3

“We can’t afford to do both,” my dad said to my mom with resignation in his voice. My parents had been discussing the educational options for Qinghua and me for the past hour, and we were eavesdropping from the next room.

When I graduated from elementary school, the province changed how they schooled children. In an effort to get the brightest students all in one place, they decided to send the highest scoring students in all of the villages to a central location. I was honored to be the only student selected from my village. Not only would this help me on my journey toward wealth and respect, I also was pleased I’d receive a better education than the bullies who had tormented me in my village. The only problem was that this would be more expensive for my family and we simply couldn’t afford the cost of the dorm and the necessary food vouchers for daily meals.

“I’ll stay here,” Qinghua said as she edged her way into the bedroom.

“What are you saying?” I asked, grabbing her arm.

“You’re smarter than I am,” she said. “And I’m a girl. I can work in the fields to make some extra money while you go to school.”

Her voice cracked with emotion as she said the words. I let her generosity wash over me before I responded.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, and with that very slight gesture of her head, the future of my family was placed squarely on my shoulders. My sister’s willingness to sacrifice for me was deeply touching.

I soon packed what few things I had, said goodbye to my family, and headed off to school. When I arrived, I knew my grades had to make my parents proud and justify my sister’s sacrificial generosity.

Being away at school gave me a new perspective of the world. Of my forty new classmates, who were from all over the county, some were wealthy while others were even poorer than my family. Getting to know them allowed me to see past the narrow confines of my village. Suddenly the world seemed bigger, with more possibilities. I lived in a dormitory about fifteen miles from my home. During the week, Qinghua worked in the fields with our half-brother. My parents couldn’t even afford to buy her a pair of shoes, so she had to wear some cheap water shoes. She didn’t like to be seen in them, but every week she walked in those uncomfortable shoes all the way to my school to bring me food.

There was no phone, of course, so I looked forward to seeing her to get updates from home.

Will my mom survive her lung disease this week? I wondered. Or will she maybe just give up and kill herself?

These questions would come to me, unbidden, as I sat at my desk and the teacher droned on about mathematics or science. As much as I wanted to pay attention, I couldn’t remove the questions from my mind. Thankfully, my teachers didn’t notice my distraction and I managed to do very well academically. Once again I was appointed class monitor, so I kept my eye out for the other students. Because this was a boarding school, many of us were learning to be independent for the first time in our lives. It was simply hard to be so far away from home. Most of the time, everyone could maintain composure, but one day a fellow student began crying in the middle of class.

“We can’t afford this school anymore,” she sobbed. She was the fifth of seven children, and her parents could barely feed their family. “My mom ordered me to quit school.”

I’m not sure what my life would’ve been like if I’d been born wealthy. However, growing up as the son of two disabled peasants, my heart was acutely pricked by stories of poverty. I knew poverty was the main ailment of our nation. Since education was the only route away from a poor peasant life, I couldn’t bear to think about my classmate being pushed back to her village, forever destined to that hungry existence.

But how could I—a mere student—do anything about her situation? If Qinghua didn’t greatly sacrifice for me, bringing me my weekly food, I’d have nothing. I certainly didn’t have extra food or money to donate to anyone else. Though I didn’t know what to do, I knew I had to do something. The very next week, I organized a team of classmates and traveled to her village. I didn’t have a well-strategized plan to make sure she could stay at school. In fact, when we knocked on her parents’ door, and they answered, I did the only thing I knew to do.

I begged.

“Please don’t let her quit,” I said as soon as I saw them. They were simple, dressed in old clothes. I told them how well their daughter was doing in school, and tried to explain that this was her only chance at a more prosperous future. Slowly, as we talked, the mother’s face softened. Sensing an opening, I made a solemn promise. I had no idea how to keep it, but I made it nonetheless.

“We will take care of her,” I said, motioning to my fellow classmates. “If you let her come back to school, you don’t have to worry anymore about costs.”

That was a deal they couldn’t refuse. They thanked us, and we jubilantly rode our bicycles back to school. With every push of the pedal, however, my mind raced as I tried to figure out how on earth I was going to afford this.

“Will you donate a few food tickets to help my friend get through the school year?” I asked every student I came across when we arrived back at school.

