Another time was when the Cultural Revolution created chaos in the PSB and the courts in 1969. I couldn't see, I just couldn't see why they were getting at three of us. One of us was an old cadre who had fought against the Japanese, he was the head of the Zhengzhou PSB, he had worked as a grade-one secretary in the Soviet Union, and had carried on writing letters to people he knew there after his return. So they made him out to be a Soviet spy. The second was the chief procurator, he'd been a cadre since 1938, and in 1942 was on the run from the Japanese when he arrived in a village. He thought he was going to die, so what was he to do? He found the head of the puppet village administration, held a gun at his head and said: 'If you save my life, then you save your whole family. If you don't save me, then I'll kill them all right now.' The village head saved him. But the Red Guards said: 'Why did you go for the puppet village head? Why not go to the peasants and Communist poor?' The third one was me. I'd worked in the police or the courts from 1948 right up until then, and hadn't done anything wrong, but hunger had forced me to be a coolie for the Japanese, and that made me a traitor. I shed a tear or two about that, but I didn't cry.
XINRAN: How many good memories do you have?
JINGGUAN: Lots of ordinary things, but not many particularly special ones.
XINRAN: How did you get to know your wife?
JINGGUAN: The first time the person who introduced us brought her to my police station, I just asked about her family background. Class background was very important then. Then we got to know each other. Sometimes she came to the police station, and if I had time, I came out to see her.
XINRAN: How did you propose to her? Do you remember?
JINGGUAN: Ha! I didn't really propose! It was understood. If someone introduced a couple, then that was what it was about, wasn't it? It wasn't like the fun and games you see on TV and in films.
XINRAN: So did you have a wedding?
JINGGUAN: Good heavens, what's the point in talking about that?
XINRAN: Oh, please. Young people today never hear about it. Teach them something about traditional customs.
JINGGUAN: There was a troupe of waist-drummers in our sector, and the police station got them in and fixed a time and a place with them. That day, I took five yuan, and got, maybe, two yuan's worth of sweets, two of melon seeds and one of cigarettes, and that was all my five yuan spent! That was a lot of money in those days. In general, a junior police officer only got eight to ten yuan per month. Everyone came and got everything ready, and then the drums rolled, bong bong bong. Back then the young men used to have a bit of fun – you had to bow to the woman, because of equality between the sexes and all that – so I made my bow, and after that, the drummers on either side beat their drums, bong bong bong. Then one of the chiefs just said: 'Right, everyone eat the sweets and have a smoke and chat.' It was all over in about an hour. Accommodation was tight at the police station in those days, and we had nowhere to live, so we went off for a walk for a couple of hours and then went back to my mother's house in Nandajie Street. You got three days off when you got married, but they were short-staffed and the next morning I went back to work in the police station.
XINRAN: After you got married, did you and your wife have any major fights?
JINGGUAN: Not really. We had a few minor set-tos, but not in the first ten years of marriage, we didn't have any fights.
XINRAN: What kind of person was your wife?
JINGGUAN: There were three things about her. One was that she was a good woman, and a tough one. The second thing was that she worked incredibly hard – in the factory and at home. When she got out of work, she cooked our food and sewed our clothes, and never took a minute's rest. The third thing was that she was sure of herself. It was best to do what she said – she had a bit of a temper, and she meant what she said. But she was usually right anyway.
XINRAN: When did her health problems start?
JINGGUAN: On National Day in 1975, she was in the Workers' Propaganda Team of the Zhengzhou Number 15 Middle School, and went to hospital. When they took her blood pressure, it was very high, 190 over 110, and the doctor told her to take sick leave. After six months, she gave up work and got sick pay, and in 1977, she formally retired from her job. She was only forty-three, and had to retire. It was the Cultural Revolution and our eldest girl was working in the countryside. The rules were that they could only come back to work in the city if they were needed to take a parent's place, and only for that reason. My wife was retired, so she spent her time looking after me. In 1986, she was cooking the dinner when she dropped the food. She went to hospital for a check-up and they discovered she had a minor blood clot on the brain. In 1991, she tripped and fell over in the house. When she came to, she couldn't stand – she would fall again if she tried to stand on her own. They took her to hospital, but then later she became doubly incontinent, and couldn't even sit. On 23 June 2004, after she had gone into a coma, the hospital confirmed their diagnosis that she had become a vegetable.
XINRAN: Do you live like this every day?
JINGGUAN: To start with we hired a nurse. The nurse slept on a cot in here, I slept in there and my wife slept on the outside of the double bed. If I woke up in the night and I felt her and she had wet herself, then I turned on the light and called the nurse to come and change her nappies. It's uncomfortable for her being wet down there, and we can't afford stuff like proper incontinence pads. Every day there's a huge line of washing hanging up to dry like the flag pennants on a paddle steamer that you see on TV.
XINRAN: Have you talked to your children about your life and how you feel about it?
JINGGUAN: To my children? I'd be afraid of them blabbing to the grandchildren. And they wouldn't believe that things like that had really happened to me.
XINRAN: You don't think they would understand what hardships you went through as a child?
JINGGUAN: To hell with 'understanding'! They'd say, what's the point of talking about stuff like that? Can I go back to the old society? Can I relive starving to death? If I told them their grandfather died of hunger, they'd ask why he didn't eat bread. Eat bread? If he'd had a bit of corn cake, he wouldn't have starved. All they learn about nowadays is how to make money, they don't know how poor people get by. What's the use of someone who's studied if they haven't got skills? It's just the same as my grandfather and father – a bellyful of learning and they starved to death!
XINRAN: So do you think young people should study, or should learn a skill?
JINGGUAN: Studying is the foundation. All things being equal, if you haven't got an education, then you'll lose out. See how city folk are always complaining: 'It's terrible, this job's too hard, that job's too hard.' Zhengzhou has a migrant population of 600,000. They live in shacks, and survive on dry steamed bread and pickled vegetables, but not one of them has starved to death. Migrant workers are prepared to do dirty, hard and tiring work that city folk won't necessarily do. When it comes to the end of the year, city folk get into fights about money, but people from the countryside go back home for the holiday with their pockets bulging with money.
XINRAN: Have you talked to your children and grandchildren about your views, and does it do any good?
JINGGUAN: Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. I've got a granddaughter of twenty-three; she graduated from the Arts Institute in Chengdu last year and came home, and after a year she's still looking for work. A good job is hard to find, and she doesn't want to do one which is a bit worse. Every day she frets that no one realises how talented she is. But this world isn't made just for you. You need to go and work at something, and then look out for opportunities to do something better.
XINRAN: And have you said that to her?
JINGGUAN [looking at me as if I'm a bit strange]: Me, talk to her? She would just tell me I was completely wrong! All they study nowadays is moonshine.
XINRAN: What do they think your life has been like? [He gives a look as if to say: There's no point in asking that.] Do they know what your job is about?
JINGGUAN: They think the uniform is impressive, but they don't think we're as intelligent or know as much they do.
XINRAN: Do they think you have that 'blind loyalty' of the old society, or that you're ignorant?
JINGGUAN: That's just what they think but they don't dare say it to my face. Luckily I'm still the grandfather! But they still complain about me being demoted. My youngest grandson said: 'Grandad, there aren't many cadres as senior as you in Zhengzhou, why aren't you living in one of those hundred-square-metre, two-storey houses built for cadres like you?' And my old friends say: 'You should count as a big cadre. How come you're still living in that dark hole of a room? How do you feel knowing there are people who haven't as many years' service as you and
