Chapter 10
Return to Prisoners of Liberation: Four Years in a Chinese Communist Prison
Chapter 10
Dell: I went to jail on the night of September 20, 1952. The car drove into a large courtyard, and, after I had checked my money and wedding ring with a young woman supervisor, I was led to a cell block in the adjoining compound. We walked down a corridor with solid wooden doors on either side to one that stood open, about halfway down the line.
Though I did not know it until some years later, this was the same cell block A where Rick had spent the previous winter plagued by rats, lice, and cold under the tyrannical rule of the cell leader Bao.
The appearance of the cells had changed considerably since then, however. As the door clanged shut I found myself alone in a narrow, deep room, about four by eleven, over half of whose floor was covered by a wooden kang. The walls were cleanly whitewashed and the floor was smooth concrete. A large arched window took up most of the wall at the back of the kang, on which was spread a clean, white quilt. I made a mattress of my own heavy quilt, folded a sheet envelope-style, and then put a couple of blankets over that, for September nights in Peking are chilly. Without undressing, I lay down to sleep, but, as might be expected, it did not come right away.
My thoughts were a curious mixture of fear and security. Having spent fourteen months under the watchful eyes of guards in the house, and having gone through an intense interrogation, I felt rather secure in the knowledge that I could expect fair treatment. But this confidence gave way at moments to a fear of the unknown. After all, though the guards might be from the same People’s Army, how could I be certain that the discipline and routine in the prison would be on the same easygoing level I had known at home? There was one big difference already— I was now behind a locked door.
I drifted off to sleep and was awakened by the sound of a whistle. Although there was no one to tell me, I knew it was the signal to rise. I got up quickly, made my bed, and sat with my back against the wall. As I sat there I closed my eyes and thought about the night before.
Suddenly I heard a firm voice saying, “You are not allowed to sleep during the day unless you are ill or have permission from the supervisor. That is one of the regulations here.”
It was the guard speaking to me through the small opening at eye level in the door. Murmuring something about not doing it again, I thought, with a slight feeling of resentment, “This is definitely not going to be as easy as it was at home.”
At breakfast time the supervisor unlocked the door and told me to take my rice bowls out into the hall where the food was being served from big, steaming vats. I was curious as to what the prison fare would be, and it was to my surprise and delight that I was given a large bowlful of my favorite bean sprouts. I was told to take some wo-tou also. Though I had never eaten them on the outside I had always liked corn bread, and I went back to the cell feeling quite set up. If all the meals were as much to my taste as this one prison life would not be too bad after all. The wo-tou was too big for me to finish, and after eating about half I put the rest aside to nibble on during the day.
Later the guard noticed me eating and said worriedly, “If you can’t eat it all, don’t try to finish it. It might make you sick.”
I took this as a way of telling me eating between meals was forbidden. But what should I do with the left-over wo-tou? I finally decided to throw it into the covered toilet bucket which was in the corner, out of sight from the little window in the door.
The evening meal was eggplant soup and wo-tou. Again, I took a whole one but could not finish it. Sometime later the guard asked me how I had made out at mealtime and how much of the wo-tou I had eaten. When he learned that I had thrown the unfinished part away he gasped in astonishment and left hurriedly. A few moments later a man dressed in the blue uniform of a cadre threw open the door. As I later learned, it was Supervisor Shen.
“What did you do with the rest of the wo-tou?” he asked excitedly, in a rough, country accent I had difficulty understanding.
After I had told him, he explained more quietly that it was very bad to waste things. I gathered that if I could not eat a whole wo-tou I could break off what I wanted and put the rest back. He also talked in general about the prison regulations and the need for all prisoners to reform. Eventually he ended his monologue by saying, “You can have all the wo-tou you want, but you mustn’t waste any.”
I took Supervisor Shen at his word and before long I increased my capacity from half a wo-tou at each meal to a whole one, and by the second year I was eating at least one and a half, sometimes two. Though they are not as rich as our corn bread, I found the corn flavor sweetened by adding bean flour pleasant to taste. That and the millet which became the usual grain for the afternoon meal were both rich in nutriment. The old doctor asked me from time to time whether I would like to supplement this diet with extra food bought on the outside, but I refused. My continued good health on this wo-tou millet, and vegetable diet soon eliminated from my mind the myth that a foreigner could not live on Chinese food.
