Jung Chang - Wild Swans - Three Daughters of China

"Home' was his office. When we got there he would always have to go off to some meeting, so his bodyguard would lock us up in the office, where there was nothing to do, apart from competing at blowing soap bubbles. Once I got so bored I drank a lot of soapy water and was ill for days.

When my mother was told she could go out, the first thing she did was jump on her bicycle and speed off to our nurseries. She was particularly worried about Jin-ming, now two and a half, whom she had hardly had any time to get to know. But, after sitting around unused for six months, her bicycle's tires were flat, and she was barely out of the gate when she had to stop and get some air put in them. She had never felt so impatient in her life, as she paced around the shop while the man pumped up her tires in what seemed to her a very lackadaisical manner.

She went to see Jin-ming first. When she arrived, the teacher looked at her coldly. Jin-ming, the teacher said, was one of the very few children who had been left behind on weekends. My father had hardly ever come to see him, and had never taken him home. At first, Jin-ming had asked for "Mother Chen," the teacher said.

"That's not you, is it?" she asked. My mother acknowledged that "Mother Chen' was his wet-nurse. Later, Jin-ming would hide in a corner room when it was time for the other parents to come and collect their offspring.

"You must be a stepmother," the teacher said accusingly. My mother could not explain.

When Jin-ming was brought in, he remained at the far end of the room and would not go near my mother. He just stood there silently, resentfully refusing to look at her.

My mother produced some peaches and asked him to come over and eat them while she peeled them. But Jin-ming would not move. She had to put the peaches on her handkerchief and push them along the table. He waited for her to withdraw her hand before he grabbed one peach and devoured it. Then he took another one. In no time the three peaches were gone. For the first time since she had been taken into detention, my mother let her tears fall.

I remember the evening she came to see me. I was nearly four, and was in my wooden bed which had bars like a cage. One side of the railing was let down so she could sit and hold my hand while I fell asleep. But I wanted to tell her about all my adventures and mischief. I was worried that once I fell asleep she would disappear again forever.

Whenever she thought I was asleep and tried to slip her hand away, I gripped it and started to cry. She stayed until around midnight. I screamed when she started to leave, but she pulled herself away. I did not know that 'parole' time was up.

Because we now had no nurses and my mother had to check in for her 'parole' report every evening, we children had to stay on in our nurseries. My mother could not have looked after us anyway. She was too busy 'racing toward socialism' as a propaganda song went with the rest of Chinese society.

While she had been in detention Mao had accelerated his attempt to change the face of China. In July 1955 he had called for a speeding up of collective farming, and in November he abruptly announced that all industry and commerce, which had so far remained in private hands, were to be nationalized.

My mother was thrown straight into this movement. In theory, the state was supposed to own enterprises jointly with the former owners, who were to draw 5 percent of the value of their business for twenty years. Since there was officially no inflation, this was supposed to represent full payment of the total value. The former owners were to stay on as managers and be paid a relatively high wage, but there would be a Party boss over them.

My mother was put in charge of a work team supervising the nationalization of over a hundred food factories, bakeries, and restaurants in her district. Although she was still on 'parole," and had to report in every evening, and could not even sleep in her own bed, she was entrusted with this important job.

The Party had attached a stigmatic label to her kongzhi shi-yong , which meant 'employed but under control and surveillance." This was not made public, but was known to her and the people in charge of her case. The members of her work team knew she had been detained for six months, but did not know she was still under surveillance.

When my mother was put in detention, she had written to my grandmother asking her to stay on in Manchuria for the time being. She had concocted an excuse, as she did not want my grandmother to know she was being detained, which would have worried her terribly.

My grandmother was still in Jinzhou when the nationalization program started, and she found herself caught up in it. After she had left Jinzhou with Dr. Xia in 1951 his medicine business had been run by her brother, Yu-lin.

When Dr. Xia died in 1952 ownership of the medicine shop passed to her. Now the state was planning to buy it out. In every business a group, made up of work team members and representatives of both employees and management, was set up to value its assets so the state could pay a 'fair price." They would often suggest a very low figure to please the authorities. The value placed on Dr. Xia's shop was ridiculously low, but there was an advantage to this for my grandmother: it meant that she was classified only as a 'minor capitalist," which made it easier for her to keep a low profile. She was not happy about being quasi-expropriated, but she kept her own counsel.

As part of the nationalization campaign, the regime organized processions with drums and gongs and endless meetings, some of them for the capitalists. My grandmother saw that all of them were expressing willingness to be bought out, even gratitude. Many said that what was happening to them was much better than they had feared.

In the Soviet Union, they had heard, businesses were confiscated outright. Here in China the owners were being indemnified, and what was more, the state did not just order them to hand over their businesses. They had to be willing. Of course, everyone was.

My grandmother was confused about how she should feel resentful toward the cause her daughter was engaged in, or happy with her lot, as she was told she should be.

The medicine business had been built up by Dr. Xia's hard work, and her livelihood and that of her daughter had depended on it. She was reluctant to see it go just like that.

Four years earlier, during the Korean War, the government had encouraged people to donate their valuables to help buy fighter planes. My grandmother did not want to give up her jewelry, which had been given to her by General Xue and Dr. Xia, and had at times been her only source of income. It also had strong sentimental value. But my mother added her voice to that of the government. She felt that jewelry was connected with an outdated past, and shared the Party's view that it was the fruit of 'the exploitation of the people' and should therefore be returned to them. She also produced the standard line about protecting China from being invaded by the " US imperialists," which did not mean very much to my grandmother. Her clinching arguments were: "Mother, what do you still want these things for? Nobody wears this sort of thing nowadays. And you don't have to rely on them to live. Now that we have the Communist Party, China is no longer going to be poor.

What have you got to be worried about? In any case, you have me. I will look after you. You never have to worry again. I have to persuade other people to donate. It's part jj of my work. How can I ask them if my own mother doesn't do it?" My grandmother gave up. She would do anything for her daughter. She surrendered all her jewelry except a couple of bracelets, a pair of gold earrings, and a gold ring, which were wedding presents from Dr. Xia. She got a receipt from the government and much praise for her 'patriotic zeal."