I recently finished A Leaf in the Bitter Wind, which is a personal memoir by Ting-Xing Ye of her life growing up as one of 5 children of a former factory owner in communist China. What an incredible, compelling story – I would highly recommend it. Many parts of her story are deeply tragic and even depressing, but there’s also an underlying uplifting element of the power of her human spirit to pursue meaning and happiness even in the face of seemingly unthinkable challenges.
As someone who is interested in the communist period in China, I did dip my toe in once or twice with some more academic-leaning historical books, which felt a little bit like a recitation of statistics, dates and names. It was difficult to hold my interest because I felt there must be deep and very human stories underneath all those facts and figures, which seemed to be missing. This memoir is an amazing place to start when trying to better understand the day-to-day experience of those living under this system, and this memoir and hopefully others like it might help give some of that human context and enrich the more high-level historical viewpoint. For one thing, it left me deeply grateful and with a new appreciation for being born and able to live in a free country.
Further below are some of my notes on the book (WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS). These notes don’t nearly capture the emotional depth and storylines in Ting-Xing’s memoir, which of course are fleshed out in compelling detail. They are just some of my key takeaways.
Ting-Xing’s father had inherited a rubber factory in Shanghai, and was running it when the communists came to power. Some time following, while Ting-Xing was still a child – her father was compelled to hand it over to the government in return for some nominal compensation. In any event, from that point forward their family was brandished with the ‘Capitalist’ class, which for many years to come was the lowest, most persecuted and most suspect class of people, subjected to the fewest possible rights and privileges.
Family Tragedy
Ting-Xing describes how her father, an intelligent and thoughtful man, had been born with a need to walk with a limp, and typically used a cane (despite being a relatively young man in his later 30s). He was, nonetheless, consigned to a very difficult and low level work in the factory following the communist takeover, pushing a cart around the factory floor. Ting-Xing understands this was done out of a desire on behalf of the new leadership to humble the former owner in front of his former workers, and show him his place in the new regime. Due to his condition her father struggles to meet his quotas, and she speculates that he also feels humbled by this. So without his wife or kids being aware, he arranges to go to the hospital on the advice of a doctor friend who told him his condition can be corrected with a simple surgery. Tragically, the operation goes amiss, and the family is alarmed to find that her father has been permanently paralyzed from his waist down.
In the years that follow, we hear about the wrenching choices forced on the family, as the need for a breadwinner means one of Ting-Xing’s older brothers, both still teenagers and who both show plenty of academic promise, need to decide among themselves which will abandon his dreams for a better future through higher education, and get a low level job to support the family. We hear about Ting-Xing’s predicament when the government passes a mandate that one member of each family must move permanently to the countryside (and therefore to poverty and very limited future prospects), and that either her or her older sister will need to be the one to go.
The Cultural Revolution
Some of the most tragic yet fascinating parts of this memoir concern the time period of the cultural revolution, which the author describes in vivid detail. This is a time of endless political denouncements and ‘revolution’, Mao’s personality cult is at a fever pitch. Some aspects of this period remind me of the book “The Lord of the Flies”, when a bunch of children are left on their own and the basic good faith and decency of society completely breaks down. We hear in personal detail about students who are empowered to accuse and humiliate their teachers in horrible ways, gangs of “Red Guards” in their late teens and early twenties searching homes, shaving heads and publicly humiliating elders on an out of control power trip. One gets a reminder that public shame and social exclusion can often be worse than any physical deprivation.
My feeling was that this was an example where, no matter how bad someone’s life is, as long as he/she can find a group of people and make those people worse off and feel superior to those people, then they can feel much better about their own lives. So the former capitalist and former landowning class (or really, anyone who refuses or is even suspected of refusing to follow the ‘party line’) are put in the role of villains, and the population can remain distracted by persecuting these villains in every possible way, to distract from their own poor economic prospects caused by an economic system bogged down by centralized mismanagement and various poorly considered schemes.
Labor Camp
Ting-Xing describes in detail her years at a labor camp in northern China, where the cruelty and hypocrisy of the system is on full display. After some challenges in requesting a change to the timing of her annual 2 week trip home, in order to be home at the same time that her sister will be, she ends up on the wrong side of the two PLA officers who run the camp. These officers then become determined to expose a ‘counter-revolutionary group’ at the camp, with her as one of the members.
There are nightly ‘struggle meetings’ held in the warehouse, where the workers at the farm must gather and some of whom are forced to the front to face accusations and ‘self-criticism’.
That night yet another struggle meeting was held in the warehouse. When I walked in, trailed by Fatty, no one spoke to me. People looked away when I passed them. As soon as I sat down in the front row, someone yelled from the back, “Bring up the counter-revolutionaries!” Only then did I notice two cells made of bamboo poles and reed mats newly installed at each end of the warehouse. Yu Hua emerged from behind one of them. Xiao Jian, Xiao Qian and Xiao Zhu were led to sit behind me.
The same voice at the back began to chant slogans, and the mass of students joined in . . .
The next stage of the struggle meeting was an open invitation for people to stand up and report on “crimes” committed by the five of us. One by one my friends were accused of betraying their class and of setting up a secret counter-revolutionary group. When it came my turn, from behind me I heard, “Ye Ting-xing has no respect for the motherland! She makes fun of everything!” “Ye Ting-Xing looks down on the PLA” a second woman blurted out, referring to my mimicking of Zhao’s Sichuan accent in the dorm room at night. My joke about the new road, charged another, proved that my “hatred of our beloved PLA was rooted in my bad blood, which had been growing since the day I was born.” “her parents were capitalists who sucked the blood of the working class,” screamed a fourth.
