My Return to the Medical College
Out of the detention center, I took a deep breath out and then in again. I had been detained about nine months in the Vietnamese prison plus four domestic detention centers and finally was free. Although other sufferings no doubt were ahead, I was grateful for being restored relative freedom of movement. Thank God, Thou behold me again! I didn't think much about how the Medical College would treat me. Humiliation and tribulations seemed inevitable, but I had not the fear of years past. At least I had no criminal record with the police. To take the popular words at that time, I belonged to "the contradictions among the people". I also felt that the Cultural Revolution was already a spent force. Although the Communist Party was known to change unpredictably, the situation was no longer as crazy and savage as before in defying laws human and divine. I determined resolutely in my mind that no matter what the sufferings and humiliation, I would just clench my teeth and get through them. Time was on my side. Walking along the Medical College road, I noticed that the tennis court on the west side was invisible, overgrown with weeds and littered with rubbish. There were almost no flowers in the Four Season Gardens. Several teaching buildings still stood but looked faded and dilapidated. The campus was desolate. Probably it was still in summer vacation, so no students appeared and I didn’t come across any acquaintances. I walked up to the fourth floor of the five-story main building where most administrative offices were located. The doorplates were still on several office doors but they were locked. Seeing no one around, I descended the stairs and left the building Where to go? I thought for a while and decided to look for Teacher Li, my colleague and fellow townsman. I remembered his apartment and hoped that after so many years he would still be there. Entering his building, I went up the second floor. It seemed darker than before and one side of the narrow corridor was full of clutter. I knocked and was pleased when Li opened the door. He greeted me with great surprise, "Oh!" and immediately beckoned me in. Li's wife, Teacher Huang, came out from the bedroom and also showed happy surprise. They warmly invited me to sit down, and we enjoyed tea and cookies. After a few questions about my situation, they recommended that I look for the Director of Personnel Yang Changwang. As I left the apartment, I spotted a man at the other end of the corridor looking at me stealthily. Although the corridor was dark, I still recognized him right away. It was Maoge, a notorious thug during the Cultural Revolution. Once an assembly was denouncing and struggling against the "reactionary academic authority" Teacher Huang who was pregnant. When she knelt to be denounced, Maoge fiercely kicked her pregnant belly. Huang fell to the ground with a screech, and later gave birth to an idiotic daughter who became a lifelong pain and burden for the Li-Huang couple. I was in a department different from Maoge's and had rare contact with him in the past, so I ignored him there in the hallway. Later Li told me that after I had left, Maoge came nosing around like a hound seeking prey and inquired about this and that. Yang Changwang still lived in his old place. When I arrived, he obviously knew that I was coming back and whispered, "Back?" Then he explained, "The dorm is not available yet, let’s go to your department and see." So he took me to the head of Physiological Department Mr. Xiao. Xiao had no special expression when he saw me. He said, “Let’s go to see the student lab”. We walked to the Second Student Lab where previously I had guided students doing experiments. Xiao told me I was to live there temporarily. There were five experimental tables in the lab. Linking two together was longer than a bed, and certainly much higher. But I didn't care. It certainly was better than the detention center, and better than the bullpen, the sugarcane field or the wilderness. I was provided a quilt and a mosquito net. My “temporary” stay actually lasted more than a couple of months. Yang took me to the cafeteria office to obtain meal tickets for a few days. After settling in I went to the Provincial Design Institute to visit my cousin and his wife who were pleased and relieved to see me. I asked for paper and an envelope and quickly wrote a letter. I also borrowed five yuan from them and went to post a letter, then to a small restaurant to have a delicious meal. When my parents received the letter, the whole family was ecstatic. They quickly sent a sum of money to me. Next day, Yang told me that the Party committee decided to give me a monthly living allowance of 30 yuan (my former salary was 56 yuan per month), pending further arrangements. He also said that I could borrow one month’s food ration from the cafeteria. When I went to the cafeteria office to buy meal tickets I also asked to borrow two jin of food coupons. In those years, eating out or buying food products could not be done without food coupons. The clerks Chen and Liu were very friendly but Wu, who was head of the Cafeteria Office, deliberately caused difficulty, exclaiming, "No! You have no food ration, so how can you borrow food coupons?" Chen hinted for me not to argue. Wu previously had cut hair in the college barber shop, advanced in the Cultural Revolution, and finally was catapulted to become head of Cafeteria Office. He was particularly overbearing. As soon as Wu left, Chen gave me two jin of food coupons. In the evening, I went out to buy something. On the path between the fields outside the living quarters of the College, two former colleagues from other departments approached. Talking with each other they did not notice me. When I casually said hello, they showed no recognition at first and just answered "ah", but then did a “double take”, exclaimed “ah!” and looked as if they had seen a ghost. By that time, however, I had walked on. Later, I learned that as I was missing for nine years, rumors spread several times that I had died by various means. Now, as I drifted back like a phantom, no wonder some found it eerie. Friendships Survive Calamities Not only were classes suspended but there also were no more meetings for political studying. Only the college’s General Affairs staff and administrative workers maintained daily operations; teaching