River Town (41 page)

Fuling women lived under complicated expectations, and the economic pressures of Reform and Opening seemed to weigh particularly heavily on them. In the countryside, many of the men had left to work in urban areas, and for every stick-stick soldier or construction worker in the city, there was a peasant wife back at home, tending the farm alone. A total of 66 percent of China's agricultural workers are female. Social scientists believe that this imbalance is partly responsible for the high female suicide rate, which occurs predominantly in the countryside. Rarely do these rural deaths seem to be the result of poverty; in fact, most happen within a relatively affluent and well-educated class of peasants. Adam's student Janelle was a textbook example of this trend: she wasn't poor, and she had academic opportunities that were unusual for peasant girls. But Janelle's career path most likely would have involved returning to her hometown to teach, which probably had been a depressing prospect for somebody so bright. I suspected that she had recognized clearly her own potential, as well as the bleakness of her future: to become a rural schoolteacher, marry young, raise a child. In the end it was more—or less—than she could bear.

Of course, things were worse in other parts of the world. Women in China could go much further than in most developing countries; there was no comparison with the Middle East. Also, there had been clear improvements in China, where post-Liberation reforms had made it easier for women to work, and the Communists had always campaigned hard against wife-selling while supporting women's right to divorce. Chinese women were also much better educated than ever before—but in a sense this only served to make them more aware of their plight. Like so many aspects of Chinese life, the issue of women's independence had reached a transitional stage, and it seemed to be a particularly painful one.

Everything was further complicated by the influence of traditional
collective thinking. The longer I lived in Fuling, the more I was struck by the view of the individual—in my opinion, this was the biggest difference between what I had known in the West and what I saw in Sichuan. For people in Fuling, the sense of self seemed largely external; you were identified by the way that others viewed you. That had always been the goal of Confucianism, which defined the individual's place strictly in relation to the people around her: she was somebody's daughter, somebody else's wife, somebody else's mother; and each role had its specific obligations. This was an excellent way to preserve social harmony, but once that harmony was broken the lack of self-identity made it difficult to put things back together again. I sensed this whenever I read personal accounts of victimization during the Cultural Revolution, because these stories were surprisingly full of shame—one day a person was a good Communist, and the next day the winds changed and he was a mortified Counter-Revolutionary forced into the “airplane” stance at a rally, his arms outstretched and bent painfully back. The shift in itself was not so remarkable—irrational political purges happened the world over—but the strange part was that so many of these victims were racked by shame, clearly believing that they were somehow flawed. It was like a target of McCarthyism immediately breaking down and admitting that he was wrong, or a Holocaust victim hating herself because she was indeed a “dirty Jew.” Often it seemed that in China there was no internal compass that was able to withstand these events.

Group thought could be a vicious circle—your self-identity came from the group, which was respected even if it became deranged, and thus your sense of self could fall apart instantly. There wasn't a tradition of anchoring one's identity to a fixed set of values regardless of what others thought, and in certain periods this had contributed to the country's disasters. The Cultural Revolution showed how Chinese society could become completely unhinged, but to a lesser extent there were bound to be problems during any sort of transitional period. And in recent decades nothing had been more disruptive to social roles and expectations than Reform and Opening

Group mentality seemed particularly troublesome for women, who lived under a strange combination of strictness and uncertainty. When compared to men, their traditional role in Chinese society was much more narrow, but the new economy resulted in frighteningly
vague expectations and demands. On the whole these changes were undoubtedly positive, but they were happening so quickly that freedom could easily look overwhelming to somebody who was caught in the middle.

And often there wasn't anywhere to turn for help. Time and time again I saw this with my classes; for the most part they were incredibly close and supportive, but they could be cruelly isolating when a member was somehow different. Nobody had ever shown any interest in Janelle, and every class had at least one student who seemed alone; more often than not it was a girl. Being different wasn't liberating, as it sometimes is in America, and this was especially true for women from a peasant background, who were unlikely to feel comfortable ignoring the opinions of others and blazing new ground. The result was that they became outsiders not so much by choice as by helpless inclination, which naturally made them feel that they were the ones at fault.

