Anchee Min - Wild Ginger

I often prayed for Hot Pepper to be sick. Her sneeze brought me delight and hope for the day. But she was strong as a spring bear. She often asked others if they could "spare" food. To give or not give her what she had set her eyes on signaled the difference between being a revolutionary and a reactionary. Her mouth smelled like a garbage bin. Her teeth were corn yellow. Her tongue was always black and blue from licking her ink pen. Now she was staring at Mrs. Cheng's chest. She made faces with Titi and Yaya-her gang members. They giggled. The class saw them and some joined in. Suddenly Hot Pepper's expression changed. Her eyes stopped at one spot. Her mouth hung open as if shocked. I turned to see what she was looking at. I was shocked too: Wild Ginger had laid her head down on folded arms. She was sleeping.

Umbrellas fell on my head like storms-my day's meal had begun. Hot Pepper and her gang attacked me from all directions. I tried to protect myself from the blows with my arms. In the meantime I searched for an escape. Hot Pepper came to block my exit. Her umbrella landed on my shoulders. I cried out in pain. Yaya and Titi came and be gan to punch my chest. Hot Pepper circled behind me. In a swift motion her knees knocked right into my joints. I fell on my kneecaps, my mouth in the grass.

Titi and Yaya clapped. I heard Hot Pepper's laughter.

People passed by me. No one stopped. I had told my mother about Hot Pepper's treatment. Mother had come to the school and had complained to Mrs. Cheng. Mrs. Cheng told my mother that she had gone to the principal and was told that Hot Pepper represented the Red Guards and was permitted by Chairman Mao to do "whatever necessary to change the world." "If your child had come from a working class family she would have been protected."

The beating resumed. My hair was pulled. My sleeves were gone by now. My collar was coming off. I was unable to reach the gate. The more I struggled, the harder they hit. Wrapping my head with my arms my tears flowed in despair. I shouted, "Chairman Mao will hear me now! I am his loyalist too! I have never misspelled one word of his teachings. My test scores are all excellent. You, Hot Pepper, your treatment is unfair and cruel. If Chairman Mao learns what's happening to me he will be upset!"

"Quite the opposite!" Hot Pepper's umbrella chopped down. "He will say, 'Wipe that rat off the face of the earth! If the enemy doesn't surrender, send it to die!'"

Suddenly the umbrellas stopped. There was a cry. Someone had punched Hot Pepper. Under my elbow, I stole a glance. It was the new girl, Wild Ginger. She was wrestling with Hot Pepper. She pulled Hot Pepper's umbrella away from her and smashed it against the concrete. Enraged, Hot Pepper threw herself at Wild Ginger. Her teeth were in Wild Ginger's blouse. The buttons on their jackets began to pop. Suddenly Wild Ginger landed a heavy punch. Hot Pepper fell backward and landed on her butt.

"An enemy has revealed herself!" Hot Pepper shouted. "This is the one who slept through the Mao study section! Look at that funny-looking face! She must carry the blood of a Western opium seller! Comrades, let's go to the secretary's office! Let's dig out her dossier!"

"This is exactly what I suspected." Hot Pepper leafed through a pile of files and announced to the class, "Wild Ginger's father, the late Mr. Pei, was French. He was a spy. Although he is dead it doesn't mean that he is free from the crime he caused. Wild Ginger's mother is Chinese, but I am sure she is nothing more than a whore. Wild Ginger is a born spy. Chairman Mao teaches us, 'To the reactionary of all sorts we must be ruthless!'"

Within seconds, Wild Ginger was hit by umbrellas. Soon her cheeks began to swell and her nose bled. Her braids broke loose and her jacket was torn apart. "Give up!" Hot Pepper and the gang shouted. "Surrender! Take us the proletarians as your master or we will beat you to death!"

Wild Ginger rose in blood. Her eyes stared like a mad bull's.

Hot Pepper lunged again, citing Mao. "'Kill the bourgeois bugs! Save the patient! Kill the bourgeois bugs! Save the patient!' May Fourth, 1939, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. Volume eleven, page two-forty-six, 'The Orientation of the Youth Movement.'"

The gang joined in reciting. '"How should we judge whether a youth is a revolutionary? How can we tell? There can only be one criterion, namely whether or not he is willing to integrate himself with the broad masses of workers and peasants and does so in practice. If he is willing to do so and actually does so, he is a revolutionary; otherwise he is a nonrevolutionary or a counter-revolutionary. If today he integrates himself with the masses of workers and peasants, then today he is the revolutionary; if tomorrow he ceases to do so or turns around to oppress the common people, then he becomes a nonrevolutionary or a counterrevolutionary.'"

Like a cornered animal Wild Ginger used her abacus as a shield; she fought until the abacus fell apart. Throwing away the broken frame she took up her school bag. The gang came to seize her again. I tried to help but got pulled and pinned down by Titi and Yaya. Hot Pepper and her other gang members got Wild Ginger's school bag. All her books and materials flew out. She was punched down to the ground. While the others held her head and feet, Hot Pepper hopped on her back and began to stab with her umbrella.

With ear-piercing cries, Wild Ginger gave in.

Hot Pepper shouted a Mao quotation with a tone of victory: '"Reading is learning, but applying is also learn ing and the more important kind of learning at that. Our chief method is to learn warfare through warfare. We learn through fighting in war. A revolutionary war is a mass undertaking; it is often not a matter of first learning and then doing, but of doing and then learning, for doing is itself learning.'"

Lying on her stomach, Wild Ginger gasped. Hot Pepper and her gang walked away. The campus became quiet. I got up from where I lay.

Wild Ginger rose slowly, crawling to her feet. She looked around for her shoes. The beads of the abacus and the i pages of her books were scattered all over. She located a shoe behind the bushes and went to fetch it. She hopped on one leg, in pain, her face torn. On her way back she picked up her school bag. The buckles were gone.

I walked toward Wild Ginger. I picked up the abacus beads and the pages. I wanted to thank her but didn't know how to begin.

"I suppose this is your sleeve?" Wild Ginger picked up a piece of fabric that matched my jacket and passed it to me. "The other one is behind the bushes."

I nodded a thank you and passed her the pages.

"What's your name?" she asked, stuffing the pages into her bag.

"Maple."

"I see. You turn red in fall." She smiled and began to tie her shoelace.

"Are you making fun of my name?"

"No, not at all." She wiped the dripping blood off her mouth. "I like your name. It sounds proletarian, Maoist. It's perfect. Your parents must be very thoughtful people… Anyway, how do you write it?"

"The character Wind with a Wood on the left-hand side."

"You are quite like your name." She stood up and patted the dirt off her buttocks. "You bend."

What could I say? What did she know about Hot Pepper? I started to assemble the abacus.

"I didn't say it was your fault, did I?" She was sorting the pages and trying to restore the textbook.

"Anyway, thanks for coming to my rescue."

"You're welcome." As if caught by a sudden twist of pain she got down on her knees.

"Are you all right?"

"I… am fine."

"I'm sorry."

"No, don't ever feel sorry for me. I take the wounds as my medals."

What a thought! "Do you fight a lot?"

"With my kind of looks, people don't leave me alone."