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The last year and half in the new elementary school was really a good experience. My initial fear of inadequate education from the village school was unfounded. I excelled in arithmetic, reading, history and other subjects. I particularly enjoyed the writing class. I started making new friends and learned about the somewhat urban life in the town. When you are a "star" student, it is much easier to make friends. I very much looked forward to middle school where new subjects, such as physics and chemistry would be added.
When I entered middle school, the vibe on campus had drastically shifted as China plunged deeper into the Cultural Revolution. Schools were not vibrant communities for learning, but had become political theaters. Teachers were divided into two opposing camps, based on their personal wealth, the past economic status of their parents or other factors.
Some really good and effective teachers from privileged families had their loyalty to socialism and the CCP questioned. They had to go extra miles, such as public disowning their parents, turning over valuables they inherited to government, even telling on their parents on anti-socialist comments, etc, to prove they were politically reliable. Nothing short of these were punished in some way, depending on the whims of the day of the persons in charge. Some were stripped of their teaching jobs or even sent to reeducation camps. A small number of teachers found this an opportunity to get ahead by disclosing grievances about the CCP regime in personal conversations between co-workers. Everybody tried to find ways for political survival.
Students were not encouraged to learn, but were rewarded to become political activists in classrooms. Once in math class, a student who wanted to stand out politically, accused the teacher of not weaving the exploitation of workers by business owners, a class struggle example, into an algebra problem. It was a narrative that the cultural revolution zealots pushed into the teaching of any subject. I loathed what I witnessed in the classroom and on campus. Amid the nonsense and disruptions in classrooms, I gradually drifted away from learning.
The school finally reached the point that even attendance was not kept. Initially, I skipped afternoon classes from time to time. Eventually, I went straight home for lunch at noon, and never returned to afternoon classes. Expectedly, my grades plunged, starting with failing scores in algebra, a subject I used to love and once thrived. Nobody noticed it or seemed to care. A star student lost his luster and faded into obscurity. Even up to today, I try to understand why my desire to learn and my grades precipitously fell so quickly. When I started writing this memoir and thinking about this period of time, I realized I was hitting puberty then. So, I googled "Do boys become stupider during puberty?" The answer was not what I wanted to see. I guess the only one to blame was myself. But, I was just a kid, a product of the environment in which I grew up. If society does not value excellence, why should I put out the extra effort to pursue it? It seems to me that culture of excellence really matters!
After I wandered around aimlessly for some time, I picked up table tennis, one of the few sports the campus could provide. I did not have a coach to train me to play in competitive games. I knew I would not have any chance since there were too many excellent table tennis players in China. I just played it to channel some extra energy.
In addition to playing table tennis, a new toy that would change the trajectory of my entire life came into my life. On a late summer afternoon in the late 1970's, my dad brought home a small radio set, the first electronic device in my family. It was the simplest battery-powered set you could get. Yet it kicked off a rendezvous that I had with the radio for over ten years.
There was only one radio station I could tune in to. I shunned the news coverage the CCP tried to push to listeners who had been inundated with lies and half-truths about how socialism was so good in other socialist countries around the world, and what miserable lives people in capitalist countries led.
There were not many entertainment programs on the air. The CCP treated any form of arts, music and literature as capitalist, and banned them in theaters, museums and on radio and TV. Chinese traditional songs and operas were considered "serving the interests of the ruling class" and were suspended, too.
The CCP only sanctioned eight Beijing Operas. Their plots feed into the narratives of class struggle, featuring working class people rebelling against the ruling class, or communist forces against its arch rival in the Civil War, or how past enemies of the CCP harboring revenge against and plotting on overthrowing the CCP.
I did not pay much attention to the political persuasions of these operas. I not only listened, I listened literally countless times, until I could recite every word of the scripts, sing the recitatives, and mimic stage sound and background noises at the exact timing. Through it all, I developed a strong sense for sound, tones and rhythm that I can easily imitate them. The developed skill to imitate serves me decisively when I started learning English by radio years later.
