Zhang Yinxian was fast for someone who was more than a hundred years old, and as I caught up with her in the churchyard in the old section of Dali, it occurred to me that she looked every bit like a piece of fresh ginseng, slightly crooked but full of life and energy. She ignored me as I followed her around, trying to ingratiate myself, and finally declared in words I found hard to understand that she was too busy to talk. “She’s quite a celebrity around here,” said the friend who had invited me and two other writers in August 2008 to Weibo Mountain to visit the old Roman Catholic church on Renmin Avenue, where an old school chum of his was a priest.
Sister Zhang stuck in my mind, and a week later I tracked her down again at the church, but it was soon apparent that her heavy Yunnan accent and partial deafness was going to make any meaningful conversation impossible. My shouting and gesturing drew the attention of some other nuns, the youngest I guessed to be in her seventies, and she began to interrogate me: Where are you from? What do you want? Are you a parishioner? Are you a Christian? I told her I was a writer and wanted to interview Sister Zhang. “Do you mean you are a journalist or something?” she asked and told me I would have to leave and get a letter of approval from the local Religious Affairs Office. Chastened, I left.
I visited Dali again the following year and, having learned my lesson, took a more cautious approach, spending a couple of days gathering more information about the church and Sister Zhang. I also enlisted the help of my friend Kun Peng, who was a Christian and well versed in theology. Kun had a contact, Sister Tao, who was in her midthirties and had bright eyes that beamed kindness. She took care of Sister Zhang and said she would try to arrange my interview and act as interpreter.
Kun and I returned the following Sunday after morning Mass and were directed to a conference room, where, after about an hour, Sister Tao appeared with Sister Zhang, serving as a fluent and necessary interpreter; I found it hard to understand Sister Zhang. “Sister Zhang has lost all her teeth,” Sister Tao said. “She is quick tempered and has a loud voice. For people from out of town, it does sound like she is yelling in a foreign language.”
Throughout the interview, Sister Tao sat close to her charge, a little behind and to her right. Sister Zhang was deaf in her left ear and the vision in her left eye was impaired, but it soon became clear she possessed an amazing memory, and on topics about which she had particularly strong opinions, she would stand and stomp her feet, reminding me a little of Shakespeare’s King Lear railing against the elements. Sister Zhang was mad, yes, but not from any madness.
Our conversation was fast paced, but when I suggested we take a break to let Sister Zhang rest, Sister Tao said it was unnecessary. “She’s much tougher than you think. Sister Zhang cooks her own meals and has a very healthy appetite.” At one point, when we were talking about her state of health, Sister Zhang went over to a large heavy flowerpot and moved it across the room. We all laughed and I noticed that Sister Zhang’s laugh was like that of a child, flowing freely, and the wrinkles on her face almost vanished.
Sister Zhang showed me three crosses that she carried with her, one she’d had for some sixty years. We spoke for two hours, at which point Sister Tao suggested we wind things up because it was time for lunch. Sister Zhang did not want to leave. When we tried to lift her out of the chair, she brushed us off and continued talking, repeatedly sweeping her hands through the air. I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say and turned to Sister Tao for help. “She is still pouting about the fact that a large plot of the land that had belonged to the church was seized by the government during the Cultural Revolution,” Sister Tao said. “She wants it back. She wants to witness the return of the land before she leaves this world.” One of those old sayings came to mind: “People with a quick temper have a short life.” I thought Sister Zhang was clearly an exception.
Liao Yiwu: I’ve been looking forward to talking with you for quite some time.
Zhang Yinxian: I’m here in the church every day, praying, cooking, exercising, gardening, loosening up the dirt for ants and worms. If I’m not around, it means I’m out buying vegetables at the market.
Liao: When were you born?
Zhang: I was born on August 3, 1908 in Qujingcheng, Yunnan province. I don’t even remember what my parents looked like. They died when I was only three. I was an orphan. I had a brother. He was taken away by a local warlord. I think he died on a battlefield. I was sent by an uncle to Kunming to serve the Lord.
Liao: Your uncle?
