INTRODUCTION

When I first read Random Recollections of the Cow Shed thirteen years ago, I was stunned by its haunting depictions of brutality, torment, injustice and agony. That was in 1998, a few years after I finished my graduate program in the U.S. and started to teach English at Beida or Peking University. I immediately expressed my desire to translate it from Chinese into English. Dr. Ji Xianlin, retired and living in his Langrunyuan home at Peking University, called me one afternoon in my Yandongyuan home.[1] He told me that seventy-two faculty members of Peking University were persecuted to death during the Cultural Revolution. "Chapter 8: On the Edge of 'Taking My Own Life Against the People' " of his book catches one of the heart-wrenching moments. But that death ratio still shocked me, given the rough figures of 1,000 faculty members and 11,000 students of the university at that time. I told him that my grandfather did not survive the disaster. He was formerly an undergraduate physics major at Peking University from 1916-1921, the period of the May 4th Movement, and went on for graduate study at the University of Leeds, U.K., on a competitive state-funded student program. Later he returned to teach as professor of physics and electrical engineering and department head at Hebei University. He committed suicide in early September, 1966, the following day after our home, where I grew up and lived with him, was raided and confiscated by the Red Guards. Dr. Ji expressed his compassion and regret. Later he granted my request with his authorization for my translation. Today my years of effort has brought down the curtain on the translation. It is regretful that Dr. Ji did not live to see the day. I wish my translation could be dedicated to the memory of Dr. Ji and my grandfather for their commitment to sciences and seeking truth.

In the reading of Random Recollections of the Cow Shed, I think a few points deserve notice in terms of the significance of its writing and publication, a unique arrangement of the materials, the author's relentless lashing of his persecutors, a contrast between his humanistic concern with his fellow Cow Shed victims and an absence of account for his family, and the breezing literary style.

First, the significance of the book's writing and publication lies in its courageous and substantial recounting of the victimization of Chinese intellectuals at the institution of higher education during the Cultural Revolution. Dr. Ji started to write this memoir in 1992 and published it in 1998. Before that he had "waited twelve years" as he states in his "Preface," keeping hoping that many other Cow Shed inmates across the country like him, with some of the most horrifying experiences, would write and publish on their suffering. But his hope was shattered as no one had written anything in recounting his or her stories of that history. He decided to pick up his pen and write his own. The reason that no one had written anything even though almost two decades had passed since the end of the ten-year turmoil is that some of the persecutors, instead of being brought to justice, had come to power at that time, as the author states in his book. Many victims were refrained from airing their mind and writing. However, one writer, Ba Jin, a well-known, Shanghai-based freelance literary writer, published his Random Thoughts in 1978. In this collection of essays, Ba Jin recounts his suffering in the Cultural Revolution and reveals his dull-mindedness and cowardice in the face of savageness and injustice. In comparison, Dr. Ji's memoir has produced the first detailed narration of this kind of experience from a professor's perspective of the most prestigious and politically clamped university in modern China. His writing represents the historical moments and displays courage and a sense of duty.

Second, the arrangement of the materials of the book is unique for its free flow of thoughts and careful classification of the periods. Though the book is called "random recollections," the author blends recalls with reflections and gives an unrestrained release of rationale and emotion. The "Preface" and chapters 20-21 provide compelling accounts of the author's Cow Shed life and reexamine his reactions. The accounts of his Cultural Revolution experience are clearly divided into three sections: his life before being detained in the Cow Shed (chapters 1-11), his life in the Cow Shed (chapters 12-17), and his life after being released from the Cow Shed (chapters 18-19). "The Autobiography of Ji Xianlin," offers a brief look at the author's life in his early and later years. The book can be read as a memoir with a focus on the author's personal experience in the Cultural Revolution against the backdrop of collisions between social changes and individual aspirations in twentieth-century China.

Third, the author's relentless lashing on his persecutors unveils the heart of darkness and sings an ode to the triumph of justice. His narration truly represents the willful trampling of laws, savage torment, blatantly lying, and unashamed ungratefulness, such as the raiding of his home, repeated torture sessions, inhumane conditions of the Cow Shed, fabricated big-character-poster accusations and ridiculous speeches at the session of denouncement, his favorite student turning into a ferocious tormentor, etc. The author laments at places that the legacy of Chinese history and culture only lends itself to a disguised brutality, as he depicts the concoctions and brush arts of big-character posters, and the laying out of the "Regulations for Reform Persons" and the "evening forewarning speech" in the Cow Shed. His frequent castigating of the "Old Dowager" can hardly be deemed as personal. All his accounts raise a question, "Why can young students and friendly colleagues turn overnight into fierce, treacherous, bloodthirsty factionalists and foes?" But the triumph of justice is something to be celebrated as he was restored to work and power in the later years of the upheaval. Though he frankly states he is not vengeful, the tone strikes a clear note that the human folly of ignorance and selfishness is lethal and an infliction of injustice is ephemeral.

