Wang Renmei: The Wildcat of Shanghai

CHAPTER 2: The Bright Moon Troupe

CHAPTER 2 The Bright Moon Troupe ressed in a crisp new school uniform with a gray shirt and a black skirt, 12-year-old Wang Renmei looked D forward to her Àrst year at the Hunan Provincial First Female Normal School. She aspired to do better in mathematics because of the inÁuence of her father. She learned Guoyu, the standard oral Chinese used nationwide similar to Putonghua, but still used the Hunan dialect while doing the mathematical calculations subconsciously. She also spent a lot of time climbing Mount Yuelu in Changsha and was very active physically, but for the most part she neglected her studies and dropped out after her Àrst year. She believed that this limitation in her education became an obstacle in her later career in movies. She also believed that it was a reason for her mental problems.1 Around the same time as she left the Normal School, her father died at the age of 60. Renmei’s brothers and sisters returned home from different parts of China to attend the funeral. Her second oldest brother, who returned from Shanghai, drew a portrait of their father for the funeral party. Her third oldest brother decided to open a portrait drawing shop in Changsha and asked Renmei to serve as a receptionist after school. Portrait drawing was a popular 10 Wang Renmei: The Wildcat of Shanghai way of reproducing the likeness of an individual because copying photographs, at that time, was still expensive. Fortunately for the young pre-teenager, her siblings continued to fund her education. At the time when the funeral was held, China was again beset by internal strife. The Northern Expedition to reunify China began in July of 1926. In Hunan, the local commander staged a successful rebellion and was backed by Chiang Kai-shek. At the same time, Mao was advising the Guomindang about getting peasant support in the campaign. He was appointed the secretary of the Communist Party’s (CCP) Peasant Movement Committee in Shanghai in November and his wife and children returned to Hunan. The combined forces of the Communist Party under the Guomindang successfully defeated the warlords in the north and when the Northern army returned to Shanghai in April 1927, members of the Communist Party in Shanghai were massacred by the Guomindang and the Green Gang. The violence spread to Hunan where 10,000 people in Changsha alone were killed as suspected Communists. Overall, 300,000 people perished all over the province and Mao was appointed to coordinate the affairs in the province as the Communist Party’s Hunan party secretary.2 The Wang family fled Changsha at that time and gathered in Wuhan. Wang Renmei recalled the huge celebrations in Wuhan celebrating the so-called victory of the Northern Expedition. Wang Renmei’s oldest brother, Wang Renxuan, was sent to Germany to purchase ammunition for the new government. While in Germany, her brother met Zhu De, a senior member of the Communist Party and one of the founders of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and immediately joined the Chinese Communist Party. He was impressed by Zhu De. Renxuan returned to Wuhan after studying in the Soviet Union and became a member of the Ad Hoc Executive Committee of Guomindang, which was pro-Communist. That group worked The Bright Moon Troupe 11 against Chiang Kai-shek. Other members of Wang Renmei’s family got involved with the Communist Party, including her stepmother, Cao Yi’er. During the Northern Expedition, Cao was responsible for the family affairs of Mao Zedong. Mao was fond of her son, Wang Jineng, and called him “Mao Mao.” Cao later became a spy for the Communist Party there. She was killed after a raid by the Japanese air force in 1938 and her son Jineng was adopted by a cousin and later sent to Renmei’s oldest brother. He became an engineer when he grew up.3 In late 1927, the Wang family fled Wuhan for Wuxi. In early 1928, Wang Renmei’s second oldest brother decided to send her and her third oldest brother to the Meimei School in Shanghai. The Meimei School was not an ordinary school. It was a transition between the Zhongguo Gewu Special School for Singing and Dancing and the Zhongguo Singing and Dancing Troupe. The Meimei School was free and even provided room and board for the students who learned singing and dancing. The brother...