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By Root 294 0

takeover, my family was considered wealthy. My father was an elder in the church. He used to preach with Reverend Zhang Erchang. At home, he had to run the family business. My father was raised in a family with four generations of farmers. In my father’s time, prices for crops had dropped and there was hardly any money made from farming. So they started raising cattle, horses, pigs, and ducks. They also raised bees. To get a better price for their animals, my family would ship their pigs and ducks to bigger markets in Jiulong and Zhuanlong. In those days, there were no trucks. My relatives would have to herd the ducks and pigs all the way down there. It normally took about ten to fifteen days. We also harvested honey twice a year and then hired porters to carry it to the provincial capital city of Kunming. We had fifty beehives. They were hard to take care of but quite profitable.

With the money we earned, my father was able to donate food and supplies to the church. Soon, the business and preaching became very exhausting for him. When I was four, he died and his brother took over.

The early 1940s was a golden age for Christianity. Our main church was in Salaowu. We had twelve pastors. There were branches in Shengfa, Pufu, Zehei, Malutang, Dasongshu, Jiaoxi, and Jiaoping. The branch in Dega was the second largest, next to the main church. My uncle became an elder in our branch. He held that position until after the Communist takeover in 1949. Then all religious activities were banned.

My oldest brother and I were both born in the year of the rabbit, but he was twenty-four years older than I. At the age of twenty, he married a woman in Pufu and moved in with his wife’s family. His father-in-law was a church elder in Pufu and needed my brother’s help. My brother was a graduate of the local Christian high school. He was quite smart and dedicated. He did remarkably well in the world of humans as well as the world of God. He was the county chief in Pufu and then took charge of the military draft. He used his positions within the local government to create favorable conditions for the spread of the gospel. When the church established the Southwestern Theological Seminary in Salaowu, he quit his government job and became its administrator. He personally selected every teacher and was involved in scouting and recruiting local talent. Every year, he donated more than a hundred kilograms of grain to support the preachers. All the foreign missionaries liked him.

My brother was also dedicated to social issues. Historically, the region was notorious for opium addiction. It was widespread among both the rich and the poor. On top of that, many Yi people were also addicted to gambling. These two scourges led to lots of social turbulence. Robbers and triad members ran rampant. It was a headache for every government in power. My elder brother strongly believed that the Christian faith would improve people’s moral values. It would help people kick their opium and gambling addictions. He actively promoted faith as a way to cleanse social ills.

Liao: Your brother had a promising future . . .

Zhang: Unfortunately, he passed away at the age of thirty-six.

Liao: Did he die of illness?

Zhang: No. He was executed in 1951, when I was twelve. His passing left a painful memory in my family, but he left this world in dignity.

Liao: What happened?

Zhang: When the Land Reform Movement started, our family was a big target. My oldest brother’s family was classified as landlords. My oldest brother and his father-in-law, the church elder, were locked up in a county jail. They were tortured. My oldest brother had served in the defeated Nationalist government, but he had a clean record. He was very well liked by local folks here. So when the new Communist government sent work teams to different villages and repeatedly mobilized people to stand out and renounce my brother, nobody was willing to do it openly. In the 1950s there was a major push to execute and eliminate members of the triad and evil landlords. My brother was spared, initially. But the