Since I had understood little of Supervisor Shen’s explanation of prison routine, I began to listen to the sounds around me in order to learn the ropes. When I realized that most prisoners were in group cells my reaction was mixed. I was uneasy in the thought that the government must have a special reason for confining just a handful of us to solitary cells. At the same time, I felt quite satisfied at being left alone rather than having to make an adjustment to life with other women in a group cell.
It seemed merely a continuation of my situation at home, only more restricted. I had not brought my books and the first few weeks I had nothing to read. I made the time pass, however, by dividing the day into periods. Thinking that I might have been placed in the solitary cell because there were still points in my case that needed clarification, I spent the mornings going over our past activities to see if there were anything I had forgotten. In the afternoon I made up stories, sometimes fanciful, sometimes serious. After dinner I played mental alphabet or number games, and in the evening thought about Rick, home, and my family. I derived much enjoyment also from hearing the other prisoners sing, and learned a couple of songs that way.
About a month passed in this manner and then one day a supervisor came to my cell and asked, “Can you read Chinese?”
When I answered “Yes,” he went on, “Here’s the newspaper.”
It was the Peking Daily and I read every word of it. From that time on I had a paper every day. I was not too interested in the content, but I looked on it as a way of passing time and of improving my Chinese. I read many articles aloud and every afternoon memorized passages and translated others into English in my mind.
Finally, in December, 1952, I asked the supervisor if there were any way of getting a few things from home. He said that they could send someone to pick up what I wanted if I would write out a slip listing the items. I made a long list and asked for a few extra pieces of clothing, my dictionaries, some Chinese books, pencils, note paper, and my thermos bottle. About ten days later they all arrived. Now I had everything I needed to keep me busy. I worked out a strict study schedule, allotting a certain number of hours each to the newspaper, books, note-taking, memorizing, and recreation. I estimated my sentence might run for another two years and was content in the thought that I could utilize this time to improve my Chinese. I worked hard as I thought how I was building up experience for an academic position at home.
To me those months in the single cell were not specially distressing. I was not given to feel that I had been put there as a special punishment and I found in myself a store of inner resources that enabled me to pass the time almost pleasantly. In fact, I somewhat resented the periodic visits of the woman supervisor, Fang. Each time she came into the cell she would stand embarrassedly for a moment, as if not quite sure how to talk with this foreigner. My answering silence reflected my mood: “I was getting along fine by myself. You don’t need to come bothering me.”
She would eventually ask me if I had any problems and, on receiving a negative reply, exhort me to study hard. During those months I always took pride in the fact that I had no problems to report, and kept hoping that Supervisor Fang would thus either become discouraged in trying to talk with me or become convinced that I was a model prisoner, in need of no extra attention.
Gradually I came to understand that there were certain times for doing things. Buying for all the prisoners was done about once every five weeks, so I kept a good supply of the three essentials— soap, toilet paper, and toothpaste.
The barber came once a month. I had started to let my hair grow when Rick was arrested and, as it grew longer, I conceived the romantic idea that I would not cut it again until we were reunited. By the fall of 1952 I could put it in braids on top of my head, but to wash it with cake soap was almost impossible. The soap, instead of washing the dirt out, simply glued it in. Every time I returned from the bath and sat trying to inch the comb through its tangled mess I sighed with vexation to hear one after another the teeth from the comb dropping to the floor. By November my comb had been reduced to a stub and I decided that cleanliness must take precedence over romantic vows. When the barber came I had him cut it off ear length. Perhaps it was not so romantic that way, but it certainly felt better.
The most disturbing factor in those first months was the din of excited, angry voices that surged up frequently around me from the group cells. I could not tell what they were shouting about but the noise was deafening and I sometimes held my head, wishing it would stop. With no idea of what was going on, I could only feel frightened by it. A glimmer of understanding came to me one day when I heard one of the prisoners say:
“We’re only trying to help you. Can’t you see it’s for your own good?”
