Anchee Min - Wild Ginger

"Class! We have a new person here," Mrs. Cheng, our teacher, a woman in her late twenties, announced. Her voice carried a cautious tone. I noticed that she didn't say "a new comrade" or "a classmate." She said "a person." That was another sign. It gave obscurity to the girl's background. "She is a transferring student from Number Nineteen District. Her name is Wild Ginger, pronounced as Wu-Jiang Pei."

"Wild Ginger?" Hot Pepper's eyebrows frowned. "What a strange name!" She began to laugh shrilly. "How do you write it?" The sound was characteristic of the bully. It gave me goose bumps every time.

"WU as 'Wild,' a luxuriant growth of weeds. It is written with a Grass head on top of the character Nothingness," the newcomer said, stepping out of the sun's shadow. There was no fear in her voice. " Jiang as 'Ginger' with a flat tone. You can call me Wild Ginger."

The class was quiet, actually surprised.

Hot Pepper stood up. "But Wu-Jiang can also be described as 'A wasteland.' Correct me if I'm wrong, Mrs. Cheng."

Mrs. Cheng pretended to be deaf.

The girl raised her eyes cautiously.

I blinked in disbelief: the sunlight hadn't fooled me. The pupils were yellow-green! I stared. Is she a foreigner? The eyes were almond shaped, wide apart; they couldn't have been more Oriental. The nose had a high bridge, narrow and long, with only a short distance between her nose and upper lip. The shape of her face was like a goose egg, and her neck was gracefully long. Her skin color was lighter then everyone else's in the room. Except for her gleaming black-lacquer hair, she could indeed be taken for a foreigner.

"What's wrong with your eyes? Is it a kind of disease?" Hot Pepper sat back down and kicked off her shoes.

The girl made no reply, but brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

Hot Pepper continued, "This is definitely not a pair of proletarian's eyes. Red Guards, be prepared to perform your duty."

The class watched in silence.

My worry for the newcomer increased. Not long ago Hot Pepper had done this to me. It was my first day too. Hot Pepper wouldn't let me into the classroom. She questioned why I was wearing a boy's jacket with buttons on the right side instead of the left. I explained that my family had no money to buy clothes so I wore my cousin's hand-me-downs. Hot Pepper laughed and told everyone that she had found lice in my hair.

People in the class were afraid to stand up to Hot Pepper. Fear not only tamed them but made them her accomplices. Often, after Hot Pepper beat someone, that person turned to join Hot Pepper's gang. Hot Pepper said that she had learned her way from her uncle, who was a horse trainer in the army. "The technique is called xia-ma-wei. It is a warning against insubordination. My uncle once showed me how it was done with an unruly horse. It was really simple. He gave a head-on blow at the first encounter. He beat the shit out of the animal!"

"My name is Wild Ginger." The sound was uncompromising. The girl looked straight at Hot Pepper. An excitement stirred inside me. Finally! Someone was standing up to the untouchable bully! I only wondered how long she would last.

Wild Ginger looked determined. She tilted her chin high when she spoke.

"Your name doesn't sound proletarian enough," Hot Pepper sneered. "Change it! How about Supporter-of-Red?"

"No, thank you."

"Then you are not coming into the class."

"I am not changing my name."

"Are you an anti-Maoist?"

"I am Wild Ginger."

"State your background! Is there an enemy in your family?"

"Who are you to ask me this?"

"I can tell right away that you have an evil background from your appearance. You have a very reactionary look."

"Mind your own business, please."

"Explain why your pupils are such a strange color!"

The girl paused for a second. "Well, may I ask why you have a short neck? Show me your neck and I will tell you about my pupils."

The class laughed.

An earsplitting sound came from the loudspeaker hung from the ceiling. "Ceremony!" the party secretary's voice from the speaker yelled.

"Ceremony!" Mrs. Cheng echoed. She was rather relieved by the interruption. "The Mao Quotation Book on the table. Hurry up, everyone!"

To the music of "The Red in the East," the class rose.

Mrs. Cheng quickly took Wild Ginger to a vacant bench in the front row on my right. It was the worst seat. She had to look sideways in order to see what was written on the board. Wild Ginger placed her school bag inside the desk drawer and took out her Mao Quotation Book.

We began to sing "The Red in the East," the slow and clumsy song that had replaced the national anthem. It was originally shouted out by a peasant in mid-China. I noticed that Mrs. Cheng's chest was wet again. She stood with her milk seeping. Two round spots. The circles grew bigger and bigger. Her bra underneath the blouse was soaked and was clearly visible. She had been to the restroom but it didn't help. She was not allowed to go home to her newborn.

Hot Pepper strode from her seat to the front of the class to lead the recitation of quotations. We chanted mindlessly. It would usually last two hours.

Bored, I stole a glance at Wild Ginger. From where I sat, I saw her profile. She had amazingly long, thick eyelashes. Her sleeves had worn edges and her navy blue pants were so worn and washed out that her knees showed. She sat with her hands constantly scratching her limbs as if she had a skin disease. Her mouth wasn't moving in sync with the rest of the class. After a while she bent down toward the desk drawer and fumbled with her bag. She dug out Mao's book and flipped through the pages. Obviously she hadn't been following our reading-she was unable to locate the page we were on.

We were reciting Mao's Three Famous Essays -"Serve the People," "In Memory of Norman Bethune," and "The Foolish Man Who Moved the Mountain." I could tell Wild Ginger was faking. It surprised me that she was not a bit nervous. She turned the pages back and forth. Her nails were dirty. The hands were covered with frostbite.

"'When one dies for the people, his worth weighs heavier than a mountain,'" the recitation continued. Hot Pepper's eyes brushed across the room. '"When one dies of any other cause, the weight is lighter than a feather…"' I felt sleepy but reminded myself of an incident during which a boy was expelled from the school because he couldn't stay awake during Mao readings.

"'…Although we come from different backgrounds, we are fighting for one purpose. It is to liberate the world, to provide the poor with food and shelter. We are the true revolutionaries. We live like a big family where everyone is treated as a brother or sister. We are learning to be truthful, kind, and caring…"'

I looked at the Mao portrait on the wall. The Chairman had kind-looking features. Smiling eyes, glowing cheeks, a round nose, and a gentle mouth. It was a peaceful face. Hot Pepper once said that if you stared at Mao's portrait long enough, the Chairman would come alive. His eyes would blink and his lips would open. I experimented with staring, but the man never came alive. I was getting bored looking at him. But there was nothing else besides the portrait on the wall in the classroom. A couple of months ago I scribbled in my notebook during the reciting. Mrs. Cheng stopped me. Later she explained that she was trying to protect me. Although she didn't spell the words out, I understood the message. She was right. If Hot Pepper had caught me, I would have been expelled from the school as a reactionary.

Mrs. Cheng's wet spots had melted into one large blot.

Hot Pepper was enjoying the sound of her own voice. She was showing off her skill by speeding up. We were reaching the end of the section. My fear of Hot Pepper sank in. I began to think how to escape the beating today. Maybe I should try to walk through the school's back fence instead of the gate. What if people saw me? They would report me to Hot Pepper. No one could stop Hot Pepper, not even Mrs. Cheng.