It fell way short of the target, embarrassingly short. It didn't even carry over twenty yards. But I wasn't the only one-many of my classmates also failed to reach the required distance. The academy officials wisely cancelled our real grenade-throwing event, just in case.
Apart from the gun shooting I didn't really enjoy my military experience at all. I spent the whole time longing to return to our academy routine. I wanted to get back to my leaps and pirouettes.
This was the same year that I was elected as one of the three Communist Youth Party committee members and vice-captain of my class. Then one day a Communist Party official at the academy called me into his office. "Cunxin, you have done a good job at the Communist Youth Party. You have set a wonderful example for all the students. Although you are still too young to join the party, we would like you to start thinking about it now. Communist Party members are the purest and strongest communist believers. We believe you have that mental strength. The party would like to educate you to become a true Communist Party member, to carry the party's torch, to raise the country's flag every day, every hour, every minute. The responsibilities are enormous but Communist Party members are a glorious breed of human being."
I nodded dutifully and left his office confused. To join the Communist Party was every young person's dream. But when I heard his words about a glorious breed of human being I began to wonder. I thought of the Communist Party members I knew: some were special people like Teacher Xiao and Zhang Shu. But there were also some I didn't want to be in the same company with, such as some of the political heads. And besides, with my increased interest in ballet I had little time for long meetings. Lately I'd even started speeding up the meetings I chaired at the Communist Youth Party and I'd even been considering relinquishing some of my responsibilities. When I asked Teacher Xiao and Zhang Shu about this conflict between the endless meetings and my dance practice, both of them advised me not to give up my political position. It was important for my artistic future, they said. Later, much later, I was to discover their advice had been right.
Soon after Zhou Enlai's death, there was a massive earthquake in the coal-mining city of Tangshan, about a hundred miles east of Beijing. Officially, over two hundred thousand people were killed and over a hundred and fifty thousand injured. There were rumours that this earthquake was an unlucky sign, a sign of hard times and unrest ahead. It happened in the middle of a long, hot summer, while we were preparing for our mid-term exams. Millions of victims were homeless and all the hospitals in many cities were filled. Several older buildings fell down in Beijing too. Our academy was considered an old building, so we had to vacate it and live temporarily in tents in Taoranting Park. Tremors went on for two whole days. Torrential rain poured down relentlessly. Shops in Beijing ran out of plastic covering for people to use as temporary shelters. We left our building in such a hurry that many students didn't even bring their clothes. It was wet and freezing at night and we had very little food: biscuits and dried bread for two days.
My second brother Cunyuan was a volunteer at the local hospital in Qingdao looking after some of the earthquake victims, who came in by the trainload. Those victims were so shocked that any loud noise at all would terrify them, Cunyuan told me. One knocked a hot-water bottle onto the floor in the middle of the night. It exploded and sent the earthquake victims into immediate panic- they started to scream and tried to run for cover and that in turn caused the whole building to shake. One of the nurses tried to calm them down by blowing a whistle but that made the situation even worse. Panic turned to utter terror. People became desperate. A few poor injured victims jumped out of the building and killed themselves in an attempt to escape.
Then, later that year, the unthinkable event…
Our beloved Chairman Mao died.
China paused. The whole nation mourned. It was early September and I remember gathering in front of a loudspeaker on the sportsground and hearing the announcement of his death by his successor Hua Guofeng. We cried our hearts out. I thought of my na-na's death. But this time, crying for Chairman Mao, it was like a religious experience mixed with a certain fear. I had worshipped Chairman Mao. His name was the first word I had learnt in school. The words from his famous Red Book were embedded in my brain. I would have died for him. And now he was gone.
The day after we heard about Mao's death, the Bandit and I gathered at a quiet corner of our academy grounds and sat on a concrete ping-pong table to talk about this shocking news. China 's future was now uncertain. Mao's death could only mean immense insecurity. As a young Red Guard, I was plunged into grief. I felt lost. There hadn't been much colour in China before, but now things would be bleak indeed.
"There will be total chaos in China soon," the Bandit said despondently. "There will be civil war, maybe even the old chieftain warfare will return again. We should be prepared!" he said, becoming emotionally charged.
"Where would you go to fight a guerilla war!" I said, amused.
"Back to the mountains of Shandong Province of course!"
"I'm not sure I want to leave ballet and live in the mountains for the rest of my life," I replied.
"Where is your courage? Didn't Chairman Mao fight many years of guerilla warfare?"
"Yes, but you don't have to be a guerilla to serve the communist cause. Our best weapon is ballet," I argued.
But the Bandit wasn't convinced. "Only guns will determine the final outcome!" he said.
We went on, arguing philosophically for a while about wars and communism and politics. "All right," he said, "who do you think will be our next leader?"
"I don't know. Who do you think?" I asked.
"Hua Guofeng, Chairman Mao's chosen successor, who else?" he replied.
I laughed. "I think someone with stronger military backing will be China 's next leader!"
"You don't think Hua Guofeng has military backing? Don't you think Chairman Mao would have secured military backing for him before he died?"
"I don't know. Hua Guofeng came from nowhere. He doesn't have a military history."
We talked about which leader in the central government did have a military history. We thought of three. Suddenly I shouted, "What about Deng Xiaoping?"
"Shh!" The Bandit looked around and made sure there was no one close who could have heard. "Are you crazy? He has just been disgraced! His reputation is damaged for ever. Besides, if Chairman Mao didn't like him, we shouldn't either."
Both of us sank into our own thoughts. I knew what he said made some sense but I didn't agree with him entirely. "Deng Xiaoping did very well with the economy while he was managing it and he has a military history," I said.
"How do you know he did well with the economy?" he asked.
"The standard of living improved in my home town."
This was true. My family's living standard had gradually improved under Deng's leadership and some of the seasonal planning decisions had been handed back to the peasants.
"Do you think Madame Mao will become our next leader?" the Bandit asked.
I shook my head. "Haven't you heard the rumours about her male concubines?"
"Do you believe them?"
"No, but if there are rumours like this in Madame Mao's own academy, just think what people are hearing all over China."
A month after Mao's death, on 6 October 1976, our academy received another enormous shock. The news came casually. Madame Mao was arrested along with the other members of the Gang of Four. I felt like an abandoned child.