Dreams of a Beijing Girl: The Girl Who Made an Impossible Dream Come True

By June Findlay

An enthralling story of a Beijing girl growing up during Chinas Cultural Revolution that affected her career, her education and her life forever. She faced hardship and unbelievable challenges. Tears, fears, combined with happiness, carried her through life.

June Tang Findlays dreams of attending the best college in China were dismantled by Chairman Maos sweeping reforms. The Revolution affected her family life, schooling and social life in unimaginable ways. With the collapse of the university system, she enrolled in the Chinese Army at age 16 and led a small administrative team. Her ambition to succeed and passion for new experiences led her from the Army to undergraduate university in Beijing and ultimately to the United States. In an amazing story of sacrifice and determination, June obtained a Masters Degree in Computer Science and eventually enjoyed a 13 year career with Microsoft Corporation as a senior woman manager. Her story includes many personal challenges, but also the joys of raising her two children in the U.S. and achieving the best of her childhood dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491721803

June Findlay

June Findlay enjoyed a thirteen year career with Microsoft Corporation as a principle development manager. Following Microsoft, she founded a firm focused on China – U.S. business development. She has a B.A. in International Law, an M.S. in Computer Science. Ms. Findlay lives in Greenwich, Connecticut with her husband Harald Findlay. Together, they have five children.

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Copyright © 2014 June Findlay.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-2179-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-2180-3 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 01/30/2014

CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Author’s Note

Preface

My Childhood Before The Cultural Revolution

During The Cultural Revolution—Elementary School

Section I: Life changed when the Cultural Revolution began

Section II: A Visit to the Hometown of My Mother and Father

Section III: Back to School—My Focus Shifted

Section IV: Dad’s Farm Life

Section V: Back from the Farm

Post Cultural Revolution—Middle School

Section I: Middle School Life

Section II: The Class—A Launching Satellite by the City and District Youth League

Section III: Planting Green

Section IV: Life Changes in 1976

Section V: Goodbye to Middle School, Goodbye to Beijing, Goodbye to Family

Green Uniform Life

Section I: Goodbye to My Parents, my Sweet Home, my Darling Brother

Section II: Boot-Camp Life

Section III: Life at Jiu Quan—The Satellite Launching Site Base—Paradise

Section IV: A Turning Point of My Life

Section V: Critical Decision

Post Army And My Unusual College Life

Section I: An Unusual Path in Life

Section II: The University without a Campus Grew Stronger

Section III: Facing Graduation and Job Hunting

Section IV: China Evolves to the Next Level

Section V: China Evolves to the Next Level: Saying Farewell to My Loving Father

Going To The United States

Career Shifting

Section I: Changing Majors at Age 29

Section II: Reset the career

Section III: Journey to Germany

Section IV: My First Software-related Job in the US

Section V: Visiting Beijing after 10 years, Unexpected News

Life In Redmond, Washington—My Career With Microsoft

Section I: Started Work for the Software Giant

Section II: A Young Generation Living in Different Cultures, My Microsoft Life Continued

Section III: Three Generations under One Roof

2002—The Critical Year

Section I: The Tipping Point in Tracy’s Life

Section II: Fate Leads the String

When Your Children Are In Prestigious Schools

Section I: Tracy at Deerfield the First Term

Section II: Stepping Up for My Daughter

Section III: Feeling the Stretch Between Generations

Section IV: Qiang and Me

Section V: Where is the Blue-Eyed Boy?

Afterword

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This book is dedicated to my father who loved me dearly through his life and for whom I will always hold a special place in my heart.

This book recognizes and gives thanks to my mother who gives me strength in my life.

I thank my husband, Harald Findlay, who gives me encouragement, belief and true love.

This book is also dedicated to my wonderful children. Daughter Tracy and son Kevin make me very proud. My children give me reason to enjoy every moment of my life.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

"I have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity in some instances I have changed the names of individuals and places, I may have changed some identifying characteristics and details such as physical properties, occupations and places of residence.’’

PREFACE

I am a Chinese woman who travelled all the way to America from China 25 years ago. Today, as I float along the beautiful Hudson River toward Long Island Sound, my head rests comfortably on the shoulder of the most handsome, loving, kind and amazing blue-eyed man. A nice summer breeze blows on my face as we dream about our exciting life, our love, and our passion. Our hearts brim with happiness, and I ask myself, How did I end up here?