To some degree, Anne had been like this. She had never quite fit in with the others, but she was also very bright, socially gifted, and attractive. In the end, these qualities gave her enough confidence to ignore certain aspects of the group. But Janelle was only extremely intelligent, which probably served to sharpen her sense of isolation.

Often money lay at the heart of these stresses. Peasant women saw their husbands go off in search of work, gaining financial security but leaving their spouses isolated, and sometimes this loneliness destroyed them. Women could earn money themselves; this was a way of becoming independent, but a career could also result in the frustration of sexism and the criticism of people who felt that a woman shouldn't strive in this way. A woman like Anne could go south to Shenzhen, where there was money; but Shenzhen money could be earned in many ways. There were
xiaojies
who worked as secretaries and there were three-with
xiaojies. xiaojies
like Li Jiali and
xiaojies
like Anne. All of them were doing whatever they could to earn money. And they were surrounded by plenty of men who had sold their souls long ago, and often the women had to negotiate this uncertain world alone.

 

AT THE END OF THE SEMESTER
, before the Chinese New Year, Miss Ou slipped an envelope under my door. Inside the envelope was a letter, a copy of her health certificate, and five hundred yuan. The letter was in broken English:

The health certificate noted that she was 1.70 meters tall and weighed sixty-seven kilograms. There weren't any problems with her heart, chest, or lungs. Her teeth, nose, and ears were also good. She was listed at thirty years of age, which was not true; the certificate was a photocopy of the original and obviously this detail had been doctored. But everything else looked accurate.

On the upper right corner of the health certificate was a photograph
of Miss Ou. The picture was at least twenty years old. It was a small black-and-white snapshot of a much younger Miss Ou wearing heavy-rimmed glasses and neatly curled hair. She was smiling in the photograph, a pretty young woman who looked at the camera with confidence.

The one-hundred-yuan notes were folded neatly in half. It was more than half of what Miss Ou made in a month. Even in America it was a good sum, sixty bucks, but in Fuling you could eat for two months on five hundred yuan. If you had that much money twenty times over, you could buy yourself a second child.

 

I WAS AFRAID OF MISS OU
and rarely dealt with her directly. During the first year I had learned that directness only encouraged her; once I asked her firmly to stop coming to my apartment at night, and she became very excited and showed up every evening for the next week. Like all of my Miss Ou stories, it seemed funny when told out of context, but when it happened I was only annoyed and depressed by how desperately unhappy she seemed.

I took the money to Fei Xiaoyun, who worked in a different section of the same department store as Miss Ou. Fei Xiaoyun was possibly the prettiest
xiaojie
I knew in town, as well as one of the kindest; she had been one of the first to talk with Adam and me when our Chinese was still bad. I often stopped to chat with her when I went into town, and I knew that she would understand the problem with Miss Ou. I gave her the money and explained the situation.

“You know that soon it's the Spring Festival,” Fei Xiaoyun said. “There are many Chinese traditions at this time of year, and one of them is to give people money. So that's probably why she gave it to you—she just wants to show her kindness.”

Years ago, Fei Xiaoyun had been a student at the college, and because of that the sound of her Mandarin was very pleasant. I listened to her clear tones and then I shook my head.

“During the Spring Festival people give money to children,” I said. “I understand that tradition. But I'm not a child and you don't give this kind of money to an adult. Would it be appropriate if I gave you five hundred yuan because you're my friend?”

“No,” she said. “That wouldn't be appropriate.”

“It's the same way with this money. I think it's very strange and it embarrasses me.”

“Yes,” she said, sighing. “It is a little strange.”

That was what I liked the most about Fei Xiaoyun—she didn't feel the need to lie to me just because I was a
waiguoren
. She had enough sympathy for Miss Ou to try to defend her, but at the same time she understood where I was coming from. Sadly she looked at the bills in the envelope.

“Will you please help me and give that back to Miss Ou?” I asked.