“They call that ‘helping’ someone!” I thought. “Thank goodness I’m in a solitary cell. I’d die if I were to be ‘helped’ that way.”
The very fact that I was behind a locked door put me on the defensive. Even more than at home I avoided any situations which might give my wardens a chance to refuse a request. This attitude more than once worked to my disadvantage.
In early January, 1953, as I was cleaning the cell one day, I tore the cuticle on my right index finger. At first I paid no attention to it, but before long I realized that it had become infected. After a few days the finger had swelled up like an overgrown scallion and was extremely painful. I knew there were doctors because I had heard them visiting the other cells, but I kept hoping I could get along on my own. By the end of the week, it was obvious I was going to have to give in, so that day I asked the supervisor if I could see the doctor.
He gave a cluck of sympathy at the sight of my finger and said, “Sure, you can see a doctor.”
In the afternoon the door opened and a rather gaunt, stoop shouldered, grand fatherish-looking man in blue cadre uniform appeared to ask what my trouble was. When I showed him my finger, he peered over his spectacles with obvious concern and asked gruffly why I had not reported it earlier. I murmured something about not thinking it very important.
He shook his head. “Sickness is always important. Come along.”
For the next two weeks I had a dressing every other day. The pain lessened almost immediately, but the bandage was awkward and it seemed always in the way when I washed or tried to clean the cell. This difficulty was suddenly resolved, however, on the afternoon of February 4, 1953, when one of the supervisors came in and told me to get ready to move to another cell.
Just why I had been kept in cell No. 7 for four and a half months was never explained to me, but my feelings on being told to move were a mixture of dismay and curiosity. I had thought many times how much better off I was in a cell by myself rather than being in with a group of women who would no doubt shout and harangue as the men did in the cells around me. On the other hand, I had seen only two women prisoners for a very short time in my cell block and I was curious as to just what sort of woman ended up in prison.
I carried my thermos bottle and one small bundle while a prison worker shouldered my big bundle of bedding and clothing and trailed along behind the supervisor and me as we walked out of compound A, across the drill field, and into what was called the East Compound. One-storied red brick buildings hemmed in a large, rectangular courtyard on four sides. A brilliant red-tiled roof sloped out over a verandah which ran along three sides of the buildings, facing the courtyard. Solid wooden doors and large barred windows of the cells opened directly onto this verandah. The side on which we entered was devoted to offices, with a large gateway in the middle.
I was told to wait near the gate and in a few minutes a short, stocky woman wearing glasses came up to help me carry my things to the cell. After the quiet of my former isolated state the room we entered seemed crowded, noisy, and utterly confusing. As I sat on the edge of the kang several women swarmed around to ask my name, how long I had been here, how I happened to have such a load of stuff, etc. Then one of them noticed my bandaged finger.
“What happened?” she asked sympathetically.
I explained about the infection, and then another one asked, “How do you wash?”
“That’s been my trouble. I keep getting it wet.”
“Well, we can help you until it gets better,” said a third person.
I was struck by the interest and warmth displayed by all of them. True to their words, they washed my hair for me and did my laundry along with theirs for a couple of weeks, until the finger began to heal and I could take the bandage off.
After the first flurry of questions was over I looked around. I was in a long, deep room about nine by fifteen feet, with a kang running the length of one wall. Besides the window which faced on the verandah there was another fairly large one in the back wall. A basin of water was steaming on a small, flat-surfaced stove in the middle of the narrow aisle formed by the outer edge of the kang and the opposite wall. One of the women was washing her feet in a basin before the fire.
I turned to get a better view of the kang itself and was startled to see a foreigner sitting with her back against the neat pile of clothing and bedding. She sat aloof, a half-smile playing on her lips. With her hair curled and a little make-up she would have been stunning, but now she looked drab and wan, her bobbed, straight hair pinned back behind her ears, her figure clad in faded blue cotton padded jacket and trousers.
One of the others followed the direction of my glance and said, “Do you know her? She’s a White Russian, named Sonya.”
I shook my head. Sonya’s half-smile widened a moment into a three-quarter one, but still she said nothing.
The girl who had given me the explanation then asked laughingly, “And what nationality do you think I am?”
