Life and Death in Shanghai

‘You all know who Tao Fung is. For nearly thirty-five years he was a faithful running dog of Shell Petroleum Company, which is an international corporation of gigantic size with tendrils reaching into every corner of the world to suck up profit. This, according to Lenin, is the worst form of capitalist enterprise.

‘Capitalism and socialism are like fire and water. They are diametrically opposed. Tao Fung could not have served the interests of the British firm and remain a good Chinese citizen under socialism. For a long time we have tried to help him see the light…’

I was surprised to learn that Tao Fung, the former chief accountant of our office was the target of the meeting, because I had always thought the Party looked upon him with favour. His eldest son had been sent to both the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia for advanced studies at the government’s expense in the fifties and the young man had later joined the Party. I knew that when a student was selected to go abroad the Party always made a thorough investigation of his background, including his father’s character, occupation and political viewpoint. Tao Fung must have passed this test at the time his son was sent abroad. I could not understand why he had now been singled out for criticism.

Since the very beginning of the Communist regime, I had carefully studied books on Marxism and pronouncements by Chinese Communist Party leaders. It seemed to me that socialism in China was still very much an experiment and no fixed course of development for the country had yet been decided upon. This, I thought, was why the government’s policy was always changing, like a pendulum swinging from left to right and back again. When things went to the extreme and problems emerged, Peking would take corrective measures. Then these very corrective measures went too far and had to be corrected. The real difficulty was, of course, that a State-controlled economy stifled productivity, and economic planning from Peking ignored local conditions and killed incentive.

When a policy changed from above, the standard of values changed with it. What was right yesterday became wrong today and vice versa. Thus the words and actions of a Communist Party official at the lower level were valid for a limited time only. So I decided the meeting I was attending was not very important and that the speaker was just a minor Party official assigned to conduct the Cultural Revolution for the former staff of Shell. The Cultural Revolution seemed to me to be a swing to the left. Sooner or later, when it had gone too far, corrective measures would be taken. The people would have a few months or a few years of respite until the next political campaign. Mao Tze-tung believed that political campaigns were the motivating force for progress. So I thought the Proletarian Cultural Revolution was just one of an endless series of upheavals the Chinese people must learn to put up with.

I looked round the room while listening with one ear to the speaker’s tirade. It was then that I noticed the banner on the wall that said, ‘Down with the running dog of imperialism Tao Fung’. The two characters of his name were crossed with red Xs to indicate he was being denounced as an enemy. This banner had escaped my notice when I entered the room because there were so many banners with slogans of the Cultural Revolution covering the walls. Slogans were an integral part of life in China. They exalted Mao Tze-tung, the Party, socialism and anything else the Party wanted the people to believe in; they exhorted the people to work hard, to study Mao Tze-tung Thought and to obey the Party. When there was a political campaign, the slogans denounced the enemies. Since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the number of slogans everywhere had multiplied by the thousand. It was impossible to read all that one encountered. It was very easy to look at them without really seeing what was written.

The man was now talking about Tao’s decadent way of life resulting from long association with capitalism. It seemed he was guilty of having extra-marital relations, drinking wine and spirits in excess and enjoying elaborate meals, all acts of self-indulgence frowned upon by the Party. These accusations did not surprise me because I knew that when a man was denounced, he was depicted as totally bad, and any errant behaviour was attributed to the influence of capitalism.

When the man had thoroughly dissected Tao’s private life and exposed the corrosive effect of capitalism on him, his tone and manner became more serious. He turned to the subject of imperialism and aggression against China by foreign powers. To him Tao’s mistakes were made not because he was a greedy man with little self-control but because he had worked for a firm that belonged to a nation guilty of acts of aggression against the Chinese people more than a hundred years ago. He was talking about the opium war of 1845 as if it had taken place only the year before.

Though he used the strong language of denunciation and often raised his voice to shout, he delivered his speech in a leisurely manner, pausing frequently either to drink water or to consult his notes. He knew he had a captive audience, since no one would dare to leave while the meeting was going on. A Party official, no matter how lowly his rank, was a representative of the Party. When he spoke, it was the Party speaking. It was unthinkable not to appear attentive. However, he had been speaking for a long time. The room had become unbearably hot and the audience was getting restive. I looked at my watch and found it was nearly twelve o’clock. Perhaps the speaker was also tired and hungry, for he suddenly stopped and told us the meeting was adjourned until 1.30. Everybody was up and heading for the exits even before he had quite finished speaking.

Outside, the midday sun beat relentlessly down on the hot pavement. In the distance, I saw a pedicab parked in the shade of a tree. I ran to it and gave the driver my address, promising him double fare to encourage him to move away quickly.

The man who had led me into the building in the morning dashed out of the building, shouting for me to stop. He wanted me to remain there and eat something from the school kitchen so that I would not be late again. So anxious was he to detain me that he grabbed the side of the pedicab. I had to promise him repeatedly that I would be back on time before he let go.

