Wrongs and Rights
With Chinese New Year's behind me I began to work at my painting orders with a vengeance.
I had resolved to prove that we mainland boys were not all scoundrels; on the contrary, we were largely hardworking and capable of the very best work. So, putting the unpleasant experience of New Year's Eve behind me, I busied myself making contacts with the art exporters so as to get more orders.
Every day, on returning home from the studio, I would gulp down my simple supper, then go directly to my easel. I would always paint until midnight, then drop into bed, exhausted.
Within a month I had eight one-hundred dollar bills to show for my efforts. And this was all in addition to my regular salary! Now I felt sure I'd be able to make it in this highly competitive world. Ahead of me lay boundless opportunity! If I kept this up my savings would surely grow by leaps and bounds. How rosy my future was!
Feeling in a very generous mood one day, I treated Chao, Yu-cheng and some of my other friends to a good meal in a restaurant. I even bought a TV set. The next month I bought a lot of new clothes and even discarded my old watch and bought a new one. Remembering how much I had longed for these things I had seen in the shops when I first arrived in Hong Kong, I now felt some degree of satisfaction.
Nor did I forget my family either; finding some good cloth and peanut oil, I packaged them carefully and mailed them to my parents, knowing that they would find them useful. Luxuries such as watches or TV sets would be
Page 64
unnecessary for them, but cloth and peanut oil were what they needed the most.
I felt so proud that, for the first time in my life, I was able to begin to repay my parents materially for all the care they had given me for more than twenty years. Like most of the "transplanted youth," I had been prevented from doing anything for my family during those years that I was on the farm. I felt I was always "with empty hands coming in and full hands going out."
My parents only had enough food rations for themselves, but in spite of that, they still tried their best to save a bowl of food here and there to help their children live more comfortably on the farms. Now it gave me great pleasure to let them know that I was in a position to help them.
"Please don't worry about me," I wrote them. "If I don't write very often it's because of my very busy schedule."
As the months went by, the residents of the Chih-ching Dou experienced a number of changes.
Da-lin moved out and now ran his own small wholesale business, employing only boys from the mainland. I was glad to see him get ahead in this manner. But Ah-hu, the honest-looking boy who grinned at me the night I moved in, surprised me by taking a job as a bouncer for a nightclub.
We also acquired two new residents. One was Doctor Hong, a medical doctor who had returned from his native Singapore to China with some revolutionary young people back in 1958. The other was not of Chih-ching origin either. Back on the mainland he had been a member of the Workers' Propaganda Team which was initiated by Chairman Mao and organized and operated by the Revolutionary Committee. It was used for both suppressing and exiling the Red Guards. As Chih-chings we would detest people like this, but as I came to know him better I found him to be an honest and humble man unlike many of the students.
My roommate Chao, had recently changed his job, too.
Page 65
He complained that the door-to-door salesman's work was too difficult, "especially," he said, "since Da-lin became the boss. He's become very snobbish, too, not thinking of us all being 'in the same boat' anymore. We're just laborers, that's all." He took up an apprenticeship in a factory.
After supper one evening Chao, Yu-cheng and I sat chatting together. We were discussing the fact that Chao had not yet received his I.D. card which he needed badly if he were to go ahead with processing his papers for emigrating to the United States.
As we chatted, Yu-cheng, who had been browsing the daily newspaper, suddenly interrupted. "Hey! Take a look at this! It will really make your blood boil!"
He handed me the newspaper.
I took it and read. Immediately I, too, became incensed. The article told of a mainland girl who, being exhausted from many days on the trail and several hours of swimming, was raped by a policeman at the Lau Fau San Police Station.
I was livid. Speechless. I handed the paper to Chao.
"Dammit! Off with his head!" His face flushed red with anger. "Oh, what suffering we go through!"
My mind raced wildly.
Why had we been driven out into the country? Because we were Red Guards. And why did we join the Red Guards? Because our "great Leader" had appealed for our help when our country was in a great "crisis," and we had to start the Cultural Revolution. Without him sanctioning our movements, who were we to rebel?
We spent three years ruthlessly sacrificing human life and property. For what purpose? We had gone out of our way to criticize certain communist cadres and intellectuals, and even put some to death. We had destroyed thousands of years of our rich cultural heritage, breaking up millions of families in the process. Why? Just to take one group from power and replace it with another equally as bad. It had nothing to do with any foreign aggression, nor even with
Page 66
benefitting our own Chinese people, but rather with infighting among our leaders.
In fact, the inestimable loss to the economy that resulted, as well as to our own people, not to mention the accession of many radicals to power, brought our country to a terrible crisis. But more tragically, it was those of us who had been used who became the innocent victims, exiled to farms and labor camps because "we were not valuable anymore!"
We were compelled to receive our "re-education" at the hands of the farmers, but, in reality, what did that amount to? It meant back-breaking toil, contempt, unjust pay, shortage of food and no place to live, together with endless self-criticism and a position at the bottom of the social scale. As Chih-chings we were despised and often cruelly oppressed, and treated as slaves by many of the local rabble.
