I didn't wait for her to say more, but continued to talk about my own family.
XINRAN: Kneeling in front of my grandfather's portrait, several elderly ladies who had been prostitutes in the 1940s had told my aunt that my grandfather had saved their lives when the Guomindang were rounding up economic criminals [which included prostitutes] and cleaning up society. He had let them enter one of his handicraft factories, giving them an opportunity to turn from their old ways and learn a few skills, otherwise they would have been shot like many other prostitutes under the Guomindang.
YISHUJIA: I've heard the old people say that the Guomindang were very harsh when they first came to power – they shot people dead in Nanjing, and called it 'strict social cleansing'. And afterwards our Communist Party used the same word and did similar things. A lot of women who had been prostitutes before 1949 were persecuted to death.
XINRAN: Actually, between the 1940s and the 1990s, both the Guomindang and the Communist Party had some very harsh policies. I think that perhaps 25 per cent of the population of China was treated unjustly or sentenced wrongly in that period, and more than half of those were educated people.
YISHUJIA: My father was branded an active counter-revolutionary just because of a little thing. When my father left home to go to school in Jinan, he became friendly with an underground member of the Party. He couldn't tell my father that he was a Party member, but he did tell him: 'If a time comes when you don't see me, don't hang around, go back home.' But my father forgot. Afterwards the Eighth Route Army came to Jinan, they had the city surrounded, he couldn't get out, but he had to eat. At that time the Guomindang had set up a San Qing Tuan – the Three Youth League – anyone who joined up would have work to do and food to eat. So, many young people in Jinan whose families didn't have a lot of money joined that society.
XINRAN: The San Qing Tuan, the one that was defined as counterrevolutionary in the fifties? That's serious.
YISHUJIA: He was just a naive student in those days, he didn't understand politics, he joined because he was afraid he would starve. Jinan was liberated after three months, but my father suffered a lifetime of bitterness because of those three months in which he didn't go hungry.
XINRAN: A lifetime of suffering just because of three months in the San Qing Tuan?
YISHUJIA: He hadn't done anything bad, he couldn't shoot a gun or fight, he was an architecture student, but just because of that San Qing Tuan, he became a 'wicked man' who could never say anything right. To this day I don't know what exactly the San Qing Tuan was, I've no idea what was so terrible about it.
XINRAN: The Communist Party has a Communist Youth League, right? The Youth League was the first step to joining the Communist Party, and after 1949 you had to join the Party to get any of the important government posts. Similarly, the San Qing Tuan was the Guomindang's version of the Youth League, the first step to joining the Guomindang, which naturally made it the enemy of the Communist Party.
YISHUJIA: Yes, but even if it was a political organisation, it was all over in just three months, it was disbanded as soon as the city was liberated. My father really regretted it; if he'd just remembered what that man had told him, that if he couldn't see him he should leave, then he'd have been fine… Then he got in trouble again just after Liberation, when they were building the big City Government building. He was the project supervisor, checking that the work was carried out according to the blueprint, but he discovered that the stairs to the basement had been designed without a handrail, and the waterproofing hadn't been designed to deal with subsidence, so he reported it to his superiors, requesting modifications. But the leaders at that time were peasant cadres who'd fought their way to Jinan, they didn't understand, all they cared about was 'more, better, faster, cheaper' and making revolution. My father asked them to stop work to put things right, but that was delaying the revolutionary task, out of the question! Then in the final inspection, a higher-ranking cadre who'd come to sign off the project almost slipped and fell into the cellar – and that staircase without a railing became evidence of my father's crime, a plot to injure revolutionary cadres. On top of that, leaks soon began to appear in the waterproofing, and that was deliberate sabotage! Nobody dared to testify on behalf of a counter-revolutionary in those days, so they arrested my father! I'll never forget that day. All these policemen came into our home, and there were more standing in the courtyard. My father didn't say a word, they just took him away, and I just didn't have a clue why. My mother didn't know the reason either, because my father had never discussed work matters with her. At that time everyone was very particular about 'organisational discipline', it was forbidden to discuss work between husband and wife or family members.
XINRAN: After your father was detained in front of all those people, how did your neighbours and people like that treat you?
YISHUJIA: Some were pretty good, and still had dealings with us, but whenever there was the least sign of trouble I'd get called a jailbird's brat.
XINRAN: How long was your father detained?
YISHUJIA: Five years, I suppose, though he was sentenced to twenty. My father never accepted it, he appealed, and finally the high-ups sent someone down to examine the scene of the crime and recheck the plans. In the end he was rehabilitated.
XINRAN: When your father was in prison, how did your mother manage to make a living while bringing up you children?
YISHUJIA: She was a gatekeeper at a neighbourhood-run chemical factory; later on she did embroidery. We only had twelve yuan a month for a family of five, for food, clothes and everything else, it was very hard.
XINRAN: Was this the reason why you started work so young?
YISHUJIA: My mother had no choice – once I'd left home to work there was one burden less on the family.
XINRAN: After you left, how did the family keep going? Did your mother discuss this with you?
YISHUJIA: I know for certain that my mother had a very hard time, but she was a strong woman, she never talked about it. [Tears stream down her face.] Whenever I talk about my mother I feel so awful, she suffered so much! She suffered all her life, and she died early too…
We sat in silence for a while, but I didn't stop the video recorder. Seeing her weeping in front of me, thoughts of many other women I had interviewed welled up in my mind: how many women in China worked day after day, night after night, toiling away to raise their children in this desert of human culture? We Chinese use our mothers like candles, they melt themselves away to shine their light on others.
I didn't continue with the question of her mother. I knew it was a very, very painful subject.
XINRAN: I know you joined an acrobatic troupe before you were twelve – can you tell me something about your first few years? What was your training like? Where did you perform? What were your leaders like? I think it must be etched deeply in your memory.
YISHUJIA: At the very beginning I didn't perform, I just had lessons and practised my acrobatic skills – the waist, legs and the crown of the head are very important in Chinese acrobatics. I got up very early every day; in the morning after breakfast we had professional practice and lessons; sometimes in the afternoon we had school, or sometimes the school lessons were in the evening. In those days we could never get enough sleep, everyone was constantly nodding off – one time in somersaulting class I turned a few somersaults and then went to sleep on the spot. The first time I performed I was thirteen. It was the dance 'Catching Butterflies' – I can still remember it. I turned three somersaults and very nearly somersaulted myself off the stage. In those days it was very dark at the bottom of the stage – once the stage lights were on you couldn't see anything below the stage.
XINRAN: What sort of places did you mostly perform in? How did the audience react?
YISHUJIA: We mostly went up into the mountains and to the countryside. The peasants had no
