XINRAN: I've heard that you're still involved in training young people even though you're retired. Do you think there is any difference between students now and forty years ago when you were young?
YISHUJIA: Children now are cleverer than in my day. Back then we did whatever the teacher told us; with kids today, once the teacher has told them something, they'll think up a few ways to improve it on their own, and a lot of the time they improve on the teacher's own version. They're clever, but it's harder to teach them.
XINRAN: Why is clever hard to teach?
YISHUJIA: We were too obedient, we didn't dare slack off. Children nowadays can be lazier than we were, so they're harder to teach.
XINRAN: Are your teaching methods the same as the ones your masters used with you?
YISHUJIA: No, in those days teachers were just like your parents, they lectured you and beat you, but sometimes we'd spend our birthdays at the teacher's home, and get-togethers at the teacher's were a regular thing. Now relations between people have changed, all we have to do is turn up to class on time. There are rules about how to teach, we have to write lesson plans for everything. It was different then, we made it up as we went along, there was always the possibility of something new.
XINRAN: You said that they used corporal punishment on you back then?
YISHUJIA: In the past, when we Chinese studied acrobatics, it was beaten into us with a stick. By the time I was a student we'd been liberated, the teacher didn't dare beat us too much, but we all believed that corporal punishment was useful for training. The time I remember most clearly is once when I was being lazy and couldn't turn a difficult kind of somersault, then one blow high on my bottom, and over I went – the teacher had given me a taste of "dough drop soup". That's a knotted rope, a tool for corporal punishment, we called it dough drop soup, a blow from that really hurt.
XINRAN: And now?
YISHUJIA: We still give the students a taste if they're disobedient. Why? Sometimes they're just lazy – if they won't practise till they get it right, isn't that just a waste of their youth and ambition? So if somebody isn't prepared to keep practising and complains about being tired, I'll give him a taste, and up he goes.
XINRAN: So nobody objects to your corporal punishment, though it's against the law?
YISHUJIA: Corporal punishment while practising your art is against the law? So wasting life and time isn't against the law? Young people nowadays talk about "enjoying life" – how many children understand what the real enjoyment of human life is? If you have no skills for life, no success in your work, if you can't cook or do the housework, will you be able to "enjoy life"? It's enjoying other people's blood and sweat! That's what I call a crime!
XINRAN: I've known you for a while, but I've hardly ever heard you talk about matters of the home.
YISHUJIA: I was very young when I left home, and my family was nothing to be proud of, not like other people's, so the acrobatic troupe was like a family to me. Not only were we teachers and colleagues together for over forty years, the troupe took responsibility for everything: the flat I lived in, the children's schooling, work, medical treatment, all aspects of our lives. Even though I'm retired now, it still feels like a family to me. From the 1950s to the 1980s in China, most city dwellers were part of a work unit. Apart from the tiny minority who changed jobs or moved to another place to be with their spouse, the people in a work unit would generally stay there for the rest of their life. And since education, accommodation, medical care and even the next generation's jobs were all dealt with by the work unit, that next generation tended to stay in the same place, and work in the same professional circles. This gave rise to serious problems, as small, closed groups started to emerge, who in time came almost to form a monopoly.
XINRAN: When was your troupe established?
YISHUJIA: I can't say much for sure about our troupe's history. I know our predecessor was the acrobatic artist Guo Shaoquan's Tianjin Magical Troupe, which had started out wandering the roads and they finished up in Jinan, where they decided to stay. Guo's children trained up a batch of students, and the troupe expanded. After the Liberation it was nationalised, and a lot of dross got mixed in then – they brought in Communist Party leaders, administrators and the like, even though they didn't know anything about acrobatics. The people who didn't understand anything were put in charge of the ones who did – isn't that typical of us Chinese?
XINRAN: China's earliest acrobatics and magic tricks all had their origins in selling medicine, wouldn't you agree? In 1988 a painted brick decorated with two chariots pulled by galloping horses was unearthed in Nanyang city, in Henan province: the Eastern Theatre Picture. Experts say that this is the earliest picture of Chinese acrobatics, is that true?
YISHUJIA: I think it must be. They used to do acrobatics on a circular pitch by the side of the road, you'd find performers of the lesser acrobatic acts selling strengthening pills, in Shandong dialect they call them Big Strength Balls. There were also people who set broken bones and did massage during the performance, there was a lot of that, it's hard to give you a clear picture all at once.
XINRAN: Why didn't you find a husband in your work unit, the way so many Chinese people did?
YISHUJIA: At that time "introducing a partner" was all the rage, people used to introduce friends of friends to other young people in search of a partner, not like nowadays, when they take themselves off to a "party", or marriage bureaux and the like, not to mention lonely hearts ads in the papers, things we'd never even have thought of. I met my husband through my teacher, he was a soldier, studying parachute jumping in the Beijing Thirteenth Air Force School.
XINRAN: You were in different provinces, so how did you maintain a relationship?
YISHUJIA: We met once, when he came home on leave, we both agreed to the match, and after that we relied on letters. He was in the army, he could post letters for free; he used to write to me a lot – I only sent one letter for several of his, I was worried about wasting money.
