equal world like never before.
Q: Would you call Cultural Revolution a success?
A: We still face institutionalized oppression, but this is not important at all. The important thing to figure out is, are you, our dear reader, the oppressed or the oppressor?
Anyhow, it’s already written. His yoke is easy, and his burden is light. We shall be free, forever and ever.
Finally, I graduated from the 3rd Railway Kindergarten and was admitted into the 1st Railway Elementary School! As Chairman Mao‘s little red guards (hong’xiao’bing), for most of the time we did not learn from reactionary, bourgeois textbooks, but directly from the great labor class with our hands. Our school happened to be under the jurisdiction of PCW of the Railway Construction Office. The good workers helped us build a massive chicken coop on campus with concrete blocks, so students and teachers could feed chicken daily. A Mr. Zhao suddenly had the craving for boiled egg. As hen laid eggs deep inside the coop, Mr. Zhao had no option but to crouch down and wriggle into one of the small frontal openings. When he grabbed an egg in hand, he was abhorred, realizing he could not get out on his own. By the morning bell at 8 AM, everyone had seen the portly rear of Mr. Zhao, probably the first case of social death I ever witnessed.
As a side note, I also learned to speak Mandarin at school, as Railway staff hailed from all parts of China and Jiangnanese simply would not do.
My close buddy who went by the nickname “Dick” (no, it has nothing to do with the name Richard, in case you wonder) often hung out with me after class. Dick’s dad had passed away due to an accident at workplace. His mom, Mrs. Y, was noted for the freckles on her face and the gentleness to take good care of Dick and his siblings. At the time, naughty boys often gambled with each other, using paper crafts in the shape of fried dough stick and fried dough twist in lieu of chips. As you may realize, mom had quite high expectation for me, so I had to entrust all my paper chips to Dick in order to save myself from a certain doom.
Imagine my reaction when I learned that Dick had the gall to be all in and LOSE ALL HIS CHIPS AND MINE! To salvage our friendship, Dick stole 5 yuan from his mom. The two of us went to local store and purchased many blank exercise books. We then tore apart individual pages to “mint” chips. Newly crafted chips tended to be somewhat bulgy, so Dick fetched a basin of water to soak the chips before press and air-dry them.
It did not take long for Mrs. Y to find out about the missing money. Without a second thought, she chased Dick in the alley-yard with a stick in hand. Dick came to me with tears in eyes.
“Mom would surely beat me to death! Save me!”
Indeed, the Y’s were not well off, as all the kids and Dick’s grandpa had to live off the meager wage of Mrs. Y. Knowing that Mrs. Y made a living by loading coal onto the train, I recommended that Dick could borrow her stained uniform and pretended to be a beggar at dusk. By begging in the nearby neighborhoods, Dick managed to earn 5 yuan back in nickels and dimes. The matter was finally settled.
A crucial educational activity at school would be the live demonstration comparing the ways of the Old and New China. Each student was asked to bring a cup of rice from home, so the mom of our class representative could prepare symbolized food corresponding to the two eras. For Old China, she steamed wotou, or Chinese bread, with rotten greens and chaff. For New China, she boiled sweet balls of rice flour and imported Cuban sugar. As you may expect, unruly students snatched all the sweet balls at the first moment. So the teachers had to wash all those bitter wotou down with water, as wasting any food would be an atrocity.
The dad of our class representative was also invited to be a guest speaker. He showed the whole class his disfigured hand. With watery eyes, he lamented about the vicious landlords and their high voltage fence, which caused his disability at one night. But as critical thinkers, some of us did not really figure out how come the dark, hopeless Old China did not have all those power blackouts, and what he was actually doing by the “high voltage fence” at night. We grew up with all those unanswered questions.
I also met Mrs. Guo, who happened to be the mother of my lifelong friend, Zhong. Mrs. Guo served as our Chinese teacher. Once she lectured about a text titled Verdant Bamboo Forest on Jinggang Mountain.
“Revolutionary warriors blew golden shoots, which were made of bamboo.”
“Mrs. Guo, what are golden shoots exactly?” I raised my right hand and asked.
It turned out Mrs. Guo had a bit of a fiasco — the character should be “flutes,” not “shoots.”
My personal heroes at the time were table tennis players, Zhuang Zedong and Liang Geliang, who competed for the honor of the motherland. I got up at 5 AM and arrived at the campus. My partner and I would lay some red brick on the concrete table tennis table in lieu of a real net. We usually practiced for hours before the class started.
