God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [88]
Liao: What did you perform in the years of the famine?
Wen: The same old upbeat revolutionary songs, praising the great leadership of the Party and singing about the wonderful life we had. Since I worked really hard, I continued to win awards. At public meetings for disabled people, the street-committee chair would call me to the podium and hand me a red certificate. After the meeting, I could exchange the certificate for a bowl of sweet potatoes. Our performance troupe was disbanded during the Cultural Revolution because so many revolutionary singing and dance troupes were formed. They no longer needed disabled people to perform. So I became unemployed.
Liao: Were you affected in other ways by the Cultural Revolution?
Wen: No, at least not at the beginning. I just stayed home, without anything to do. At the tail end of the Cultural Revolution, since everyone was fed up with the limited entertainment choices, some young people started to hang out with me. I taught them to play the erhu, and it got so my house was packed all the time. I would teach them old songs from the 1950s, even some love songs from pre-Communist days. I accompanied their singing with my erhu or flute. Occasionally, I would dig out some old LPs from the attic and play them on an old gramophone. We would also listen to shortwave radio and hear music programs from overseas; we had to be very careful because anyone caught listening to shortwave radio was sent to prison. But young people like taking risks, so we had a lot of fun. Soon, however, the street committee got wind of it and reported me to the police, accusing me of running an “underground club.” Police came one night and searched my place. They took me away for interrogation. They found nothing and I was released. Over the next few years, they would search my place in the middle of the night. I was in and out of the detention center. But since I was a blind person, they found it hard to imprison me.
Chairman Mao finally died. The Cultural Revolution ended. I had to go make a living. I tried performing on the street and discovered that people liked my music; I made enough to get by. The police harassed me now and then. They would confiscate my musical instruments or detain me for a few days. As soon as they released me, I was back on the street again. I think they just didn’t know what to do about me.
It’s been thirty some years since I started my street-musician career. I’m a veteran now. I moved to Chengdu several years ago. The media have written many positive stories about me. But the police still watch me closely, detaining me and levying fines on me. I’m used to it.
Liao: Why do you have a poster of the Beatles on your wall?
Wen: I love their songs. Someday, I hope to travel abroad and perform on the streets in America. And when I’m there, I want to find out what kind of eye drops that American missionary gave me. It’s been bugging me for years and years.
Liao: Still, if you hadn’t lost your sight, you would not have been the brilliant street musician you are.
Epilogue
What was in the missionary doctor’s eye drops that almost saved Wen Huachun’s sight? I consulted with Liu Shahe, a well-known historian in Chengdu.
“Fish oil,” he said. “It’s a commonplace supplement by today’s standards. But for mountain people, fish was rarely on the menu, and fish oil, which helps the body absorb nutrients, was unheard of. Who would have thought that the eyes needed feeding, just like the mouth? Well, Western doctors figured this out, extracted fish oil, and made it into eye drops.” According to Liu, eye drops made from fish oil helped lots of blind people in China before the Communist revolution.
Chapter 17
The Orphanage
I was born under Communism in China and was educated by that system—certain things were “true” and should be accepted, never questioned. And in Mao’s China, religion was “evil” and those who believed in religion were at