Party Voucher

5

On the evening of the International Workers’ Day in 1976, after returning to the station from his daily patrols, Ming received an official form called “Rooting permanently in the countryside and becoming a lifelong revolutionary.” Unwilling to fill it in and sign his name, Ming felt the great pressure as the only Party member at the youth station to “set a good example” to all other zhiqing in Mayuhe. While many began to cry secretly over the matter, Ming wished to ask his father for advice. But it was out of question, since no telephone was accessible yet at either end. He remembered that when his application for the Party membership had been approved, he was still in hospital and thus didn’t have to attend the Party-joining ritual, where every new member must raise their right fist in front of the Party flag and say their admission oath solemnly. But now there was no excuse of any kind from committing himself to a cause in a formal fashion. No matter what, he must make a quick and positive decision; otherwise, his politically incorrect reaction would definitely jeopardize his candidacy for the best possible university space available to him. Believing that the whole sociopolitical reality could change one way or another, sooner or later, he might as well fill in the form for now. As Chairman Mao himself has pointed it out emphatically, everything in the universe is changing after all, he thought aloud. Once the Party branch recommends him for university studies, he would have every reason to uproot himself from Mayuhe to answer the Party’s call once again.

Ming’s hunch was right. In early September, Mao’s death put a sudden end to “the Great Cultural Revolution” as well as many national policies. More important, Ming finally got what he had really wanted: the official admission to Shanghai Jiao Da, one of China’s most prestigious universities. Though he could not enroll himself in a program in Journalism, Chinese Literature or Political Education as he had hoped, he felt very happy to become one of the last “Worker-Peasant-Soldier students” majoring in English as a second language, which would allow him to see the world beyond the Chinese down the road, even if not with his naked eyes. As for mathematics, physics and chemistry that he had exceled at in high school, they were not meant for him. “To hell with Mayuhe! To hell with Songzi! To hell with zhiqing life!” he shouted aloud the moment he left the farm, which he swore in his mind he would never face even when peeing in the wildness.

When he departed for Jiao Tong University right after the Spring Festival of 1977, he certainly had no idea that about half a century later, he would be dreaming about returning to Mayuhe, both as the starting point of his adult life and as the romantic mecca for him and Hua, his first love to be long lost but eventually re-found between Vancouver and Melbourne.