Zhang: He was a priest. In the Qing dynasty, under Emperor Tongzhi [1856–75], Catholic missionaries came to Yunnan from Vietnam. When I was growing up, there were many foreign missionaries, from France in particular. I was taught to read and write. I learned the Bible, attended Mass, and said prayers. Sometimes, I would do odd jobs. Around that time, people suffered terribly. The small monastery sheltered me from the chaos outside.
When I turned thirteen, I followed my aunt to Dali. Back then, the city’s old section had several churches. Then more Catholic missionaries arrived. They represented many different religious orders—Jesuits, Paulists, Franciscans, and so on. Our diocese expanded fast, into the Lijiang, Baoshan, Diqing, Lincang, Dehong, and Xishuangbanna regions. At its peak, we had more than eighty thousand parishioners from all ethnic groups—Han, Bai, Tibetan, Yi, Dai, Jingpo. Did I leave anybody out? Anyway, to accommodate the growth, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart bought a large swath of land in the 1920s. They put a French bishop in charge. His Chinese name was Ye Meizhang. Under his leadership, the organization built a monastery, an orphanage, and this church here.
At that time, we had about four hundred people living inside the church, and on Sundays, local residents flooded in for Mass from all over. The church couldn’t hold that many people. Some ended up standing or kneeling outside in the yard. Children came with their parents. When they became bored, they would climb up the trees.
Since I joined the church at an early age, I knew all the hymns, and when the priest quoted a Bible passage, I could immediately tell you chapter and verse, and I knew all the stories associated with that reference. People always complimented me, saying how smart I was, but my aunt would give me a stern look and say, “Hey, don’t be such a show-off.”
Liao: I grew up in the 1960s. My generation was told that religion was the tool employed by the imperialists to enslave people and that the nuns conducted medical experiments on children in foreign orphanages.
Zhang: Lies, lies. At public denunciation meetings during the Cultural Revolution, we were accused of murdering orphans. They said the priests were vampires.
In times of famine or war, poor people would abandon their children on the roadside. Some would pick a nice moonlit night, cover the baby with layers of clothes, and leave it at the church entrance. When the nuns found the baby, they would take the child in, no matter whether the baby was healthy or ill. Some parents were quite shrewd. They would leave their child with us and come back after the hard time was over. But the majority of the children here were never reclaimed. Back then, people were poor, and it was common for one family to have many children. Parents treated their babies like little animals. If they were strong and survived, they would keep them. If the babies were sick, parents would abandon them to strangers or just leave them to die.
I have seen many such cases, especially baby girls. They were abandoned by the side of the mountain path or on the beach. Lucky ones were picked up by passersby, but many became the victims of wild animals, like dogs. For baby boys, if they were born with deformities or illness, they were subject to the same fate as girls. When nuns saw an abandoned baby outside, they would bring her to the priest or bishop who knew Western medicine. If the baby had been left out for a short time, there was hope. Those who had been left outside for a long time, their arms or legs would have been ripped apart by wild animals. The chances for survival were quite small. When a baby died, we would say prayers and then bury him or her in the Catholic cemetery. It’s on the south side of Wuliqiao Village, the one that has been destroyed.
Liao: I visited the cemetery. It’s a cornfield now.
Zhang: Actually, there used to be two cemeteries there, one for the Catholics and the other for Protestants. The two were located next to each other. Both have been destroyed now. We can’t even get the land back from the government. Many local Catholics were buried down there. So were the abandoned children we weren’t able to save. Those poor babies! We would hold a simple ceremony and give them a proper burial. In the cemeteries, we set up grave markers for everyone, whether you were a bishop, a priest, a nun, a monk, a parishioner, or an abandoned baby. On their tombstones, you would find inscriptions of their names, dates of birth and death, that sort of thing.
Liao: How would you find out the names of those abandoned babies?
Zhang: If it wasn’t with the baby, the nun who found it would come up with a name, be it Chinese or French. Then we would list when and where we found her.
