- When I was six,
the cultural revolution, spread to the island where I live.
It was in East China Sea.
It crushed my dream to read every good book on earth.
Everything was shut down,
stores, factories, schools, libraries.
My father was
was exiled,
my mother arrested for teaching Western music.
As the eldest child, I had to feed my family.
My grandma, two sisters, and a brother.
I raised chickens, grew vegetables in the backyard,
and walked six miles every morning
through minefields and bullets
to look for food for the family.
Two years went by,
my dream
seemed
to be more
and more dangerous and impossible.
One early morning, I took out my stove to light a fire.
This little stove, cooked
three meals every day
for my family,
I open the door and saw Jaja.
She was reading Mao's Book, under the street light,
her face smeared with tears.
Who would still... who would weep
over Mao’s words these days?
let alone Jaja,
the uppity girl from Beijing
who had been exiled to the island, with her father,
waiting for the verdict from central government.
Either to go back to Beijing as a general
or go to Mongolia, to die.
I tiptoed over
and peeked.
I gasped, the book, she was reading,
had nothing to do with Mao.
It was Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid.
The story
I had heard
on the radio a year ago,
that sparked my dream for good books and go
to ..and college.
I had begged mama,
to let me go to school a year earlier
so I could read on my own.
Mama agreed and even promised
she would buy me a whole set of Andersen's stories
if I got good grades, but the cultural revolution began.
Her students became Chairman Mao's little red guards.
They shaved her head along with other teachers,
paraded them on the street.
They came to our homes,
took all our books and burned them on the street.
I had read every book pile
before burning,
hoping to find my mermaid, but no luck.
Now I found her.
In Jaja's hands,
wrapped
under Mao's
Red Book cover.
Jaja was so engrossed with her story,
she didn't know I was reading over her shoulder
until she heard me sobbing.
She jumped, Little Mermaid, crushed to her chest,
her eyes told me she would fight me to death
if I dare to report her,
we glared at each other,
suddenly we laughed,
pointing at each other's tear...
tear streaked face.
We know our secret
is safe.
I begged Jaja to loan me the book just for a few hours,
I would read it in the cornfields.
Grandma would pound me for not bringing food home
this today, but I didn't care.
Jaja shook her head, walked back home.
I said,
wait, wait I have something to trade with you.
She just nodded and kept walking.
I don't blame her.
Why would she believe that I would have anything worthwhile
for her?
I have,
Yi Qian Ling
Yi Ye, I whispered,
she paused.
I took my time walking to the chicken coop
to retrieve my book.
I knew she would be waiting
because Yi Qian Ling Yi Ye, aka the Arabian Nights,
was the most banned and most difficult book to get.
I had found it outside Uncle Shi’s apartment.
When he died of TB,
his family threw out everything,
including his book collection on the street,
hoping the red guards would burn it for, for them,
but nobody would touch his stuff.
The book had been grained upon yellowed by the sun,
but
I didn't care.
The stories had brightened my gloomy days.
Oh, Arabian
Nights
I sang waving the book to Jaja's face.
She snatched the book from my hands and thrusted
Little Mermaid into mine.
“How and where did you get this?” She screamed.
I smiled.
We
underground.
Book traders have this rule. No question asked.
(Audience laughing)
We agreed to return next day to return the books or renew.
But two weeks went by. I couldn't finish the book.
I had to feed my family from morning till night.
And besides I had no place to read.
I share the bed with my siblings.
My grandma also slept in the same room.
I tried
to read
in trees,
in the public bathroom
and in the cornfields,
but I almost got caught a few times. So Jaja
founded it at meeting her bedroom.
We lay around on her bed, reading, chatting.
I finally confessed that Little Mermaid had inspired
me to read, to find every book and read and go to college.
And Jaja's confess that she had been practicing,
dancing, like Little Mermaid.
We fantasize that
someday, we would love
to form our own
underground Little Mermaid book club.
So we would have endless books to read,
but we would need more than just two books
in our hands right now
One of my
chores was to raise chickens.
My favorite, I have 10 hens and one rooster.
My favorite was Silky,
Silky had white feather and black face.
Even her bones, her meat and blood
were black, grandma told me the best
tonic for human.
So whenever Silky went into hatching mode,
my mom
would order
order me to kill her.
for the meat, I had managed to save Silky a dozen times.