Amazingly, the coupons came in every week. We had enough food for her, and she was so touched by our efforts that she developed a crush on me. I had to spend the rest of the year avoiding her. Her affection made me so nervous!

When I was in senior high, however, another female student in my school faced an even worse situation. She was alone in the world. Both her mom and dad had died, so she was being taken care of by a stepmother and a stepfather. Just like Cinderella, she wasn’t treated as well as the biological children of her stepparents. She really didn’t belong to anyone, and her family looked at her as a drain on their resources. When she went off to school, they didn’t send her any food or supplies. When she came home, they bullied and even abused her.

One day, during her senior year of high school, I saw her crying, holding a tiny bag of crumbs.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“My stepparents won’t send me any food, and I’m hungry,” she said. “Plus, they’re making me quit school,” she said, barely able to get the words out.

It was so close to graduation, it was tragic to take her out of school. Since she wouldn’t return home to loving family, school really was the only rope she could grab to pull herself out of her terrible situation.

“Go get dressed in your finest clothes,” I said to a small group of my classmates. “And meet me back here on your bicycles. We’ve got a mission.”

Once again, I didn’t really have a plan, but I knew I couldn’t plead like I did with the other parents. This required strength. As I pedaled to her village and saw her small house off in the distance, an idea came to me.

“Okay,” I said as I gathered everyone together for a quick strategy session outside the house. Thankfully, there was a tall and relatively mature student in our group. I pointed to him. “You are now the headmaster. You,” I pointed to a shorter, solemn-looking kid, “are the classroom monitor.”

“What?” he protested. “I’ve never been a monitor!”

“Well, for the next hour you are.” I smiled.

I did a fast head-to-toe assessment of the last few in our group. Even in our best clothes, we still didn’t look that impressive. “Stand tall,” I said to another classmate. “You need to look as old as possible, because you’re going to be the school teacher. And you,” I pointed to the only guy left, “will be the deputy.”

After I assigned everyone a role to play, we rode to her door and forcefully knocked. Her stepparents’ eyes were wide when they opened the door and saw this group of relatively well-dressed strangers.

“We are from your daughter’s school,” I said in a very authoritative tone. The years of being awakened by the Communist Party secretary yelling at my neighbor were coming in handy. “And we need to have a serious talk about your student.”

The mother studied me as I spoke, and I wondered if she was onto our ruse. Since it was too late to change the plans, I swallowed hard and continued. “Allow me to introduce the officials who’ve traveled here to talk to you. Please meet the headmaster, the deputy, the class monitor, and the girl’s teacher.”

I paused to let the severity of the situation sink in for them. Only a very serious offense would merit a visit from all of these educational dignitaries.

“We have heard reports that she is abused at home and is going to quit school,” I said. The stepparents, who were peasants and therefore not used to dealing with the Communist establishment, looked terrified. The woman who’d treated our classmate so severely suddenly held on to the side of the door in what seemed to be fear and intimidation. “Your treatment of her is not acceptable,” I continued. “She is your daughter, and she has rights. You cannot starve her by withholding food. If you have difficulty, the school will help,” I said. Then, I added an ominous warning. “But if you make her miserable, you will be held responsible.”

After a few days, the girl received word from home. Her stepparents had a change of heart and she could finish her education. To make it even better, food started arriving and she could study without the distraction of hunger. I was brimming with joy because we’d saved a friend from a lifetime of poverty. When I told my sister and mother about it, they laughed. “Oh, who will you take care of next week?” they joked. “Cao xin ren,” my mom said, which meant, “You take responsibility in your heart.” In other words, she could tell that I was burdened by other people’s sorrow, so she teased me by calling me “Heart Burden Man.”

I was sensitive, but my Gaomi City high school was run like a military school. Every day, for three years, we began at 6:30 in the morning. Dressed in athletic attire, we were made to run laps around the sports field. Only after we had our physical activity were we able to begin our intellectual pursuits. Our headmaster was known as a harsh disciplinarian who really enforced the rules. In spite of this, he treated me with a lot of respect and loved to talk to me about government and world events.

