“Then please take us directly to where we are to work,” Z.G. responds.
We leave our bags with our clothes in the courtyard. Kumei puts the little boy down and tells him to go back inside. After he runs off, the four of us troop outside, walk along the wall to the square, and enter an adjacent building with a tiled roof and upturned eaves.
“This used to be the ancestral temple for the landowner’s family and the rest of the village, because everyone here shares the family name of Feng,” Tao explains. “Since Liberation, we’ve used the temple for meetings. Come. Come.”
He motions to me. Something about the way his fingers beckon makes me follow him closely. Although from the outside there seemed to be a massive roof, the interior of the temple is more of an open-air courtyard, which allows the last of the day’s summer light to stream in. Huge wooden pillars painted blood red support those parts of the roof that rim the courtyard. The middle of the floor is sunken and filled with water. Carp swim desultorily. Green moss covers the stones. The pond gives a feeling of coolness, although the air temperature is no brisker or less humid than anywhere else I’ve been. Even with the open roof, the smell of gasoline lingers, but again, I haven’t seen any cars, motors, or engines since I’ve arrived.
People—young, old, men, women, and children—sit on the stone floor along the hall’s edges. The women are dressed almost identically, in loose blue pants and short-sleeved blouses with a tiny floral print. A few wear kerchiefs over their hair. Most have braids. The men also wear loose blue pants, only with sleeveless undershirts—the kind my father and uncles wore when they sat around the dinner table on hot summer nights but what my girlfriends in Chicago always said was a marker for bad boys, like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire.
A well-fed man steps forward with his hand extended. He looks to be about thirty-five, and he has puffy half moons of fat under his eyes. “I am Party Secretary Feng Jin, the highest-ranked cadre in the village,” he says. After shaking hands, he points to his wife, a plump woman perched on a stone bench, her heavy legs spread wide like a man’s. “That’s my wife, Sung-ling. She’s the second-ranked cadre. We’re in charge of all activities in the collective.”
Z.G. tips his head in greeting. “My daughter and I are honored to be here—”
“No one said anything about a daughter,” Party Secretary Feng says bluntly.
“She received permission to come with me,” Z.G. assures him. Until now, I hadn’t realized that maybe I shouldn’t have come with Z.G. or that I might be a problem for him, and I try to keep my face as impassive as his. “She also wants to learn and observe from real life.”
The Party secretary eyes me suspiciously—I really need to get some different clothes—but after a long moment, he shifts subject and tone. As he speaks, it’s as though his words are meant less for us than for the villagers. “After Liberation, our great Chairman ordered all temples, shrines, and monasteries closed. Diviners and fortune-tellers were banished or arrested. Folk songs, operas, and love songs were banned. Feasts and festivals were discouraged. It’s my duty to make sure these rules are followed, but I change with the government. If I’m told to reopen the temple for village meetings, then I obey. If planting songs are once again allowed, then so be it. I’ve now been told we’ll have art lessons.” He motions to the peasants sitting and waiting. “We’ve done our work in the fields and are ready to learn.”
He leads us farther into the temple along a wall covered with posters that seem to form a time line of life in Green Dragon Village from before Liberation to now. The first shows Red Army soldiers, smiling and helping peasants repair a break in a dyke. In the next poster, people hold slips of paper. This must be when land was redistributed. Another poster illustrates daily life: a man with a bag of wheat slung over his shoulder, another man screwing in a lightbulb, yet another talking on a telephone, while fat children play at their feet. The slogan at the bottom is straightforward: COLLECTIVIZATION MAKES EVERYONE PROSPEROUS AND CONTENT.
“I’m honored to see that some of my work has come to your collective, Party Secretary Feng,” Z.G. says. “I hope it has been an inspiration.”
“You did these?”
“Not all of them,” Z.G. replies modestly.
The people seated nearby take in deep breaths of admiration. A few cheer and clap. Word ripples quickly around the room. This isn’t just any artist. This artist helped shape their lives.
Z.G. isn’t shy or uncertain as my father was. He bounds up a couple of stone steps, takes a position in the middle of the temple, and addresses the villagers. But before he gets very far, an old woman in the front row calls out, “But what do I do? I know how to grow rice in summer and cabbages in fall. I know how to weave a basket and wipe a baby’s bottom, but I’m not an artist.”
