NANCY L. CONYERS has an MFA from Antioch University in Los Angeles. She lived in Shanghai from 2004-2009. She has been published in The Citron Review, Lunch Ticket, The Manifest-Station, Role Reboot, Hupdaditty, and contributed the last chapter to Unconditional: A Guide to Loving and Supporting Your LGBTQ Child, by Telaina Eriksen. Who Will Serve Me? is adapted from a novel she is writing entitled A Walk in the Mist.
Who Will Serve Me?
Xiao Jun looked at his reflection in the mirror shard and smiled. Hao kan, good looking, he said to himself. The green army uniform was tight in all the right places—across his chest and broad shoulders—and accentuated his muscular physique. His hair was razor sharp buzz-cut, flat across the top of his head and the cap was perched at just the right angle. His general and his captain would be pleased.
Xiao Jun was one of the elite, one of the 10,000 chosen ones of the People’s Liberation Army, who would march into Hong Kong at the stroke of midnight on July 1st 1997. China was showing its full face to the world for the first time and only the fittest, most handsome Mandarin speaking boys were allowed to cross that border and pull Hong Kong back into China’s iron-fisted embrace.
Cupping his hand in front of his mouth and covering his nose, Xiao Jun blew into it, inhaled, then put a piece of cantaloupe gum under his tongue. He loved the sweet taste of the gum and wasn’t aware that it didn’t mask the ever-present smell of sour garlic emanating from his pores. He put his white gloves in his jacket pocket, following orders not to get them dirty or put them on until five minutes before midnight on June 30th, took one last look at himself, took one long, last look around his bedroom, and went downstairs to the courtyard to say good bye to his parents.
Lao Chen, his father, was squatting on a small stool in the courtyard, smoking. Su Qing, his mother, was busying herself hanging clothes she had just washed by hand. They had both been awake all night thinking about the good luck that had befallen their family by Xiao Jun being chosen to go to Hong Kong. That luck came with a price, though. Xiao Jun would not be allowed contact with his family for the first three years of his duty in Hong Kong. No phone calls, no visits home for the Spring Festival. No contact at all. Lao Chen and Su Qing knew they were lucky to have two children and especially to have two sons. Fortune was not supposed to come twice, but it was bestowed on Lao Chen and Su Qing by the birth of their second son. They’d never said it to each other, but he was their favorite. While they were bursting with pride they did not know how they could stand a Spring Festival without Xiao Jun at the table.
“You are the handsomest of the handsome,” his mother told him as she fiddled with his collar.
“Mama, I will really miss you and Baba.”
“Pay attention to your captain. You need to be good, you’re a man now,” she told her nineteen year-old son sternly then slapped his chiseled chest.
Lao Chen nodded in agreement and grunted, flicked his cigarette onto the concrete and stood up. Out on the street they heard the roar of an engine, a horn honking, and someone yelling loudly, “lai lai lai.”
His parents walked with Xiao Jun to the street where an army-convoy truck had pulled up onto the sidewalk. Besides the driver, just one other soldier was inside. He and Xiao Jun were the only two chosen to march into Hong Kong from Si Yang, a city of two million, small by Chinese standards. “Lai lai lai,” the driver repeated, beckoning him with an impatient wagging of his cigarette stained fingers when he saw Xiao Jun. Neighbors were hanging out of their windows, milling about on the street, waiting, watching. They were envious, and jealous that Xiao Jun had been chosen, but felt fortunate to know him. Everyone knew that the soldiers who were going to Hong Kong were the best of the best. In a country of over 1.3 billion people, if you were acquainted with just one of the soldiers who were deemed fit enough in mind, body, and love of the Motherland to take back Hong Kong, you felt special, very special indeed. You also knew you could rely on his guanxi forever.
Xiao Jun hopped into the back of the truck and gave a small wave to his parents who stood side-by-side, immobile. This was a proud, proud moment—Xiao Jun was bringing honor to his family, to the hometown, to the province and to his country, but they felt numb as they heard neighbor after neighbor call out, “Gong xi! Gong xi!” They watched the truck bounce down the street and as it rounded the corner Su Qing’s heart lurched when Xiao Jun turned and stiffly saluted.
~
Su Qing had first felt her heart begin to change at sixteen, when she was sent away from Nanjing during the Cultural Revolution. It wasn’t just that she closed her heart down to help herself not feel the horror of what was happening to her—of being ripped from her home, her family, her school and being sent to do menial labor in the countryside with people she didn’t know who automatically hated her because she was a city girl from Nanjing. It was that after two years of standing in infected waters, shoveling mud from the river to the riverbank, freezing and wet in the winter, sweltering hot and wet in the summer, she could feel the physical changes beginning to take place in her body, feel her heart begin to weaken as it began to periodically beat faster. There were times when she would almost faint standing in the water, but Lao Chen, then called Xiao Chen, would sense it, would move closer, and try to appear as if he were working, and steady her from behind. He would put the blade of the shovel against her feet under the water and let her lean against the handle, steadying her until she was ready to start shoveling again. He knew she wasn’t getting enough sustenance. Every day they would see someone fall over and never get up—dead from malnutrition and over-work. If they had a palm-sized bowl of rice once a day they felt lucky, but Xiao Chen knew Su Qing needed more, so he began to go out late at night, and pull leaves from what few trees were left. He would boil the leaves and make Su Qing drink the broth. She was sent down to the countryside to serve the people but Xiao Chen was serving her. It seemed to Su Qing that this must be what love is. It also seemed to revive her and provide enough nourishment to get her through the days. He continued doing this for the eight long years they shoveled side by side, trusting no one, pretending they believed in what was happening around them, doing whatever they had to do to survive. When it was all over they married. The only thing they served at their wedding banquet was meat.
