Episode 1 - Creation of the Underground Salons

Lost Underground - Chapter 1

Li Mei Ling

My parents named me Li Mei Ling, my surname in Chinese tradition is always placed first. But my family and close friends call me Mei Ling. My name means beautiful and delicate. People with this name are considered even tempered most of the time, honest, and a fine leader. These are the qualities I have tried to live up to, but you have to ask my siblings if I’ve succeeded.

Our parents were China’s leaders and of the intellectual class and due to the politics of that time, fell into disfavor. When we were kids, we were all starving. Unfortunately, all of China was starving. I cannot say I really experienced true starvation then. I was a young child, and the parents fed us with the only food they could get while they were starving themselves. I was hungry all the time and so totally happy when I had something to eat. One tiny bite made me warm all over. 

As a result of the Great Famine caused by Mao’s Great Leap Forward more than ten to 30 million people in the countryside died of starvation. 

I was 13 in 1966. My peers and I felt the impact of poverty in our country as starvation encompassed all of China. We all dreamed of food, not sex, but food. We had all the sex we wanted. We fantasized about food. My brother used to say all he could think or dream about was to have a big piece of meat to eat. 

 

Chairman Mao was a charismatic leader who promised to save us. His slogan was, “You too can save China! Join the Revolution!” Chairman Mao led through a cult of personality, and many of us were brainwashed into believing his words. As teenagers we were captivated by his power, his charisma, and his promises to make life better. He and the party indoctrinated the people. We donned the green uniforms, sang Mao’s revolutionary songs, danced his revolutionary dances, and happily joined the revolution carrying Chairman Mao’s little red book of his revolutionary proverbs.

 

Our desperation swept us into his cult, to devastating results. 

 

The Chairman appeared several times in Tiananmen Square to give inspirational, propaganda-filled speeches. One day when I was about 12 years old my friends and I joined the tens of thousands of people gathered to catch a glimpse of our illustrious leader. 

 

As a convert to his cult, I felt a rush of nationalism flood through me when I saw him raise his hand and wave to the crowd. Hoards were pushing and I felt my foot slip out of my shoe, but I kept moving for fear of being crushed. I was overcome with loyalty and love for our country and Chairman Mao. After the crowd dispersed, I grabbed my shoe and headed home, where I discovered I was wearing someone else’s shoe. 

 

Soon after, I joined the Red Guard. We were ordered to beat up old people, destroy everything old and anti-revolutionary, including anything bourgeois or classical. I proudly wore my red armband to show I was a Red Guard, and with my friends, we set out to enter homes, temples, schools, museums, and public places to destroy everything and anything. On one particular day, I saw a boy raise a heavy, flowered vase above his head and smash it to the ground where its pieces scattered like hail in a storm. Then, an antique white porcelain Goddess of Mercy crashed down around me. Her small hand broke off and I scooped it into my pocket. I felt a strange hormonal surge as I was plunged forward with the crowd, to witness the destruction. I held back from destroying the beauty under siege and couldn’t bring myself to beat the old people. Still, the urge to destroy was so strong, I could taste it in my mouth while my hands trembled, and my body shook. My heart raced and salty beads of sweat ran from my forehead and upper lip as I watched my friend tear down ancient scrolls painted with pastoral animals, flowers, and graceful calligraphic poetry.  He took these outside and burned them in a pile. Others added more beautiful works of art to the fire, feeding the flames. What I remember most is that I could barely breathe.

 

After we finished, I felt deeply regretful. I had learned to love these beautiful things.  I was torn between my passion for beauty and the dictates of Chairman Mao, but before long I stopped even watching the destruction.  I was very young then, but now I’m filled with remorse for having been part of the destruction of 5000 years of Chinese history.

 

THE FARM

We were so captivated by Mao, when I was 17 and my sister Lu Li was 19, we volunteered to go to the farms in the countryside to work for China. Chairman Mao promised that he would provide us free one-way train tickets to go to the farms to help him save China. He said we would always have a warm place to sleep and plenty of food to eat. My sister was sent to a different farm way up in the Northeast where it was difficult to have any communication with her. Sending a letter was the only way I could hear from her, but for so many reasons I didn’t know about, those letters were few and far between.

 

When I arrived at my farm, I slowly realized that this wasn’t a good idea after all and there was no ticket to return to our home in Beijing. When I arrived, the place that I was to sleep was a big cold adobe building where we slept 40 people in one long bed. It was so crowded that if you wanted to turn over, all 40 people had to turn over in unison. Each of us had a designated place in the row of people. That tiny piece of crowded real estate was my new home. On one occasion I left on one of the work trucks to visit a friend on another farm. When I returned, someone had taken my place in the bed, and I had to fight them to get it back. I fell asleep feeling smug that I had won the fight. In the middle of the night, I felt something odd happening to me, and woke up to find that the two people on either side of me were playing poker on my back.