There was a true story I heard of a Chih-ching who died because he couldn't obtain a permit to see the doctor. Many of his Chih-ching friends paraded his body on a plank in front of the local government office in silent demonstration. Many Chih-chings committed suicide, and many of the girls were raped or forced into "shotgun" marriages.
I will never forget the time a farmer bragged to me about the possibility of one day "owning" a Chih-ching girl. Publicly I warned him that if he ever carried out his intentions, I would surely "smash his head" with a brick.
Even worse than that, there were reports from some areas of bloody clashes between the local militia and Chih-chings.
What crime had we committed that we should suffer so much reproach? Was it because we had been used and sacrificed by the "greats?" Or was it because we had pure patriotic hearts? Or perhaps because we were too young to understand fully about the revolutionary process and political maneuvering?
As for the Chih-ching girl who had just arrived in Hong Kong, had she escaped the bullet of the frontier soldier, the teeth of the guard dogs, the sharks, only to be so brutally
Page 67
molested in this land of "freedom?"
Does such a thing as "human rights" really exist in this world? Must this world always be hanging out a sign labelled "civilization," while at the same time being on the lookout for some group to despise, maltreat, oppress or spit upon? By having Indian "untouchables," Jews, gypsies, Chih-chings and other outcasts, will we one day become more civilized, more evolutionary or more noble compared with them?
The term "civilization" has become soiled by the blood of these innocent people. Moreover, the powers of conscience and morality alone are too frail to fight against such evils. But people in general choose to ignore these evils only as long as they are not on the suffering end themselves.
People like to discuss the ever-changing political situation in China; they like to talk about how the Red Guards used to destroy everything and how the Chih-chings returned to the cities to become robbers and prostitutes.
People like to talk of those who had escaped to Hong Kong, preferring to rob and kill rather than work, but they don't want to hear how those people have been used, sacrificed and finally abandoned to both physical and psychological ruin. They turn their eyes away from the suffering of those who are still being victimized in the great People's Republic of China. There are millions of people like this — the whole present generation of China's youth!
We should not only be noticing these innocents, but we should also be crying for them, too, for they are China's most precious possession.
People sing the praises of emperors and rulers, but they never hear the voices of the masses individually crying, "I am just an ordinary man; I don't want to be king but just to lead my own life in peace."
People admire the magnificence of the Great Wall but ignore the countless skeletons that lie beneath it. Had I the choice, I would far rather have freedom for the slaves who helped construct it — or the Great Pyramid, for that matter — than the splendor of these monuments to which our
Page 68
civilization points with pride.
It pains me to think how the "greats" sacrifice human life for the sake of political experiments or ideologies that are merely elusive dreams.
I was just one amongst a whole generation of youth who had been sacrificed. The outcome had not been glory, but rather a monument of shame.
I lay in bed one night and pondered over this matter of human rights. The question seemed to be this:
In this world filled with humanity, how is it that some people consider themselves to have the right to persecute and oppress others?
Suppose that we were to take a packet of cabbage seed and carefully sow it in the garden. After a few days the seeds would germinate and soon begin to show through the soil. A week or so later we would see a row of healthy seedlings.
Now, in our minds, each of those seedlings would have equal "rights." Each had been sown in the same soil by the same person, exposed to the same rain and the same sunshine. This means that each would have the same "right" to grow there. If, however, some person were to come along and uproot them, it would seem most unfair and unreasonable if some seedlings could, and would, rise up and strike the others.
But is not our world something like this cabbage patch? Just imagine that someone on Mars were to view our earth as a mere speck visible only through a telescope. If human beings moving on the earth's surface were visible, they would all be seen as being equal. Each one would appear to have human rights.
If that person were to arrive on this earth, however, he would find a totally different story, for one oppresses and another kills. Groups of people gang up together to kill other groups. Soon our earth visitor would discover that some have power much stronger than others, and some are deprived of rights they should have. Some not only control
Page 69
people themselves, but also their thinking, their innermost being, believing that they have extra rights and powers necessary to maintain peace and order. In actuality, the power they have is far greater than what they really need. It is true that they need to have some power in order to enforce so-called "law"; that is right, but if they expand this power beyond reasonable limits then they, too, become law-breakers.
Finally, our earth visitor, after conducting some research, would discover that dictators arose because of an apparent lack of self-control among the masses who needed someone to lead them. At least, that appeared to be the "official" reason given. And so, because they lacked self-control and were selfish, some discovered that if they could oppress the others they could acquire great power. In other words, there was no way any could enjoy ideal equality and freedom unless they possessed enough self-control and ceased to be selfish.
But how could they cease being selfish? And how is it possible to obtain self-control?
No, all this was too much for me to figure out, and my mind felt so confused. "There must be something desperately wrong with mankind," I concluded.
