Back in Guangzhou: Nightmares

After more than a month of torture, I was mentally and physically exhausted and needed a rest. However, would the situation allow me to rest? It was late 1966. A few months before, Beijing had spearheaded the Red Guards campaign.
"Sweep away all cow demons and snake spirits.” In the capital alone, more than 1,700 people were killed in less than a month. Mao Zedong, wearing a military u-niform, welcomed the Red Guards in an audience in Tiananmen Square. This meant that the Red Guard campaign was given top priority. A senior Communist officer Song Renqiong's daughter Song Binbin (means “gentle”) was renamed "Song Yaow-u” (means “be military”) by Mao’s decree. The Red Guards went into action na-tionwide immediately. Mindless and indiscriminate abuse and killing came thick and fast, creating the most absurd, brutal, crazed and bloodiest phase of the “Red Terror”.One of my cousin's nephews, Zhi Wei, returned from Hong Kong to visit his relatives. He said that they also watched the news and documentary of the Cultural Revolution in Hong Kong. "So terrible! Many people doubt whether i-t is true or not. Is it anti-Communist propaganda of Kuomintang? Abusively beat-ing and killing, doesn't the government care?" My goodness! Coming from a socie-ty under the rule of law, how could he imagine the lawless acts launched person-ally by the "Supreme Leader,” and enforced by all levels of government? If not
 directed by the authority, whom did the Red Guards know to attack? Whose home t-o raid? Without the authority’s instruction, would the Red Guards be bold as i-f they had eaten leopard’s liver or tiger’s gall,would they dare to beat and kill men recklessly, and create numerous appalling tragedies nationwide? Two da-ys later, Zhi Wei witnessed the police and Red Guards raiding Fang’s home that was opposite his house. Fang had visited relatives in Hong Kong two years ago a-nd came back with a watch she had not declared to customs. She was charged with "smuggling" and put under “masses surveillance”. Fang had just opened her doo-r when she was bludgeoned by a Red Guard with a water pipe. Fang fell to the ground with a scream and blood on her face. Zhi Wei, pale with fright, made a fast
-return to Hong Kong that very evening. A mimeographed pamphlet, "Why did I esca-pe from China?”- an account by the famous violinist Ma Sicong - was circulate-d. It was written: "I was run down by a truck, a bucket of paste poured out on
my head, and then the Red Guards posted slogans on my body. The Red Guards lashe-d me with a belt of iron buckles and hit me in the back of the skull, the blood streamed out; the Red Guards said my surname was Ma (horse), so held down my head and forced me to eat grass.....” J and Y were third grade female students an-d good friends in a junior high school. When the Cultural Revolution began, the-y followed everybody to write Big Character Posters labeling teachers as "cow d-emons and snake spirits”, to criticize and denounce them in school assemblies. They were bustling with excitement and self-importance. Later when “combat tea-ms” were organized, various teams invited J and Y to join. Not knowing the difference among combat teams, they casually join separate teams. Later the various combat teams of schools, organizations and factories in the county joined force-s and formed “XX Headquarters”. But they divided into two factions; one was p-ro the Party Secretary while the other pro the CountyMagistrate. J belonged to the former faction but Y to the latter. The two factions fought each other fier-cely, so J and Y gradually realized that they dare not contact each other. The two factions increased violence, Jiang Qing acting under Mao’s directive, inci-ted "Attack verbally but defense by force”, which became “resorting to violen-ce” and then evolved to mutual slaughter. J and Y were too scared to attend an-y fight, but they still belonged to two opposite factions. One day J’s faction seized the headquarters of Y’s faction and searched the membership list. As a result, Y was caught, suffered a brutal gang rape and was hung stark naked from a tree for public ridicule. That night Y committed suicide. After learning of a-ll this, J hid at home and cried herself half to death.My distant cousin, Chen Mingjing, was a doctor. He was caught by an opposing faction of Red Guards, stu-ffed into a sack, and then beaten to death. My high school teacher Huang Baoxin was declared to be a "label-removed rightist”. His father had been a division commander of the Kuomintang Anti-Japanese Army who rose in revolt at the fronti-er in the civil war but died soon after. When the Cultural Revolution broke ou-t, Mr. Huang was caught and killed at the commune committee after his ear and to
 ngue were slashed and his eyes gouged out, all on the charge of simply being th-e "filial son of the Kuomintang reactionary”. My friend Yang Mao told me: On a market day of his commune, in a burst of cries and shouted slogans, several mil-itiamen marched four "cow demons and snake spirits" onto the small hill. In ful-l view of the crowd, the militiamen picked up hoes and cleaved the victims’ fa-ces and heads one by one. The corpses were completely deformed and appalling, t-oo horrible to view. Their families could identify them only by their clothes.
