Chapter 11
Return to Prisoners of Liberation: Four Years in a Chinese Communist Prison
Chapter 11
Rick: During the clean-up campaign that spring of 1952 we spent almost all of two weeks whitewashing, scouring, sweeping, taking apart our quilts and padded clothing to be washed, and so on, but after this we returned to the routine of study and self-criticism.
The study in our cell was greatly improved through the addition of the new man, Jiang. He had been connected with the revolution for many years and had held a high position in the Peking police until he had made the mistake of smuggling material from Hong Kong for his unit. He was approaching forty, a rather tall, gangly person with the air of one who makes haste slowly. This was extended even to his manner of speaking, which was the nearest approach to a drawl that one can achieve in the clipped, concise language of the Chinese.
Jiang, of course, had studied a great deal of Marxist philosophy and as a result the subject matter of our conversation changed. For several of the prisoners who had never known before that there was such a thing as theory a new world opened up. We spent days arguing about everything from the meaning of truth and reality and dialectics to concepts of class struggle and revolution.
The discussions were often crude and superficial but, unlike those of the previous winter, never lacked interest. In general, the men tended to adapt their conclusions to the standard Communist line. Partly this was so because of the old inclination to please the authorities, but at the same time there was an increasing feeling on the part of most, that Communist theories must be correct; after all, the Communist-led revolution had succeeded. Moreover, as long as the discussions remained on a theoretical level, where the personal self-interests of the men were seldom involved, the acceptance of socialist ideals and the doctrine of the common good was relatively easy.
Armed with their newly discovered theories and taking the course of the Chinese revolution as a universal example, they maintained vehemently in arguments with me that the United States must also someday go through a socialist revolution. Furthermore, since this change would undoubtedly be violently resisted by the present American rulers, whom they always referred to as Wall Street, the American people would be compelled to use force just as the Chinese had, in order to establish their new society.
I was willing to agree that when a society advanced to a certain stage public ownership of the means of production became necessary, and some form of socialism in the United States was inevitable. But I refused to admit that we would have to go through a period of bloody upheaval similar to that which the Chinese had experienced. After all, I argued, unlike China, we had a democratic tradition which provided a means for peaceful progress.
One day the discussion became heated. Ma especially, with his innate love for violence, insisted that my views were only the expression of reactionary bourgeois, sentiments.
Finally, lips trembling with rage, I exploded. “We Americans are not going to have our country turned into a slaughter house like China was. We don’t need socialism that much.”
Ma’s eyes burned dangerously dark as he leaned forward to thrust his face close to mine, but before he could carry his attack further Jiang cut in, “Ma, I think you had better lay off Li Ko. You’re forgetting that he is an American. He had no right to interfere in China’s affairs and for that reason is in prison. But we Chinese also have no right to tell him how his country should be run.”
As Jiang’s soft, even tone had its calming effect on both Ma and myself he continued, “You’re forgetting also that Marxism is not a dogma. We Chinese had to adapt its basic principles to fit our specific conditions and the Americans will have to do the same. I don’t know anything about the United States, but it is quite possible Li Ko is right.”
At this point Liao, who had originally supported Ma, said, “We are all forgetting something and that is, we are not here to settle the abstract problems of revolutionary theory. We are here to reform our own moral outlooks. The People’s Government is not interested in making Li Ko into a Communist. With his self-centered outlook on life, that would be impossible to begin with. It does insist, however, that he realize that what he has done to our country has been wrong.”
I listened to Liao; my mind crowded with doubts. Ever since the devastating experience of my first self-criticism under Bao, and the realization that my hopes of faking “reform” during the first six months had met with dismal failure, I had been tormented by one question in particular. What did the authorities really want of me before they would permit my release? Did they expect me to become a Communist and serve China and the Soviet Union against my own country? To me the one was synonymous with the other.
Several times that spring I had awakened from nightmares in a cold sweat. Each time the dream was the same. I was stretched out on a wooden platform surrounded by Roger, Kathy, and all my old friends, who pointed accusing fingers at me and shouted over and over again, “Traitor! Traitor!” Often I lay awake wondering what to do. I berated myself as a coward for not being able to stand up in open defiance, but the fear of being put in handcuffs and ankle chains and the realization that such open resistance was, after all, pointless always led me to compromise with myself. Each time I returned to the hope that, if I concealed my fears and played the game on their terms, eventually something would happen to deliver me from my quandary.
