Chapter 15
Return to Prisoners of Liberation: Four Years in a Chinese Communist Prison
Chapter 15
Dell: It is only through constant struggle and the interaction of criticism and self-criticism that people can gradually build a new character. This we all realized, but often when two or three people live in one cell for an extended period the challenge seems to die away and the fight against bad habits is relaxed. Our cell No. 9 was typical.
Mei Chi-Yün was released a few days before New Year’s, 1954, and from then on Jeng Ai-ling and I settled down to a placid existence, broken only by occasional outbursts of temperament. We read and talked, argued and sang, sewed and played cards together.
Jeng Ai-ling taught me how to tend the stove, mend socks Chinese fashion, and how to make Chinese cloth shoes. Because of an acute stomach ailment, she was given noodles every day instead of wo-tou. In violation of prison regulations, we saved some of the noodles and boiled them into paste on the stove. We tore up one of my ragged shirts, and, using the table on the kang, we stretched out a layer of rags, on top of that a layer of paste, then a layer of rags, and so on until we had about eight thicknesses. It took two days for the go-bei, as these sheets of cloth and paste were called, to dry stiff as boards. We then cut out as many soles as could be gotten out of the sheets. Several of these were placed on top of each other to the thickness of about three-quarters of an inch. I was about to learn how to sew these layers together with hemp thread to make a strong, durable sole when Supervisor Ming came in to tell me to pack up my belongings. It was March 5, 1954.
I sighed regretfully as I packed my half-made shoes. Though Jeng Ai-ling had made my life miserable during the summer of 1953, and had been merciless in pointing out my weaknesses, I was grateful for the help she had given me in learning to know myself. In view of our recent laxity in observing regulations, however, it was not surprising that we were being separated.
Supervisor Ming and I, each shouldering a bundle of my belongings, walked toward the west compound, where I had spent the first four months of my life in prison. Was I going back to a single cell, I wondered, with a certain amount of apprehension. And then I smiled to myself as I thought how I had changed. A year ago, I would have been happy to be by myself. Now I had come to appreciate the advantage of group living. Not only was cooperation helpful in daily chores, but I felt utterly dependent on the help of others in the process of reforming my outlook.
We passed by the cell block that I had formerly known so well and went on to the far west compound. The jiaoyii-dwey (Education Corps)! My cell mates had frequently talked enviously of those who had been lucky enough to be sent there, for much more freedom was enjoyed. And now here I was. I waited at the entrance while Supervisor Ming went to report my arrival. A few moments later a young woman appeared, dressed in faded black padded trousers and dark red padded jacket. She picked up one of my bundles and told me to follow her. We went down a short corridor and into a room about twenty feet square with kangs along two walls and a space about six feet wide down the center. After the cell I had just left it seemed enormous.
They were in the midst of class, so I scrambled up on the kang next to Wang Hsiao-yün and An Mei-ling, two of the women I had known in my first group cell. I noticed Sonya, the White Russian, sitting in a corner and Harriet’s friend, Little Yang, who had been under house arrest with me back in 1951. I counted eighteen women. This was frightening. It was all right to talk about oneself in front of four or five people, but a whole roomful was a different matter.
When the whistle blew at noon for recreation, several of them crowded around me to wish me well and tell me something of the new discipline. The door was not locked during the day and we could go in and out to the latrine at will. Recreation time was always spent outdoors unless it rained.
It was time to go outside. The March wind was rather chilly for sitting around a chessboard, but the sun felt good. A volleyball game was being set up by some men prisoners with whom we shared the recreational facilities of the courtyard. One of the women asked me if I would like to play. When I nodded enthusiastically, the men assigned positions for the two of us. I was so intent on watching the ball soar back and forth that I did not at first notice who had taken the place beside me.
