"We were all bits of dust in the falling ashes."

Interviewer: Thank you for accepting my interview.

Interviewer: Would you please tell me when you were born? You don’t need to say the exact date; just “1940’s,” “1950’s,” "1960s" will do.

1950’s.

Interviewer: Would you please tell me, during the ten years from 1966 to 1976, in which area of China did you mainly stay?

Tianjin City. I was born in Tianjin.

Interviewer: Since you were born in the 1950’s, you must have many memories of this decade.

Interviewer: Even given several days, you probably couldn’t share them all. If we only give you ten minutes, or in other words,

Interviewer: ...in the first ten minutes of the interview, what would you most want to share with us? Please speak freely.

I was 14 or 15 years old that time, and I felt the world suddenly changed.

The relationships between us all were bound by etiquette; it was a very polite environment.

But suddenly, at this time, it turned into a place where people could just casually be beaten by others.

The compound also became a “cow-demons and snake-spirits” compound.

I remember an old man in our building, who was very elegant, liked calligraphy, and also liked raising crickets.

One day all his cricket jars were broken to pieces, and he was beaten.

It was the first time I saw someone be beaten. It was horrible.

At the same time, not only did the place where I lived suffer a disaster, but so did the school.

What is engraved on my heart is this: one day, I was suddenly made to sit in the middle surrounded by the crowd.

[Those of us in the middle] were made to admit that we were "sons of dogs."

I was also made to explain my father’s "problematic history."

It was as if our files were open to the public, and what my father had done before, everyone knew.

At that time, there were a few core members of the Red Guards in our class.

What was unforgettable was that suddenly people were divided into different ranks.

It seemed that [to them] I was no longer a “successor (to the revolution),” but their enemy. This was a horrible thing.

Then we could go in and out only through the “dog door,” also known as the “dog hole.”

I remembered some "son of a dog" in my class led us in climbing the wall, since by climbing the wall, we could avoid the dog hole.

Interviewer: What was the “dog hole”?

It was a small door especially for “sons of dogs,” since we couldn’t just use the same door as everyone else.

Interviewer: Who set up that door?

Those students did it themselves. They could do whatever they wanted to torture people.

I felt that impact was just like a drowning calamity, because I was so young.

If you find out you’re [one of the] “cow-demons and snake-spirits,” you feel such shame, you can’t hold your head up high. You can only cry.

That day after being tortured, I went home and picked up some scissors, wanting to slit my wrists.

I didn’t want to live anymore.

I didn’t end up cutting myself. One reason is that I didn’t know how to do it.

Also, my family called me to eat dinner, so I just came out of the bathroom.

Even now, I haven’t shaken off that feeling of inferiority.

Everywhere, out in the streets, people were shaving other people’s heads, beating people, whatever they felt like doing.

I can hardly describe it. This kind of memory is one page in my coming-of-age story.

Look, there's my cat.

It’s not afraid of strangers.

Interviewer: It’s a pretty cat!

It is pretty. It's a Scottish fold cat.

Afterwards, I had these muddled memories of the Cultural Revolution, of being an inferior class of person,

but then suddenly, later, we had the right to set up an organization.

We could also establish organizations, and could also rebel.

Rebel against the Bourgeois Reactionary Line, and put the blame on Liu [Shaoqi] and Deng [Xiaoping]’s shoulders.

No one was innocent, because we also set up a Red Guards organization.

We could also go into the streets, to participate in the so-called rebel movements,

plan to persecute other people, and even take part in violent struggle.

Although we did so inconspicuously, we were, after all, following along, waving flags and shouting.

We attacked people; no one in our group was uninvolved. I don’t believe there were really any “bystanders.”

Born in such a family, if you wanted to prove you were revolutionary, the only way was to join the movement.

How many people were actually able to completely not participate, not be involved at all, I didn’t pay attention to that; I don’t know.

But I knew that I wanted to work hard to do well, to show that I was a member of the movement.

What kind of people there are results in what kind of leaders. The so-called Four Greats was made by our uproar.

Later, in the activities of crowding onto trains and “great networking,” we were all fearless fighters.

I remember the five yuan [CNY, Renminbi/RMB] I had on me was stolen as soon as I arrived in Beijing.

We got free room and board staying in a Beijing hutong [alley], at a “reception station” [for the Red Guards].

We were all members of the Red Guards, all following the crowds.

Later, what stayed in my mind were the poor people in our compound, such as the former professors,

who were made to unclog human waste from the sewer as a humiliating punishment.

These people were academic authorities, people from whom you used to maintain a respectful distance.

So in our compound, there were many who hanged themselves, overdosed, or jumped off of buildings to commit suicide.

Later, lots of people were expelled, and instead many of the so-called revolutionary masses moved in.

They were all workers, peasants and soldiers, who belonged to the red families.

The identity of our compound totally changed.

Then all of a sudden, it came to an end, and we were sent down to the countryside.

Later, as I grew and matured, I didn’t just think that the Cultural Revolution brought me a kind of anger or a trauma that I can’t get over,

but I also felt that each person was responsible for it.

It’s like the Germans’ reflection. Didn’t we all enthusiastically support [the Cultural Revolution]?

Didn’t we risk our lives expressing ourselves?

Human beings cannot choose their own era; this is very sad.

In this era, I described myself as the ashes from a volcanic eruption.

After the eruption, we were all bits of dust in the falling ashes.

Starting out it was burning hot, but after turning to ashes it was a kind of loss.

I think it is necessary to preserve this type of memory.

If our generation refused to talk about the Cultural Revolution, it would be terrible.

This black page is a national shame. Personally, I want to write about it for the rest of my life.

One’s writing ability doesn’t matter, but it definitely must be true.

Truth is the top priority.

Actually, I recently wrote something, and the book I wrote is currently under review due to sensitive content.

Some people suggested I write a postscript for the book, so I wrote a piece concerning the importance of memory.

Sometimes when I’m in some place, for example, sitting in an American university library, I don’t have any connection to my surroundings,

but sitting there, I feel my memory is really rich.

I sincerely think over the experience of growing up and every stage of life I went through.

Regarding the Cultural Revolution, my point of view is this: try to ponder it as far as possible, not only to vent.

Why do we vent? After all, in those days we were all lending our enthusiastic support, for fear that we weren’t revolutionaries ourselves.

For example, when we were participating in the “great networking,” when we were crowding onto a train, my younger brother couldn’t get on.

He and his classmates pushed on the train’s window, because they couldn’t get through from the door.

It was dangerous, you know? They might have been thrown under the wheels.

I remember that my brother said, "Never mind. If I'm pushed down, I can be a hero -- I’m Lei Feng."

He had become fanatical to this kind of irrational degree. Though he was still young, he felt that life was not important.

What was important [to him] was: “I am part of it. I’m able to embody the spirit of Heroism.”

I think this is so horrible.

How could we, in our time of growing up, get into this so-called idealistic, illusory, impersonal era, an era drowned by Groupism? It’s too horrible.

Our concept of self-awareness gradually woke up in the 1980s.

Slowly we had desires, which was actually a good thing. If you have desires, you understand what is human, what is individual.

Having a life is a minimum right. Back then [during the Cultural Revolution,] there was no life;

we desperately went into the streets to pass out fliers, to put up “big-character posters.”

We even got up in the middle of the night to do these things. We thought we were great, were revolutionary.

You might say it's laughable, preposterous, but that was what we went through.

As teenagers, we were incredibly fanatical, stupid, and rash.

If what happened is not narrated in detail, we lived in vain.

Interviewer: Very good.

Very unorganized.

Interviewer: Oh no, very good. Thank you for accepting my interview.