Red Scarf Girl Read online

  It was almost unbelievable. Within a couple of days almost all the fourolds shop signs had been removed. The stores we had talked about had all been renamed. Red banners now hung over the doorways as temporary signs, with the new names painted in black or white. The red cloths were not as nice as the old signs, but their revolutionary spirit brought a new energy to the whole city. It seemed to me that the very air had become purer with the change.

  What excited me and my friends most, though, was that the Peace Theater really did become the Revolution Theater, as we had said it should. We felt like real revolutionaries at last.

  My friends and I had grown up with the stories of the brave revolutionaries who had saved China. We were proud of our precious red scarves, which, like the national flag, were dyed red with the blood of our revolutionary martyrs. We had often been sorry that we were too young to have fought with Chairman Mao against the Japanese invaders, who tried to conquer China; against the dictator Chiang Kai-shek, who ruthlessly oppressed the Chinese people; and against the American aggressors in Korea. We had missed our chance to become national heroes by helping our motherland.

  Now our chance had come. Destroying the fourolds was a new battle, and an important one: It would keep China from losing her Communist ideals. Though we were not facing real guns or real tanks, this battle would be even harder, because our enemies, the rotten ideas and customs we were so used to, were inside ourselves.

  I was so excited that I forgot my sadness about the audition. There were many more important missions waiting for me. I felt I was already a Liberation Army soldier who was ready to go out for battle.

  Ji-yun and I were walking home. The street was crowded with the bicycles of people coming home from work and with electric trolley buses blowing horns and crammed with passengers.

  As usual, Ji-yun had not done very well at her piano lesson. “You have to pay attention to your teacher,” I was telling her. “He told you to slow down when you got to the end of the last verse, but you sped up. I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Now, what did he say about the new piece? What kind of mood is it?”

  “Happy?” Ji-yun guessed.

  I sighed. “He said it was stirring. That’s a lot more than just happy. You have to pay attention. You really embarrass me. You—”

  The sight of some high school students distracted me. Two boys and a pigtailed girl were walking toward us. They were young, no more than three or four years older than me. They walked slowly through the bustling crowd, looking closely at people’s pants and shoes. My sister and I stared at them with admiration. We knew they must be student inspectors. The newspapers had pointed out that the fourolds were also reflected in clothing, and now high school students had taken responsibility for eliminating such dress. For example, any pants with a leg narrower than eight inches for women or nine inches for men would be considered fourolds.

  A bus pulled up at the bus stop behind us. Quite a few people got on and off. As the bus pulled away, we saw a crowd gathered at the curb. “Oh boy, they found a target.” I took Ji-yun by the hand and dashed over.

  “… tight pants and pointed shoes are what the Western bourgeoisie admire. For us proletarians they are neither good-looking nor comfortable. What’s more, they are detrimental to the revolution, so we must oppose them resolutely.” One of the boys, the one who was wearing glasses, was just finishing his speech.

  The guilty person was a very handsome man in his early thirties. He wore dark-framed glasses, a cream-colored jacket with the zipper half open, and a pair of sharply creased light-brown pants. He had also been wearing fashionable two-tone shoes, “champagne shoes” we called them, of cream and light-brown leather. They were lying on the ground next to him as he stood with one foot on the ground and the other resting in the lap of the student measuring his pants.

  The man kept arching his foot as if the pebbles on the sidewalk hurt him. He looked nervous, standing in his white socks while the inspectors surrounded him, holding his hands submissively along his trouser seams. Occasionally he raised his hands a little to balance himself. His handsome face blushed scarlet, then turned pale. A few times he bit his lips.

  One of the boys was trying to squeeze an empty beer bottle up the man’s trouser leg. This was a newly invented measurement. If the bottle could not be stuffed into the trouser leg, the pants were considered fourolds and treated with “revolutionary operations”— cut open.

  The boy tried twice. The girl waved her scissors with unconcealed delight. “Look! Another pair of too-tight pants. Now let’s get rid of the fourolds!” She raised the scissors and deftly cut the pants leg open. Then, with both hands, she tore the pants to the knee so the man’s pale calf was exposed.