Liao’s assertion seemed to render these fears groundless, but could I believe him? In the months following I often considered seeking affirmation of his words from the authorities, but here again the apprehension that they would only confirm my original fears or give me no answer at all held me back.
Some of the other arguments we had in the cell during that summer and fall of 1952 were no less intense, especially since I found myself, at the very mention of the United States, trying to defend things which I knew were indefensible. It was quite all right if I were to talk about the terrible treatment accorded Negroes in the United States, but if one of my cell mates were even so much as to mention the matter I was ready to do battle. I would assert that the oppression of the Negro was only in the south, and for most Negroes material conditions of life were better than those of the Chinese, etc. Gangsterism, political corruption, sharecropping, and the suppression of civil liberties were all dealt with in the same manner.
I was roused to furry one day when someone said all the workers in America lived in slums. My immediate retort was, “My father is a railroad worker and he doesn’t live in any slum. In fact, our workers all have a much better standard of living than you Chinese. Just try to find a Chinese railroad worker with a refrigerator, radio, washing machine, and car.”
And when the promoter, Jin, tried to insist that in my case my father must be a labor racketeer such as China used to have, the national insult became a personal one. It took Jiang and Liao some time to straighten that argument out. They conceded that not all workers in the United States lived in slums but pointed out that since the United States, with its 160 million population, was capable of producing over 100 million tons of steel per year while China, with 600 million people, could produce only about two million tons, there was no excuse for any person in the United States to live in slums and not enjoy many times the material comforts of the Chinese.
The most difficult question centered around the Korean war, which was still raging in spite of the protracted peace talks. I tried to be as careful as I could to avoid arguments on this explosive issue, but it was impossible to keep from revealing my point of view. For instance, there was the day that Liao, on seeing the newspaper headline, “200 Enemy Planes Shot Down, 300 Damaged,” exclaimed, “Just look at that, we’ve wiped out five hundred American planes.”
Hard though I tried to hold them back, the words slipped out, “Two hundred. The other three hundred got away.”
As long as I held this concept of our side as Americans against their side as Chinese my reactions toward all the issues coming out of the war remained hostile. But as the year 1952 rolled on into winter my outlook toward war in general began to change.
One morning, after the daily paper had arrived and the general news had been read, Liao read to us one of the stories. It concerned the pilot of an American fighter plane which had been shot down after dropping napalm bombs on a North Korean village. The pilot had managed to parachute from the plane and had landed on a hill near the Chinese positions. Troops started off to capture him, when there appeared over the hill an American helicopter, sent to rescue the stranded American. Just as the Chinese were closing in he began to climb the ladder let down from the hovering plane.
As we all sat there intently living through the story, I felt sick inside. I knew what was going to happen. I wanted to shout out to warn the pilot but there was nothing I could do and, of course, the inevitable occurred. The American had almost reached the top of the ladder and the helicopter was beginning to move away when the Chinese opened fire, bringing down the rescuer and the rescued.
Looking at the rapt expressions on the faces of my cell mates, I suddenly realized how different our way of looking at those dying Americans was. To them they were an amorphous enemy with no faces, something merely to be destroyed. But to me they were people, kids too young to die, possibly from New York or Chicago or even my hometown, Seattle. And then it came to me that in the United States right at that minute there must be millions of people reading a very similar story, the only difference being that in their stories those who were dying were amorphous, faceless Chinese.
I then remembered the violent arguments I had had with George Lee in the spring of 1951. My hatred against the Chinese at that time had been such that I could think of wiping out millions of innocent peasants, women and children, without the slightest qualms. Knowing the terrible devastation and loss of life caused by Chiang Kai-shek’s blowing gaps in the dike to let loose the raging waters of the Yellow River in 1938 in a futile attempt to impede the Japanese advance, I myself had advocated using atomic bombs to do the same thing again, even outdoing the Nazis in cold, calculated destruction of human life. In my hate I had forgotten that those who would die were people. To my mind they had been merely faceless creatures. But now I thought, “The dead all have faces.”
My expression must have revealed some of my thoughts, for Liao suddenly spoke up, “Li Ko, what’s the matter?”
“I hate war,” I burst out.
There was a silence, and then Jiang, slowly shifting his lanky frame, said quietly, “Most people hate war—that is, except those who can get rich out of it. But what would you have us do? Let that pilot escape so he could bring back some more napalm bombs to drop on a defenseless village? Of course, since he’s an American you feel badly about that pilot, but try looking at it from the point of view of those Korean peasants.”
I shook my head and sighed inwardly. Once the cycle of killing had started, with retaliation upon retaliation, where would it end? One tiling was clear in my mind then: This war must stop and never again could we allow another.
***
One evening a few weeks later, as we reluctantly broke away from our chess games and gathered on the kang for class, we heard the loud-speaker in the corridor being tested in preparation for a broadcast.
In a moment the voice of the warden resounded throughout the prison. His staccato accent rendered much of what he had to say unintelligible, and I had to rely on my cell mates for interpretation.
As usual, he began with a compliment. Most of the prisoners had been showing considerable interest in study and pride in the development of their country. Many had even reached a point where they could hear the word “socialism” without wincing. They readily agreed in principle, at least, that the socialist concept of living for the common good was right and that exploitation and oppression were wrong. But—
“For most of you,” he continued, “this remains merely a matter of theory and you have failed to relate these ideas to yourself. Truth is never abstract. It is not enough simply to agree that men in their relation to society must be guided by what is best for the vast majority of the people. Real reform starts when you begin to carry these principles out in your daily living. Unfortunately, few of you are capable of doing that. This is because you are still unclear as to what is right and what is wrong in your own conduct. Therefore, it would be a good idea if all of you were to begin examining your actions, past and present, in the light of these principles. It is only then that you will be able to know how to transfer your high-sounding words into deeds.”
When the warden’s speech ended we all leaned forward eagerly and vied in proclaiming our enthusiastic acceptance of the points he had made. But as we began our discussion the problem of how one was to carry out these principles in the confining atmosphere of the prison presented itself.
“After all,” said a new arrival named Han, his round, boyish, cherublike face wrinkled in perplexity, “we haven’t much chance to act like a landlord or a capitalist here.”
“Well, there’s more to thinking of others than just determining not to be an exploiter or oppressor. Look at all the selfish bickering and backbiting that go on in this cell. I think if we consider the matter carefully we can find a lot of things that need correcting. I have an idea. Why don’t we follow the example of the workers on the outside and each draw up a list of resolutions for improving our conduct, just the way they do for increasing production? That would be a start in translating our words into deeds.”
Liao had hardly finished his suggestion when Ma, oblivious to the noise of his ankle chains on the wooden kang, scrambled over to tear a piece of clean, white paper out of my notebook. There was confusion for a few moments while everyone went about searching for pen and paper. Gradually a silence descended. I gazed blankly at my sheet of paper and wondered what I should write. Casting a furtive glance to see what the others were doing, I found that they were showing no more signs of inspiration than I.
Finally, Jiang broke the stillness. “Perhaps we had first better discuss what we are going to resolve. Then we can worry about writing it down.”
The rest of the evening and all the following day were spent in discussion of each man’s resolutions and it was not until the second day that we all began, in our best calligraphy, to write our lists. When they were finished we neatly pasted them with moistened soap on the whitewashed wall. After considerable discussion it was agreed that Liao’s calligraphy was the best, but the content of each one was about the same. As near as I can remember, Liao’s resolutions read something as follows:
I, Liao Cheng-i, mindful of the many crimes I have committed and the lenient treatment I have received from the People’s Government, in order to reform my evil character so that I may take my place in the new society and serve my country, do hereby resolve:
- To root out all reactionary exploiter and oppressor thinking.
- To reconsider constantly my crimes in order to report to the People’s Government any new material I may have forgotten.
- To refrain from all backbiting and vengeful attacks on others.
- To use every effort to help others reform.
- To listen humbly and open-mindedly to the criticism from the People’s Government and my cell mates.
- To overcome all my selfish habits and think of others before myself.
Several days later Liao was called out to give his periodic report on the happenings in the cell. We all waited eagerly to hear what the supervisor would have to say about our resolutions, but when Liao returned his handsome, boyish face was as crestfallen as it had been exuberant before.
“What’s the matter? Didn’t he like the idea?” asked Han in concern.
“Oh, he liked it, all right, only he said we could spend our time a lot more profitably if we were to ask why we had not been doing these things in the first place.”
Ma broke in impatiently, “Well, what do they want? This is all we’ve been doing for the past year.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” agreed Liao. “It seems to me now it’s just a question of making up our minds what we want to do and then going ahead and doing it.”
Jiang laughed. “Huh, do you think getting rid of the selfish thought patterns of a lifetime is that easy?” The truth of Jiang’s comment became apparent almost immediately. As one after another of us faced the tests of daily living, we found our resolutions negated by the force of habitual reactions.
During that period Liao’s experience was perhaps the most striking. One day he was unexpectedly called out of the cell. When he returned we noticed that his face was drawn and his lips tight. We supposed that some question had arisen about his confession, but when we questioned him about it he said no, he merely had to write a letter. After finishing the letter, he tossed it to Jiang, who read it out loud.
Jing-an,
Your letter asking for a divorce has been received. My permission is granted. As for my personal belongings, please send them to me here. I’ll let the court decide about the children.
Good health
Liao Cheng-i
11-27-52
The paper was fairly smoking with Liao’s rage. When Jiang asked Liao how he felt about it, he answered stiffly, “If she wants a divorce, that’s her business.”
But we knew it was not. Liao had mentioned his wife and three children a number of times. He was the only person in the cell besides myself whose wife had attended high school and he had been very proud of that.
About a week later a supervisor brought him a bundle containing an old quilt, a couple of pieces of worn clothing, a pair of run-down leather shoes, and a few other odds and ends. As Liao began sorting out the things, he could hardly contain himself. “Where’s this? What happened to that?” we could hear him muttering. “She must have sold every ta-ma-di thing that was any good.”
This was a little too much for me. “What kind of an attitude is that?” I asked. “How did you expect her to support herself and those kids while you’re in jail? Besides, what about your resolution No. 6?” Pointing to the wall I read aloud, “To overcome all my selfish habits and think of others before myself.”
There was not much Liao could say, but it was obvious he was not happy. While we were discussing the matter the supervisor came in again and asked Liao what he thought about the divorce. Liao at first tried to deny he cared one way or the other, but when the supervisor said that was impossible he admitted that he was surprised and could not understand it. Theirs had always been such a happy marriage.
“Well,” said the supervisor, “it has been the government’s policy on these questions to discourage unnecessary divorces, especially where there are children. But when a woman feels that she has suffered too much, she has a right to ask for a divorce. You must remember that formerly the position of women in China was intolerable and now many of them are beginning to awaken to the situation. They feel they no longer want to go on with the old relationship.
“I think if you will look back on your marriage you will be able to understand why your wife has asked for a divorce. But if you still wish to object you may do so and the court will consider the matter. Why don’t you talk it over with the others?” And with that he left.
That evening when we sat on the kang Liao again expressed his surprise at his wife’s action. “I simply don’t understand it,” he said, shaking his head.
As he went on talking, however, we could see at least some justification for his wife’s decision. Among other things there was that business with Jing-an’s younger sister. Shortly after she had come to board with them while attending school in Mukden he had started sleeping with her. Jing-an had been unhappy. She had refused to speak to him for almost a month and nearly drove him to distraction with her crying. To put an end to the situation he had finally arranged a marriage for the girl to a fellow clerk in the bank where he was working. That seemed to have taken care of the matter. At least, Jing-an had never mentioned it again.
Perhaps she had also held a grudge against him for the loss of their youngest child. She had been particularly upset because they had already lost one boy through encephalitis and this little girl might have been saved had she been taken to a hospital and treated with penicillin in time. When she was first stricken, though, Liao had insisted it was only a bad cold. In spite of Jing-an’s pleadings to call a doctor, he had brushed her aside and gone out to play poker with some friends.
Luck had been against him and when he returned two days later without a cent in his pocket the child was dead. He had been forced to pawn Jing-an’s wedding ring to buy a coffin. When she would not stop her incessant crying he had become angry and slapped her a few times.
“But,” he looked around at us almost pleadingly, “it wasn’t my fault. How was I to know the child had encephalitis?”
“I don’t suppose you think involving her in this mess is anything either,” I said sarcastically. “She’s supposed to sit around and wait for you for the next ten years so you can start slapping her around again. In the meantime, she has three children to raise.”