 

In that harsh winter, I awoke to a giant icicle hanging only inches from my face. We were forced to learn the work of the peasant farmers where even young girls were expected to do the work of grown men. We were ordered to move objects that were many times our own weight. The peasants who used to work the farms were accustomed to this heavy work and equipped themselves with appropriate gear. Now some were left in charge to shout orders and punish us if we stopped working for even a moment. No equipment or clothing was issued to protect us from the work or the weather. I had to lay heavy bricks with my bare hands and lift reels of barbed wire then catch and untangle the wire as it fell from the reel. There was no resting in between. We worked from early morning sometimes well into darkness. My hands stayed raw and bloody. Some days we worked where the mud was so deep that it sucked the boots off our feet. In other places the ground was frozen solid in a sheet of ice and the tips of grass could be seen struggling for the light. There was very little food and what we had was of poor quality, so we were hungry all the time. 

After a few months I decided that this was unacceptable for me, so I planned an escape. We were paid a puny salary on the farm but there was nowhere to spend it so I had saved a small amount of cash. That, with a pocket full of beans, in the cloak of night I left in a hurry without looking back. It was so dark I could only see the stars in the sky. I knew which way the cold wind blew so I allowed it to push me forward. My pant legs were wet and heavy from the mud in the fields as I ran. I could hear dogs barking in the distance but soon those noises disappeared and all I could hear was the pounding of my heart. I kept a look over my shoulder to be sure nobody was following me. By dawn I came to a river and realized I was totally lost. There was nobody around, so I walked along the river and ate a few of the beans in my pocket. I was thirsty but there was nothing to drink. The river water was dark and murky, and I decided not to try it. Then in the distance I saw a boat with people lined up to board. I took off my muddy boots and tucked them under my arm in order to run fast enough to catch the boat before it left. With the cash I brought with me, I purchased passage to get me to the other side. A boy on the boat asked why I was so dirty and where I was going. I told him I fell in the mud running to catch the boat and that I was going home to see my family. He told me that the boat would carry me near a train station and from there I could get to Beijing. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go far from the boat dock to catch the train. I was so tired; I was grateful that I could take my time walking to the train. I was so hungry and thirsty, but I didn’t care about anything except my freedom and the train that would carry me to Beijing and hopefully to my family.

RETURN TO BEIJING

It seemed years since I had left for the farm, but it had been only a few months. After two days on the train, I had recovered my energy and made my way to my family home in Beijing. The last of the beans in my pocket gave me enough food to stave off the weakness accompanying hunger. The weariness fell away with each step I took up the cold concrete stairway to the door. Even the old key hidden behind the house numbers was there where we always kept it. Opening the door, I was elated to find both my parents at home. Our family does not embrace one another. Most Chinese families don’t openly express love between one another. It’s unspoken but we just know that it’s there. I learned they were being sent away once again and were there to pick up a few things to take with them, and my sadness returned. They left soon after and I was heartbroken. We’d been back together for only a few days, and now we were separated again leaving my brother and I alone once more in Beijing.

Along with other teenagers in our situation, we were left on our own with no adult supervision for 3 full years. We found solace in each other and made our own kind of family. I found myself surrounded by other kids who had similar family backgrounds and interests in the arts and literature. 

 

A NEW KIND OF FREEDOM

I missed my family, but I was happy with this new kind of family. Actually, my friends and I were all very happy during this time. We were free then. We experienced more freedom then than at any time in our lives, including now. No parents, no chores, no rules, no work, no responsibility. While everything had been taken from us, we had this new kind of happiness with new experiences and with each other. 

Our only possession was our bicycles. Piles of bicycles were seen everywhere there were people gathering. Nobody really cared if their bicycle broke or was stolen, we would just pick one up from the pile and keep on going. And nobody really cared. Many of us wore government issued uniforms, which were considered “fashionable” at that time. It was a part of that brainwashing or control by the revolution. On the streets people were outside playing games, smoking, drinking, or sleeping in their chairs. There was literally nothing to do for most people. 

In our home the door was never locked now. Kids came and went bringing their friends with them any time of the day or night. Many who slept in our home we didn’t even know. It didn’t really matter because by the time we woke up some of them had already gone and new ones took their places. Nobody stole anything because there was nothing to steal. 

