Background: My dad volunteered to go from Guangzhou city to the remote region of Guangdong province to help open up farmlands at the edge of a rare national forest in 1965. He was only 18 years old. Because he challenged the thought that Mao's Thoughts could not be the pinnacle of philosophical development, he was sent to solitary confinement for a year and was regularly dragged out for public criticism and humiliation. He never apologized and insisted that truth would be on his side one day. This experience only deepened his faith in the kindness of humanity.
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假作真时真亦假
When Fake Becomes Real, Real Becomes Fake
What is most real, are the red maple leaves, golden and red.
When the Cultural Revolution started, the movement at our countryside also began. The theme: To greatly criticize "Wang Shi Dao, Hu Ming Kun, and Lu Zijian." There is a saying, "If you want to condemn someone, they will always find a reason." Even though they know it's not real, yet they could make it real. Otherwise, how did they create class struggles among people?
According to this group, they were reading Mao's and Stalin's thoughts - and because they were discussing politics, if they wanted to make us a scapegoat, how hard would that be? Whether it was true or not true, it was not important. What was important was to know what was needed to create a movement. There are all kinds of hats in a hat store, one just needs to see which hat fits. Even though they knew it was not true, gave them a hat, said a few words, then it became real. That was the era when the truth did not matter, the era when fake became real and real became fake.
However, fake and real are the both sides of the same coin, they are twins, often tied together. If there weren't fakeness, there wouldn't be truth. Without truth, it could not show fakeness. On the stage, the public criticism was fake. Off the stage, life was real. Every time after being publicly criticized and humiliated, I was being sent to an old farmer's home as my confinement. The farmer who watched me was Jin Sheng She. He didn't fake anything, all he did was real. Perhaps he had been through many political movements and had rich life experiences. Every time after the public criticism, he would boil a big pot of hot water, and helped me wash and relax my neck [my dad was carrying a wired board on his neck that was typical of the time]. He made a pot of congee and added sugar, and I drank it all at once, the warmth went all the way into my heart, made me feel so much better. This is real, it is a real kindness in this thousand year old mountain, without an ounce of fakeness. The red maple leaves witnessed it clearly. His wife always said to me, "Don't worry, once the movement passed, everything will return to normal. You are such a young student, how could you be an anti-revolutionary? We don't believe it. You're a good person."
Gain and loss is hard to judge in one's life. What I lost was temporary freedom, but what I gained was the deep care from Mr. She's family. His real kindness, made me deeply believe in the kindness in human nature. "There is real kindness in the world" became my mantra all my life. The movement said that we needed to be re-educated by poor farmers, this is real re-education. Twenty years later, when I brought my wife and daughter back to the mountains, back to that farmhouse, I couldn't hold back my tears. The She family was not only poor, they also had a crippled daughter who could only crawl. In their circumstances, they still gave me so much care in such a selfless way. There was no reason for that care, no karma that made it so. Yet what made one act like that was one's conscience and kindness. The distance between fake and real is so far, and yet so close.
And on real and fakeness, one time an old friend told me that in a reunion of this group, someone said to her, "I haven't seen Wang Shi Dao for so many years. If I had a chance, I really want to apologize to him." That is because his reflection on fakeness. History is ruthless because of its truth. For me, what is most real is the kindness from She's whole family.
The maple trees in the mountains are still golden and red. Those maple leaves witnessed the beauty of my relationship with Mr.She's family. Of course, it also witnessed the fake show on the stage.
Poem:
When fake became real, real became fake,
it is rare to be innocent like Mr. She.
There is real kindness in the world,
they will remain glorious in the green mountain.
