Ha Jin - War Trash

They nodded. So the two American officers were taken to the front gate and released. That afternoon we received messages from the other compounds, inquiring about what had happened. We were obligated to inform them truthfully. After dinner the battalion headquarters held a meeting, at which Wanren was mildly criticized by the other officers. But we all felt lucky that we had forestalled the potential trouble peacefully by ourselves. Because the secret operation had been exposed to the whole compound, Wanren seemed mortified and a bit ornery. Probably he feared that he had revealed his incompetence to his men, or that I had stood out as a more capable officer in handling this case. Afterward he was reluctant to talk with me as casually as before.

A week later Captain Larsen was demoted and transferred to a different prison camp. By order of Commissar Pei, a meeting was held among the leaders of our compound, presided over by our political instructor, Manpu. Wanren made self-criticism at the meeting and admitted that his vigilance had slackened. He said he was grateful to all the comrades who had helped him get the signed sheet back, otherwise the enemy would definitely have utilized it to sabotage our victory in defending our flag. But he didn't mention me, because Commissar Pei had awarded me another citation, second class this time, which I didn't really care about anymore. By contrast, Wanren got a disciplinary warning, though he remained in charge of our battalion.

After the detainment of Captain Larsen, Wanren and I could no longer get along. But now and then we still played chess together, with pieces we made out of cement, each bearing a handwritten name on its face, such as Horse, Elephant, Cannon, and Carriage. He was highly skilled at the game, and I was among the few who didn't have to receive the handicap of a carriage or a cannon as his opponent. Although I was still indispensable to him when he had to deal with the Americans, he wouldn't come to me for advice anymore. He was an honest man, probably above small maneuvers; still, I took care not to give him any handle against me.

Unlike Compound 602 on Koje Island, in this camp any large-scale cultural project, such as a full-length play or an art show, was out of the question. The singers, actors, painters, composers, and calligraphers had been scattered among the battalions, and there was no way to assemble them. At first this state of isolation caused us some difficulties, but soon every compound formed its own cultural staff. As a result, there were ten groups of "artists" in the camp, around whom many prisoners gathered.

Among the ten groups, the one in Compound 9 had more talents than the others and was most active. Meng Feihan, the composer and stage director who had lost a foot, was there. Besides him, the chief of that battalion had a fondness for cultural work, having once led a song-and-dance ensemble in an artillery division. Every evening you could hear music and songs rising from their barracks. Throughout the camp many inmates took part in musical activities of this kind. I participated too, though briefly. I tried to teach others how to read music, but my voice was so tuneless that whenever I sang to illustrate musical notes, some men would chuckle or cackle. So I gave up.

The POWs also contrived several kinds of instruments, including drums, flutes, violins, and horns. The first bugle was fashioned out of tinplate. A bugler by chance had brought into the camp his mouthpiece, which later served as a casting model for the lead mouthpieces on all the wind instruments here. Drums were relatively easy to produce, and there were several sizes of them; all were made out of sawed oil drums, water pails, and gas cans, covered with rain cloth fastened by rope. My friend Weiming, the short Cantonese man who was very protective of Shanmin, was an expert in making stringed instruments, which were more difficult to create than the wind ones. He was tone-deaf, however, and couldn't read musical notes or play any instrument; but he was more inventive than others. He turned a tin can into the resonator for an erhu, a two-stringed Chinese violin; he also used wooden boards, bamboo pipes, rat skins, and other materials. Ignorant of music, he had to have helpers and testers, of whom he had many, since others had lined up to join him. In fact, every instrument the prisoners made was a result of teamwork. There were dozens of instrument-making groups in the camp. They even produced several guitars that had three or four strings. They also created various kinds of violins: resin was obtained from steeped pine chips; the bows were mostly thin iron rods bent on both ends; as for the hair, they unraveled pieces of rope, soaked the hemp in warm water, combed it straight, then picked the sturdy strands to be tied to the sticks. Most "silk strings" came from the jackets and boots they wore, whereas all the metal strings had one source – electric wires, which could be found at the construction sites. By far the Western violin was the hardest to make, because it had four different metal strings that were difficult to come by. Nevertheless, one group managed to come up with a kind of strings, which were entwined with threads to make them sound close to the standard G, D, A, and E strings. It took a great deal of experimentation to create a Western violin.

Throughout the summer, our compound was like an instrument factory, and some sort of manufacturing was under way in most of the sheds. The prisoners took the work as seriously as if it were their livelihood. In addition, many men had begun to learn how to play the instruments and formed small bands. I often wondered why they were so earnest about such activities. I guessed they were probably bored and just meant to have some fun, frittering away the time that hung heavy on their hands. But I was mistaken. I soon realized that for them this was serious business, a matter of survival. Usually four or five men worked together at one instrument, so the product embodied a kind of collective will and effort. Likewise, a band always belonged to a platoon or company as "a special weapon in fighting the enemy." That was the language the leaders used. I wondered why they applied such hyperbole to a mere band. Perhaps they believed music could bolster the comrades' courage and kindle their hatred and thus turn them into better fighting machines.

On occasion, a skit or a comic talk accompanied by bamboo clappers was enacted in our compound, though none of the pieces was exceptional. Some prisoners tried to write short scripts for the stage and some composed songs, but few of these efforts resulted in passable work. Once in a while they would draw cartoons to ridicule the Americans, who would be given cucumber noses or bloated midriffs. The blackboards in our compound always carried jokes, drawings, and poems. Yet by far the most popular form of entertainment was the songfest.

Whenever a satisfactory song was composed, it began circulating briskly among the inmates, and within two weeks all the ten battalions could sing it. Meng Feihan in Compound 9 was the major composer; in general his music was solemn, strenuous, and high-minded. Two of his disciples were good at singing folk songs, so they blended light melodies into some satirical airs, which became immensely popular, such as "The Loudspeaker Always Lies, Don't Listen to It," "God, I'm Scared," and "Truman Is Done For." The prisoners enjoyed these erratic, uncanny tunes so much that they would croon them even when they were alone, whereas they would sing the serious songs only in groups. The leaders made good use of the musical talents. Whenever something important happened, they would have a song composed to mark the occasion. For instance, to commemorate the fight for raising our national flag, a song was made a week after the massacre. It went as follows: