Chapter 9
Return to Prisoners of Liberation: Four Years in a Chinese Communist Prison
Chapter 9
Rick: All during the fall and winter of 1951 the composition of cell No. 9 changed continually. People came and went. The landlord, Wang, went off to the prison farm where he could learn how to work. The bandit, Ning, his body ruined by heroin, became ill and was transferred to a cell for the sick. One night Sung was told to pack his things and get ready to leave. We wished him good luck and I hoped that, since he had begun to show some signs of regret for what he had done, he would be given an opportunity to reform.
However, as he went out the door, Liao shook his head. I’m afraid Sung is going to be sent back to his local district to face charges. He has too much against him to get off easily. The people there simply won’t stand for it. They can forgive a great deal, but once a man has spilled that much blood he must pay for it.”
I nodded glumly. It was grim to think that a person I had come to know as well as Sung was perhaps on his way to be shot, but at the same time I knew that if I had been one of the peasants who had suffered at his hands I would undoubtedly have felt differently.
No matter how I felt about Sung personally, I had come in these few months to realize that these men in prison were no champions of democracy unjustly persecuted by the People’s Government, as claimed by the Voice of America. Undoubtedly certain injustices arose. No system is infallible, especially when tempers run as hot as they do during a revolution, but in my over four years in prison I knew thirty-five or forty prisoners, and there was not one who did not belong there. Furthermore, of all the hundreds who passed through there during my four years I heard of only a small handful who were finally executed.
Much misinformation concerning the number of people killed comes from Chiang Kai-shek’s propaganda agencies on Formosa and Hong Kong and from some individuals in our United States who have not stopped to study the somewhat free use made by the Chinese of the term Hsiao-mieh, usually translated as “liquidate.” When the Chinese speak of liquidating a class, they mean depriving that class of its ability to exploit others. The landlords, as a class, have been liquidated, but that does not mean that they have been killed. Their class status has been wiped out by depriving them of control over the land, the basis of their power. But they themselves have been allowed to live on, unless they have committed too many crimes to be forgiven. The percentage of the latter, compared with the total number of landlords, is very small.
Gradually, as people like Sung left, the old steadies in the cell were reduced to Liao, Ma, and myself. By December, 1951, there was only one other, a man named Jou. He and his four brothers, constituting a family gang, had operated as bank robbers and had held up a number of banks in Tientsin and Peking over a period of many years. In 1932 they had killed a teller in a bank in Peking and escaped with almost $30,000. They had concealed themselves by acting as pedicab drivers, and probably never would have been caught if they had not started working for the Nationalists as an assassination team. Jou’s last fare was a young man who asked to be driven to the detention quarters. When they arrived Jou was surprised to find that instead of being paid he was being placed under arrest.
With just the four of us, our study became even more insipid, especially since Jou, who was illiterate, had adopted the tactics of playing dumb to everything. When asked a question, he would roll his eyes and wave his hand in front of his face, claiming he knew nothing about politics. That had all been handled by his brothers.
During the big three-day holiday at New Year’s, 1952, things livened up a bit. We were told to enjoy ourselves, and Liao took it upon himself to see that we did if it killed us. We played cards and children’s games, sang songs, and for once I found an appreciative audience for my card tricks. What we enjoyed most, however, were the feasts of Chinese meat-filled dumplings, rice, and steamed bread accompanied by a pork and cabbage dish. When the Chinese Spring Festival came, about a month later, there were another three days of revelry and feasting. This time Supervisor Shen even came in to play rummy with us for a while, and to top it off the last night I attended a variety show put on by the prisoners. Every kind of talent, some of it professional, was displayed, and, though I could not understand much of the Chinese operatic singing and dialogue, I enjoyed it immensely.
During the holiday season my spirits ran high, not only because I felt a definite comradeship with my cell mates in playing games and talking over some of our problems but also because being allowed to see the show seemed like a good sign for my quick release, for not everyone was allowed to attend.
About this time the great Three Anti’s movement was launched throughout China. In connection with this the cell leaders were called together one day and told that in view of the evils arising out of the practice of having cell leaders they should make a public accounting of their previous conduct.
Under the traditional prison system in China, it had been customary for one man to set himself up as leader of the cell. Usually this had been achieved through bullying and intrigue among the prisoners and conspiracy with the authorities. The old-style cell leader was practically king in his own domain. Any contact with the outside had to go through him and had to be paid for. Whatever came into the cell in the way of food, money, or clothing had automatically belonged to him, and he would portion it out as he saw fit. Woe betides anyone who tried to dispute his authority.