  The crowd stirred. Some people pushed forward to have a closer look, some nervously left the circle when they saw the scissors used, and some glanced at their own pants. As the girl started on the other leg of the trousers, the boy with the glasses picked up the man’s shoes and waved them to the crowd. “Pointed shoes! Fourolds!” he shouted.

  “But I bought them in the Number One Department Store here. It’s run by the government. How can they be fourolds?” the man cried out in despair.

  “What makes you think that government-owned stores are free of fourolds? That statement itself is fourolds. Didn’t you see all the shop signs that were knocked down? Most of those stores belonged to the government.” With a snort the boy dropped the man’s foot and stood up. The man lost his balance and nearly fell over.

  The crowd gave a burst of appreciative laughter.

  Encouraged, the three students enthusiastically began cutting open the shoes. All eyes were focused on them. No one paid any attention to their owner. I looked at the man.

  He stood on the sidewalk, awkward and humiliated, trouser legs flapping around his ankles, socks falling down. A tuft of hair hung over his forehead. He looked at his pants, pushed up his glasses nervously, and quickly glanced around. Our eyes met. Immediately he turned away.

  The students cheered and triumphantly threw the mutilated shoes into the air.

  The man quivered. Suddenly he turned around and began to walk away.

  “Wait.” One boy picked up the shoes and threw them at the man. “Take your fourolds with you. Go home and thoroughly remold your ideology.”

  The man took his broken shoes in hand and made his way out of the crowd, his cut pants flapping.

  Someone chortled. “He’ll have holes in his socks when he gets home.”

  I watched the spectators disperse. The students strutted proudly down the street.

  Ji-yun tugged on my arm. “Come on. It’s over.”

  I took her hand and we headed home in silence. “That poor guy,” I finally said. “He should know better than to dress that way, but I’d just die if somebody cut my pants open in front of everybody like that.”

  School had just let out. No sooner had we left the classroom than the rain began to pour down in huge drops. Those of us who hadn’t brought umbrellas scurried back into the classroom.

  “Gosh! I should have brought my yang-san like Mom told me to.” An Yi gasped for breath while brushing the rain off her clothes.

  “An Yi, you’re spreading the fourolds.” Yang Fan popped up behind her and spoke half jokingly. I was surprised. Yang Fan was usually so hesitant to express an opinion of her own that we called her Echo.

  “What? What do you mean?” An Yi asked indignantly.

  “You just said yang-san for ‘umbrella.’ Isn’t that spreading the fourolds?”

  “Are you kidding? If yang-san is fourolds, then what about ‘raincoat’?”

  Several other classmates laughed and gathered around An Yi and Yang Fan.

  Yang Fan’s smile faded into embarrassment.

  “What’s so funny? That is fourolds.” Du Hai stepped onto a chair and sat heavily on a desk. “Yang means foreign. Yang-san means foreign umbrella. They were called that because before Liberation we had to import them. Now we make them in Ch
ina. So why do you still call it a yang-san? Doesn’t that show that you’re a xenophile who worships anything foreign?” Du Hai reveled in the new phrase he had learned from the newspaper.

  Du Hai was trouble. He was mischievous and a terrible student, but he was hard to beat in an argument. Most important of all, his mother was the Neighborhood Party Committee Secretary, and so no one wanted to offend him.

  He looked at us and we looked at him.

  “First of all, this yang means sun, not foreign. And this yang-san means sun umbrella, parasol, not foreign umbrella.” I didn’t even look at Du Hai while I corrected his mistake. “If you want to talk about fourolds, Yang Fan, you always say yang-huo for matches. That really does mean foreign fire. So aren’t you spreading the fourolds too?” I sneaked a glance at Du Hai as I supported An Yi. Everyone laughed.

  Yang Fan did not expect my attack and was caught short. She looked to Du Hai for help.

  “Well, you always say good morning and good afternoon to the teachers.” Du Hai struck back. “That’s fourolds too, don’t you know that?”

  “What’s wrong with saying good morning to the teachers? They teach you and you should respect them,” An Yi fired back before I could stop her.

