Dear Comrade Phoebe,
As the poet Wang Bo said, '
Before the Spring Festival, when our former colleague told me that you always spent the festival in Shanghai, and gave me your address, I very much wanted to meet up with my old army friend after so many years apart. I cannot conceal the fact that you made a deep impression on me during our short time together at the Beijing Labour University Foreign Languages Training Course in 1949, and I thought we were both fond of each other. The thought even occurred to me once (although certainly not now) that, if I hadn't left the university, you might not have chosen to marry our old friend who died so prematurely. Since my wife died a year or so ago, I have been introduced to half a dozen potential matches, but I have not been able to make up my mind. I've often thought, and said to other people too: how is one to find that one good woman to partner up with from among that immense sea of humanity, of strangers? If I am to marry again, then I'm going to maintain my high standards, and I would especially hope our relationship would be founded on real familiarity. So when I heard the news of your sad loss, and learned where you were, I came to what you called my 'great' decision, and resolved to set off in pursuit. Meeting you, in the restaurant on the fourteenth floor of the Hengshan Hotel, was a further spur: I jumped in at the deep end and asked
At the restaurant table that day, when I laid bare my true feelings to you with that probing question, and you gave me your counter-arguments, I was deeply impressed by your sincerity and wisdom; indeed I was inspired to model myself on you. I said then: I'm disappointed but not lost. And that was the truth too. For a brief moment, in that elegant dining room, I was disconsolate. That was the moment when we fell silent and sipped our drinks. But I very quickly shook that feeling off, because even if you had rejected my probing, I had not only not lost your friendship, my feelings of tenderness were deeper than ever. I not only had absolutely no reason to mope, I had found new life beliefs to adopt, the 'triple action, triple happiness' you talked about – adequate work, exercise and social activity, and the joy of helping people, being content with one's lot and getting enjoyment out of life. I wanted to put your formula for happiness into practice, and I talked about it in our senior cadres' branch office and to friends, and they also found it inspiring.
You said that my probing 'was very natural' and I realised that you understood my feelings and would forgive my presumptuousness. I am so grateful to you! It's true – when I came to think about it more calmly afterwards, I really had overstepped the mark. At the very least, I was naive. The differences between us exist objectively, and I have to acknowledge that. How could I have had those foolish thoughts, on the slender basis solely of my feeling that there was 'a definite basis' for the relationship and of the honesty and goodness in my own heart? Of course your negative answer was nothing to do with dislike for me, but arose from reasons at a much deeper level, which indeed I should have considered myself. Well, it's over now, and luckily there was no one nearby to make fun of or criticise us. So let's regard it as just a minor episode in the course of our new friendship! However, I still have to apologise most humbly to you. In this, my first letter to you, I have blabbered on and repeated much of what I said to you then, but it is only to get it off my chest, and we won't mention it again, all right?
I will put down my pen now; allow me to wish you every happiness. At the same time, I hope that we may be able to fulfil our heart's desire – to become truly good friends, and to exchange many, many letters. I'm also looking forward to us inviting two or three close friends to accompany us on a trip around China soon. I particularly hope that we can go to my home town and have a look at the Dayu Palace, King Yue's Burial Mound, the Orchid Pavilion, Lu Xun's birthplace, and enjoy the shady mountain paths and the black-awning boats…
With best wishes,
Louis
15 February 1992
My dear old army friend,
I hope you are well. I was delighted to have the opportunity to celebrate the Spring Festival with you and have such a good talk about everything, after an interval of forty years. I arrived home this afternoon at 2 p.m., after a smooth journey.
We all find that memories come flooding back at the Spring Festival. Our joining the army together then is still, today, so vivid in my mind. The boys and girls of that time have become old men and women, but our hearts haven't changed, we've still kept our revolutionary spirit. That part of our lives will always bring back beautiful memories for us, don't you think?
I'm sending you some photos of me in military uniform, as a memento. I'll close now.
Best wishes,
Phoebe
5 March 1992
Dear Phoebe,
Your letter of the 27th and the article about 'the common people's general' gave me another reason to be happy! The fact that in two short weeks we have exchanged letters twice – the pair of us are well capable of being 'activists' – is sufficient proof that we're going to make a go of rebuilding our friendship. How happy I am!
I found the article, 'A good Party member in our midst', both intimate and moving. It is actually written with great simplicity; when the writer calls you 'the common people's general', she is saying something quite profound, but does not conceal your brilliance either. I appreciate the way you behave as an official, and admire still more your high-minded determination to avoid self-seeking and greed with regard to the standard of living the government offers you (even in the broadest sense). Reading the article has given me a deeper knowledge of you: your ideology is even loftier than before, you are even more you! Really, I have so much to learn from you. If all Party cadres – especially high-ranking cadres – were like you, then the Party, our country, our socialist endeavour, would be so much stronger.
In this letter, I mainly want to tell you briefly what happened to me after I left the Foreign Languages Training Course, to reciprocate the account you gave me that day in Hengshan Park of the last few decades of your life. I left the army in May 1952 and was allocated a job back in Shanghai by the Jing'an Party Branch Committee, in the Jing'an District Educational Course for Unemployed Workers, first as education section leader and then as director of the course. The Five Antis movement had just finished, and there were a lot of unemployed workers, most of whom had been activists. The government had guaranteed them jobs and, in the meantime, they received political and general education. We had around a thousand students and a score of cadres and instructors on the course. So the Foreign Languages Training Unit's classes in current politics, social development and basic philosophy became the 'capital' which I put to immediate use – and the teaching also made me miss the war years. At the beginning of 1954, I transferred to the Shanghai Municipal Labour Office to do workers' education; and in the autumn of 1965, I was transferred again, this time to the Office Party Committee of the Shanghai People's Committee (in the Municipal Government). I was first made Theoretical Instructor in the Officer Cadres' School, and then my job was changed to secretarial work: handling documentation, organising meetings and drafting reports (leaders' speeches, work summaries, short reports and so on). From then on, I earned my daily bread in Archives, Meetings and Reports, apart from the ten years between 1968 and 1978 when I was expelled by the Gang of Four and sent to 7