Suddenly I heard a voice shout, “Here it comes!” There was something familiar about that voice. I turned to look. It was the warden himself! I was so flustered I completely missed the ball, which smacked to the ground beside me. Everyone laughed good-naturedly at my embarrassment, but I was unable to recover myself the rest of the game. I soon found that the supervisors and warden participated frequently in the recreation periods of the Education Corps. Ping-pong, volleyball, chess, bridge, and caroms were the most popular forms of play.
The next day was Saturday and I expected my cell mates to start cleaning the cell after breakfast as was the custom in the other compounds. We sat down for class again, however, and carried on as if it were any regular day of the week. I learned later that the schedule followed in the Education Corps was much closer to that of cadres on the outside, where the six-day week prevailed. All personal business was taken care of on Sunday. This was a program designed to give the prisoners an opportunity to train themselves in the rapid pace which they would find in their work after release.
There never seemed to be quite time enough to finish all our chores on Sunday, and many of us would snatch five minutes after dinner and before recreation to wash out a handkerchief or write a letter. As a New Yorker, accustomed to a clock-watching existence, I found the pace exhilarating, but I often laughed as I found myself running instead of walking from one place to another. Our level of study was much higher than that of my first group cell. They were quick to discover any trace of sham, and I was surprised to learn that An Mei-ling, who had been praised by our cell leader Makimoto a year before, was frequently criticized for the superficiality of her self-criticism. On the other hand, they were exceedingly patient with those who, though backward, were honest about it.
Rationing was one of the subjects of conversation shortly after I arrived in the large cell, and we all voiced our opinions about it. One of the older women heaved a long sigh and then said petulantly, “I think it’s just a shame. My poor family. What are they going to do? They won’t be able to buy enough flour to make man-tou [steamed wheat bread] every day.”
“But, Wu Shr-min,” explained someone kindly, “they can buy all the corn flour or millet they want. It isn’t as if they weren’t going to have enough to eat.”
“And furthermore,” said our cell leader, Meng Hsiao-mei, “think of what this means for the other people of China. In former years, while your family was eating mantou and rice every day those people were lucky to have a little sorghum or black beans. A lot of them had to exist on sweet potatoes and leaves from trees. But now these people have jobs and a steady income. They can afford to buy fine grains like wheat flour or rice several times a week. But if families like yours keep on eating so much of the flour, there won’t be enough to go around. Our farmers can’t increase their yield enough to meet this sudden demand.
“The only way to assure everyone of having some wheat flour at least a few days a week is to institute a system of rationing. I’m sure your family doesn’t begrudge that flour when they know they are sharing it with people who have never been able to afford it before. I think you’re worrying about them unnecessarily.”
After several others had pointed out additional reasons for rationing, the old woman admitted the logic of their arguments and seemed willing to accept the idea. I thought back to the year before in that first group cell in the east compound. We had all known the theory of quiet reasoning, but sometimes impatient retorts would develop into heated arguments which solved nothing.
The fear I had felt at first about studying with eighteen other women soon vanished. They listened to what I said and gave me straightforward criticism.
Two weeks after I had moved to the new cell, six of the women left, five to go to the prison factory and one to be released. The thirteen of us who remained felt drawn together by the very fact of having been left behind. I, as a foreigner, was particularly hit emotionally when Sonya, the White Russian, was told to pack up her things in early April. Since she was the only one leaving, we thought she probably was bound for home. Several voiced the opinion that a short period in a factory would do Sonya no harm. In the time she had been in prison she had never overcome a distaste for work, and in every self-criticism spoke of wanting to go back to her father’s wealthy establishment in Harbin. At the end of each session, she would express a determination to get rid of this desire to live off others, but if asked how she expected to do this she would shrug her shoulders helplessly and say, “I don’t know.”
Release, or sentencing to a prison factory or farm, was a frequent topic of conversation. Some of us felt that if we knew the length of our prison term we could settle down and study and work quite patiently. Others said that would be all right if one’s sentence were only for two or three years, but supposing it were ten or fifteen? Would it not be better to remain in ignorance?