After liberation, because of necessity, the government had appointed certain of the more able prisoners to be in charge. However, many of these men gradually came to take on the habits of the old-style cell leaders. It became customary that anything which came into the cell in the way of soap, toilet paper, etc., was immediately taken over by the leaders for the use of everyone, whether the owner liked it or not. The excuse given was the popular misconception that under communism no one had any personal property and everyone shared equally. This would have been bad enough, but many cell leaders extended their power to the expropriation of clothing and anything else they wanted for their own use. There followed a vicious system of favoritism, even to the point of concocting fraudulent reports about the conduct of the other prisoners. Slugging and corporal punishment were also quite common in spite of the fact that the prison regulations forbade it.
For this I blamed the prison authorities because they knew very well what was going on, but at that time were too busy or at least did not take the trouble to do anything about it. The Three Anti’s movement, however, called attention to these things and the authorities, after criticizing their own previous attitude, took steps to correct the situation. One of their first moves was to call the cell leaders together. Those who admitted their wrongdoings were told to go back to the cells and make an accounting before the other prisoners. But it was necessary to put several of them in handcuffs before they were willing to admit the error of their ways.
Liao, though a rather easygoing person, was forced to admit that he had sometimes been arrogant and bullying in his treatment of others. Our main problem in discussing his conduct in the cell, however, was to make clear that even under communism personal property belonged to the individual, to be disposed of as he saw fit. Prison regulations forbade any prisoner to use the effects of another without the express permission of the authorities. But it was well over a year before the habit of “borrowing” was brought under control, and even in late 1952 it was necessary to call a general prison meeting and severely reprimand some of the cell leaders who had continued to browbeat and abuse their cell mates. Then, even swearing at other prisoners was absolutely forbidden, and for hitting another man one could have one’s sentence considerably increased.
Though at the beginning of the Three Anti’s movement in the first months of 1952 attention was centered on the cell leaders, it was very quickly extended to include all of us. One day in early February the warden announced over the loudspeaker system that we should all embark on a self-criticism, reassess our attitude toward imprisonment and our conduct since we had been arrested. We should also bring out all the grievances we had bottled up inside us, see whether they were justified or not, and in this way provide a fresh basis for reforming our characters. Only if we knew where we were wrong could we proceed to rectify our mistakes.
During the following week the four of us in cell No. 9, Liao, Ma, Jou, and myself, sat huddled in one corner of the room, which now seemed far too large with the coming of winter’s severest cold. Hands buried in the sleeves of our padded jackets, we pressed close together, trying to gain some corporate warmth. None of us wanted to subject himself to a really thoroughgoing self-criticism. Thus, with an unspoken agreement not to probe too deeply into each other’s thoughts, we kept the mutual criticism as superficial as possible. We all talked in turn, trying to make unimportant matters sound like grave errors which we now sorely repented.
A few days later this relaxed atmosphere was suddenly shattered by orders to pack up our things and move into cell-block A across the compound. Lugging our bedding and numerous bundles, we entered our new cell to find three men sitting cross-legged on the kang.
One of them, a slightly built man of about thirty whose shaven head, close-set eyes, and buck teeth gave him the appearance of a weasel, stood up and announced in a surly, authoritative voice, “My name’s Bao. I’m the cell leader. Toss your junk over there.”
His overbearing manner immediately touched off Ma’s hot temper and, throwing his bundle on the kang, he exploded, “Who do you think you are?”
“I’m the cell leader, that’s who I am.”
“You’re an officious bully, if you ask me,” shouted Ma, ankle chains clanking on the packed earth floor as he moved threateningly toward Bao. “Don’t you know you’re here to change that sort of attitude?”
Bao started to shout something in return, but just then one of the supervisors entered with a roar that silenced both of them. “What do you think you’re doing?” Then glaring at each of us in turn, he added, “All of you behave yourselves or you’re going to find yourselves in real trouble.” With that he walked out, slamming the door.
Bao and Ma continued to glower at each other, but they were sufficiently cowed to say nothing more. The question of who was to be cell leader then arose. All of us from cell No. 9 wanted Liao, of course, but it was evident immediately that he was to take second place. Bao had been a member of the People’s Police until he had accepted a bribe in late 1950 to give information to an American agent in Peking about the latter’s impending arrest. Since he was senior to Liao as far as length of time in prison was concerned and presumably of a higher political consciousness, he took command. But from the very first the cell was divided into two cliques, Liao’s forces and those of Bao.
