A slim, bare-chested, dark-skinned man who looked to be in his late forties or early fifties approached me. As I rolled down the window I saw his face chiseled by weather although his chest and arms were muscled. He looked like any other local peasant. But barely had he started to speak when I recognized him. He was the boy who was jailed for the crime of “lying on top for a moment.”
“Er Gou!” I cried.
He tensed up. A stranger calling him by his nickname, “Second Dog,” must have shocked, indeed frightened him. I hurriedly told him my name. He relaxed and apologized for not immediately recognizing me. I would not have expected him to remember me; we were never close. He, of course, became notorious after his arrest and public sentencing.
I couldn’t believe that, 30 years later, in the middle of a desert where it was hard to find a soul for miles, I had come across not just an old-timer I had known but also none other than Er Gou. Both of us were incredulous at this almost-impossible coincidence. I wanted to know what had happened to him after all these years. I was sure his curiosity about me was equally strong. He invited me to his home. I followed his motorcycle as he led the way.
Er Gou lived in a nice-looking whitewashed concrete house near Lake Wuliangsu. But inside, his home was a mess. There were dirty dishes in his bedroom and watermelon skins piled up high on the desk next to his bed.
We sat down and he told me his story.
After being sentenced, Er Gou served four years in jail. By the time he was released, around 1978, the Construction Army Corps had been disbanded and all the educated youths had returned to the cities they had come from. He went back to Beijing as well. But because of his criminal record, nobody would give him a job. He just stayed with his parents, loafing around without much to do.
In 1979, Deng Xiaoping, who had returned to power the previous year, launched a campaign to “severely crack down on crimes.” Er Gou was picked up by the police for no other reason than his prior criminal record and sent to a forced-labor camp in Tacheng, in Xinjiang Province. Tacheng was on the very western edge of China, right on the border with Kazakhstan. The Chinese government had been exiling criminals there since the Qing dynasty, because it was farthest from the civilized center than anywhere else in the country.
Er Gou was in that labor camp for five years. But he did not entirely waste his time there. By the end of it, he received a college degree through correspondence courses.
But even a college degree couldn’t help Er Gou find a job back in Beijing upon his release, because of his prior record. Although he had always denied the charges, his conviction three decades earlier had condemned him to a life in and out of jail, forced labor, and eventually back to the Gobi. He married a local woman and had a daughter. His wife and daughter were now in Beijing, living with his parents, because, I think, the daughter could get a much better education there. I did not think his wife and daughter would want to return to the Gobi. So he lived by himself.
Even though he and I now lived in completely different worlds—and he was unlikely to be able to imagine the world in which I now lived—I felt no distance between us as we reminisced about the old times. He wanted me to stay for dinner, to eat fish from the lake, but I told him I had to go back to Batou before dark because there were people waiting for me there. He offered to take me back to our old “battlefields,” where we had spent winters cutting reeds on the lake.
He first took me to the village of Nanchang, where we had spent a couple of winters. At one time, I stayed in the home of a local peasant, but I could find no traces of his house. The living quarters for our platoon were gone but the row of mud-brick shacks for the second platoon and the sixth platoon were still there, although crumbling.
I could drive the SUV no further because the trail became too narrow and full of potholes. I left the SUV with the driver and hopped onto the back of his motorcycle. Er Gou negotiated his way slowly forward until we came upon a higher ground on which stood the ruins of a few rows of old mud huts. “This is Fanshengedan,” he told me. Fanshengedan was the cluster of mud huts where we had lived in the winter of 1971–1972 while cutting reeds. There was nothing recognizable, absolutely nothing. Standing there and looking out, I saw sand dunes all around us, and waves of reeds in the distance.
All was gone, except the crumbling ruins, a fading but potent reminder of what this place meant to my life and to the lives of so many friends.
