Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin [9]
Halfway home I suggested to my friends that we should make a detour and sneak into the nearby airport to try and find some half-burned coal. This was the airport the Japanese had built during the Second World War. Now there were only a few People’s Liberation Army guards there. The Japanese had used coal and half-burned coal as part of the filler under the runway, and the outer part had already been dug away by desperate people. Since then the guards had tightened security.
There was a line of big trees along the edge of the airport and a small ditch. The ditch was dry at that time of year and we crept along it for about fifteen minutes, bending down so the guards couldn’t see us.
Digging for half-burned coal was like digging for gold. Eventually our baskets were full. But carrying heavy baskets with a bent body proved too difficult for us eight-year-olds. About halfway out, one of the boys slowly straightened up and was spotted by the military guards. They immediately fired bullets into the air and started to chase us. We dumped our baskets and spades and ran for our lives.
Our winters in those days were bitterly cold. As well as having to cope with the lack of coal, we also had to deal with lice. They lived with us in our cotton quilts, coats, and pants. Unlike our summer clothes, which our niang washed regularly, our quilted winter coats and pants couldn’t be washed because they were made with cottonwool pieces that would have shriveled up in the water.
The only real way to combat lice was to keep clean. Every weekend our niang would heat up huge woks of water for us and tip it into a wooden washing basin. Each of us had a piece of washcloth, and we’d soap our bodies and help to wash each other’s backs. If one family member had lice, the rest of the family would too: they multiplied so quickly. Everyone in China scratched constantly. In the evenings after we took off our clothes and got under the quilts, our niang always flipped our clothes inside out, trying to kill the lice with her thumbnails. But she could never get rid of the lice completely.
I don’t ever remember going to a doctor or hospital during my childhood; not that I didn’t get sick, but we could never afford it. The only time I got close to a medical person was waiting for a barefoot nurse to give us smallpox shots. We had to wait in long lines in our commune square with our sleeves rolled up. The nurse used the same needle to inject everybody, and small pieces of alcohol-soaked cottonwool to clean the needle heads and our skin. Crying wasn’t an option, no matter how much it hurt. When I cut myself I was told by my parents to swipe my fingers on the windowsill to gather some dust to put on the cut and stop the bleeding. This was our Band-Aid and antiseptic all in one.
Our niang’s remedy for severe coughs involved eating a shed snakeskin wrapped around a piece of green onion. The snakeskin was like tasteless plastic and looked disgusting. It always made me want to vomit, but it was the most effective treatment for sore throats and coughs we had.
Despite our hardships, there were also joys in our childhood. The one time we all looked forward to, the one time when we would be guaranteed wonderful food, was the Chinese New Year.
Our niang had to make and steam many bread rolls for the Chinese New Year, as gifts for our relatives. She made them in the shape of fishes and peaches, representing peace and prosperity, and gold bars, representing wealth. The bread rolls would split if the dough had not been kneaded perfectly. She would be too embarrassed to take the split ones to our relatives, so we kept those for ourselves.
Before dark on New Year’s Eve, my dia and my fourth uncle would take me and my brothers to my ancestors’ graveyard. We took bottles of water, representing food and wine, and stacks of yellowish rice paper stamped with the shape of old gold coins. We carried paper lanterns. Our pockets were filled with firecrackers. We spread the rice papers and stuck incense on top of each grave. After we lit the incense, we