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By Root 540 0

well-respected head of our village was accused of being a counterrevolutionary. My brothers and I watched as a group of other counterrevolutionaries were paraded through our village, with blackboards around their necks and tall, pointed white paper hats on their heads. Their crimes were written in chalk on the blackboards and their names were written on their hats. They had to stand on a temporary platform in the center of the commune square and confess their crimes to the huge crowd. We went along to watch. The officials and Red Guards handed out propaganda papers. One man kept shouting propaganda slogans with a handheld speaker. People were shrieking and jeering. During their confessions the accused had to lower their heads to avoid the objects thrown at them. If anyone looked up, he would be regarded as arrogant or too deeply influenced by capitalist “filth.” They could do nothing right: if they spoke softly, they were smacked and accused of hiding something; if they spoke loudly, they were kicked and accused of having an “evil landlord-like attitude.”

Their confessions were often disrupted by the man with the handheld speaker, who shouted revolutionary slogans such as “Knock down and kill the capitalists!” or “Never allow Chiang Kaishek and the landlords to return!” “Never forget the cruel life of the old China! Always remember the sweet life of the new China!” And of course there were the endless “Long live Chairman Mao!” slogans. The revolutionaries constantly pulled the counterrevolutionaries’ heads back up to humiliate them even more.

My parents told us that the head of our village was a good man. I couldn’t understand what crime he could have committed. But a few days later, the communist revolutionary leader led a big crowd to the head villager’s house. I joined the crowd. Only then did I realize that he’d been missing from the group of accused during the parade and rally.

The door of his house was locked and the leader banged on it, screaming, “Open the door, open the door!”

Eventually the door opened. His wife stood there, begging for mercy. She told the communist leader that her husband was so sick he couldn’t even get out of bed. The leader didn’t believe her. He demanded to see him. When he did he became convinced that the head villager was indeed very sick. A few years later, I remember seeing him sitting by his gate on a little chair. He looked pale and motionless. He’d lost all his hair. I felt desperately sorry for him, but by that time I too had become one of Mao’s young Guards, and I felt guilty for even thinking that way.

I witnessed many rallies and parades during the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards said they were killing the class enemies, which included the landlords, factory owners, successful businessmen, Guomindang Party members and army officers, and intellectuals—anyone who might pose a threat to the communist government. There was one particular rally that still, to this day, makes my heart bleed. My friends and I heard the communist leader read out the sentences for about fifteen landlords, factory owners, and counterrevolutionaries. Then they were loaded onto a truck. We could see their pointed white hats, with their names written on them in black ink and a big red cross struck through each name. They were taken to a nearby field. Despite the adults’ warnings, my friends and I followed as fast as we could.

I saw the men standing against a mud wall. Someone started counting. Two of the men crumpled onto their knees. One started to scream, “I’m innocent, I’m innocent! Let me live!” Another screamed, “I have young children! They’ll starve to death without me! Have mercy for my family!” Then I heard someone shouting, “Yi, er, san! “ One, two, three … Guns fired. The sound ripped through my heart. I saw blood splatter everywhere. The bodies fell down. I screamed, and ran home as fast as I could.

I wished I had listened to the adults. I wished I’d never witnessed this. It haunted me in many of my dreams.

FIVE

Na-na

Chairman Mao’s regime not only changed the way we lived; it