activity had completely ceased. The same two factions were still fighting each other by open or secret means but no longer with violence. There were occasionally Big Character Posters posted. I bought food in the cafeteria and brought it back to my place to eat. Some colleagues met me and said hello. Although they were amazed at my reappearance after nine years and marveled at my wandering North Vietnam for seven years, most were friendly and some liked to chat or even crack jokes. There was no longer the former tension when everyone feared to contact me, nor had I feelings of isolation and tenterhooks. The situation was not the same as nine years before. One day Yang Changwang saw me wearing a thin shirt and told me I could apply for a cottonpadded coat. In the past, such an application had to go through many procedures. I thanked him for his concern but said I could buy one myself. Later I asked someone to give me six feet of cloth coupon and I bought one. I often visited my cousin or chatted with fellow townsmen. Although they were still working, there actually was not much to do. Sometimes I enjoyed a snack with them at the evening market. When talking about some of the horrific things of years past, they said, "It's better you went away." In those years the Big Character Posters falsely charged me having of "counter revolutionary ties" with Professor Wei Jiechen. How was he now? I asked a colleague privately. He told me that Professor Wei was vindicated and had resumed work some time ago. Some provincial and municipal leaders visited him for treatments; even those who had denounced and struggled against him most fiercely called him now respectfully “Uncle Wei, Uncle Wei.” One day in the cafeteria I met his wife Aunt Wei by chance. Although surprised, she invited me to their home. There Professor Wei told me that he was arrested and imprisoned for several years, and was tortured, beaten, forced to kneel on gravel, etc. In short, he thanked God for not dying. In the late 1970s, Professor Wei resumed teaching graduate students. After I immigrated to the Unites States, he asked me to find someone who would accept one of his students to study abroad under a grant funded by the Chinese government. At my request, a professor of ophthalmology at UCLA agreed. Unfortunately, another student with more powerful political support in China was selected instead and the original student was unable to come to the United States. Fortunately, during a reception in Kunming Medical College for U.S. visiting scholars, Professor Wei took the opportunity to ask one of the visitors to assist the graduate student to study in the United States. Before I went to the United States, Professor Wei hosted a farewell dinner and warmly invited my parents (who had immigrated to the United States already) for a reunion and to take a tour of Dunhuang, site of the famous Mogao Caves. Later my father told me he could have skipped the Dunhuang tour but really had wanted to see his former classmate Wei. However, my father then was more than 80 and concerned that a long-distance flight with one transfer might be too much for him. So he reluctantly declined. I received a letter from an old classmate living in Canada, saying, "I have heard many rumors about your life and death; now confirming that you are still alive, I feel relief.” Soon I got a letter from another friend, also saying that after missing me for many years, now he was happy to learn I had returned to Kunming Medical College safely. My brother-in-law Dr. Chen who was a physician at a community hospital in Guangzhou told me a man suddenly entered his consulting room and asked: "Where is Zeng Qing Si now?" Dr. Chen, a bit startled, replied: "Well, he is at Kunming Medical College." The man exclaimed, "Oh!" and then departed. From Dr. Chen’s description I immediately thought it might be my intimate classmate Liu Tai. After I immigrated to the United States, I visited Liu Tai during a trip to New York. He remembered our friendship and said he was relieved to learn that I was alive and back in Kunming. Because he knew me well, he was sure I would face no serious problems. I was very grateful for the concern of these friends, and also felt very lucky that I had escaped from the calamity. Unfortunately, some familiar faces of old colleagues had disappeared. One was Professor Zhu Xihou. He was a "Label-removed rightist" and was also the object of the Big Character Poster siege. Where was he now? I worried if he had been able to survive the crazy times. After careful inquiry, I learned he was sent somewhere in the north of Jiangsu Province during the so called "war readiness evacuation" in 1969. After the Cultural Revolution he was finally transferred to Hangzhou University in his hometown after many hardships. I wrote a letter to him: "I am pleased to learn that Professor Zhu is still alive and felt relieved (I apologize for the offense of such disrespectful words. Since I returned to Medical College, I have received two letters from my friends saying that they are relieved after learning that I am still alive)......" Professor Zhu quickly replied, "I am very pleased to receive your letter, as if a generation had passed......." I also recalled certain other classmates and friends, wondering what happened to them in the crazy calamity. One was an intimate classmate in Beijing Medical College, a man with a naturally even temper, always smiling, and liking to play harmonica. Sadly, he was driven to suicide early in the Cultural Revolution, which shocked and depressed me. How about other friends? Should I try writing to them? But considering my own plight and not knowing their situations, I could see how writing might cause trouble. So, I decided, better not to write. I composed a ragged verse to express my mood at that time: Want to write a friend but stop 1975 Having parted from intimate classmate for years, I would like to write him to recall our former times. However, considering the continual political purge campaigns for many years, and the unjust, false and erroneous cases happened one after another; everyone was in danger, and any unpredictable event might happen, I did not know his recent situation: Could he still drag out an ignoble existence as a man, or had he fallen in the ruse and became a slave, or did he even die on a false charge and became a ferocious ghost?