I gazed at her a moment. She looked about twenty-five, but I later learned when we compared ages that she was over thirty. In the proper clothes and with a little grooming she would be exquisite, but I felt there was something just a bit different in her looks from the Chinese women around us.
“I’m Japanese.” she laughed. “And my name’s Makimoto.”
“She speaks Chinese as well as we do, doesn’t she?” spoke up the woman who helped me carry in my things. “She’s our cell leader. You’re surprised, aren’t you? But it doesn’t make any difference what your nationality is here. It’s your attitude that counts.”
She went on, “You probably won’t remember everyone’s name at once but anyway mine’s An Mei-ling, that’s Wang Hsiao-yun and that’s Liu I-nan washing her feet over there.”
An Mei-ling was quite right. Chinese names had always been difficult for me to remember and now, faced with a whole string at once, I was lost. As the whistle blew to start evening class I was bewildered and apprehensive, and thought longingly of the little cell I had just left.
We sat around a small, short-legged table on the kang and some brought out notebooks and pencils. Makimoto, now very serious, explained to me that they were in the midst of a general self-criticism in which each woman reviewed her thoughts of the past few months.
“Let me give you a word of advice,” she said, her dark eyes sparkling with eagerness under the delicately shaped brows. “Don’t evade telling the truth. A lot of people try to make out that they have changed their old, selfish viewpoint and now want to ‘work for the people.’ They may fool their cell mates and even the People’s Government for a time, but they can’t keep it up very long. Living as we do in such close quarters, there isn’t much that escapes the attention of one or the other of us. You might be able to pretend a changed outlook for a day, a week, even a month. But what you really think is bound to show up in your actions. As long as you are honest, you will be answered with patience and understanding. But a liar and a faker are not dealt with politely.”
She paused to take a sip of water from her enamel cup. “You have just come to a group cell and don’t know very much about the actual process of making a self-criticism, so we will let you wait until the end. The first step is to go back over your former way of thinking. It’s not pleasant, I admit, to bare some of your innermost thoughts in front of other people, especially since few are things we can be proud of, but I think you will find that problems which have seemed of great magnitude will become ridiculously simple when spoken out. We have certainly found it to be so.
“When you have revealed everything, the next step is to analyze your thoughts— where did they come from, why should you think the way you do, and what are your motives. Sometimes this is difficult because you may not be aware of some of the external forces in your background which were instrumental in shaping your thought patterns. But we may be able to help you on that.
“The third step is then to pi-pan [criticize], that is, estimate whether these thoughts are right or wrong when measured against the common good. We must look at our thoughts and actions through the eyes of others. The most difficult thing of all is to pi-pan because most of us, having thought about nothing but our own interests and desires all our lives, find it almost impossible to criticize our own actions and thoughts in terms of what is best for everybody. This is the substance of a self-criticism. Last, of course, is to put our new-found set of ideals into positive action; in other words, to live out the moral concept of thinking of one’s fellow man. That is our reform.”
I listened carefully to everything Makimoto said, but I understood only part. I felt vaguely that she was giving me some sort of formula to follow in order to get through this “course.” If I could learn the steps she had outlined and perform each one successfully, I could graduate. Otherwise . . . But how did one get a 95 or 100 per cent in such a course? I decided my best bet was to study the techniques of the others, learn from their mistakes and, when it came my turn, try to keep from making a mistake myself.
The Japanese cell leader then asked, “Do you have any questions?”
I shook my head glumly. I did not know enough of what it was all about to have any questions. It turned out that three of them had already finished their self-criticisms, leaving only Liu I-nan and Sonya. If I had thought to learn anything from listening to Liu I-nan, I was sadly mistaken. This was a woman of forty or so who had had little or no schooling and had been buffeted around by life. Sold into concubinage at the age of eighteen, she had drifted from one man to another, spent some time in a high-class house of prostitution, and picked up the heroin habit along the way.
The others told me one day that when she came to prison she sat shaking on the edge of the kang for almost a day, desperately in need of the “white powder.” Since then, she had overcome her need for the narcotic, but her face would at times become bloated and her eyes dull. As a young girl she must have been beautiful—small aquiline nose, glossy blue-black hair, full lips, and a warm, almost pleading smile. I think it was through her fourth husband that she had become connected with a Nationalist agent, helped him obtain funds to escape to Formosa, and then covered for him.
