Winter 1971
There was a movie called The White-Haired Girl,
one of the “model plays”
developed by Chairman Mao’s wife,
one of the only few movies allowed to be played.
It was about a peasant girl named Little Happy
who lived with her widowed baba.
The movie began on a New Year’s Eve.
Little Happy’s baba was hurrying home in a snowstorm,
dancing on the snow-covered road.
Little Happy opened the door for her baba.
She brushed the snowflakes from his shoulders,
as he presented her with a red hair string.
Jumping with joy,
she held the hair string between her hands,
dancing on her toes as she sang to her baba,
“Others’ daughters have flowers to wear,
my father had no money to afford them,
he pulled two feet of red hair string
for me, Little Happy, to make my braid.
Ah, to make my braid.”
All of a sudden the music grew dark and nervous.
A group of the landlord’s “dog legs” rushed in,
led by the ugly young son of the landlord.
They asked for the field rent
that the old man couldn’t afford.
They beat him to death in front of his daughter.
The villagers and a neighbor boy came,
and they fought the “dog legs” bravely,
but the young master pulled out a gun,
and they helplessly watched as Little Happy was snatched away.
She ran away from the landlord’s house
to a cave in the mountains,
and her hair turned all white.
Finally her sweetheart, the neighbor boy,
who had joined the Communist Party’s army,
came to the cave to save her.
The army liberated the village
and captured the landlord’s family.
The White-Haired Girl, Little Happy,
danced on her toes and condemned
the evil of the landlord’s family and the old society.
The neighbor boy,
a soldier now,
pulled out a gun.
The landlord and the young master were executed
while the villagers celebrated.
I was fascinated by the strange dance on the toes
and insisted that it would be
the only way I was going to stand.
Soon all of my shoes had open mouths on the toes.
Mama said that if I kept on doing this,
I wasn’t going to have any more new shoes.
Nainai put patches on the shoes to cover my toes
as she and Mama laughed.
Gege and the other children laughed at my shoes too.
Gege was in second grade that year.
Every night he went to school
to practice in the school plays.
I followed him each night.
Watching him and other older children on the stage,
I danced on my toes,
hoping to grow up soon
to be in plays too.
The teacher in charge of the plays
was our neighbor.
and asked my mama if I could
play the White-Haired Girl,
even though I was not in school yet.
Jumping on my toes, I yelled,
“Yes! Yes!”
By the end of the year, the special day came.
All the teachers, students, and their families
gathered in the school theater,
Mama and Nainai among them.
Gege was also performing that night.
I had never performed in front of such a big group of people.
When they announced the White-Haired Girl,
so nervous, I forgot the dance.
But with my arms up in the air,
I moved to the middle of the stage on my toes.
People started applauding and someone yelled “Good!”
I tried to dance,
and most of all, keep myself on my toes.
When the music reached its height for the final pose,
with great relief,
I kicked my leg high into the air and spun around,
and landed on the front of the stage
with my arms stretched forward to the future.
The light from above was blinding;
I couldn’t see anywhere beyond the stage.
But I knew Mama and Nainai were somewhere there,
watching me from the crowd in the theater.
After what seemed like forever,
I heard the sound of applause and
got back to my toes.
With a smile I took a bow.
The previous year Gege played a Chinese traitor
working for the Japanese army,
which he was not very proud of.
But this year he was a young heroic peasant boy
in a play called
The Rooster Crowing in the Middle of the Night.
His classmate who played the evil landlord
was a school bully
who once broke Gege’s head with a brick.
I still remember the blood dripping from Gege’s head
when Mama carried him, running to the school clinic.
On the stage,
in the middle of the night and behind a big tree,
the landlord pretended to be a rooster crowing at dawn,
“Ooh ooh ooh!”
All peasant workers were tricked to get up.
They labored in the landlord’s field,
as the landlord waved a whip,
threatening and hitting them left and right.
This brutal exploiting went on for an hour.
At the end Gege came to the stage
with a big bag of grain on his shoulder.
Bending under the heavy weight,
he staggered all over as he walked.
Holding the whip and taunting loud,
the vicious landlord dashed onto the stage.
Gege threw the bag of grain on the ground
and gripped the landlord’s collar.
The bag was stuffed with cotton and
bounced around but we all ignored it,
holding our breath, watching what was to happen.
Gege lifted his fist high up in the air and
gave the landlord, the school bully,
a big punch on his right cheek.
The landlord fell onto the ground,
his face full of surprise and confusion,
mumbling something in disbelief,
just the way it should be.
I knew Gege must have really hit him instead of pretending
and suspected the whole theater knew this too.
But then the audience cheered with excitement.
In the middle of the stage
Gege was trying to hide the smile of victory on his face
and look righteous as a young hero.
All the other peasants joined him,
waving their sickles and hoes in the air.
I jumped up and down on my toes,
so proud of my gege.