MY CHILDHOOD BEFORE THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Back in 1960 when my mother was pregnant with me, she didn’t feel at all and was as pretty and elegant as ever. Though she had no complications from the pregnancy, I was still born two weeks early. I was borne into the world an hour after my mother’s first contraction, but she still had time to take a bath before walking over to XieHe Hospital to give birth to me on a hospital gurney. When she first arrived, the nurse asked her to wait, but she replied that it was out of her control, and I was born in the hallway without a doctor in attendance. I was a very quiet child, so quiet, in fact, that when my mother took me out in the spring, the neighbors thought I was adopted because they did not even notice she was pregnant before the birth nor did they hear me cry after the birth.

Quietly, I turned five years old in 1965. And that is where my real story begins.

It was early summer, and the sky was perfectly clear. My dad sat leisurely on a large pink brick patio surrounded by a marble fence telling me children’s stories. Life seemed so peaceful and fair. I was embraced in a happy, comfortable world and I had no idea what lay ahead.

My father, who had been Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of XieHe Hospital, was a very gentle and likable man. My mother was a strong-willed woman. When she was in her early 20s, she was the head of her village in Luan County in the Tangshan area. Although my mother grew up in the countryside working in the fields, she still had the most gorgeous skin, resembling flawless jade.

As a child, I lived in a very safe and luxurious community consisting of 12 large, brick houses with meticulous landscaping. There were well-maintained green lawns and neatly-trimmed bushes as well as beautiful seasonal flowers. The courtyard was both cozy and enjoyable. At that time, there were only two other communities in Beijing with such beautiful accommodations. Since there were guards on duty day and night preventing civilians from coming inside our community, children were able to play outside safely anytime they wanted. Unlike most girls in the community, I was the only active little girl who played on hot summer days and caught hoppers and dragonflies. The proper girls, in our parents’ minds, would not play outside as much. They always maintained a very graceful behavior. My active life was viewed as wild, and there were several people who claimed I lacked discipline.

My immediate family consisted of five people: my parents, an older sister, and a younger brother. My mother always told me that I was my father’s precious little girl since the day I was born. Often, she told me that I woke up every night for two hours when I was an infant, and whenever she became impatient with me, my father would take over and entertain me. He always sat with me every time I woke up until I learned to sleep through the entire night. Every girl always wants to be her mother’s favorite girl, but unfortunately for me, that title was given to my elder sister.

As the middle child, I did not often get the attention I wanted. I was luckier than most middle children because my father’s love filled every minute of my life and filled my heart with happiness, but I was always bothered by why I was not Mom’s little princess. I always wondered if it was because of the way I looked as a child because my sister, Rong, was slim, while I was chubby. And while her light skin was not quite as beautiful as my mother’s complexion, it was very close. But perhaps our differences also lay in our personalities. Rong clung to Mom while I was always independent, and my sister’s louder voice attracted our Mom’s attention more. That bond between my mother and my sister grew stronger when we reached our teen years. I would often hear my mother speak very highly of Rong to her friends and neighbors.

With little regard to how it made me feel, I had to hear constantly from our neighbors, Your sister is a wonderful daughter. Following that, they would repeat the stories that Mom told them about how great Rong was. I loved Rong as a sister, but it was very difficult to undergo continuous comparison and judgment. While Mom continued to praise her oldest daughter, Rong grew more ambitious and continued to outshine me. Rong tried very hard to be the best, and her effort was always rewarded while I never tried and acted as I always did. Mom taught us that if you did not work hard, you would not have what you wanted.

My mother also possessed a strange wisdom in predictions. She told me once that each person’s date of birth and date of death are decided by God before we even come into this world. Even our wedding date is planned for us. It is fate. It was decided before you were born, she would always say.

While my mother was the seer, I was the thinker in the family. My father would often catch me deep and thought. Once, he asked me Xiao Jing, I saw you sitting in a tree near house #16 at noon. What were you doing there?

Oops. I replied, for I thought he had not seen me because at that time, everyone had daily lunch breaks in China from noon to 2 PM. I was playing, I said, embarrassed because I did not want my father to think I was a wild girl, and I always tried my best to make him feel that I was not so different from the rest of the girls in the community. After that, he stopped interrogating me about sitting in trees and would instead change the topic to something benign.

Did you remember to put some new grass for the grasshoppers in the shoes boxes?