“Yes. I'll be sure to do that.”

“You can tell her that I'm sorry I can't accept it. But please don't encourage her—I don't want her to bother me anymore. I don't want to be rude, but I don't want her to call me or come to my apartment again.”

“I understand. I'll try to tell her that.” But I could see that Fei Xiaoyun knew it was hopeless. Miss Ou was one of those who had slipped beyond the pale, and there wasn't much that you could do about people like that. I assumed that whenever I left Fuling for good there would be some kind of minor hassle with Miss Ou, which was precisely the way it would happen. But standing there in the department store I didn't worry too much about the future. In Fuling I always dealt with problems one at a time, and right now the most important issue was to give the money back.

I thanked Fei Xiaoyun and wished her a happy Spring Festival. She smiled, placing the envelope in her desk, and a couple weeks later she reported that she had returned it successfully. I put Miss Ou's health certificate in a folder where it could be forgotten. But sometimes I found myself thinking about the old photograph, and I wondered why the young woman had never married, and what had happened to make her the way she was today. For some reason I never threw the photograph away.

“
EVERYBODY NEEDS SOME KIND OF FAITH
,”
says Kong Ming. “Whether it's religion, or Capitalist Democracy, or Communism—regardless of what the faith is, everybody needs something. My faith is the Communist Party. I first wanted to join when I was a college student, but at that time I wasn't accepted.”

Teacher Kong is a Party Member and a former peasant and a current instructor of Ancient Chinese Literature in the Chinese department of Fuling Teachers College. He is thirty-three years old, and there are a few streaks of silver in his black hair. He has a soft smile that is shadowed by the barest hint of a mustache on his upper lip. He knows a great deal about Han Dynasty poetry, and his three-year-old son has the given name Songtao, which means “waves of pines”: the sound a pine forest makes when the wind blows.

“It's a common phrase in Chinese poetry,” Teacher Kong explains. “It was also used once by Shelley—I read it in translation. There's a poem he wrote about a forest, where he describes the trees making that same sound. I think the forest was in Italy but I'm not certain.”

There are only 58 million Party Members in all of China—less than 5 percent of the population. For more than a decade, Teacher Kong was interested in joining, but it wasn't until last year that he was finally accepted, after a formal application and a series of interviews and evaluations that took months to complete. “In the past they used to look more carefully at your home and your family,” he says. “Your background was very important. But that's not the way it is now—they look at your ideas instead, which is better.

“I think the basic goals of Communism—to help the poor, to make
things equal—I think those are good goals. The Party certainly has problems, of course, and some people join for selfish reasons. They want more power, and after they become Party Members they only care about themselves. That's not good—that's why we have corruption, because a few people only care about themselves. And if the Communist Party gets worse and worse, of course the common people won't believe in it. This is the biggest problem right now. But I believe that most people still support the Party, and I certainly agree with its ideas. There always will be some problems, but the fundamental goals are good.”

 

ONE OF THE FUNDAMENTAL GOALS
of the Chinese Communist Party has always been stability for the average citizen, which traditionally has been maintained through the system of state-run work units. Teacher Kong's
danwei
is the college, and as a result his life has none of the scramble and uncertainty of the entrepreneur. His three-room apartment is owned and maintained by the college, which rents it for roughly thirty yuan a month—a sum so small that its payment is essentially a formality. The college also provides Teacher Kong with health insurance, as well as a retirement pension. At less than eight hundred yuan, his monthly salary isn't high, but the big perk is security, because it's unheard-of for the college to fire an employee. Teacher Kong has what Americans would call tenure, except that traditionally in Communist China such tenure has been given the moment you start your job, and it has been given to everybody who works for a state
danwei:
teachers, government officials, post office employees, train attendants, dock laborers, factory workers. Under Chinese Communism, all of them have job security—“the iron rice bowl.”

