MCLC: London Book Fair criticized (6)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: scott savitt (scottsavitt at gmail.com)
Subject: London Book Fair criticized (6)
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I feel obliged to weigh in on behalf of my old friend Bei Ling (and as
Martin mentions, I know that he and Xi Chuan have been colleagues and
friends for three decades). It seems Prof. Kubin has some personal
animosity. I try to give the benefit of the doubt to writers who are
forced into exile and have spent time in prison for their commitment to
free expression. I'm enclosing a sample from Bei Ling's memoir. Hopefully
our colleagues will judge the quality of his writing themselves.

Scott

===========================================================

Qinghe Prison, Block Eight, Cell One
Bei Ling
 

It¹s afternoon. I¹m being transported in a military jeep. On the road I
ask the undercover officer: ³Where am I being taken?²
 

³To a hotel,² the plainclothes officer scoffs.
 

The jeep is speeding down a newly paved freeway in Beijing¹s faceless
western outskirts.
 

The jeep slows down and enters a compound surrounded by a towering wall.
An electric fence lines the top of the wall, and armed soldiers man the
guard towers.
 

Next to the iron gate is a sign that says: Qinghe Prison.
 

I feel like an explosion has gone off in my head.
 

I am escorted into the detention center¹s office. As soon as I get inside,
a prison guard snatches my glasses.
 

Without my glasses I am half-blind. I start to protest, but the guard
kicks me and shouts: ³Squat down and get your hands behind your head!²
 

I dodge the brunt of his blow, and start to say: ³Please don¹t hit meŠ.²
when he kicks me again, this time much harder, sending me staggering into
the corner of the room.
 

The plainclothesman that escorted me here says with a laugh: ³Did you
really think you were going to a hotel? You might be alive when you arrive
here, but there is no guarantee that you won¹t leave a corpse!²
 

Feeling dizzy and unable to see more than blurry shapes, I hear the prison
guard say: ³You are charged with the crime of illegally publishing and
distributing a counterrevolutionary magazine. You will be detained here
pending your prosecution.²
 

I¹m still wearing the tank top and short pants I was arrested in. In
addition to my glasses, they¹ve also taken my shoes. Barefoot and
squinting, I struggle to see my surroundings as I¹m led into an
interrogation room. The room is dimly lit, and standing before me is a 6¹
3² tall officer. The cop dragging me refers to him as ³Big Zhang.² Big
Zhang tells me to sit. When he sees me hesitate, he says: ³You can relax.
I never beat prisoners because I am too strong and could really hurt
someone. The guy who just hit you is new here and trying to show off. It¹s
like this for everyone, that¹s why they call it a prison.²
 

He fills out paperwork while continuing to talk to me. ³From now on you
can refer to me as Œsuperintendent.¹ I have already seen your case file.
Your crime is serious, you should be concernedŠ..² While he is talking,
the phone rings. Big Zhang picks up the phone and says: ³You miss me, you
dirty cunt. Wait until I see you tonight.² He says this while continuing
to look at me, trying to make me feel embarrassed. He sees this, and says:
³Is this your first time in prison? After you¹ve been here for awhile,
you¹ll get used to dirty talk. I¹m sending you to Block Eight, Cell One.
It¹s a tough crowd. You¹re a coddled college boy, it¹ll do you good to get
a taste of some bitter medicine.²
 

Then he hands me a piece of paper with the prison regulations printed on
it and tells me to memorize them. ³Block Eight Cell One prisoner Huang
Beiling requests to return to his cell.² ³Block Eight Cell One prisoner
Huang Beiling requests medical attention² is the type of bureaucratic
language it contains. Then Big Zhang leads me down a long corridor lined
with cells. We finally stop in front of a small cubicle with Block 8 Cell
1 written on it. He inserts a key, the iron bolt clicks and the door
opens. The room is packed with a cluster of men who shout, ³The
Superintendent is Great!² I can feel dozens of pairs of eyes sizing me up.
A prisoner of medium height comes to the door and whispers to
Superintendent Zhang. I hear the officer say: ³This is a new prisoner. I¹m
putting him here. You¹ll have to squeeze to make room. Help him get
settled. The authorities are concerned, his case is special, don¹t hurt
him, don¹t cut his long hair, after midnight you can let him sleep.² This
prisoner is looking at me and nodding his head saying ³Yes, I understand.²
This is how I enter Block Eight Cell One.
 