Our cell leader said, during one of these conversations, “My interrogation officer told me we ought to be glad that, having found us guilty, the court still deferred the actual passing of sentence. It is usually only those who refuse to confess who are sentenced right away. They get the maximum under the law and there is little chance of clemency.
“If the passing of sentence is held off, you have an opportunity to express your attitude. If you show a desire to reform and be honest your sentence may be greatly reduced when it is finally announced. In fact, you may eventually just be released right from the detention quarters without ever going to a factory or farm.
“And then, too, all the time you’ve been here since arrest counts. And think of the incentive. If you don’t know what your term is, you can go along studying, improving yourself without any worries, because you know that you are constructively working toward a quicker release. If you knew what your sentence was you’d be inclined to sit here and mark off each day on the calendar— one day nearer release. You would be serving out your punishment, but you wouldn’t be thinking about preparing yourself to become a better citizen.”
We could admit that she had a point, but sometimes one or another of us would sigh, “If I only knew how long!” Some of us could not get away from the idea that working to improve oneself was synonymous with giving the authorities a favorable impression. It seemed as if the only way to obtain release was to convince the supervisors that we had changed our viewpoint and could do constructive work in society. The distinction between really changing for the sake of being able to do good in the world and changing to impress others was, I think, the most difficult problem for most of us. We were constantly faced with this contradiction in ourselves and in others.
This came out in sharp relief in May, 1954, when our cell was assigned to lao-dung (work). We greeted the chance to work as a relief from the routine of study, but for some this enthusiasm went deeper. Those who were slow at books but fast with the needle felt that this was their long-awaited chance to “show their worth.”
In the winter the People’s Government issued padded jackets and trousers and padded quilts to all prisoners who had none of their own. These were used right through to warm weather. The clothing and bedding were then returned to the government, and it was our job to rip them apart, wash the pieces, fluff out the cotton, and then sew them all back together again.
I knew that lao-dung went on every summer but this was the first time I had participated in it and I was as excited as the others. I had always prided myself on my skill with the needle. Since high school I had made my own clothes and not a few for my sister and mother. I was confident I could hold my own. But before the sewing could begin we had to rip the garments apart and wash them. In the first batch we had over two hundred pieces. There were six large crockery wash basins and, of course, we all vied to do the scrubbing, since that was the most arduous task and gave the best opportunity to demonstrate one’s mettle.
I maintained that I was stronger than many of the others and should take over one of the basins and scrub boards, but I had no sooner started to scrub than my cell mates suggested politely but firmly that my talents might be put to better use elsewhere. As I watched one of the older women rolling the cloth back and forth over the board in beautiful, rhythmic motion, never grasping too much or too little, never getting it bunched up, and then looked down at my own jerky movement which twisted the clothes into little knots I had to concede that perhaps washing clothes by hand was not one of my major accomplishments and I reluctantly gave my place to one of the women who had been standing impatiently by.
It was apparent that the former housewives, along with Jou Yu-jieh (Little Jou), a young girl who had had some schooling but had also worked long at home, had now come into their own and were going to make up for all those months of sitting on the kang, sweating over topics of study far beyond their grasp. They did not say in so many words, “You can take a back seat for a while and give us a chance to show off.” but it was quite apparent in their attitude. When any of us “intellectuals” asked them to teach us how to scrub, they shunted us off with the excuse that it would waste time.
The washing took only a couple of days and during that time the rest of us kept busy pumping and carrying water, hanging the pieces on the line, stretching them out flat to get the wrinkles out, and putting the cotton padding out to air. We all swallowed our pride in anticipation of the sewing, where we felt we would surely be vindicated.
When some of the pieces had dried our cell leader took the lead in deciding who might have the privilege of sewing patches where needed. The rest of us were told to start fluffing the cotton padding. We would lay the quilt on the kang and fit the padding on top of it. New cotton padding is simple because it is thick and even all over. But the padding which we were working with was old. It fell apart at the touch and we had to go through the painstaking process of fluffing the matted pieces into a uniformly thick whole.
