Once, this Workers' Palace had been all hate films and sessions of political indoctrination. Now the film theater was showing a documentary about the Dunhuang Caves, and the reading room was full of people perusing newspapers and magazines (among them, movie magazines and body-building monthlies); and in the drill hall there was an aerobics class. A dancing class had just ended.
I asked one of the women doing aerobics why she had decided to sign up.
"I do this for health and beauty," she said. "Also I have headaches."
It was in the library of this building that I found a copy of Dong Luoshan's translation of Orwell's 1984. It had been published in Canton in 1985. He had told me it was regarded as neican—circulated only to safe and unexcitable intellectuals. But obviously that was wrong. Anyone in Xiamen could come here and borrow it from the library — I specifically asked the librarian.
"Is it any good?" she asked.
"Excellent. You'll love it."
"I'll take it home with me tonight!"
Another room was lined with electronic games. I wondered whether anyone used them. Mr. Wei said they did, but that no one had spare cash to squander on them. I saw about eight children lurking near the machines and asked them whether they knew how these things worked. They said they did. Would they teach me? I asked. Oh, yes. So I pushed a few coins into these space-invader machines, and the children sprang into action, their fingers flying. They were as expert as any person in America, misspending his youth at the controls of an electronic game.
A young woman had just finished her dancing class and was on her way home when I accosted her. She was Wan Li, a cadre at the economics ministry. She had gone to the Dalian Foreign Language Institute (she hadn't met Cherry Blossom there, unfortunately) but she had been raised in the central Fujian town of Sanming. That town had the reputation in China of being somewhat Utopian. It had been developed by people from all over China, before the Cultural Revolution. Miss Wan claimed that everything that had been said about Sanming was true — no problems, no pollution, perfect integration, a model city.
"Any Tibetans in Sanming?"
"No," Miss Wan said. "They have to stay in Tibet and solve their own problems. But people in Sanming are very civilized. They are from all places. Like the United States!"
She was about twenty-five and seemed very frank beneath her nervous giggle. She came to the Workers' Palace every day, she said, because she liked meeting people here — she enjoyed talking to strangers.
Mr. Wei merely looked on, but I could see he was quite taken by this young woman's boldness.
I said, "Are you a member of the Chinese Communist Party?"
"You are the second American in Xiamen to ask me that!" she said. "There are three hundred people in my unit at the ministry. Only twenty are members of the Party."
"Why so few?"
"Because it is hard to be a member. You don't volunteer. You have to be asked to join the Party. You must first act very well and leave a good impression. Do your work diligently — work overtime, study, be obedient."
"Like Lei Feng, the model soldier," I said. Lei Feng had scrubbed floors all night because of his love for Mao. In China he was a joke or else a paragon, according to who you were talking to. Most Chinese I had spoken to had found Lei Feng a bit of a pain, if not an outright fake.
Miss Wan gave me a Chinese reply. "Not like Lei Feng. You have to be noticed."
Lei Feng had only been noticed after his death, when his diaries were found, containing such exclamations as "I have scrubbed another floor and washed more dishes! My love for Mao is shining in my heart!"
Miss Wan said, "You have to be selected for the Party. The Party needs the best people — not just anyone who wants to join. If the Party works well, the country will work. The Party needs high-quality people."
"I'm sure you're a high-quality person."
"I don't know."
"Do you have healthy Marxist-Leninist thoughts?"
"I am trying," she said, and laughed. "I also like dancing!"
After she left, Mr. Wei said, "She gave me her card. Did you see?"
"Are you glad?"
"Oh, yes. I hope I see her again. It is so hard to meet girls in China."
He said he probably would not get married for another five years. Twenty-six was a good age for marriage.
With the greatest tact I could muster I asked him whether he had ever slept with a woman. I put it obliquely. He proudly said no.
"It seems to be a problem in China. No sex for young people." It had been one of the issues in the student demonstrations.
"It's a problem. Even if you meet a girl there is no place to take her. But I don't mind."
"You mean you don't believe in sex before marriage?"
He looked slightly disgusted. "It is unlawful and against our traditions."
With that, 2000 years of sensuality went straight out the window. Mr. Wei seemed blind to the fact that Chinese culture was rooted in sexual allusions. The mythical Yellow Emperor had made himself immortal by sleeping with a thousand women; and even a common object like a piece of jade had sexual associations — it was said to be the petrified semen of the celestial dragon. The dragon was phallic, the lotus was a sort of icon for the vulva, and so forth.
"Would you be arrested if you were caught with a woman?"
"You might be. You would be criticized. You could be reported."
"But surely you could be very careful if you had a lover."
"Someone would know," Mr. Wei said. "And even if you didn't get caught, people would look down on you."
That seemed to settle it, but Mr. Wei equivocated when I asked him about Miss Wan.
"I will keep her card," he said, breathing hard.
That was the last I saw of Mr. Wei. But I had no trouble fending for myself in Xiamen. For one thing, Spring Festival was about to begin, and this the happiest of Chinese holidays put everyone in a good mood, as they bought greeting cards and calligraphy and red paper banners with New Year's greetings inked on them.
Just before I left Xiamen I met an American, Jim Koch, a Kodak employee who had been hired to supervise the installation of a coating machine. This sounded a fairly modest contraption, but it had cost the Chinese $70 million, and the entire project was costing $300 million. The object was for the Chinese to make their own film for cameras and not be dependent upon the Japanese for photographic supplies.
Jim Koch had recently been married to Jill and had been looking forward to this post. But after three months in Xiamen he admitted to being rather doubtful. He was not pessimistic, but he was certainly cautious. What had surprised him most was Chinese ineptness.
"They're used to working with their hands," he said. "That's the problem. They can rig up something with a piece of wire and a stick. But they have never relied on sophisticated machinery or high tech. I have to show them every detail about a hundred times."
"But the young Chinese must be teachable."
"They're the worst. The laziest, the slowest, the most arrogant. The older workers are the best — the over fifties. The ones from thirty to forty seem to have a chip on their shoulder, as if they were cut out for better things."
"They were in the Cultural Revolution, so perhaps they're feeling cheated."
"Maybe. But I thought this was going to be pretty straightforward. Maybe eight months. The Chinese said twelve. But it will take longer."