But already this term is slipping into the past tense, and people in Fuling tend to use it in one of two ways. Usually it is heavy with irony, as locals emphasize a wasteful system that needs further reform; but there are still those who use it nostalgically as they describe something comfortable that is steadily disappearing. The way this term is used depends on where one stands in the
danwei
system, and increasingly the government is adopting the more critical viewpoint of the iron rice bowl. As a result, no rice bowl is entirely iron, and no
danwei
is without reform, and never is Socialism without those Chinese Characteristics that are devel
oping into a strange marriage of Communism and Capitalism, constantly shifting and redefining the parameters of lives like Teacher Kong's.

The first major change will hit him later this year, in June of 1998, when his apartment will be privatized. No longer will he enjoy the formality of a thirty-yuan rent payment; instead, the apartment's fifty-four square meters will be sold to him for a little more than ten thousand yuan. It's a good price—but nevertheless a lot of money for a man who makes eight hundred yuan a month, and whose wife makes even less as a freelance photographer. There is, of course, the possibility that the apartment's value will rise, providing Teacher Kong with a profit in the long run—but nothing in the past has taught him to see an apartment as an investment. Nobody in Fuling speaks of mortgages and refinancing, and it's unheard of for a common citizen to get a loan from a bank. To make a big purchase, you pay from your own savings, or you borrow from family and friends—or, if the money can't be found, you don't buy at all.

Other cracks are spreading across the iron bowl. Already the government has decided that the
danwei
insurance system will be reformed. The details of this change have yet to be determined, but probably Fuling's teachers will have to buy their own policies from China's fledgling insurance companies. And soon Teacher Kong and his wife, Xu Lijia, will have to deal with the issue of schooling. Elementary schools in the East River district charge the standard fees—more than one hundred yuan per semester in tuition, along with book and uniform charges. Such expenses are not difficult to bear, but the quality of public education in Fuling has started to vary widely, because schools with good reputations can charge higher tuition fees, thus paying higher salaries to keep top-rate teachers. The East River institutions are slipping in this competitive environment, and most teachers at the college choose to send their children to downtown schools. But such transfers are increasingly expensive—a few years ago it cost eight thousand yuan to change districts, and now the one-time fee has leaped to twelve thousand. How much higher will it be in three years, when Kong Songtao is ready for school? And is it worth the money? Are there other Characteristics that will crop up in the once-stable world of the Socialist
danwei
, leading to more difficult decisions for the family? And will these changes ever reach the point where Teacher Kong no longer speaks of Communism as a
xinyang
, a faith?

 

BUT EVEN AMID THESE CHANGES
, Teacher Kong is not particularly worried. Decisions will be made when necessary; in the meantime, he teaches ancient Chinese literature and watches his son grow up. This equanimity has nothing to do with Teacher Kong's status as a Party Member, committed to the government's policies. Instead, he is calm for the same reason that so many other Chinese are strangely placid in the midst of changes that seem overwhelming to outsiders. Quite simply, he has seen far worse.

“When I was a boy we didn't have enough to eat,” says Teacher Kong. “Especially in 1972 and 1973—those were very bad years. Part of it was that we lived in a remote place where the land wasn't very good, but also there were some problems associated with the Cultural Revolution—problems with production and agricultural methods. It was a little better later in the 1970s, but still it wasn't too good. We never ate meat; I was always hungry. Every day we ate rice gruel, and we only had a little bit of that. Rarely did we have salt. We ate weeds, wildflowers, pine needles—I've eaten all those things.

“My mother died when I was five, after she gave birth to my sister. Of course, we didn't have milk or anything like that to help the baby, who died as well. I don't remember that. But at the age of ten my father died, which I do remember. He got sick suddenly, a very bad cold, and in three days he was dead.

“After that, things were even worse. My grandfather wasn't strong enough to work, and I was too young to do much, so my uncle had to support all of us. At that time the Production Team in that village was very bad, and they weren't of any help. Later, things improved and they were able to assist us, but for many years it was terrible.”