Of the two men with Bao, I recognized one immediately. His name was Jin, and he had been connected with the Democratic League. I had seen him often at the Peking Club where he had been known as a big businessman and promoter. I was curious about his reason for being here. The man had lost much of his polish. Now his face was covered with a scraggly beard, and instead of his imported British tweeds he was wearing a much too small suit of cotton padded clothes. One of his socks had a large hole, out of which thrust his big toe. I was willing to bet that, were he to mend it, it would be the first time in his life that he used a needle. The other man was rather a nonentity whom I never came to know very well since he was transferred shortly after our arrival.
We agreed to begin all over again with our self-criticism and it was decided that Jin should start. Most of his talk was simply a retelling of his story. He had gone to the Soviet Union during the 1920s as a student, but became homesick and returned after six months. Then he had gone to law school and afterward practiced law in Manchuria, where he took a Russian wife. When the Japanese came in he gained favor with them by acting as one of their purchasing agents and finally became a personal adviser to Henry Pu-i, the puppet emperor of Manchukuo. When the tide began to turn against the Japanese, he made a quick switch and joined the Chinese underground. After the war he entered the Democratic League and became a big business promoter in Peking and Tientsin. Through his trade relations with the Soviet Union, he obtained information which he supplied to an American OSS agent in Tientsin; at the same time, feeling that a Russian wife might prove a handicap, he divorced her and married a well-known Chinese actress.
When liberation came he entered, through his contacts with the Democratic League, the new government’s Ministry of Foreign Trade, where he gained a very high position. However, with the deterioration of Sino-American relations and the outbreak of the Korean war, he decided that in cooperating with the Communists he might have bet on the wrong horse. Consequently, taking a few secret documents with him, he went to Hong Kong, where he turned them over to the American Consulate in return for the promise of a visa to the United States. However, after pumping him for all he was worth, the Consulate brushed him off and he was left stranded on the beach. His money began to give out and, what was worse, in the spring of 1951 it became evident that he had made a mistake. The Americans were not going to make a comeback in China. What was he to do? Finally, he decided to return to Peking where, knowing that the People’s Government was usually extremely lenient toward anyone who made a voluntary confession, he would throw himself on the government’s mercy.
On arrival, therefore, he told them how he had become frightened and had run off to Hong Kong. One thing he did not mention was his theft of the documents. He was certain that no one could have known about them, and there was no point in testing the government’s clemency too far. He was subsequently given his old job back, and there was even talk of sending him to Hong Kong on business for the Ministry of Foreign Trade.
On several occasions, however, he was approached by various people who asked him if there were nothing more he wanted to confess, but his reply was always in the negative. Finally in July, 1951, he boarded a train for Hong Kong, reveling in his success. Much to his surprise, just after the train left the station two men in security police uniform appeared and told him to prepare to get off at the next stop. Instead of going to Hong Kong he was being arrested. Jin knew then that he had made the mistake of his life by not making a full confession before. At that moment he tried to confess everything on the spot but it was too late.
His self-criticism ended with him smacking himself on the head and saying, “Oh, why didn’t I tell the truth when I had the chance?”
Bao, as the new cell leader, kept the ensuing criticism of Jin to a minimum, and, after he had pointed out the moral of Jin’s story, I volunteered to speak next. I began with a great deal of confidence. It was a story I had told many times before— how I had been an imperialist spy, how I had been justifiably arrested, and how I now thanked the People’s Government for treating me so leniently. I continued by admitting that I had recently been rather lax in my observance of discipline, and ended with the promise that I would not do it again. Just the week before in cell No. 9 this pretense at self-criticism had passed without a murmur from the others. I was therefore hardly prepared for the blast which now came from Bao.
“Do you call that a self-criticism?” he cried. His close-set eyes, squinting with anger, appeared almost crossed. “Here you are sitting in jail and you’re trying to tell us that everything is fine and you’re so thankful to the People’s Government. Ta-ma-di! You’re supposed to reveal what you really think so the rest of us can help you with our criticism. We’re not playing games. Now start talking sense.”
I was so taken aback, for a moment word failed me. Then, in a voice which sounded hesitant even to my own ears, I began a confused repetition of some of the innocuous things I had said before. This served only to increase Bao’s fury and he pressed even more relentlessly his demand for my “true thoughts.”
Finally, driven to a point of angry desperation, I exploded, “Well, I don’t see why I couldn’t have had a lawyer.” Immediately shouts came flying from all sides. What did I want a lawyer for? What had I to defend? Was I or was I not a spy?
