Narcopolis

Among those summoned to the talks was Lee’s father, who experienced a contraction in his stomach when he heard Mao’s words. He kept his feelings to himself. His friend, the prolific novelist, essayist and translator Ling Ling, didn’t accept the Chairman’s view of literature and its purpose, and was heard to say as much. She said a work of art had its own rules and was subject to no limits other than those imposed by its creator’s imagination or lack thereof. The characters in a work of fiction could not be depicted in mere black and white as in some overtly political work. Heroes, she said, were not always pure in motive and character, sometimes they told lies or were deceived; and villains were not wholly villainous, more often they were conflicted and unhappy and caught up in the tortuous relationship between socialist ideals and the age-old engine of self-interest. For her views, Ling Ling was denounced as a rightist and sent directly to a labour camp, where she was expected to qualify to work as a peasant. It took a little less than a week before her work was judged unsatisfactory and she was sent to prison. Ling Ling had trained as a medical doctor and she was able to withstand some of the hardships of prison, but three months after her internment she made a spectacular address to the National People’s Congress. Everything I have ever written should be destroyed, everything, everything, destroyed and burned to ashes and the ashes flung into the wind, she said. I have not sufficiently studied the works of Chairman Mao Tse-tung and therefore my own work is worthless. However, I am only sixty-seven years old and I can still be of use. If I am asked to fight the enemy using only my bare hands I shall do so. I will fight until my hands are stumps. Though Lee’s father was spared prison, he and two others seen as close to Ling Ling were given re-education classes in the fields that surrounded the encampment. He was allowed to smoke and sing but he was not to speak to his fellow workers or look at books or use a pen.

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