The Cultural Revolution was the darkest chapter in China's modern history. Its philosophical underpinning was Karl Marx's Class Struggle Theory. Such theory claims that capitalist society is made of the ruling class( the bourgeoisie), the capitalist class who owns most of the society's wealth and means of production, and the working class(the proletariat). Eventually the working class will unite to overthrow the ruling class and establish a new system, a transition from capitalism to socialism and then from socialism to communism. For Marx, there are only two types of people: the oppressor and the oppressed, defined by their economic status and position in a society. So, the bourgeoisie are the oppressor and the proletariat are the oppressed.
Before the Cultural Revolution started, the CCP had completed the "economic revolution" to establish the socialist system: replacing private ownership with state ownership through collectivization in agriculture sector and public and private joint-ventures in industrial sectors, and replacing free market economy with the centrally planned economy. No individuals owned wealth and means of production. There should be no ruling class any more because everybody had achieved the same economic status.
But, the CCP did not think so. They believe that any remnant element of free market and entrepreneurship will create new wealth and new ownership of means of production. They continued to go after these activities and the individuals who were engaged in them. I personally witnessed the following incidents.
My village had a long history of making fire crackers as the techniques were passed from one generation to the next. There were real demands for them during Chinese New Year, or for weddings and other festivities. But, villagers were not allowed to enter the fire cracker business, as they were confined only to farming according to the central economic plan by the commune . During the long winter months, the villagers had nothing to do in the fields. Some families dusted off the tools, secretly located the sources of raw materials, and gingerly started small-scale production. But, they had to go underground. They tightly covered the windows and worked only during the night.
I learned the detailed production process by helping some neighbors out in their family shops. I used the word "helping", not "working", because I never asked for nor expected a pay. I knew the villagers were not sure if they could bring their production to market. If they were caught, they would lose all the tools, the raw materials and finished goods. They could be locked up for a few weeks if their scale of productions were deemed large. I just wanted to have opportunities to hang out with people other than my family, and sometimes for a sleepover even though my bed was a little more comfortable.
On a cold November morning, I heard the wind that my village was raided by the local government militia. I wondered what had happened to the families I had worked for. I went there to see broken tools scattering on the ground. The raw materials and finished products had been confiscated. I was heart-broken for them. This could mean that a couple of new shoes for their kids, or a few more pounds of pork for their new year dinner were gone, These people were so stoic that they had no tears in their eyes after losing everything. They had gotten so used to the regime's tight grip on their lives that they just submitted themselves to fate.
The CCP government at the local level could tightly regulate the farming units on what they could plant. One day on my way to school, I noticed a parcel of land was carved out of the rice field. I heard that they were turning it into an orchard. A few months later, people were planting rows up rows of young trees. I asked what kind of fruit trees they were planting. I was told peaches. In our part of the country, soil, weather and sunshine are perfect for growing peaches, watermelon and strawberries. Under the government's central planning, we were never allowed to pursue this type of business. They are cash crops that will put money into people's pockets. That will make the government harder to control its citizens. Secondly, this type of economic activity disrupted the planned economy. Somebody must have taken a big risk to make this happen.
In a few short years, peach flowers dotted the green rice fields with a sea of pink flowers in the spring. It instantly became a spot for the villagers for sightseeing. That summer, the aroma of ripe peaches filled the air. But, good things always have an end. With 7 to 10 prime bearing seasons to go for the peach trees, the Commune government ordered them to be uprooted, and the orchard to be converted back into the rice field.
The CCP's radical ideology also believed that the oppressors harbored an anti-socialism agenda and might overthrow socialism when opportunities presented themselves. So, the CCP relentlessly went after the oppressors. In some places, they ordered that a certain number of oppressors must be identified in factories, farming units, schools, institutions and even governmental entities.
But, how did you find the oppressors when everyone had achieved the same economic status?
