4.

OBLIGATION

Before Lunar New Year in 1974, a colleague who reported to Father at the company warehouse was planning to visit his native village during the long holiday. He was from the same part of Henan as the Huang family and his trip gave Father an idea. He asked the colleague to deliver a letter and a gift of blue cloth to a cousin of Grandpa’s, who lived in a village not far from where the colleague was going. In the letter, Father inquired about Grandpa’s tomb and sounded out the cousin on the possibility of Grandma being buried there, too.

We treated Father’s colleague like a long-lost uncle when he showed up at our house a month later. He had brought back a bottle of peanut oil, a specialty of the region, and a verbal message from Grandpa’s cousin—Grandpa’s tomb was intact and it would not be a problem for Grandma to be buried there. Grandma was thrilled, but Father remained unconvinced.

“The local government is under pressure to impose bans on burial,” the colleague reported. “But village people, especially older folks, are still traditional and they are resisting the order.” He said Grandpa’s cousin seemed to be a powerful figure, and so long as we could get Grandma’s body to him and keep the funeral low-key, it would be okay.

“It is a big taboo to leave your father buried alone,” the colleague advised before he left. “Uniting our parents in death is a time-honored custom in our hometown and it’s good for the future of the family.” He admitted that it would not be acceptable to bring Grandma’s ashes home for a joint burial. “It doesn’t count,” he added.

Grandma seized on the colleague’s report as proof that her request should be respected. She had recruited other old women in our neighborhood to pressure Father into agreeing to the burial. “Considering what she has gone through for you, you certainly don’t want to deny her last request,” they said.

As time went by, Father realized that he was engaging in a losing battle. With warmer weather came Father’s final decision. One night after dinner, he had us stay at the table. He seemed to be in a jovial and chatty mood, and told a story that bewildered us initially because it was not related to any topics that we had discussed that evening.

“Sun Zhong grew watermelons and diligently served his aging parents. One hot summer day, three gray-bearded men passed his field, searching for water. Sun offered them a large watermelon, which they ate quickly and with relish, slurping up the juice and not letting a drop fall. They asked for more. Sun brought a bigger one from his field and he refused to take their money. Touched by the young man’s generosity, the strangers decided to give him a gift. One of the old men said to Sun, ‘I’m going to reveal a good feng shui spot. You should continue to take good care of your parents, and when they die, bury them at this spot. If you do this, there will be an emperor in your family.’ Sun was skeptical, but paid attention and when one of the men ordered him to walk up the hill—‘Don’t stop until I tell you’—he did as he was told. After about one hundred steps, he turned to see what the three strangers were up to in his field. The scholar sighed. ‘Aiya, you turned your head too early. Just stop where you are. The feng shui is also good there, but instead of an emperor, you will have a king who will rule in the south.’ As Sun marked the spot, he saw the three men turn into white cranes and fly away. Sun Zhong was more attentive to his parents, and after they died, he buried them where the three old men had advised. He married a young woman in the village. They had a son. His name was Sun Jian, who later ruled the kingdom of Wu.”

Father then issued his usual disclaimer. “This is an old fable, of course. We are living in a new society now and no longer believe in feng shui and other superstitions.” We knew that he was committed to fulfilling Grandma’s final wish that she be buried. “We do this for the future of our family,” he told us. “More importantly, it is about paying back Grandma’s hard work. She has sacrificed much for our family. It is our turn to make some sacrifices for her. We are going to find a way.”

“Do you think the good location of Grandpa’s tomb will make me a powerful man when I grow up?” I asked.

“It depends on you,” Father said. “If you are a filial grandson at home and generous with others at school, the magic will work. You might grow up to be somebody.”

That story had a tremendous influence on me. Even now, each time a street person, especially a gray-bearded man or a ragged old lady, approaches me for money, I always wonder if the person is a saint or a fairy in disguise to test my generosity. I will offer some money, hoping they could turn into cranes and fly away with their blessing. When I ignore a beggar’s plea, I am hit with a fleeting sense of guilt, worrying about possible retribution.

