Mao's Last Dancer

  Those tears washed out six long, unbearable years of sadness and grief. I wanted to stand on top of New York’s twin towers and yell out, let the entire world know how happy and how lucky I was.

  I had no idea what my parents would look like after six years of hard, hard living. That night, trembling with excitement, I dialed my old village phone number. “Hello, can I speak to Li Tingfang, please?”

  “Who is calling?”

  “Li Cunxin, his sixth son,” I replied.

  I could tell the man on the other end was hesitating. I was afraid he would hang up, so I quickly added, “I have the central government’s permission for my parents to come and visit me in America.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said. I could hear him talking to another man in the background, and then I heard a voice shout over the village’s loudspeaker, “Li Tingfang! Li Tingfang! Phone call from America! ”

  I could hardly control my joy. My heart sang. Five minutes felt like five hours. I was anxious beyond description. I had a Tsingtao beer in my other hand and took a big gulp, but my hands were shaking uncontrollably.

  Then I heard the sound of rapid footsteps. “I go first!” Then, “All right! All right! Hurry up!” Then I heard my second brother Cunyuan shouting into the phone. “Cunxin!”

  “Erga . . .” My throat choked with tears.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Never better!” I managed to reply.

  “Dia and Niang are coming to the phone! Your brothers are all here, except our big brother. He is still in Tibet . . .”

  Before Cunyuan could finish, suddenly the voice of my third brother, Cunmao, interrupted.

  “Ni hao, Cunxin!”

  “I’m so happy to be able to hear your voice. How are my fourth uncle and aunt?” I asked.

  “They’re good, but they’re getting old,” he replied.

  “Please tell them that I love them and miss them,” I said.

  “I will.” Cunmao handed the phone to my fourth brother, who then passed it on to my fifth brother and finally to my youngest brother.

  “Jing Tring!”

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  Before I could answer him, I heard my fifth brother saying in the background. “What a stupid question! Where do you think he is? In America.”

  “I’m in Houston, in my house,” I replied.

  “What time is it there?” he asked.

  “Seven-thirty in the evening,” I replied.

  “Oh, we are on different times!” he said unbelievingly.

  I heard more of my brothers’ laughter in the background. “Sixth brother, we all miss you so much! We are so happy you are alive!” he said.

  “Jing Tring, I miss you all too . . .”

  I was about to go on, but then another voice spoke urgently into the phone. “Jing Hao!”

  I was overjoyed. I couldn’t speak.

  It was my niang. At last.

  “Jing Hao, Jing Hao?” she kept asking, over and over again.

  “Niang . . .”

  “Is it really you, my sixth son . . . ?” Her voice choked and she started to sob. “Ohh, my son!” She sighed. “I never thought this day would come before I leave this world. How happy I am. Gods have mercy. I can die peacefully now,” she murmured.

  “Niang, I have the central government’s permission for you and Dia to come to America! We will see each other soon!”

  “Jing Hao, please don’t talk of such false hope . . .”

  “But Niang, it is true! I have the permission letter in my hand! Now! You can start to apply for your passports!”

  “Ohh . . . Ohh . . . Jing Hao said we can go to America to see him!” she said to the rest of the family, and I heard a roar of cheers in the background. Then she added, “Jing Hao, your dia wants to talk to you.”

  “Niang . . . before you go, I just want to tell you . . . I love you,” I said.

  This was the first time that I’d ever told her that. How many times I’d wished I’d said it to her before I’d left China.

  There was a silence.

  Then all I heard was the sound of my niang’s quiet sobbing.

  It took several months for my parents to obtain their passports, but once they did, the U.S. visa was quickly granted. Charles Foster helped with all their applications, the U.S. State Department was already well-informed about my situation, and knowing the vice president of the United States was a very helpful way of speeding things up.

  While all this was going on, I had to prepare for the Japan International Ballet Competition in Osaka. After my success in Jackson, Ben encouraged me to enter with one of the rising stars of the Houston Ballet, Martha Butler, who was only seventeen. At first I had reservations about Ben’s selection: I thought Martha was too young and inexperienced to perform in such a highpressure competition. But once again I was proven wrong . . .

  Apart from my brief stop at the Tokyo airport to change planes on my first trip to America, this was my first experience of Japan. Once again I was confronted with a prosperous and industrial country, but because of limited studio space in the host city of Osaka we had to take a fast train every day, for over an hour, to Kyoto for rehearsals.

  Kyoto was one of the most beautiful and peaceful cities I’d ever seen: Buddhist temples, beautifully maintained gardens, the meditative rock gardens with their musical sounds, dripping water, bamboo and tranquillity. And the food—so delicately beautiful, like small artworks. The sushi was almost too pretty to eat. Some of the Japanese traditions reminded me of the Chinese customs that I had grown up with. I remembered too my dia talking about the Japanese occupation of Qingdao during the Second World War. Here in Kyoto I was so close to China, to my family and my friends only three hours away, yet still I felt so distant. Nothing would change, I thought. I would never be allowed to return to my homeland again.