They resorted to the identities people used to associate with. So, sons and daughters, or even grandsons and granddaughters of land or business owners, past enemies of CCP, their children and close relatives, and the right-wingers, people who held different ideologies from the CCP's orthodox, were all identified as the Oppressors.
The CCP then tried to correct past oppression with new oppression. The oppressors would be subjected to public humiliations at huge gatherings, be stripped of jobs, or sent to reeducation camps for harsh labor, or even to prisons. Social unrest ensued, as demonstrations by different groups spiraled out of control, or even turned violent. Such tensions even spilled into families when some children turned against their parents, and wives turned against their husbands. Many books were written about the tragedies of countless families that had left a deep scar on the psyche of modern Chinese society.
The CCP also turned every aspect of social life on their heads. For hundreds of years in China's history , meritocracy ruled. Royal exams used to be the only way for the underprivileged to move up on the social ladder even in the feudal system. The CCP threw that longstanding tradition out of the window. They ordered colleges and universities to admit students, not based on merits, usually test scores, but rather from the oppressed groups. They conducted the so-called "Political background check" to choose people with the politically correct pedigree to fill vacancies in governments, state-owner companies and the military.
The cultural revolution not only did irreparable damages to modern Chinese society, shredded the traditional values that had produced one of the few continuous civilizations on earth, it also brought the economy to the brink of collapse. Due to neglect and lack of investment in rural areas, agriculture outputs stagnated. It could no longer support the growth of the urban population. Families like ours faced the brunt of the circumstance. My family, except my dad, was off the government rations. We became members of one of the two collective farming units in our village. We would receive our rations of grain after the tributes in grain were paid to the government and the mandatory sales of agriculture outputs were met. Government rations for children were fractions of what was for the adult, assuming that they eat less than adults. Rations in the village were based on headcount only, regardless of ages. With four of us kids, we might be a little better off. Another good thing was that we could work in the fields to earn credits to pay for the rations we received. So, during summer, my brother and I joined the farmers to both harvest the first round of rice and plant the second of rice for fall harvest. It was a backbreaking job in the hot and humid Chinese South. We had to get up very early in the morning to take advantage of the cooler temperature.
The movement went on for so long that it seemed that China was stuck in eternal chaos and decline. When I was 15 or 16, I was thinking about my future. I wanted to leave the village where my family had been trapped for generations. I was thinking of joining the military. I secretly met army recruiters, but was told that I needed to obtain parental approval. When I talked to my parents, my dad vehemently opposed it because the deployment was thousands of miles away from home. He hated to see me leave home at such a young age.
As I was orienting my life toward being a farmer, the CCP dictator Mao died. After two years of power struggle among to top CCP leaders, Deng Xiaoping emerged victorious. He never assumed the Presidency or the CCP Party Chief position, but he pulled the strings for the next fifteen years. He was a pragmatic CCP leader who saw the impending collapse of the Chinese economy and the unraveling of social fabric. He initiated the economic reform and opened the country to foreign investment. On the social front, he decided to restore college admission tests to determine who could go to colleges. That was exhilarating news for millions of people who had longed for colleges.
One hot summer afternoon in 1978, I turned on the radio to the lowest volume as my folks were taking a nap. The voices of a male and a female broadcaster in English came through. English was taught in the first three years of middle school. But the only thing I had learned was the alphabet and a few words, like father, mother, brother and sister, etc. The language never sounded so beautiful in my classroom as it did that day. I did not understand a thing they said, but I was nonetheless mesmerized by it. Just like you can't understand a single word of a classic Italian opera, yet you feel like being transported to a state in which you can't help but sing along. I did not realize that I listened until the end, trying to imitate and repeat after them.
I found out the program was called "English by Radio" hosted by the State Public Radio station. It taught English at a large scale since schools did not have enough English teachers for classroom teaching. As China opened its doors for foreign investment and tourists after the economic reform by Deng Xiaoping, there was a surging demand for English-speakers. The program was part of the efforts to fill the gap.