By the 1940s, our church had adopted more than two hundred orphans. The majority of nuns became full-time nannies. Those who had medical training turned themselves into pediatricians. My job was to work in the kitchen, heating up milk, cooking rice congee. Sometimes, we would have four or five abandoned babies brought in on one day. They were so hungry. I think a couple of the former orphans still live around here. They’d be in their seventies or eighties now. But despite the changing political environment, they still won’t admit their relations with the church.
Liao: Why is that?
Zhang: They renounced the church during the Cultural Revolution, afraid they would be accused of colluding with foreign imperialists. Even now, despite the situation having made a turn for the better over the past decade, they are probably still afraid of being persecuted.
Looking back on the first half of my life, I was truly happy. Every day, the church would be hustle-bustling with people. In the fall, when the breezes blew the leaves off the trees—dear God—the ground was covered with a layer of gold. During prayers or Mass, the church was packed with parishioners, but at other times this whole yard was quiet, a place of happy tranquility. In the old days, our church was big, and I was so busy every day that my back hurt all the time. My favorite job was to clean the inside of the church, dusting the altar, the pews, and the statues. We had over a dozen priests from France, Switzerland, and Belgium. If I did something wrong, they would tease me by saying: “As punishment, you need to sing three hymns—solo.” They would join me, and we would have a hymn-singing contest.
Liao: What about the second half of your life?
Zhang: In August 1949, on the eve of the Communist takeover, a Swedish priest, Father Maurice Toruay—I can’t believe I still remember his name—traveled to the Cizhong region [near Tibet] to preach the gospel. He was shot and killed. The news hit us hard. It was like hearing the sinister caws of dark ravens. We could sense the danger lurking ahead of us. We all knelt and prayed for protection in the new era. During a special Mass, we braced ourselves for the suffering we knew would come. We were ready to follow the steps of Father Toruay and sacrifice our lives if necessary to glorify the work of the Lord. We knew the road ahead wasn’t going to be easy, but we were prepared.
Soon, the Communist troops moved into the city. People waved red flags and beat drums and gongs to welcome the soldiers. The whole country turned “red.” The mountains and the Erhai Lake turned “red.” Even the church was decorated with red flags and Chairman Mao’s portraits. Foreign missionaries were segregated in a row of small rooms with curtains drawn. The soldiers guarded their doors, and nobody was allowed to get close to them.
Liao: What year was that?
Zhang: It was in 1952. By February that year, all the foreigners had gone.
Liao: Did you hold a last Mass or something to see them off?
Zhang: No. The chapel was sealed and no one was allowed to enter. After the foreigners left, everyone at the church had to go through a political review process. Both laity and clergy were scared and quit in droves. They answered the government’s call and went home to farm. Some openly renounced the church. They said, “I will listen to the words of Chairman Mao and cut off all my ties with the Catholic Church which enslaves people.” The government targeted church assets all over China. Foreign bishops were forced to hand everything over to the new government, to sign documents prepared in advance. They said church property had been obtained through the exploitation of the masses. Just like that, all the assets were seized.
I can never forget 1952, the year when the church was left empty. It used to be so glorious. Overnight, everything was gone. Rats took over the place. We used to have four hundred people working at the church. Only three were left—me, my aunt, and Bishop Liu Hanchen. We were ordered out. Bishop Liu argued and refused to leave. “The church is our home and we don’t have anywhere to go.”
Initially, they allowed us to stay. At the end of the year members of the local militia came with guns and took us to a village at the foot of Cangshan Mountain. Local officials held a public meeting, announcing that we would be put under the supervision of villagers there. They ordered us to engage in physical labor and reform our thinking. They built an elementary school and a high school on the land they had taken from the church and converted the monastery into housing for government officials.
Liao: So, you became a farmer.
Zhang: A low-class citizen trampled on by the masses.
Liao: For how many years?
Zhang: From 1952 to 1983. That’s thirty-one years, isn’t it?
Liao: How did you manage to survive?