  Martha and I were placed twenty-sixth after the first round of the competition. I thought this was amazing, considering Martha had never performed in this kind of professional environment before: she hadn’t even performed a full classical pas de deux in her entire life. She was so nervous that she kept her mouth open the whole time she was on stage. One of the judges said she looked like a goldfish.

  In the second round we performed a contemporary work Ben had choreographed for us. I had to carry Martha in my arms, with her body sadly curled up. We were searching and struggling for a way out, but were pulled back by a powerful, invisible force everywhere we went. After all our hopes of survival had been crushed, we finally ended our performance with a slow, deathlike movement, both of us entwined together. All through our performance I pretended that I was carrying the last beloved survivor of my family after our village back home in China had been destroyed. No home to go back to and no loved ones left. All we had was each other. Sometimes my thoughts were too painful for me, and I prayed that my family back home would never suffer the same fate as the fate we danced that night.

  Martha’s standard improved on a daily basis for those two weeks at the competition. She was a fast learner, with great mental strength and beautiful physicality. I knew she would one day become a wonderful artist, and to our astonishment we were awarded a silver medal by the international jury. Ben again received the medal for best choreography. It was a great feeling, to receive such an honor. We had danced against competitors from the Bolshoi, the Kirov and the Paris Opéra Ballet: we learned so much from them, and Martha and I had formed a close partnership.

  After our return from Japan, Martha and I went straight into rehearsals for Nutcracker. I’d been told by Ben that my parents would be arriving in about a month’s time, so one evening Preston and Richard came over to help me begin to get my house ready.

  “What’s all this?” Richard yelled, pointing at a pile of stuff in the middle of my living room: there was some timber, a spare toilet seat, some tiles, bags of cement, and tools . . .

  “They are my treasures. They are very useful,” I replied.

&
nbsp; “I know they are useful, but are you going to use them before your parents come?”

  “I’m not sure,” I replied.

  Richard rolled his eyes. “Out, out, throw them all out!” he shouted.

  Richard and Preston went through each item in that pile and chucked out almost all of my “treasures.” Then they organized a working party of dancers, stagehands, an electrician, carpenter and plumber, even some board members. They painted, cleaned, fixed . . . and by the end of the week my house was transformed. There wasn’t even any sawdust left on the windowsills. But they hadn’t finished yet—Richard lent me two bamboo plants in huge flowerpots. Ben bought a pair of antique Mandarin chairs and Preston gave me an antique Mandarin skirt, which he’d had framed by the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. By the end of it all my house looked like a million dollars.

  Ben and Preston had taken over the arrangement of my parents’ travel too. They wanted me to leave everything to them: just concentrate on Nutcracker. So I did.

  A couple of days before my parents’ arrival, I went crazy with shopping. I bought so many different kinds of food, all the rare and precious things we could never dream of having in China when I grew up: eggs, tree fungus, dried mushrooms, seafood, pork, chicken, rice, even Tsingtao beer and the best rice wine called Maotai which, in China, was only available to high government officials. I bought fruit—apples, pears, oranges, bananas, grapes and a whole watermelon and stacked them into two big plates on the dining table. My small fridge was overflowing. I also bought a futon bed for my parents to sleep on because I was concerned they wouldn’t be able to sleep on a bouncy Western mattress after so many years of sleeping on a hard earth bed. I bought them thick cotton shirts and sweaters too. I was beside myself with excitement. I wanted to buy them everything the Western world had to offer. I knew they would be blown away by what they were about to see.

  The final rehearsals for Nutcracker would usually have taken an enormous physical toll, but not this time. I had so much energy. My feet were light. I was filled with music and color, and my heart blossomed like a lotus flower. Just thinking about my parents would bring tears to my eyes, but now they were tears of happiness and joy.

  I wanted this opening-night performance to be magic, not only for the general public, but also for my parents. This would be the first time they would see me dance, the first time they would see a live performance, and I would be dancing the prince. The anticipation was agonizing. And, at the back of my mind, I was still afraid that the Chinese government might change its mind at the last minute and prevent my parents’ coming.

  For several nights I lay in bed, eyes wide open, thinking about my dia and my niang. I wasn’t sure what they would think. Would they like America? Would they handle the culture shock and be able to enjoy their time here? And how would they cope while I was working?

  18 December 1984. The day my parents were due to arrive. I spent the entire day in the studio and theater. I had to concentrate on the performance. It was the only thing that helped my anxiety. Eventually I ran out of things to practice, so I started my makeup early that afternoon. My makeup brush was very unsteady, my hands trembled and I could hear my heart thumping loudly. Everything felt strange and new. I tried to concentrate but it was impossible to chase away the images of my parents, brothers and all the people I loved back home.

  The last thing I had to do to finish my makeup was to spray some silver glitter into my hair, to suggest snowflakes. As my dresser helped me put my jacket on, I glanced at myself in the mirror and wondered what my parents would think of all of this. They were coming from another world.

  I went on stage and felt the intense heat of the spotlights. How would my parents react to these bright lights, to the thousands of people clapping in the audience? I wondered, would they be proud of me?

  It was time for the performance to begin. My lips felt dry, and I was breathing fast. As the time ticked away, my anxiety and nervousness rose. “Why aren’t we starting? What’s wrong?” I asked the stage manager.

