The Little Red Guard: A Family Memoir (20 page)

The map marked the gravesite with precise coordinates. I had always harbored suspicions that Grandpa’s two cousins were taking advantage of Father and there was no grave. A map wasn’t hard proof, but I was relieved enough to think that it all might be true. Over cups of hot, locally grown chrysanthemum tea, we passed the night talking about the past glories of the Huang family. The cousin in his younger days must have been as good a storyteller as Father, which to me made his stroke seem all the more cruel. He told me that my great-great-grandfather was a warrior and an educated military officer in the imperial court. He was a sharp crossbow shooter, like William Tell, and could shoot through a poplar leaf from a hundred feet away. He was credited in the 1860s for capturing the leader of the “long-haired rebels,” the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement, who fought the Qing Dynasty. This great-great-grandfather acquired several hundred acres of prime farmland along the Yellow River, hiring more than twenty tenants, and the Huang family fortune continued to expand for years after the death of my great-great-grandfather. By the time Grandpa and Grandma were married, this part of the region was called the Huang Estate.

The night was chilly and quiet. As I bundled up in a dusty quilt to sleep, I felt like running a black-and-white movie through my mind. I thought of the stories Grandma and Father had shared with me—the TB epidemic that killed nearly all of the male members of the Huang clan, the flood that stranded them on a tree for three days, the arranged marriage between my eleven-year-old Father and a sixteen-year-old girl, and the big white horses that had been snatched away by the invading Japanese. I stared at the high ceiling, saddened by the tribulations of the Huang family but excited to be “home.”

The village looked prosperous in the morning sun. Most families had built big red-brick houses. Peanuts and herbs did well in the sandy soil and incomes were good. Over the years, the village had been moved several times due to flooding, but the Huang cemetery was apparently still where it had always been, outside Chenjiagou Village, home to Chen-style tai chi, and proud of it.

Grandpa’s tomb lay across the street from the China Tai Chi Museum. “Many people here have heard about your father’s work to preserve your grandpa’s tomb,” the peanut grower bragged. “Under Chairman Mao, several of our relatives here fought hard to keep the grave marker when the village converted it into farmland. We all waited for your grandma to come back and join her husband, but your father never brought her home.” He seemed disappointed that Father had failed to keep his promise; death was apparently not an acceptable excuse for not honoring a family commitment.

The peanut grower unfolded the map and, using an electricity pole as his reference point, took forty-two steps to his right, and twenty-five steps forward. “This should be it,” he shouted.

Having heard about the gravesite all my life, I didn’t know what to think at that moment. I hoped Father’s spirit was watching. I joined the peanut grower in the snow and looked around us. “Wasn’t it supposed to be located on the back of a dragon near the Yellow River? I don’t see any water.” The peanut grower laughed: “Yes, a branch of the Yellow River used to meander around the village and the legendary dragon resided there, but the Yellow River has changed direction many times over the years and is now to the south.” That made sense, and I thought the open view auspicious enough.

We dug a hole in the snow, lit the fake paper money the peanut grower had purchased in the village. I knelt, kowtowed three times to my long-dead grandpa, whose presence I had known all through my life. It felt deeply comforting.

Back in Chicago, I waited anxiously for news from Henan while pondering a permanent solution for Grandma’s remains. Then, on a business trip to Henan six months later, my younger brother stopped by Grandpa’s tomb to pay tribute. What he encountered was nothing like what he had expected from the pictures I had sent them—the idyllic cemetery and its surrounding farmland had been cordoned off by barbed wire. A construction crew was pouring concrete into the foundation for a new traditional-style building, which locals said would be a tai chi center for foreign and Chinese tourists who trek to the village in search of authentic tai chi training.

According to the peanut grower, whom my brother called to find out the situation, the private developer had convinced the villagers that the building foundation would not go deep enough to disturb the remains of Grandpa and other deceased relatives. “We decided that it is better to leave the remains, rather than moving them since it is bad luck to move the remains of our ancestors around.” What the peanut grower did not mention was that he had accepted a sum of money on condition that our family would rescind the rights to excavate and relocate the remains.