While I happily enjoyed the youthful days, the Reaper attempted to make his claim on my life for a third time.
Joyful tidings had arrived — we were soon going to move out from our shabby shacks into brand new USSR-style five-story apartment, completed with all the amenities!
On a summer day, I had nothing to do and decided to visit the construction site of my future home. Wearing a pair of slippers, I climbed the bamboo scaffold with ease. The view on the top was simply magnificent — I could see all the way to the People’s Plaza and the great blue yonder!
Enchanted by the spectacular scene, I didn’t pay sufficient attention to my footing and the worn-out slippers contributed to my undoing. The next thing I knew I was clinging to a protruding pole with all fours, not unlike a pathetic tree frog in thunderstorm. “Thud!” I heard the sound of one slipper hitting the ground beneath me. I mustered the courage and the strength to slowly return to the safe ground, then walked back home half barefooted and dumbfounded.
“It would be wise to tell no one about it.” I told myself.
The Reaper is not a quitter. The following winter was a particular harsh one. Grandpa was hospitalized. His lungs gave up as too much phlegm blocked the air passage.
Grandpa did not have the chance to move into our new apartment with us. I miss his pigeon soup and diaries till this very day.
“Mr. Zhang, really cool guy, single-handedly fights off 13 ailments.” The campus broadcast repeated the commendation.
When I enrolled into the 2nd Jiangnan Railway High School, I became a full-fledged red guard and had the honor to meet my homeroom and Math teacher, an adamant supporter and “living example” of Mao Zedong Thought, Mr. Zhang.
Mr. Zhang was teaching a particularly challenging part of trigonometry, angle sum and difference identities. He seemed to be quite self-complacent.
Next day, I was reading a novel from my classmate and pal, Wei. Suddenly, I heard Mr. Zhang asking me to come forward and write all SIX identities on the blackboard. Who could actually do that?!
Facing the blackboard, I stood in silence for about five minutes. Satisfied with the outcome, Mr. Zhang permitted me to step down and invited Ping (with the nickname the “Fool”) in my stead. Within 30 seconds, Ping wrote down all SIX identities! Fucking impossible!
Mr. Zhang began to lecture us with the wise words of Chairman Mao.
“Chairman Mao had taught us, ‘Humility leads to progress, pride leads to ruination.’ Ping wasn’t known for his grades, but he works hard with humility and advances. On the contrary, [my name] was a so-called ‘good student,’ but being the slob he is, he secretly read novel hidden in desk drawer, which surely led to his downfall!”
We were going to have a math test on the third day. Naturally I burnt the midnight oil, or “hugged Buddha’s foot [for a miracle]” in idiomatic Chinese. Only after I worked out every of the last few problems after the “angle sum and difference identities” chapter did I go to bed. On the test day, I managed to finish all the problems on the paper and handed it in on time. It turned out that three quarters of the students failed the test. The 2nd place barely got a 65/100, and I earned a FULL MARK, 100/100.
Having lost his face, Mr. Zhang chose not to publicly announce the grade. Instead, he spread the rumor among classmates, claiming that while I fetched the violin from the stockroom, I cheated by taking a peek of the newly printed test paper beforehand.
“Why, oh why, did you, Mr. Zhang, use the textbook problems in a test right away?” I complained to myself.
Yes, I was a violinist. That’s how I fulfilled my duties as a Chairman Mao’s red guard.
I first learned flute on my own. Then I asked a neighbor to teach me to play the erhu, a traditional Chinese string instrument. Eventually, a co-worker of mom taught me the fine art of violin. I did all these to join the school propaganda corps, which was a just fancy alias for the student band. In this way, I could be excused from all “labor education.”
In meantime, my peers worked at the school-affiliated factory. By submerging ironware into an acid-based solution, the zine-plating process could be completed. I could not stand the pungent smell in the air, so I excused myself for another time. Since I was a prefect leading a small group of students, the bunch was left without a leader. One of them, Jiang, took the initiative to pick up the ware from the pool full of hydrochloric acid with bare hands (he saved the gloves for a girl). The next day, Mr. Zhang extolled such heroic act.
“Chairman Mao had taught us, ‘First, fear not suffering; second, fear not death!’ Jiang will lead the group from now on.”
