China's Son Read Free Page A

that.
    “No, no. You wear it.”
    “I've been wearing it since my dad came back from the Vietnam War.” He had the casual art of name-dropping down pat.
    “Your dad was in the war with the Americans?”
    “Sure, he has lots of medals and was at Ho Chi Minh City. White Americans. Okay, okay, okay.” He even spoke English.
    He studied the buckle carefully. A wall of classmates had gathered behind me, watching the exchange.
    “That belt has a little history to it,” he continued.
    “What history?”
    “My dad wore it in the war. It's been hit a few times but it's so strong and tough you can't even see a dent. I'm talking the superbullets from the American weapons.” I was sold on the spot. He became my best friend and we named him Mr. Buckle. He took the nickname in stride.
    One day Mr. Buckle formally invited me to visit his home. I accepted and found myself standing before the threshold of a grand town house near the hospital. His dad was the party secretary of the hospital, enjoying a hero's retirement at an early age. The door of the house opened suddenly, and there stood Mr. Buckle senior. Tall and handsome, a man's man. He had a big smile, large eyes, and thick eyebrows, a pictureperfect hero. It was obvious where the son had gotten his good looks.
    “Come on in, Da.” The father even knew my name.
    “Thank you.” I extended my right hand but he didn't take it. Instead, he smiled and said, “Sorry, I got no hands left to shake yours. Hey, why don't you shake my shoulder.” He leaned over, letting his two empty sleeves dangle, and waited for me to shake his broad shoulder.
    I was so shocked at his armlessness that I stood there unmoving.
    “That's okay, Dad. I don't think they practice shouldershaking in Yellow Stone.”
    “All right, then. Let's cut the ceremony and have some cookies and candy.”
    “Dad, we're not babies anymore. Let me show the guy around, okay? I think he has seen enough of you.” Father and son bantered back and forth like a couple of drinking buddies while I stood by in deep shock. For Buddha's sake, the perfect hero had no arms. My heart was saddened. Like a lost soul, I followed Buckle around the house and the hospital. He took me on a tour, but my mind was still on those arms. I had no appetite when I went home.
    My jealousy was gone. From then on, I quietly watched out for Buckle.
    Before long, Mr. Sun was bidding us a sad good-bye. He was heading for a reeducation camp for teachers. I gave him a small notebook as a gift. The school would be taught by the militiamen and women from the commune. There was a directive from the central government that from now on all schools would be governed by poor farmers; all teachers—a class made up of dangerous and stinking intellectuals—would be reformed and instilled with revolutionary thoughts before they could return to teach China's younger generation.
    School wasn't the same. Our teacher was a sleepy young man, a distant nephew of Yellow Stone commune's party secretary. He had never graduated from elementary school; he misspelled simple words and twisted pronunciations so badly that they hardly sounded like Chinese anymore. The first day he came to class he was shaking, and there were long lulls while he searched through his notes and tried to think of something to say. In the evening, these farmer teachers played poker and drank at the same tables where real teachers used to grade homework. The zoo was being run by the animals themselves.
    To say the least, I was disappointed. I searched outside school for books to entertain myself and yearned for the farmers to leave, to have the real teachers come back from the camp. Although the earliest that could ever happen would be the following year, I nonetheless believed that, like the spring, it
would
happen.

THREE

    In September 1971, I entered third grade. Dad had come back from the camp on the mountain and was at another reform camp ten miles away from our town. They made him dig