XINRAN: So when were you finally reunited?
YISHUJIA: That was later on. He was in an air force unit commanded by Lin Biao's son, Lin Liguo. After the Lin family died in a plane crash on 13 September 1971, the whole unit was implicated in their crimes, they were sent away from Beijing to Bengbu in Anhui, and before long he was sent home. He felt terrible about that.
*
Lin Biao is one of the most controversial figures in Chinese history. To this day nobody has properly defined his role. Was he a loyal minister? Or was he a criminal?
The official story is that on 8 September 1971, Lin Biao, who was Deputy Chairman of the National Defence Committee, Minister of Defence and Deputy Chairman of the Central Military Commission of New China, as well as Mao Zedong's designated successor during the Cultural Revolution, personally gave the order for a counter-revolutionary armed revolt, in a vain attempt on Mao Zedong's life. The plot was exposed, and on 13 September he boarded a plane, fled the country, and died when his plane crashed in Öndörhaan in the Mongolian People's Republic. This incident became known as the Nine-Thirteen Incident. On 20 August 1973, the Central Committee of the Communist Party passed a resolution expelling him posthumously from the Party. On 25 January 1981, at a special sitting of the High Court of the People's Republic of China, he was declared the main criminal of a counter-revolutionary clique. The old feudal sense of punishment in which the criminal's entire family paid the penalty for one person's crimes, which I mentioned earlier as having permeated Chinese history to the bone, appeared once again after the Nine-Thirteen Incident in a particularly virulent form. According to those records that have been made public, over a thousand major leaders in the Chinese Army were purged or implicated, including the Chief of Staff and First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Chengdu military area, the Commissar of the Fuzhou military area, the Commissar of the Wuhan military area, the Chief of Staff of the Xinjiang military area, and the Commissar of the Jiangxi military area, to name but a few.*7 Some say that ov
er three hundred thousand people were implicated in Lin Biao's crimes, and I do not believe that this is a random figure. In fact, even soldiers like Yishujia's husband who were only serving in local units under their command were exiled to poverty-stricken areas, and the families of soldiers in those units all had to bear a black mark on their record and all that this entailed because of it.
*
XINRAN: So do you still remember the scene when you got married?
YISHUJIA: At that time we didn't know anything, we just arranged with the Party to register our marriage, it wasn't a romantic wedding, not like nowadays. We got a letter from his army unit first, then we got the authorisation from my troupe, then after we'd registered, it was the custom here in the north to hold a banquet, so colleagues I was friendly with came in twos or threes on their bikes to our new flat for a wedding feast. And that was our wedding.
XINRAN: What did you wear that day?
YISHUJIA: I wore a blue Western-style suit, blue trousers and a blue top, that was very fashionable in those days.
XINRAN: After you married, did you quarrel much with your husband?
YISHUJIA: Yes.
XINRAN: Who won?
YISHUJIA: We quarrelled right up until my husband died, and neither of us could master the other, or give in to the other.
XINRAN: You've been outside China, you've seen the so-called English gentlemen, and men in other countries too, what do you think are the differences between Chinese men and Western men?
YISHUJIA: I haven't really had any contact with Western men. But I feel like I can see into Chinese men's hearts: no matter how well educated he is, or how smooth his tongue, we can see exactly what kind of man he is. But who can say for sure what's going on in the heads of those men who grew up eating bread?
XINRAN: Do you hope your son will become a man like those foreigners? Or retain his Chinese self?
YISHUJIA: Somewhere in between, I think, but not too Westernised. I still feel more comfortable with Chinese men.
XINRAN: In your life, have you met the perfect Chinese man, a true paragon?
YISHUJIA: Not yet, perhaps he only exists in my imagination.
XINRAN: You haven't met one yet? Not to this day? Including your husband?
YISHUJIA: When my husband got old I thought he was all right, but when he was young he wasn't any good. It was his smoking and drinking, I don't know how many times we fought over that. And then in the end he got cancer, I didn't try to talk him out of it then, but he changed anyway.
XINRAN: When you quarrelled about this, what did he say?
YISHUJIA: He knew it was wrong too. But he couldn't control himself, he just kept drinking and drinking, and then he had too much.
XINRAN: You didn't do like many wives do, running to the banquet and tipping over the tables?
YISHUJIA: I didn't, but I really wanted to! One time I made up my mind that if he was going to smoke I would smoke too, if he drank so would I. But I never managed to bring him round, so I gave up, I couldn't take any more. I even used to have dreams about making him cut down! I tried everything, nothing worked, it really hurt my feelings.
XINRAN: What do you think was the time when you were closest?
YISHUJIA: When we were courting. Once we were married and the child came along, things didn't go so well.
XINRAN: How did you fight?
YISHUJIA: I was both working and busy with the child, I was dog-tired, he didn't know how to help me with the work when he came home. So at that time I felt that there was no affinity between us, not like before we were married, I felt bitter inside.
XINRAN: Did you ever speak to your husband about this?