As upset as I was that I couldn’t protect Grandpa’s grave from development, I took comfort in the fact that Grandpa, a practitioner of tai chi, would be part of a building that promotes this ancient form of Chinese martial arts, which Father had hoped that I would continue with. But what about the reunion? An elderly relative, who never failed to come up with solutions for every occasion, made a proposal that my sisters said was the next best thing to physically relocating Grandma’s remains. According to the relative, I should gather a cup of dirt from Grandma’s grave and buy a wooden dummy with Grandpa’s name engraved on it. “Bury the cup of dirt and the dummy next to your Grandma, hold a spirit-calling ceremony, and your grandparents will be reunited,” she instructed. When I paused in hesitation, she said. “It will work if you have faith in it.”

According to the Chinese lunar calendar, November 1 is Ghost Day—the living bring “clothes” to the dead to prepare them for the upcoming winter. I flew home to observe the occasion. We brought an urn containing the cup of dirt and a wooden dummy bearing Grandpa’s name and placed it next to Grandma’s remains. A shaman that my little brother invited from a nearby village presided over the ceremony. Chanting to invoke the spirits of my grandparents, who were supposed to reunite after a century of separation, he lit the incense sticks and set fire to the piles of fake paper money and paper clothes that my sister had purchased. As a plume of smoke rose to the sky, my siblings and I knelt around the grave and chanted along with the shaman, who called upon my grandparents to bring peace and prosperity to the Huang family. Despite the somber atmosphere, I found it incredibly romantic and could not help quoting from Shakespeare: “He is the half part of a blessed man, / Left to be finished by such as she; / And she a fair divided excellence, / Whose fullness of perfection lies in him.”

A
FTERWORD

O
ur hometown, Xi’an, was just one vote short of becoming the capital city of China,” my late father used to tell me, referring to the period after the Communist takeover in 1949, when a political advisory body consisting of delegates from all walks of life decided on Communist China’s capital city. “Otherwise, we could have seen Chairman Mao easily. The government would have built nice buildings like you see in Beijing and people from all over the country would have come to visit us,” he continued, smacking his lips in regret.

Growing up in the 1970s, I constantly heard similar sayings from people who believed Xi’an was not chosen as the capital city because of the lack of a Forbidden City. “Only one vote,” they would say with a sigh. I searched for evidence and found nothing to support the assertion. Since Xi’an had been the capital city for twelve dynasties, it was not surprising why Xi’an natives would feel that way.

It was true that Xi’an does not have a grand Forbidden City, home to the emperors and their many concubines and eunuchs, but we have plenty of mausoleums and tombs guarded by thousands of terra-cotta soldiers. Of China’s two hundred and thirty-one emperors and one ruling empress, seventy-nine of them were buried in and around Xi’an. Emperors would begin scouting for propitious locations for their burial as soon as they assumed power, and work would begin almost immediately on their tombs, the interiors of which resembled a palace so they could enjoy the same glory and luxury in their afterlives. Empress Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty spent twenty-three years building her tomb and legend has it that her accession was because of the location of her husband’s tomb, nestled between two hills that resembled a woman’s breasts and hence a powerful source of female energy.

In March 1975, while digging a well, some farmers outside Xi’an found what looked like pieces of a large statue. They reported what they had found, and further investigation revealed the buried army of terra-cotta warriors and the tomb of Qin Shihuang, the first emperor of a unified China. In that year, Father, a big fan of ancient Chinese history, took me on company-organized trips to see the recent discovery that is now part of the world’s cultural heritage. He said the emperor started building his tomb at the age of thirteen. More than seven hundred thousand workers labored thirty-eight years to build it. Historians believe the tomb of Shi Huang, which has been left sealed, was an exact replica of his palace and contains a treasure of unimaginable value. Many of the key builders and craftsmen were buried alive inside the tomb to protect its secret passageways from grave robbers. I had nightmares for weeks.