Zhang: We grew our own crops and vegetables to support ourselves. When we left the church, we weren’t allowed to bring anything with us. We walked all the way to the village, and before we even had a drink of water, the local leaders dragged us to a public denunciation meeting. They paraded us around in the village, along with some Buddhist monks and nuns, Taoist priests, and several leaders of the local Protestant churches. We were ordered to stand in three rows in front of a stage. We faced hundreds of villagers with raised fists shouting revolutionary slogans. Some spat at us. Such hatred. As the leader worked up the crowd, a peasant activist came up and slapped Bishop Liu on the face. My aunt stepped forward. “How dare you slap him.” The activist used to be a poor farmer, and when the Communists confiscated the property of landowners, he was one of the beneficiaries. He pointed at my aunt and yelled back, “You are a counterrevolutionary and we have defeated you. You are the lackey of the imperialists who exploited us.” My aunt said, “We are not. We came from poor families and we’ve never exploited anybody.” The activist shouted again, “You are still stubborn and won’t admit your defeat. You need to be punished.” Fists were raised and the crowd began chanting, “Down with the counterrevolutionary nun!” My aunt wouldn’t back down. She said to her abuser, “Slap me if you want. If you slap me on the left side of my face, I will give you the right side too.”
Liao: Turning the other cheek . . .
Zhang: Those guys had no idea what my aunt meant. We had to endure many more political meetings, but after a while the humiliating remarks or beatings didn’t bother us anymore. We became smarter. We learned how to protect ourselves. All of those campaigns, whether to denounce the landowners, Buddhists, Catholics, or intellectuals, were all the same. People would shout slogans—“Down with so and so!” “Beat Liu so he can never stand up!” “Long live Chairman Mao!” “Long live the Communist Party!” “Long live the victory of whatever!”—and each time, we were made to confess. It got so we knew it by rote; all we did was change a few words.
Liao: What was it like living in the village?
Zhang: The village put us in a stone house with two rooms, which were very drafty. It was more like a pigsty than a house. The new life was really hard for Bishop Liu and my aunt; they were both quite old. I was relatively young. So I went to the village leader and asked for pots and pans, some grain, and bedding. He made me sign a piece of paper, saying I would pay them back after I earned enough money.
What followed was hard labor. The farmwork wasn’t that difficult, but you had to have enough physical strength. I did most of the farming. My aunt and Bishop Liu assisted me. When there were no public denunciation meetings, we were allowed to live our life quietly. The village lent us an ox so we could plow the field. We also raised pigs and chickens and grew vegetables. We pickled surplus vegetables and would sell them, and eggs, at the local market. With the money we got, we bought vegetable oil, soy sauce, that sort of thing. Life was hard, but we got by, and soon we could breathe a little more easily.
Liao: Then, of course, came the Great Leap Forward . . .
Zhang: We all went up on the mountains to cut down trees to fuel the backyard furnaces making iron and steel. We were all told that if we worked hard, China could become an industrialized nation in two to three years. In the village, we had to hand over everything, including our cooking utensils. But nobody took care of the crops. Famine arrived. So many people died—it was really, really horrible. We lived on thin corn broth, almost as clear as plain water. Under the sun, you could see its reflection at the bottom of the bowl; it looked like an egg yolk. Bishop Liu used to joke that a drawing of an egg was better than no egg at all, and my aunt would cup the bowl in her hand and say, seriously, “We are eating the sunny egg broth offered by the Lord. I’m sure the broth in this bowl has more nutrients.”
Pretty soon, there was nothing left. We had to search for food in the mountains. We looked for wild vegetables, grass roots, moss, even tree bark. Some of the villagers were so desperate, they dug up dead bodies and feasted on the flesh. Even Buddhist monks hunted and ate rats. Let me tell you, there was chaos everywhere. Had the famine lasted much longer, I’m sure the villagers would have eaten us. Thank the Lord we survived.
We prayed—on the road, climbing a hill, at home. We had all spent many years reading the Bible, and God’s words were etched, stroke by stroke, on my mind and in my heart. No matter how hard the government tried, those words couldn’t be erased. When we felt dizzy from hunger, we never asked for help, because they couldn’t even save themselves. We prayed that the Lord would grant us peace.
