I hesitated. What could I possibly teach them?
"Please, please! Help your old friends!" they all persisted.
I knew they would be disappointed if I said no, so after dinner that night we gathered together in the same room where my na-na's dead body had once rested for three days. It was mid- February and still very cold. My friends wore their thick cotton jackets and pants and, under the low-wattage light, they looked just like four enormous cottonwool balls.
"I want to teach you a Beijing Opera Movement exercise," I began. "It will get your legs warmed up first. Otherwise you'll injure yourselves. Let's put your legs on the windowsills." This was the only place I could think of that was roughly the height of a barre.
My friends just looked at me with peculiar expressions.
"All right, let me show you." I put my right leg up on the windowsill.
"See. It's not too hard," I encouraged, and I helped them to put their legs onto the sill as well. But as soon as I'd helped the last friend's leg up the others had already lowered theirs.
"It's too high!" one of them complained.
"Can't we use the edge of the kang?" another suggested.
So we moved to the bedroom and used the hip-high edge of the kang, which was much easier.
"Okay, now straighten your legs and your hips," I told them as I pushed one of their legs straight.
"Ow!" they screamed.
"Now, let's change legs," I instructed.
They lifted their other legs up to the edge of the kang, but all they did was scream and groan. "Can't you teach us something less painful and more fun?"
I could see this was going to be a challenge. I couldn't think of anything that was fun, exciting and painless as well. Out of desperation, I showed them some relatively easy ballet positions.
"I don't know whether you can use them in your show or not, but they're not painful." I demonstrated first, second and fifth foot positions. "You can hold onto the edge of the kang," I told them. They all tried, but their feet caved in every time they straightened their knees.
"Is this all you have learned in the past year?" one of my friends asked.
I nodded.
"Surely it was more fun than this! Come on, teach us something easy so we can impress everyone at the show."
I didn't know how to answer him. Fun? I thought of Gao Dakun pushing our bodies onto our legs, putting the full force of his weight on us.
My friends didn't ask me to teach them any dance movements after that.
My month at home went by as fast as the blink of an eye. I dreaded going back to the rigid routine of the university.
On my last night home, after dinner, when everyone except me and my parents had gone to bed, my dia handed me eight yuan.
"It's too much," I protested.
"Take it. Things are more expensive now. Our lives are looking up with your second brother working." Then, completely unexpectedly, he handed me a sealed envelope. "I was going to get you some sorghum sweets, but I bought you this instead. I'm sorry I didn't have enough money to have it wrapped."
Inside the envelope I found the most beautiful fountain pen. It was deep royal blue, my favourite colour. I could tell it was an expensive one. It would have cost my dia at least two yuan.
"I hope you will use it every day," my dia said, "and every time you use it, you will remember your parents and our expectations of you. I don't know what grades your classmates have received, but I hope you will come home with better grades next year. Don't let us down. Let us be proud."
I had expected my parents to talk to me about my poor grades. I had expected harsher words. But that pen, and the few words my dia said then, caused bigger waves inside me than any accusations could ever bring. He didn't blame me. He didn't accuse me, but I felt I had let him and my whole family down. I couldn't bear to look at him. Instead, I looked at my niang, but she had buried her head in her sewing. I knew that every time I used my dia's pen, his words would echo in my mind.
12 My Own Voice
The train trip back to Beijing this time was a happier experience. Even the settling-in period at the academy was easier because by now all of us could communicate with each other in Mandarin. I couldn't stop thinking about my dia's pen though, and his pride-provoking words. I knew that every time I used that pen, I would feel guilty, because my attitude towards my dancing hadn't changed. I still hated it.
In May that year, Madame Mao visited our university for the second time. This time I did get to perform for her and afterwards we all gathered at the sports ground where, with indomitable authority, she told us to study hard and be good students of Chairman Mao's. Her entourage of cultural officials stood beside her with expressions of the utmost admiration and respect. She told the university officials that the dance students were technically weak. So additional classes were added, including martial arts.
Madame Mao also ordered two young champions from the Beijing Martial Arts School and the Beijing Acrobatics School to join us as model students. They were awesome. I was especially impressed with Wang Lujun. He could master ten back flips in a row with ease. He could do "double flying legs" with incredible height, but his "butterfly" was the most difficult and exciting step to watch. You had to swing your body from right to left, with head and body at chest height, at the same time pushing both legs up in the air in a fanning motion. When the movement was done properly it looked just like a butterfly flying in the air. Wang Lujun could do thirty-two of them in a row! He was legendary.
Although Lujun was good at acrobatics, martial arts and Beijing Opera Movement, he struggled hard at ballet. Because he had come in the middle of that second year, he'd missed learning the basics, and the way the muscles were used in ballet was so different to the way they were used in martial arts. He told me many times that he wished he could go back to martial arts again but, for the same reason as me, he felt trapped. He had a duty to perform and there was no way back.
Lujun was honest and he had a strong sense of fairness. Later he was nicknamed the Bandit and he liked it so much that the name stuck.
One day, later in that same term, I remember the Bandit bought ten fen worth of sweets: his father often sent him spending money and he would occasionally slip a sweet or two into my hand. But this time his class captain found out and told the head teacher. The Bandit was ordered to write three self-criticisms. He dug deep, but he genuinely couldn't think of a single reason why he shouldn't buy sweets. So I gave him some ideas -the ten fen he'd spent on sweets could have saved someone from starvation. Or his selfish action could corrupt his mind. I didn't really believe this, but I had to convince him that it was the only way to get him out of trouble. He had to learn how to survive this psychological brainwashing too. Fortunately, it worked and his self-criticism passed the test.
After that incident, the Bandit and I became good friends, and a few weeks later, to my great surprise, he asked me to become his blood brother, a tradition from the Kung Fu masters' era and a bond that would last a lifetime. But in many ways the forming of this bond often rivalled real brotherly love, so at first I said no. I had six brothers already. I didn't need another. The Bandit was very disappointed, but he wasn't deterred and the following Sunday, he invited me to go for an outing. We got permission to leave the university (without this we were never allowed beyond the gate) and the Bandit took me to a small eatery at the base of a mountain on the outskirts of Beijing. He ordered a small bottle of rice wine and a small plate of pig's head meat-a wonderful delicacy. It was white and full of lard. Delicious! What my niang would give for such a treat! I didn't like the rice wine though, because it was so strong, nearly one hundred per cent proof.