Chairman Mao admired the first emperor’s unconquerable ambitions and his feat of uniting China and heartily commended his brutal crackdown on dissent when Qin Shihuang burned books and buried Confucian scholars alive. As a result, archeologists were allowed to excavate and protect his tomb in Xi’an. In addition, the leadership in Xi’an, known for their conservative sensibilities that were typical of northwesterners, managed to preserve the city wall and a Ming Dynasty bell tower that stood in the middle of the city. Father said the Ming tower with flying eaves was built to conquer a dragon that lay dormant underneath Xi’an and would occasionally wake up to cause earthquakes. Other ancient relics were not so lucky. In their zealous efforts to purge the ancient city of old traditions and customs to make way for the new Communist society, the Red Guards blew up many ancient buildings, smashing and burning whatever was deemed to be representative of China’s oppressive and exploited past. In a city as old as Xi’an, there was much to destroy.

With the death of Mao and the ensuing economic reforms, Xi’an, with its ancient history, has now become a cash cow for tourism, with its terra-cotta warriors outside the first emperor’s tomb a powerful draw in the global tourism game. The city experienced a rebirth—there is a rush to “restore the past,” which could erase forever what is left of the city’s history. The last time I wandered Xi’an’s “restored” streets, I half expected to see Mickey Mouse in mandarin robes. The courtyard houses were gone. Modern concrete structures punctuated the skyline, and gaudy traditional-style retail outlets lined the widened streets, and loud billboards glittered with the universally exclusive consumerist icons of Chanel and Rolex in the hastening dusk. Where were the giant Chairman Mao portraits and red flags with golden hammers and sickles that were so omnipresent in my youth? They had been replaced by Colonel Sanders and the red-and-gold arches of McDonald’s. Still, the children looked happy enough, oblivious to the thousands upon thousands of ancestral spirits drifting homeless around them.

The Hui district of Xi’an’s Muslim population retains some of its ancient charm. The narrow streets, towered over by old houses with flying eaves, brought back intimate feelings of our old city. History is empowering. Hundreds of specialty foods in dazzling colors were on display. Amid the hustle and bustle of visitors, the cacophony of cooking and the food vendors’ hawking was soothing to the ear. The Hui have managed to remain united and defiant in the defense of their religion and cultural heritage. The government leaves them alone for fear of triggering large-scale demonstrations, which is probably why the district has survived China’s modernization unscathed.

The neighborhood where my parents raised me and my three siblings is not so lucky. “You won’t recognize it,” my brother told me as we left Xi’an’s international airport in November 2009. He had sent me an e-mail earlier, reporting that a private developer, contracted by the government, wanted to demolish our old house, ownership of which had passed to me. The house had so many memories that I felt compelled to return home before it disappeared.

Like thousands of former state-owned enterprises, Father’s old company had collapsed and its land was being redeveloped as another shopping mall, hopefully not on the scale of the world’s biggest mall, which is in Beijing. The warehouses, factories, and administrative buildings had been blasted to rubble, though a handful of stubborn concrete-and-steel support columns had survived. It reminded me of old newsreel footage of the German cities devastated by British bombing toward the end of World War II. Wild grasses were already reclaiming the soil.

We arrived in time for what my brother said was a frequent scene; a crowd had gathered near the entrance of the residential complex, former neighbors barring entry to the demolition teams. The local government wanted the land for a replica Han Dynasty palace, something to do with tourism and restoring tradition. I was unaware of any such link with China’s imperial past. The only thing notable about our area was that it was near an execution ground where thugs and counterrevolutionaries were shot dead with a single bullet to the back of the head. Those “thugs” now seemed to have found employment with the government as they did battle with defiant local residents. The government promised that modern and spacious apartments would be built in the distant west of the city. A loudspeaker truck declared that residents had been given ample warning. But they had read and heard about other forced relocations and the empty promises that robbed others of their homes. The old ladies of the neighborhood had marshaled themselves as a human wall to block any attempts at forced entry.

My brother said the developer had earlier that morning sent in dozens of men armed with long wooden batons who managed to breach the “human wall,” bringing down the gate and smashing several windows and a few skulls before being driven back. I saw many familiar faces among the defenders; my former classmates, the former workshop director, and the friends of Mother’s, whom she used to dance with every morning in the park. I pulled down my baseball cap, hoping people wouldn’t recognize me, but I was spotted by a woman, an old colleague of Father’s, who, eyes welling with tears, launched into a tirade: “The government is rotten to the core. The leaders are greedy and ruthless. They’ve sold the people’s property to private developers. They want to make us homeless so neither the living nor the dead can find peace.” Would the demolition have radicalized my parents, who clung to the past as a source of great comfort? Father might be too orthodox, but I was sure that Mother would have been among the women linking arms and braving the batons.

