Under Red Skies Read online

  Author’s Note: This memoir has been pieced together with the help of diary entries, photographs, interviews with family members, and other research. Most names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect them from recognition. Time has been compressed. Dialogue has been approximated, and in some cases, compositely arranged. Great care has been taken to tell my truths. This is my story and how I remember it.

  Copyright © 2019 by Karoline Kan

  Cover design by Carlos Esparza

  Cover photo by JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images

  Cover copyright © 2019 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  First Edition: March 2019

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-41204-9 (hardcover), 978-0-316-41203-2 (ebook)

  Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Aut​​hor’s Note

  Historical Timeline

  PART I: First and Second Generations Chapter One: The Second Born

  Chapter Two: A Daughter’s Promise

  Chapter Three: A Home of Our Own

  Chapter Four: We, the Migrants in Town

  Chapter Five: The Young Patriot

  Chapter Six: The Gods vs. the Ghosts

  Chapter Seven: The Girl with Big Feet

  PART II: Third Generation Chapter Eight: Chunting Gets a Boyfriend

  Chapter Nine: Red Silk Sho​es and a White Dress

  Chapter Ten: Children of Tiananmen

  Chapter Eleven: A Cocktail Bar in Bei​jing

  Chapter Twelve: A Train of Dreams

  Chapter Thirteen: Foreign Territory

  Chapter Fourteen: “A Leftover Woman”

  Chapter Fifteen: Ten Hours for Eighty Yuan

  Chapter Sixteen: Forever Red

  Chapter Seventeen: A People Without Roots

  Chapter Eighteen: Coming Home

  Acknowledgments

  Newsletters

  To my family

  Aut​​hor’s Note

  My parents always used to say I was a “strange” child. In the 1990s and early 2000s, when I was growing up, my favorite thing to do after school was to follow the adults around like a little tail and listen to them tell stories. They called me genpichong, or “bum beetle,” because I stuck to them like glue.

  No matter whether they were talking to me or to each other—whether it was my grandmother, mother, aunt, or the neighbor’s wife—I would always sit silently beside them, prick up my ears, and let my mind roam through the enchanting world of their stories. These women had little formal education, but the way they spoke was colorful and warm and delicately captured the moment. They talked in my grandmother’s dim kitchen, under a willow tree in our yard, or in my neighbor’s cabbage garden, their hands constantly occupied with never-ending chores like sewing patches, making soup, or clearing the table.

  Some of the stories were mysterious, as though from a book of fairy tales. Weasels danced and imitated humans by singing in the village temple. River ghosts enticed villagers to jump to their deaths in the stream. Broom spirits held lanterns to light the way for people walking in the dead of night. The older women used spirits and ghosts to explain things they could not understand.

  Then there were the real stories, which were just as fascinating.

  My great-grandfather confessed to so-called “crimes” he had committed during the Cultural Revolution, such as reading and owning books written by Confucius or listening to the Peking opera, which during that time was disparaged as elitist and against the Communists’ spirit of revolution, which sought to fight against the old way of feudalism and bourgeoisie.

  My grandfather used his hat to hide the rice he’d stolen from the public kitchens to prevent his children from starving to death during the Great Famine.

  My uncles had destroyed people’s homes and tombs as Red Guards under Chairman Mao Zedong’s regime. I heard stories of how a relative had fled to Taiwan after the civil war but could not return home for over half a century, and how political shifts had prevented my father from attending college, which became his life’s biggest regret.

  These were the first—and best—history lessons I ever had. And from these oral histories, I understand how my story is connected to China’s.

  In China’s history, I’ve learned how ordinary lives can be upended by the political affairs of a nation. I learned how small changes could together alter the entire course of a country’s future.

  My dream became to write about the people I knew and loved and to tell their stories, as well as to write my own, free from government censorship and the Communist Party’s narrative. I believe these stories deserve to be told, and I consider myself fortunate to have a platform to do so; many Chinese people never have a chance to make their voices heard.

  For years, I buried my plan deeply in my chest. Almost all the memoirs I read in Chinese were about famous people. Nobody in my life had ever written a book—let alone a book in English. When I tried to sit my family members down for formal interviews, they would shrug me off. “There is nothing to say,” they protested. “Everybody has this kind of story.” They did not want to revisit the past; the right attitude was to focus on the future. They were afraid of saying the wrong thing or something that would get them in trouble, thanks partly to decades of censorship.