“The only reason you want a lawyer,” broke in Liao, “is so you can avoid having to pay for your crimes. That’s the way it is in a capitalist society. If a man has money he can hire a lawyer to get him out of almost anything, while the poor man goes to jail. And what’s more, if this were the old China you wouldn’t even have had to hire a lawyer. All you’d have had to do was call your Consulate friends and they’d have had you out in no time.”
I was silent. How could I answer such an attack? What they said might be true, but to my mind it was irrelevant. According to our traditions, whether a man is guilty or not he had a right to a lawyer.
As if to answer this unexpressed thought, Liao went on, “If you had committed an ordinary crime and this were a civil court, you would have a right to a lawyer and organized defense. But you’re forgetting that we’re not only living through a revolution here at home. There is also a war going on in Korea. You have been guilty of counterrevolutionary espionage. That puts your case under martial law, and before a military tribunal a person has little in the way of normal legal rights.”
Academically speaking, I could see his point. A revolution by its very nature is the antithesis of formal legality. It is a social explosion which takes place when one part of society rises up and forcibly asserts its will over its former ruler. To disagree with such a situation is like disagreeing with the universe. However, when it was a matter of my own life being involved, academic logic seemed cold and barren, and I could find little satisfaction in it.
“Incidentally,” spoke up Ma suddenly, “since you seem to have so much resentment about not having a lawyer, what about it? Was your confession true or not?”
I vehemently denied that there was any question about the veracity of my confession. Heaven knows the government had been painstaking enough in searching for the truth during those endless hours of intensive questioning. Every point had been gone over and over, yet the investigating judge had never tried to put words in my mouth. In fact, once when I had tried to accept the blame for an affair in which I had been involved but for which I had not actually been responsible, he had reprimanded me for not taking my confession seriously enough and had crossed that part out of my statement.
My quick response to Ma’s question seemed to satisfy him, for the moment at least, but he had no way of knowing what was seething in my mind. Actually, what I objected to but did not dare put into words was the very idea of having to make a confession. To me this was a violation of basic civil rights, without which there could be no safeguard for justice. Supposing I had not been guilty but had been arrested on the basis of false evidence? If I had refused to confess, what would have happened? I would have run the risk of being shot. Under the pressure of knowing this a person might very well decide to play safe and confess to something he had not done, in the hopes of pleasing the authorities.
This same point has often been raised by people we have met since our return home. Actually, as I came to realize later on, the court did not determine a person’s guilt on the basis of his confession alone. It had to be substantiated by extensive outside evidence. Furthermore, his case was reviewed once a year until final sentence was passed, and even then every prisoner had the right to appeal.
Especially from the latter part of 1952, the government seemed to become increasingly aware of the danger of false confessions. Not only was every confession checked and rechecked for corroboration of the facts, but, in order to avoid undue pressure, prisoners were no longer allowed to “help” each other with their confessions or even discuss the details of their cases in the cell. The use of handcuffs and leg irons as punishment for those people who refused to confess to what the government felt it had substantial proof of was also greatly reduced. Prisoners were frequently encouraged to think over their cases and make any rectifications which would bring their statements more in line with the facts, and it was stressed that any deviation from the facts, whether by way of exaggeration or concealment, was equally dishonest.
It became clear to me that the confession itself served not so much to verify a prisoner’s guilt as to give him a chance to make his first step toward reform. That is one of the reasons why the authorities were so careful to see that it adhered strictly to the facts, for only if the prisoner made a really accurate confession could he begin to appreciate what he had done. If he admitted to something he had not done, then, to excuse his reluctance to reform, he would certainly use the rationalization that he was being treated unjustly.
My four years’ experience in prison led me to the conclusion that, in spite of the tense internal situation which led to counterrevolutionary and espionage cases being handled by military courts— with the resulting restrictions on normal legal rights— the Chinese government sincerely attempted to see that justice was done. Injustices certainly occurred, as has been admitted by the government itself, but as the internal situation has improved many of the more severe restrictions have been done away with, and at the recent meeting of the National Congress in the summer of 1956 the Chief Justice of the Chinese Supreme Court asserted that the treatment of counterrevolutionary cases was being further liberalized.
At the time of my first serious self-criticism under Bao, however, I could hardly be expected to view the subject with the same amount of detachment I have today. Since it was obvious I still had problems, Bao wanted to know immediately what else was bothering me.
“Well, I don’t see why I can’t write to my parents.” I said finally. “They are certainly worried about me.”