Fourth, the reader may also be impressed by a contrast in the memoir between the author's compassion for others and an odd absence of narration about his own family. The author tells stories with understanding and sympathy about the leading figures of the university at the torture session, such as Lu Ping and Peng Peiyun, Professor Wang of history and Party general secretary Cheng of the Department of Chinese who committed suicide, and the faculty and students perishing in the Cow Shed, such as the professor from the library, the professor of law, the female teacher from the Department of Eastern Languages, Party general secretary of the Department of Biology, the female teacher from the affiliated primary school, the "rightist" student, and the professor of physics. Indebtedness is not forgotten as he mentions his Cow Shed fellow Ma Shiyi who offered him a cart ride on his painful walk to the clinic for his swollen testes; the same gratitude is expressed to his "reactionary" fellows Zhang Xueshu and Wang Enyong who supported him back home after the university torture session on May 4, 1968 and to a few workers who humanitarianly treated him, the author spares no space in expressing his appreciation.

However, the memoir feels short of narrating his own family. A scanty account is given to his only two family members, his wife and aunt, and no further information is found in his "Autobiography" either. The author got married during his college period at Tsinghua University from 1930 to 1934 when in his early twenties. His wife, Peng Dehua, was from his home village, four years his senior and illiterate. She bore him one girl, Ji Wanru, and one boy, Ji Cheng. But the author did not return home and see them very often at that time. The following ten years continued to see a split family when the author went to Germany for graduate study and was stranded there due to the Second World War before returning to Beijing in 1946. But his reunification with his wife did not come until 1962 when she moved to Beijing to join him. His son later came to study Russian in Beijing and worked in China's Academy of Sciences. It was said that the author was originally disappointed with his marriage. It might be due to a family marriage intervention, or the discrepancy in education, or a difference of national character and writing style. However, his reservation in writing and sharing information about his family, particularly his children, during the Cultural Revolution has left some food for thought with the reader, especially one from the West. In front of us is a personality with a glittering integrity and career with an incomplete family life.

Finally, Random Recollections of the Cow Shed is written in a breezy, matter-of-fact manner. His command of the language with a solid grounding in both Western and Chinese classics is remarkable. His doctorate is in Hindu study with focuses on Sanskrit, Balinese, the language of Tukhara, Russian, Slavic and Arabic. He is a prolific essayist and translator, particularly with his work A Trace of Cultural Exchange: A Chinese History of Cane Sugar and translation of the Hindu epic Ramayana. The writing of his memoir certainly reflects this established and assured style, unrestrained, informal, and studded with classical references, historical anecdotes, poetic lines, quotations, bitter jokes, mocks, and self-mockeries. The writing is colloquially rippling and graphically substantial. A Western reader may find awkward repetition and modesty at places in the book such as his reassuring of refusing to revenge and repeated stating of his ordinary social status and academic lack of luster. Modesty might be an ethnic trait of the East. But the political environment plays a major role that self-depreciation was encouraged or even required in the society when the Cultural Revolution was over. In the 1990s the country was still grappling with the ideological residues of the past political moments, when the author wrote the book. The author's cautious steps in writing could be understood.

During the Cultural Revolution the Cow Shed was a household word in China. Those, locked up in Cow Sheds, guarded quarters for torture and forced physical labor, joined the dubbed herd of "cattle, ghost, snake and demon," most of them government officials, reputed intellectuals and celebrities. Dr. Ji wrote a memoir in his late years of his suffering during the national political and social tsunami. His courage, frankness and dedication to seeking truth helped produce this book, as "a mirror" in his words, so that a lesson should be learned and the "tuition" will not be paid in vain. Today rising generations of youth are privileged with chic products of the economic reform, from Apple computers to HDTV, from the Internet to smart phones, Facebook and Twitter. But Dr. Ji's book will remain readable if we believe that in the equation of life human nature is a constant and time and place are variables.

In translating the book, I tried to accommodate the needs of both Chinese and Western readers. I did my best to put in clear, contemporary and edited American English. The notes I supply may appear tedious at places to a Chinese reader but would be helpful to a Western one.

I want to thank Dr. Deanna Robinson, emeritus professor of journalism from the University of Oregon for her proofreading of chapters 9-20 of the draft and valuable suggestions for revision. My thanks also go to Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press editors Duan Huixiang and Yi Lu for their editing and checking of the complete manuscript to eliminate many errors. Without these helps and contributions the publication of this work would not have been possible.

All the errors and lapses will remain to be mine.

Perry W. Ma

September 1, 2012

[1] Beida, the short term for Peking University in Chinese.