But this time I knew she was determined to hatch her eggs.
So I started digging a nest for her behind the chicken coop
to keep her away from weasels and mama.
A few strikes
my pickax hit
a wooden box,
I brushed away the mud and pried open the lid
music sheets
of Chopin, Beethoven
underneath
books,
Shakespeare, Huckleberry Finn
Dadson.
War And Peace
and to my disbelief,
the complete fairytales by Hans and Christian Anderson.
On the first page, Mama's hand-writing: To my
stubborn Ping.
(Audience laughing)
So mama had actually fulfilled her promise,
but she couldn't give me the book
before the culture revolution began.
I ran to Jaja and dragged her over to the treasure box.
We screamed,
ran around like headless chicken and chanting
“Our Little Mermaid Club.”
“Our Little Mermaid book club!” and Jaja found a bunch of
her friends who also exiled out to the island with her,
their families. They each had a cache of banned books.
We gathered in the woods, cut our wrist,
mix our blood together to swear in as a little mermaids.
Now we have hundreds of books to read stories, poetry,
history, philosophy, math, physics,
even military training menus.
We were careful. If we got caught, we will go to jail.
Including our families. A year went by, Jaja got ambitious.
She wanted to expand the club. So we have
more books to read.
I told her to wait, something bad
was about to happen. That night,
I dreamed a monster picked me up by my braids and straw
me into a fire pit.
I woke up in pain.
Mama was dragging me out of the bed and into the kitchen
Hens Anderson's book in her hand.
- When, how did you get this? She
screamed and hissed.
I looked at her. She knew damn well where I got this book.
I wanted to know how she, how she found this book.
I had hidden it under grandma's mattress.
The last place she would look
because the two of them were constantly fighting.
Mama slapped my face with the book, busting my mouth
open from inside. I tasted blood,
“Go get the whip.”
She said her whip was made of bamboo skin and it hurt
more than leather belt.
And we had to bring it to her as part of the punishment.
“You want to kill us all you stupid girl,
“I'm going to kill you first,” and she whipped.
I covered my face with my hands. The pain was unbearable,
not from the whipping,
but from knowing that I will never see my mermaid again,
“Bring, go bring the stove,” she ordered and opened the window.
Then she watched me tear the book page by page and feed it
to the fire.
I could hear a little mermaid scream.
As she turned into ash, “Where is the rest?” she asked.
I knew she had to find everything from the box and destroy
them before they destroyed us.
But I had sworn to protect my book with my life.
My mama throw down her whip and started searching,
pulling up floorboards mattresses and drawers.
She knew where to look. She was my mama.
Soon, a huge pile
gathered by the window.
She sat down and watched me burn every book.
When all was gone, she went back to bed.
I walked to the chicken coop
Soki came over
with her babies nudging my hand for food.
I looked up no star, no moon, no hope.
The book club had been my only joy. And now it's gone.
I was choking with tears, when a voice came.
“Go to the mountains, little Ping.
“Tell your story to trees, birds, and your mermaid friends.
“They could burn your books, but not your story.”
I stood up. I knew what I was going to do.
I finished my chores that day as usual,
then went to the woods with Jaja.
Nobody said a word. The bruises on my face said everything.
We looked at each other for a long time.
Suddenly words flew out of my mouth like stars,
forming a constellation of little mermaid,
her beauty and courage to go after her dream at any cost,
everyone was listening as if it were their first time.
This is how we started our story telling club.
We would tell stories to each other in the woods,
to our siblings at home. Then we moved to the yard,
children and adults gathered over fire.
Everyone would bring a piece of wood.
We were hungry and cold, but we had stories.
Soon, when we finished all our stories from our collection,
we started making our own and people love that even better.
When Jaja turned 14, I threw her a big party.
She was leaving
the island with her father to Mongolia.
I told a story
that sparked our friendship five years ago.
The story about a girl from the sea who had kept us alive
all these years. Over the blazing fire, I spotted
mama. She had tears in her eyes, as she listened.
My heart quivered with joy.
I might have lost my book battle with her,
but I had won the war. No, we had won the war together.
Our books have been burned, but not our story.
Not our hope.
That was the moment I realized my college dream
would come true,
even though it still seemed dangerous and impossible.
Thank you.