God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [68]
It was a necessarily covert interview conducted in the relative safety of a crowded place, in this instance a McDonald’s near the Temple of Earth. We were both early and, having spotted each other, wandered separately in different directions for a while to make sure we had not been tailed. I had seen a lot of police on the streets as the National People’s Congress was in session. We crossed the pedestrian bridge and went into the McDonald’s, which was crowded with hamburger-loving teenagers. We found a table in a relatively quiet corner, and I got us each a Coke. I took out my tape recorder, put a napkin on top, and moved it closer to Yuan.
“It’s quite tense today,” Yuan whispered. “It’s always the same around this time of the year. My father’s been under close surveillance. I will do the interview on his behalf. My father hopes you can visit us again.”
I pretended to gaze at a young couple sitting at an opposite table and nodded at his words.
“My father is now organizing a vigil for a preacher, Dr. Xu Yonghai, who was arrested while spreading the gospel in Zhejiang province. At a service not long ago, my father said Dr. Xu is a proud example for all young Christians.”
I was glad to hear mention of Yonghai’s name. My eyes kept moving around the restaurant, scanning faces, alert to anything out of the ordinary. And so we talked for three hours.
Yuan Fusheng: My father’s name is Yuan Xiangchen. He was born in June 1914. He has forgotten the exact date but prefers to celebrate the day he was reborn, when he became a Christian—December 29, 1932. My father says every person should have two birthdays, one for the body and the other for the soul. My father was baptized by Reverend Wang Mingdao with the pure stream water from the Summer Palace, right behind the Wanshou Mountain.
My father was born in Bengbu City, Anhui province. My grandfather was a Guangdong native. As a young man, my grandfather worked on the construction of the Beijing-Guangdong railway and the whole family moved north with him, from Guangdong to Bengbu, and eventually settled in Beijing. My grandfather had received a Western-style education in a Chinese college, and after working with the Westerners helping to build the railway, his English was very good. So my father was born into a Westernized family. At the age of thirteen, he went to a school run by the YMCA, studied English, and memorized many passages from the Bible.
His teenage years were difficult. The constant moving by his parents left him rootless. For a while, he sank into a deep depression and attempted suicide twice by plugging a pair of scissors into an electric socket. He says two of his teachers had a tremendous influence on him. One was an American whose Chinese name was Xiao Anna and the other one was a Chinese, Shi Tianmin, both of whom were pious Christians. They taught him the new science and new social thinking advocated by Dr. Sun Yat-sen after the fall of the Qing dynasty and the birth of the new republic. They also spread the gospel. My father became interested in religion and was introduced to Reverend Wang Mingdao.
In the summer of 1934, my father finished his freshman year at a senior high school. His parents wanted him to continue with school, graduate, and get a stable job so he could get married, have children, and live a comfortable life. But my father resisted. He quit school. Inspired by the Bible, he enrolled in a seminary in Beijing. It was affiliated with the Far East College of Theology. He studied there for four years. In the summer of 1936, he joined two thousand other Christians and attended a national Bible reading and consultation retreat. In 1937 he began publishing inspirational articles and translated from English to Chinese a handbook for preachers.
In that year, Japan invaded China. It was a chaotic time. His future wife and my mother, Liang Huizhen, had fled her hometown and arrived in Beijing after the Japanese occupation. She was also a Christian, and the two met and fell in love. After