Jung Chang - Wild Swans - Three Daughters of China

My mother's new chief was a woman called Zhang Xiting. She and her husband had been in an army unit which was part of the force earmarked to take Tibet in 1950.

Sichuan was the staging post for Tibet, which was considered the back of beyond by Han Chinese. The couple had asked to be discharged and were sent to Yibin instead.

Her husband was called Liu Jie-ting. He had changed his name to Jie-ting ("Linked to Ting') to show how much he admired his wife. The couple became known as 'the two Tings."

In the spring my mother was promoted to head of the Youth League, an important job for a woman not yet twenty. She had recovered her equilibrium and much of her old bounce. It was in this atmosphere that I was conceived, in June 1951.

My mother was now in a new Party cell, made up of herself, Mrs. Ting, and a third woman who had been in the Yibin underground, with whom my mother got on very well. The nonstop intrusion and demands for self-criticisms came to an immediate halt. Her new cell quickly voted for her to become a full Party member, and in July she was given Party membership.

Her new boss, Mrs. Ting, was no beauty, but her slender figure, sensuous mouth, freckled face, lively eyes, and sharp repartee all exuded energy and showed she was a character. My mother warmed to her at once.

Instead of sniping at her like Mrs. Mi, Mrs. Ting let my mother do all sorts of things she wanted, like reading novels; before, readin, g a book without a Marxist cover would bring down a rain of criticism about being a bourgeois intellectual. Mrs. Ting allowed my mother to go to the cinema on her own, which was a great privilege, as at the time those 'with the revolution' were allowed to see only Soviet films and even then only in organized groups whereas the public cinemas, which were privately owned, were still showing old American films, such as Charlie Chaplin's. Another thing which meant a lot to my mother was that she could now have a bath every other day.

One day my mother went to the market with Mrs. Ting and bought two yards of fine pink flower-patterned cotton from Poland. She had seen the cloth before, but had not dared to buy it for fear of being criticized for being frivolous. Soon after she had reached Yibin, she had had to hand in her army uniform and return to her "Lenin suit."

Under that she wore a shapeless, undyed, rough cotton shirt. There was no rule saying it was compulsory to wear this garb, but anyone who did not do the same as everybody else would come in for criticism. My mother had been longing to wear a dash of color. She and Mrs. Ting rushed over to the Changs' house with the cloth in a state of high excitement. In no time, four pretty blouses were ready, two for each of them. Next day they wore them under their Lenin jackets. My mother turned her pink collar out and spent the whole day feeling terribly excited and nervous.

Mrs. Ting was even more daring; she not only turned her collar outside her uniform, but rolled up her sleeves so that a broad band of pink showed on each arm.

My mother was staggered, almost awestruck, at this defiance. As expected, there were plenty of disapproving glances. But Mrs. Ting held her chin up: "Who cares?" she said to my mother. My mother was tremendously relieved; with the sanction of her boss, she could ignore any criticisms, verbal or wordless.

One reason Mrs. Ting was not frightened of bending the rules a bit was that she had a powerful husband, who was less scrupulous in exercising his power. A sharp-nosed, sharp-chinned, and slightly hunched man of my father's age, Mr. Ting was head of the Party Organization Department for the region of Yibin, which was a very important position, as this department was in charge of promotions, demotions, and punishments. It also kept the files of Party members. In addition, Mr. Ting, like my father, was a member of the four-man committee governing the region of Yibin.

In the Youth League my mother was working with people her own age. They were better educated, more carefree, and more ready to see the humorous side of things than the older, self-righteous, peasant-turned Party-official women she had been working with before.

Her new colleagues liked dancing, they went on picnics together, and they enjoyed talking about books and ideas.

Having a responsible job also meant my mother was treated with more respect, and this increased as people realized that she was extremely capable as well as dynamic.

As she grew to be more confident and to rely less on my father, she felt less disappointed with him. Besides, she was getting used to his attitudes; she had stopped expecting him always to put her first, and was much more at peace with the world.

Another bonus of my mother's promotion was that it qualified her to bring her mother to Yibin on a permanent basis. At the end of August z 95 x, after an exhausting journey, my grandmother and Dr. Xia arrived; the transportation system was working properly again and they had traveled the whole way by regular train and boat. As dependants of a government official, they were assigned lodgings at the state's expense, a three-room house in a guesthouse compound. They received a free ration of basic goods, like rice and fuel, which were delivered to them by the manager of the compound, and they were also given a small allowance to buy other food. My sister and her wet-nurse went to live with them, and my mother spent most of her brief spare time there, enjoying my grandmother's delicious cooking.

My mother was delighted to have her mother and Dr. Xia, whom she loved with her. She was particularly glad that they were no longer in Jinzhou, as war had recently broken out in Korea, on the doorstep of Manchuria; at one point in late 1950 American troops had stood on the banks of the Yalu River, on the border between Korea and China, and American planes had bombed and strafed towns in Manchuria.

One of the first things my mother wanted to know was what had happened to Hui-ge, the young colonel. She was devastated to hear that he had been executed by firing squad, by the bend in the river outside the western gate of Jinzhou.

For the Chinese, one of the most terrible things that could happen was not to have a proper burial. They believed that only when the body was covered and placed deep in the earth could the dead find peace. This was a religious feeling, but it also had a practical side: if the body was not buried, it would be torn to pieces by wild dogs and picked to the bone by birds. In the past, the bodies of people who had been executed had traditionally been exposed for three days as a lesson to the population; only then were the corpses collected and given a sort of burial.

Now the Communists issued an order that the family should immediately bury an executed relative; if they could not do it, the task was carried out by grave diggers hired by the government.

My grandmother had gone herself to the execution ground. Hui-ge's body had been left lying on the ground, fiddled with bullets, one of a row of corpses. He had been shot along with fifteen other people. Their blood had stained the snow dark red. There was no one from his family left in the city, so my grandmother had hired professional undertakers to give him a decent burial. She herself brought a long piece of red silk in which to wrap his body. My mother asked if there were other people she knew there. Yes, there had been. My grandmother had bumped into a woman she knew who was collecting the corpses of her husband and her brother. Both had been Kuomintang district chiefs.

My mother was also horrified to hear that my grandmother had been denounced by her own sister-in-law, Yu-lin's wife. She had long felt put-upon by my grandmother, as she had to do the hard work around the house, while my grandmother ran it as its mistress. The Communists had urged everyone to speak up about 'oppression and exploitation," so Mrs. Yu-lin's grudges were given a political framework. When my grandmother collected Hui-ge's corpse Mrs. Yu-lin denounced her for being well disposed toward a criminal. The neighborhood gathered to hold a 'struggle meeting' to 'help' my grandmother understand her 'faults." My grandmother had to attend, but wisely decided to say nothing and appear meekly to accept the criticism. Inwardly, she was fuming against her sister-in-law and the Communists.