Index
A
Academy of Sciences (China), 11
Acupuncture, 194, 197–201, 206–207
Agnew, Spiro, 306
Agricultural production, 123–135 Army Corps assignments and, 88–92
Army Corps costs and, 238–247
China’s production vs. US (1960s–1970s), 123–124, 232
Gobi conditions for, 123–125
grain/wheat planting and harvest, 111–112, 124–135, 160
Great Famine and, 10–19, 26–27
insecticides used for, 129–130
People’s Commune and, 22, 93–94
potato harvest, 94–108
in Shandong Province, 69–71
tools used for, 128, 132–135
Air-raid shelters, construction of, 112–113, 119–121
Akerlof, George, 384–385, 411
Andrews, Andy, 346–350, 352, 381
Anti-Japanese War history of, 3–5, 52, 361–364, 388
“uprising of two airlines,” 249–250
Anti-Rightist Movement, 35–37
Asia Foundation, 345–378 Calhoun family and, 362
Shan’s application for PhD program and help from, 381
Shan’s arrival in US for visiting scholar program, 346–348
Shan’s PhD program and help from, 388, 390, 395
Shan’s selection for, 342–344
travel to New York City and Washington, D.C. with, 369–374
USF academics and tuition issues, 350–354, 359–369, 374
USF housing and students, 348–350, 354–355, 357–359, 363–364
US immigration of Shan family and, 418–422
Autumn Harvest Uprising, 3, 63
Aviation (magazine), 256–257
B
Bai Chongxi, 263
Barefoot doctors, 185–212 ailments treated by, 201–211, 229–230, 252–253
Chinese medicine vs. Western medicine, 190
guasha (folk remedies) by, 229–230, 253
Mao’s call for, 186
need for rural medical care, 185–186
training of, 186–196
work of, 196–212
Barefoot Doctor’s Manual, 206
Batou medical training in, 189–196
Shan’s visit to (2005), 438–439
Beijing Beihai Park, 30–32, 51–52
first subway line of, 72–73, 113
housing conditions (1960s), 17–19
Hu (vice mayor) and The Firing of Hai Rui, 37–39, 53–54
No. 13 Girls Middle School, 44, 71
Peng Zhen as mayor of, as class enemy, 44
pollution in, 314
Qincheng Prison, 74–75
Quarter of Foreign Legations (neighborhood), 19
Tiananmen Square, April 5th (1976) Movement, 317–325
Tiananmen Square uprising (1989), 422–426, 433
Wangfujing (shopping district), 42–44, 314–315
wrestling by boys from, 106
Wu as mayor of, 322
See also Cultural Revolution
Beijing Factory of Heavy Machinery, 320
Beijing Institute of Foreign Trade (BIFT) academics and organization of, 310–313, 316–317
admission interview and exam for, 282–286
April 5th Movement and, 323–324
Calhoun family and, 362
during earthquake (1976), 325–327
English language study at, 300, 310–312, 317, 323, 329, 333–3
35
news of Mao’s death at, 327
physical description of, 308–309, 312–313
political study sessions at, 316
Shan on faculty of, 335–336, 341–342, 380–381, 394
Shan’s acceptance to, 299–303
Shan’s application to US PhD programs, 377–378
Shan’s degree program in US and, 365–366 (See also Asia Foundation; University of San Francisco)
Shi’s (Bin) job at, 389
students’ official dossiers and, 310
Beijing International Club, 338
Beijing Military Regional Command, 276–277
Berlin Wall, German reunification and, 428–432
Boxer Rebellion, 2–3, 153, 282
Brady, James, 366
Bretton Woods conference (1944), 405
Brickmaking, 213–236 ancient methods for, 224
carts used for, 222–223
clay preparation for, 218–220
division of work for, 220–222
fatigue from, 223–224
housing as purpose of, 215, 235–236
kiln used for, 232–235, 441
machine plans for, 224–232
mold process of, 216–218
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 335–336
Bush, George H. W., 314, 421
C
Cai (teacher), 41
Calhoun, Connie, 361–362, 374, 396
Calhoun, Sandy, 361–362, 374–375, 397
Callahan, Father, 367
Cao Cao (pig), 260–262
Capitalism private property concept, 370, 376
US college tuition and, 351–353, 364–365, 374
Carter, Jimmy, 332, 335–336, 345, 356, 360, 395
Cassou, April academic roles of, 350–351, 360, 366–367
Cassou-Shan Scholarship (USF), 368–369
as Shan’s benefactor and host, 355–356, 364–365, 367–368, 370–372
Cassou, Phil, 355–356, 364–365, 367–372
Cattle stables, 46
CBS, 424
Central Air Transport Corporation (CATC), 249–250
Charlie (law student), 354, 357, 363
Chen Boda, 138
Chen Fengqin, 150–151
Chen Jiamin, 56
Chen Junda, 358
Chen Liangyu, 433
Chen Min, 322, 325, 327, 329
Chen Yi, 165
Chen Yizhou, 357–358
Chen Zaidao, 78
Chen Zhuolin, 249–250
Cheng Yulin, 79, 83
Chiang Kai-shek, 3–4, 5–6, 362
China Anti-Japanese War, 3–5, 52, 249–250, 361–364, 388
Han Dynasty, 281–282
Ming Dynasty, 37
Qin dynasty, 321
Qing Dynasty, 2–3, 19, 52, 379
Qingming Day (April 5, 1976), 320, 322
rationing in (1960s), 18
Revolution (1911) and Republic of China formation, 3, 19, 52, 282
See also People’s Republic of China
China Economic Review, 426–427
