Wild Ginger - Anchee Min [2]
"Class! We have a new person here," Mrs. Cheng, our teacher, a woman in her late twenties, announced. Her voice carried a cautious tone. I noticed that she didn't say "a new comrade" or "a classmate." She said "a person." That was another sign. It gave obscurity to the girl's background. "She is a transferring student from Number Nineteen District. Her name is Wild Ginger, pronounced as Wu-Jiang Pei."
"Wild Ginger?" Hot Pepper's eyebrows frowned. "What a strange name!" She began to laugh shrilly. "How do you write it?" The sound was characteristic of the bully. It gave me goose bumps every time.
"WU as 'Wild,' a luxuriant growth of weeds. It is written with a Grass head on top of the character Nothingness," the newcomer said, stepping out of the sun's shadow. There was no fear in her voice. "Jiang as 'Ginger' with a flat tone. You can call me Wild Ginger."
The class was quiet, actually surprised.
Hot Pepper stood up. "But Wu-Jiang can also be described as 'A wasteland.' Correct me if I'm wrong, Mrs. Cheng."
Mrs. Cheng pretended to be deaf.
The girl raised her eyes cautiously.
I blinked in disbelief: the sunlight hadn't fooled me. The pupils were yellow-green! I stared. Is she a foreigner? The eyes were almond shaped, wide apart; they couldn't have been more Oriental. The nose had a high bridge, narrow and long, with only a short distance between her nose and upper lip. The shape of her face was like a goose egg, and her neck was gracefully long. Her skin color was lighter then everyone else's in the room. Except for her gleaming black-lacquer hair, she could indeed be taken for a foreigner.
"What's wrong with your eyes? Is it a kind of disease?" Hot Pepper sat back down and kicked off her shoes.
The girl made no reply, but brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
Hot Pepper continued, "This is definitely not a pair of proletarian's eyes. Red Guards, be prepared to perform your duty."
The class watched in silence.
My worry for the newcomer increased. Not long ago Hot Pepper had done this to me. It was my first day too. Hot Pepper wouldn't let me into the classroom. She questioned why I was wearing a boy's jacket with buttons on the right side instead of the left. I explained that my family had no money to buy clothes so I wore my cousin's hand-me-downs. Hot Pepper laughed and told everyone that she had found lice in my hair.
People in the class were afraid to stand up to Hot Pepper. Fear not only tamed them but made them her accomplices. Often, after Hot Pepper beat someone, that person turned to join Hot Pepper's gang. Hot Pepper said that she had learned her way from her uncle, who was a horse trainer in the army. "The technique is called xia-ma-wei. It is a warning against insubordination. My uncle once showed me how it was done with an unruly horse. It was really simple. He gave a head-on blow at the first encounter. He beat the shit out of the animal!"
"My name is Wild Ginger." The sound was uncompromising. The girl looked straight at Hot Pepper. An excitement stirred inside me. Finally! Someone was standing up to the untouchable bully! I only wondered how long she would last.
Wild Ginger looked determined. She tilted her chin high when she spoke.
"Your name doesn't sound proletarian enough," Hot Pepper sneered. "Change it! How about Supporter-of-Red?"
"No, thank you."
"Then you are not coming into the class."
"I am not changing my name."
"Are you an anti-Maoist?"
"I am Wild Ginger."
"State your background! Is there an enemy in your family?"