“Did you ever ask the judge whether you could or not?”
“No,” I admitted, “but then I know it would not do any good.”
“How do you know,” went on Ma, “if you haven’t even asked? You wrote to your wife, didn’t you?”
“Besides,” broke in Liao, “even if the government said you couldn’t, you must realize that yours is not an ordinary case. You’re in for espionage. And in any country, during wartime spies are kept under strict security. You’ve already admitted you had one code. How does the government know you don’t have another that you haven’t talked about?”
Bao then said impatiently, “This isn’t getting us anywhere. The real problem is, what do you think of your crime?”
“My crime?” I asked, a little puzzled. “Well, I did it, there’s no doubt about that.”
“No,” he went on, “what do you think about it? Was it a crime or not?”
“Sure,” I said. “I broke the law.”
“Then, if you really think it was a crime, why are you unhappy about having to pay for it?”
Now I could see what he was aiming at. I had been afraid of this question all along, because I knew that for the Communists it was not just a question of breaking the law and accepting one’s punishment. If a man had made a mistake he must be really repentant about it, since that was the only way of being certain he would never repeat it. At the time I certainly did not feel that what I had done was wrong. All during my time in prison this was the most difficult thing I had to contend with. The idea of being considered a criminal and being looked upon as such by everybody around was something I could not stand. In the United States, I felt, I had always been a most law-abiding citizen. I had never even been given a traffic ticket. And though I might have broken the Chinese law, I had clung to the belief that what I had done had been in the interests of my own country and of the Chinese, too. I refused to admit that I had ever wanted actually to harm anyone, and now it hurt to be thrown in with murderers, bank robbers, arsonists, rapists, thieves, and what have you, and to be considered as much a criminal as they.
Previously I had always managed to avoid the issue, but now Bao was putting me directly on the spot. I tried to hedge, claiming that I was not too unhappy about being in prison— that is, no more than was natural for any person cut off from his wife and faced with spending many years locked up in a cell. But there was no escaping Bao. He kept boring in, with the stubborn logic of a petty police official. Finally, I was forced to admit my true feelings.
My hedging and self-justifications infuriated the other prisoners. Though they themselves were Nationalist counterrevolutionaries and American agents, the idea that a foreigner should try to justify his interference in China’s affairs was more than they could stand.
Ma, whose sharp eyes missed nothing, also accused me of using our study to continue to collect espionage information.
“Look at his notebook,” he said. “All he does is write down names of people, figures about production, and such. He doesn’t care anything about their significance as far as China’s progress is concerned.”
This charge brought me almost to the verge of panic by its very truth. If the authorities learned that I was still collecting intelligence even in prison I would certainly be shot. Fortunately, Ma’s charge was not pressed by the others, largely because just at that time something happened which occupied their attention even more.
On February 22, 1952, Chou En-lai, the Chinese Foreign Minister, charged the United States with using germ warfare in Korea.
When I first heard the news, though I was on the lookout for propaganda, it seemed to me that it might be possible. I knew that the United States had been developing
bacteriological weapons for a number of years and, according to an article by Hanson Baldwin which I had read before leaving the United States, we would have used such weapons against the Japanese if World War II had not ended when it did. 1 Moreover, I had been taught that in
war you used whatever weapon you had, and I could see no difference between napalm or atomic bombing and the use of germ warfare. My only question was, what were the Chinese kicking up such a fuss about? It seemed to me it was merely that we had it and they did not.
When this came out in the self-criticism meeting there was an angry explosion from all sides. Bao threatened to slug me and the commotion was such that Supervisor Shen swept into the room, his arms flying.
Bao, in an excited voice, told him what I had said, and asked that I be put in handcuffs and ankle chains.
Supervisor Shen listened quietly while all the prisoners spoke out their wrath against me, but after they had finished he waved them down with an awkward gesture, saying, “It’s not strange that Li Ko should think as he does. After all, look at what he is. He’s the product of a society which makes a virtue of total warfare, and can see nothing morally wrong in the wholesale slaughter of innocent women and children. Wiping out a whole city with one atomic bomb is, to people like him, a great scientific accomplishment. He’s been filled with these ideas for almost thirty years. You can’t expect him to get rid of them overnight. Reason with him. Ask him how he’d feel if an atomic bomb or plague germs were dropped on his wife or mother and father back home.”
With that he left, as abruptly as he had come. The furor in the cell subsided a little, but Bao told me ominously, “We’ve had enough of discussing your problems for the moment, but you’re not going to get off easy. We know how to handle imperialists.”