There was one loud speaker in our whole village, high on a hill, and its sound wafted all the way through the town. It was the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, and every morning I’d skip breakfast, run out into the yard, and lean on a tree to hear the news more clearly. Some days, if the wind was blowing, I’d leave the yard and walk toward the speaker until I no longer had to strain to make out the words. Each morning, I practically memorized all of the news. This made me very popular, because I was able to tell people what was going on.

My headmaster had access to a newspaper called Cankao Xiaoxi, or Reference News, which was the only legal way for government officials of a certain rank to get a glimpse of foreign media. The paper was a digest of carefully selected articles from the New York Times, the Associated Press, and the UPI. The government didn’t want its citizens to read the articles and start getting crazy ideas about things like “democracy” or “liberty.”

One day, I was in my headmaster’s office, which also doubled as his living quarters. We were always supervised closely because the headmaster lived right there in the middle of campus. That’s when I noticed a copy of Reference News on his desk.

“What’s that?” I asked casually when he caught me eyeing it.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, snatching it off the table and sticking it under his bed. From that moment on, I thought of nothing more. If I could get my hands on that newspaper, I would know the truth about what was going on in the world—the real details that the Communist mouthpiece would never relay. Now that I knew he had the newspaper and where he hid it, I waited for an opportunity to get the paper for myself. Two days later, I noticed the headmaster leaving his office and grabbed a friend who was walking down the hall.

“Will you do me a favor?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said.

“Okay. Stand right here and keep a lookout. If you see the headmaster, cough really loud.”

I could tell my friend was seriously rethinking his offer to help. I patted him on the back and said, “It’ll be okay!”

Before he could protest, I disappeared into the headmaster’s office. My heart raced as I went straight to his bed. It was made up tightly, and I hoped he wouldn’t be able to tell there’d been a disturbance. I slid my hand under the mattress and felt around until my hand landed on the newspaper.

I pulled it out and read the headlines quickly because I knew I needed to get out of there soon. Who knew if my friend was even still in the hall keeping watch? However, the idea of getting news—true, unfiltered, honest news—was too much to resist. I scanned the first page, rolled up the newspaper, put it under my jacket, and slipped out the door.

When my friend saw me, he exhaled the breath he’d been holding the entire time.

“What were you doing in there?” he asked.

“The less you know the better off you’ll be.”

Seeing the lump under my jacket, his eyes grew wide. “Did you steal something? What have you gotten me into?”

I opened up my jacket and let him see the Cankao Xiaoxi.

“You risked expulsion for that?” he asked.

He rolled his eyes and walked off. I, on the other hand, felt like I’d found a treasure. I ran back to my room, sat on my bed, and read the newspaper cover to cover. I memorized every article and was careful not to smear or soil the pages. I was pretty sure the headmaster didn’t read it, because the papers never lost their crisp crease. However, I didn’t want to take any chances.

The next day, I casually walked the hall outside of the headmaster’s office and slipped in while he was at lunch. Once again, I lifted his carefully made-up mattress and slid the newspaper back into place. It was as if nothing had happened.

Once I had of taste of true news, I was never again satisfied with the Communist propaganda. Every week I was at school, I visited the headmaster’s office, stole his newspaper, memorized it, and returned it. I could name most of the world leaders, where they governed, when they were visiting China, and who they were meeting. I could even regurgitate what was going on in England, America, and Cambodia. Gradually, as I became more and more certain that he never opened his papers, I got more bold. I began cutting out clippings that detailed how other countries ran businesses. I was especially interested in restaurants and the way the West ran them so cleanly and proficiently. One day, I thought, I’d run a restaurant too—American style.

During my second year of high school, one article really got my attention. While sitting on my bed one morning, I read that tens of thousands of Chinese university students were protesting in Hefei City’s main square. They did a sit-in at government offices and carried banners that demanded, “Give Us Freedom” and “Long Live Democracy.” The Chinese government wasn’t sure if they should crack down on the protestors or let them speak.

I stuffed the paper into my jacket and ran to my class. My fellow students were already memorizing English vocabulary when I burst into the room.

“Listen to this,” I said, pulling the headmaster’s paper out. “There are protests in Shanghai!” I read them the whole editorial about this major event. “Can you believe it? Students are demanding freedom and democracy on the streets!”

