Part Nine

I was too young – but all my three older siblings joined the Red Guard right away – in those first enthusiastic months (1966) of cultural revolution.

There wasn’t any formal organization – and it wasn’t a branch of the “young pioneers” or the other groups that led up to party membership – it was it’s own popular movement – begun in the Beijing university and then spreading down to the high schools – across to other cities – and eventually to other classes beyond just the educated elite.

To join, you wore an armband with the three Chinese characters of “Red guard” – that’s all you had to do – and then join in the excitement of making revolution against the “old ways”.

For students, that mostly meant rebelling against the educational system – that strait-jacket of memorization, testing, and subsequent hierarchies. The teachers – but especially the school principals –were at fault – and they were humiliated, beaten, and sometimes driven to suicide or beaten to death. There was so much excitement in the air (just like among American youth of the time).

My siblings were in the thick of it – but they were too shy to take leadership roles. They just followed their peers and usually watched others to do the yelling and beating. Besides physical violence, Red Guards also did a lot of debating among themselves.

A frequent topic of debate was the assertion that “if you were born into a good family then you would be a good person.” I remember how one response ran like this:

Dragon gives birth to dragon
Phoenix gives birth to phoenix
Mouse knows how to dig holes at birth

We all agreed that this theory is 100% correct, since we were considered from a good family. (but this was before my father was arrested!)


Overall, my Red Guard siblings had our parents’ approval – because this was just another movement – like the “Great leap forward” – that had periodically marked my parents’ life since they first joined the red army 20-30 years earlier. But my mother was not happy about the hard language – the swearing language – that her suddenly tough little daughter brought home on weekends – and , of course, she opposed the beating of teachers.

I don’t think any of my siblings actually struck a teacher – but once my sister took her turn in holding back a teacher’s arms while she was forced to confess her crimes against the revolution. And recently she just confessed (for the very first time) that in the course of that interrogation, she picked up a small stone and threw it at the teacher’s face – breaking the skin. My sister is usually a quiet, shy person – and this teacher had been notably kind to her students, sometimes even feeding them. But when the teacher refused to confess: “I have done nothing wrong!” , my sister joined the others in venting their righteous frustration.

Very quickly, the schools were closed – and then these bands of these inspired youth roamed throughout the city to scourge the remnants of the “old rich” still cowering in their homes. My sister ran with a band of girls – my brother with a band of boys – and first they would visit the local police station or neighborhood committee to get the addresses of appropriate targets for punishment.

How were these lists compiled ? Were they based on family history – or personal grudges – or rumors of bad behavior ? Probably all three --- and once they had the address, the righteous children would smash down the door – dragging the occupants out for a beating and their possessions out for a burning.

The Red Guards were looking for gold bars, other valuables, and deeds for land or properties owned before the Party took over. This was hardly ever found – but they were beaten anyway and forced admit that they were enemies of the people. Then everything they owned was burned or destroyed – and and I saw many such bonfires in the streets of our neighborhood (in these first idealistic months, nothing was stolen -- but eventually that changed.)


The next step was to spread the revolution to other cities – and like everyone else in the movement, my siblings got free train rides to wherever they wanted .

My sister’s group took a train all the way west to Xinjiang (on the Silk Road) – where they were put up in school buildings and fed by the community. She remembers how the non-Chinese local people thought she was one of them (since she looks a bit different from other Han people) – and she remembers that the food was different, but very good – this being an area known for its tasty lamb stew. They stayed there two months – but this turned out to be her only trip. Meanwhile, my second oldest brother ended up making three trips --- to distant places like Shanghai and Canton – where language was a big problem since the dialects were nearly incomprehensible to students from Beijing.

Before they left Beijing, mom gave each of them about 15 to 20 Yuan for pocket money – while their food, and boarding were provided by the local government. I remember how my sister brought raisins back from Xinjiang, just like dad, who had brought back 10 kilos when he went to the same area on a business trip a few years earlier. We had raisins for a long, long time.


Similarly, students from other areas came to Beijing in mid-1967 –and after my parents were forced to abandon half of their apartment, the other half was assigned as temporary housing for up to 30 students. They had come from less developed areas of the country – and made a terrible mess . They had never even used a modern toilet – they were used to squatting not sitting -- so you can imagine in what condition they left the lavatory ! —and they had gotten far too accustomed to spitting on their dirt floors back at home.

We helped mom to wash down the staircase with hot water from our bath room.( She was afraid that we’d track all their spittle back into our apartment and get sick.) . The smell was horrible. Mom even had to teach them how to use the toilet.

During this time – nobody that we knew personally got killed – but still we saw some horrible things.

One day, as my mother was walking home from market, she heard a heavy sack crash to the pavement just behind her. Well, it was no heavy sack, it was a woman --- and looking up, she saw the open fourth floor window from which she had jumped. Frightened, my mother rushed home and told what happened. She told me to stay inside – but I have always been stubborn and curious – so I went down the block to take a look – and there was that poor woman crumpled on the pavement – still breathing. That was the first time I saw a person die, and I was scared.


Another time, we were at home, and heard terrible screams coming from an apartment in an adjacent building – their second floor balcony could not have been more than 20 feet away – and we saw a beaten, bloody man stumbling out to the balcony and try to lower himself over the side. There he was, grasping onto the railing, while his tormentors were kicking at his hands until he let go and fell. Then he got up and ran – but they were right behind him, and cornering him up against a wall ,continuing with his terrible beating.