Yes, I would answer pleasantly.

That’s good, he would respond.

Our nanny, Aunt Zhang, would sometimes rescue me from these talks by telling me that I needed to take a bath. Back then, there was no hot water system, and she would have to heat water and pour it into a large basin. Our house in China resembled an American-style brick house that was painted gray. The entry was spacious. The family room was on the left, and the dining room was on the right. Slightly to the right was a little hallway leading to the kitchen. Just before entering the kitchen, there was an open area that had cabinets and a counter against the wall. Upstairs, there were two bedrooms: one on the left, two bedrooms on the right, and one in the center. There was also a bathroom on each side. In the basement, there were five rooms with a furnace providing the entire house with heat.

When I was younger, I would often lay curled in bed like a little worm. My neighborhood friend Ping Ping would sometimes call for me in the mornings. She liked to play little family which was a pretty common game for girls inside the community. When she would call for me, I always rushed out of bed, washed my face and brushed my teeth, stormed downstairs and took my friend’s hand, and the two of us would disappear into the morning sunshine. We used to go to our secret spot, where there was another girl, Na, who was there already. We would build a bush house for our three-person family. It was a small mushroom-style house built by a weeping willow. We moved the small soft branches around to give us a little space to put down a cat-patterned blanket. With her small, slim body, Na would crawl inside the house and grab my skirt to pull me in, saying, Come in quick, it’s so much fun in here. I would have to curl my body and sit under the leaves, and then soon Ping Ping could sit next to me. We would continue to push the branches around in all directions until we could lie down. We were so pleased the leaves kept us from the powerful sunshine. Most of our excitement came from hiding away in a very quiet corner where we could taste unsupervised joy. But quickly, we would become bored of staying under the bush, and we would crawl out of the little house to cook our meal using our toy cookware.

One time, I fell forward onto a dead tree trunk and hurt my left knee quite badly. Ouch! I screamed, blood dripping down my foot. I quickly pulled my pretty skirt up a little and said, We need to go. The house was about 150 yards away.

Ping Ping said, I can fix it, just wait. She went away and came back with a mint leaf, and said, This mint will stop you from bleeding. Then she put the leaf on my wounded knee and put pressure on it to make sure it stayed on. It did stop the bleeding. Ping Ping and Na felt they had accomplished a big emergency room mission just like their fathers. The satisfaction on their faces added brightness to the already sunny place. As a permanent memento of this sweet moment, the big leaf left an imprint on my knee that still remains to this day.

It never took long before our secret hideaway was penetrated by the outside world: Xiao Jing, time for lunch! Aunty Zhang would shout every day, her voice piercing the oppressive summer air and breaking up our little house.

In the afternoons, I played catch across two walls that were separated by a couple of feet. The base part of the two walls had a concrete path to a basement of our house, and the wall was five feet high. I liked jumping across from one wall to the other, and after I jumped across the two walls several times, I always felt very confident in my abilities, until one day, my head hit the concrete ground from the top wall. I immediately lost consciousness that day and did not wake up until some time later.

Hi, baby, wake up! I heard Mom calling me from far away.

I woke up in my mother’s arms. Mom said, Look, she lost a big chunk of hair. She was gone for almost two minutes! My mother feared I was dead, but it was obviously not my time to die. I survived!

Inside our little community, there were three grass-covered areas. They were called front yard, small yard, and back yard. Each had a concrete walking path which circled around it, and five-foot-tall pine bushes along each path for the front yard. Those bushes were where the dragonflies spent the night. I usually caught six to ten dragonflies easily in one sitting after dinner and then let them go inside the house. I believed they would catch mosquitoes in the house for the night. In the mornings, I would re-capture them and release them to the outside world again. Sometimes I cut their wings in half so they could fly low, and I could easily catch them back. There were other times I would do worse experiments on those dragonflies that I do not think I can even share here. I keep those a secret!

When the night shadowed the community completely, Ping Ping and Na always wanted to sneak back out to our little family house to catch some fireflies to keep our bush house lit. We carried our little box and disappeared into the dark. We crawled into our little space and looked around to catch some fireflies and then put them in the little metal box to light the little areas. We played until our parents looked for us, then we tiredly walked back home and then quickly dreamed of the next day’s fun!

