An Unbelievable Trip to Shanghai
In Xian in 1961, the summer temperature rose to 40 degrees C. The heat was unbearable. A girl office worker of our capital construction section came to count up the number of people who were going home to visit families. I asked with little certainty, but great hope in my heart if I could go home to visit my family. This girl office worker with the best of intentions asked the secretary for instructions. I was so fortunate that he was a good person. He said: why not? It was so unexpected that I could hardly believe it for days. I arranged with my Shejiazuang sister to go to Wuhan to meet my brother. He had graduated from Dalian Maritime College in the class of 1954. We, brothers and sister, hadn’t seen each other for several years.
Our meeting was so wonderful and filled us with such comfort that I almost was able to forget the suffering of hunger. My sister even had brought an enamel washbasin, which was very hard to purchase at the time. It seemed like a real treasure. Life was getting better than I had, for a long time, dreamed it could be.
Soon my sister, brother and I were traveling together down the Changjiang River to Shanghai by ship. It suddenly seemed so normal compared to what I had been experiencing. It was very confusing and unbelievable
Then when we got to Shanghai, wonder of wonders I met my fiancee whom I have not seen or had contact with for three long years. Beyond belief, she said that she still loved me and told me what had happened to her in these three years. She then said that two graduates from Nanjing were seeking her hand in marriage. They had been her schoolmates. One was the secretary of their Communist Youth League. But she said that she doesn’t like a full face of Marxism-Leninism. The other one was from a different quarter. He showed consideration for her and now they were good friends. Because of these other men and the one man’s position, I had to see her in secrecy. These two schoolmates came to see her every Sunday. Sometimes they both were there close to the same time. The second one would arrive at the front door and she would ask the first one to sneak away from the rear door. Both she and the other man were in fear of the Communist Party secretary. She did not know how to refuse his interest. I saw both of the men from a chink in the door of her bedroom where I was hiding. She comforted me with her love to try to set my mind at rest. But after three years, now meeting again naturally my feelings were not clear and I was not certain of what she said. This time when I went back to Xian, her father fulfilled his task of giving us official permission to be engaged and we were able to write directly to each other.
The entire country was in a state of hunger. The Communist Party could not do enough to improve people’s lives. Since 1960 no initiatives or movements came from the party and political affairs seemed to have gotten “flabby.” In reality, we had enough trouble to deal with the lack of food and our own survival. We did not need political directives for additional harassment.
In 1962, after sufficient time had passed, I was able to remove my rightist label. I had hopes that this would greatly improve my life.
On New Year’s Day I was again able to go to Shanghai. I stayed with my fiancée’s family. After I arrived I was taking a bath after the journey and enjoying being in a comfortable home and a bathtub. I had inserted the electric heater plug in the socket. When I was in the bathtub carelessly my left hand touched the heater and I got an electric shock. There seemed to be a leakage of electricity. My left hand held the heater and could not let go. My heart felt a gust of spasm. The stove began to tilt toward the bathtub. I could clear-headedly tell that I was in grave danger. Just in that time my heart shrank and I felt in a fit, but this was only for seconds. Then my hand loosened its grip. What had saved me? I found out that one of the poles of the plug had fallen off. It was just a line pole because the electric wire was too short. How happy I was to have survived a possible tragedy, but I thought that if I had died a meaningless death, people would laugh at me. People would also think of the injustice because I had just removed the rightist label and might miss a better future.