Thus ended my first major experience with self-criticism. Contrary to the cathartic effect this “soul-searching” was supposed to have on one’s spiritual well-being, I was cast into the depths of despair. My six months had come and gone, and all chance of being released in the near future seemed to have vanished. My former bravado now gave way to utter confusion. For the first time I felt at a loss as to how to cope with the situation. Not even during the dark days of interrogation had I felt as desperately insecure as now.
My mental state was not helped by our new physical surroundings. Cell block A, as this building in the west compound was called, was in much worse condition than cell block B, where I had spent the first six months of my imprisonment. During World War I, when this compound had served as headquarters for a cavalry unit under the war lord Yuan Shih-kai, the building had been used to stable horses. The remains of a concrete slab which had been the base for an anvil still occupied one corner of the room. The rest of the floor was uneven packed earth, damp and musty the year round.
The whitewash had long since been rubbed or peeled off walls pock-marked with rat holes. The rats themselves scurried boldly about the cell, even during the day, dodging our traps and blows with maddening nonchalance. At night they conducted raids on our soap, making off with an entire cake in one evening’s revelry. A small window high in the wall afforded little light, but a cold wind constantly rattled through large rents in the paper which had been pasted over its glassless frames. I was told that the present Communist mayor of Peking had spent eight years in that very cell block. I often wondered how he had ever lived through it.
During that winter when Peking was suffering from a bad coal shortage the prison had only about six weeks’ heat during January and February. Those of us who would have liked to complain could hardly do so, however, since not even the prison officials had a fire. And, too, every one of us knew that as bad as conditions were in the prison they were still better than those of the vast majority of China’s peasantry.
However, it was not surprising that under these conditions I came down with a serious cough which set my whole body shaking for minutes at a time. Yet such was my rancor against my cell mates and the entire world that I refused to place myself in a position where I might suffer from some further indignity from Bao by asking to see the doctor. It was only after a couple of weeks that I swallowed my pride and asked him to report my condition. With the surliness of a petty monarch granting a favor to one of his slaves he complied, but by that time the damage was done and I was plagued by a cough the rest of my stay in prison.
I was not the only one to feel the demoralizing effect of Bao’s assumption of power in the cell. Liao, crushed by the thought of no longer being cell leader and worried that this demotion might indicate a serious turn in his case, could offer no resistance to the dictatorial Bao. Ma several times attempted to stand up to him, but whenever he did he displayed such a violent temper that Bao could easily manipulate the others against him.
In order to secure forces against Liao and Ma, Bao cultivated the big promoter, Jin, by making a play of bowing to his superior knowledge and helping Jin to obtain permission to buy food from the outside. To further offset any threat to his power, he kept the cell in a constant uproar by attacking the rest of us. As the easiest mark I found myself the center of Bao’s viciousness. I could do nothing that was right. My confused state of mind gave him ample opportunity to find fault with me, and the more I tried to avoid trouble the faster it seemed to arrive. In order to counter any accusation that I might be still trying to carry on espionage activities in prison, I gave up studying completely. During rest periods I walked up and down the cell in blind detachment, bumping into everything and stepping on everyone. Preoccupied as I was with hopeless self-pity, it never occurred to me I might be offending those very people who might have helped me.
My relationship with Bao reached a crisis one March night when I decided to take a sponge bath for the third time that week. I had just stripped to the waist and was bending over the small basin of water which served all seven of us when I heard Bao roar, “Ta-ma-di! Don’t you think there’s anyone else in this cell besides yourself who’d like to wash? Do you think you can monopolize all the water?” At the same moment he kicked the basin out from under my hand with such force that it flew across the room, striking the opposite wall and scattering water all over the floor.
This was the last straw. Shaking with rage, I clenched my fists, and would have beaten him to a pulp in spite of my fear of repercussions if Liao had not stepped between us. The other prisoners managed to calm us both down, but the next day when Bao was out of the cell I told them that if Bao did not change his ways I was going to go to the authorities about it. I would not stand for it any longer.
“The government knows all about Bao,” Liao replied. “He’ll be taken care of very soon. But in the meantime, is there anything wrong with you?”
His even, reasoning tone made me reflect for a minute. I finally nodded, “I guess there is.”
A few days later Ma was summoned for consultation with the supervisor. When he returned, Bao was called out. Something was obviously afoot and we sat eagerly waiting what Ma had to say.