We were not like the kids in America at that time who had a large variety of toys. We needed to be very creative to have great fun playing with the limited resources we had. Our fun included:

1. Digging little holes in the dirt and shooting little colorful marbles into the holes. To win the game, we needed to push the competitor’s marble far from the targeted hole and get the most marbles into the holes.

2. We had very fancy transparent candy wrappers, which we would moisten and flatten, and then save in a notebook to keep as part of a treasure collection. We would exchange our collection for fun. We would also place the beautiful candy wrappers under a piece of glass and bury them inside the holes on the dirt ground. The moisture changed the look of the pretty wrapper underneath the glass, making them so much interesting to view.

3. One of the most favorite games I enjoyed was playing hide and seek with the boys inside the community. Our only restriction was you could not go inside others people’s houses to hide. Since the community had so many exciting places to hide, it was challenging to find anyone before dark.

And there were many, many more enjoyable things to do and games to play. It was surprising how creative young people could be.

Summers summer were always full of adventure and passed so quickly. Each year, we entered the most beautiful season, fall, in Beijing with ease. With more layers of clothing, the fall came and swapped the hot summer air that filled the city with cooler, fresher air. I remember my fifth birthday was celebrated on October 3rd with great joy as it was combined with a national holiday and Moon Cake Festival. I still remember my parents’ gentle smiles when I thanked them for the birthday gift—a very pretty hair ribbon. My mom dedicated herself to the kitchen with Aunt Zhang to prepare the huge birthday dinner. I still remember my sister’s little jealous smile and my little brother’s cute face. At that moment, even in my wildest dreams, I would not have thought what would happen in my life after that wonderful birthday.

October 1st is National Day in China, a big annual celebration with 30 minutes of fireworks at Tian An Men Square, which was very close to our community. All the adults would go outside and gather at the back courtyard grassy area, where we had the best view of the Tian An Men Square fireworks. Adults went on socializing and enjoying this beautiful holiday night. Kids ran around in the dark. Fun, laughter, and joy surrounded me. I did not have any sense back then of what it meant to worry, and I loved every single minute of my life.

I always treasured the winters in Beijing. I loved the ground covered by the white blanket of snow. I loved the sun shining on the snow, reflecting and generating colorful rays. Every beautiful snowfall was celebrated as children skied on the 20-foot long slope by the main gate. I also enjoyed curling up in the cozy bed under warm blankets while the strong nasty wind tried to show its power by howling outside the house. As kids, we found our own ways to enjoy the winter, even though we spent most of the time trapped inside our houses. Even now when I think about that time, I am still amazed by how we found ways to take pleasure in our lives without TVs, electronic games, card games, or house phones. The only entertainment we had was the radio and a little record player.

Adults also had their own way to enjoy life. Dad spent a lot of time listening to classical music. When I close my eyes today, I can still see my father, sitting in the chair, his eyes closed, enjoying the music. The record player was operated manually. Each record was as large as a huge plate. Later in life, whenever I saw this type of music player and big discs in a movie, I always connected that scene to my Dad. He kept those discs in storage. This image of my Dad carefully wiping discs with a silk cloth each time he was finished listening was imprinted in my mind forever. I knew how much those discs meant to him. He found joy and comfort in those pieces, and he buried his spirit into the music. Until then, I had been swimming in a pool full of love and peace. And then, suddenly, my world drastically changed as my country entered what was called the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

Meanwhile: Far away in the United States, a charming blue-eyed boy was beginning his life quite differently than the young Chinese girl with pretty brown eyes. As my mother always told me, Life has a fate.

DURING THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION—ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Section I: Life changed when the Cultural Revolution began

During the summer of 1966, the sun was as warm and comforting as every other year. The grass and earth generated the same natural scent, and flowers bloomed as beautifully as any other year. But everybody’s life started to face new challenges. On May 16th, Chairman Mao Zedong announced the starting point of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to stabilize his power, shaking up the entire country. The power struggle at the central government level within the Communist Party of China turned into a country-wide social, economic and violent mess. It spread to every city and province of China and eventually affected the larger society once Chairman Mao lost control of his original goals.

Before this, in 1958, Mao sponsored what was known as the Great Leap Forward, a bold economic campaign controlled by the Chinese communists in an attempt to organize its large population, especially those in rural communes. It was his intention to demonstrate to the world (especially the Soviet Union) that the Chinese approach to economic development was more exciting and successful. As it turned out, this movement was disastrous. It caused the poverty of China and destroyed its still fragile economy.

Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping had gone against the movement because they recognized the disaster that would result. At the same time, Mao was losing his power to Liu and Deng. The original goal of the Cultural Revolution was to get rid of this threat to Mao. Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, allied with the other three men to form the infamous Gang of Four. Jiang Qing had herself gained significant power by becoming heavily-involved in politics, and eventually she gained a strong hold on media and propaganda.

As chaos spread, Chinese youth formed the Red Guards who were supported by Chairman Mao. The Red Guard members ranged in age from preteen to young adult. During those crazy times, people who had knowledge and skills were targeted for punishment because those skills made your life better than the lives of blue collar workers. Mao made blue collar people control the country because his belief was that people who did not have privilege in life were purified. You would see the most popular slogan everywhere 32951.png Gong (Ren Jie Ji Ling Dao Yi Qie), meaning, Workers manage and lead ALL! That principle was applied to hospitals, schools, institutes, colleges, and universities in every corner of the country. The top doctors were forced to stop seeing patients and submit to re-evaluation by the Red Guard. Some of the doctors were put in jail, and some were locked up in rooms undergoing constant mental abuse. They were asked to confess to crimes they did not commit, and if they refused, they would face constant torture. If they could not tolerate the abuse, they were forced to admit to these so-called crimes which only led to deeper abuse or jail. Some of the hospital staff was assigned to farms away from the city. Mao’s belief was that the poor people had the highest integrity. Therefore, they had the right to educate those knowledgeable doctors to be better people. The doctors in my community were in a panicked state, filled with fear of what might happen to them.

At age six, I noticed the dramatic changes on my Dad’s once peaceful face. I wondered why my parents always had that worried look. This spring was not as pleasant as other springs. At such a young age, I sensed life was shifting to an unknown direction. It was clear that a huge thunderstorm or fatal earthquake was on the horizon. Dad still went to work every day, but some days he was not allowed to come home. Mom leaked to us that it was because he would not give the hospital money to the Red Guards. I did not quite understand what was really happening, but I did know that it was something big and that this big thing was not making my parents happy. Soon after that, my father wouldn’t be allowed home for days. Mom started to go out days and nights to voluntarily assist the Red Guard. Mom said her behavior would improve Dad’s standing with the Red Guard. Aunty Zhang was forced to leave. Facing the nights without any adults in the house became difficult for the kids, given the conditions we were in. We were scared and often curled inside one room to wait for Mom to come home. Children started to gather together at night to keep each other company. Soon the Red Guards started to disrupt the peace inside our community. When they arrived, they destroyed our tranquil environment. It was not uncommon when I came home to find some houses filled with the Red Guards and workers off the streets. When that happened, the uncle and auntie who actually lived in that house would be standing or sitting outside with their heads lowered to their chest. I hated to see that. It made me scared.

One Friday night my father surprised us and came home. I heard the door open and ran downstairs to see him. He whispered to me, A yellow cat is following me, so we kept the door open. The yellow cat was outside trying to make a decision. After a while, she made the decision and walked in carefully. She was really pretty.

Whose cat is this? Can we keep her? I asked.

All the cats are getting killed. She ran away from home to survive, Dad answered.

Innocent cats, I sighed.

I soon found our home becoming the haven for displaced cats. They arrived by the door or just ran straight in. At one time, we had five cats. They came and went all the time. The most challenging thing was the female cats giving birth to babies and then hiding them. At one time, we had a very beautiful cat with three different colors of fur. She had a very strong personality and was very nice to our family members but very mean to other people. She gave birth to four lovely kittens. My sister, brother, and I played with the kittens too much, and the Mom cat did not like it. Sadly, one day she took her babies away, one by one. I tried to stop her by yelling loudly, We promise we will not touch your babies anymore, but she could not be stopped from moving her babies up to my neighbors’ roof. They had no cover, no warm bed. I prayed for her babies to survive. She still continued to come back to our home. I made sure she had enough food whenever she was home to be able to feed her babies. Of course, I never knew if those baby cats had a chance to grow up or not. I blamed myself at the time for upsetting the pretty three-colored mother cat and possibly driving those kittens away. There were times I dreamed I could climb up to the roof to bring the babies back, but Dad said the Mom cat would only take them away again. That powerless feeling hurt me for a long time.