My little house, shaded with awnings on the windows and green bamboo screens on the verandah, was a haven after that hot, airless meeting hall. The back of my shirt was wet through and I was parched. I had a quick shower, drank a glass of iced tea and enjoyed the delicious meal my excellent cook had prepared for me. Then I lay down on my bed for half an hour’s rest before setting out again in the pedicab, which I had asked to wait for me.

When I arrived at the meeting hall I was a little late, but by no means the last to arrive. I found a seat on the second row next to a pillar so that I could lean against it when I got too tired and needed support. I had brought along a large shopping bag in which I had put a bottle of water and a glass, as well as two bars of chocolate. Secure in the knowledge that I had come well prepared, I settled down to wait, wondering what the speaker was leading up to.

The hall gradually filled. At two o’clock, the same number of men mounted the platform and took up their positions. The speaker beckoned to someone at the back. I was astonished to see Tao Fung being led into the room wearing a tall dunce’s hat made of white paper with ‘cow’s demon and snake spirit’ written on it. If it were not for the extremely troubled expression on his face, he would have looked comical.

‘Cow’s demon and snake spirit’ are evil spirits in Chinese mythology who can assume human forms to do mischief, but when recognized by real humans as devils they revert to their original shapes. Mao Tze-tung first used this expression to describe the intellectuals during the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957. He had said that the intellectuals were like evil spirits in human form when they pretended to support the Communist Party. When they criticized the Party’s policy, they reverted to their original shapes and were exposed as evil spirits. Since that time, quick to adopt the language of Mao, Party officials used the phrase for anyone considered politically deceitful. During the Cultural Revolution it was applied to all the so-called nine categories of enemies: the former landlords denounced in the Land Reform Movement of 1950-2; rich peasants denounced in the Formation of Rural Cooperatives Movement of 1955; counter-revolutionaries denounced in the Suppression of Counter-revolutionaries Campaign of 1950 and Elimination of Counter-revolutionaries Campaign of 1955; ‘bad elements’ arrested from time to time since the Communist Party came to power; rightists denounced in the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957; traitors (Party officials suspected of having betrayed Party secrets to the Kuomintang during imprisonment by the Kuomintang); spies (men and women with foreign connections); ‘capitalist-roaders’ (Party officials not following the strict leftist policy of Mao, and taking the ‘capitalist road’) and intellectuals with bourgeois family origins.

Often the phrase was shortened to just ‘cows’ and the places in which these political outcasts were confined during the Cultural Revolution were generally referred to as the ‘cowsheds’. As the scale of persecution expanded, every organization in China had rooms set aside for ‘cowsheds’ and the Revolutionaries of each organization had full power to deal with the ‘cows’ confined therein. Inhuman treatment and cruel methods were employed to force the ‘cows’ to confess. In many instances, they fared worse than those incarcerated in regular prisons.

How changed Tao Fung looked! When we were working in the same office, he was always full of self-assurance. Now he looked nervous and thoroughly beaten. He had lost a great deal of weight and seemed years older than only a few months ago. The young people behind me sniggered. When Tao was brought to the platform, the crowd at the back stood up to have a better view and knocked over some benches. So a man pushed a chair forward on the platform and told Tao Fung to stand on it. When Tao climbed onto the chair and stood there in a posture of subservience in his tall paper hat, the sniggers became uncontrolled laughter.

Someone in a corner of the room, obviously planted there for the purpose, stood up. Holding the Little Red Book of Mao Tze-tung’s quotations (so-called because of its red plastic cover), which everybody had to have by his side, and raising it high in the air, he led the assembly to shout slogans.

‘Down with Tao Fung!’

‘Down with the running dog of the imperialists, Tao Fung!’

‘Down with the imperialists!’

‘Down with the capitalist class!’

‘Long live the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution!’

‘Long live our Great Leader Chairman Mao!’

The sound of laughter was now drowned in the thunder of voices. Everybody got to his feet shouting and waving the Little Red Book of Mao’s quotations. I had not brought along my copy. Embarrassed by my oversight, I was slow to get to my feet. Besides, I was shocked and surprised to see Tao Fung raising his fist and shouting with gusto the same slogans, including those against himself. By the time I had collected my fan, my bag, my bottle of water and the glass from my lap, placed them on the bench and stood up, the others had already finished and had sat down. So I had to pick up my things again and resume my seat. The man sitting next to me was glaring at me with disapproval. He shifted sideways away from me as if he feared contamination by my bad behaviour.

When the crowd had demonstrated its anger at and disapproval of the culprit, he was allowed to come down from the chair. As he bent his head to step down, the paper hat fell off. There was renewed laughter from the young students. Tao stared at the man in charge of the meeting with fear in his eyes, obviously afraid of being accused of deliberately dropping the hat. He heaved a sigh of relief when another man picked it up and placed it on the table.