Meanwhile, as if to underscore the urgency of our plan, Grandma fell ill in the spring. She suffered from severe dizzy spells that left her nauseated for hours. At first, we were not too concerned; Grandma had high blood pressure, which she blamed on my older sister, a tomboy who constantly upset her by getting into fights. Each time a dizzy spell hit her, she would be treated by a Dr. Gao, who headed the company’s medical clinic. I had heard that Dr. Gao, who had graduated from the prestigious Beijing Medical College, was assigned to Father’s company because his parents who were university professors had “political” problems during the Cultural Revolution.

“Mama Huang, your pulse is strong as ever,” Dr. Gao said to Grandma. “You’ll live a long time. In the meantime, take the pills I prescribe, and you’ll feel much better.” It was my job to run to the clinic and get the prescription filled. When she forgetfully took double the prescribed dosage, I ran to Dr. Gao’s apartment, afraid for her life. “Don’t worry. There is no danger. Simply ask your Grandma to drink lots of water.” I learned later that the pills that sustained Grandma were merely vitamin B and C supplements.

Her condition was different this time. Grandma soon developed a fever that persisted and Dr. Gao put her on a course of antibiotics, but when that didn’t work, he suggested a trip to the hospital just in case. Father disliked hospitals and thought the long trip across town and the interminable wait in the emergency room would only worsen her condition. On the recommendation of a coworker, he went to see a Dr. Xu, who was not really a doctor but an expert in traditional medicine who had been branded by the government as a “charlatan.” He was not allowed to practice medicine and worked as a technician for a clothing manufacturer. But he had four children and practiced traditional medicine on the side to supplement his paltry salary.

Xu came to our house, took Grandma’s pulse, examined her tongue and eyes, and diagnosed shanghuo—too much heat—which was fuelling infections inside her body. He jotted down a list of herbs, which were to be boiled in a clay pot. Charged with getting Grandma her medicine, I went to a state-run herbal store, which smelled musky. Tall glass jars filled shelves that reached the ceiling and contained what looked like dried plants and unidentifiable pieces of things, though I thought some of them looked like horns of some sort of creatures. I watched as the shop assistant brought down roots and grasses that I had not seen before. They were weighed, crushed, and mixed into six small packets that were tied together with a piece of brown string. For six nights, Father emptied the contents of a packet into a small clay pot of water, which was left to bubble for a couple of hours on a small coal stove. The resulting concoction filled a small bowl to the brim. Grandma would drink it, grimacing as she swallowed.

The illness drained Grandma’s strength, but not her will. Certain that she was dying, Grandma pleaded that Father should accelerate her burial planning. She was convinced Father would bow to Party pressure and follow her grandnephew’s suggestion, which was to dump her in a furnace as soon as she was cold.

There was no hiding the pungent smell of the herbs, and it wasn’t long before the querulous Mrs. Zhang, whose strong Henan accent I had often heard documenting her litany of woes, stopped by for a visit. She lived four doors down from our house. My parents tended to avoid her. Several times a day, we children were treated to her loud crude swearing as she rebuked her morose husband for this or that transgression. I wasn’t prepared for the “sweet” Mrs. Zhang who bustled past me through the door and pulled my parents into her embrace, whispering softly with her gestures. Mrs. Zhang was the first person outside our family to talk about having a coffin made and preparing a set of shou-yi—burial clothing—to drive away the evil spirits that had made Grandma ill. Mrs. Zhang, then in her fifties, turned out to be something of an expert. In the past, she said it was common for children to prepare coffins for their elderly parents while they were still alive. Her own grandfather had purchased a coffin after turning sixty and each year added a layer of black paint on his birthday. He lived into his eighties. Mrs. Zhang was from the same region as Grandma and familiar with the old traditions and customs and so, on this if not on any other sensitive issue, Father put his trust in her hands.

Ironically, our neighbors, including Mrs. Zhang, studiously attended all kinds of political meetings that aimed to stamp out superstitious activities, but in private few practiced what the Party preached. People would cover some transgression by saying it was an old Henan or Xi’an custom. “Bad luck to violate.” So, when Mrs. Zhang stepped forward and proposed we prepare a coffin for Grandma, no one thought her idea preposterous.

