Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin [36]
The first letter I sent home was so hard to write. I desperately wanted to tell them how much I missed them and how homesick I was, but I knew this would only make my niang sad. Instead I told them about the train trip to Beijing and how exciting everything was. I told them I had plenty of good food: oil and meat in every dish! How I wished I could share it with them. I told them I had to wash and sew my own clothes, and that I’d left my corduroy jacket for Jing Tring.
I didn’t think this letter would cause my niang sadness, but my second brother, Cunyuan, replied soon after and said that when he’d read the letter aloud, my niang had sobbed.
One of my favorite places in the academy was the library. It was only a small room with just a few shelves of books, mostly picture books—stories about foreign children written by Chinese authors. These were always sad and tragic. Most were about struggling African American children in America and how the white people mistreated them. Or they were about the struggle between good and evil. The good characters were always beautiful and handsome. The evil characters had big crooked noses and fat ugly faces. They were Chiang Kaishek’s Guomindang officers and spies, or the foreign enemies. I hated the evil guys and felt so sad for those impoverished children. I felt even more grateful for the heavenly life that Chairman Mao had given us. If our life was heavenly, I thought, then those poor children’s lives in America must be hell indeed.
TEN
That First Lonely Year
Even though those first few weeks at the Beijing Dance Academy were an agony of loneliness, I knew I had no choice but to stay in Beijing. My parents, my brothers, relatives, friends, my old school teachers and classmates, my village and commune, all of their wishes and expectations made it impossible for me to go back. The loss of face would be unbearable. It would damage my family’s reputation forever. My success was my parents’ only hope of breaking that vicious cycle of poverty. I couldn’t let them down, even if I did feel trapped.
I wasn’t alone in missing home. I witnessed many teary eyes among my fellow classmates. The girls sobbed more than the boys. Our political heads and teachers showed more tenderness toward the girls. The boys would be told that crying was a sign of weakness.
The city kids seemed to cope better than the country ones. They were more confident. The Shanghai kids coped the best—they were generally fairer skinned too. The country kids were darker and I was probably one of the darkest. Fair skin was considered beautiful in China.
Our first weeks weren’t made any easier when a virus swept through the school. I was among those who had the severe cough, sore throat, and high fever. Naturally I did what my niang would have done—I took out a few pieces of my precious dried snakeskin and wrapped a green onion in them. I offered to share it with some of my classmates, but it was as though I’d offered them poison. I lost a few friends over that, but I did notice that their symptoms lasted much longer than mine.
The toilets were another challenge. I appreciated the idea of being able to flush away the waste to who knows where, but the reality that always confronted us was blocked toilets. The smell was revolting. Toilet rush hours were the worst—in the mornings after waking up, after breakfast, after lunch, after nap time, and the worst time of all was after dinner before the “go to sleep” bell. I would close my eyes, hold my breath, and charge into the toilet.
The toilet might have been one of the worst things about the Beijing Dance Academy, but the showers were one of the best. We were assigned to take showers three times a week. We had to get in early because the hot water would run out. Latecomers had cold showers.
My very first