Once, while focusing on the Mom cat, I also noticed a little cute yellow cat acting strangely. It was walking slowly and had stopped meowing. For some reason, she turned mute and barely had energy to play. I wondered what happened to her. There were no vets in China because all the pet clinics were shut down. I decided to act as her doctor. I grabbed her (Chinese people did not name their pets then) closer and carefully checked on her and found her rear end was seriously infected. It is my belief that somebody caught her and put a stick into her rear end to hurt her, and she got away. She was the nicest cat. My heart was bleeding, and I hated to think of a reason that anybody would do this to her. Dad gave me antibiotic cream to put on her since no prescription was needed for antibiotics. I got a couple of pills and made it into a paste to feed her. Not long after, she recovered from the infection, but she never meowed again. I would always remember her little suffering face. Months later, I did not see my yellow cat for days. I started to search everywhere inside the community and found her dead under a neighbor’s outside concrete stairs close to the basement entry. She died miserably. Somebody put a lot of dirt into her mouth and choked her to death. I sadly carried her to a grassy area and buried her in the corner. I put a couple of leaves over the top of her to wish her soul would end up at a happy place. There were no dogs in Beijing. Mom told me dogs were killed in the countryside. My relatives told stories that their dogs sat in front of the owners, the owners cried, and the dogs cried before they were taken away to be killed. People’s minds were all twisted.

Late July arrived without much cheer in the air. One morning, I went out to the front gate to pick up the newspaper. By then, the mail only arrived to and from the gate, and then was distributed by gate guards to a different pile by your house number. I saw the beautiful lady who had been guarding our gate for years caught by the Red Guards. Those Red Guard kids acted rough and rude. They pulled her head down by roughly pulling her hair. It had been messed up, and her clothes were so wrinkled and disorganized. I had never seen her in a situation like this. She used to always dress nicely, mostly in black Chinese traditional dress that fit her nice body well. I always viewed her as a lady with pride and a little bit of arrogance. I never liked her that much, but I did not want to see her being abused. One of the young Red Guards, a big kid, was asking her to admit that she had been a member of the Quomin Party (China’s other major political party) and had participated in undercover assignments. He also accused her of being the third wife of a high-ranking Quomin Party member. A third wife was viewed as very charming and sneaky—it was a bad image. She had been single for as long I had known her. In fact, nobody really knew her background. While I felt sympathy, her messy appearance scared me. I took the newspaper and ran back home. I was so confused by those powerful Red Guards by the gate; they looked so mean and nasty. I was very upset by what I saw and ran into Mom who was leaving the house. It seemed like her mind was thousands of miles away as she did not even see me running into the house.

I asked her, Has the lady that guarded the gate done anything like spying or connecting some way with bad guys?

Finally, Mom started to hear me. We don’t know. Don’t ask. Mom left me puzzled, and she didn’t bother to explain much. I was very disappointed she didn’t even have an answer. I thought parents always had answer for kids’ questions.

In the afternoon, I went to find Ning Ning to play. I needed to find a friend to help eliminate some of the unhappiness that surrounded me. As I got closer to Ning Ning’s house, I saw three blue workers outside of her house yet she was nowhere to be seen. I saw Ning Ning’s mother standing outside with her head down just like the others. I went to ask her mother where Ning Ning was. She looked at me without saying a word, but I could see her eyes were red like she had been crying. I ran inside the house and saw Ning Ning curled in a ball inside her bedroom. She told me what was happening to her Dad. The blue collar workers at her house aggressively took her father away without telling where he was going. She was so scared and went to hide in her room. We both carefully walked outside and told her mother we would head to my home for the afternoon. Her mom had showed a warm expression to us but still no words. I could see she was relieved that her daughter would leave the house for a while. Later I heard from other friend’s parents that Ning Ning’s father was put in jail and not released for 10 years.

There was so much chaos during the Revolution. One day in July, my friend Hua Hua rushed into my home with fear and tears on her face. Mom was at home and wondered what was going on. Hua Hua cried and said people were chasing her and trying to cut her hair. During the early years of The Cultural Revolution, all girls had to cut their hair shorter than shoulder length. To make yourself beautiful was Feng Zi Xiu, and that was fully against the ideology of the Cultural Revolution.

Hua Hua said to my mother, Can you cut my hair to make it as nice as you can? I heard if you are caught by them, they will cut your hair in a very ugly way.

My