God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [53]
Our county was remote and backward, quite ethnically diverse. Back then, we only had mountain paths and used horses, donkeys, and human legs to move around. To get to Kunming took twenty days; now you can do it by bus in ten hours.
I had wanted to stay in Yunnan, but a few days before graduation, the seminary received a letter from a preacher in Zhaojue County in Sichuan province. He was a doctor from London and planned to set up a medical school there, but he only spoke Mandarin and the county was in the heart of the Yi region. The Yi language and culture were quite challenging for the British doctor.
The seminary sent me and another Yi student. We worked as interpreters and taught the doctor to speak Yi. I returned home at Christmas in 1950.
Liao: China was under Communism then.
Zhang: Right before Christmas in 1949, Yunnan province was taken over by the Communists. However, Zhaojue was still under the Nationalists. As a Christian, I didn’t pay much attention to politics; no matter who ruled China, people needed the guidance of the gospel. At the end of 1950, the Communist Party was too busy with regime change to worry about religion. They had just started the Land Reform Movement and had to handle armed rebellions from local secret societies and landlords. I was approaching thirty years old and married. Unfortunately, my family was classified as landlord.
Liao: Was your family rich?
Zhang: My family had five boys and two girls. I was the second child. My eldest brother was county chief under the Nationalist government but didn’t own much land. As a seminarian, I had nothing under my name.
Liao: How did you get the landlord classification?
Zhang: Several reasons. In those days, there weren’t so many Christians in the county. Those of us who were had mostly inherited the faith of our parents. Our family stood out. Second, the seminary sent me to Zhaojue County, which was under the rule of the Nationalist army. The Communists suspected I had been sent on a secret mission for the foreign imperialists. Third, my eldest brother’s past implicated the whole family.
Liao: What happened next?
Zhang: When the Land Reform Movement started, I still lived at the seminary. Once my family was classified, I was dragged back to the village and locked up with several dozen other “landlords.” At first, the job of the local Communist Party was to confiscate and redistribute land and other assets. They didn’t use much violence. Many wealthy families buried clothing and food, thinking they could dig them up after the campaign was over. But the campaign became more and more violent. The buried food and clothing was found, and those landlords were severely punished. When they asked me to cough up money, I could honestly say I had none. When they tried to confiscate my assets, I could offer them nothing. They searched everywhere. They were outraged. They even went to the seminary and brought back my belongings, which amounted to an old quilt. I didn’t even have sheets. Officials were really upset and swore at me nonstop. How could a landlord be so poor? They didn’t believe me. They made me kneel on the ground for three days and three nights. Local militiamen guarded me with big sticks, and each time I fell asleep, they would beat me.
Liao: Were you inside a jail?
Zhang: No, it was out in the open. They broke some roof tiles and bricks, placing them under my knees. It rained all that time. I was soaking wet and shivering and kneeling in a puddle that rose to my thighs. I closed my eyes and prayed.
I wasn’t the only one kneeling in the yard. There were a dozen more like me. We were forced to confess our “crimes.” I was supposed to tell them what I had done in Sichuan province, the ulterior motive of my trip. Did I try to contact the Nationalist army there? Before the government reversed its verdict against me in the late