  “Respect the teachers? That’s the nonsense of ‘teachers’ dignity.’ You two are typical ‘teachers’ obedient little lambs,’ do you know that?” Du Hai recited more phrases from the newspaper.

  The world had turned upside down. Now it was a crime for students to respect teachers. I couldn’t keep calm.

  “We’re ‘teachers’ obedient little lambs,’ are we? Well, what about you, Du Hai? You’re full of the fourolds. On the last arithmetic test you only got twenty-six out of a hundred, and you said that your stupidity was due to your sins in a former life. Isn’t that what you said? Isn’t reincarnation a superstition?” I raised my voice.

  “And you also said that the fortune-teller told you ‘small eyes, large fortune.’ Isn’t that fourolds too?” An Yi kept pressing hard.

  Du Hai’s tiny, squinty eyes got even smaller. “That… that was just a joke. Anyway, I’m not as full of the fourolds as you are. You always say, ‘Listen to the teachers, listen to your parents.’” He wheezed in an expert imitation of An Yi, and all of our classmates burst into laughter. Du Hai and Yang Fan looked immensely pleased with themselves.

  “Jiang Ji-li, your family has a housekeeper. That is exploitation. You’re a capitalist.”

  “An Yi, you use facial cream every day. That is bourgeois ideology. And your long hair is, too. Shame on you. Why don’t you get your hair cut short in a revolutionary style?”

  Du Hai and Yang Fan took turns attacking us, so quickly and fiercely that An Yi and I did not have a chance to reply. Everyone laughed at our helplessness.

  “Well, the rain’s stopped. Let’s go home.” Feeling they had the upper hand and wanting to quit while they were ahead, Du Hai and Yang Fan picked up their schoolbags and swaggered off. The rest of the crowd followed them out, still shouting with laughter.

  We two were left alone, angry and helpless.

  “What’s wrong with using skin cream and wearing a braid?” said An Yi, stamping hard on the ground.

  “But maybe they’re right about the housekeeper,” I admitted as we slung our schoolbags over our shoulders. “I guess I’ll have to tell Mom what they said about Song Po-po.”

  WRITING DA-ZI-BAO

  Who would have believed that our entire educational system was wrong after all? Seventeen years after Liberation, the newspapers told us, our schools were not bringing us up to be good red socialists and communists, as we had thought, but revisionists. We thanked heaven that Chairman Mao had started this Cultural Revolution, and that the Central Committee of the Communist Party had uncovered the mess in our schools. Otherwise we would not even have known that we were in trouble. What a frightening idea!

  One Monday, all school classes were suspended indefinitely. All students were directed instead to participate in the movement by writing big posters, da-zi-bao, criticizing the educational system. Rolls of white paper, dozens of brushes, and many bottles of red and black ink were brought into the classrooms. The teachers were nowhere to be seen.

  The classrooms buzzed with revolutionary fervor. Students spread large sheets of paper on desks and gathered around, eagerly shouting suggestions. Some roamed the rooms, reading comments aloud over people’s shoulders, calling to others. Girls and boys ran outside to put up their da-zi-bao and ran back in to write more. Desks, Ping-Pong tables, and even the floor were taken over for writing da-zi-bao. When the white paper was gone, the students used old newspaper instead. Da-zi-bao were everywhere: in classrooms, along the hallways, and even on the brick walls of the school yard. The row of tall parasol trees that lined the inside of the school yard was festooned with more da-zi-bao, hanging like flowers from the branches. Long ropes strung across the playground were covered with still more da-zi-bao, looking like laundry hung out to dry.

  I stared at the large sheet of paper spread out in front of me, wondering what to write. It was strange. When I had read the newspaper, I had been enraged by the revisionist educational system that had been poisoning our youth for so many years. But now that I actually had to criticize the teachers who taught us every day, I could not find anything really bad to say about any of them.

  I went over to An Yi’s desk. Just as I guessed, the papers in front of her and her seatmate, Zhang Jie, were also blank.

  “I just can’t think of anything to write,” I complained.

  “Neither can we. I might as well just give up.” An Yi put her brush down and stretched.

