The next day a supervisor interrogated me. He ordered me to squat against the ed-ge of a small table. From the beginning he doubted my fake name and address. Wh-en asked a question or two about the farm and I could not answer correctly, he burst into anger and kicked my lower belly. I yelled“ouch!” and fell to the g-round. Then he picked up a piece of wood, beat me fiercely and yelled: "Be fake-d, be faked!" I covered my head with my hands, dodged and cried out.He stopped his inquiry, wrote something on a document and pushed me back to the cell. Thos-e nearby witnessed the commotion and showed sympathy for me. Someone encouraged me to look for a chance to escape, saying: "Those 'kaidai' (Cantonese curse wor-d, meaning bad guy), are evil enough,but also are very lazy and loose in survei-llance."I was much confused: What should I do after being sent back to Guangzho-u? What fake name and address should I provide to them? Once I was exposed, a c-ruel beating was inevitable. Yet my real address could not be revealed if I wan-ted to escape being escorted back to Kunming. There I might be tortured to deat-h by the "mass dictatorship”. I dared not to think any longer.Escape and Recap-ture They questioned me no further during the next few days; apparently there w-as nothing more they wanted to know. So I just waited until there was a large e-nough group to be sent back to Guangzhou. One day, an old mason came to repair the kitchen roof. The kitchen was on the left side of the square, and the side door leading to the outside was open. Our cell was about a 10-meter distance to the kitchen and was not closed during the day.A fellow detainee named Tang was a zhiqing of a local farm and was also caught back from fleeing to Hong Kong. W-hen he spotted the kitchen side door open, he urged me to escape through the ki-tchen. I hesitated, my heart pounding wildly. Tang pushed me: Quick! quick! I g-ot up and went to the kitchen, nervously eyeing the old mason on the roof. The mason glanced back but turned his head away, pretending not to see me.I hurried-ly slipped out the door but had walked only 10 paces before abruptly encounteri-ng a supervisor coming back from outside. "Hum, escape!" he yelled and immediat-ely forced my right hand behind the back and pushed me back to the cell.I panic-ked and went almost limp, huddling up to await a cruel beating. Drawing on my p-rofessional knowledge, I thought about how to protect important body parts from being injured.However, minutes passed, then hours, and still nothing happened.F-ellow detainees told me: Fortunately you came across a supervisor on duty willi-ng to let you off easy; if it were the "green face monkey" (the most vicious supervisor), he would definitely beat you half to death. I shivered and shivered again, feeling lucky and even grateful to the kindly supervisor. There were still good people even in an evil world. Hauled in to join us were two guys in their teens speaking Mandarin, one tall and one short. They admitted frankly to being thieves and boasted of their "income.” It turned out that their families suffe-red a drastic misfortune; their parents either died or were arrested for labor reform. The lads wandered the streets and became pickpockets. They had been in countless detention centers including Urumqi, Xinjiang, and everywhere except T-ibet. The short guy peeked out the window of the back wall several times. Outsi-de were vegetable fields. He whispered to us: "We can dig a hole through the wa-ll under the window and escape." I was taken aback and dared not say anything. The two really started to do the work. Each time after the meal they kept a bow-l of water, then one stood near the door to keep a lookout, the other splashed water to wet the clay wall and dug at it with a spoon or chopsticks. Above the hole, they nailed two bamboo sticks into the wall, tied a string and hung a tow-el to cover it. After two days they had made a large enough hole to escape. But they didn’t sneak out that night and I wondered why. The next day, a superviso-r came and sneered cunningly: "Hum! Why didn't anyone sneak out last night? I t-ook a pitchfork and waited outside a long time to stab someone’s neck, but nob-ody appeared!"Everyone was scared to death.The supervisor yelled: "Who did it? Confess yourself right away!"Nobody uttered a word.The supervisor pointed to th-e tall and short guys: "Aren't you?"But both two denied it, the short guy swear-ing loudly.The