All of those men were in their twenties – advanced engineering students living in a special dormitory for technicians – but we later learned that the victim was Korean – and his attackers accused him of being a spy. (or maybe he just talked funny ?)

It was autumn of 1966, when my sister began to take her second trip – and after a lot of pestering, she had finally agreed to take me lalong with her.

Beijing was full of student travelers, and it took us several hours to squeeze into a bus – but suddenly we heard someone calling our names just as the bus door was closing. It was my oldest brother, who told us to please get off at the next bus stop.

It turned out that my father’s ministry received the message from Chairman Mao that the time for the Red Guards to travel was over. This communication was only sent to high officials and the rest of the country would not be affected for several months.

I was so mad, and sad, because I never got a chance to travel with my sister again. But I think mom and dad were relieved, since some students had been killed during all this massive traveling – and I was only 13 years old.

Part Eight

There’s no avoiding it any longer, the big event in my life – in my entire generation’s life – was the cultural revolution.



It began in 1966 when students from Beijing University petitioned Chairman Mao about the need to overcome “the old ways” that the earlier revolution had not yet eliminated. Mao approved of their complaint – possibly because he was losing power and needed to re-establish his authority over other top leaders.

And so the cultural revolution began among the top 3% of Chinese youth – i.e. those who had been admitted to university – and enthusiasm soon spread to high school students as well – including my older brothers and sister – each of whom attended the top, or next-to-top, high schools in Beijing.

I was too young (still in my last year of grammar school )– but my older siblings were caught up in the excitement – especially after their schools closed – and all schools, at every level, soon closed – and would stay closed for two years. ( universities stayed shut for five years !)

It was a youth movement – and just like the hippies in the West – it had its own dress code – so my sister cut her hair short (like a soldier) and everyone from a good family background (military, officials, workers, or intellectuals) had to wear old military uniforms – showing that they were not from a bad family background (landlords or merchants).

My parents’ old uniforms had long been discarded – but some uncles and aunts were still military, so mother asked to borrow their old clothing on behalf of her daughter and sons,

So that was the fashion: old army jackets with red arm bands – and except for the short hair – they would have blended quite well on an American college campus of the late ‘60’s. But there was certainly none of the “make love not war” mantra of the young Americans . My sister was 16 – but dating and romance were unthinkable among her generation (where boys and girls attended separate schools) , and she made a very beautiful arm band for herself:
red silk that was embroidered with three Chinese characters in black silk thread. (Mom has kept it all of these years, for what reason I do not know)


My oldest brother was a very quiet person – but my second brother (who was among the top students at the best school for boys – ominously called “Number Four”) was something of a ringleader – and many times he would bring a band of student red guards (5 to 10 strong ) to stay in our apartment over night – and mother would welcome them.

During the early days when the school had just closed,, they broke into the school library and picked their favorite books to take home. (My brother claimed that he did not participate in the break-in, but he did bring some books home, and later mom asked him to return them to whoever took them.)

They were well behaved, smart and handsome young fellows, and I even had a secret crush on a few of them (but I’ve never told anyone until now!)

(I was talking with my sister recently – and we agreed that mother enjoyed the company of boys much more than girls. They picked up her spirits – while girls, like my sister and I, usually just made her cranky, especially me, since I hardly ever lived at home. Plus she was very bitter about how little attention she got while growing up, even though she was the only girl in her family. Girls were not appreciated in her time – and that’s probably still true in the many areas in China.)


One time, the boys talked about beating their teachers – yes – amazingly, this kind of thing happened: students criticizing and beating their teachers – but my mother firmly reminded him that a teacher had once saved his life –so he should never touch them.

It had happened back in my brother’s first year of middle school – when the class took a trip to the nearby countryside to work with farmers for a week. Rural hygiene being what it was, my brother caught dysentery and eventually passed out. No transportation was available, so one of his teachers carried him unconscious, late at night, on his back for several miles to the nearest medical facility, where he was unconscious in the hospital for the next 7 – 10 days. Doctors had declared that if he had arrived even a few hours later, he might have been dead.

And you may notice that my mother was the only parent involved with our lives – since my father worked so late and was hardly ever home.

This was, by the way, one of the few times that I lived at home with my family – since all the boarding schools were now closed. We spent the time reading many of those books that my brother’s friends had liberated from the school library – including many Chinese translations of European literature. He enjoyed reading each book and then telling us all about it. It was fun not going to school –especially since my recent change of schools (the one I ran away from) had left me straggling behind the rest of the students.

Part Seven

Expanding a bit on my mother’s family:

Her oldest brother, the farmer, took the train to Beijing once a year, around New Years, where he visited us and the rest of the family, loaded with things he had grown.

There were beans, peanuts, and my favorite: long, sweet yams, which we in Beijing could only buy in late Fall.

( Then, yams were cheap: only 2 fen for a half kilo. Mom boiled them in a big pot, and the best (very sweet) kind had an orange-red color and were not too dry inside. But my sisters liked the ones that were white and dry inside.)

My uncle would watch us eat his potatoes and outspoken person that I am, I once asked him why he didn’t eat with us. He told me he didn’t like potatoes at all, since he had to eat them every day during harvest season. He did not own the farm where he lived, but was given a very small piece of “self kept land” where he could grow anything he wanted and keep it all.