“I have kept a few items from the house,” my brother said. He had sold everything else. “The old stuff is useless. We need to move forward.” In China now, people are eager to “move forward.” Dwelling on the past is “reactionary.”

At my brother’s house, I realized that he had gotten rid of most of my parents’ furniture—our prized antique armoire that Father had bought as “fruits of the Cultural Revolution” was sold to a recycling center because my sister-in-law preferred a new European-style wardrobe. I held back my anger and sifted through the things he had saved. There was a package neatly wrapped in red cloth. Inside were blue strips of cotton and fabric, which Mother had torn off from Grandma’s shirt following her funeral to stuff into our own bedding so some of Grandma’s longevity might rub off on us. There was Father’s old 1970s Shanghai-brand watch, a major household item that had cost him two months’ salary; he had shown off that watch at a “speak-bitterness” meeting at our school to illustrate how prosperous we have become under Communism. There was even one of my old journals, the one with the red cover given to Father by his company on June 18, 1980, when I was in senior high. On the first page, three lines of neatly written characters read:
FOR COMRADE HUANG ZHIYOU, A MODEL PARTY MEMBER
. Father had given it to me and, like a good Communist, I had filled its pages with inspiring quotes. “A person’s life is finite, but the Communist cause in infinite.” “When the person merges his life with Communism, making it a whole organic entity, his life will be prolonged and elevated in this common collective cause.”

Nobody talks about merging their lives with Communism now, even my sister, a veteran Party member. She reminded me that it was the first day of the lunar month, an auspicious day to go visit Famensi, a Buddhist temple said to have one of Sakyamuni’s finger bones. “Your prayers are more likely to be answered today,” she said. During the Cultural Revolution, an abbot had self-immolated in a desperate attempt to protect the temple from destruction by Red Guards. His heroic act scared the young rebels. Nowadays, the temple is a major tourist hot spot, and the local government hired a Taiwanese architect who designed and built an ultramodern hall nearby for would-be worshippers, who are charged an exorbitant entry fee. There’s a long pathway there, and I copied my sister and lit sticks of incense I had bought from a peasant vendor who cornered me at the entrance and kowtowed to a row of freshly painted gold Buddhist statues. Each statue was for different human needs—reproduction (“please grant me a baby boy”), a child’s education, career, and business (“please shower me with more money”), and health. Wealthy people too busy to worship could buy an “everlasting candle” to be placed next to the huge Buddha in a cavernous hall so they had his perpetual blessing. The original temple, with its elegant delicate tower, still stands, lonely on a side lane, guarded by the spirit of the immolated abbot.

On the way back from the temple, we passed by a large stretch of land, which used to be cemeteries and farmland. My sister excitedly pointed out the dazzling new changes—a restored Tang palace, where guards dressed in ancient armored uniforms stood expressionless at the door; a new park with an artificial lake with Tang pavilions built in the ancient style; and a palatial restaurant that would serve “authentic” imperial-court food. I wondered aloud how many acres of prime farmland the government had occupied and how many cemeteries had been destroyed or forced to move. My sister said, “A lot.”

In the old days, people preserved their ancestral cemeteries at all costs because the cemeteries served as tenuous links to the past, connecting descendants to their roots. Father used to say that the worst curse one could fling at someone was, “I’m going to dig up your ancestral tomb. You’ll have nowhere to go after death.” Nowadays, all is transition and impermanence. In today’s rapidly changing China, both the living and the dead must give way to development. Villages and cities that we claim as our ancestral homes are being transformed beyond recognition, and ancestral cemeteries are being bulldozed. People are no longer tied to their birthplaces, and as they search for better job opportunities, many have migrated to the sprawling cities and to distant parts of the world.

Grandma desired nothing more than to end her life as a transient and return to her ancestral home to stay forever. For me, however, being able to travel farther away than I ever thought I would has brought a different sense of fulfillment. Each time I conclude my overseas travels and see the familiar skyline of Chicago from the plane, I whisper to myself, “I’m home.”