17 MOVING THE COW SHED
Winter came. A briquette stove was installed in our room and a fire made. Though the fire was kept at moderate intensity because of a shortage of coal, it was quite warm inside as opposed to the outside cold.
Our reform troop started to shrink. As the number of us dwindled, we were asked to moved into one large room. I did not know the reason, nor did I dare to ask. I had already reached the nadir of my suffering so a minor change in classification and living quarters would not lift me out of the cachet of devil.
The room looked spacious. Probably thanks to the reduced number of people the mice were audacious. They rambled around the room during the day. Their first assaults, a few bites, were on a dried steamed bun I brought from home. I wanted to scatter them. They even gazed at me boldly and played hide-and-seek with me. Probably they, too, came to understand that the residents of this room were not human but "counter-revolutionaries," not species of a higher caliber. So bullying us would not be an act of the culprit.
We dared not feel free to talk and exchange information, but gossip went around fast as an old saying has it, "No wall can shield the wind." Gradually I learned the Nie's Beida Revolutionary Committee altered its policy on "reform criminals." We were no longer to be housed in one place. Instead we were to be sent back to our individual departments. The Department of Eastern Languages was late in sending for its group. Thus the Cow Shed was "moved," so I was back in the Building of Foreign Languages.
A few days earlier I was dying to get into this building. Now here I was, but nothing special took place. A few of us were ordered to live in the classroom for teaching Burmese in the northern part on the second floor. We made the makeshift bed on the floor and slept on it, while our reform guard slept on a big table near the window, supposedly watching us from above. He had a nickname, "Tinker (xiaolujiang)," probably a pun based on this young student's family name, Lu.[1] To my surprise we were joined by a few more men, who had never lived in the Cow Shed. I wondered, "Were they 'criminals,' too?" Though some things needed to be clarified, it was good to mind my own business and live with them in peace.
Life was slower and easier here. Earlier, in the Cow Shed, we were in highly tense circumstances, alert for the calling of our names in case a late response incurred calamity. Now a reform guard was living with us in the room so we could come to his call promptly. His presence made me feel better.
But the days did not pass uneventfully, nor were they intended to. I was still a "reform criminal." There were many offices and classrooms for various programs on this floor. Before my "fall," I had been department head for twenty years and worked in these rooms every day. I had been in charge here and felt comfortable. As time went by, I became a prisoner because of my "rebellion" (I was asking for trouble). "Paradise is lost as flowers fall and the water runs down the river." I had been a "counter-revolutionary" for over one year. I did not lament the loss of that past time when I was flushed with success. It was crystal clear to me that I was "toppled" and would never be redressed. I only hoped to survive any worsening conditions.
Now there were only three places that I was allowed to go, the room in which I was confined, the restroom and the interrogation room. The last one was not fixed, depending on what room was available. The restroom was shared between "black gangsters" and "white gangsters" ("revolutionaries") because, even though the "black gangsters" were devils, they had to urinate and defecate. Probably a real devil does not have those needs, things I should look into in the future.
Another matter was rather embarrassing. The "black gangsters" were mixed up with the "white gangsters," which ensured unavoidable encounters with each other. China is a nation of courtesy; the Chinese greet each other customarily. But we didn't traditionally greet one another with expressions like those in English, "good morning," "how are you," or simply "hello." The popular Chinese expression, "zao'an (good morning)," is borrowed from abroad and has been popularized only recently. In the past we often greeted each other by asking, "Did you eat your meal?" I would define this expression as the "national greeting." Now, when seeing old friends inside the Building of Foreign Languages, I was afraid to use either the borrowed expression or the "national greeting." The best way to smooth over the embarrassment was to lower my head and race away. How did the "white gangsters" think? I had no idea. But it was certainly an awkward situation to go past and glance at each other without saying a word. Once in a while the "whites" gathered together in one room, chattering excitedly on some topics of common concern. The sentiment was quite "revolutionary" and filled the space. I was never inspired by this revolutionary spirit. We were in an environment in which we listened to the talking and laughing of others but did not join in the conversation. We listened because others talked. However, we were not allowed to utter a sound. We were moving shadows. Shadows shifted in silence.
But life was not wholly tedious because of a lack of exciting news and thrilling experience. Bits of interesting information surfaced not from my talking with someone, which I would never dare to, but from hallway chats that I overheard. One of the most noted stories was about the woman instructor of Mongolian whom I mentioned earlier in the book. Apparently she was the only female "criminal" from the Department of Eastern Languages. Back in the Cow Shed, some rooms were for female inmates. But when we were housed in the Building of Foreign Languages, female rooms were not provided. Due to the gender difference, another room was earmarked for her. The two women guarding her were a student of Korean and a department librarian, but the latter, with the family name of Ye and an unknown first name, was mean, brutal and fascinated with trouble stirring-up. The library where Ye worked was a hotbed of rumor and lurid stories. When the Cultural Revolution hit, she quickly pledged allegiance to the branch committee of the Nie's Beida Commune. She might be grouped with those who "resolved to live and die for Nie Yuanzi and Sun Pengyi." I remember one night she stormed into my home, yelled and marched me to the Building of Foreign Languages for a torture session. It was quite noticeable when a woman reform guard walked a male "criminal" on campus at Beida. A woman with such a personality would never let a female victim get off easy. One night Ye, along with a group of men, carried out an intense interrogation and beat her female victim severely. Whether the woman convict was battered as excessively as she once was in the Cow Shed was unclear to me. I can't say anything exactly about what happened because I didn't personally witness the event. But after learning of her suffering, I was not surprised because I felt numb by then.
Certainly I never thought that the second story, which caused a flurry among the people, had something to do with me.