There is a trick to pulling the cotton apart and fusing the ends together again so that it comes out soft and fluffy. I didn’t know the trick and though I succeeded in pulling quite a bit of cotton apart the ends were short and jagged and would not stay together. The assistant cell leader, Li Jing-yün, showed me how to pull the cotton so that the long fibers were not broken. I improved a bit, but I was still painfully slow.
At this point someone suggested we divide up into teams and have a competition. Everyone agreed, and we started to pair off. “Why don’t you take Li Yu-an?” said Li Jing-yün to Little Jou, whose clever hands worked like lightning on the bits of cotton.
“Oh, she’s impossible,” replied Little Jou impatiently, “I don’t want to be bothered with her.”
My pride stung by her retort, I burst out hotly, “Well, I couldn’t stand to work with her either. I tried to get her to teach me how to fix the cotton before but she wouldn’t.”
There was an uncomfortable silence, broken finally by Li Jing-yün, “You’ll get the hang of it in no time, Li Yu-an. Come over here where I can guide you a bit.”
A few hours later Meng Hsiao-mei came over from the cell across the corridor where the “patchers” were at work. “We need someone to help with the patching,” she said, gazing at each of us speculatively.
“I’ll go,” said Wang Yü-lin, a tall, heavy-built young woman who had been through normal school.
“Better let Hsü Tsui do it,” said Meng Hsiao-mei finally and, with no explanation as to why she had chosen Hsü Tsui, she turned and went back across the corridor, Hsü Tsui tagging along after her.
It seemed a strange choice, because Hsü was a young woman who was always being laughed at for her clumsiness. She had attended a Catholic university in Peking and, from what some said, she could speak English as well as I. She was the product of a completely Western education, out of tune with her own people, and in turn looked on with contempt by them. Her lack of knowledge of the simplest housekeeping tasks made her the butt of ridicule. I puzzled over this seeming harshness at first, for she was not the only one in the cell who had grown up with books rather than a scrubbing board, and it appeared to me she was trying as much as everyone else to do her share. It gradually came out that her reputation as a squeamish worker had been built up in previous years when she had backed away from any form of work which might make her dirty. The reputation had stuck and it was clear that she was going to have to work twice as hard as anyone else for a long time to bring about a change in her cell mates’ opinion.
The two women had no sooner left than Wang Yü-lin flopped back up on the kang and exploded, “I’m so mad I could spit! Who does Meng Hsiao-mei think she is, playing favorites like that? I can sew much better than Hsü Tsui. For that matter, anyone can. She’s the sloppiest, laziest—”
“Take it easy,” soothed Li Jing-yün. “There’s no point in getting yourself all worked up. Meng Hsiao-mei is just riding her position a little too high and it’s about time she learned she can’t boss the whole show. Just let her try one or two more little deals like that and she’ll have something to reckon with. She’s buttering Hsü Tsui up so she’ll have her on her side when the blow-up comes.”
There had always been a latent conflict between the cell leader, Meng Hsiao-mei, and the assistant cell leader, Li Jing-yün. The former had had little schooling and had been married off to one of Yen Hsi-shan’s henchmen as a concubine while still a young girl. She had learned to write quite a few characters while in prison but still had difficulty taking many notes while we were studying. She was made cell leader mainly because of her ability- to lead a group in discussion and because of her sincere expression of a desire to improve herself. The others told me one day that formerly she had often displayed a fiery temper and her shrill voice would rise to a shriek in criticizing the other women. But by the time I arrived in the cell she had gone a long way toward conquering this tendency and was able to maintain a patient attitude in almost any situation.
Li Jing-yün, as assistant cell leader, was in charge of our class discussions. She had been brought up in Shanghai and gone to college there. Having worked in a department of the government and taken part in study on the outside, she considered herself a bit different from the others. Even though she had ended up in prison through her connection with an American agent, she repeatedly maintained that after serving out her sentence she would be able to go back to her old job.