My pal, Wei, was totally pissed off by the sudden turn of events. As a matter of fact, I delegated most of my prefect responsibilities and privileges to him, e.g., flirting with the girls while collecting exercise booklets. In the afternoon, Jiang made his grand entrance donning a white scarf, not unlike the captured communist martyr in a popular movie. In a split second, Wei pulled off the scarf from his neck and the duo had a nasty brawl. Wei emerged victorious. With deep regrets, Mr. Zhang recommended that Jiang should step down for his own well-being.
All the cool kids had joined the Communist Youth League, another thing we learned from the USSR. Driven by my huge ego and peer pressure, I submitted my application as well. As I believed that he thought I was a cunning, sly bastard, Mr. Zhang claimed that more time was needed to test my revolutionary zeal and all current League members must vote to approve my qualification. It was simply not his position to decide, Mr. Zhang concluded.
There were three factions within the League. Jian, the organizational commissar, led one. The class representative, along with the League secretary, led another. All girls formed the third faction. Officially, I was not affiliated to any of the faction. But with the intention to earn a potential ally, on a private occasion Jian let me know that he had managed to convince all members of his faction to vote for me. “Every girl voted aye as well.” I suppose a handsome violinist had such charisma.
To seal the deal, I had to openly make my own political statement, or tou’ming’zhuang. It was the time for Counterattack the Right-Deviationist Reversal-of-Verdicts Trends, Chairman Mao’s last effort to defend the Cultural Revolution. Mr. Zhang challenged me to “take the lead and show mettle.” Consequently, I did my speech first, before the whole class, recounting all the vices of Deng Xiaoping and his underlings. Despite all my efforts and the advantageous circumstance, mom reached out to the League secretary of my high school via a friend. Fearing that the “crimes” of my other grandpa would be exposed, she requested a background check wavier on my behalf “to save everyone some breath.” This was how I ended up a proud member of the Communist Youth League.
My Chinese teacher at high school, Mr. Chen, hailed from Hunan, just like Chairman Mao. His Hunan accents occasionally caused him some troubles during teaching. A particularly mean kid, Hong, openly derided him as a “Hunan mule.” Suffering from a mental breakdown, Mr. Chen reported the incident to the PCW.
In the afternoon, the muscular PCW Captain the “Hound” entered the classroom with Mr. Chen. Hound dragged Hong to the front by his ear, before slapped him right in the face! “You fucker! In your dog eyes, our glorious leader must appear like a mule as well!”
Hong took the first opportunity to slip away. Did not take the front gate fearing that his swollen face would ruin his personal image for good, he scaled window and campus wall and escaped.
We moved into our new apartment as scheduled. The perk of living on the top floor was that the unit came with an attic. With an area of less than 100 sq ft, you can’t possibly expect a plumbed toilet and such. But for a young man with a livable space that he called his own, I couldn’t be happier. The attic had a single window, an incandescent lamp, and a small desk-and-chair set. I managed to get my old bamboo cot inside and adorned the wall with a hanging calendar. That would be all.
Or would it? Radio had become another fad among talented teens. Our old family radio receiver was a low-cost reflex model which reused the single transistor for signal amplification. It picked up two national and one local stations during the day, and only the primary national station at night. At the time, the first television station of the province had already begun to broadcast. To kill time at night, I crafted a silver-plated copper coil with a number of four and a half to receive the VHF audio signal of the television airwave. Combining it with a variable capacitance of 4.7 microfarad, the crude receiver worked like a charm in my attic.
With bolstered confidence, I went on to launch a much more ambitious project — six transistor superheterodyne receiver. The design down-mixes the radio frequency signal into an “intermediate frequency” for demodulation and amplification, resulting in much better selectivity and fidelity. Having painstakingly completed a working circuit board, I took the time to make a case from scratch: a painted wooden box mimicking the outline of a piano, with three “legs” made of toothpaste cap and the down-facing loudspeaker underneath, and a red jewel decorating the image of the first Chinese satellite in the front. The fancy receiver instantly earned me a seat in the Young Physicists’ Club at school.
I was lucky to have a kind relative who worked at the Jiangnan Radio Factory, who generously gifted me with all the parts, components, and tools I ever needed. A kid at school wished to build his own radio as well but could not afford the material cost. Seeing that a downtown electronic store had a broken glass counter, he tied a magnet to a thin iron stick to steal the transistors right from the counter. He was caught red-handed, tied-up, and escorted to our school by the store staff.