The door slams shut behind me. I am in shock. A tall, thin inmate looks at
my flowing long hair and says: ³Fucking incredible! He wears his hair like
a woman!² At this moment, the inmate who was talking with the
superintendent says in a ruthless voice: ³No one is to touch him! Anybody
lays a finger on him and you will have to answer to me!²
 

I feel grateful. This man is not tall, he is in his mid-30s, and has a
scrawny physique and a thin face. Although he is not physically
intimidating, when he talks he exhibits absolute authority. He is
obviously the boss of this cell. He shouts again: ³Kid, get him sorted
out.² A slender teenaged boy comes over and says: ³Come with me.² He takes
me to the back of the cell where the toilet is and says in a shrill tone:
³Take off your shorts and underwear!² I hesitantly take off my shorts and
underwear, and stand stark naked.
 

³Let me see your penis. Fuck, pick it up!² the Kid orders.
 

³Show me your balls. Fuck, pull it higherŠ. At your age, you still haven¹t
used this thing?² The Kid is sounding more and more like the Boss. ³Okay,
now turn around, show me your ass.² He puts his face by my rear end and
inspects it carefully. ³Fuck. Stick it out more. Good, a little higher,
use your hands to hold it open. You don¹t have any infectious diseases?²
the Kid asks as he continues to inspect my private parts. I bend over as
far as I can, stick my buttocks high in the air to let him clearly see
that I am clean. He takes a bare light bulb and moves it around,
inspecting me up and down, then he squats and uses his hands to squeeze my
testicles. I¹m frozen with embarrassment, but the other inmates act like
this is nothing unusual.
 

When the Kid is done, he turns to the Boss and says: ³Boss, this guy looks
clean.² The Kid then hands me a piece of soap, and says ³Wash yourself all
over, make sure and scrub your dick, balls and ass really hard!² I do as
he says and wash my body all over. The Kid fills a bucket with water and
splashes it over me. The water is so cold it makes me stagger. He does
this several more times. ³Keep washing. There are more than 20 guys in
here, if any of us gets a sexually transmitted disease, you¹re a goner!²
 

³Rub good and hard!² the Kid says with his chin raised high. He then
splashes another basin of cold water onto me.

After four washings, my ritual ³body cleansing² ceremony is done.
 

All new inmates go through this, and the Kid always takes care of it. The
Boss later tells me: ³This is the unwritten rule of the cell. Every new
inmate must go through this Œprocedure.¹ Because there¹s so much
prostitution these days, and also because it¹s summer, if there is an
infectious disease it would spread to everyone instantly. No one else
wants to do it, so we make the Kid take care of it. He¹s always getting
bullied by the other prisoners and guards, this gives him some authority.
Actually, he¹s only 17. The other inmates call him ŒLittle De¹er--meaning
ŒLittle Dick¹--or just ŒKid.¹²
 

Because he is the youngest of all the prisoners, he runs errands for all
the other inmates. At all times he must scrape and bow. He distributes the
food, fetches water, lights everyone¹s cigarettes. Every night before
going to bed, the Kid has to serve as the Boss¹ masseuse. This really
opens my eyes. I¹ve never witnessed anything like this before.
 

The Boss lies on his back, closes his eyes, and the kid squats next to him
and massages his whole body. First his head, then his face, nose, temples
and cheeks. Then he moves to the Boss¹ feet, toes, and soles of his feet.
Then the Boss turns over, and while someone else waves a fan, the kid
presses acupressure points with his fingers and elbows all over the Boss¹
body. Finally and most disgustingly the Boss makes the Kid massage his
testicles. While the Kid rubs he tells vulgar jokes until the Boss falls
asleep.
 

They call it ³rubbing the eggs.² The kid squats between the Boss¹ legs,
grabs his testicles‹not too hard but not too soft‹and manipulates them
like walnuts. Ten minutes each testicle. It looks like those
health-promoting balls the old men roll in their hands in Beijing parks.
The Kid asks the Boss: ³How does it feel?² He does this until the old man
completely relaxes. It¹s said that this is a secret skill handed down from
China¹s ancient times to allow men to prolong life, conserve their energy
and build up their strength.
 

The Kid later tells me in private that the pressure of his hands must be
just the right combination of gentle and hard at all times. If he rubs too
hard it makes the Boss uncomfortable or hurts him, and the Kid will be
kicked to the corner of the cell. If not enough strength, he would touch
only the skin of the testicle and not achieve the result of quieting the
Boss¹s mind and nourishing his life force. It¹s only after the Kid has
been kicked many times that he masters the right technique of hand
sensitivity and strength to make the Boss feel comfortable and let his
yang energy rise up to the top of his head.