The man in charge of the meeting called upon other members of the company’s staff, including the two men who had come to my house in the morning and junior clerks in Tao Fung’s accounts department, to come forward to speak. One by one they marched to the platform and expressed anger and indignation, repeating the same accusations against Tao Fung made by the man in charge of the meeting in the morning session. The scope and degree of criticism was, I knew, always set by the Party official. It was just as ill-advised to try to be original and say something different as not to criticize enough. The Chinese people had learned by experience that the Party trusted them more and liked them better if they didn’t think for themselves but just repeated what the Party told them. The criticism of Tao Fung by other members of our former staff went on for a long time. All those who were allowed to speak were workers or junior clerks. None of the senior members of our former staff participated. They sat silently with heads bowed.

Finally the man in charge of the meeting took over again. He told the audience that after several weeks of re-education and ‘help’ by activists, Tao had finally recognized the fact that he was a victim of capitalism and imperialism. Turning to Tao, the man asked in a voice a stern schoolteacher might have used to address a pupil caught in an act of mischief, ‘Isn’t it so? It was the high salary paid you by the foreign imperialists that turned you into their slave! You sold yourself to them and were ready to do any dirty work for them because of the high salary you received and the money they promised you. Isn’t this the case?’

There was a hush in the room as everyone waited for Tao’s reaction. But there was no dramatic, tearful declaration of repentance. He merely nodded his head, looking more dejected than ever.

I thought Tao Fung very stupid to agree that he had sold himself for money because this admission could open the way to all sorts of more serious accusations from which he might find it difficult to disentangle himself. It seemed to me it would have been much better and certainly more truthful to explain that Shell paid its Shanghai staff the same salary after the Communist Party took over the city as it had done before. Since the government did not intervene, naturally the question of reducing the pay of the staff did not arise. What he could also have said tactfully (which the Party officials would find difficult to refute) was that working for a foreign firm did not carry with it the personal prestige of serving the people that workers in government organizations enjoyed.

‘Tao Fung will now make his self-criticism,’ the man announced.

Still in a posture of obsequiousness and without once lifting his eyes to look at the audience, Tao took a few sheets of paper from his pocket and started to read a prepared statement in a low voice devoid of any emotion. He admitted humbly all the ‘crimes’ listed by the speakers and accepted the verdict that his downfall was due to the fact that he did not have sufficient socialist awareness. He expressed regret for having worked for a foreign firm for more than thirty-five years and said that he had wasted his life. He declared that he was ashamed that he had been blinded by capitalist propaganda and enslaved by the good treatment Shell had given him. He begged the proletariat to forgive him and give him a chance to repent. He mentioned the fact that his son was a Party member and had been educated abroad at government expense. His own life of depravity, he said, was an act of gross ingratitude to the People’s Government. He assured the assembly that he now recognized the dastardly schemes of the foreign capitalists and imperialists against Communist China and would do his best to lay bare their dirty game in order to show his true repentance. He said he was in the process of writing a detailed confession of criminal deeds he had committed for Shell, which he would present to the officials ‘helping’ him with his re-education.

It was a long statement full of phrases of self-abuse and exaggeration. At times his voice trembled and sometimes he opened his mouth but no words came. When he turned the pages, his hands shook. I did not believe his nervousness was entirely due to fear, since he must have known that he was not guilty of any real crime. After all, Shell was in China because the People’s Government allowed, even wanted, it to be there. And I knew that the company had been scrupulously correct in observing Chinese government regulations. Tao must have known this too. I thought his chief problem was mental and physical exhaustion. To bring him to his knees and to make sure that he submitted readily, I was sure those who ‘helped’ him must have spent days, if not weeks, constantly questioning him, taking turns to exert pressure on him without allowing him to sleep. It was common knowledge that in these circumstances, the victim broke down and submitted when he was on the verge of physical collapse and mental confusion. The Maoists named these inhuman tactics ‘exhaustive bombardment’. Many people I knew, including my own brother, had experienced it during the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957. The Party officials remained in the background while the activists carried out their orders. When there was excessive cruelty that resulted in death, the officials would disown responsibility but claim it was an accident resulting from ‘mass enthusiasm’.

When Tao had finished, the speaker told the audience that he was to be watched to see if his words were spoken in true sincerity. He added that his was only the first meeting of its kind to be held. There were many others like Tao to be dealt with and Tao himself might speak again. Here he paused momentarily and swept the audience with his eyes. Did I merely imagine that his gaze seemed to linger for a fraction of a moment longer in my direction? He concluded that it was the duty of the proletariat to cleanse socialist China of all residue of imperialist influence and punish the enemies of the people. Again I thought he directed his gaze in my direction.

