Becoming Sick
One day a young man who was only seventeen years old and sleeping at the other end of the bed was suddenly taken ill. He had a high fever and he groaned as if in pain. I feared that I too would become ill because ever since I was a child I had not been strong. If I saw someone else sick, it seemed that I too would become ill. So, I became sick only two weeks after entering prison.
I lay on the floor with a heavy head. The ceiling was blurred and spinning. I don’t know how many days passed. I was lying on the bed and suddenly heard, “let in fresh air.” I quickly got up. Another prisoner laid prostrate on the floor for me to climb on his back. I asked him what he was doing. He replied that he had been carrying me out for ten days while I was unconscious. I decided that I now must be recovering from the illness. When a person is sick he often does not eat any food and the one who takes care of him is allowed to eat his food. This was the rule. When the guard yells “let in the fresh air” all prisoners, healthy or sick must leave the cell. My caretaker carried me out and put me up against the wall.
This time I went out by myself, but I was too tired to walk to the water tap. I leaned up against a close wall. I was given steamed corn bread, but in a twinkling it was stolen from where it lay on my chest. Some prisoners were outraged by the injustice. They gave the thief a scolding. Since I had been sick so long and had no nourishment I was so weak. For someone to steal my bread was heartless.
I asked the other prisoners how I had been able to manage since I had been unconscious for so long. They said that they had helped me get undressed for sleeping. But I was most puzzled how I could defecate since one must carefully place one’s feet so as not to fall in. They said that somehow I had managed because I knew that I had to.
It was actually two months before I was completely recovered. I could not believe that I had survived such a severe illness.
In such a prison the first problem is getting enough food and next comes the crowding and then hygiene difficulties.
In 1970 from March 28 to November 15, I was in the Lianhu District Public Security Bureau. They stipulated that every prisoner must get 450 grams of grain in two meals each day. There was steamed bread of corn, maize gruel and husked Kaoliang, which is a Chinese food. Sometimes there would be two steamed breads or one bowl of husked Kaoliang with one bowl of soup. We got two ladles of boiled water each day. Some days there would be two bowls of maize gruel and no soup or water.
Although it said that 450 grams of food was to be given, something was deducted for being declared guilty. That full amount was only for prisoners doing strong labor. I think that many days I only received 250 grams. We always felt the agony of hunger and we would get very keyed up over food. All twenty bowls were laid out to distribute the food, which is not often equal. Two prisoners play a finger guessing game to determine the order of distribution. Each one puts out fingers and the total figure. Prisoners use a code for the sake of maintaining secrecy of the prisoners’ identity. This prisoner would take the first bowl. The others were taken in the proper order. Therefore, if there were a broken bowl, it would appear there was no alternative, but to report it to the administrator because a broken bowl would be very difficult to use under such circumstances. We would get another bowl in about one week. The person who had the broken bowl would have to wait to the end to eat. He then would use someone else’s bowl and only get what was left in the bucket. If possible we tried to keep the broken pieces of bowl to trim our fingernails. One time each month our heads were shaved and then the hair would grow back for a month.
The soup was so salty and there often was a layer of silt or seasoning at the bottom. We could have nothing remaining in our bowls. If you had soup or sediment remaining it seemed that you were given too much and next time you would get less. Greens soup was especially salty and there was so little water. We always were so thirsty, especially before we went to bed. It was almost too much to bear during the night. Being thirsty was more that you can stand until the next morning when it finally subsided.
The twenty bowls were washed with only one mug of water. The lack of hygiene often made us feel nauseated. We also hated how the time went too quickly when we were having a meal. We could never linger over a mouthful, but always had to gulp our food down quickly, without manners or even civility.
It was an interesting situation that in prison with little food, no one had stomach troubles. After a little time we all became fine with our little digestion and no one ever had a stomachache. If you have a gastric disease I suggest that you should spend several months of your life in the prison of the Chinese Communist Party. I assure you, you will be cured of your gastric disease. In the prison you wait for only two mealtimes a day. That was the only expectation that we had and the only thing we had to look forward to every day.
Who on earth has not suffered from hunger at sometime in his life? All have sometime experienced not having had a meal on time, waking up in the morning wanting to eat or you may even have been hungry for one day or perhaps two before pay day. You would call that hunger. But almost the entire Chinese population who lived from 1960 all knew unbelievable hunger and some starvation. We had to use grain coupons to buy food. Grain coupons were limited in number. It seems that no one had eaten his fill for years. I think, that if you really want to know how real hunger feels you need to go to a prison of the Communist Party. I’m talking about the time during “The Great Cultural Revolution.”
What about now in Chinese Communist Prison Camps, I do not know. Stay there several months and you will find out.
Prisoners can sometimes know what it is like to feel full. We often gathered four to five prisoners’ food at one time giving it to one man to eat. Then you could experience what it is to be full. Unfortunately then you must go hungry for two or three whole days with nothing.