Her experience in Shanghai, her worldliness, education, and general command of study material should have made her an excellent balance for Meng Hsiao-mei in handling the large number of women in the cell, but there was bad feeling between them. Meng Hsiao-mei, insecure in her lack of education, was jealous of the assistant cell leader and felt that at any moment she would be pushed out of the number one position. Li Jing-yün, on the other hand, was contemptuous of Meng Hsiao-mei in that she felt the latter was an opportunist.
During my first two months in the cell the conflict had been at a minimum, but now that our big project had started the issue had sharpened. Meng Hsiao-mei was determined to show that here she need take second place to no one, and aimed to consolidate her position as cell leader through taking the leadership of our work entirely into her hands. Li Jing-yün was on the defensive because she had little experience in sewing and washing and yet at the same time did not like being ordered around by Meng Hsiao-mei. Anything the latter said about lack of efficiency in the group she took as a personal affront.
The situation was further complicated by the fact that this was the first time the two of them had acted as cell leaders at the time of lao-dung and both were nervous about failing in their responsibilities.
There was a lot of patching to be done on the quilts and clothes, and before long everyone but Li Jing-yün, Little Yang, and Wang Yü-lin was busy stitching bits of material over holes and tears. I liked patching but I labored over the stitches and soon found myself behind the others. When the pressure slackened I was the first to be sent back to the cotton padding detail. I found the three of them smoldering over being left out of the “important work.”
This situation naturally could not exist very long without having some effect on our efficiency. With people pulling against each other or engrossed in showing off their own particular skills, we could not get through the work in the time it should normally take. About a week after we had started lao-dung Meng Hsiao-mei announced at breakfast that we would not scatter to our jobs but would hold a self-criticism meeting to straighten out a few issues.
It lasted two days, as each woman in turn made an accounting of her attitude. The petty jealousies, uncooperativeness, factionalism, and backbiting all came out into the open and were criticized. Both of the cell leaders admitted their share in the deterioration of the atmosphere. The friction between them was brought to the surface and each promised to make a sincere attempt at cooperation.
In summing up Meng Hsiao-mei said, “After all, I think we have lost sight of the most important point— the purpose of this work. Why has the People’s Government given it to us to do? They could send the whole load off to the laundry and have it back in no time at a very cheap price. But the government wants to give us an opportunity to learn how to work together, to cooperate in good spirit and efficiency. We have come from backgrounds where cooperation is almost unheard of—you had your work, I had mine, each in our own homes. But in the new society we may be going out to work in factories, on farms, in offices, schools, nurseries, hospitals— who knows where? In all those places people are working together and learning to cooperate. If we do not learn here we will be out of step when we return to society and no one will want us.
“We have been given this opportunity and what do we do? We’re afraid to show anyone else how to do anything for fear they’ll learn how to do it better than we do. Look at Little Jou. She’s probably one of the best and fastest workers in the group, but when Li Yu-an asked her for help in learning how to fluff cotton she was impatient and refused. Suppose all the technicians in China took that attitude today. How would new technicians ever be trained and our country progress?
“In the old days that was the attitude of the master craftsmen, because they were afraid of losing their jobs if too many people learned their art. They would teach just so much, and then keep secret the crucial steps so that they would remain indispensable. Little Jou is not motivated by that fear, but she is afraid of losing what she considers an advantage over the rest of us so that she can make a good impression on the government. But I ask you all, does the government want to see a really good cotton fluffer or a woman who has the patience and bigness of heart to teach others and fit herself into a cooperative picture?”
Little Jou at first remained silent as the others criticized their shortcomings in turn. At the end she admitted that her attitude had been wrong and that she would share her knowledge with the rest of us. The meeting ended on a high note of enthusiasm as we went back to work. We had aired a lot of differences and were ready to start afresh.