  “Hey, everybody has to write something. You’re no exception. Do you want everyone to think you have a bad political attitude?” Zhang Jie was joking, but it made us think.

  “Why don’t we go out to the playground to see what everybody else is writing?” Zhang Jie went on. “It’s better to copy something than not to write anything at all. What do you say?”

  We walked out to the school yard. The classroom had been crowded, but there were even more students outside. Du Hai was shouting, “Hey, this is great! Everybody, look at what Pauper’s done. She put the principal’s name upside down.”

  Ragged-looking Pauper smiled with satisfaction. “I saw my big sister writing one last night. She wrote the name upside down and then put a big red X over it. She said that’s what the court used to do to criminals.”

  The three of us stopped before a da-zi-bao signed “An Antirevisionist.” An Yi read aloud, “‘Although teachers do not hold bombs or knives, they are still dangerous enemies. They fill us with insidious revisionist ideas. They teach us that scholars are superior to workers. They promote personal ambition by encouraging competition for the highest grades. All these things are intended to change good young socialists into corrupt revisionists. They are invisible knives that are even more dangerous than real knives or guns. For example, a student from Yu-cai High School killed himself because he failed the university entrance examination. Brainwashed by his teachers, he believed his sole aim in life was to enter a famous university and become a scientist—”

  “Hey!” 1 stopped her in surprise. “This was all copied from the Youth Post. I read it the other day.”

  “So what? It’s always okay to copy da-zi-bao,” Zhang Jie said. She turned to another da-zi-bao. “Look! This one is by Yin Lan-lan.”

  Yin Lan-lan had written, “As one of its victims, I denounce the revisionist educational system. Being from a working-class family, I have to do a lot more housework than students from rich families. So I have difficulty passing exams. I was forced to repeat grades three times. And I was not allowed to be a Young Pioneer or to participate in the school choir. The teachers think only of grades when evaluating a student. They forget that we, the working class, are the masters of our socialist country.”

  “Yin Lan-lan? A victim?” I was flabbergasted. Yin Lan-lan had flunked three times. She rarely spoke up in clas
s. When she was asked to answer a question, she would just stand there without saying a word. She was not very bright.

  “She failed three courses out of five. How could she blame the teachers for that?” An Yi sneered.

  Zhang Jie slumped her shoulders and bowed her head in imitation of Yin Lan-lan. We burst out laughing and immediately looked around to see if anyone was watching us. Zhang Jie made a face.

  Sheet after sheet, article after article, each da-zi-bao was a bitter accusation. One was titled, “Teacher Li, Abuser of the Young.” The student had failed to hand in her homework on time, and Teacher Li had told her to copy the assignment over five times as punishment. Another student said his teacher had deliberately ruined his students’ eyesight by making them read a lot, so they could not join the Liberation Army. Still another accused Teacher Wang of attempting to corrupt a young revolutionary by buying her some bread when he learned that she had not eaten lunch.

  The more I read, the more puzzled I became. Did the teachers really intend to ruin our health and corrupt our minds? If so, why hadn’t I ever noticed? Was I so badly taken in that I was unable to see them for what they really were? I remembered Du Hai’s taunt. You “teachers’ obedient little lamb.” I thought of Teacher Gu, who was like a stern but loving mother to me. I thought of An Yi’s mother, Teacher Wei, who had won so many Model Teacher awards because of her dedication to her work. No matter how I tried, I just could not relate them to the villains described in the da-zi-bao.

  To fulfill my responsibility as a revolutionary, I listed all my teachers. One by one, I considered them carefully. Unfortunately, none of them seemed to hate the Party or oppose Chairman Mao. I could not write a da-zi-bao about any of them.

  Finally I decided to copy an article from the newspaper instead.

  A few days later, when I got to school, I was told we were going to post da-zi-bao on the houses of some of the bourgeoisie living near the school. The class was divided into two groups. One was going to confront Old Qian, a stern and frightening man who stalked our alleys speaking to no one. The other group was going to challenge Jiang Xi-wen, an unpleasant woman who lived in a house behind the school yard. I was assigned to the group going to Jiang Xi-wen’s house. Of course, this was not coincidence, not at all. They all knew that she was my relative.