A girl in the back of the class got up to sharpen her pencil. Someone else sitting in the front row yawned, reopened his book, and went back to his work.

With all of this news bouncing around in my head, I was brimming with ideas—some of which were probably wild and crazy. However, I really wanted a way to host a conversation in our school. There had to be some students who cared about world events who would join me. Over the course of the year, I took notice of people who seemed to care about international issues. When I found enough people, I gathered a group of likeminded students, from both younger and older grades, and made a proposition.

“I want to start a school newspaper,” I said. “All you’ll need to do is write and edit the articles. Leave the rest to me!”

Surprisingly, they did. Within a week, I had several high-quality articles—and absolutely no way to publish them. After all, China wasn’t a hotbed of free speech and my communist school certainly had no reason to permit, let alone facilitate, such a publication. That’s when I remembered that two of my old friends from elementary school worked for the government township. Every township had a secretary’s office to help process messages from the leader. And every secretary’s office had typewriters.

I practically ran to the township office, carrying my stack of articles.

“Look at all these,” I said to my old friends. “Can you help me get these published?” Perhaps needing to add a little excitement to their jobs, they took on the challenge. Somehow, they convinced the township secretaries to type the articles, format them, and even print them out on some very old-fashioned paper.

I named our school newspaper The Green Leaf. I was the executive director, another student was the editor-in-chief, and my friends from elementary school were the “publishers.” I like to joke that The Green Leaf was my first nonprofit organization, one that I managed to get completely funded by communists.

However, we weren’t concerned about only politics. Since our school was located in the capital of the county, we had the chance to go to the theater to see movies. One memorable movie was a romance film that, by today’s standards, probably would’ve been rated PG-13. The headmaster didn’t want us thinking about romance, so he absolutely forbade us from seeing it. This, of course, made us want to see it even more. But our history teacher seemed very progressive and modern, so we figured she might be willing to help us.

“This movie ban is a little heavy-handed,” I said aloud in class, hoping she could hear me. When she didn’t correct me, I approached her privately after class.

“A bunch of us want to see that movie,” I whispered. “Are you willing to help us?”

“Next Tuesday night, the headmaster has an off-campus dinner he has to attend.” She smiled as she whispered back. “He won’t even be on campus.”

Consequently, on Tuesday night we wore dark clothes and headed out. When we got to the school gate, it was locked for the evening, so all of us climbed over the wall, saw the movie, and climbed back over the wall undetected.

Sometimes my extracurricular activities impacted my studies, but I always made excellent grades. My biggest assignment was my senior thesis, which was supposed to detail my future occupational aspirations. Did I want to become an astronaut, an engineer, or a physician? Well, the senior thesis gave me the chance to research various fields of study, explore my options, and ultimately declare my intention. I rode my bicycle through several villages and interviewed all types of people: doctors, farmers, and workers. Ultimately, my thesis was simply a report of my findings of how things worked in the villages. In my hometown village, for example, I discovered that everyone had been experiencing electricity problems. During the day, when they needed electricity, it was off. Before they went to sleep, when they didn’t need power, it was on.

Those are the types of problems I thought should be documented, and hopefully fixed.

“What’s going on with the electricity?” I asked several villagers.

“It’s on one minute and off the next,” a frustrated farmer told me. “But it’s almost always off during the Spring Festival.” This season, of course, is when family members living away from home come back to celebrate. It’s the busiest time for airports, train stations, bus stations, and stores as people bustle to get to their families for the festival.

“That’s the worst time to be without electricity,” I said.

“That’s why it goes out,” he said.

“How long does it take to come back on?” I asked.

“Oh, it comes back on immediately,” he explained, shaking his head. “After we bribe the utility officials.”

I was aghast. Corruption in a state-run industry? As I heard this, it struck me. People who had authority, even a relatively insignificant party secretary or an electricity official, acted like they were upper class and treated anyone they considered beneath them condescendingly.

“How much does it cost to turn the electricity back on?” I asked incredulously.

“One tractor load of eggs.”