In return, my mother and his other siblings gifted him with cash whenever he visited, maybe 15-30 Yuan (an ordinary month’s wage) which was a significant source of income for his family. He stayed with us about four or five days, and I remember how he chain smoked, rolling his own cigarettes with newspaper that my mother had collected for him.

I don’t know if anyone ever took a bath in the countryside. They only had an out house, (and underneath it, the pigsty) . When he visited, Mom always had him bathe or shower and she washed all his clothes, sometimes needing very hot water to kill all the fleas. He was a big eater, managing two or three large bowls of noodles, enough to feed our entire family. (Mom always said that he could even eaten even more, but he was too shy to admit it.) He was very tall – just like all my uncles - about 6 feet high.


Mom’s second brother, the general, also lived in Beijing, and had been an artillery officer in the Korean war – where a nearby explosion had left him deaf in one ear. When he returned from the war, he enjoyed something of hero-status , and that’s when he met his young wife who was a very pretty, high-school aged patriotic volunteer from Wuxi (a location near Shanghai, known for it’s small, delicate, and very beautiful women)

They soon had four children, three boys and finally one girl, and had their own courtyard in Beijing, to which they also invited his mother (my grandmother) to live (my grandfather had been dead almost 20 years by then)

The oldest son was two years younger than me – a very tall, handsome fellow, who is now a judge in the Beijing Supreme Court. The number two son was even taller ( 6’5”) and was recruited for the military basketball team. His military career did not go anywhere, and he ended up working in a Beijing factory, married to a tall woman basketball player. ( they have a daughter, and you can imagine how tall she must be, but so far I’ve never met her) The youngest son lived with us for a few years, since mom did not work any more, and she could baby sit. He was a normal boy, but at the age of two, a high fever left him with a disorder on one side of his face. It took him a long time to find a wife, but finally, at the age of 40, he married a country girl who lived in Beijing. They have a beautiful daughter.


My uncle had a good life, but his career often took him away on duty -- and a beautiful young wife does not stay lonely forever. Eventually she began to entertain a young soldier, about seven years her junior. My grandmother, living at home, saw the young couple meet behind the closed bedroom door – but as a guest of her daughter-in-law, she felt she should say nothing.

A Chinese proverb tells us that “paper cannot wrap fire” – and true enough, eventually my uncle discovered the affair. Adultery is a very bad thing in China – but so was divorce – so it put my uncle in a tough position. I remember overhearing the hushed conversation he had with my mother about these troubles – how he felt like such a failure – and how my mother told him to divorce her.

The divorce was processed and my uncle, who was 38 at the time, was given custody of their three sons, while the two lovers were severely punished by losing their rank, their jobs, and their residency in Beijing.


Residency in the big cities was no small privilege – and it was nearly impossible to come by for those who didn’t have it. In the countryside, people eat what they grow – but in the big cities one needed food coupons – and nobody got them unless they were official residents.
I think the coupons system started in late 1950’s or early 1960’s., and some of the coupons, like those for grain and oil, lasted until early 1980’s.

Different cities had different types of coupons, and they were not interchangeable, which was one reason why very few people traveled during those years.

One year, dad traveled to Shanghai to investigate a major anti-party crime. Unfortunately his team was not able to solve the crime, and he had to stay a few weeks longer. There was one special coupon that converted coupons from one city to another for those who had the documentation of an official business trip, but dad had run out of Beijing coupons, and he wrote a letter to tell mom asking her send some. She sent him enough coupons to last for a month, but he never got them. It turned out that she had used a regular letter, and, of course, a hungry mail man kept them. It took my family many months to recover, and Mom had to cook with elm leaves or vegetable leaves from our front yard. I remember how my older sister and I climbed to the top of an old bunker in our complex to reach the elm bushes, and we picked the new tender leaves as mom had instructed. Mom then cooked them with corn meal, and I loved it. Mom laughed at me and said that I always enjoyed poor peasant food.



So the two adulterers were sent back to their home villages – with no prospects for employment.

My uncle’s ex-wife got piece-work assembling match boxes at home – on a starvation wage – with the assistance of her young daughter of whom she got custody. The daughter was a beautiful young girl – just like her mother had been – and it truly pained my uncle to lose her – but there was nothing he could do.

Eventually, her lover, the young soldier (now a hometown factory worker) was able to send for – and marry her, but my uncle’s daughter had to stay behind where she was cared for by extended family until she was old enough to marry another orphaned boy in the village – just in time to upset the plans of her desperate father, who had finally gotten the paperwork to get her residency in Beijing. But it was impossible to get residency for her new husband as well -- and so it goes….

The daughter’s young husband turned out to be abusive and the marriage didn’t last very long – but eventually she settled down with a factory job and second husband and things were looking much brighter for them.

Meanwhile my uncle’s ex-wife and her new husband were unable to have children – so they adopted a son – which occasioned the somewhat bitter remark from my mother that “having abandoned four children – why adopt another?”

My uncle soon found another wife – this one a college professor who had never been married – and she became the mother in his family, eventually bearing him another son.

My mother’s third brother was a great favorite with us children because he was very generous and always brought gifts whenever he came over, including some enormous pears we always kept on top of the armoire. He was very close to my mother - since she had played a maternal role in his life. My father helped get him get a good job with the army – and later he entered an industrial bank, where as level-17 cadre he served as a bank manager.