“I can teach you how to hold a brush and paint a turnip, but you have something within you that is even more important to create a great painting,” Z.G. responds. “You are red through and through. I’m here to teach you, true, but I want you to teach me too. Together we will find redness in our work.”
Tao and Kumei help me hand out paper, brushes, and premixed ink poured into saucers. Then Z.G. tells us to sit down and get ready to work ourselves. Yes, he said I would be his helper and that I might know more than the peasants, but I’m happy to learn with the others. This is the kind of equality and sharing I’ve heard about and was hoping for. Z.G. instructs us to paint a sprig of bamboo. I’m pleased with this assignment, because I did it many times in Chinese school in Chinatown. I dip the tip of my brush into the ink and let the bristles glide across the paper, remembering to be light with my strokes without losing control. Next to me, Tao copies the way I hold my brush and with a look of determination bends over his own sheet of paper.
Painting a sprig of bamboo appears to be a simple assignment, and people work quickly. Z.G. circulates through the hall, making comments such as “Too much ink” or “Each leaf should look exactly the same.” Then he comes to Tao and me. He examines my work first. “You cannot be blamed for not understanding the deeper essence of bamboo, but you need to be wary of too much self-expression and too much ink play. With just a few simple brushstrokes you can call to mind the spiritual state of the subject. You want to evoke nature, not copy it.”
I’m disappointed that I haven’t impressed him and embarrassed to be criticized in front of the others. My cheeks burn and I keep my eyes down.
Z.G. moves on to Tao. “You’re very good at the hsi-yi style of freehand brushwork,” he says. “Have you trained elsewhere, Comrade Feng?”
“No, Comrade Li. This is my first time with a brush.”
“Don’t be modest, Tao,” that old woman from the front row calls out again. She gestures for Z.G. to come closer. “Even as a little boy, Tao entertained us with his drawings in the dirt.”
“When he got older,” someone else adds, “we would give him paper and a cup of water to practice painting. He used his finger as a brush. The water would go onto the paper, and for a few seconds we would see mountains, rivers, clouds, dragons, fields—”
“And even the butcher’s face!” yet another says enthusiastically. “Then the water would evaporate and Tao would begin again.”
Z.G. stands there, staring at Tao’s painting, pinching his chin with his thumb and forefinger, seemingly not listening to the villagers’ crowing. After a long moment, he looks up. “That is enough for tonight.” As the others get up off the floor and file out, Z.G. gives Tao’s shoulder a congratulatory shake. I grew up in a household where touching was rare, so Z.G.’s gesture is startling. In reaction to this surprising praise, Tao’s mouth spreads into the same wide and gleaming smile he gave us on our arrival.
I collect everyone’s paintings. They’re terrible, with big splotches of ink and no delicacy. This makes me feel a lot better about my painting, until I remember Z.G.’s harsh evaluation. Why did he have to be so mean, and in front of everyone too?
The sun drops behind the hills, turning everything golden as we walk back to the villa with Tao and Kumei. At the main gate, Tao says good night. Though everyone in this village has the same clan name, I thought Kumei and Tao might be married, and I feel a tingle of relief to learn they aren’t. As Z.G. follows Kumei through the gate, I linger for a moment to watch Tao stride along the path, cross a stone bridge, and head up the hillside. Then I turn and enter the villa. My suitcase is still in the front courtyard. I pick it up and follow the others deeper into the compound. For the first time, the word villa sinks in. I’ve never been in a place like this. It must have been beautiful and modern a few hundred years ago, but it seems quite primitive to me—a girl from Los Angeles. Narrow stone pathways and corridors link a series of courtyards lined by two-story wooden buildings. It’s all very confusing, and I immediately lose my bearings.
We follow Kumei into the kitchen, but it isn’t like any kitchen I’ve ever seen. It’s open air with no roof, which is nice on this sticky night. A large brick stove stands against one wall. Another wall rises to waist height. I peek over it and see an empty trough, some dirty hay, and dried mud.
“We had to give our pigs to the collective,” Kumei explains, when she notices my interest.