Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin [45]
I brought back some Beijing candy and a bag of jasmine tea from the Chongs as gifts to my family.
My holiday month at home went by too fast. My parents and brothers showered me with love and affection. Their lives hadn’t changed much from the year before. A few days before I was to leave for Beijing, my parents made Cunyuan write a “thank you” letter to the Chongs to express their appreciation. Cunyuan had to rewrite it several times because my parents weren’t satisfied with the words he used. Eventually, an argument broke out between Cunyuan and my parents, and many years of bitterness emerged from Cunyuan’s heart. “Cunxin is our family’s crown jewel! He is allowed to pursue a future. Why won’t you let me go to Tibet?”
Cunyuan raged with anger, and our niang was sobbing. She knew that they couldn’t afford to let Cunyuan go to Tibet. Then Cunyuan fled in anger and despair and didn’t come home for two days.
“You are the luckiest person with enough food to fill your stomach,” my tearful niang told me afterward. “Never forget where you come from,” she said. “Work hard and make a life of your own. There is nothing here except starvation and struggle!” On my last morning at home everyone was quiet at breakfast. “Take care, be good. Listen to your teachers. See you next year,” my dia said to me before he left for work. Soon after, Cunyuan rode off on Dia’s bike and told me he would be back in time to take me to the train station.
Nearly two hours later he finally arrived home and handed me a small brown paper package. “You can open it when you’re on the train,” he said.
I recognized the wrapping paper from the only county department store and I knew how far he had ridden to get there and back.
When it was time for me to leave, my niang walked outside to the gate with us. “Write as soon as you arrive or I’ll be worried!” she said. Tears welled in her eyes.
I sat on the back seat of my dia’s bike and waved at my niang, at my brothers, relatives, and neighbors. Once we were on the open road, I asked Cunyuan how he was. But I could see his emotions were like a rough sea.
“Why me?” he said. “Why do we have to live in this world? There is no color in this life! I work in the fields every day, in the burning sun, in the rain, in the freezing snow. No days off. My dreams are the only comfort I have, and most of those are nightmares. There is no end to this suffering!”
I tried to comfort him, but in the end I was speechless, silenced by his despair.
We arrived at the station and soon the rattling train slowly rolled toward our platform. A couple of my friends popped their heads out of the windows looking for me, and my brother passed my bag in to them.
It was time to part. I wanted to hug him but I couldn’t—it wasn’t something you did with the opposite sex in China, let alone the same sex. “I’m going now,” was all I said as we shook hands.
As the train moved away I stuck my head out the window and waved. He stood there until we moved out of sight.
I squeezed onto the bench seat beside my friends and answered their questions about my holidays, but my brother’s aching voice kept echoing in my ears. Suddenly I remembered the parcel he’d given me. I took it out and untied the brownish strings. It was a box of candy with a note attached. “These are for your friend Chong Xiongjun’s family,” Cunyuan had written. “They represent your six brothers’ mountain-weight of gratitude and our sincere thanks for their kindness in looking after you …”
This second visit home had made me realize how enormously privileged I was to have got out of Qingdao. For Cunyuan and my other brothers it wouldn’t matter how hard they worked. They would most likely be in the same situation, twenty, thirty, fifty years from now.
I knew now, with sudden shock, that I could never go back to the life I used to have. I would always miss my parents’ love and my brothers’ company, but I knew deep in my heart that my future lay ahead, not behind. This trip home had once and for all stripped away the fantasy