Among my mother’s uncles, I’ve already mentioned the ones who were traditional doctors – but there was also one who rose up to cadre-7 in the finance ministry.

That’s very high – he got his own courtyard in Beijing – the government provided his family with a cook and maid, a private driver and a car. In the late fifties, he owned among the very first television sets in China. These were Russian made devices that picked up the two hours of programming available every day – and there were, needless to say, quite expensive – about 800 yuan –which would have been about two years of ordinary factory wages. ( My family did not own a television for another twenty years) Making an annual visit to their home reminded me of the comical Granny Liu visiting Prospect Garden (in “Dream of Red Chamber”) – i.e. we felt like country bumpkins. (even we were much better off than most Chinese people.)


And then there was an uncle’s daughter whose husband moved to Texas to work in a plastic bag factory. The owners were Chinese, and they got him a green card to come to Texas to fix their machines. He was a professional engineer , but he was paid about $15/hour. He was quite frugal, and saving his meager wages, he brought his wife over in 4-5 years – and finally even had enough cash and credit to purchase new machines from China, bring them to Texas, and open his own factory, employing Mexican workers. Sort of an American immigrant success story, I suppose – as each wave of immigrants rises to the top on the backs of those who come next.

Still another uncle moved to Canada (he is a couple of years younger than me, and I never called him “uncle”) – and he is the family expert in traditional behavior – knowing all the proper forms of social interaction between generations. His family had lived in Beijing for many generations, and they speak a Beijing accent that even I don’t use.

Part Six

Some more regarding my parent’s life at that time–

My father was a quiet, studious man - and he was always reading those old books with old Chinese characters that I couldn’t understand. He liked calligraphy and practiced an hour almost every day. And he liked to walk – an hour every morning until his eighties.

He didn’t socialize much with peers at the ministry. His friends were old comrades from the army – and several times a year they would come over for visits. We entertained their drivers in one room, while I served tea and candies or fruit to the officer and his wife. (it wasn’t the custom for visitors to stay for dinner – since all food was rationed – but sometimes my father would insist “stay, please stay” Unlike today, children stayed far in the background when adults were getting together – but I was more outgoing than my siblings, so I got to serve the guests – and it was my special skill to peel an apple so carefully that apple and peel could be reunited for presentation. Liquor was never served – except when dinner was offered.

As for my mom, I remember when she quit her factory job -- or actually my dad called the factory and told them we had moved to the complex next to the Tienanmen Square, so it was too far for her to come to work. This wasn’t exactly true, since it was only a 20 minute walk - but dad wanted mom stay at home to take care of us. – and he didn’t tell her about it. So when mom showed up at the factory the next day, she was told that her husband had already announced that she had quit.. This was second time my dad made a major decision for Mom without consulting her – and again, she was not happy about it. She had a lot of free time, so she started reading “The dream of red chamber” -- and she read it 4 times!

( she told us that a lot of it reflected her own family when she was growing up) I don’t think either of my parents were exposed to the Western literature at all..

After mother left her government job, her party membership got her elected supervisor of the neighborhood clothing factory – a kind of participatory entrepreneurial project – where local women got together with their sewing machines and made clothing whose sale would provide them all with a little extra income. For some single mothers, the 10-yuan a month they could earn was all they had – and they lived on the edge of starvation. To give you some idea of relative incomes, my mother, as supervisor, made 30 yuan, while my father as a level-12 cadre made 180 – so we were very well off – and mother contributed cloth as well a big pots of noodles to the workers in her shop. At 5’6” tall, , she towered over the rest of them – but like everyone we saw, she was thin --- all Chinese were thin (and when she visited America 30 years later, she was very surprised by American girth. There was only one fat Chinese I had ever seen – a three hundred pound cook at the hotel – and we children danced around him shouting “monster, monster!!” – to which he would obliging respond by chasing and trying to grab us)

We hardly ever socialized with our extended family – and maybe it’s time to talk about what they were doing.

My father had two younger brothers – and the older one lived in Tien Jing. But 100 miles was a long trip back then, and I didn’t take the train to visit that uncle until I was a teenager. He worked as a store clerk, and had a very low income. His entire family lived in one room – with curtains separating the beds – and when I went to visit, I slept with my aunt. This was the brother who had gone home to help my grandfather work the farm, while my father went into the army. It wasn’t until many years later that he moved into a larger apartment – purchased with cash sent by the third brother who ended up in Taiwan.

That third brother’s story is very different – because he was sent to a Catholic school in Beijing (which was more affordable). Just before Bejing fell to the Communists in 1948, the school took its students and moved to Hong Kong.

It was a very sudden and secret decision by the school. My uncle was 18 at the time, and he mailed a letter to my father – the first line running something like:

“Dear big brother: by the time you get this letter, I will no longer be in Beijing”

My father was shocked and felt betrayed. He handed the letter over to the Party and disowned his brother – but even though he tried to be loyal to the Party, this relationship would haunt him throughout his career – and especially during the Cultural Revolution.