It took our combined powers and several days of talking to make Liao see that perhaps his wife had some justification for requesting a divorce and perhaps he was not the model husband he had always thought himself to be.
As I sat watching Liao take the first tortuous steps toward a recognition of himself I could not help being struck by the pathetic picture of this man who was so capable of seeing the weaknesses in others yet totally blind to his own shortcomings. He once told us that one of his earliest recollections was the impression he had gained on seeing a picture of the war lord Yuan Shih-kai, dressed in brilliant uniform and astride a white horse. On being told by his mother that this was China’s first president, Liao had solemnly informed her that someday he too was going to have a uniform and a horse like that, and then he would be able to have all the candy in the world.
He had attended a Japanese school in Mukden and after graduation had become a teller in a Japanese bank. In order to marry Jing-an, who was a student in a missionary school, he had become a Christian. Handsome, charming, and clever, Liao had risen rapidly in the bank, but the humdrum life of a banker was far removed from the glamorous goal he had set himself as a child.
When the Japanese invaded China proper in 1937 Liao decided that history was calling him to save his motherland. Leaving his wife and job, he managed to work his way to Nanking, where he joined one of the many small groups of Nationalist guerrillas then fighting the Japanese. He soon learned that actual fighting held little of the romance he had envisioned, and when his group, under the pressure of Japanese attack, decided to turn puppet, he bowed to circumstance and gave up his short-lived patriotic mission in return for a vice commandership in the new organization.
This position also failed to satisfy him long and he ran away to Peking, where he became an interpreter of Japanese for a county magistrate. After the war he drifted from one thing to another, part of the time working in Chiang Kai-shek’s secret police. Liberation found him out of a job, his money all gone through drinking and gambling. The new government offered him a job, but when Liao learned it was to be scooping the muck out of the North Lake in Peking he disdainfully turned it down.
Eventually he borrowed enough money to open a coal yard. For a while he did very well, but running a coal yard could hardly satisfy a man with Liao’s heroic aspirations, and even though blackened stones were used to pad the baskets of coal it was no way to get rich quick. Therefore, when news of the Inchon landing arrived, he saw in the expected return of American-backed Nationalists a chance to realize his still unfulfilled dreams of wealth and power. He reestablished acquaintance with a few of his former cohorts in the Nationalist secret police and they decided to form their own little organization, with lavish plans for sabotage and taking over the city on the arrival of American and Nationalist troops.
Liao, as organizer, was to be commander-in-chief, and high-sounding titles were handed out to everyone. They knew an ex-bandit who had a few guns hidden away in sacks of rice in the back of a small shop. With a little blackmail and a promise of the rank of vice commander they persuaded him to contribute his arsenal. They also found out where they could obtain an old radio. In the meantime, they heard it was easy for groups such as theirs to obtain money from the Nationalists and Americans. So, they sent a man to Formosa to procure funds and establish the right connections. At first everything went smoothly. Among other things, they managed to set a small hotel on fire as proof of their invaluableness to their expected sponsors. But with the bad news of American defeats in Korea in the winter of 1950- 51 Liao became discouraged, especially when no word came from the man they had sent to Formosa. He and his group then decided to call off their activities for a while and he went back to his coal yard. Only a few days later, as he was leaving his office, two young men in uniform with security police insignia on their sleeves appeared at the door. Without saying a word, he raised his hands and was led away.
Through all the ups and downs of Liao’s checkered career his magnificent conceit had never let him down. Even his arrest had failed to shake him. As he once boastingly told us, “My first day in prison I ate two wo-tou.” Thus, his wife’s request for a divorce was a staggering blow to his self-confidence. The fact that this woman whom he had always taken for granted as so much property should be throwing him out was more than he could bear.
Several days later, when he had finally thought the matter through, he said in a subdued manner, “You know, it’s funny. I don’t know how many times I thought about sacking my wife and taking on a concubine, but when she wanted to leave me—and for a really good reason— I couldn’t stand it.” He smiled sheepishly. “I guess Li Ko was right. My reaction to Jing-an’s decision hardly lived up to my fine resolutions.”
Liao’s experience set us all to thinking. We had all, in different ways, done things to our wives of which we were not proud. Ma, with his violent temper, had abandoned his first wife to marry a sing-song girl whom he subsequently mistreated to such a point that she was almost driven insane. One day, when she threatened to kill herself, he playfully handed her a knife and dared her to go ahead.