supervisor did not seem certain, looked at them suspiciously, an-d then looked at us. He said angrily: "I’ll punish you later!" and walked away.But nothing happened later. The hole was blocked in the afternoon.Everyone bro-ke into a sweat with fright and whispered: "Fortunately it’s not that greeface monkey, or else we would not be so lucky, even if all of us are not at fault." One evening 10 days later a whistle suddenly was blown and all detainees came o-ut to the square,waiting to be called to board the night train to Guangzhou.The detainees were clustered in two rows. The area was dimly lit and there was a hu-bbub of voices. Those whose names were called went to the left side near the ex-it. Two or three supervisors were busy there. Tang urged me again to escape, po-inting to a low wall 10 meters away on the right and said it would not be diffi-cult to scale. Looking at the wall, I could see it was a bit too high for me to climb over by myself. Tang said he could boost me. I asked: Then what will you do? Tang said he would only be sent back to the farm, nothing serious, and no need to escape. My heart beat violently. It really was an opportunity, but my recent failure made me reluctant. Hesitating, I suddenly heard my pseudonym called. I almost jumped out of my skin, but sadly said good bye to Tang and trudged to the left exit.‘You Faked, So You Suffer’Placed aboard the night train, the ne-xt morning I returned to Shahe Detention Center along with a dozen fellow detai-nees. I was preoccupied by many troubles. The first problem was to deal with th-e inquiry: What should I give as my name and address? Another fake could result in disbelief and a confirmation letter being dispatched. A reply of "no such pe-rson" would result in my physical torture. What to do? I really was at the end of my tether.Eating without relish and sleeping restlessly while thinking hard for a day, I came up only with an"inferior tactic" unlikely to be accepted: I would fake my home as being back on the farm in Shaoguan,saying that since I was gone from the farm for four years, they had canceled my registered residence.At the inquiry the next day, the supervisor certainly didn't believe my story, but fortunately did not punish me, just put me in the narrow "Guangzhou cell" (a cell special for detainees of Guangzhou, next to the inquiry rooms to prevent the locals from escape). The rationale for thi-s: “You faked, so we let you suffer the ‘three liang’ penalty and see how lon-g you can endure.”The flood of the fleeing people caught back were too numerous to trace one by one. In fact, the Shahe Detention Center was full; the Guangzhou cell was even packed. The first comers took places to lie down, while the late comers could only sit or stand. One evening when a patrolling supervisor saw through the window two detainees s
 tanding, he asked harshly why. When they said there was no plac to sit, the sup
 ervisor could do nothing and went away silently.In such crowded conditions fric
 tion was inevitable, and detainees might quarrel loudly over sleeping places or minor things. But they dared not fight, knowing that the conseq uences of a fli-ght would be a violent beating by the guards.A fine art teacher from a high sch-ool painted birds, fish or flowers on the poker cards. A supervisor saw them th-rough the window and declared that those pictures were "feudal, capitalistic, a-nd revisionist”. He demanded, "Who painted it?" No one admitting it, the super-visor arbitrarily chose someone. As this victim exited the cell the supervisor lashed him several times with thick iron chains. The man cried "ouch, ouch!" bu-t still refused to reveal who painted it, only saying, "He who painted it had b-etter come out by himself!" The supervisor seemed to understand that he had las-hed the wrong person, and left.A man wearing a suit and leather shoes carrying a luxury suitcase was sent in. He was fleeing to Hong Kong by bo-at but was cau-ght by the Hong Kong British coast patrol and sent to the border police statio--n. His family in Hong Kong came to see him immediately. They broug-ht him food and a change of clothes, telling him they would bail him out as soo-n as possib-le. Unexpectedly, he was deported that afternoon. He told us that af-ter countl-ess hardships, he had managed to elude the Chinese militia and border guards, o-nly to end up being deported by the British Hong Kong authority. His h-eart was torn by this terrible twist of fate.