~
The truck smelled of gas fumes. By the time they reached Kunshan, an hour away, Xiao Jun was nauseous. In Kunshan two more soldiers climbed in. Xiao Jun searched their faces for wisdom and saw none. In Wuxi, another two were added. As they trundled down the highway, bouncing, fumes wafting, Xiao Jun, who was not prone to realizations, wondered if any of them knew what they were getting into. They passed village after village of their countrymen going about their daily business plowing in the fields, sitting at small roadside stands selling fruits, noodles, or house wares. People would see the army truck, look at the boys in the back and call out, “Comrades, you’ve worked hard!” In return, Xiao Jun and his fellow soldiers would give the requisite reply, “Serve the people!” and salute. As the afternoon turned to dusk, the roadside stands folded up and the people the soldiers were serving went home to their families. Lights twinkling in the houses pained Xiao Jun. He could see families hunched over steaming bowls of freshly cooked food, eating and laughing together. We are all so young and far away now from our hometowns. I will cry one thousand tears into my soup before my work is done, he thought to himself. Who will serve me? Who will serve us?
~
It took 23 hours to get to the army base in Shenzhen, the holding place before the march into Hong Kong began. By the time Xiao Jun and the others from all over China arrived they were exhausted. They spent the next four days going over drills and maneuvers and exercises, reading the words of Deng Xiaoping, and marching in formation. They were all restless, excited and afraid, and they no longer casually slung their arms over each other’s shoulders when they walked and talked, smiled easily or laughed heartily at each other. This was oddly comforting to Xiao Jun—it helped him realize the others were as scared as he was. He heard some of them late at night sobbing under their covers when they thought their comrades were asleep. No contact with their families for three years was enough to make any man cry. Why did no one tell me the army would be like prison, Xiao Jun wondered. When they weren’t on duty, they had to sit on their cots, in full uniform, shoes removed, in a Buddha-like position, legs crossed, spines straight, hands clasped, not moving. “This will teach you discipline,” their general had told them.
Xiao Jun had always believed in ming yun, the intersection fate, destiny and free will. Even his name, Xiao Jun, Little Army, had dictated his future from the day he was born. He knew it was his destiny to march with the People’s Liberation Army into Hong Kong to take it back for the Motherland and to give his parents the mianzi, the face, they deserved, but to Xiao Jun, sometimes it felt like punishment for a crime he never committed.
~
At five minutes to midnight, on June 30th, Xiao Jun and his fellow soldiers were standing in formation in open convoy trucks, pristine white gloves on, hands perfectly placed on the top of the rail, the way they’d practiced umpteen times, waiting for the stroke of midnight to begin the turnover and the raising of the red flag of the Motherland over Hong Kong. Xiao Jun was more proud and more frightened than he’d ever been in his life. He knew his family would be crowded around the TV set with their friends and neighbors watching this momentous occasion and he wanted them to be proud of him. He stood a little straighter and hoped the camera would capture him, but not too closely. He wanted his image beamed to his hometown but felt if his parents saw his eyes closely they would be able to sense that he was afraid.
Xiao Jun’s being selected for the handover of Hong Kong back to China had given his parents great mianzi and face was the only thing his parents had at this point in their lives. They were part of the large number of “left behinds,” people who grew up during the Cultural Revolution, who received no schooling for ten years when Chairman Mao closed down the schools, and were forced to sweep away the Four Olds: Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas.
The problem was that Xiao Jun’s parents couldn’t adjust to the Four News: New Customs, New Culture, New Habits, and New Ideas. They had no idea what road to travel in the ever-changing new China, and no skills, training or education to rely on, so their only hope was for their two sons to give them mianzi. Xiao Jun wanted his parents mianzi to burn brighter than anyone’s and he didn’t want his eyes to betray him. Mianzi was the only gift Xiao Jun could present to his parents to enable them to hold their heads up, so he held his head a little higher as he grasped the slippery railing under his white gloves.
The others were frightened too—Xiao Jun could see it in the way their eyes darted around although their heads were perfectly still. They had been told over and over that the Hong Kong people would be afraid of them, but no one had said anything about their own fear. Xiao Jun gripped the rail tightly. His white gloves were soaking wet—not from the fine mist of rain that was falling, but from the inside out, with his anticipation and fear. He was an engaging boy with a quick easy smile and an uncomplicated sense of his small town self. The five years that lay ahead for him in Hong Kong were unchartered and unknown.
“Wave!” their captain barked as the procession began. In unison, Xiao Jun and his compatriots drew up their left hands and gave a friendly wave, just as they had practiced each day in Shenzhen. As the first strains of the March of the Volunteers began to play over the microphones rigged up to the cab of each truck in the convoy, Xiao Jun pushed his chest out further and silently sang to himself, “Arise, all ye who refuse to be slaves!”