I was the only one in the cell who had never struck his wife, but even I had done many things I now regretted. Not the least of these was involving Dell in my espionage activities. Of course, what really bothered us most was the possibility that our wives might arrive at the same decision as Liao’s.
While Liao had been wrestling with his problem I had been rather contemptuous of his inability to see himself, but he was no different from the rest of us. Prison life has a dramatic way of revealing a man’s basic nature. The close confinement, with no chance of release, generates powerful tensions. Ridiculously petty differences readily become magnified out of all reason and give rise to the most intense personal hatreds. Under such circumstances the thin veneer of civilization is stripped away, leaving all the sordid ugliness of the individual exposed to the eyes of everyone but himself. By late 1952 this had become the case with the big promoter, Jin, and myself.
We had known each other casually on the outside, and what I had seen of him around the Peking Club had led me to regard him as a cultured, easy-going, altogether pleasant sort of fellow. But now as I saw him in the cell, devoid of his polished airs and with all his petty conceit and selfishness revealed, I could hardly stand the man. At the same time, it was obvious that my know-it-all attitude irked him. Our mutual dislike had led to almost constant bickering, and it was clear that a serious explosion was in the making even in the autumn of 1952. One day when Jin was out of the cell Jiang brought up the matter.
“You ought to try to do something about your relations with Jin.”
“What can I do?” I exclaimed. “The man is impossible.”
“He’s bad, all right. But I wouldn’t say he was impossible. Every man has a certain amount of good in him. That’s why the People’s Government believes we are all capable of reform. Our task is to use this good to overcome the bad. Why don’t you try to help him? At the same time, by helping him you will help yourself.”
Jiang’s argument seemed logical, and if that was what they wanted I would try to “help” Jin.
A couple of days later the weather had suddenly turned chilly and we all dug into our bundles of extra clothing for something heavier to put on. That is, everyone except Jin. He had a bundle of clothes which he had worn on the outside. But he would never think of wearing that expensive British tweed jacket and cashmere sweater in the cell. They might become soiled. Then what would he do? It was no use arguing with him; he would rather freeze. Since the regulations against borrowing had never been strictly enforced in our cell, I had offered to lend him my padded vest until the prison authorities could issue winter clothing to those people who needed it.
Jin had accepted the vest with alacrity, but he no sooner put it on than he started to act very tired and during class took to leaning so hard against the whitewashed wall of the cell that my vest was soon covered with lime. As I sat there watching him trying to wriggle his fat hulk closer against the wall a small flame began burning inside me, but there was nothing I could do about it at the moment.
It was Jin himself who gave me the opportunity to retrieve my property without actually having to ask for it Just at this time he was called to the interrogation office, for some reason. He returned, his face beaming with self-assurance, and whispered importantly to Liao while the rest of us tried to conceal our curiosity by talking among ourselves. The next time Liao was called out for his periodic report to the supervisor the subject of Jin must have been discussed, for when Liao returned he said straightforwardly, “Jin, I think we had better discuss your problem. Why do you want to hand all your property over to the government? Isn’t that a rather rash step to take?”
Jin looked uncomfortably from one to another of us, as if unwilling to have his secret bared. “I, uh,” he started. “Well, I have come to the conclusion that money is the root of all evil. As long as I have all that capital I can never become one with the people.”
We shouted our disbelief almost in unison. “Are you sure that’s your real motive?”
Jin looked even more uncomfortable, but denied vehemently that his motives were anything but the most altruistic.
It took several tempestuous sessions before Jin admitted his decision had been influenced by the thought that if he divested himself of his property and became a “true proletarian” it might cause the government to take a more lenient view of the theft of those documents which he had turned over to the American Consulate in Hong Kong.
“In other words.” paraphrased Ma with his usual bluntness, “You thought you could bribe your way out of this mess, too.”
As Jin remained silent Jiang took up the argument. “The government doesn’t want your property. At the present stage there’s nothing wrong with being a capitalist in China. Many of them are making great contributions to China’s progress. The only thing the government wants of you is to see you reform. Just getting rid of a few stocks and a couple of houses isn’t going to transform you into a proletarian— not as long as your thinking is still what it is.