  So instead of going to them as a journalist, I listened to them as a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, and a friend. We lived together, and their stories appeared in day-to-day gossip and arguments, the routines of daily family living. I had to be patient, and let the stories flow to me on their own, while still asking questions until I came to understand the truth.

  The stories piled up in my diary, notes without a clear purpose. Then, before I realized it, they became a part of me. Now, years later, I can still see, smell, hear, and feel the days and nights when I learned and lived these stories: the light fragrance of the flowers of the Chinese scholar tree on spring afternoons, the orange light in my grandparents’ bedroom, the crying cicadas and frogs on summer nights. I wrote in my composition classes, at home, and at work. I pitched personal essays to foreign newspapers and magazines like the New York Times and kept searching for the right home for the stories stored up inside me.

  This book means more to me than just sharing stories about my family and myself, and what it means to be a Chinese millennial. Tens of millions of stories like ours make up the present-day complexity of what is China. Through these stories, I hope readers from all around the world can snatch a glimpse of how we came to be
—of what our families went through to shape China into the country it is today.

  As a Chinese millennial, I want to show the humanity behind the cold economic figures and classifiers associated with China, to reveal the emotions, choices, and compromises, the courage, love, and hope we share with people around the world. Like our counterparts everywhere, we defy single-word descriptions.

  China has areas of rapid development but also miles of backwater. It is not only a global power but also a place where many still suffer from crippling poverty. Its technological advances make international headlines daily, but its rural schools still lack qualified teachers; and though we’re pledged to the Communist Party, Chinese people live for the next Hollywood blockbuster, just like everybody else. To understand China and Chinese people, you have to imagine yourself there, to think what you might do in the circumstances experienced by families in this book, to have lived through certain politics and cultural traditions shown here. It is easier to blame China than to understand it; it is easier to judge Chinese people than to get to know them. But I believe the rewards for striving to do so are great—as are the risks for failing to try.

  When writing this book, I often asked myself: Why should people around the world be interested in my stories about life in China? Some of the reasons are obvious: China has the world’s second-largest economy and is the number one trade partner for many countries. China plays a central role in international affairs.

  The subtler reason is that the lives of young Chinese people increasingly overlap with their peers around the world. Young Chinese factory workers produce goods that are bought by consumers in America, Canada, and Europe. When the streets of Washington, DC, or Berlin or Vancouver fill for women’s marches, university students in China are inspired by them. We stand together in rejecting what society tells us is “right” and “wrong.”

  The real China is not only comprised of the one shown in the daily news cycle.

  In recent years, several books have been written about Chinese millennials, but mostly by foreign authors. I respect many of these, because they inspired me to write my own. Globally, the voices of young Chinese—especially those of young Chinese women—are often neglected.

  I may have been born and raised in China, but I am constantly learning new things about it. This is my story and my family’s story. It is a story of China, and it is my honor to share my country with you…wherever you are.

  Historical Timeline

  1945–1949The Chinese Civil War occurs between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, or KMT) and Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The conflict begins with deployments and military clashes as each side tries to position itself to control North China and Northeast China (Manchuria).

  1949Chairman Mao declares the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Communist Party has been in sole control of China’s government and army ever since.

  1958–1960 Shortly after the People’s Republic of China is founded, Chairman Mao aims to rapidly surpass the prosperity of the UK and the US with the Great Leap Forward. The party sets unrealistic production goals, including for agriculture and industry, requires participation from all farmers, and establishes collective farming.

  1959–1961 An estimated 20–43 million people die of starvation in the Great Famine, caused by drought, poor weather, and the policies of Chairman Mao, such as the elimination of the four pests—rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows—upsetting the ecological balance.

  1966The Cultural Revolution begins. To reconsolidate his power within the party and push back against capitalist and bourgeois values, Chairman Mao calls on the country’s youth, the “Red Guards,” to purge the “impure” elements of Chinese society and revive the revolutionary spirit. The Red Guards attack, imprison, torture, and kill tens of millions of people, including party leaders, intellectuals, artists, and former landowners.

  1976 Chairman Mao dies and the Cultural Revolution ends.

  1978 Start of the “Reform and Opening Up”—Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, believes China needs economic reform and commerce with the West. Farmers are given land contracts and allowed to work on plots individually instead of collectively. The Marxist economy is largely replaced by a capitalist economy, and private businesses are allowed to operate for the first time since the Communist takeover.

  1980The One-Child Policy is created to manage soaring birth rates. Later, rural families may have two children if their first child is a girl. The policy remains until 2015.

  1983The People’s Commune collapses, in large part, due to the rise of individual farming and private enterprise.