(note: he later told me that he even offered to shoot the traitorous brother himself -- but despite his many years in the army then the security ministry -- I don't think he ever fired a gun at anyone)

Eventually this brother was selected for the priesthood, and a higher education in Rome. Catholic schools at that time taught their students English, and my uncle eventually became fluent in several languages. He was sent to Australia as a priest , but felt that Asians were treated poorly there, and he ended up in Taiwan after a stint at Loyola University in Chicago to take a masters degree in education. In Taiwan, he became involved in the life of a young Chinese woman who was the daughter of the housemaid at the rectory. Years later, when she was old enough to marry, he resigned from the priesthood, and took her as wife while working as a professor at university. After retirement, he continued to work as a government educational administrator --- assembling the annual tests for English proficiency. He’s still there – and his wife is about my age -- but I have never met them.

(In 1989, after more 40 years, he was finally allowed to come back to Beijing and meet his brothers.)

Meanwhile, my mother had three younger brothers. One became a general in the PLA, marrying a very beautiful young woman who had clerked in his office. Unfortunately, though, she soon ran off with another officer, and my uncle had to find another wife. Another brother became the financial officer of an investment bank – becoming a level 17 cadre --- and the third returned to farming after dropping out off the army during the revolution. He had gone home for a visit – and his wife convinced him to stay. So he spent his life in rural poverty.

But my mother also had several uncles – and some had distinguished careers – one of them as a prominent physician of traditional medicine who specialized in setting broken bones. His income in the 50’s was over 300 Yuan/month from the Navy hospital – and before the Communists took over, his services had required 3 silver coins just to make a house call. His son and grandson also became physicians at Beijing University –but none were as renowned as him – and he invested a fortune in that most traditional object of eternal status in China: an expensive coffin of rare woods.

Unfortunately, however, his great reputation served him poorly with the Red Guard. They broke into his courtyard – gave the old man a beating – and smashed his 2000 Yuan coffin into pieces. The next day he died.

( the family courtyard was taken and many other families moved into their courtyard, After the Cultural Revolution, many years later, the government returned the entire courtyard back to the family.)

Part Five

As we approach the end of my primary education– big changes were taking place for me, my family , and the entire country.

For me, the change was quite simple: I walked away from the June First school and never went back.

Here’s how it happened:

As already mentioned, I did well in sports: running , ping pong – but also in that acrobatic exercise that Chinese girls do with a long rubber band – so well that my teachers selected me to represent the 12-year old girls in the competition with other schools. I was soooo proud – because I was only 11 – and I was not only the best girl in my class (40 children) but also in my age group (60 children) and even the next age group as well (total of 120 children) and here I would compete against the best girls from all over Beijing. So I began to practice very very hard (and my grades began to slip from straight-A’s – but just a little)

One day, as I was out in the yard practicing – I noticed, through the window, that my teachers were looking at me and talking – and next day I got the bad news: I was not going to compete for our school after all ! (no reason was given -- but I’ve always felt that it was because I was practicing too much by myself and not playing with the other children)

I was heartbroken ! I felt so, so bad – and I just decided to leave that school and never come back – which I did during recess – by walking right beneath the window at the gate (I was short enough not be noticed)

But now I had a problem – getting home ! --- because June First school was outside the city gates – it was 10 miles from home – and I’d never walked home before (the school bus took us back-and-forth once a week). So I followed the route of the school bus – and after walking all afternoon, I finally made it to Tiananmen square – which on this day was filled with people at some kind of public event. I was such a small child – they just ignored me – but I was very frightened – especially because the sun had begun to set – and this time of day always makes me gloomy. I also had to get past the guards at the gate to our compound – and since I was only home on weekends – the weekday guards were different and might not recognize me.

But I made it home – sneaked into home, actually – and hid in my brother’s bedroom – while I could hear my mother in the kitchen preparing dinner.

Then the phone rang ! “We can’t find Yen Ming – have you seen her ?” Mother had no idea where I was – but I rushed in, grabbed her leg from behind, and began to wail.

Looking back at it – maybe I was just a little spoiled – because my parents agreed not to send me back to June First School – but where could I go ? It was the middle of the semester, and the neighborhood school was already filled. But fortunately for me, my father had just gotten a very big promotion – where now he would work for the Foreigners bureau – and the family would eventually have to move into a different compound. He would be in charge of security – and his promotion was signed by Zhou EnLai, and announced in the People’s Daily

The Foreigners bureau managed the lives of foreign nationals in Beijing’s Friendship hotel – so we eventually had to live next to the hotel – and for the first few months, father and I actually lived in the hotel – in an 8-Yuan room – very expensive ! very elegant ! !

( The hotel was built in 1950’s with help of Russian experts, but from the outside, it appeared to be Chinese – with glazed tiles over the roof, and decorated pillars. For many years only foreign and distinguished guests could stay there. )

I felt very lucky to have father all to myself for every evening dinner at the hotel restaurant.

I had already eaten at my new boarding school, so I just sat and watched dad eat in the cafeteria. He never bought expensive dishes, the choices ranged from 5 to 25 fens, and he usually picked either the 10 fens or the 5 fens dish. He was known for living like a common worker, and he was proud of it. (but incredibly enough, later on that was counted as a crime: he was accused of pretending to be a worker !)

Once in while, dad would buy me a 4 fens piece of corn bread. (It was not common to find baked food in China since all the breads were steamed.) I loved it: it was sweet and crusty on the outside, but soft and moist within. Most Chinese hate corn bread because it was part of the daily food ration and they had no other choice. (But I still like it – even today)

After dinner, my father and I would go for a walk.