  “Nothing. We’re just delaying the performance by a few minutes—people are stuck in traffic,” the stage manager replied.

  The truth was, however, that my parents’ plane was an hour late. By the time they arrived it was about twenty minutes past curtain time, and I was a nervous wreck. They’d been met at the airport by my friend Betty Lou and escorted by police car through the rush-hour traffic.

  Word spread quickly through the audience about my parents’ arrival. Houstonians were well aware of my story, so when my parents were finally ushered into the theater the whole audience burst into applause.

  My poor niang! My poor dia! They had never been away from Qingdao before. They had just had their first car ride, train ride and airplane experience all in one day, and now here they were, suddenly faced with the blinding lights of a grand theater and a sea of people applauding them.

  “Six years! Six long years!” my niang kept saying. “Finally I’m going to see my son. My heart is so hot, it burns with joy and pride!”

  I was told of my parents’ arrival only moments before the applause erupted from the audience. My whole being burst with happiness. I wanted to soar into the air. I wanted to cry. I wanted to see them then, at that very moment, but the performance was about to start and I knew I would have to wait.

  The audience was ecstatic. People applauded even when I just came on stage. They too wanted me to dance well, to dance for my parents.

  My partners were Janie Parker and Suzanne Longley that night, and they shared my excitement. Ben’s pas de deux were challenging, some of the lifts were difficult and often created problems for us in rehearsals. But not that night. Everything was seamless. The lifts felt light, the partnering effortless: I felt my partners’ every subtle movement, and they felt mine. My nerves were there, yet under control, and they became my endless source of energy. My leaps were high: I was flying like a bird, gliding through the open sky. If the music had allowed it, I would have leaped into the air all night. There was no hard work, only sheer joy.

  The audience seemed totally captivated. I could taste the excitement. All the hopping up and down stairs, the pirouetting in the candlelight, the torn hamstrings and the painful injuries of the past twelve years—it all felt worthwhile that night. When the curtain came down at the end of Act One, I knew I had completed one of my best performances—and I had done it in front of my parents. The dream I had once been too afraid to dream had come true.

  During intermission, Ben brought my niang and my dia backstage.

  It was six years since I had set eyes on them. They wore Mao’s suits buttoned all the way up to their necks, my niang in gray and my dia in dark blue. They looked so proper, so stiff. My memories of them didn’t match. They looked older too, especially my niang. Her black hair had turned to gray, and the many years of harsh living had obviously taken their toll. Her face was more wrinkled, and now she wore a pair of black-rimmed oversized glasses.

  The three of us, in tears, simply hugged each other tight. Nobody spoke for a long time. My niang took her handkerchief out, and it was already soaked with tears. “Don’t cry! Don’t cry! It’s all right now!” she kept saying.

  I wanted that moment to linger on and on and on. I had longed for her comfort for so many years.

  By the time I went back to my dressing room to change for the second act, nearly all my makeup had been wiped off by my niang’s handkerchief. I didn’t care. I had felt my niang’s adoring love and tender touch once more.

  After the performance, my niang and my dia came backstage again. They watched people congratulate me and I could see the pride in my parents’ eyes.

  Finally, my dia, the man of few words, could contain himself no longer. “Why didn’t you wear any pants?” he said. He had never seen anyone wearing tights before.

  Ben and some of my other friends had wanted to arrange a big party in honor of my parents that night, but I wanted to spend that first night alone with them, in my own hous
e.

  My parents felt on top of the world as we drove back to my own place, in my own car. They couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw where I lived.

  “Is this your house?” my niang asked in utter disbelief.

  I nodded.

  “This is a palace! ” my dia gasped.

  I cooked a couple of my niang’s favorite recipes for dinner that night, and afterwards we sat around the dining table with a pot of their favorite jasmine tea. We talked and talked. Sadly, I discovered that my niang had developed diabetes and a weak heart condition. Her incredible eyesight had also deserted her. My dia, however, was still as strong as an ox, despite being hard of hearing.

  So many years of missed events to catch up on, so many beloved memories. I wanted to know it all, everything about each one of my brothers, their families, their lives. All my brothers except Jing Tring were married by now. I was an uncle: I had nieces and a nephew. My parents told me Deng Xiaoping had done wonders for the Chinese economy. “If it weren’t for Deng Xiaoping’s open-door policy, our lives would still be in ruins,” my niang said. She told me how their living standards had improved, how my brothers were each allowed to buy a small piece of land, cheaply, from the commune, to build their own houses on.

  My parents told me how scared they had been when someone in the commune had heard about my defection. They’d heard it on the Voice of America on a shortwave radio. China has really changed, I thought. No one had a radio, let alone a shortwave one, in the village when I grew up, not even while I was in Beijing.

  The people in our village had told my parents that I had turned my back on China. Some officials had paid a special visit to my family two days after my defection. My dia had been at work that day. “Do you know what your son has done ?” an official howled at my niang. “Your son has defected from his motherland for the filthy America! You, as his mother, should be ashamed, bringing up such a bastard!”