One day, I joined other villagers combing an area in the mountains for food. Almost half a day had gone and I hadn’t found anything. I was exhausted and fell to ground and could not get up again. That’s when I noticed some colorful wild mushrooms near me. Those were the poisonous ones that nobody dared to touch. Hunger weakened my will and judgment. I snatched the mushrooms and put them into my mouth. I grew up in the region and knew the terrible consequences of swallowing poisonous mushrooms. Oh well, if I had to choose between death from hunger and death from poisoning . . . I simply picked the latter and prayed for God’s forgiveness. Several minutes later, I had a severe stomachache. I poked my fingers deep down in my throat, hoping I could throw up. But because there was nothing in my stomach, the poisonous mushrooms were digested and absorbed very fast. My hands and feet began to tremble. My whole body began to shake. I wrapped myself around a tree and kept praying. If I was going to die, I wanted to die in prayer.
When I woke up, the moon was out. I managed to stand. I was still very hungry, but my stomach pain had gone. “Amen,” I murmured to myself. “Amen. Thank you, Lord, for your protection.” I was alive when I know I should have been dead.
Liao: All three of you survived.
Zhang: During the Cultural Revolution, Bishop Liu was taken to somewhere in Haidong for more interrogation. He was beaten many times. His health deteriorated a lot. In 1983, when the Party reversed its policy on religion, we were reunited. The local Religious Affairs Bureau found us a two-bedroom house across the street from the old church. So the three of us moved in there and tried to persuade the residents and the school authorities to give us back our church and the church’s property. Bishop Liu cited Party policy in his negotiations and told them, “Even though we are old and feeble, we are not giving in—this is God’s church.” The residents told him, “To hell with your God.”
Next we tried to persuade officials at the local Religious Affairs Bureau. Carrying my aunt on my back, we went to the Dali Prefecture government building, but nobody wanted to talk with us. So I walked out of the building and put my aunt down on the stairs outside. I sat next to her, fasting and staging a sit-in protest.
Liao: How old were you then?
Zhang: I think I was seventy-five or seventy-six. My aunt was close to ninety. We would come home in the evening and go there again in the morning. My aunt had asthma and could hardly breathe. I told her to stay home, but she refused. “The Lord belongs to all of us, not to you alone, she said.” In the 1980s, the road from the old section of Dali to Xiaguan, the prefecture capital, was really bad. Every day, I would get up at the crack of dawn. I would pray first, then sweep the yard and cook breakfast. My aunt had become a nun at the age of twenty-one. She was a beautiful woman and kept herself up really well. She would scold me for being a tomboy. Well, I had to act like a man. I had to do farmwork in the field, raise pigs and chickens. I never had any time to myself. On the first morning of our official sit-in protest, my aunt told me to change into my new clothes: “We are staging a protest in the middle of the street. Don’t dress up like a beggar and embarrass the Lord.”
I carried her to the bus terminal outside the city’s south gate. Two hours later, we were outside the prefecture government building. I laid out a quilt on the ground and had my aunt lie down. I sat next to her and began praying. Soon, we were surrounded by a curious crowd. I told them what had happened. We were there every day. Rain or shine, we didn’t care.
All we knew was that there was a large crowd every day. Sometimes the crowd was so thick it was like a human wall. I felt a little uneasy. So, I would stand up, raise the cross above my head, and ask them to disperse. But more people would stop and watch. Some would get close to my aunt and whisper back to the crowd, “The old woman is still breathing. She is mumbling something to herself.” I would correct the person by saying, “She’s not talking to herself. She’s praying.” And they would ask, “What is she praying?” And I would repeat her words loudly, “Dear Lord, you put me here to test me in this secular world. Please forgive my sins and correct my thoughts. Please rescue me from the evil forces of this world. Amen.”
Liao: Did people understand?
Zhang: No, they didn’t. Many people said we were crazy. Some kindhearted people suggested we give up. “You should think from the government’s viewpoint,” they’d say. “They have a whole prefecture to run. It’s not easy. You should be patriotic and love your country.” I didn’t argue with them. We stayed outside the government building for twenty-eight days. During the day, I fasted. I would only drink some water. Considering my aunt’s poor health, I would feed her some noodle soup around noon. When the sun started to set, I would carry her to the bus terminal and we’d return home in Dali.