In the following weeks, I came back to the program like clockwork. Even today, I can't explain why I was so fascinated with it. I had never ventured out 10 miles from my village. I could never imagine a situation where I would use language in any form. Yet, every day I still turned on the radio a few minutes before the program went on air. Finally, I got the textbook for the program, That was when the real learning started. I could look at the book as the words were pronounced and sentences were read. Just like what I did with the Beijing operas, I imitated and repeated the words and sentences until I mastered them.
The first college admission test was restored after almost a decade in late 1977. I heard some people I knew passed the extremely competitive test and were admitted to colleges. I still felt like colleges were just too remote to me to think of. Having learned almost nothing for four years, I never thought that I would have any chance to pass the vigorous admission exams. As some of my classmates fanatically searched for review books to prepare for the tests. I did not seem to care. It was actually sibling rivalry that woke me up and jolted me into action.
I had always been my father's favorite since I was his first son. He would always side with me when my brother and I got into fights. He praised me for being more obedient to him, and being more responsible. He was a good friend of our school principal. He heard from him that my brother was really making progress, leapfrogging to the most promising group of students in his class. Gradually I felt the subtle shift of favor toward my brother. He repeated what praises he heard about my brother at the dinner table, shoveled good food to his plate, and sided with him more often than ever. I could not stand that.
But how and where should I get started? I had learned nothing in the three years of middle school and one year in high school. I did not have enough time to go back to the text books for math, physics and chemistry. I decided to start with college prep review books. But, ten years of cultural revolution had erased the infrastructure of school teachings. There had not been any publications of teaching materials since college admission tests were suspended ten years earlier. Review books were in such high demand that every time they were on sale, people camped outside of the book store days before the sale. My mom finally borrowed a review book on chemistry from her friend who bought a whole set of review books for her son. The boy was focusing on math, physics and other subjects in his college prep. His review book on chemistry was sitting on his shelf, collecting dust.
By the time I finally got the set of review books, I got chemistry under my belt. Working with review books, you don't learn the mathematical theorems or physical principles first, then apply them for problem solving. It was the other way around for me. I started with the problems in the review books, and worked the way back. I could ponder over math problems for weeks to figure out possible scenarios for solutions. Oftentimes, it occurred to me that if there was a theorem, I could solve the problem. I would return to either textbook or the review book to see if such a theorem was true. Out of an abundance of luck, I was confident enough to give college admission tests a shot. If I failed, I could retake it next year even after I graduated from high school.
People who sat for college admission tests came from all age groups. Some were high school graduates, while others were in their late thirties. Colleges and universities had stopped admitting students based on merits, i.e. test scores for over ten years. The depth and width of the candidate pool were at its greatest as the competition was. My college admission test score was at the border between a two-year college and a four-year college. I played it safe and chose a two-year normal college, to be trained to teach math in middle schools. At that time, even a two-year college was a big deal as I was the first to get to college in the surrounding communes.
By the time I enrolled in college, my interest completely shifted from math to English. I only did the very basics in all math classes just to get by until graduation. I tried to drill down to why I deviated so much from my chosen field of study, which would give me a decent job, to a subject I could not see any recognition. The only remotely possible explanation was that the most fashionable girls on campus were the English majors. I probably sub-consciously tried to find a date through learning English. But, nothing ever happened. Two years passed by like a blink of the eyes.
When I received my college admission letter, my mom asked me what reward I wanted for such an "achievement". I replied immediately that I wanted a short-wave radio that would receive broadcasts from international radio stations, like "Voice of America". For the next 6 to 8 years, VOA not only raised my English learning to a whole new level, it opened my eyes, actually ears to the world. I started with its daily Special English program. The program was special because its audience was non-English speakers. It used simpler words, shorter sentences and was broadcast at a slower pace. The program covered world news of the day, followed by sports, literature, culture and history, etc. I actually listened to the simple version of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe before I read its original many years later.
