Banished!

1. Banishment

ONE ~ Banishment 1 In November 1969 the Tao family was banished, and Tao took them all to Sanyu village. Before their departure, Tao had drawn a circle on a map in red crayon. The place he had circled was a rag-shaped lake. "This is Hongze Lake, the third largest freshwater lake in China. That's where we're going," Tao said. Half of Hongze Lake belonged to Hongze County, which was divided into a water-based commune and a dry-land commune. The Taos were to go to the dry-land commune, which, despite its name, was not really dry since it was crisscrossed with canals fed by the abundant waters of Hongze Lake. Where you had water, you had fish, and Tao announced to his family, "We're going to Hongze Lake to eat fish!" And not just fish either. The good thing about going to the dry-land commune was that there would be plenty of paddy rice and other food. In Tao's imagination, Hongze was a land overflowing with good things-or at least it had the potential to become such. Banishment to the countryside meant the chance of freedomthe two things went together. Huge numbers of cadres had been swept from their posts by the CultRev, and now they were all eager to sign up for the Glorious Banishment. Tao did not want to miss out, so there was little time to ponder the choices available. In any case, there were just two: Xuzhou and Huaiyin, the poorest parts of northern Jiangsu. Of the cadres who had signed up, some had chosen northern Jiangsu because that was where their families were from, so they were effectively going back to their place of origin. Others had relatives there whom they could move in with. Some had worked in the region and had friends. It was different for Tao: he had not come 1 from Jiangsu, nor had he worked there, so he just had to rely on a map, try and work out the best spot, and put a circle around it. So it was that two days later, a group of drum-beating, sloganshouting people in green outfits with imitation leather belts around their waists turned up at the Taos' door. The Taos recognized them as the ones who had come the previous year. This time, however, they were here not to take Tao off to a struggle session but to set him free. Tao was glad that he was being liberated by the same people who had come for him the previous year. Had it not been the same group, he would still have been liberated, but the results would not have been nearly so complete, nor so definitive. They punched the air and shouted until the whole building echoed, but this time the slogans were quite different from the time before. They tore off the faded red posters on either side of the Taos' door, brushed on some glue, and stuck on a brand new pair of posters. And this pair was completely different from the previous ones, not just in appearance (the ink still damp on the bright red paper) but also in content. Instead of saying, "Down with Tao," "Bomb him," "Burn him," or "Fry him," the new ones read, "Give the Taos a warm send-off!" and "The Taos are doing the Glorious Banishment." The good-news troupe chanted a while longer and then marched off. Soon the faint sound of drumming was heard in the block behind the Taos-obviously they were not the only ones doing the Glorious Banishment. About ten minutes later, Grandpa Tao came out. He was holding a bottle of glue and a small brush, and he addressed himself to the slogans pasted to the door frame. The good-news troupe had been in a hurry, and its work had been careless. The posters were askew and there were air bubbles. Very carefully Grandpa Tao pulled them off, straightened them out, added more glue, and brushed them flat onto the door frame. Finally he brought a half-full basin of clean water and wiped off the excess glue with a wet cloth. It took him nearly an hour. Tao said to him a few times, "Dad, don't bother; we're being banished soon." Grandpa just grunted and did not answer, so eventually Tao sent young Tao to give his granddad a hand. "This is absurd," thought Tao, not just because they would soon...