As time went by, I found it harder and harder to carry my aunt since I only ate breakfast and fasted all day long. I was losing weight. My legs were weak. So we simply stayed overnight on the street. The building guards and the police tried to kick us out. We ignored them. Nobody dared to arrest us. We were two old ladies. I’m sure they felt bad for us.
After a while, people on the street became used to our presence. Some would say hi to us when they passed by. There were no longer any crowds. A couple of children would hang out and play with us. But I think our presence must have reflected very badly on the government, because, on the twenty-eighth day, a senior official with two assistants showed up. He stood there for several minutes, then squatted down next to me, “Are you Zhang Yinxian?” “Yes,” I said. “And this is my aunt, Li Huazhen.” He was a bit sarcastic, and I said, “We don’t mean to make trouble for you. We just need a place to live.” He was puzzled by my answer and said, “You have a place. Isn’t the two-bedroom house big enough for you?” I said quickly, “We are not those childless old people who are on welfare. You can’t just throw us a house and shut us up. We want our church back. We need a proper place to worship the Lord.” He backed down a little bit and said, “Well, we will return the church assets, eventually. It takes time.” I became impatient. “Time? We’ve been waiting thirty-one years. I’m only seventy years old, so I can still wait, but what about my aunt? She is over ninety. She has many health problems. I don’t think she can wait.” The official became upset. He raised his voice: “Who do you think you are? You can’t threaten the government and tell us what to do. We’ve been working hard to make it happen for you, but it takes time. You will have to wait at least three or four years more.” My aunt was listening, half asleep, and now asked me to help her sit up. She said, “If that’s the case, I’m just going to die here, right on the street.” I added, “And so will I; the two of us are ready to die right here, in front of the government building.” The officer responded, “Do whatever you want.” He was angry, and before he left, he turned and railed at me, “Are you threatening the Communist Party?” I said calmly, “All I want is to get the church back. I won’t hold you responsible for our lives.”
Liao: What happened next?
Zhang: A couple of months after that confrontation, we were told we could have our church back—the old chapel, two rows of houses around the chapel, and the two courtyard houses. People in the old section were shocked. They would say, “Those two evil old women. They were so tough. Even the government caved in.” Well, it’s not enough. We’ve only gotten back one quarter of the church assets. The two schools across the street used to be part of the church. That property is as big as three or four football fields. We’ll never get that land back.
Liao: The three of you living in this big place; wasn’t it like a dream come true?
Zhang: The church doesn’t belong to us. We only look after it for the Lord.
Liao: How did you support yourself in those days?
Zhang: By then, the other two were old and sick. I raised pigs and chickens, grew vegetables. We could make ends meet. We were happy. My aunt died in 1989. She was ninety-three. Bishop Liu died in 1990 at the age of ninety. They are buried on Cangshan Mountain. There is a spot next to their graves for me. The day before Bishop Liu passed away, he told me that he wanted to hold a Mass in the church, but he had barely put on his robe before he fell down. I prayed over him, and as he took in his last long breath, his eyes closed. He was smiling. Dusk was approaching. I could feel the angels outside, flying into the setting sun. I felt a gentle breeze.
Now I was alone and felt very sad. I would sometimes catch myself looking for them inside the church, in the courtyard, and in places where they had spent time. One day, I closed my eyes. I felt that they were touching my hands. I was so happy. I woke up and saw it was a dog, licking my hands.
In 1998 things changed. We had a new bishop. A new generation of nuns, such as Sister Tao, arrived. I feel more relaxed now. I will continue to press them to have the government return the remaining church property. Even if we can’t get it back, we need to record it in the church history. Future generations should know what happened.
I’ve been waiting for the Lord to take me. I’m looking forward to reuniting with Bishop Liu and my aunt. While I was not looking, another ten years have passed. I’m going on 101 now. People around here are thirty, forty years younger than I am. What can I do?
Liao: What would you like to do?
Zhang: I would like to continue to praise the Lord. I would like to continue to make sure that our church gets back our land. I would like to continue . . .