“Look at the way you’ve been treating Li Ko’s vest. I’ve never seen you rub up against the wall so hard with your own clothes. It’s caked with white all across the back. It seems to me if you were altruistic about giving up all that property you couldn’t be so miserly about wearing your own things here and being so inconsiderate of others.”
Jin looked sulky, but mumbled a half-hearted apology as he took off the vest and disdainfully handed it back to me.
I almost tore it out of his hands and then made a great show of shaking it out.
My short-lived attempt to “help” Jin served only to fan the flame of antagonism between us, especially since I kept rubbing it in that selfishness was the most despicable of all human traits and how I had come to see the truth of Ostrovski’s words that a man could never experience true happiness himself unless he was willing to work selflessly for the happiness of all mankind.
The situation came to a head in December, 1952, over an unimportant incident. Jin and I had the only soap in the cell, and, since we had continued to share daily necessities on a “voluntary” basis, the others made free use of it. During the autumn, when we had both had plenty, Jin and I had vied in capitalizing on this situation to win the good will of our cell mates. But now I was down to my last cake and was beginning to worry. I still had no inkling of Dell’s arrest but I was never sure from one time to the next that she would be able to send me more. Jin’s supply was running low, too; but, not wanting to give the impression of stinginess, neither of us said anything.
However, one morning I noticed that as soon as he had finished washing Jin quickly hid his cake behind one of the legs of the kang, leaving mine alone at the mercy of the crowd. It was sheer agony to watch that precious bit of personal property vanishing onto the bodies of my cell mates. I gritted my teeth and swore under my breath, “That selfish so-and-so! Boy, does he need helping!”
Hot words rushed to my lips, but I managed to check them. It was better to wait for a more suitable occasion.
It was Monday and that night was our weekly self-criticism meeting to clear up daily problems which arose out of our life in the cell. Jin was the first to speak and I waited to see if he would say anything about the soap, but he made no mention of it. His self-criticism was simply a long discussion of a few innocuous generalities, and then it came time for the rest of us to give him our suggestions.
I could hardly contain myself, but when I began to speak it was with an air of pompous humility. Overcoming selfishness was indeed a very difficult task— something which faced us all. I myself had been carrying on a difficult struggle against it all week. I knew I shouldn’t feel that way, but I was down to my last piece of soap and I didn’t know whether Dell would be able to send me any more for us to use.
“But,” and now my words came with a rush, “that character, Jin, really ought to examine his attitude. Of all the sneaky tricks— hiding his soap so people will all use mine.”
My attack was too much for Jin. He reached over and picked up the green crockery spittoon, which was always placed on the floor next to the kang, and was about to heave it at me when Jiang, staying his arm, removed it from his grasp. Breaking into tears, Jin sat with his hands over his face, his fat shoulders shaking with rage. My charge was not true, he cried wildly. He had just accidentally forgotten to offer his soap to the others. All I did in the cell was try to find fault with him. These imperialists were all the same. Everything bad that had ever happened to him had been caused by his connections with them. On he raged, and it was quite some time before the others could calm him down enough to listen to reason.
Finally, Jiang said, “Well, perhaps Li Ko was wrong in bringing up the question the way he did. He should have had more proof before making such a direct charge, especially when his own interest was involved. But this soap question is something we all ought to think about. The rest of us have known all along that we were using something which didn’t belong to us, but we just went ahead anyway. I think from now on we had better stop this sort of thing completely.”
After the others had all voiced their agreement, he went on, “As to whether Jin’s putting his soap away this morning was as accidental as he says, let’s let Jin worry about that.”
With this I felt a little crushed. Jin was getting off too easily, but at least I no longer had to worry about my soap. With a slight feeling of triumph, I started my own self-criticism. I talked for some time about the general evils of selfishness, but firmly denied any such motive in my attack on Jin. I had only been trying to “help” him.
This cause Liao to explode. “Do you call that helping? Talk about dirty underhandedness— using the pretext of helping someone criticize himself as a cover for grinding your own ax!”
Now it was my turn to be offended, and it was only after being forced to go over the entire development of my thinking about Jin that I could admit the truth. There was no doubt about it, never during the entire pretense of helping him had I stepped outside the bounds of pure self-interest.
Finally, Jiang spoke up. “The government has said over and over again that we will never be able to do anything right as long as our purpose is a selfish one. Maybe someday you’ll believe it. In the meantime, we don’t need any more of that kind of help.”