In recent years, coffins have transcended their dark connotation of death and become a lucky symbol for the living. Chinese officials and wealthy businessmen purchase miniature gold-plated coffins and display them prominently in offices as auspicious decorations. However, in the 1970s, buying a coffin for a living person in the city was considered an act of defiance against Party policies and punishment could be severe. Father thought that if the coffin might in some way help Grandma to get well and offer her peace of mind, he was willing to take the risk.

I had seen those ominous-looking coffins at funerals in villages outside our residential compound. They struck me as outright scary. I understood the logic of planning and sharing the work—Mother would prepare school supplies for me years before I needed them, and she was often part of a sewing circle that made beautiful quilts for the daughters of friends in anticipation of their marriages—but a coffin before Grandma’s death?

Mrs. Zhang’s coffin idea plunged my family into another round of fierce arguments, pitting Grandma against Mother. As usual, Father chose to remain silent even though he had already made up his mind.

Mother had promised earlier to honor Grandma’s burial request, but secretly she clung to the hope that once Grandma died, she could persuade Father to change his mind. She knew very well that Father was fearful of authority and cherished his newly gained political status. Preparing a coffin would make the burial inevitable. She snapped at Father. “If you want to throw away your Party membership, please go ahead.” Then, pointing to a neat stack of cartons that we used to store our clothes, Mother launched into an angry tirade: “We don’t even have money to buy a wooden wardrobe for the living. What makes you think we can afford to have a big coffin made? With this small space, where are we going to place the coffin? In the kitchen?”

Grandma sat on her bed, sulking. When Mother stepped out of the room, she pointed a finger at Mother’s back and grumbled. “Evil, evil! I know she can’t wait to have me cremated after I die,” she said. “I’m not going to let it happen. I want my coffin!” Father shook his head helplessly.

To the disappointment of Grandma, my elder sister and I also objected to the coffin idea. Grandma had raised both of us, and she had always counted on us to take her side during her fights with Mother. But this time we had important reasons to betray her. In addition to being frightened by the idea of storing a coffin in our house, both of us were facing major choices in our lives, the outcomes of which depended heavily on Father’s strong political standing with the Party.

My elder sister was graduating from senior high school that year. Known for her math skills, she dreamed of attending a university and becoming a mathematician. In the early 1970s, the university system in China had just been reinstituted after Chairman Mao had abolished it at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, condemning the universities as training grounds for bourgeois and counterrevolutionaries. Under the new system, universities would recruit only young workers, peasants, and soldiers who came from revolutionary families and were politically reliable. My sister considered herself a perfect candidate. She was a Red Guard and a member of the Communist Youth League. Too young to have beaten up their teachers and smashed temples and burned books, she and her classmates still wore red armbands and volunteered as traffic guards or helped peasants with the harvest. Two months before her graduation, my sister pledged at a Communist Youth League meeting to answer Chairman Mao’s call and became a peasant in the remote parts of China. She saw her future in the countryside as both an adventure and a launching pad for her dream—with our impeccable proletariat family background, she would be eligible for university application.

I was facing a similar situation. A week before Mrs. Zhang’s visit, the principal pulled me into her office and told me I had been selected by the school to compete for a place at the Xi’an Foreign Languages School. She reminded me that they were specifically targeting children of workers and peasants and, since students would be entrusted with the task of dealing with foreigners, it was important they came from a reliable revolutionary family.

When I shared the news with my parents, Mother burst out laughing, thinking the whole thing a joke. They had never heard anyone speak a foreign language, let alone me, a former stutterer. Father was concerned. In the 1950s, many people were urged to twist their tongues and learn Russian so we could communicate with the experts who came from the Soviet Union, our big socialist brother. When Nikita Khrushchev denounced many of Joseph Stalin’s political purges, Chairman Mao called him a revisionist. The two countries almost went to war. People quickly abandoned their study of Russian.