I remember how people were so friendly to us on the street, always greeting my father with his title instead of calling him by name. (that’s how Chinese people do when they run into higher ranking officials) . And many times I was flattered with nice words as well, such as “ how beautiful your daughter is ---- and how smart she is too”

Eventually, the family was moved into a Russian designed, newly built administrators’ residence – where we were given two adjoining apartments – giving us five bedrooms, two kitchens, and two bathrooms with showers.

(before we moved in, my father had also asked to have a bath tab installed in one of them. Most Beijing residents had to use public restrooms – or if they had a private restroom, it had no hot water)

The rooms had nearly 10 foot ceilings and hardwood floors. Here, finally, after an entire childhood spent at boarding school, I could live at home and attend the local ministry school – where I quickly fit in quite well – made friends – continued my study – preparing for the big examination. In this educational system – grades meant nothing – it all depended on the examination – and the stupidest little questions could sink your ship. For example, for some reason, when my sister had to answer “how many seasons are there in the year?” – she answered ‘three’ – which was the only answer she got wrong – but was enough to knock her out of the top school.

But it was now 1966 – and big changes were coming to the country.

At home, we noticed that something was wrong with father’s job – he was coming home later and later – some nights, not at all – and when he came home, he was worried – and my parents had conversations that we were not supposed to hear.

Then the big posters started to go up on the walls and over the windows in our district – posters that named enemies of the revolution – posters that named all four directors of our ministry – posters that named my own father ! And it didn’t even use his name as I knew it – it used his Christian name – and this was the first time that I know that, as a child, my father had been baptized a Christian.

All these posters were made by the people who worked in our ministry – the support staff – including the lower ranked cadres, the drivers, hotel room cleaners, cooks etc. – and the same thing was beginning to happen all over Beijing and eventually, all over China.

The Cultural Revolution had begun !

Part Four

Just to fill in more details of life before the Cultural Revolution:

There were 24 levels of government service for Cadre (members of the Communist Party) – Mao was level one – Zhou Enlai level 2 – top generals level 3 etc. The upper 13 levels were considered “high officials” – and throughout these years my father was level 12 (eventually he made it up to level 11) , while my mother was level 22.

Each level had it own privileges – for example the highest levels got a red ration book that allowed them to purchase a certain amount of meat, eggs, shoes etc every month. Our family got the blue book – which was one rung lower – so we, for example, were allotted two pounds of eggs, 2 pounds of sugar, etc. every month – quantities that became very important during the three years of hardship (1958-1961) when drought and floods created such severe shortages and even starvation in the countryside. (this was also the period when Mao asked us to “tighten our belts” so China could pay its debt to USSR)

In the regular stores, you could not buy any food without the coupons distributed to residents each month by the local government, so it was impossible for people to travel to Beijing and live there.

For many years our mom wanted to buy a leg of famous ham - but that required two full years of meat coupons. Her plan was to save a few every month, but by the time she nearly had enough, the coupons rations were no longer being used.

One of our special events was to go shopping with mother. She would load all the different ration books into a large purse, and with kids in tow, we’d all go to the shopping district. It was great fun ! On one of the those trips, mother assigned us the job of carrying the purse – which was too heavy for just one of us – so we teamed up – and switched off – and shared the burden – and avoided the burden – and well, when we finally got to the market, the purse could not to be found. Nobody had it ! Ohhhhh was my mother angry.  That was an entire year’s worth of clothing ration books – there would be no new shirts or shoes until next year. She raised her voice and cuffed me on the head – and I felt very bad.

The only time my father ever hit me was the day I kept him from sleeping. I was playing out on the long front porch – while he was trying to take a nap inside. Several times he’d asked me to quiet down – but I just had to keep playing loud – so after at least an hour of sleeplessness, he came out and hit me – which provoked a terrible argument with my mother – and I, of course, again felt very bad.

Our parents hardly ever hit us – but they really pushed us to study-study-study at school .

Since mom never got a chance to go to university, she always hoped that all five children would – and she often told us “ if you are accepted into university, I will sell everything I own to support you.” But her dream was crashed by the Cultural Revolution.

I was the only one who eventually got a university education, but all of us did very well in school – especially my oldest sister and my second oldest brother who were admitted to the top middle schools in Beijing.

You have to realize what an incredible achievement that was for a 12-year old ---- because the 100 students in their classes had scored in the top 1% of all 12-year olds in the entire city. There must have been at least 20 levels of school with admission determined by test scores – with the bottom school taking everyone who couldn’t qualify for the others. That’s why we had to study so hard – and my mother was always urging my father to make my older brothers study harder.

In my first grade, I got sick and stayed in the hospital for a month, then I was released from hospital and sent straight home, I had to rest at home for a month. And in my second grade I got the same hepatitis-A again, this time even worse. I was in the same hospital for two months and stayed home another month, So basically, I did not attend school for the first and second year. My teacher was so concerned, she suggested that I repeat the second grade, but my mom told her to wait until final exams. Amazingly I passed them with a double 100 points. After that, my concerned teacher did not argue at all, - and I went on to the third grade and was always among the a few top students in my class.