“It’s about Bao,” he said, thrusting his long, wolfish face forward in a conspiratorial manner. “I talked with the assistant head himself. He wanted to know how things were going in the cell and when I told him it was a mess he said, ‘Well, why don’t you do something about it?’ Then he read me off for five minutes for not accepting responsibility when I knew things were going wrong. I tried to ex plain, but he just waved me down and said, ‘We know your good points as well as your bad ones. See what you can do to help Bao out and get yourself back into order again.’”
It crossed my mind that it was strange that Ma, who was still wearing ankle chains, should be called upon to try to straighten out the rottenness in the cell. He was notorious for his hot temper and was looked upon by everyone as one of the most obstinate reactionaries. He was only twenty-eight but he had been a lieutenant-colonel with the warlord Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi.
After liberation he had gone into business for a while, but that had been too much of a comedown from his rank as a lieutenant-colonel and affluence from black market racketeering in “the good old days.” Therefore, he had worked out a plan for organizing all his former Yen Hsis-han army connections into a large espionage setup. Slipping off to Taipei, Formosa, he conferred with some of the top Nationalist intelligence people there, and after receiving considerable money together with instructions to set up a central communications organization for contact with various Nationalist underground groups he returned to China.
Ma had been very clever, but, as so often was the case, everything he had done had been known to the government and, after making all his contacts, he was suddenly picked up. The audacity of the man came out then when he tried to make a deal with the government to let him go in exchange for a list of all his contacts. The answer had been the ankle chains he was still wearing. But that did not keep the authorities from realizing that by virtue of this very audacity he was the one man in the cell capable of coming to grips with Bao.
When Bao returned we asked him about his interview, but he refused to say more than that we must all think of ways to improve the conduct of our study. We all remained silent and, following Ma’s lead, decided to wait for some specific issue on which to tackle Bao’s problem.
A few days later Bao saw a fine linen handkerchief which belonged to “our capitalist,” Jin, and promptly suggested a trade for the old piece of black cloth he was using. Jin, with his characteristic obsequiousness, was all smiles in his agreement.
“Just a minute,” said Ma, in a strained voice, obviously determined to control his temper. “You know what the regulations are about using other people’s things.”
“I’m not using it,” said Bao. “We’re just making a trade.”
“What kind of trade is that? A dirty, old rag for a nice handkerchief?”
“What business is it of yours?” asked Bao, sarcastically.
“It’s all our business,” put in Liao. “We’re all here to reform and you had better not forget it.”
“What did the People’s Government tell you the other day?” asked Ma.
“Nothing.”
“You’re a liar. Weren’t you told to think about your conduct here in the cell?”
“Yes, but-”
“Have you been doing it? I think it’s about time you made a little self-criticism of your actions,” said Liao quietly.
Bao was obviously disturbed and his weasel eyes, searching vainly for some support, darted uneasily from one to another of the impassive faces surrounding him.
But still he tried to bluster. “Cell leaders don’t have to make self-criticisms except to the People’s Government.”
“Who told you that?” asked Ma. “Would you like us to call in the supervisor and find out?”
“Well,” Bao began to hedge, “I’m not afraid to make an accounting if I’ve done anything wrong.”
“Perhaps we can help you,” put in Jin, turning on Bao for the first time as he saw the way the wind was blowing.
Thus began Bao’s self-criticism. One by one the others brought out their accusations against him, but it was almost two weeks before he was willing to admit, even superficially, that he had tried to set himself up as a dictator in the cell. Even then it was clear he did not consider his actions wrong.
My victory came when my Chinese cell mates all reprimanded him for his violence in dealing with me and his sneering remarks about my nationality and foreign ways. They made it clear that my imperialist way of thinking and selfish, inconsiderate actions deserved criticism, but that in the new society all peoples were equal and their customs were to be respected. With this I started to feel less of an outcast, and the aching fear and confusion which had so gripped me during the preceding weeks slackened a little.
At the end of two weeks Bao was transferred to another cell, and after each of us had criticized himself for allowing Bao to develop into such a bully we all felt relieved of the tension under which we had been living and returned to study, this time under Liao as cell leader.
However, we had not heard the last of Bao. We learned from Liao that he had been transferred to a cell with some new prisoners, where he had assumed the role of a dictator again. Still smarting from his experience in our cell, he had tried to take out his resentment on the new men by striking a couple of them. One morning the cell leaders were called together and Bao was ordered to make an accounting of himself in front of them. When he refused to dig deep enough into the reason why he had not changed his ways, he was led away in handcuffs and allowed to think it over for several weeks.
