I went to college in the year 1962 and majored in British language and literature. In October 1965, in the 3rd year (a year before my graduation), Mr. Li Wen, my political advisor in the English Department, had a talk with me. He told me that the college had already made a decision to send me to further my studies in England the next year, as soon as I graduated from the school. After two years of study in England, I would be asked to return to the college to work as a teacher. But unfortunately the unprecedented “Great Cultural Revolution” started right after my graduation in May 1966 in every corner of the country. According to the notice from the Central Government, the 1966 class of college students should stay at school for their assignment until further notice. The circular of the central authority said that “You must concern yourself with state affairs and stay at the school to participate in the Great Cultural Revolution”. Therefore, my dream of furthering my study in England was swept away by this political storm.
In September 1967 the students of the 1966 class were assigned to work. I was chosen and assigned to work as an English interpreter in the Foreign Affairs Office of the Provincial Government. But at that time the Cultural Revolution was in full swing and the whole country from the top to the grass roots levels was in great chaos. No foreign visitors or visiting groups came to China or to Shaanxi Province to do business or to visit. I stayed in the government office like the rest of their staff engaging ourselves in “struggle, criticism and transformation” activities which lasted for two more years. In December 1969, the “struggle, criticism and transformation” resulted in “struggle, criticism and falling-apart”. One third of the staff remained in the office, and the rest were sent down either to the countryside or the cadre schools. I was sent to the May 7th Cadre School in Nanniwan, a place near Yan’an. This kind of labor school was set up everywhere in the country. Cadres (government officials), old and young, were forced to receive reeducation through physical labor.［Note: Mao Zedong issued a new instruction on May 7, 1967 that the government officials and intellectuals should go down to the countryside and participate in physical labor and receive reeducation from the workers and peasants. In the instruction he pointed out that it was necessary and important for government officials and the intellectuals, especially the young intellectuals, to go to the countryside or go up to the mountains and live together with the common people and to receive reeducation from them by participating in physical labor. This was called the May 7th directive. Because of that this type of cadre school was given the strange name of the May 7th Cadre School.］
During my year-and-a-half stay at the cadre school I had to think back and reconsider repeatedly about the Great Cultural Revolution. A lot of questions puzzled me greatly. For instance, why did the writing of today become a big mistake tomorrow? Why was someone still a revolutionary today, but tomorrow he suddenly became the target of the revolution? The intellectuals in the great Cultural Revolution were labeled as the Stinking Category # 9 who were described as “stones in the toilet - stinking and hard” [Because in those days they labeled the people like landlords, rich peasants, counter revolutionaries etc. as class enemies, so intellectuals were the # 9 enemy. These people were well educated and they had their own way of thinking]. It was becoming the main stream in public opinion that knowledge was useless. Many people were becoming disappointed and they could not see where their future was. I myself wondered why the whole world was so changeable. It seemed to me that nothing was real, and nothing was correct to be followed. I didn’t know what to follow. Everything seemed too mysterious, like a mirage, or a vapor. It was there, but then it wasn’t there. However the only point I believed in was that English, my teacher had taught me, remained the same and unchanged.
I was the son of a farmer, and it was extremely difficult for me to go to school and complete my education. My older generation never dreamed that one of their children would go to college. I spent 17 years in school studying very hard and learned all kinds of knowledge and skills. But now they seemed useless. I did not believe they were all useless. Maybe the Cultural Revolution touched my own soul and threatened my own future, I treasured the special skills I had learned even more than ever before. I always thought if I gave up this “little capital” that I possessed, then I would have nothing and become a real “proletariat”. [In Chinese, proletariat means “a class without anything”]
When I arrived in the cadre school I always hid my head to study after a day’s work. We had plenty of time, but we did not have any books to read. The only reading materials we had were “the four big volumes plus the little one” (The 4 volumes of the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung plus the little red book of Quotations from Chairman Mao). I had studied all these books at least for 3 times during the Cultural Revolution because we always had one hour of daily reading to read these books. I could even recite some of Mao’s articles, such as the 3 constantly read articles or the 5 constantly read articles, no matter how long they were. What I wanted to read was not available because nearly all the libraries were closed.
