Thousand Miles

I am reading “Mao’s Last Dancer” by Li Cunxin. It was written by a man who defected from Communist China to the States as a young man, and it tells the story of how he was chosen out of poverty to represent one of the three classes of people: soldier, worker and peasant in Madame Mao’s school of dance.

The story brings so many things to mind. It makes me think of the movie The Last Emperor where the emperor was finally released from prison an old man, amidst Mao’s Cultural Revolution where he had no place. His spirit turned into a butterfly and flew away. It reminds me of the book I read by the Dutch priest Van Collie, who survived brainwashing in a Chinese prison for being an evil rightest (Mao crushed all religious leaders, teachers, political opponents and the wealthy).  And it makes me think of my friend’s mother who was an aristocrat, from a cultured and educated family, whose parents were killed by Mao’s soldiers and her younger brother drowned before her eyes.

She leads a quiet life now and finds what joy she can in her grandchildren and her Chinese painting. We communicate in my rudimentary forgotten Mandarin.

The story reminds me of Taiwan, where I spent two years living amidst Taiwanese and Chinese cultures, the two forced together when Chang Kai Shek’s soldiers followed him there in 1949 with the intention of re-taking Communist China from Mao. I learned to say rice with a Taiwanese accent: “whan” instead of “fan.” I learned old Chinese sayings, like “Have thousand miles will meet.” It means, “though a thousand miles may separate us, we are destined to meet because we are kindred spirits.” I found a lot of friends there with whom I had “yuen” – a kindred spirit.

When they opened the barrier between China and Taiwan in the 90’s, my friends all knew of someone, if not their own father, who had to make a choice whether they were going to join their first wife whom they left behind in China when they fled to the island, or if they were going to remain with their current wife (whom they had married because they were convinced they would never again set foot in Mainland China). Some left their Taiwanese family and went back to their first wife, others stayed, and still others kept both wives trying to glue the pieces of their split lives together. It was an unthinkable time for everyone involved.

My second year in Taiwan occurred a full year after I left for the first time. I came back more confident. I had spent the year in New York, which served as a sort of “finishing school” and I already had plans in place to go to Paris once my time in Taiwan was finished. I found my own way from the airport, taking the bus and then a taxi to where I would be staying. My Chinese came back to me rapidly.

I was a sponge, hearing it all with fresh ears but with a good base that was already embedded.

I handled the transition well the second time around, turning my disorderly class into one where I needed only walk in and raise one eyebrow while they all raced to their seat and folded their hands. (Before we would all collapse in giggles). I was more equipped for my solo visa trip out of the country, this time choosing Hong Kong over Seoul, which was more tourist-friendly. Everything seemed to run along smoothly.

And then my brother died. I had met a woman two years prior on a trip to Asia who was heading home for her brother’s funeral because he had committed suicide. I was filled with compassion for her at the time, and here I was, sitting in the dim airport waiting, my mind numb.

Not long after I returned, I had a dream. I was in a room in a very high tower with glass windows all around. It was nighttime and there was a war going on far away on the ground. I could tell this from the noise and from the bursts of light contrasting with the black darkness. I turned then, and I saw my brother.

“Mark!” I screamed as I threw myself at him. “What are you doing here? How did you get here?” He looked uncomfortable at my clinging and at my question. “What’s it like?” I asked him. He shook his head, “It’s scary.” I could well believe it if the war I was seeing was anything like it.

I pulled at him, “Come on. You have to come with me. Dad will be sooooo glad to see you.” (My father was the last person to see him alive and the first to find him afterwards). He shook his head without saying anything, as if not wanting to let me down. We got into the glass elevator and started to descend to the ground. I repeated, “Dad will be so glad to see you. You have to come with me.” Just as we reached the bottom I looked over and he was gone. I woke up to firecrackers skittering along the alley outside with loud cracks and pops. It was nighttime and the neighbors were celebrating Chinese New Year.

This was the first of many nightmares that year, although this is the only one I remembered. The others just left me grasping for breath with a sense of foreboding, that something was deeply wrong.

One day my friend Elva proposed to take me into the mountains on her motorbike. I loved riding the motorbike. I felt so free. Helmets were not required and I didn’t care whether or not I survived a fall, so I was able to ride without one and feel the wind in my hair. At first we saw the familiar busy streets, loud vendors pushing their wares at every turn. And then we saw more and more country.

We rode on over an hour and then, there in the distance – the mountain. As we turned towards it, we started flying over a crisscross of roads with large grids of golden rice waving in the hot sun almost as far as I could see. I think the image of that hot sun, blue sky, golden rice, the green and brown set of mountains ahead, and me flying, flying across it all … I think that image will be displayed on a full screen in all its color in my last days.

We picked litchis together in the mountains, and then found a creek winding its way down. We hopped across the stones to get to the center, and sat down on two large stones talking and watching our empty litchi shells float downstream.

When I read Mao’s Last Dancer in my spare time, I am transported to those days.

I have no more nightmares now, no more darkness and wars. Here in France I don’t see litchi bushes and golden rice paddies, or bamboo forests with the occasional bloom showing that one tree is dying.   I am not confronted with symbols on every doorway that still have no meaning for me.  And instead of examining all sorts of dried fish and squat bamboo shoots in the market, I examine different cheeses and try to keep an eye on my own three little shoots that need the most tender pruning.

It is all thousands of miles away, as much in distance as in lifetimes.

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