Jung Chang - Wild Swans - Three Daughters of China

The episode did not help relations between my grandmother and my father. When he found out what she had done, he was enraged, saying she was more in sympathy with the Kuomintang than with the Communists. But it was obvious that he also felt a twinge of jealousy. While she hardly spoke to my father, my grandmother had been very fond of Hui-ge and had considered him a good match for my mother.

My mother was caught in the middle between her mother and her husband; and between her personal feelings, her grief over Hui-ge's death, and her political feelings, her commitment to the Communists.

The execution of the colonel was part of a campaign to 'suppress counterrevolution ari Its goal was to eliminate all supporters of the Kuomintang who had had power or influence, and it was triggered by the Korean War, which had started in June 1950. When US troops had come right up to the Manchurian border Mao had feared the United States might attack China, or unleash Chiang Kai-shek's army against the mainland, or both. He sent over a million men into Korea to fight on the side of the North Koreans against the Americans.

Although Chiang Kai-shek's army never left Taiwan, the United States did organize an invasion into southwest China by Kuomintang forces from Burma; raids were also frequent in the coastal areas, many agents were landed, and acts of sabotage increased. Large numbers of Kuomintang soldiers and bandits were still at large and there were sizable rebellions in parts of the hinterland. The Communists worried that supporters of the Kuomintang might try to topple their newly established order, and that if Chiang Kai-shek tried to stage a comeback they would rise up as a fifth column. They also wanted to show people that they were there to stay, and getting rid of their opponents was one way to impress the concept of stability on the population, who had traditionally yearned for it. However, opinions were divided about the degree of ruthlessness necessary. The new government decided not to be fainthearted. As one official document put it: "If we do not kill them they will come back and kill us."

My mother was not convinced by the argument, but she decided there was not much point trying to talk to my father about it. In fact she rarely saw him, as he spent much of the time away in the countryside, troubleshooting.

Even when he was in town, she did not see much of him.

Officials were supposed to work from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m., seven days a week, and one or both of them usually came home so late they hardly had time to talk to each other.

Their baby daughter did not live with them, and they ate in the canteen, so there was almost nothing one could call a home life.

Once the land reform was completed, my father was off again, supervising the construction of the first proper road through the region. Formerly, the only link between Yibin and the outside world had been by river. The government decided to build a road south to the province of Yunnan.

In only one year, using no machinery at all, they built over eighty miles through a very hilly area, with numerous rivers. The labor force was made up of peasants, who worked in exchange for food.

During the digging, the peasants hit the skeleton of a dinosaur, which got slightly damaged. My father made a self-criticism and ensured it was excavated carefully and shipped to a museum in Peking. He also sent soldiers to guard some tombs dating from about A.D. 200 from which the peasants had been taking bricks to improve their pigsties.

One day two peasants were killed by a rock slide. My father walked through the night along mountain paths to the scene of the accident. This was the first time in their lives the local peasants had set eyes on an official of my father's rank, and they were moved to see that he was concerned about their well-being. In the past it had been assumed that all officials were only out to line their pockets.

After what my father did, the locals thought the Communists were marvelous.

Meanwhile, one of my mother's main jobs was to galvanize support for the new government, particularly among factory workers. From the beginning of 1951 she had been visiting factories, making speeches, listening to complaints, and sorting out problems. Her job included explaining to the young workers what communism was and encouraging them to join the Youth League and the Party. She lived for long periods in a couple of factories: Communists were supposed to 'live and work among the workers and peasants," as my father was doing, and to know their needs.

One factory just outside the city made insulating circuits.

Living conditions there, as in every other factory, were appalling, with scores of women sleeping in a huge shack built of straw and bamboo. The food was woefully inadequate: the workers got meat only about twice a month, even though they were doing exhausting work. Many of the women had to stand in cold water for eight hours at a stretch washing the porcelain insulators. Tuberculosis, from malnutrition and lack of hygiene, was common. The eating bowls and chopsticks were never properly washed and were all mixed up together.

In March my mother began to cough up a little blood.

She knew at once that she had TB, but she kept on working. She was happy because no one was intruding on her life. She believed in what she was doing, and she was excited by the results of her work: conditions in the factory were improving, the young workers liked her, and many pledged their allegiance to the Communist cause as the result of her. She genuinely felt that the revolution needed her devotion and self-sacrifice, and she worked flat out, all day, seven days a week. But after working without a break for months, it became obvious that she was extremely ill.

Four cavities had developed in her lungs. By the summer she was also pregnant with me.

One day in late November my mother fainted on the factory floor. She was rushed to a small hospital in the city which had originally been set up by foreign missionaries.

There she was looked after by Chinese Catholics. There was still one European priest there, and a few European nuns, wearing religious habits. Mrs. Ting encouraged my grandmother to bring her food, and my mother ate an enormous amount- a whole chicken, ten eggs, and a pound of meat a day sometimes. As a result, I became gigantic in her womb and she put on thirty pounds.

The hospital had a small amount of American medicine for TB. Mrs. Ting charged in and got hold of the whole lot for my mother. When my father found out he asked Mrs. Ting to take at least half of it back, but she snapped at him: "What sense does that make? As it is, this is not enough for one person. If you don't believe me, you can go and ask the doctor. Besides, your wife works under me and I am making the decisions about her." My mother was enormously grateful to Mrs. Ting for standing up to my father. He did not insist. He was obviously torn between concern for my mother's health and his principles, according to which his wife's interest must not override that of the ordinary people, and at least some of the medicine ought to be saved for others.

Because of my huge size and the way I grew upward, the cavities in her lungs were compressed and started to close. The doctors told her this was a compliment to her baby, but my mother thought the credit should probably go to the American medicine she had been able to take, thanks to Mrs. Ting. My mother stayed in the hospital three months, until February 1952, when she was eight months pregnant. One day she was suddenly asked to leave, 'for her own safety." A friend told her that some guns had been found in the residence of a foreign priest in Peking, and all foreign priests and nuns had fallen under extreme suspicion.

She did not want to leave. The hospital was set in a pretty garden with beautiful water lilies, and she found the professional care and the clean environment, which were rare in China at that time, extremely soothing. But she had no choice, and was moved to the Number One People's Hospital. The director of this hospital had never delivered a baby before. He had been a doctor with the Kuomintang army until his unit had mutinied and gone over to the Communists. He was worried that if my mother died giving birth, he would be in dire trouble because of his background and because my father was a high official.