After Madame Mao watched the specially prepared performance, she said to the officials, "The dancing looked all right, but where are the guns? Where are the grenades? Where are the political meanings?" She wanted us to combine traditional ballet steps with some Peking Opera movements, so from that point on our teachers made major changes to our training syllabus. In the middle of a classical plié we had to stiffen our hands into Kung Fu gestures while we were doing port de bras, and we had to finish off with a death-like stare we called "brightening the presence". Our teachers took it all very seriously. We had to prepare these "model" ballets, a combination of Western and Chinese styles that were a monument to Madame Mao's obsession. In reality, it was political ideology gone mad. But our university strictly followed her instructions and policies. We became nothing more than Chairman Mao's political puppets.
I knew that some of our teachers were incensed by this approach, but they had to bury their integrity and their love for Western ballet in their hearts. If they didn't, they would risk being labelled counter-revolutionaries, and be sent to jail or the pig farms. It could cost them their lives.
They knew Madame Mao's approach could never work. In classical ballet training we had to turn our joints out, but with Beijing Opera movements we were required to do the opposite. Ballet steps needed fluidity and softness. Beijing Opera required sharp, strong gestures. But propaganda ensured we believed that the Chinese model ballets were the world's best. They were groundbreaking. They were "uniquely Chinese". Nobody dared to question this, and we continued to do what we were told.
We spent a lot of time at the academy studying Mao's theories. We were expected to memorise every word in his Red Book and relate them to our daily activities. In fact, we spent more time on Mao than we did on ballet and all other subjects combined. Often we were divided into small groups to discuss Chairman Mao's most recent ideas. We were taught to focus on the meaning of each word. Once a student even suggested that if we really understood the meaning of Mao's words, then we wouldn't need to eat. His golden words would replace our daily food. That student received high praise for his remarks from our political head. I just thought he was crazy-he'd never known starvation, that was clear.
We were encouraged to tell everyone about our impure thoughts. We were rewarded for reporting when a fellow student's behaviour wasn't in keeping with Chairman Mao's great political vision. We were even told once, by one of the political heads, that a brave and faithful young Red Guard loved Chairman Mao so much that he informed the police that his parents had Taiwan connections. Both parents were arrested, and their son was upheld as a national hero, Mao's model guard.
I too would have done anything for Chairman Mao. Anything, except tell on my parents. I loved my niang and my dia too much to betray them for my belief in Chairman Mao's revolution.
Madame Mao also wanted us to spend three weeks each year with the farmers, the workers or the soldiers. These were called the "Learning Three Classes" sessions. We had to live and work amongst the peasants or workers or soldiers and at the same time keep up our dance training. At the end of each "learning session" we had to put on a performance.
Our first three-week summer holiday was spent in one of these learning sessions, with the peasants in a nearby commune. How I welcomed the wheat and the cornfields, the smell of manure, the sound of the crickets! Even the raw earth was wonderful to see, but it all made me homesick too. I wanted to go back to my village and catch my beloved crickets and dragonflies again. I wanted both worlds: the good food of the academy and the freedom of my home.
I worked well in the fields, and I was surprised that my classmates from the city had little idea about how to work on the land. I truly believed Chairman Mao was right: if these kids didn't come to the commune and work with the peasants, they would have no idea where their food came from.
We continued to practise our ballet, acrobatics and Beijing Opera Movement every day while we were living with the peasants. We used wire poles and walls for our barre. The dirt ground was uneven and uncomfortable and the scratching sounds of our feet brushing through each movement were unbearable-like fingernails scraping down a piece of glass. Our ballet shoes wore out so quickly and they were always filthy with mud. We even had to do cartwheels and backflips in the fields. Sprained ankles were not uncommon.
We slept and ate at different peasants' homes during our stay, but by the third day so many students suffered stomach cramps and diarrhoea that the school officials had to quickly call in our own academy chef to cook for us. The male students, including me, were assigned to guard our kitchen supplies so nobody would steal them.
"Why would anyone steal our food?" I asked one of our political heads. "Aren't the peasants our role models?"
He thought for a moment. "We are not guarding against the peasants' stealing," he said. "We're guarding against the enemy's evil motives. They might try to poison us. It's the hidden things we must watch for. Do you understand?"
I didn't understand, but I nodded anyway. I saw his expression and knew this was the end of the discussion. I thought that surely by now all our enemies would have been wiped out in all of Mao's campaigns and revolutions.
The weather was still hot when we returned to our university. And shortly after, the dreaded visit to the swimming pool occurred.
"Students who can't swim, raise your hands!" the same political head who'd asked me to wash his sweat-stained shirt instructed. A few hands went up-mine was one of them. Almost all of the kids who couldn't swim came from Shanghai or Beijing. I was the only one from Qingdao who couldn't swim.
"A boy who comes from a city by the sea and can't swim?" the political head sniggered.
I felt the blood rush to my face. I wanted to go back to my dormitory. But I knew I couldn't, so I followed instructions and hesitantly took off my clothes.
"Where is your swimming suit?" the political head asked me. Everyone looked at my practice shorts.
"I don't have a swimming suit."
"Didn't I tell everyone to buy one yesterday?"
I didn't answer. I didn't want to tell him that I couldn't afford one.
He gave me an annoyed look and shook his head. "Okay, everyone. Students who can swim can go now. Students who can't, follow me."
He took us to the shallow end of the pool and demonstrated the so-called "frog-style", or breaststroke. Following his instructions, I tried to swim but my body sank as soon as I started to circle my arms. I kept swallowing water. I looked across and saw my classmates swimming and diving like fish and wished I could be like them. The political leader spent all his time helping the girls. He never looked in the boys' direction once. I dipped my head under a couple of times and my nose filled with water. I wondered if I would ever learn to swim.
But by the end of that summer I did learn, even though I was still constantly afraid of the water. It was a couple of my classmates who eventually taught me.
That summer in Beijing was hot. We had no air-conditioning or fans, and when the heat became unbearable, we slept on the floor in the dance studio. Over twenty of us slept in there, and even with the studio's many windows, the body heat made it difficult to sleep. Mosquitoes would come out in the thousands and zoom around like little vampires. We slapped about frantically, trying to chase them away, and the slapping sounds could be heard throughout the night.
During the second half of our first year, the school added several new classes. One of them was Art Philosophy, Madame Mao's brainchild, the one we'd been told about on that first day, and surprisingly I liked it. It was designed to help us understand the relationship between the arts and politics. Chairman Mao's idea was that the arts should be important political tools.