It came out in her self-criticism that she thought she would probably be released any day now because she had “sat in prison” for a full two years and, in view of the lightness of her crime, two years was enough of a sentence.
“But, Liu I-nan,” said Makimoto, in an exasperated tone of voice, “we’re not here just to sit out a prison sentence. We’re here to reform. Can you pi-pan your thoughts?”
The glazed look which I was to find was Liu I-nan’s usual answer to any mention of analyzing or criticizing her thoughts exasperated Makimoto even more.
“Well, I tell you what,” the vivacious Japanese said, finally. “We’ll pass you over for the time being and give you a chance to think about it. It’s about time, though, you began to realize you can’t just muddle your way through. When you first came you could plead ignorance of the process of reform, but after two years-think of it—the number of self-criticisms you’ve been through and you still can’t pi-pan! How can you ever go back out into society if you can’t tell right from wrong? If you’re that confused, how do you know you won’t be made a sucker of by another agent? You’ve traded on the fact that you’re a woman without education and were never supposed to think for yourself before. Well, that age has passed in China forever. Chinese women have an equal position with men now and you’ve got to learn to take responsibility, the same as men. You’ve got to wake up!”
She uttered the last words loudly and firmly, emphasizing each syllable, and then stared hard at Liu I-nan for a few moments, but the older woman just looked at her blankly, her mouth slightly agape.
Sonya was about to start her self-criticism when the whistle blew for bed and we all scrambled up. About all I had gained from the evening session was the idea that somehow pi-pan was an important thing. If I could just learn to pi-pan . . . But again, the big question mark danced before my eyes— how?
The next morning, we sat around the little table on the kang for a continuation of the self-criticism meeting. Sonya launched into a description of her changed thoughts. She said that she had come to a realization that China and the Soviet Union were really the peace camp; that in this camp people were truly working for the common good, and she wanted to become a part of this. She had been reading a lot of magazines, Russian, Chinese, and English, in the last six months, which had profoundly influenced her in coming around to this view and she was extremely grateful to the People’s Government for giving her this opportunity. She now hoped that when she was released she could go out and “serve the people.”
I was quite impressed by her little speech and thought she had made a very good showing. I was totally unprepared, therefore, when Makimoto, her lips trembling with anger and fire sparkling in her eyes, shouted, “Do you call that revealing your thoughts?”
As if they had all been waiting for the cell leader’s reaction the others suddenly came to life and began shouting about how dishonest Sonya was. I stared at her in sympathy as she sat there, apparently unruffled by the pandemonium around her. For the rest of the day they alternately shouted, pounded the table, argued earnestly, or lectured, telling her to come clean with her real thoughts. She was not moved by any of this, and the session closed for dinner with a warning by Makimoto that she had better think things over during the rest period because her self-criticism meeting was far from over.
While the rest of us were eating I noticed that Sonya was writing on a little slip of paper. This, of course, did not escape the eyes of the others, but nothing was said. As we filed out for latrine call Sonya handed the slip to the supervisor and told him a problem had arisen in the cell.
When we had all returned, Makimoto spoke the thought which lay in all our minds. “You reported our afternoon session to the supervisor, didn’t you?”
When Sonya made no reply, she went on, “You think you were unjustly treated, don’t you? Well, you have the right to report anything you feel needs reporting, but let me tell you this. Instead of criticizing the cell for being too harsh, you’d better start thinking about your own self. After all, you know, you’re only cheating yourself. It’s no skin off our bones. We’ll go ahead and reform and you can just stay right on here in jail. But don’t you think you’re fooling us or the government. We can see right through you.”
As I have said, my sympathies were all for Sonya. I thought the others were persecuting her because she was a foreigner. I was amazed that she had the nerve to report to the supervisor and wondered what the government’s reaction would be.
Shortly after the whistle blew for the evening class the door opened and a tall, angular-faced supervisor, named Deng, stepped in. He paced up and down the cell for a few minutes without speaking and then sat on the edge of the kang near the door. First Makimoto and then Sonya told her version of the day’s happenings.