All of Kong Ming's early life took place in the mountains outside Fengdu, a town that nowadays has about thirty thousand residents. From his childhood home it took an hour by foot to reach the nearest road, which was three hours by rough bus ride from Fengdu, and as a result Kong Ming never saw the town until he was fourteen years old. He helped his uncle farm the land, where they grew wheat and corn on the slopes, rice in the paddies, and vegetables where they could. “The work didn't seem hard back then,” he says, “but it would be hard now, because I'm not used to it anymore.” He looks at his hands and smiles,
for now they are the hands of a teacher—ink-stained and soft, the dirt and calluses long gone.

“I go to the countryside now,” he says, “and I can't believe how hard the work looks, even around the suburbs of Fuling, where the peasants are relatively well off. I can't believe I used to live in a place like that. And I see the students here at the college, most of whom are from peasant families, and I want to tell them that they shouldn't waste their parents' money. So many of our students are from backgrounds like mine, but they've already forgotten how hard the work is. On weekends they go out and waste so much money.”

Only a few of his middle-school classmates made it to high school, and none of the others tested well enough to go to college. He was admitted to Sichuan Teachers College, a four-year institution in Chengdu that is the top teachers college in the province. After graduating in 1988, he taught in a Fengdu trade school for six years, and then he was offered a job in Fuling.

Almost anybody in America who has made a rise like Teacher Kong's would be full of the confidence—and perhaps the arrogance—of the self-made man, but it is characteristically Chinese that such pride is completely absent. He rarely talks about his background, and he never emphasizes its difficulty, because he knows that things easily could have been worse.

“My family never had any trouble during the Cultural Revolution,” he says, when asked about political problems. “We were too poor. After Landlords, there were three types of peasants: Rich Peasants, Middle Peasants, and Poor Peasants. We were very poor—when you were as poor as we were, you didn't have anything to worry about during the Cultural Revolution. As long as you didn't steal something, or kill somebody, or commit another crime, there wasn't anything to worry about. Nobody in my family was persecuted.

“I can remember some of the village meetings at the end of the Cultural Revolution, in 1974 and 1975. I didn't really understand, of course, because I was only in elementary school, but I remember them clearly. They would take a Landlord, or maybe a Capitalist Roader—usually somebody who had been trying to sell firewood or vegetables—and they would have a meeting to criticize him. He'd stand like this.”

Teacher Kong demonstrates: feet together, waist bent slightly, head bowed so that his chin is tucked against his chest. For a few seconds he stands completely still, and then he laughs and continues the story.

“They didn't do the airplane so much. Mostly they had to stand like this, and if they didn't bow their head far enough, the people would force them down. I remember one older man in the village who had been a Landlord. At all the meetings they made him stand for hours like that, with his head bowed. He would shift his head to the side, because it was more comfortable that way, and finally after all the meetings his head was like that all the time. Even after the Cultural Revolution was finished, he would walk around the village with his head bent to the side.”

Teacher Kong is still standing, and now he tilts his head to the left and walks across the room. He laughs again and shakes his head.

“When you're a child, all of that seems very exciting. Of course it has some influence on a child—you see something like that when you're small, and it affects your thoughts. At the time we thought it was fun. During a meeting they might criticize the father of a classmate, and then afterward we'd make fun of the child: ‘Your father's a Counter-Revolutionary! Counter-Revolutionary! Counter-Revolutionary!' It wasn't something we understood, but we used to say it.”

He imitates a child, pointing and laughing and covering his mouth as he says the words,
Fan Geming, Fan Geming, Fan Geming
. Counter-Revolutionary, Counter-Revolutionary, Counter-Revolutionary. And then suddenly he is serious again.

“Nowadays people look back at that time and say it was absurd. It's almost funny, because the things people did were so
huangtong
, so ridiculous. But back then, all of that was serious—it was real life. It wasn't funny. It's impossible to understand that today.

“And perhaps in the future it will be the same with what's happening now. Ever since Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening, everything has been much better, and we know that those problems of the Cultural Revolution will never happen again. But still it might look different in the future. Today we look back at the Cultural Revolution and say it's so ridiculous, but perhaps in the future people will look back at today, and maybe they'll say the same thing.”