My brothers studied hard – but they also liked to tinker with their radio. One day my father got very angry at them for wasting so much time – and he went into their room, took their beloved radio – that they had built from scratch – with from parts purchased by every penny they could save – and slammed it on the floor – crushing it with his foot. Needless to say, this made my brothers very, very unhappy.

Discipline at the boarding school was perhaps a bit lighter – but I do remember what happened to a big, strong girl who was a terrible bully. She would threaten –pinch – and take things from other girls – and they were all too afraid to tell the teacher. (she was not in my class) . She would torture girls by forcing making them to sit on the hot radiator – and make girls do her chores (like carrying the urine bucket out of the dormitory) – and even made some girls drink her urine. Oh – she was terrible ! But one day – finally – the teachers got wind of this abuse– and all the children were assembled and asked to write down every bad thing this girl had ever done. The accusations were then posted up on all four classroom walls, and the long table was covered with everything she had taken from others. Her career as bully was over.

I also remember a similar event with an abusive boy – but here the teacher held the boys arms while all the students – including myself – were invited to step up – one at a time – to hit him. (I hit him, too, but not very hard, because he was already crying by the time it was my turn)

We had four classes in the morning – 45 minutes each with a 15 minute break between each class., and then a long break for lunch and nap – then three more classes in the afternoon and a study hall after dinner. Somewhere in there, we had about 2 hours to play – running, jumping, stretching – and of course, ping-pong --- at which I was very good – at least among my fellow 10-year olds. Two people would play – and the winner would than face the next person in line – so it was a question of how long one could keep on playing.

Every Thursday night we had a big dinner (with that special treat: meat-filled dumplings ) and a movie. We had plenty to eat that night – and one poor boy ate so many he couldn’t stand up  (the teachers were very worried).  Once or twice a year we were taken by bus for an outing to the “Fragrant Hills”, about 15 miles west of Beijing – where there were rocks to climb and gardens to see – and somewhere, hidden from curious eyes –the vacation home of Chairman Mao.

We went to Fragrant Hills in late October to see the red leaves. . This was a big event for us . We were allowed to bring some pocket money, so when we were in the park, and hungry, we stopped for snacks. My mom usually gave me 20 to 50 cents. At that time, a popsical cost 3 cents, the better ones which were made of milk cost 5 cents. A sweat bread with nuts cost 15 cents. Orange juice cost 15 cents and so on. We seldom had any pocket money. However since I was the only one who went to boarding school, every time I got on the school bus, my mom put some candies or other goodies in my pocket, or else she’d give me 20 cents to buy something to take to school. I never went to school empty handed.

Sometimes, when there had been trouble with teachers (after I had been naughty or disobedient) -- I tried to find all kinds of excuses for not going back to school – and the school bus would leave without me. Then mom had to take me to school by public transportation. Since my school was in the suburbs, the city bus didn’t quite go that far – and we had to walk a certain distance through a grave yard. And every time that happened – my mother was scared to death.

I just talked to mother about this period of my life --- and she corrected my story about the transition from pre-school to grade-school: my entire pre-school class was transferred to the newly built grade school --- and my sister would have gone too, except that she had gotten a terrible rash during a visit to the countryside with my mother – and she missed several months of school – so she ended up never going. That’s why she didn’t join me –not because of the expense, which my mother says was not that bad.

She also reminded me of when I got very sick – back when I was 12 months old – and they took me to hospital where the doctor said that I was beyond treatment. My mother said something like “please take her in and treat the dead horse like a live one” and they gave me a bed. But my mother was very worried – and she made a special ornamental frame for my 100-day-old photograph (taken for every Chinese child whose parents could afford it). Every day she went to hospital and left a huge bag of fruit for me at the gate (she wasn’t allowed in except during visiting hour) –but I’m sure that no one ate that fruit except for the door man.

Part Three

We had a 2 month vacation every Summer, but all my classmates spent the first (or last) two weeks furiously writing all the homework we’d been assigned. We were supposed to study two hours every Summer day -- but like bitter medicine, we wanted to get over it right away – and then – at last  – we’d get the remaining 6 weeks to ourselves.

Maybe my sisters remember it different – but I don’t recall our family ever traveling on a vacation – my parents were too busy. Nobody had a car – but my father had access to one from the government garage to use on official business.

Once in a while, – when he was on a long distance trip or outside Beijing, he would allow us to ride with him and we played outside while he was engaging in some serious meeting

I remembered one particular business trip when dad brought my younger sister and me along for the ride. It was a couple of hours outside Beijing, in an area called Qin Cheng where political prisoners or POWs were kept. It was close to the mountains. It was late fall, all the crops had been harvested, and there was only bare land with a few brown leaves left on the ground. My sister and I began to climb a nearby hill, and found some delicious wild sour dates.

We ate lots of them right on the spot, and took the rest back home for mom and the family. In the afternoon, the driver found some sweet potato fields. They had already been harvested, but we were lucky enough to dig out the few still left.. The driver put them on top of the car’s engine and told us we’d have baked potato by the time we got home. Only a few potatoes survived the long bumpy road home – but still we had a hot sweet treat.

There was no summer camp – but every year the school organized a few day outings to the parks or hills near Beijing.