After hearing them both through, he spoke in a restrained voice, so quiet I could barely distinguish his words.
“Sonya,” he said, “you feel your cell mates treated you unfairly today— but were you fair with them? Did you honestly reveal what you have been thinking? Look at your record. All your life you’ve served anyone who could provide you with the luxuries you craved. The Japanese, the Nationalists, the Americans— it didn’t matter. You know only one thing— money— and you’d sell your soul to get it. And yet now you talk about a selfless life of service. How did all this happen, Sonya? Just by reading a few magazines?
“You see, your cell mates are not so dumb. If you had really changed your way of thinking, it would begin to show in your actions right now. But has there been any change in your attitude here in the cell? Think about it, Sonya. You’ve been here a year and a half now; you know as well as anyone else that if you tell the truth no one will treat you harshly. But if you persist in lying—you know the answer to that, too. And I tell you right now, you’re just one step from handcuffs. Straighten out, Sonya. Don’t be foolish.” Then, rising abruptly, he left as quietly as he had come.
I sat blushing with shame for Sonya, but when I stole a look at her face she showed little sign of emotion except for a slight tightness about her lips. Makimoto picked up where Supervisor Deng had left off and lectured for what seemed hours on the need to bare one’s innermost thought as a preliminary step to changing one’s outlook. The others then took up the theme in turn, but there was no more shouting that night.
Later, as I tried to sleep, one thought stood out clearly in my mind: In order to keep out of trouble, telling the truth was imperative. Yet, if one told one’s true thoughts, would they not be held against one? I remembered my impressions when I had been in the single cell listening to the shouting going on around me. But if one didn’t tell the truth handcuffs and leg irons might follow. I had been disdainful of the handcuffs while under house arrest, but here in the group cell I felt that chains would be a disgrace too miserable to bear.
In the house I had felt the aggrieved martyr and had bolstered my morale by thinking of the sympathy I would rate when I arrived in Hong Kong. But here, I could tell from the way in which the others talked about the few who did wear handcuffs, I could expect no sympathy. Only the most recalcitrant, obstinate, unprincipled liars wore them— and no one wants to be looked on as that sort of person. But even more discomforting than the thought of appearing before my cell mates in chains was the thought of having Rick see me in them. That would be more than I could stand.
I determined that night to tell my true thoughts in so far as I felt they would not bring too much recrimination upon me. If I could learn to pi-pan, of course, that would be even better, but after just two days in the group cell I had come to feel rather discouraged on that score. The mysteries of a pi-pan were as deep to me as they had been at the beginning.
The next day we all waited to hear what Sonya had to say. She made no reference to her remarks of the previous day but told simply and in straightforward fashion the thoughts which had really been in her mind the past six months. She said that after her case had been reviewed in July, 1952, she had expected to be released almost any day and so had sat through the fall in anticipation of the order telling her to go. She had paid attention to study only enough to keep the others from jumping on her and had made a show of reading the magazines provided her.
Ever since liberation she had planned to go to the United States, where she felt she could obtain the luxuries which were to her a necessity. Later she had felt that applying for an exit permit to go to the United States might raise some questions in the police department, since it was known that she had been a major in the Nationalist intelligence service and had been associated with Americans. Therefore, she had applied for one to Australia.
She still wanted to go to one of those countries rather than stay in China or go to the Soviet Union. “If I were to return to the Soviet Union,” she said, with a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders, “I’d have to work for a living, and I don’t like to work. If I can’t go to the United States or Australia, then I’d rather go back to my father’s house in Harbin and live with my family.”
I listened spellbound as she unfolded a train of thought completely different from the one we had heard yesterday. What would happen to her now?
But when she had finished, Makimoto merely nodded her head and said, “That sounds more like it. But you ought to start thinking, Sonya, about whether such a point of view is right or wrong. It doesn’t do any good to mouth a lot of phrases like ‘serving the people.’ We all know you don’t care a hang about the people. You care only about yourself. But you ought to wake up to the fact that life as your family enjoyed it in old China is gone forever. You look on the United States as a land of milk and honey where you can live off others. They work in the United States, too, you know, and if you go on depending on other people you’re going to find some day that there won’t be any other people willing to support you. You’ve got a lot of talent and education. If you don’t like the idea of being confined to an office, there are a lot of other jobs you can do.”