 One day, I visited my friend Long and heard this sad story. Long said it was wi-dely discussed in private that two piles of corpses floating from the Mainland appeared on Hong Kong beaches; all were bundled with barbed wire. Among the dea-d were babies and old persons, the scene was horrific.Charities in Hong Kong or-ganized a large-scale memorial ceremony. One of Long’s friends was a zhiqing f-rom a village near the West River (one of the three sources of the Pearl River) who saw drifting corpses up to dozens a day, and reeking to high heaven. To sto-p the bodies from drifting out to Hong Kong and Macao, Mainland authorities ord-ered communes along the West River to retrieve and bury corpses and rewarded fa-rmers with five yuan per corpse. Those drifting out to the sea were but a
-tiny minority.In Guangxi province at a rural assembly, the “cow demons and sna-ke spirits” after being roughed up and tortured, were to be executed. The Part-y branch secretary shouted: "This time I must have a "whip" (male genitalia)!" It turned out that after killing the "cow demons and snake spirits" the executi
 oners ate the bodies, saying that they could keep men strong and brave, and the "whip" could promote male sexual prowess. The above-mentioned facts were what I heard myself, and I knew some of the victims. However,the tragedy was nationwid-e. Word of extremely brutal tragedies was heard again and again, the vicious st-ories leaving me on tenterhooks. If I were in Kunming, what would happen to me? Would I be alive or doomed? Every day there were dark clouds overhead and murde-rous risks everywhere; no one could be in peace. Checking my registered residen-ce and Kunming to catch me back could occur at any time. If I were caught back to Kunming, the consequence would be unimaginable. How could I escape the nets
-above and snares below? Seeking New Opportunities to Flee Rumors of persons cau-ght fleeing to Hong Kong and being killed by beatings or stoning continued to m-ake me nervous. Mother was laden with anxieties and said: Wouldn’t it be bette-r to carry on fleeing after waiting for awhile? However, with the situation get-ting more and more sinister, waiting also had grave risks. Dangerous as it was, I had to continue to find a way out. Having failed in walking, I turned to the option of swimming or going by boat. To strengthen my physique, I often hiked -uexiu Mountain or swam in the Pearl River. At that time, day or night, winter or summer, there were many people swimming in the Pearl River. Swimmers claimed th-ey were imitating the "Great Leader" by swimming across the Yangtze River three times. But the real purpose and the tacit understanding was to train for fleein-g to Hong Kong, to practice speed, endurance, and cold tolerance, to be able to survive in cold water for several hours. In addition to swimming, my family and I also considered taking a boat. But this was very difficult and would be very costly. Once, I was swimming underwater in the Pearl River near Ershatou (a sma-ll island) and bumped against another swimmer. We surfaced and apologized to ea-ch other. That is how I first met Donnan. He was a graduate from Southern China Institute of Technology and used to be a factory technician. He was squeezed ou-t by a Party member and then became an electrician in a street service station.
One day, Donnan told me that his cousin in Hong Kong had referred him to a perso-n in Daliang own of Shunde County. He invited me to accompany him. Thinking it might be a promising opportunity, I agreed immediately. Shunde County was renowned for sericulture (silk production) and fish ponds. Many peasants, in addition to tillage, were engaged in these businesses over a span of 100 years, and many people went out to Gungzhou or Hong Kong to do commerce. The folk houses of Dal-iang Town were mostly lofty brick structures, and the lanes were paved with gra-nite flagstones. By this time it had become dilapidated and dreary. The walls o-f some houses had collapsed, the windows and doors broken; some houses were rep-laced by smaller huts, others were littered by debris, the deserted grounds ove
 rgrown with weeds. Donnan, a Shundese, told me that much of the formerly valuab-le hardwood like Pontianak used for pillars and beams, and the big hard bricks used for walls and floor, now were removed and sold by jin or by piece. He refl-ected sadly that the world had changed; even the virtuous descendants of those
 who once lived here were not able to keep their patrimony. The person to be contacted was Zheng Bijian who shared an ancestral house with his brothers. His family of four lived in one room and half of the lobby, separated from the other half by wooden boards.