In another week most of the patching was finished and our work was cotton fluffing and quilting. I was eager to try quilting and asked if I might do one or two. Two women worked on one quilt, which would take ten or eleven rows of wide-spaced stitches to hold the cotton in place. Here again, as in the patching, I found myself lagging far behind my partner. She gave me pointers to help increase my speed but I had difficulty making the needle go through the heavy padding with the ease that she did. I worked like mad, but the best I did was still one and a half rows behind her. It was a blow to my pride but I, too, had learned a lesson and when it became clear I could not keep up with the others I was content to go back to fluffing.
Our work moved along in this way through the summer. For a few days after a self-criticism, we worked together beautifully, but the newly learned spirit of cooperation would soon begin to give at the seams and in a few weeks all work would stop so that another meeting could be held. Differences were again ironed out and we each examined our attitude toward work in general.
Little Yang voiced a point of view which, I think, was common to several of the “intellectuals.”
“I think one reason I don’t work better,” she said, “is that I can’t see any real point in becoming proficient at this kind of work. I don’t expect to earn my living at cotton fluffing when I’m released. I was in an office before and I imagine I’ll be going back to one in the future.”
“That may be,” agreed Meng Hsiao-mei, “but you ought not lose sight of the fact that you are not in an office now, and that the work at hand is important in its own way. Whatever the job to be done, one ought to do it to the best of one’s ability. That is the attitude of the truly reconstructed member of society.”
But no matter how many problems were solved new ones kept cropping up. A few days after one of our meetings during the summer Feng Hsiu-bin, a middle-aged housewife who had had little education, chanced to look across at the group fluffing cotton on the kang opposite us.”
Is that your second or third jacket this morning?” she asked.
“Second or third?” repeated Little Jou in surprise. “This is our fourth!”
Feng Hsiu-bin turned back to the jacket on which the three of us were working. It was our second. She was silent for a few moments but I could see her face grow dark and her lips working. Finally, she leaned toward Meng Hsiao-mei and me and said in a hoarse whisper, “They may be on their fourth, but I’ll bet they’re doing a sloppy job. That Little Jou is quick but she’s a careless worker. Just wait and see. Our padding will be inches thicker.”
Meng Hsiao-mei and I smiled but said nothing. It would do no good at that moment to point out to Feng Hsiu-bin that her old enemy, jealousy, was still coloring her outlook on life. Later in the day when she was in a calmer mood, Meng Hsiao-mei brought the subject up again.
Feng Hsiu-bin sighed, “That’s my ssu-hsiang-ger [root of all my thinking], that jealousy. It was what landed me here in the first place. Knowing that there is a root to one’s thoughts is a wonderful thing. Just think, before I came here I didn’t know there was such a thing as a ‘root’!”
We laughed, but then Meng Hsiao-mei pressed the point home. “Yes, but, Feng Hsiu-bin, it’s one thing to know you have a jealous streak in your nature and another to get rid of it. That’s what you have to do now.”
That summer of 1954 was to me one of the most profitable experiences of my life. Never before had I worked with others on such an extensive project. After college I had been employed in the New York Public Library, but in six months had decided that dealing with “the public” was unbearable. From there I had retreated to the quieter atmosphere of a publishing house. It was not until after Rick and I had become students at Penn and I had achieved the complete isolation of a seminar room in a corner of the library, however, that I felt really at home. There I was completely “free” and beholden to no one.
With this background it had been difficult for me at first to adjust myself to the group activity, but the satisfaction that came with the feeling of fellowship in working with others brought home to me the stuffy dryness of my former way of life.
During our lao-dung we made many mistakes in organization and were slowed down frequently by those internal conflicts. The animosity which had existed between Meng Hsiao-mei and Li Jing-yün and the resulting factions which were inevitable as each of us sided with one or the other continued right through to the fall and the situation was relieved only by the departure of Li Jing-yün. In spite of these conflicts, however, I did feel that we had made progress in learning to help each other and in developing ideas of work methods on a group level.