We had coupons issued by the government which along with our ID cards we could get a small number of rations for food. There might be just enough to take the edge off hunger and a bit to share with those who had nothing. For a while I was one of those who had nothing. In my haste to escape, I left my ID at the farm so had no way to get food coupons. One of my friends shared her meager tidbits with me until I could retrieve my ID sometime later. Some people used all their coupons to buy cheap wine and cigarettes. In fact, I remember a giant ashtray in our living room that my brother emptied and polished every evening. In the morning it started to fill with cigarette butts from higher quality cigarettes. As the day progressed the cigarette quality fell. By evening, the ashtray was filled and the layer on top was covered with the cheapest cigarette butts. And by then, even the old cigarette butts were not worth relighting for a last pull.  

Stealing all kinds of things randomly whether we really needed or wanted them at all became second nature to everyone. It was just something to do. My boyfriend stole a crystal cup with a hand carved silver lid from a Russian owned restaurant we would visit on special occasions. I put it on the windowsill in my kitchen. The small window looked out to the courtyard and captured the warmth of the morning light. The Clematis leaves outside made shadows on windowpane and fingers of light pierced through spaces between. Holding the tiny prisms up to the sunlight, I moved a sparkling rainbow along the wall. I started most mornings riding those rainbows.

I spotted many of these crystal and silver items in my friends’ homes. Each time we visited this restaurant, someone stole something. I suspect even the waiters stole from the restaurant.

Everyone felt ok taking these things because everything was taken from us. Our parents were sent to prison as Enemies of the Revolution. There were no schools, jobs, food, shelter, and no family life. 

We had lost everything. But we had our art and our poetry, and we had each other.

 

BOOKS 

 

Before Mao came into power and started the revolution, traditional Chinese music, literature, and art were taught and presented in a very classical way. The way of Confucian philosophy.  Students studied their art form copying over and over again until it was perfected. Only perfection was acceptable, and everyone understood it. Then when Madam Mao declared that this was one of the “olds” that needed reform all art forms became revolutionary. 

We lost everything, all remnants of our lives before the revolution. We looked for beauty and truth anywhere we could find it. We hungered for it to the point where we broke into the shuttered libraries to read anything and everything, we could get our hands on. My boyfriend, my brother, and I climbed through a window and into the library. My boyfriend fell and broke his arm. Still, we stole the books and carried away what we could. Once safely away, friends heard and came to claim some reading time. We tore books apart to share, each person allowed an hour to read or to hand copy pages. Hands were held out for their turn as the previous reader barely finished. I remember the volumes of books doubled and tripled their original thickness because of so many hands touching to read. We copied the books day and night and even by candlelight. We weren’t selective about the books we read and copied. I even remember reading and copying cookbooks and sharing those too. We literally hungered for art and literature to feed our souls. These books were brought into the underground salons where we learned about art and poetry, where we learned in secret.
 

THE SALONS

We formed a group of young aspiring artists and writers, some of whom are now well known in China.  We began to hold meetings and gathered secretly, hiding from the Chinese government. The parent of one of our friends was the head of the government’s Censorship Department so she had access to the government’s forbidden collection of books known as Yellow Covered Books. We would borrow (or steal) these books long enough to hand copy and circulate them among ourselves. In this way we could read works by James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, and other modernists; work that the government had labeled Spiritual Pollution.

We knew if we were caught with the Yellow Covered books, we could be severely punished or even killed, but we had to feed our hunger for learning and beauty. We needed each other and we needed art as much as we needed food. Our friendships sustained us.

Sometimes we were very afraid, but we hungered for the meetings. We held salons like the European writers and artists we were forbidden to read about. We longed for intellectual and artistic conversations. Salons were so important to us but had to be held in secret. We knew we were risking our lives to write, read, paint and exhibit art, while listening and singing forbidden songs. 

In the undergrounds, we listened to and sang songs from the Beatles and John Denver. We wrote and painted in the style of the Impressionists and Expressionists. We used metaphors to escape detection of our anarchy. The populace and the government did not understand the art forms and the metaphors. It was easier for them to say what we were doing was Misty, cloudy, obscure: Therefore, the Misty Poets. 

Today these secret meetings are referred to as the “underground salons” of the Misty Poetry movement. A movement that laid the groundwork for contemporary literature and music in China.

Our stories have nearly been buried alive, forgotten by our fading memories and deaths. But they must be told by those of us still living and who bore witness to the events and the people. Learning about each other makes us stronger. It creates a mutual understanding between ourselves and our countries. It makes for love, not war. Like John Lennon and the Beatles song, “Make love not war”.

Every Sunday artists, writers, and philosophers continue to gather in our home where the original salons were held. Not in secret and not underground…at least for now.