Life lessons in the midst of the Cultural Revolution

There were many things that happened during the Cultural Revolution which were hard for a six-year old to understand, or even to make the simplest sense of. It was a time of confusion when I witnessed events both horrifying and great.

It was a crazy time, but it was also a time of learning and the beginning of my journey towards becoming the person I am now.

A friendship compromised

It was common during those times to hold big mass assemblies, where tens of thousands of people would gather to denounce the "enemies" of the Cultural Revolution. I still remember seeing some elderly people who were caught by the Red Guards. They were marched on to the stage, with their heads half-shaven, big wooden signs hanging around their necks detailing the crimes they have committed. They were bent in an awkward angle, with their arms stretched behind them, in the jet-plane posture I would only read about when I grew older.

It was scary and confusing to hear the crowd around me shouting as they watched all these. I also couldn't deny that a part of me, the same primal part that has compelled all the other people to come to these gatherings, responded to the excitement. And being there, in the middle of what was almost a mob, made be strong-hearted. I learned to be strong in the face of the horrors that I had witnessed. Even those that happened to my closest friend, Wung Yu.

Wung Yu was my neighbor. He was the same age as I and we spent a lot of our time together. His father was a returned overseas Chinese from Singapore whose family came back after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

I remember that one day, I suddenly couldn't find Wung Yu. My best friend had just disappeared! I went to their home, and an all-too-familiar scene met my eyes. Wung's house had been stormed by the Red Guards, all their belongings were thrown to the street. Uncle Wung had been accused of being a spy!

Uncle Wung, the nice man whom I thought of as a second father, was a spy? According to the Red Guards, he was. That Uncle Wung had been a member of a Chinese Youth delegation to the former Soviet Union was used as evidence against him. Every year, young people from all over the world were invited to the USSR to promote international friendship. Uncle Wung was part of one such delegation from China.

After an open argument between the USSR and China, the Soviet Union was considered a revisionist, the biggest threat to China and its worst enemy. I heard the Red Guards talking about the "proof" that they had found among Uncle Wung's possessions -- a small wooden clog, a souvenir perhaps from another delegate from The Netherlands.

The Red Guards said that the small wooden shoe was used to identify a spy to a contact who has never seen him before. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. And it was only later that I learned that Wung Yu had been sent to his grandmother, to keep him safe. I wouldn't see him for another year.

I lost a big part of my childhood because of a wooden souvenir.

A friendship gained

One of the things that I enjoyed most during the Cultural Revolution was the freedom that we kids had. Schools were closed for a year, to give everyone the opportunity to concentrate on the Great Cultural Revolution. It meant that my sister, Zhao Yihong, who was three years older than I, had time to play with me.

Those were good times, running wild with older kids. At that time, because so many houses have been stormed by the Red Guards and because the student dormitories were closed, there were a lot of places to hide and play in.

The Zhao family Perhaps inspired by the Great Character posters that were plastered everywhere, we became fascinated with writing on the ground. Since real chalk was a bit hard to come by, we used what we called "chalk-stone" which we got from broken vases or statues. One day, our wild troop chanced upon a room at the end of a corridor in Building #10. Someone was obviously living there, but the door was left unlocked. We could see a bust of Chairman Mao in the room. We all knew it would make very good chalk.

My sister, who obviously knew better, did not dare go in and take it. She asked me to go and get it instead. My only thought then was that my sister wanted the small statue and I should give it to her. So, I snuck in to the room and carefully took the statue. When I got out, I smashed it to the ground and we spent the rest of the afternoon writing on walls and the ground.

When my parents talked to us later, I learned that one of our playmates who was with us then, Wang Yan, had told her mother and another teacher what I had done. When Wang's mother told my parents, they were horrified. They could face severe consequences from my action. Breaking a statue of Chairman Mao could bring the Red Guards down on us. They were not going to punish me, because I was just six. It was my parents whom I had put in danger.

My sister and I had to stand outside the door of our flat for hours, like dogs that have misbehaved. Luckily for us, Wang's mother, Auntie Pen, had forbidden her to speak of the incident to anyone else. And the teacher she had told came by our flat only to ask my parents to be more careful and to tell me to behave better. The kindness of people we have known had saved my parents from the wrath of the Red Guards.

Even during crazy times, I learned that people were kind and they will try to protect those they know and respect. My parents have never forgotten, and decades later, they still remind me of "that stupid thing" that I did when I was six.

Loss of innocence

On October 1, 1967, classes resumed. While it meant that my sister couldn't play with me as much as she used to, it didn't stop us from having small adventures together. On the campus where we lived, there was a swimming pool. Although no one took care of it because of the Cultural Revolution, rainwater would sometimes collect on the bottom. The neighborhood kids would splash and in the dirty water and the little ones would swim in it. It was one of our favorite hang-outs.

I was swimming there with my sister and her friend Liu Ruisheng, who was my sister's age. After our swim, I just took off my shorts and squeezed it dry, not minding that I was naked. Liu saw me and did the same, which scandalized the other kids. They started calling us hooligans and we became infamous for weeks after that. It was my first sense of the difference between the sexes.

I started playing with mostly boys after that incident, although I like to think that hanging out with my sister and her friends made me quite popular with the girls later on in life.

Kung-fu is not about revenge

In 1968, I finally started primary school. Unlike today, when kids are brought to school by parents, it was only my sister who took me to school on my first day. I felt so proud and independent, carrying my green Army bag.

In the first grade, there were about 5 classes, each with around 40 pupils. I was in the first class and my teacher was Zhang Qi,, a very kind middle-aged lady. As we were waiting in the corridor, I got into a fight. I don't even remember what the fight was about, only that it was with a boy named Zhang Ran whose father was with the People's Liberation Army.

Because of all the time I had spent playing with girls, I didn't know how to fight and I got beaten up. I learned then, while that bully was sitting on me and hitting me on the face, that in school, one needs power to survive.

In our campus, there was a cook named Uncle Qi. He used to work in the Shaolin temple. I started learning Shaolin kung-fu because I was determined never to let anyone else beat me up ever again. Fortunately, Uncle Qi had another idea.

Instead of teaching me how to fight, he taught me ways to keep my body strong and healthy. After all, he said, that was what martial arts was all about. Only years later would I appreciate the wisdom of his action. Uncle Qi taught me that the goal of martial arts was not to start a fight but to defend myself. Because Uncle Qi did not teach me to fight, I did not learn to hate, but learned to love.

That was how my interest in martial arts started.