Our sewing continued through the third week in September, but about the end of August we received a shock to find that the Education Corps was being disbanded. Most of the men were moved to the east compound and the whole program stopped. Since we were still working, our door was not locked, but as soon as the project ended we returned to the routine of the locked door and regular times for recreation and latrine calls. All the compounds in the prison were uniform in discipline from then on.
We each had varying theories as to the reason for the change and displayed varying reactions. Those who had been in the Education Corps less than a year were not much disturbed by it, but to those who had been there over three years the locked door was not easy to take. The abolition of this program was only logical, however. The number of inmates in the prison had dwindled in the past year, and those who had derived the greatest benefit from the educational discipline of the corps had left for prison farms, factories, or had been released.
The reaction of most of the women was that a return to the regular cell routine was a punishment for not having lived up to the government’s expectations. Even though, in the discussions which followed, we agreed that this was not true, we still watched eagerly for signs that the authorities were really not angry with us. One event which helped us regain our confidence occurred about a week before the October 1st celebration. The door opened one day to reveal one of the young cadres with an armful of bright-colored paper and coils of thin wire.
“This is for flowers,” he said abruptly, as he dumped the armload on the kang and hurried out. A few moments later he returned with a spray of artificial flowers. “Here’s a sample,” he explained, and left just as quickly as before.
We all gathered around excitedly to poke at the different flowers, about ten in all, interspersed with shiny green leaves attached to a thick, three-pronged wire branch. Others turned over the packages of paper to see how many colors there were. We stopped studying immediately and began to discuss how we should organize the work. There were eleven of us, the assistant cell leader, Li Jing-yün, and one of the others having left a few weeks before.
Again, it seemed as if the “intellectuals” were to take a back seat, as Little Jou and Meng Hsiao-mei explained how they had made paper flowers as children. But we began to use our imagination and before long we were producing zinnias, roses, camellias, gladioli, giant red cannas, and a few others that did not have a name but looked pretty and graceful just the same.
The housewife Feng Hsiu-bin had watched her daughter make a particularly beautiful type of chrysanthemum the year before and she sat off to the side experimenting for a while. She came up with a flower so real I wanted to touch it to make sure. We gave her a whole roll of paper and told her to go ahead.
I felt as I watched everyone working together that we had truly profited from the summer’s experience. I had wondered at first if Little Jou would keep her skill to herself, but she started right out by explaining the different steps and then encouraged us to experiment. The spray the cadre had given us was made of several different flowers and we modeled our first sprays on this. As we progressed, we tried one of just pink roses and were so enchanted with the results that after a long conference we decided to take apart the ones we had already made and build each spray of a single kind. As we finished a spray we would hang it from the clothesline that stretched from the window to the opposite wall. When the paper was used up we took scraps of the pale pink and made a spray of early flowering plum, the kind that has myriads of tiny blossoms all over the leafless branches. It expressed to me the delicacy of Chinese art, and tears of appreciation for its beauty came to my eyes as I held it.
It was a dull-looking cell when all the flowers were taken away, to be used in decorating the prison offices. We cleaned up the cell and in the afternoon made a token gesture at study, although our hearts were not in it. It was September 30, 1954, and the next day, October 1, was a holiday, the fifth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic. There were no classes that day and we listened to broadcasts of festivities over the loud-speaker, played cards, and told stories. Little Yang suggested we try a few folk dances. The space between the two kangs was just big enough to do simple steps. One of the younger women showed us a west China folk dance, “The Sun has risen.” Wang Yu-lin taught us a Sinkiang dance. Little Yang, with her Western education and long experience in the Chinese YWCA, insisted that we try a Virginia reel. With the two of us to teach the others, we were able to make it a lively one. She had been with us to a dance a few years before at the Peking Club and remembered the polka we had danced that evening. She asked me to show them all. There was room for only one pair at a time to skip up and down the room so we all took turns. I sat on the kang and clapped out the rhythm and ta-ti-ta’ed one or another of the polka tunes.