China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC), 249–250
China Unicom, 437–438
Chinese Economists Society, 426
Chinese Soviet Republic (Jiangxi Soviet), Ruijin as capital of, 59
Chi Qun, 317–318
Chow, Gregory, 426–427
Christian Science Monitor (United States), 240
Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), 250–251, 255–256, 264, 266
Cixi (dowager empress), 153
College entrance (China), 281–303 colleges reopened in China (1974–1975), 282–286, 305–313, 316–319, 326–327
examination system eliminated/reinstated, 40, 331, 333, 365
Mao’s views on intellectualism, 281–282
physical checkup and requirements for, 296–298
selection process and Shan’s acceptance, 294–303
selection process and Shan’s initial rejection, 287–294
Communism bourgeois shunned by, 46–47
China-Soviet Union relations and Great Leap Forward plans and, 10–11
German reunification, 427–432
Great Leap Forward plans and, 8, 257–259
Lenin and, 159–160, 175, 182–183
Marxism and, 8, 12, 36–37, 159
McCarthyism and, 6
People’s Commune, 22, 93–94
“people’s ownership,” 98–99
proletariat valued by, 50–51
socialist theory and, 159–161
See also People’s Republic of China; Soviet Union
Communist Party (China) Central Committee of, 53–54, 237–238
Communist Youth League, 48, 269, 272, 274, 291
Company Branch Committee, 188
on gender equality, 258
Hua’s role in, 329
Mao as chairman of, 19
ongoing war with Nationalists, 57
People’s Republic of China founding and, 3–4, 5–6, 305
Red Army, 48, 59, 63–65, 268, 305
self-rectification campaign and Anti-Rightist Campaign, 35–37
Communist Youth League, 48–49
Confucianism, 267–268
“Coordination Conference for the Great Leap Forward to Eradicate the Four Pests,” 10
Countryside movement, 77–92 arrival and living conditions, 83–92
departure and assignments of youth, 79–83
events leading to, 77–79
May 7th Cadre Schools and, 81, 245
promises made to youth for, 82
“re-education” mission of, 80, 107
Covitz, Carl, 418–419
Cowan, Glenn, 213–214
Cuban Missile Crisis, 23
Cui Dehui, 291
Cui Hua (pseudonym), 269–272
Cui Xianchao Army Corps entertainment and, 174, 179–181
health of, 201–202
on potato-digging expedition, 97–98, 100, 105–108
on Shan’s selection as barefoot doctor, 188
wheat planting by, 129
Yihe Canal construction and, 165–167
Cultural Revolution April 5th (1976) Movement and, 317–325
Beijing rationing (1970s) and, 314–315
books banned and destroyed, 46–47
colleges and universities reopened (1970s) (See College entrance (China))
Deng’s return to power, 305–306, 315–325
earthquake (1976) and, 325–327
Eight Model Plays, 174, 175
The Firing of Hai Rui (opera) and, 37–39, 53
“Four Olds” banned by, 42–43, 47, 55
Gang of Four and, 238, 315, 320–321, 328–329, 346
Great Networking movement of, 55–65
inception of, 37, 53–54
Leading Group, 77–79, 174
Lin and, 285
Mao’s death and, 327–329
“mass steel-making” campaign, 8–10
Nixon’s visit to China and, 215, 275, 285, 306, 313–314, 364
Red Guards formation, 39–52
religious practice denied by, 48
reopening of colleges and, 285–286
Revolutionary Rebels formation, 44–46 (See also Revolutionary Rebels (“Rebels”))
self-rectification campaign and Anti-Rightist Movement, 35–37
in Shandong Province, 69–71
“struggle sessions” of, 44, 48, 54, 65–66, 264, 431
Zhou’s illness and death, 305–306, 315–316
See also Education (China); Mao Zedong
D
Damansky, military clash in (1969), 109–110, 121
DDT, 129–130
De Geyter, Pierre, 169–170, 321
Della (law firm secretary), 375, 397
Deloitte (Touche Ross), 410
Deng Xiaoping April 5th Movement and, 318–325
biographical information, 305
consolidated power by (1979), 75
on crime, 443
economic reforms of, 380–381, 393–395, 434
education reform by, 330–332
exile during Cultural Revolution and return to power (1975), 305–306, 315–316
as general secretary of Communist Party, 21
Hua and, 329
Mao’s relationship with, 160, 306
Party leadership role of (1977), 331–332
Red Guard movement and role of, 54–55
US visit by, 332, 335–336
Zhao as premier under, 346
Diet for barefoot doctors in training, 189–190, 194–195
at Beijing Institute of Foreign Trade, 309
Dihe Canal construction and, 168–169
fishing and, 155–157, 195–196, 241
frog meat, 229
horse feed and, 180
insomnia and malnutrition, 194, 208–209
mizi (porridge), 86
rationing and (1960s), 18
rations for soldiers and gender issues, 166, 196–197
rations for soldiers and starvation, 126–127, 144–145, 183
in US, 354–355, 356
watermelons, 96–97
while brickmaking, 224
while cutting reeds, 144–145, 148–149, 151–153, 155–158
“yellow goat” meat, 26–27
See also Water
Ding Desheng (“Dasheng”), 156–157, 162–164, 167, 169, 219, 220–221
Dongba canal, 265
Duan Dingshan (“Old Duan”), 88, 246–247, 269