The imprecations, curses and insults went on and on, and my humiliation deepened with every cruel lie or false accusation. How could all of them hate me so? These were the women with whom I worked, ate and shared a dorm. If I could, I would have ended my life there and then.
Finally Zhao stood up. He informed the crowd that the five of us had held secret meetings in Xiao Jian’s tiny accounting office. “You all know the size of that room,” he sneered. “Just imagine how closely the five of them would have been jammed together. Do you really believe that they were just eating supper and talking?” He smirked, then suddenly pointed at Yu Hua and me. “And you two! You are constantly seen sharing the same bedding at night.” He turned to the audience. “I wonder if staying warm was the only reason!”
His remark brought an uproar of laughter. From the corner of my eye I saw that Yu Hua had begun to cry. I knew nothing about lesbians, but Zhao’s remark was clearly meant to be low and obscene, and I felt I would never hold up my head again.
Ting-Xing is subjected to weeks of sleep deprivation each night, with guards constantly forcing her awake and telling her to confess her crimes and those of her compatriots. Then during the day she must return to her grueling work in the rice fields. Finally after 14 days of this constant torture, she gives in and gives them the confession they desire. And this becomes a permanent source of guilt and shame for her. Not only did her friends get convicted as a result of her ‘confession’ (bringing shame to their own families), her conviction also disrupted the prospects of her brother back in the city, whose promising Party application now got denied. Ting-Xing describes nearly committing suicide shortly following these events. To many in the camp, she had become a first hand example of the rule “obey or be destroyed”.
The hypocrisy of the communist leadership also became apparent. For example we hear this story from the spring of 1971 concerning the 20-something son of Lin Biao (one of the most powerful leaders aside from Mao, who ran the PLA Air Force):
That spring a whisper circulated around the farm. Three female students from our brigade, well groomed and well dressed, were swept away in a military jeep. Under the guise of recruiting talented young women for song and dance troupes, the air force was rounding up attractive young women as fei-zhi – imperial concubines – for Lin Li-guo, Lin Biao’s only son. . .
It was a form of beauty contest. The candidates from each brigade were selected by the PLA reps, after their political backgrounds had been investigated. Political purity was the first criterion; next came beauty. The three women from our brigade returned the next afternoon, downcast. They had failed.
A week or so later word came that a woman from Number Two Brigade had been chosen by the panel selecting young virgins for Lin Li-guo. After a big farewell meeting she was paraded in a jeep from one village to another, waving to the crowds like a queen, then sent to the city of Guangzhou, where the young Lin lived.
At the camp itself, any romantic relationships were strictly forbidden, and any couples who were found were put on display for humiliation and criticism in front of the entire brigade, and the author includes stories of some of these humiliations.
Education
After being given some English textbooks by her older brother on one of her visits, Ting-Xing begins studying English during her spare time. Under one of Mao’s initiatives to open up higher education to workers in the countryside, it becomes possible for her to apply and (following a challenging selection process), earn a spot at a prestigious school in Beijing. Upon acceptance at the school, she finally has a way to leave the farm and her prospects improve markedly.
However, upon arriving at the university, Ting-Xing relates the atmosphere there, which is still under the oppressive regime of the cultural revolution. The party line at that time was that academic achievement was suspect and staying ignorant was virtuous. “Better Red than Expert” was a common slogan, and Ting-Xing was reprimanded for being too interested in her studies and academic learning, rather than politics. At one point, under guidance from Mao’s powerful wife Jiang Qing, the school is uprooted from Beijing and sent to a poor village in the countryside, to help with farm work there. The students are not of much use (and find it difficult to continue their studies in such an environment), while their presence is also a burden on the poor villagers themselves, who already barely have enough to eat yet now have more mouths to feed.
Adult Life
Ting-Xing relates the different challenges and successes she encountered following her graduation from the University. We hear about the oppressive control exercised by the government over family planning (in particular the one child policy and the lengths to which the government will go to enforce it). We learn about the power of connections and favors in securing scarce resources like apartments, or regulatory permissions, that were so critical to each person’s life.
After various challenges, Ting-Xing ends up working in the government department that handled foreign visitors (arranging venues and logistics, providing interpreters). She relates that one of the most memorable visits was the Crown Prince of Thailand (and, at the time I’m writing this, quite topical since said Crown Prince has recently been crowned King of Thailand and has been subject to much controversy. However this visit took place in 1987).
She describes the prince as a polite but arrogant man about her age, who likes to run every day for exercise. A nearby park had to be cleared of people and surrounded by guards while he went for his run. She then describes this scene:
One afternoon, when we had returned to the hotel panting from the run, I met two clerks from the Shanghai Arts and Crafts Trade Fair who had come to collect payment for items the prince had purchased the day before. I led them to the prince’s suite and knocked on the door. The door swung open and I found myself staring at the top of a bald head.
It was an old man, a servant of the prince, and he was on his knees. Shocked by this comical apparition, I took a step back. Inside the suite, servants dressed in loose clothing were passing back and forth across the corridor, all of them on their knees. Showing the invoice, I told the doorman I had come about payment and asked to speak to the chief liaison officer.
A great deal of talk ensued, all of it in Thai, between the kneeling figures. I heard the voices of the officer and the prince but could not see them. Then the old man waved me to come in. I took a step forward and he shook his head violently, jabbing his finger toward the floor and pulling at my sleeve. He wanted me to enter on my knees.
Chinese do not kneel any more, I thought; the kou-tou went out with Liberation. I also imagined myself thumping awkwardly down the corridor and could barely repress a smile. I shook my head, stepped back from the door, handing the invoice to the old man, and left.
Further Reading
I’d like to make my way through this reading list from Goodreads, China’s Cultural Revolution and its Aftermath in Fiction and Memoir, which is where I found this recommendation.