The Execution of Mayor Yin and Other Stories from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Revised Edition

Cover

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Contents

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pp. vii-

Editor’s Preface to the Revised Edition

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pp. ix-

A quarter of a century ago, when The Execution of Mayor Yin first appeared, it comprised a significant part of what Western readers knew about Mao’s Cultural Revolution, which ended in 1976. We now know much more about what happened over...

Introduction to the Revised Edition

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pp. xi-xxxii

When an editor at Indiana University Press told me that the press planned to re-publish Chen Ruoxi’s ‘‘Mayor Yin’’ stories, the idea immediately felt good. Indeed there was something strange about how good it felt. Why, I wondered, are these stories still so important? In the mid-1970s, when they first...

The Execution of Mayor Yin

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pp. 3-33

Mayor Yin and I met only twice, but I shall never forget him. In the fall of 1966 I went to Xi’an from Beijing and stayed at the home of my friend, Lao Wu, or ‘‘old’’ Wu. His only son, Xiao Wu, ‘‘little’’ Wu, was one of those arrogant Red Guards who, despite the fact that he was only a second-year high...

Jingjing’s Birthday

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pp. 34-61

In the beginning of September 1971 my husband wrote to me from the May Seventh Cadre School† in northern Jiangsu that his period of labor reform would soon be over. He was planning to be in Nanjing before the middle of the month, in time for Jing jing’s fourth birthday on the thirteenth. He would

Night Duty

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pp. 62-83

Liu Xiangdong strode into the dining hall of the collective farm, a large bowl tucked under his arm and a pair of chopsticks in his hand. The place was already packed, with long lines in front of each food-stall window, even the one in the far corner where soup was usually sold. There was good reason why the hall was more crowded than usual that night:

Residency Check

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pp. 84-105

I didn’t know Peng Yulian very well. Although we were close neighbors—my bedroom window faced hers and the front door of her apartment—we had no opportunity to chat because we worked in different units. On those occasions when we did meet on the way to and from work, she always smiled...

Ren Xiulan

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pp. 106-125

In the summer of 1971 Nanjing had plenty of rain, so the grass and shrubbery were exceptionally lush. As the supervisor of the Elementary Students Management Section, one of my main responsibilities was to supervise the children as they tended the lawn in front of our office.

The Big Fish

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pp. 126-138

Kuai Shifu came home early one February day. He popped his head inside the door and asked his wife, who was lying in bed, ‘‘How are you feeling? Any better?’’ Mama Kuai had turned her head at the sound of the door opening, and now her face lit up at the unexpected pleasure of seeing her husband. She didn’t want to...

Geng Er in Beijing

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pp. 139-190

Although closing early on Saturdays was not stipulated anywhere, by tacit understanding everyone began wrapping things up soon after three, and promptly at four they left the office, one after the other. For Geng Er this day was like all others: Precisely at four o’clock he walked out of the Research Institute of Mechanics, climbed onto his old English...

Nixon’s Press Corps

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pp. 191-202

The bugle calls blaring from the loudspeakers that greeted our arrival at school in the morning seemed to be louder and more insistent than usual. Just as we were wondering what it was all about, one of the teachers told us that an emergency meeting of all departments had been called. My husband and I hurried over to the large classroom in which such meetings...