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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ★ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . There were many reasons why I decided to go home.1 I had no contact with people in America, except for an occasional letter, and I did get homesick. Because of the political friction between China and the U.S., I did not want to make things difficult for my mother and her family , so I never wrote about politics. They also did not write anything political. For example, we never mentioned race relations. We limited our letters to family news as a protection for both sides. My mother had already been diagnosed with serious health problems, and my sister Alice wrote me that if I wanted to see my mother while she was still alive, I should come home. China was also beginning to wear on me. Even though the Chinese people always treated me well, I felt I had not made any contribution to their revolution, and I sometimes felt like a parasite. These people earned the right to have a good life, but I had not earned that right. I told someone, “I had to go to China for the right to create a good life, but I should have been able to do this in my own country.” There were other factors as well. The top Americans at the Foreign Languages Press, like Epstein and Rittenberg, were much better treated and respected than White, Wills, and I, in part because of their higher professional skills, and because they had taken part in the Chinese revolution going all the way back to the resistance against Japan during World War II. Because they were in the top positions, the three of us who had joined the Foreign Languages Press in 1961 realized we would never move up the ladder. In August 1965 White, his wife, Hsieh Ping, and their two children left the press and went back to America. c h a p t e r n i n e Going Home! I was in somebody else’s country. I was enjoying my life, but I didn’t earn it. Those people fought for what they had. It’s theirs by right. I felt I was living off their country, and it got to be an embarrassment. —Clarence Adams U.S. and Red Cross officials waited at the bridge separating this British colony from Communist China for the return today of Korean War turncoat Clarence C. Adams. . . . Adams reportedly has made anti-American broadcasts for North Vietnam over Radio Hanoi. —UPI wire service, May 9, 1966 106 : an american dream He never told me why he was leaving. We did not consult with one another that much. Two months later Wills, his wife, Kai-yen, and their baby daughter left. I did not question him either. I just wished him well. Several of my other friends among the original twenty-one had earlier gone home, and now James Veneris and Howard Adams moved out of Beijing. That left me pretty much alone in the city. I could not really talk to either Epstein or Rittenberg, so if I wanted to talk to somebody who was not Chinese, I had to go to the embassies. Foreigners were also coming under increased suspicion because of the Cultural Revolution, which began to surface in 1966. We did not know precisely what was going on, but we sensed there was trouble brewing for all foreigners . One could not wear Western clothes on the street without being attacked for capitalist ideas. We also noticed that certain friends and acquaintances became frightened to visit or even talk to us. Two of our friends were then suddenly deported, and this too brought us under suspicion. I met John Horness, who was black, and his white girlfriend, Marga, at an embassy party. Both were British subjects. Marga was teaching English in a Chinese school, and John worked for the World Peace Committee in Beijing. John had a profound knowledge of Marxist political economy and international affairs, two of my favorite subjects, and we spent a lot of time together. Through John I met many of the African students who were studying at various universities in Beijing. On Sundays I would invite some of these students to our apartment, where John would lead discussions on politics, and I would supply whisky and some down-home Southern cooking. Marga was fired from her school, but we did not know why. Then I heard rumors that John was a spy and that he and Marga had been...

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