Cultivating Forgiveness

Interviewer: Hi, how are you? Thank you for accepting my interview.

Interviewer: Could you tell me which decade you were born in? You don’t need to say the exact year. Just “1950s” or “1960s” is okay.

I was born in the 1950s.

Interviewer: Which areas of China did you mainly living in during the ten years between 1966 and 1976?

1966, I was in Beijing.

When the Cultural Revolution began, we had just graduated from elementary school,

and then we went to middle school for a while, but did not receive a good education.

In 1969, I went to Heilongjiang Corps with many of my classmates to join a production team.

I stayed in Division 4, Regiment 43, for four years.

And in 1973, I was selected to study at Beijing Foreign Studies College, as a Worker-Peasant-Soldier student, majoring in English.

From 1973 to 1976, the Zhonglianbu selected me to be translator.

So I was sent to Bengal and studied the Bengali language there for three years.

Basically this is what happened.

Interviewer: I believe you went through a lot during those 10 years, and probably could talk about your memories for hours or even days.

Interviewer: If you are only given about 10 minutes, what are the most important events you want to tell us about those 10 years?

Interviewer: Anything that has impacted your life or that you want to share with us.

I want to know exactly what you are most interested in.

Those ten years were long, and I did a lot and went to many places.

Interviewer: Just your direct responses -- which memories come up first and which do you most want to share with us?

Interviewer: You don't need to consider what we are most interested in; it totally depends on you.

There are so many special memories that are too deep to be erased.

But in particular, there is one thing I can never forget.

I will talk a little bit about it, maybe it won’t take 10 minutes.

Interviewer: Sure, no problem.

I went to Yucai Elementary School.

I think at that time, Yucai, Yuying, and Jingshan were probably the top three elementary schools in Beijing.

Interviewer: Yes -- they are all elite schools.

I don't know how elite they are now, but back in my time they were really for the elites.

Most of my classmates' parents were senior revolutionaries, cadres in revolutionary areas, senior intellectuals, and the leaders of important CCP units.

So we received the best treatment and protection at school.

Lots of my classmates participated in the large-scale production of “The East is Red."

Even during the “[three years of] natural disasters” period, we never starved.

The Cultural Revolution shook our world.

All of a sudden, many of my classmates’ families fell into an abyss, becoming targets of struggle.

Several of my classmates’ fathers committed suicide within a year or two before 1968.

I won't talk about that now. I'll share one of my personal experiences.

After the Cultural Revolution began, schools were closed, and everyone stayed at home.

Some classmates directed their anger at teachers, thinking teachers turned them into the "seedlings of Revisionism."

There was a teacher named Zhao Run; she was our Chinese teacher.

She was severely impacted [by students' anger.]

Now she is a very well-respected and beloved teacher, who is excellent in literature and has a real love for students.

So, how did I meet with misfortune? As a child I was pretty good at writing.

Some of my essays were selected by [my teacher] to be read aloud in front of the class.

Although I was not the only one [whose essays were selected],

...somehow some of the boys thought I should be punished, too.

One day -- I was 14 then -- someone came to my home, saying we needed to go to school to discuss how to join the Red Guards.

I had a bad feeling -- I don’t know why -- but I felt obliged to go.

So we biked to Yucai Elementary School.

After we got there, four boys locked me in a classroom.

They took their belts off and whipped me bitterly.

My back was covered in wounds.

I don’t remember what they said; nobody ever told me why they whipped me.

Interviewer: Were they your classmates?

Yes, they were all my classmates.

I remember very well. They are all very polite to me now.

I was really shocked. I felt I could not tell my mom; it would hurt her too much.

So I found my classmate, Ping. I showed her the injuries on my back.

It was in the summer. Then, we went to the Shichahai Lake to swim and dive.

We jumped from a three-meter, then a five-meter, and then finally a ten-meter platform.

We felt so scared, looking down.

At that time, Ping's father, a senior cadre of the Central Propaganda Department, had killed himself at age 42, by jumping from a building.

He left five children behind. Ping was the youngest one.

So when we were standing on the ten-meter platform, we felt we must jump into the water.

That was such a kind of implacable sadness. We had no way to vent, no way to heal the pain in our hearts.

So we jumped from the ten-meter platform over and over.

No matter how frightened we were, we knew we had to jump.

After that, we felt a little bit better.

The past is the past, right? But I can never forget.

I have lived in the U.S. for 35 years. I have gone back home many times.

Each time I have met some classmates, but I still cannot face those four students.

One of them went to my home and apologized in tears in front of my mom.

After we started using WeChat to communicate -- especially after I started collecting data on the “Educated Youth" -- they were very respectful of me.

I will go back this September [2016]. I think what happened must be put aside.

I have to cultivate my mind for forgiveness.

Also, it is not all their fault. They were not bad people.

They were just around 14 or 15 years old. They were also victims [of the time].

But it is still a challenge for me, I think.

I haven't seen them for 50 years. How should I handle this in September?

Interviewer: You will go back in September of this year [2016]?

Yes, this September.

I am thinking what will first come to my mind when I see them after all these years -- probably still this matter.

But I really cannot let this hinder our friendship anymore. I still think there is some affection between us.

What happened should fade away -- but it is not easy, especially since feeling that kind of hurt in childhood is so unforgettable.

This is the most important event [I remember]. Is my time almost up?

Interviewer: You can still continue if you like.

Then it was about the Corps.

I spent four years in the Corps, the last two years in Regiment 43, as a reporter for the Corps propaganda unit.

I think those years were a very good time.

I was the youngest one there. I went to the countryside in 1969.

All my colleagues were older than me. They kindly called me “Xiao Xie” [Little Xie].

We wrote scripts together.

Every day an anchor read our writings, broadcasting our words through a loudspeaker, for every company of troops and all the Educated Youth to hear.

I have a picture of us 13 people together, taken in front of the doorway of our regimental unit.

This year when I went back [to China], surprisingly, I found 7 of those 13 people --

-- the youth from Harbin, Shanghai, and Beijing, plus our Unit Chief, and the Vice Unit Chief.

The other three had passed away, and two were not found.

We decided to return to Beijing together this September.

We will ask the same photographer to photograph us again, to memorialize that old time.

I am so excited about this. I cannot wait for this day to come.

You could say the feeling among us "Brothers and Sisters of Heilongjiang" even surpasses that of actual siblings.

At least I have good memories from the experience of being an Educated Youth in the Corps.

I think that’s all I want to say.

Interviewer: Very good. Very good. Thank you for this interview!

Thank you for giving me the chance to talk about these things.