Sonya herself then made an analysis of her thoughts. She traced her luxury-loving habits to a childhood spent in a wealthy environment where doting parents, nursemaids, and servants had all sought to please her every wish. She had lived well all her life and even on first coming to prison had tried to demand special consideration for her pampered tastes. At the first meal she had asked the authorities to provide her with a bottle of wine, since, as she said, she was accustomed to having wine with her meals.
She ended by saying, “I realize that my environment was in large measure responsible for my becoming involved in criminal activities. Now I must find a way to get rid of this selfish outlook— but so far I don’t know how to go about it.”
Makimoto looked stern in an effort to hide her inability to provide a solution. “That is something you will have to work out yourself,” she said finally. “We can help you analyze your thoughts, but the change will be up to you. The important thing is to be honest with us and yourself.”
This seemed to be all that she and the others expected of Sonya and they then turned to me. I went very simply into my thoughts on being in the single cell, my fears about being “helped,” superficial things which I felt would show a desire to tell the truth but which would not probe too deeply. They did not press me further and I came through my first experience with self-criticism rather proud of myself. I felt I had made a good impression. If I could just avoid making a slip that might show some of my deeper thoughts I could probably have an easy time of it.
But it is difficult to keep from telling one’s thoughts when thought-revealing is a process related to everything one reads and does. I soon found that when we read the newspaper or sat around discussing international problems I would either have to reveal my thoughts or keep quiet. I certainly could not bluff my way through. I tried keeping quiet for a while, but one evening Makimoto said,
“You don’t speak up much, Li Yu-an. You ought to join more in the discussion.”
I made the excuse, “Well, my Chinese is so bad I can’t think out the words fast enough and someone else always starts talking first.”
“Nonsense!” said Wang Hsiao-vim, her beady little eyes staring at me sharply. She and An Mei-ling had both been commended for making thorough self-criticisms and there was a strong rivalry between the two to display their newly found “progressiveness.” Wang Hsiao-yun had come from a well-to-do family, had gone to college, and had ended up in prison because she had shielded her husband, a Nationalist agent. She was selfish, spoiled, and petulant, and gave orders to the rest of us as if she were running a houseful of servants.
She spoke rapidly with a slight lisp. “You didn’t have any trouble talking the other day when we were chatting about foreign films. You had more to say than the rest of us put together.”
“Well,” I went on lamely, “I just don’t know how to speak very well. I’ve always been quiet—all through high school and college.”
This elicited a whoop from the others. “You don’t know how to speak?” queried An Mei-ling, peering at me nearsightedly through her glasses. She had a thick, country accent which was sometimes difficult to understand. “Huh, I bet you didn’t have to learn how to speak when you gave all that information to the American Consulate.”
“Excuses like that won’t go, Li Yu-an,” said Makimoto sternly. “You’ve got thoughts and you’ve got a tongue. You’ll never make any progress if you don’t speak out.”
“But it is true that I never spoke out in class when I was in college,” I thought stubbornly. “They just don’t understand and they’re not being fair.” But a little voice inside me said, “That may be so, but is shyness your real reason for not talking now, or is it because you have something to cover up? If you were discussing these same questions with Rick would you be so reserved?”
I had to admit to myself that I had been worsted in that exchange, but then I reasoned, “Why should I be worrying about making any progress, anyway? What I’m concerned about is simply avoiding trouble until I get released.”
The spring of 1953 went on in self-criticism, study periods, and further self-criticism. I was sometimes shouted at and sometimes I shouted at others, but the main point to which they kept returning was that I did not recognize the seriousness of my crime. I quite agreed with this but, preoccupied as I was with making an impression, I could not penetrate deeply into the rightness or wrongness of my past actions. During those four months in that group cell, I learned a lot about how to pi-pan from a theoretical standpoint, but I related none of this to my own thoughts and attitudes. I was learning techniques of thought revealing and analysis which were interesting as a process but I remained detached from it all.