Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin [34]
But, after speaking to Director Wang, I realize this is wrong and I should never do it again! Why? Because of the following reasons: One. I may slip and die and this would cause embarrassment for Madame Mao. Two. Our great leader Chairman Mao said in his Red Book: “Study hard and improve upward every day.” By thinking about and playing with the birds, I won’t be able to concentrate on my studies like Chairman Mao wants me to. Three. If I died because of trying to save the birds, I would not be able to serve in Chairman Mao’s revolution anymore. Four. Also my parents won’t be able to ever see me again and my niang will die of sadness.
Because of these four important reasons, I promise that I’ll never do it again. If I do, I’m willing to let the thunder kill me!
Chairman Mao’s Faithful Student
Li Cunxin
“Let the thunder kill me” was a swear word from our commune. But in truth I didn’t really believe that playing with the birds would have caused any harm to Chairman Mao’s revolution.
My self-criticism passed the test easily, and my teacher and classmates burst into laughter when I read that last line. I also had to stand outside our classroom for a whole hour afterward. “Cunxin, have you fed the poor birds yet?” the boys teased as they walked past.
I hadn’t meant what I’d written. I hadn’t learned anything about serving Chairman Mao. It only made me realize how much freedom I was being denied. I would never be able to play with my beloved birds again. Now I was a bird trapped in a cage. There were so many different classes to get used to. Despite the bird incident, I liked the math class and I was quick to understand the new equations, but I didn’t understand the importance of math to a ballet dancer and I began to daydream. I could hear the Beijing Opera students’ voices coming from their studios and my heart wanted to leap out and join them. I thought about the Beijing Opera films I’d seen back in our commune, and I dreamed constantly about being a singer. I was often in trouble for not paying enough attention, especially in the ballet classes.
We had our first acrobatics and Chinese classes. Acrobatics was very strenuous. We had to do handstands against the wall, and exercises like bending backward and lowering our hands to the floor, the ultimate aim being to grasp our ankles. Sometimes the teachers would order us to stay in this position until they allowed us to slowly bend up to standing position again. They also made us do a lot of quick backbends to the floor, ten or twenty nonstop. It’s surprising we were not permanently injured. Yet our teachers continued, relentlessly. “What you’re doing now is merely the foundation work,” they said. “When your back muscles are stronger we’ll teach you backflips and front and back somersaults.”
Chinese class was run by Teacher Shu Wing. He was calm most of the time, but occasionally he’d burst into a rage because of our laziness. He had elegant handwriting and I enjoyed watching him write on the blackboard. Words leaped out of his white chalk in beautiful dancing movements. He also taught us classical poetry and would discuss each word in tremendous depth. His class was one of my favorites and we were told we had to learn Mandarin quickly, or we would be sent home.
Gradually I began to make friends at the academy. Zhu Yaoping, Jiao Lishang, and I were often in the same group of activities. We were the three smallest boys, and although we couldn’t communicate well to begin with because of our different dialects, we managed in the end. Zhu Yaoping was the liveliest and wildest.
For our first Sunday, a trip to the famous Ming Tombs had been organized. The journey north to Shisan Ling took over two hours by bus and I suffered from dreadful motion sickness. They had to stop the bus twice. I felt