  The Chinese government launches a “Strike-Hard Campaign.” Party leaders believe Reform and Opening Up brought about chaos and wrong ideas and that the justice bureau was too soft on crime. In three years, over one million people are arrested and tried, often on flimsy or fabricated evidence. Minor crimes are punished severely. Today, many injustices are still being discovered and the rulings overturned.

  1989The Tiananmen Massacre (a.k.a. June Fourth Incident) occurs. Young college students protest in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square for political reform. They want democracy and freedom of speech, among other rights. On June 4, the government sends the army with tanks to stop the protestors. It is estimated that up to two thousand people were killed.

  1992The Falun Gong practice begins and spreads throughout the country. The Chinese government labels it a cult and bans Falun Gong in 1999. Tens of thousands of followers are arrested or imprisoned without trial.

  1997Hong Kong is handed back to the Chinese government, ending more than 150 years of British colonization.

  1999US-led NATO troops bomb the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists during the Kosovo War.

  2002SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, the epidemic outbreak that spread through China, kills hundreds of people.

  2012Xi Jinping becomes general secretary of the Communist Party and chairman of the Central Military Commission.

  2013The National People’s Congress elects Xi Jinping president. He is still the commander in chief today.

  PART I

  First and Second Generations

  Chapter One

  The Second Born

  Chaoyang, 1988

  During the summer of 1988, the cicadas in the willow tree beside the main village road never stopped crying. On one particular day, my mother, Shumin, returned home early from work in the family’s rice field. She lay in bed, deeply worried, knowing that her father-in-law would be angry that she had come home early, but that it would be nothing compared to how he would react when he discovered the secret she had kept from him for more than a month: she was pregnant with a second child. It was the only crime she had ever committed in her thirty-two years.

  As she lay contemplating her next move, she could see from her window the banners painted in looming red characters on the white walls of her neighbor’s home:

  Giving Birth to Fewer and Healthier

  Children Will Lead to a Happier Life

  The ridiculous signs were tokens of China’s One-Child Policy. But my mother was doubtful of the banner’s promise: She had only one child, her family worked very hard, yet still they did not have money or happiness.

  Mom and my baba, Chengtai, led a typical Chinese lifestyle. They lived with his parents and his three unmarried siblings. In the eighties, most young couples lived with their relatives. Their home was also typical: a three-room brick house, facing the south, and a small hut in the yard. At that time, burnt-red bricks were new, fashionable, and a sign of wealth. Previously, homes were built using handmade adobe—a mixture of mud and straw that dried into bricks in the sun—which was much cheaper, but not as strong. My grandmother, or Nainai, Baba’s mother, had encircled the yard with bamboo poles to fence off her vegetable garden. Chickens and rabbits roamed under the two willow trees. Once a month, Nainai would sell the eggs and rabbits at the farmers’ market.r />
  That is how they lived. And everything about it was…ordinary.

  My mother had not told anyone, except Baba, about the pregnancy. She couldn’t; there was already too much tension at home with her in-laws. If Mom didn’t wake early enough to work, Nainai would pull a long face and tell the neighbors she was lazy. “Young married women today are nothing like what we used to be,” Nainai would complain.

  Their village, Chaoyang, was a fairly new community in Ninghe County. It was rebuilt after the great Tangshan earthquake in 1976, which resulted in 240,000 deaths. After the earthquake, survivors built Chaoyang, which means “facing the sun,” in hopes of a brighter future.

  It is not known when people started to settle in Ninghe County—records were not kept. The old men, with their long, white goatees, said our ancestors had settled during the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) to escape a famine. I always loved listening to the old men talk about the village’s history, their eyes closed and one hand stroking their beards. For hours, they’d squat in the shadows, chatting. They were the modern griots and storytellers.

  My mom was raised in a different village but adapted easily to Chaoyang. Like her own hometown, it was small and everyone knew each other. Every woman in the village was from another place—this was the way of it—and it was the men whom we relied on for the best stories of our village.

  In such a small place, rumors couldn’t be tamed for more than a day, and this also worried my mom that morning. There were about five hundred people in Chaoyang, and on only three streets; one paved with asphalt and the other two with red bricks. Folks living in the houses along the asphalt road were considered fortunate. It was the smoother, more modern-looking street, and on rainy days, it didn’t have little water pits like those that collected in the cobbled roads. The village chief had an asphalt road in front of his office, which spoke volumes about it as a symbol of status. Those with homes like ours, on the brick road, would build their houses taller and grander, as though to make up for an inferior feeling.