When I first started, I could barely understand anything. We have a saying in Chinese "Repetition is the mother of learning". The only thing I could do was to listen again, and again. The good thing was that the program repeated itself every hour. For the words I couldn't understand, I tried to figure out their possible spellings based on their pronunciations, then to look them up in the dictionary. Finally, I would listen to the program again to see if the words I presumed made sense in the context.
When I started my freshman year, the student dorms were under construction. I was put in a large barrack-like room with double-deck beds, along with more than 20 other students. In order not to disturb other students, I had to get into my bed and cover myself with a heavy bed sheet or comforter to listen to VOA.
I also continued to learn through the English by Radio program with textbooks. Every day after my morning run, I would go to a quarry on the hill behind the student dorm to read aloud the words, the whole texts, and anything else in English from the textbooks. One winter morning, I woke up to a ray of brightness through the window. I did not have a personal watch, so I thought I had overslept. I quickly got up. When I stepped outside of the dorm, I found out that the brightness was from the new snow that fell the night before. It was way before I usually got up.
I tried to get my hands on any learning materials in English I could. There were just not many at that time as the country had been closed to the outside world for three decades. On many occasions, I saw scraps of paper on the ground with some English on them, I would pick them up to see if there were English words I did not know. I would add them to my vocabulary if there were. But, I did find an English-English dictionary after looking for it from one bookstore to another. It trained me to think in English as I did not rely on explanations in Chinese to learn new words.
I miraculously graduated from college with an associate degree in math, given the little time and effort I had spent on studying non-linear algebra, calculus and trigonometry etc. I was headed for middle school to teach math.
Teaching is a job everybody should consider doing, at least for a few years. It probably changes your life more than you change your students' lives. It is a boot camp for leadership training. It develops your communication, particularly listening, and observation and management skills. At the end of the day, you are the CEO of the class. You set the goals for the class, motivate students and create the culture to achieve them.
After teaching math for two years, a fellow math became my closest friend. Liang joined the faculty one year after I did, even though he was fourteen years older than I was. He attended a four-year college. After he noticed that I was learning English, he asked why. I could not answer a question I did not know myself.
He then said to me that I might consider pursuing a Master's degree in Economics or Business. That suggestion shocked me because I did not even have a bachelor's degree. To get into graduate school, one must sit for very tough admission tests in addition to recommendations from top professors. It was such a tall order that never crossed my mind. He reasoned to me: "Most people who failed the admission tests failed either math or English or both. You can pass both" I needed to work on the tests that related to the area of study I pursued. I had never taken a single class in either economics or business.
I did not know where my interest was. I started contacting these universities for their admission catalog to see which areas of study they would admit the most students. I finally settled on accounting since I thought I was a math teacher and I knew how to count. I spent weeks locating a good textbook to teach myself accounting. These days in China, if you leave a job to return to school or change your career, you must get the approval from your employer and the government agency that had jurisdiction over the employer.
To apply for the admission tests for graduate school, I must get the approval from the middle school principal. He was not very helpful. He whispered to others that I had no chance of getting to graduate school to study economics or business. My co-workers were stunned too and thought I was crazy. One of my distant relatives was in a pretty high position in K-12 education. Even he was not persuasive enough to convince the principal to give me a chance to apply. He might think that I had no chance either.
My hope was dashed. I was frustrated why I could not even decide what I wanted to do for the next forty years of my work life. It was true that the government paid the tuition for college education. But, I should not be a slave to government for life without redemption. I felt that socialism and the CCP government was so small that they got into every cell of my body to control every aspect of my life.
Some people in our society who believe in socialist utopia, loathe free market capitalism for the economic and social inequalities it creates. But, they never think about the alternative. Socialism is even worse because you lose economic freedom, upon which other forms of freedom are built, such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion, etc .
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发表于 2025-2-2 10:10:52