I certainly did not think I was important enough for this whole show to have been put on solely for my benefit. But if it was, it failed to frighten me. The emotion my first experience of a ‘struggle meeting’ generated in me was one of disgust and shame that such an act of barbarism against a fellow human being could have taken place in my beloved native land, with a history of five thousand years of civilization. As a Chinese, I felt degraded.

There was more shouting of slogans, but everybody was already on his feet moving towards the door.

The same man who tried to keep me from going home for lunch was waiting in the passage. He said to me, ‘Will you come this way for a moment? Some comrades would like to have a word with you.’

I followed him to one of the classrooms where the students’ seats and tables were piled up in one corner. The man in charge of the meeting and another one who had been on the platform were seated by the teacher’s desk. There was a vacant chair. They motioned me to sit in it.

‘Did you hear everything at the meeting?’ the man in charge of the meeting asked me.

I nodded.

‘What did you think of the meeting? I believe this is the first time you have attended one of this kind.’

Obviously I couldn’t say what I really thought of the meeting, nor did I want to lie and flatter him. So I asked, ‘May I ask you some questions that have been in my mind the whole day ?’

He looked annoyed, but said, ‘Go ahead.’

‘What organization do you represent? What authority do you have to call a meeting like this? Besides the ex-staff of Shell, who were the others present?’

Clearly he resented my questioning his authority. Making a visible effort to control himself, he said, ‘We represent the proletarian class. The meeting was authorized by the Committee in charge of the conduct of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution in Shanghai.’

I asked him to explain the purpose of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution. He said that it was a revolution to cleanse Chinese society of factors that hindered the growth of socialism. He repeated an often-quoted line of Mao Tze-tung, ‘If poisonous weeds are not removed, scented flowers cannot grow.’ He told me that everybody in China without exception had to take part in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

‘You must assume a more sincere attitude and make a determined effort to emulate Tao Fung and do your best to reform,’ he said.

‘I’m not aware of any wrong-doing on my part,’ I said, my voice registering surprise.

‘Perhaps you’ll change your attitude when you have had time to think things over,’ said the second man. ‘If you try to cover up for the imperialists, the consequences will be serious.’

‘What is there to cover up? Every act of the imperialists is clearly recorded in our history books,’ I answered.

The man raised his voice, ‘What are you talking about? We are not concerned with what happened in the past. We are talking about now, about the firm you worked for. Tao had already confessed everything. We know the Shell office in Shanghai “hung up a sheep’s head to sell dog’s meat” [a Chinese expression to mean the outward appearance of something was not the same as the reality]. We are also clear in our mind about the important role you played in their dirty game. You must not take us for fools.’

‘I’m completely at a loss to know what you refer to,’ I said. ‘As far as I know, the company I worked for never did anything either illegal or immoral. The People’s Government has an excellent police force. Surely if anything had been wrong it would have been discovered long ago.’

Both men glared at me. Almost simultaneously they shouted, ‘You are trying to cover up for the imperialists!’

I said indignantly, ‘You misunderstand me. I’m merely stating the facts as I know them. Why should I cover up for anybody? Shell’s Shanghai office is closed and the British general manager has left. No one needs my protection.’

‘Yes, yes, the British general manager has gone but you are still here. You know just as much as he did. Your husband held the post of general manager for many years. After he died you joined the firm. You certainly know everything about it.’

‘It’s precisely because I know everything about the Shanghai office of Shell that I know it never did anything wrong,’ I said.

The other man intervened. ‘I suggest you go home now and think things over. We’ll call you when we want to speak to you again. What’s your telephone number?’

I gave them my telephone number and left the room.

Outside, it was already dusk. There was a pleasant breeze. I decided to walk home on the tree-lined pavement by a roundabout route to get some exercise and to think things over.

When I passed the No. 1 Medical College, I saw my friend Winnie emerging from the half-closed gate, followed by a number of her colleagues. We waved to each other and she joined me to walk home, as she lived in the vicinity of my house.

‘Why are you out walking at this time of the evening?’ Winnie asked me.

‘I’ve just attended a struggle meeting. I’ve been told to take part in the Proletarian Cultural Revolution.’

‘Is that because Shell has closed its Shanghai office? Tell me about it.’

‘I will. Can you join me for dinner?’ I asked her. It would be good to hear what Winnie had to say about my experience. She had been through quite a number of political movements and was more experienced than I was in dealing with the situation, I thought.

‘All right. I’ll phone home from your house. Henry comes home very late these days. He has to pay a price for being a professor whenever there is a political campaign. Professors always seem to become the targets,’ Winnie said. Henry was her husband who taught architecture at Tung Chi University.

‘Is Henry in trouble?’ I inquired anxiously.

‘No, not so far, thank God,’ Winnie replied, while taking a comb out of her bag to smooth her hair. ‘Your servants will have a fit if they see me coming to dinner looking so dishevelled.’