Afterward he admitted that he had never taken seriously the self-criticism made in front of us because he had believed that as an ex-member of the People’s Police he was above us and in no real need of reform. Seeing that he had at least come to some realization of himself the authorities then removed the handcuffs, but he never again was given charge of a cell.
With Bao gone a new feeling for reform began to emerge in the cell, a feeling which was given a considerable boost when we were moved back across the compound to cell block B. It was learned that cell block A was to be torn down and rebuilt as part of a general clean-up of the physical aspects of the prison. This activity coincided with the health movement launched throughout China in the spring of 1952.
A few days after our move, when Liao returned from a trip to the supervisor’s office, he announced that we were to begin a health campaign, and from now on the cell was to be kept spotlessly clean. We were to be given time to whitewash the walls, and each Saturday was to be a day for general cleaning. Our quarters were to be inspected regularly, and those cells which did not come up to standard would be criticized. Liao’s announcement came as welcome news to us. Up to this time even in the cleanest of the cell blocks bedbugs, fleas, and lice were extremely common; and since there had been no regulations about keeping one’s clothes or body clean, some of the prisoners simply refused to wash at all. Dysentery and diarrhea were so common they were almost taken for granted, and in the winter colds and various rheumatic fevers ran rampant.
Why the authorities, who expressed such concern for our mental well-being, should have paid so little attention to our physical health has been asked by many people. Part of the answer no doubt lay in the notoriously bad sanitary conditions throughout China. For people used to the rigorous life of the countryside, as were most of the prison staff as well as many of the prisoners, disease and vermin were minor inconveniences, an inevitable part of the “chih ku” (eating misery) which made up the poor man’s life. They, both the staff and many prisoners, looked with contempt on ideas of sanitation as being an expression of the softness of the city bourgeoisie, and they could see no reason why what was good enough for them was not good enough for us imperialists and former ruling class Chinese, too. Back in the winter of 1951, when I had suggested to the other prisoners that we wash our clothes and clean up the cell, they had accused me of still wanting to practice my high and mighty imperialist ways. It took the educational force of a nation-wide movement fired by the fear of bacteriological warfare to bring home a realization of the need for sanitation.
After Liao relayed the instructions we discussed plans for house cleaning, and everyone joined in a spirit of competition. Our cell could certainly outdo the others. But suddenly Ma injected a dark note into our cheerful conversation.
“What about Li Ko?” he asked.
“What about him?” queried Liao.
“He stinks something awful. We’ll never be able to get that foreign smell out of the place.”
“Maybe we could have him wash a little more.” put in a new arrival, named Jiang.
“Ta-ma-di!” said Liao laughingly. “That’s all he thinks of now. I’m afraid there’s not much we can do about it. It’s because these foreigners all eat butter and drink milk.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t think it’s that. I’ve been eating the same food as you now for almost a year and I still smell. I’m afraid it’s just us.”
“Well,” said Liao, “I guess the People’s Government will have to give us a handicap on this.”
Everyone laughed and we went cheerfully on with our plans.
When we started whitewashing the walls, moving the kang, and doing other chores I found my size, which had always been such a source of discomfort in the crowded cell, was now a great asset, and I felt my depression further slipping away.
The changes wrought by the health movement were thorough. Under the onslaught of DDT and 666 there were times when I felt that I might be going the same way as the bedbugs. We were issued fly swatters, and woe betide any fly or mosquito that dared poke its head into the cell. As soon as one appeared some of us would grab the fly swatters and, with the others acting as ground observers, launch a devastating attack against the intruder. In no time at all we would be able to chalk up the destruction of another enemy, and its remains were carefully deposited in a small covered jar to be counted later in a competition with the other cells.
The rats were just as summarily dealt with. All sorts of ingenious traps were invented by the prisoners and the rat holes were carefully plastered over.
By the time we had finished the complex series of inoculations I began to feel that the prison doctors were going to make us healthy if it killed us, but the changes did not stop at just these prophylactic measures.
The food was greatly improved from the spring of 1952 on and the diet became better balanced. We began to take regular baths and later a system of regular exercise was instituted. The palisades around the windows were removed, making the cells light and well ventilated. Gradually all the old buildings were torn down or renovated so that, as new cells were built and the number of prisoners decreased, by 1955 those cells which had formerly contained eight or nine men held only three or four, and there were many with only two. Moreover, from 1952 on, we had heat from early November until the middle of March. As a result of these measures disease in the prison dropped over 85 per cent and at least in its physical aspect life became much more comfortable.
1 Footnotes
