Riding the Iron Rooster

I said that I had been amazed by changes in China—not just superficial changes, such as clothes and traffic, but more substantial ones—the way people talked about politics and money and their future, and the way they traveled. They had only been allowed to travel for the past five years, and now they went everywhere—in fact, a lot of them wanted to travel outside China and never come back.

"We have visa problems with some of those people," Mr. Brooks said. "They go to the States to study and they get jobs and stay on. Thousands will never come back to China."

"You must have guessed that China would change," I said, "but did you imagine that it would look like this?"

"Never," he said. "I had no idea. We could see that a new phase was opening up, but we weren't expecting this."

"Weren't there political scientists writing scenarios or projections?"

"Not that I know of. If they were, they certainly didn't foresee this. It took everyone by surprise."

And Mr. Brooks's view—also very sensible—was that since this hadn't been foreseen it was impossible to know what would follow it.

"We are witnessing China in the middle of turbulent passage," he said. "No one can put his hand on his heart and say what is going to happen next. We just have to watch closely and wish them well."

But over dinner—and now there were twelve of us at the consulate dining table—the subject of Chinese students staying on in America came up.

"Excuse me," said a thin elderly man, clearing his throat. This was Professor Phan, formerly a member of the History Department at Fudan University in Shanghai.

There was an immediate silence, because these were the first words the professor had spoken; and the suddenness of his soft voice made everyone self-conscious.

"My children saw the Red Guards humiliate me," he said, in a gentle and reasonable way. "Can you blame them for choosing to stay in Minnesota?"

And then Professor Phan was the only one eating, while the rest of us gaped. He had speared a small cluster of Chinese broccoli—he was unaware that he had become the center of attention. He seemed to be talking to the woman on his left.

"I was in prison for six years, from 1966 to 1972," he said, and smiled. "But I tell my friends, 'I was not really in prison for six years. I was in for three years—because every night when it was dark and I slept, I dreamed of my boyhood, my friends, the summer weather, and my household, the flowers and birds, the books I had read, and all the pleasures I had known. So it was only when I woke up that I was back in prison.' That was how I survived."

There was another silence while he ate what was on his fork; and then he saw that everyone was listening.

He said that he believed that Nixon's visit to China had something to do with his release, because some of the people accompanying Nixon in 1972 showed an interest in political prisoners and had asked to visit prisons.

"Usually we got one thin slice of meat a week. If the wind was strong it blew away. But just before President Nixon's visit we started to get three pieces. The prison guards were afraid that he might visit and ask how we were being treated."

Professor Phan had studied at Queen's College, Cambridge, and had lived in England from 1930 to 1939. There was a shyness in the way he spoke that made his intelligence seem even more powerful, and he had a slight giggle that he uttered just before he said something devastating. He seemed about seventy-five, and I had the feeling that though prison had aged him it had also in a way strengthened him. I should say this was a frequent impression I had in China, of former political prisoners. Their hardships and isolation, and even the abuse they suffered never seemed to have weakend them. On the contrary, they were tougher as a result, and contemptuous of their captors, and not only strong in their convictions but also outspoken.

In that respect, Professor Phan was typical, but not less impressive for that. He giggled softly and said, "Americans have no cause to fear the Chinese—none whatsoever. The Chinese are interested in only two things in the world—power and money. America has more power and money than anyone else. That is why the Chinese will always need the friendship of America."

It was clear that he was speaking with the ultimate cynicism, a bleak despair. He giggled again and called Mao "the Old Man," and he repeated something that Mr. Brooks had said to me, about Mao being like a feudal emperor.

"In prison we had to read the Old Man's speeches," Professor Phan said, and smiled sweetly. "Four volumes. Sometimes they made us recite the speeches, and if you got a word wrong the guards would become very angry and you'd have to start all over again. Apart from that we did nothing. We sat on the stone floor all day, like animals. I longed to go to bed and sleep and dream of the past."

Someone said, "What was your crime, Professor?"

"My crime? Oh, my crime was listening to the radio—American and English-language broadcasts."