Most of the Summer, kids just played with each other – and best of all – we had a swimming pool next to our apartment. Maybe I should make clear that in 1960 the family moved out of the old-style-mansion (about a block from Tiannamen Square) and into a special compound (adjacent to Tianmenen Square) for the Security Ministry. ( Chinese civilian government had 8 major ministries )

The compound contained several city blocks – enclosed by a wall with four gates – each of them with armed guards. ( we had to show ID cards to get in)

It was a section of the city that used to be the foreign diplomatic quarter – so many of the buildings, like ours, were of European design – and we lived on the second floor of a very elegant embassy, with high ceilings, hardwood floors, and a long outdoor corridor (or porch) that ran the length of the façade, with many tall glass doors opening onto it.

We had a small bedroom for my oldest brother, and two large bedrooms with a big, beautiful fireplace in the center and a tall mantel with silk flowers in a blue glass vase. The windows facing north were huge, and in winter, my mom always sealed them with newspaper strips. One winter my brother made a small hole at the buttom , and pushed through it any coin he could find or borrow. The coins got trapped between the window and screen, and when my mother removed the paper at the end of winter, there was a big pile of coins. My lucky brother claimed them all – as his own personal piggy bank.

I should mention here that in China, children lived with their parents until they got married (and even then, sometimes, they had to wait a very long time to get an apartment) Due to the shortage of housing, my bother lived at home until he was 34! (but now things have changed)

And yes, the compound did have a swimming pool (on property that had recently served as a pig pen - back when meat was in shorter supply)

But there really wasn’t any other kind of public recreational area – other than a playground with some parallel bars for kids – so on cold or rainy days, the only place to be was home – where we might play cards, or chess, or mahjong ( my parents had an old family mahjong set. It was forbidden – since gambling was forbidden – but we played anyway – without money). But the game of go ? No – that was more for intellectuals.

My two brothers were some of the first among their peers to have the hobby of making crystal radios. They saved their allowance to buy the tools and parts, including an an iron which cost 8 Yuan. (which was a lot of money back then – when apprentice workers only made 18 Yuan per month). They saved many months and eventually convinced mom to chip in half the cost. They were so happy ! They spent many late nights making radios. The best and smallest one fit into a match box, and left it next to my parent’s pillow to impress them with their achievement.

My father once told my oldest brother to study more when my mother complained that my oldest brother was spending too much time making radios and not enough time studying. He ignored the advice and then my father got angry and stepped on one of the radios, crushing it. My father seldom punished us and that was the only time I saw my brother cry. (My mother never forgave my father for that and for years to come used that incident to criticize his parenting skills.)

Once a week, the compound showed movies – most of which were propaganda melodramas – but I clearly remember the animated version of “Journey to the West” (a folktale fantasy about how Buddhism was introduced to China –full of incredible monsters and strange heroes.) Occasionally we’d get a big song and dance show – like the big shows at the People’s Congress Hall – not very far from the compound. But tickets there could not be purchased – they had to be gifts from the government – and if my father got any – he only got one or two.

I remember one time we had two tickets and my mother took my younger sister. But I wanted to go too.  So I followed them to the auditorium and wheedled my way past the smiling guard.

I don’t remember neighborhood children playing sports – but if a girl showed exceptional athletic ability at school – she might be offered a place in a special sports academy – like my sister was , for example. (my mother, however, turned down this proposal – thinking that she would get a better education in a more traditional school. (Sports and entertainment had low status in China when I was growing up, especially opera singers, dancers and actors who were considered servants of the rich)

And the same thing with music --- I don’t remember my childhood friends having a special interest in music – with private lesions in musical instruments. We had Music class at school – mostly singing – and once I was given a set of gongs to use at a special performance on New Year’s Eve.

The “New Year’s old man” (Santa Claus) came out from back of the stage, and we were supposed to welcome him with our New Year’s music, but we forgot all our instructions – and the end result was total cacophony.

I don’t remember any big trouble when we lived in the compound. One time, the signal from my brother’s crystal radio was detected by security – but it’s not like he was arrested or anything. Another time, my brother came home one day and threw himself face down on the bed without talking.

Thirty minutes later we got a phone call from authorities telling us that his bicycle had crashed into a soldier’s motorcycle, breaking the very expensive windshield. But my father talked with the man in charge who said “we are all comrades” and we did not have to pay.

I should mention here, that not everyone in Beijing had a telephone. The phone book at that time was a few centimeters thick (with Mao’s number listed first) – and the telephone poles on our street stopped in front of our house. We were among the first families to have a phone – and a gas oven – and I completely agreed with the little school songs about the happiness of Chinese children (as opposed to those poor, hungry black children who lived in Chicago.  Yes ! – I actually learned a song about poor black children in Chicago – and how sorry we felt for them.)

All of which was true –we WERE better off than poor kids in Chicago – but we were also better off than 99% of poor children in China as well.

There were roughly three kinds of children that we would meet: the children of high-officials (that’s us) – the children of intellectuals (people who taught at university)- and the children of blue-collar workers ---- and as soon as a young person opened her mouth – I could tell which was which.

I don’t remember having close friends from that time – and the kids I met at boarding school were not the same as the kids who lived in my parents’ neighborhood – so mostly I played – or fought – with my brothers and sisters –and my life was kind of different from theirs --- since I was the only one who went to boarding school. The school hadn’t been built when my older siblings started grammar school – while illness had kept my younger sister out of kindergarten for six months, so she ended up in a more local school. (She had gotten insect bites during a trip to the countryside – giving her rash that became more serious)