Since our entering the Building of Foreign Languages, I had not been beaten. Admittedly the torture of the Cow Shed had not subdued me. Climbing out of purgatory I was still as rebellious as ever. Probably I had an in-bred, dull brain coupled with some cantankerousness, both of which were cemented into me. One day I was called by a PLA officer, maybe a battalion commander, who had been sent to work in the Department of Eastern Languages as part of the military team "supporting the leftists" in the Revolution. His name was Zhao Liangshan, who died later, so far as I know. He asked me to come to his office and then asked me a question, which rather infuriated as well as disappointed me. I thought PLA soldiers should behave in a civilized and decent fashion. But I was incorrect. I replied discontentedly, "You took away all my diaries. They must have been put in one of the rooms in the Building of Foreign Languages. You can simply send someone over there to fetch them. It won't take you five minutes to check it out." I didn't think my answer would explode the tinderbox. He flared up, remarking that I was fairly hostile. To his rebuke I made no response. He was the supreme ruler now.
After dinner I returned to my room. A female instructor, who used to oppose Nie, led a bunch of people into my room, holding in hands some strips of red and green paper full of slogans and posted them on the wall. Immediately the drab white wall took on a lively air, making the room burst with energy. The slogans were nothing new, lifelessly those like "Ji Xianlin intends to go against the Revolution. Down with him," "Be lenient to those who confess their crimes and severe to those who refuse to," and "Behave yourselves but never act without permission," so on and so forth. As "a common occurrence causes no stir," these threats did not disturb my mental state of peace. I slept well that night as usual, getting ready for the advent of another political storm.
As expected, the "revolutionaries" went into action the following day. The troop of the "Red Guards" from the Department of Eastern Languages, probably comprising both factions of the university, walked me toward student dormitory Building 40. Again I felt like I was a convict sent to a distant place for penal servitude, shambling forward with the head held low. In the historical Peking Opera, the convict was allowed to walk with his head raised. But in new China I was deprived of this right. Alas, I would forget about my misfortune and make the best of it.
At first I did not know where I was going. Close to Building 40, I figured it out by judging the environment. I got a faint impression that the building's walls were posted all over with big-character posters and slogans. Unable to look up I guessed that those posters bore those irreversibly banal words, "Down with the obstinate and rebellious Ji Xianlin" and "Be lenient to those who confess their crimes and severe to those who refuse to," as well as false charges, slanders and smears. Amid the deafening howls, I detected nothing special in their cries in light of the nature of my crime except for the accusation that I was guilty of "reversing the revolutionary verdict."
With my neck gripped from behind and my arms twisted high up on my back, I was dragged into the building. While I went down the narrow hall, students yelled, chanted and struck me on the head and body. As if sailing through clouds and fog, I identified no one before being carried to the second floor as if on a magic carpet. Here the situation duplicated that on the first floor from one end to the other. The hubbub and shouting roared on as I was jostled up to the third floor. Here I saw nothing new, the formality being flat, monotonous and unsatisfactory. The "ceremony" done, I was marched back to the Building of Foreign Languages.
Later I learned that this new way of physical abuse was called the "torture through the hall." Was this a creation of the Eastern languages students? If so, they should be credited when A History of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution is written by someone in the future. Probably, one chapter can be devoted to the discussion of their contribution. As for me, I had gone through hard times in life and was not particularly agonized bodily and mentally. I just thought it was a little "fun."
Meanwhile, the matter by no means would drop. That battalion commander, Zhao, made up his mind to plan another round of torture. The following day a student came to me after breakfast and required me to go to a classroom for a torture session. This time I was allowed to raise my head. I saw one instructor from my old instructional section and a few students present. I was ready to assume the jet plane posture. To my surprise I was offered a seat. I was tied in knots. I thought I almost became Jia Gui of The Famen Temple, who is more comfortable with being domineered than with being respected.[2] Given this treatment, can you imagine what result they possibly could achieve this time? I found the speeches rather hackneyed, so I chose not to listen to what they said; as a poetic line describes, "Ignoring the rocking waves in a windy day, I am sitting calmly on the fishing boat." Suddenly I was woken up by a shout, "March Ji Xianlin away!" I knew this performance was over.
Before returning to my room, I was taken to the office of another instructional section. The same "formal ceremony" was run through. Then the third and fourth instructional sections followed with similar proceedings. I did not count the number of offices I toured that day. I thought I went to all the offices of the department in succession, more than ten of them in all. When the faculty sessions were finished, the student sessions just commenced. I could not figure out how many student classes our department had by that time. Each class ran one session of criticism (probably some of them held joint sessions). I was not sure about the number of sessions I attended. It should be around the neighborhood of twenty something. If each session took one hour, the total was about thirty hours. Some of the classes "slighted their work by cutting back on time." Therefore the number of hours actually wound up shorter than I calculated. Anyway, for about four days I was busier than "moonlighters." One class after another, the students relayed the sessions, running about nine rounds daily and leaving me only with time for meals. The ordeal was time-wasting and demanding.
What effects did the criticism have on me? I felt only a little tired. "Too many head lice make no itch at all." I even became interested in attending torture sessions. I loved them and found fun in them. As "solemn denouncing speeches" clattered in my ears, I shut my mind and rested. I would "wait at my ease for an exhausted enemy."
The mundane world is complex. I started with a "rebellious attitude" and ended up with it, too. This attitude first saved my life and then enriched me with tranquility. The benefit I reaped might have been inconceivable to the revolutionaries, no matter whether they truly deserved the title or not.
[1] The pun comes from both the pronunciation of the Chinese character "lu" and the name of a negative character "xiaolujiang" in one of the "eight model revolutionary theatrical performances" in the Cultural Revolution, Taking Mount Tiger by Strategy.