Week 2, Kunming: Huang Cheng

"They threw me in jail because I was baptized. That and I had too many connections to foreigners, Americans especially, from the war. But to them, baptism was a crime. They told me 'This is your chance! Renounce Christianity!', and to them I said 'But why? Christianity is just about loving people. That's all. That's all.' Then they hit me in the mouth with their rifle butt. These teeth are dentures! Haha!"

Most afternoons we have scheduled lectures. This week they've all circulated around history and religion. Buddhism, Tai Chi Quen, PBS movies about contemporary Chinese history. Today the schedule just said "Oral History Lecture". Enter Huang Cheng, a small man of 90 years, born at the end of the first world war, with a face creased as much by age as his smiles and laughter. An interpreter for the US army during WW2, an English teacher, a middle-school principal, a prisoner for 10 years under Mao Zedong's cultural revolution. From the final years of Sun Yat Sen to the aftermath of Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms. He experienced the reign of Mao, the Great Leap Foreward, the aforementioned Cultural Revolution, the Tiannmen Square Massacre.

I'm asking my laoshi (teacher) to help set up a meeting with him. If I can, I'm going to have him talk, and write down as much as I can.

Arg, so much to write about, but too much Mandarin to study. More soon.



-S