As I child, I hated being despised by everyone above me in the social structure and was on a perpetual search for equality. As I stood there listening to this tale of bribery, I wondered, Could it be the problem is not poverty, but corruption within the system?

This new information would be great for my thesis, but I wasn’t content to merely get a good grade. I also wanted things to change, to put an end to this injustice. I didn’t know it yet, but bribery was very common in China. Anytime local officials were in charge of permits and approvals, they expected cash or gifts to help speed up the process. But as a naïve high school student, I was convinced the government would be horrified to learn of this corruption.

“Dear Party Secretary,” I wrote. “In our village, we don’t have electricity. I’ve learned the city electricity company turns the power off when the village needs it the most, and then demands one tractor of eggs to turn it back on. Please investigate to find the wrongdoer and put an end to this corruption.”

Of course, this was just one of my findings. By the time it was my turn to present my thesis to the class, I’d talked to people from all walks of life and made policy recommendations for agricultural, medical, and industrial reform. I stood at the front of the class and read from my big stack of papers, which included about thirty proposals for cultural change.

“I know these plans can’t be accomplished now,” I said in closing, much to the relief of my bored classmates. “But these things can be accomplished with reform over time. In order for it to be fulfilled,” I paused for dramatic effect, “I need to be the first democratically elected Prime Minister.”

My friends laughed at my unbridled ambition.

“I mean, in twenty years or so,” I hedged.

My classmates, who had all written papers about being doctors or teachers, began calling my thesis my “State of the Union” address.

“Here comes Prime Minister Fu,” they laughed when I entered the room. This was particularly amusing to them because my family name means “deputy,” or “vice,” as in “vice president.” A Fu could only be second-in-command, not a true executive.

I laughed along with everyone else, but after witnessing and experiencing terrible poverty as a child, I realized the only way to get rid of inequality was to become someone very important and powerful. If I had power I could truly help the underprivileged by working to eradicate systematic corruption. My mission changed from becoming a millionaire to becoming a high-ranking Communist official. Power, I reasoned, was even better than money when it came to making lasting change. For example, who created social ranks? Who classified people? I knew in my heart that if I were important, I could help the poor.

But my idealism and naiveté posed problems.

A few days after I read my “State of the Union,” I was called into my headmaster’s office. Normally, because of our close relationship, he greeted me warmly. But this time he had a very sober look on his face. Had he found out about our late-night movie excursion? Did he know I was stealing his newspapers? We weren’t alone. Another grim-looking man was waiting there too.

“Hello,” the man said, sticking out his hand very formally. “I’m the party secretary of the city electricity company.”

Uh-oh, I thought. I’m in big trouble.

He was holding my handwritten letter, outlining my complaint of corruption. I was terrified.

“We received your accusation that our officials received bribes in order to provide electricity,” he said in a cold, even tone. “And so, I’ve come here to . . .”

In my mind, I filled in the blanks. . . . to punish me? To tell me to stop spreading lies against the Communist government? To suspend me from school?

“. . . to address your concerns.”

The headmaster looked at me with an amused look that conveyed, “You troublemaker!” When I saw his affectionate glance, I knew I would not get in too much trouble. Still, I could barely breathe as the party secretary continued.

“I admit,” he said, “that there may have been some irregularities around the Spring Festival in your village. Perhaps some part of the company has problems. But I want to assure you that we didn’t receive any tractors of eggs.”

I couldn’t believe it. This was the number-one guy—the party secretary of the city—right there with me in the headmaster’s office. After I got over my initial fear of reprisal, I was incredibly proud that my high school letter received all that attention. After all, he seemed like a respectable, honorable man. He even talked to my other classmates about the integrity of the electricity industry, which made me feel like that important person I’d always wanted to be. The flattery went straight to my head. As a high school student, I was able to get this Communist official to explain himself and to hold himself accountable to the “little people.” That moment verified my life’s calling: I’d rise within the Communist Party and fight corruption. I’d work against inequality using my prominence and power.

As he said goodbye, he shook my hand, thanked me for my concern, and smiled reassuringly. Though he didn’t say as much, I got the message. Though I’d forced their hand on this issue, my relationship with the government would be respectful and amiable as long as I understood who was ultimately in charge.

It wasn’t me.