One of the older women, who had led an extremely sheltered life, sat on the kang and watched us dance. As we were doing the “Sun has risen” folk dance, she smiled happily, “Look at the foreigner doing our dances.”
We tried to coax her into joining, and it was obvious that she wanted to very much, but she would only giggle and shake her head. She belonged to that generation which tradition had kept in seclusion and it would take some time to break down her reserve.
By evening we were worn out and sat around quietly talking. I looked at these women with whom I had worked and studied for several months. We had had our differences and they had become disgusted with my outlook on life more than once, but at the same time I felt closer to them than to any Chinese since I had been in China. I remembered the days in Yenching when I had seen students dancing together on the lawn. I had hovered in the background, wishing I could join them yet feeling miles apart. I had had to come to jail to learn a few things about myself in order to come closer to the Chinese among whom I was living.
I thought of the strides we had all made in our relations with each other. One day, a week before, we had been sitting around talking about China’s new construction projects.
“Shanghai used to be the only city in China with tall buildings,” said Little Yang, “but we’re going to have a lot in Peking now.”
“I was once in a building seven stories high,” said one of the women proudly. Little Yang laughed. “I guess that doesn’t seem very high to Li Yu-an. They have real skyscrapers in New York, don’t they?”
I nodded. “The tallest building of all has 102 stories.”
There were gasps. “What keeps it from falling over?”
“What does it look like?” “Did you ever go up to the top floor?”
I drew a rough outline of the Empire State Building and we talked about industrialization in the United States.
When the subject returned to China’s growing industrialization they commented confidently, “Well, the United States had a head start and the workmen there have built many wonderful things, but it won’t take China long to catch up. You just take a look at our skyscrapers twenty years from now!”
The conversation showed how far we had progressed in our thinking. Only a year ago most of the women prisoners, with the exception of a few like Jeng Ai-ling, would have thought that listening to anything about the United States, unless it were a blast at U.S. foreign policy or the decadence of American life, would be considered “backward”; but now, secure in their understanding about the new society and the old, they could listen to things such as I was telling them with an analytical and at the same time appreciative mind.
It was exhilarating to talk with my cell mates about the United States. Those with schooling had studied about America, but the others had only a vague conception of that “foreign land.” Their lack of understanding about our life here was brought home to me one day in August, 1954, when I was reading a letter from my mother. Meng Hsiao-mei asked, “Is that letter from home?”
When I told her it came from my mother, she asked,
“Did someone write it for her?”
“No,” I said. “My mother can write.”
Meng Hsiao-mei looked at me wonderingly. To her, a woman in her thirties who had just learned to read and write, it was amazing to think of a woman a generation older able to use a pen. Little Yang explained kindly, “Meng Hsiao-mei, in the United States women have been emancipated for many years now and they have all gone to school. I suppose Li Yu-an’s grandmother even went to school.”
“Yes,” I replied, “she did.”
I was ashamed at having been surprised at Meng Hsiao-mei’s question. Having lived all her life in Shansi with no access to books, how could she be expected to know much about how other people lived? This held true for so many millions in the old China.
After the celebration on October 1, we began to settle back to the regular routine again. Every afternoon we went out in the yard when the sun was warmest and walked around for half an hour or so. It was warm enough, when we exercised or walked fast around the compound, to take off our jackets. The others laughed at the patches on my blouse, an ancient light blue Wave shirt which I had had since the war. It had worn out on the sleeves and across the shoulders and I had patched it with many different colored bits of cloth.
It was while we were out taking our exercise on the afternoon of October 13, 1954, that a supervisor motioned me back to the cell and told me to get my things together. Meng Hsiao-mei went along to help me and we gathered my bedding, books, clothes, etc., into two big bundles. I felt I could not be leaving the prison on such short notice, but was I to be shifted to another cell in this compound or sent back to the east compound? My heart went kerplunk, kerplunk as I thought of starting all over again with a new set of cell mates. Why could I not stay with these women with whom I had developed such a bond?