YISHUJIA: No, we never discussed it. Later on he retired, and so did I, and I felt everything was going swimmingly, and then before we'd had a year, he got cancer . . .
XINRAN: Have you talked to your son about these things?
YISHUJIA: Well, I've mentioned it. Sometimes he and his girlfriend quarrel and I tell him: When your father and I were courting, we never quarrelled, never fought, it was only later on when we had you that we fought; if you argue all day long while you're courting, what will your life be like when you're married?
XINRAN: When he was on his deathbed, did your husband have any last wishes?
YISHUJIA: He didn't say anything, I was the one doing the talking. He was just showing me that in the last days of his life he was prepared to listen to me.
*
Teacher Yi had once again come to a place of pain, and again she could not prevent her tears from falling. When I saw her tears, I wondered why people who are in the prime of life never have the time to connect with their feelings. Are they so busy with their craving for material things, fame and wealth and vanity that they have no time for each other? Could it really be that only death awakes a person's real self?
*
XINRAN: Before you had a child, did you want a boy or a girl?
YISHUJIA: A boy.
XINRAN: Why?
YISHUJIA: I thought a boy meant strength, a good reputation, the roots of the family. I know you'll tell me that's an old-fashioned, feudal notion.
XINRAN: So now your son is old enough to start a family of his own, do you hope he'll have a son or a daughter?
YISHUJIA: My ideas are more liberated now, either a boy or a girl would be fine.
XINRAN: Really?
YISHUJIA: Really, from the heart.
XINRAN: In our society many people say that their grandparents' generation was ignorant and foolish, and their parents' generation was foolishly loyal. How do you see this?
YISHUJIA: I don't see it that way. Young people take exception to the old, the old disapprove of the young, this is quite normal.
XINRAN: Back in your day, did you approve of your parents?
YISHUJIA: Not always. For example, once my mother saw that I had a new top, so she asked: Where'd you get that? I didn't dare say I'd bought it myself, at that time I handed over all my money to the family, in fact my fiancé had bought me that top. When my mother found out she was very angry, she said to me: "Silly girl, you can't go around spending other people's money! Young people these days don't care about that, they're very free with money, even the money their parents sweated and bled to earn!"
XINRAN: In your day, relations between men and women were rather traditional, now they are relatively open. Which do you personally prefer, and why?
YISHUJIA: I think the two things should come together – too traditional feels too starchy and conservative, but being too open makes people uncomfortable. In our day, couples used to cross the road – he'd be stood on this side of the road, she'd be over there. And watching a film, couples would sit there, all prim and proper; when the film was over, one of them would leave first, then the other – they couldn't get close, they were afraid their colleagues would see! And now? It's actually a bit much, so liberated it's shameless, it's embarrassing to watch! If the feeling takes them, they just start gnawing away at each other, even on the street!
XINRAN: In your whole life, what do you think have been the three bitterest things and the three happiest things?
YISHUJIA: The three bitterest things? That would be when I was small and learning my art, and when I was very small and my father wasn't at home, and when I couldn't solve difficulties with my colleagues. The bitterness when I was small and at home was because my family had no money, we couldn't even afford soap, you had to wash clothes with a fistful of salt. And it used to be appallingly cold when we did our practice routines – there were no carpets in those days, just a concrete floor, so when you went down in the splits you had to stay spreadeagled there for ages without falling over, with all your weight on your legs for such a long time, and you couldn't rest, it was a bit much! Then again, people like me who are children of Reform through Labour convicts still want to better ourselves, just the same as anybody else! "Join the Communist Youth League? Who said you could join the Youth League?" I often found personal relationships
with colleagues unspeakably bitter – they could really wear you down.
XINRAN: What were your three joys?
YISHUJIA: When my father's case was solved, it was as if a great mountain weighing down on me had disappeared; when I won a big national prize and was raised to a third-grade salary, I felt I hadn't spent all that energy for nothing; the third is when I became a National Level One Performer – at that moment I felt I'd accomplished most of my goals for this life.
XINRAN: Do you have any unfulfilled wishes?
YISHUJIA: To see my grandchild. They're all very practical things, I don't have any far-reaching ambitions.
XINRAN: What changes do you think there have been in China in the last twenty years?
YISHUJIA: That's too big a question! It's changing everywhere, everything's changing. Relationships were different when I was young. We were more innocent then, there were conflicts, but they were just small conflicts, not big ones. People these days, they're all trying to outwit each other, it's exhausting.
XINRAN: What do you think was the cause of this?
YISHUJIA: I think it was especially bad after the Cultural Revolution, it wasn't like that before! Now, people's ideas are confused, they've picked up bad habits of mind, and they don't even try to learn good habits, all they care about is money, they don't care about people. This will hold the whole country back.
XINRAN: Teacher Yishujia, do you regret your life?
YISHUJIA: I would have to say no. My father and mother gave me life, this is a part of nature, my life was hard and full of frustrations, but isn't that true for all Chinese?
XINRAN: If you had your time over again, would you follow the same path?
YISHUJIA: I wouldn't want to go over it again.
XINRAN: Why not?
YISHUJIA: I'd want to study properly, to go to school.