Before we went to the cadre school, all of us were required to bring a set of these 4 books plus one. But I went to the cadre school with two sets – the extra set being the English version. I believed this was a legal and reasonable study plan by which I could “kill two birds with one stone”. However my beautiful plan was criticized and rejected by Mr. Fan, one of the leaders of the cadre school.
“What are you reading? We are here to touch our soul and receive reeducation. How could you read a foreign language?” he asked me.
I replied, “Leader, these are Chairman Mao’s works. We are requested to spread Mao Tse-tung Thought to the rest of the world. How could we not study his works in English?” [It was a lot of fun.]
Then Mr. Fan became softened and asked me,” Does that work?”
“Certainly,” I answered. “Many of the idioms and phrases in Mao’s works are very difficult for me to understand in an accurate way, but after reading them in English I have a much better understanding of his original writings and I become much more interested in learning them.”
Mr. Fan was a worker-peasant cadre. He was not a bad man at all, but he was very poorly educated - only that of elementary school. So I asked him intentionally, “Oh, Mr. Fan, there is one phrase called Cheng Qian Bi Hou, Zhi Bing Jiu Ren in Chairman Mao’s works. Please instruct me, what does that mean?”
Mr. Fan replied, “This is simple. It means that if a person makes a mistake for the first time, he will be punished. If he makes the same mistake later for the second time, he would be shot.”
I said, “Mr. Fan, What Chairman Mao said does not mean that. The English version says, ‘To learn from one’s mistakes to avoid the future ones, and cure the disease and save the patient.’”
Most probably Mr. Fan, from observing his face, tried to argue with me, but then just let it go. And I was able to continue studying Mao’s works in English, so I finally gained my legal right to study Chairman Mao’s works in English.
By studying Mao’s works in English I did not only make great progress in my English, but also increased my strong interest in modern Chinese revolutionary history because in the English version there were many footnotes about the historical figures and events. They gave detailed explanations to those things that were not available in the Chinese version.
In the spring of 1970 when I was in the second year of the cadre school, the well-known American journalist, Edgar Snow, revisited Yan’an and came to Nanniwan. I was very excited. I had learned English for so many years and now finally I had my opportunity to meet a foreigner. However, unfortunately, only a few people were allowed to meet foreign guests and the rest of us were banned from approaching the visiting group. As a matter of fact, the school authority was very sensitive to and alert to people like me who could speak English. I was told that Mr. Huang Hua was accompanying Mr. Snow on the visit. I looked from a far-away location at the visiting group, and they were like figures in a shadow show - I only could see that it was a small visiting group, but I could not identify who was who. So this was the first time I saw Edgar Snow!
After Edgar Snow’s visit to China some of the news items and interviews were published in a confidential newspaper called Cankao Xiaoxi (Limited Information) that was only for the leaders and the cadres to read. It was not for the common people. I heard about these interviews of the Chinese leaders by Edgar Snow - though of course I did not see them - and I thought Edgar Snow’s interviews were very interesting. It seemed that he only asked questions one after the other, but he never gave his own opinion about the answers to those questions. He did not write anything good or bad about the Cultural Revolution and about Mao Tse-tung. What he wrote was quite different from what was published in our media, so I had a very strong curiosity about Edgar Snow. I thought this American was quite mysterious. His style of interview was very different because at that time the whole nation’s media said that the Great Cultural Revolution was great, Mao Tse-tung was the great leader, teacher, commander-in-chief and helmsman - the 4 greats. But he said nothing like that. So Edgar Snow was very special; he did not follow the tideway and parrot like the others did at that time. So this created a great curiosity about him.
In the spring of 1971, I was selected from among the participants in the cadre school and transferred to the Yan’an History Museum. My assignment was to prepare written materials for the young museum guides to memorize and then tell everything about the museum to the visitors. When I was assigned to this work, I said I was not competent for it because I was not a history major. The cadre school leaders said, “Well, we have checked the records and discovered you are good at writing. We think you can do it.”
So they tried to encourage me by flattering me. I was a little bit delighted and said to myself, “If you want me to go, I’ll just go. I cannot stay here any longer”. I decided to accept the offer partly because I was flattered and partly because I saw no future in staying on at the cadre school and participating in manual labor all the time.