I also realized why some Koreans, especially those living south of the Thirty-eighth Parallel, seemed to prefer the American army to us. Not having enough food supplies or money, we had to press them for rice, sweet potatoes, any edibles, and sometimes we stole dried fish and chilies from under their eaves, grabbed crops from their fields and orchards, and even dug out their grain seeds to eat. By contrast, the Americans had everything they needed and didn't go to the civilians for necessities. Whenever the U.S. troops decamped, the local folks would rush to the site to pick up stuff discarded by them, such as telephone wires, shell boxes, cartridge cases, half-eaten bread, cans, soggy cigarettes, ruptured tires, used batteries. We thought we had come all the way to help the Koreans, but some of us had willy-nilly ended up their despoilers.
A big-boned man jumped up and declared, "I have lots of bitterness too." The prisoners had nicknamed him the Capitalist, because he raised a hen, for which, when it was a chick, he had exchanged four packs of cigarettes with a Korean peddler. He tethered the chicken to the back of his shed and fed it grass mainly. In the spring the hen began to lay, but it was so underfed that it could produce only one puny egg every other day. Its owner bartered the eggs for food with the cooks.
"Speak," Wang Yong ordered him.
"In Manchuria our company was detailed to load trains. We worked for a whole week carrying sacks of soybeans and peanuts into cargo wagons. I asked our company commander, 'Where's all this stuff going?' He said, ' Russia.' I asked, 'Why? Do they give us something in return?' He said, 'This is a way we show our affection for our Russian big brothers. They'll send us lots of machines in the future.' From then on we worked at the train station on and off for almost a year, but I never saw anything from Russia, not even a nail. Instead, we always shipped stuff to them. From this I reckon the Commies are just a bunch of traitors selling out our country."
After him, another man began talking about how he had been misled into a battle. He said huskily, "I'm a Chinese; but I'm no Volunteer. Before we came to Korea, our leaders told us the Americans were just paper tigers. They were afraid of night fighting. Their weapons were more advanced, but they didn't know how to do hand-to-hand combat. Compared with us, they were just pushovers. So we all wrote our pledges. One fellow promised he'd wipe out twenty GIs, another said he'd catch an officer alive, a colonel, and I said I'd blow up three tanks, because I was good at handling explosive satchels and bangalore torpedoes. Then when we came to Korea and got to the battlefields, all the men who'd written pledges were ordered to charge first. Our company commander said to me, 'Comrade Fan Long-yan, before the battle you volunteered to destroy three American tanks. Now it's time to honor your word.' I had no choice but to charge. That's how I lost my arm."
"Screw the Reds," Wang Yong said. "They always brag. Mao Zedong said the whole U.S. Seventh Fleet was a paper tiger. If that's true, how come the Reds don't dare to cross Taiwan Strait? Everybody can see that they're scared by the aircraft carriers stationed there."
"Yes, there's no way they can break the U.S. naval blockade," responded a man with a swarthy face.
"You can count on the fingers of one hand how many warships the Reds have," added another voice.
"And all those are as obsolete as their mothers' underpants," said a broad-cheeked fellow.
Laughter exploded from the audience. I couldn't help but laugh with them.
In these sessions I also spoke about the horror I had seen in the Red Army. Most of the time I talked about how the Communists valued equipment more than human lives. This sort of endless condemnation was rather crude compared with the way the Communists conducted their political education, in which they always managed to associate people's personal sufferings with the oppression of foreign imperialism, Chinese feudalism, and capitalism so as to amplify the hatred. Once the inmates here got on the track of voicing their grievances, they could no longer hold themselves back. All kinds of accusations were brought up, some of which were true, some groundless. By rule you had to say something, or you might be suspected of sympathizing with the Communists.
I always took care not to speak when a tape recorder was on, because some of the speeches were recorded for propaganda purposes. Deep inside, I felt the Communist government had been more responsible than the old regime; it had done some good things for the common citizens and made China a stronger country. At the same time, though, I dreaded the Communists and the way they controlled people's lives and minds.
There was another kind of political education here that was more harrowing to me. This was known as self- and mutual criticism. We were ordered to admit that one way or another we had helped the Reds and to confess whatever wrongdoing we had committed purposely or inadvertently. We had all served in the People's Liberation Army, so many men would touch on their past perfunctorily and no one would press them to confess. I was a special case, however, because for almost a year I had been away in the pro-Communist camp. Therefore, one morning in our shed, an entire session, attended by more than sixty men, was devoted to me alone. All kinds of questions were fired at me. What did you do in Camp 8? How active were you in the riot last October? What made you change your mind and come back? How can you convince us of your sincerity? Question after question, it was like attending a denunciation meeting.
I was overwhelmed, even as my mind was flooded with thoughts of my own. What's the difference between you people and the Communists? Where in the world can I ever be among my true comrades? Why am I always alone? When can I feel at home somewhere?
To my astonishment, Bai Dajian stood up, pointed at my nose, and declared in a gruff voice, "Brothers, I think this man is an agent working for the Reds."
I scrambled to ask, "Dajian, why are you doing this to me? We used to be good friends, didn't we?"
"You're not my friend anymore because you betrayed our Nationalist cause."
"Confess!" a voice commanded me.
"You're a Commie, aren't you?" another butted in.
"Come on, own up."
"Don't play dumb."
Wang Yong got up, came to the front, and stood beside me. He said, "Brothers, let's stop this dog-bite-dog business. I know how he returned to us. He showed me a letter of recommendation from an American officer based in Pusan. Feng Yan, do you still have it?"
"Yes, I have it here." I took the letter out of the inner pocket of my jacket.
"Read it to them," he said.
I read out the letter in English, then translated it into Chinese. That quieted them down. Still Dajian wouldn't let me off. He came up to me and said, "Show me the letter."
I handed it to him. He looked at it, but to my surprise, he tore it up and dropped the pieces to the floor. He said through his teeth, "This is a hoax, a fabrication." His face had lost color and the finger stumps on his left hand were quivering.
I stood there speechless, not knowing how to respond. Why had he nursed such intense hatred of me? He used to be a gentle, diffident man. Why was he so hysterical now? He must have been hurt terribly when I left him. Then it dawned on me that he might still be a passive man, and that he was malicious because he regarded me as a rival.