My parents paid a visit to a friend’s daughter who had been recruited to attend the foreign languages school two years before. They wanted to find out why I had been approached. According to the friend’s daughter, after China was admitted to the United Nations in 1971 and Nixon visited in 1972, Chairman Mao had ordered a few select schools to start teaching English to students at an early age so that they could help China fight imperialism on the international stage. Chairman Mao was quoted as saying, “A foreign language is a type of revolutionary weapon in the struggle of life.” How could a foreign language be a weapon? I asked Father and he said, “If you want to defeat the enemy, you have to know them and speak their language. This is an ancient military strategy.” It meant nothing to me then. All I knew was that it was a tremendous honor because the program was established under the instructions of Chairman Mao and my parents were excited.

When the application form was handed out before the interview, I confidently wrote on the line that asked about family background: “Working class. Father is a Party member.” We were told that the interview would be a way to gauge our political thinking and determine if we had any speech deficiencies. As we awaited my turn, I nervously rehearsed my answers. I was ready to parlay my family background and champion my own progressive record at school.

A soft-spoken man with thick glasses sat behind a desk in a small cozy office. He asked me about my family. I told him Grandma’s story; how a poor woman, oppressed and exploited by the ruling class, begged her way to Xi’an to save her only surviving child. I mentioned that the child was my Father who, by the way, was a Party member. The examiner looked attentive and frequently nodded as I spoke. He said he was now going to say some words in English, and I should try to imitate him. “So-cial-ism,” he said. It was the first word I ever heard spoken in English. It was thrilling. “So-cial-ism.” I had said it thousands of times in Chinese, but in a foreign language it sounded exotic. I said the word. The examiner pronounced another word. “Re-vo-lu-tion.” I repeated it back to him. When I came out, my older sister whispered, “You were in there a long time; that’s a good sign.” I said I talked about Grandma. My sister jokingly asked, “You didn’t mention Grandma’s coffin, did you?” I laughed and shook my head.

We were through the first round. Next was a medical examination for me and, for Father, an examination of his political background.

While I was waiting anxiously for news from the school, Mother vowed that she would not allow Grandma’s coffin plan to ruin my future chances. Even Father agreed to put the coffin discussion on hold. Without understanding why her coffin had anything to do with my school admission and my sister’s graduation, Grandma blamed Mother for turning the grandchildren against her. For days, she would not speak to any of us. I began to feel guilty that I was standing in the way of Grandma’s dream of reuniting with her husband and thought of switching sides. When I told Mother, she pulled me aside. “Don’t feel bad,” she said. “You are still a child. There are many things you children don’t understand. We can’t allow a coffin in our house.”

To “marshal” Grandma into complete submission, Mother brought her cousin over. The cousin, notorious for his loud voice, had just become a policeman through the connection of his father, who had been a driver at the Municipal Public Security Bureau. Dressed in a brand-new white uniform, which smelled of starch, he arrived on an old-style motorcycle. His presence at our house attracted gawkers, many of whom thought Father had perpetrated an illegal activity such as selling goods on the black market, a common reason for police visits in our area. “No crime is committed.” Mother waved them off. “He’s my relative.”

The police cousin sat next to Grandma’s bed, his fingers tapping in a teacup. Diplomacy was certainly not his forte. Without bothering to ask about Grandma’s illness, he went right into the subject at hand.

“Huang Mama,” he bellowed. “I heard that you want a coffin made. Why do you want to do that? You know it’s risky, don’t you?”

Grandma looked nervous. She cringed at the police cousin’s loudness, but out of politeness, she listened attentively.

“You are not living in a village anymore,” he continued. “Xi’an is a big city and all big cities in China have strict bans on burials. If you are not careful, you could get arrested.” The cousin then told Grandma how his fellow policemen had been tipped off by neighbors that a man had purchased high-quality pinewood to prepare a coffin for his dying father. Police showed up, forcing the man to chop up the wood into pieces before detaining him for three days. His company also took disciplinary action against him. That was not the end of it, the police cousin said. Under the supervision of the street committee, the father’s body was shipped directly to the crematorium.

The cousin then winked at Mother. I knew that he was exaggerating to intimidate Grandma. I could not keep a straight face. Father tried to shoo me away, but I refused to leave.

“Huang Mama, after you die, I can use my connections to help with your burial in Henan.” The cousin tilted his upper body toward Grandma. “But don’t rush and pester your son for a coffin now. If neighbors report you, not only will your son and grandson be in trouble, but also the street committee will intervene and make sure that we cremate you. If that happens, there is nothing I can do.”

Before he left, the cousin played up my case. “They have stringent political requirements for your grandson’s school,” he warned. “Once he learns to speak a foreign language, he can be Chairman Mao’s interpreter and he can be a big shot. You don’t want to deprive him of this opportunity, do you?”

The police cousin wasn’t always Mother’s favorite. She used to complain he was too smug and disrespectful. However, Mother was certainly satisfied with her cousin’s performance that day. At dinner that night, Grandma caved in. “My coffin can wait,” she said. “I will keep myself alive until my grandson is admitted to the new school.”

Thus, peace reigned in my family for the next four months, during which time our family attention was temporarily switched from Grandma’s coffin to my sister’s graduation. In June, my sister officially signed up to join thousands of high school graduates to settle in the countryside. As a Party member, Father openly supported her action, but privately he was deeply worried. According to Father’s later accounts, he reasoned that Chairman Mao had used the fiery spirit of young people to get rid of his political opponents during the Cultural Revolution, but when his Red Guards continued to wreak havoc, he needed to restore stability. Moving them to the countryside would shift their energy and passion to something more constructive and alleviate urban congestion. Mother had heard about the neglect and hardship suffered by the students at the hands of rural leaders, and how the government canceled their city residential permits to prevent them from returning home. “The Party sings its promises like an opera aria,” she said. “Once they get you out of the city, they don’t care what happens to you.”

Father was aware of my sister’s intention of using her experience in the rural area to obtain a college education. Without proper connections, he felt it was a long shot. “Each year, universities only recruit a few students from the countryside,” Father said. “There is no entrance examination. Your fate will be in the hands of local Party officials. What makes you think they’ll choose you? Those good opportunities will be snatched up by children whose families have political connections. Be realistic!”

My sister didn’t see it that way and she insisted on going. It so happened that our family met the criteria for a hardship waiver—Grandma was old, my siblings were young, and the family needed her help. Only a limited number of waivers were granted, but Father’s Party membership gave him priority. Mother had been actively looking for friends to help us. My sister was furious, accusing my parents of staining her political record and dashing her dreams. She had her teacher come to the house, but my parents stood firm. My sister ended up with a job at a state-owned textile factory, while many of her former classmates lived a nightmare in the countryside and petitioned the city to let them come home. None of her classmates was given the opportunity to attend college. My sister eventually saw my parents’ wisdom.

I was luckier than my sister. In July, as my parents were about to give up hope, thinking that the opportunity had been given away to people with connections, the letter announcing my acceptance at the Xi’an Foreign Languages School arrived at my school and was delivered by the principal. It was a boarding school. I would be allowed to go home on Saturday afternoon but had to be back on Sunday evening.

My parents were happy to let me go. Father’s niece often bragged about how her son, a well-known basketball player in his junior high school, had been picked by the state to attend a special athletic school. The state provided food and clothing and rigorous training so he could someday join the national team and compete on behalf of China in international tournaments. Father now had obtained equal bragging rights, even though my parents had to allocate twelve yuan a month, one-seventh of the total family income, for room and board. Grandma was sad. Father explained that I was going to an elite school to study in a program established by Chairman Mao. She wasn’t impressed. “When I die, my grandson won’t be here with me.” She wept. Father said, “It’s not like he’s going away for a long time. He’s coming back every weekend. If anything happens to you, I’m sure his school will let him come.” Grandma looked forlorn and lost. Despite her illness, she helped Mother make a quilt and mattress for me to take to school. She also had me take her prized bamboo suitcase. When I left on the back of Father’s bicycle, I was too excited to see her tears.