I have closely observed the Kid¹s unique skill at this work. Sitting
upright, the Kid holds the boss¹ two testicles and rubs them using his
thumb, index finger, middle finger, ring finger and then little finger, in
that order. When one hand gets tired, he uses the other. I can see that
the Kid uses his hand strength really precisely while rubbing and lifting.
Ten minutes into rubbing, the Boss already snores as loud as thunder. By
this time, the Kid ³gets off work². In order not to embarrass himself too
much, the Kid will often, while rubbing the Boss, make faces to cellmates
who try hard not to laugh. Occasionally, the Kid will jestingly tell the
Boss some dirty jokes so as not to ³lose face². Usually at this moment,
the Boss appears very kind and rarely yells or scolds the Kid.

This unique job has been going on in jail for many years. No one knows
which Boss started this hobby. Gradually, all Boss¹s in all cells will
find weak inmates like the Kid to service them. It has become a secret
legend in the cell. To avoid being seen, the Boss always chooses the first
bed next to the door, a dead angle where there is a blind spot for the
guards. 

There are altogether 14 cell blocks in Qinghe Prison. Each cell block has
12 units, known as ³hao², or ³cell².  Each hao holds, on average, 30 or so
people, at some times as many as 40. The total number of prisoners is
around 5,000. The rectangular cell, with one toilet hole, has a total area
of no more than 20 square meters. It has cement walls and a high cement
ceiling 15 feet from the floor with a rectangular vertical skylight,
through which sunlight never shines straight down, but only slants onto
the top of the wall. Through this vertical skylight, one can see only a
very small patch of the sky, at which I have looked up countless times.

A long and narrow aisle is flanked by the wall on one side, and on the
other, plastic beds about half a foot off the floor. At the end of the
cell is an area of 50 square feet of cement floor with water drains; above
this floor there is a square sink with a cold water faucet. At the
innermost end is a squatting-style toilet hole without any enclosure for
privacy. Eating, drinking, shitting, pissing and sleeping are all
conducted in this one room.

The prison runs on a military schedule. Wake up is at 6:30 a.m. The thin
cotton military sleeping mats and blankets must be immediately folded up
neatly and stored against the wall. Two meals are served, one at 10:30
a.m. the other at 4:30 p.m. The fare never changes, two steamed buns with
cabbage or celery and some fatty pieces of meat. Because it is much too
salty, I rinse my food with water before being able to stomach it.

The 10-hour days consist of compulsory ³reflection² on one¹s crimes. The
cell turns into a ³sitting room.² Both knees are held together with your
arms around them, back straight, sitting on the ground, looking at the
prison regulations on the wall, reciting them and ³reflecting on one¹s
crime.²

During the month of August our cell seldom had less than 20 inmates, often
more. Other than the cell boss and a few of his accomplices, no one had a
place to lie flat and sleep. We had to squeeze in like sardines, heads and
feet entangled, sleeping on our side. If you got up to piss at night, you
often would not have a place when you came back, and would have no choice
but to try to doze sitting up.

Because it¹s so hot and so overcrowded, every night several inmates are
assigned to sleep in shifts, spelling each other every two hours, to fan
the cell boss and his buddies. On my first night I have to wave the fan
the whole night. On the second night I join the rotating shift of fan
wavers, sleeping two hours then fanning for two hours. If there is no room
on the narrow platform, you have to sleep on the concrete floor.

It¹s mid-summer and the temperature is more than 100 degrees, in our cell
some people faint from the heat. All the bedding is soaked with sweat, and
there is often no opportunity to dry it out. The whole cell is full of the
odor of stink and rot from mold. If one prisoner has lice, the whole cell
will soon have them.

The prison superintendent silently consents to the hierarchy in the cell
and sanctions beatings and all kinds of verbal violence and other
humiliations.

The worst treated are new inmates charged with rape or soliciting
prostitutes. They immediately endure violent beatings. I watch in silence,
and eventually become accustomed to it.

Mounted on the wall by the door of the cell is a color television. The
other inmates tell me that this is the result of a former prisoner who
immigrated to America and got rich, and wanted to show his appreciation to
the prison by donating a color television set for every cell. Every
evening from 6:30-8 p.m. is the prison¹s ³entertainment time.² All inmates
must sit on the floor with legs crossed, hands resting on knees, and
maintain a ramrod straight posture and watch the Central China Television
government propaganda evening news. Then we watch another hour and a half
of soap operas or historical costume dramas.

The cell Boss keeps an eye on everyone, and if someone is not sitting up
perfectly straight or a hand is out of place he will immediately shout:
³Posture!² Every cell also has a surveillance camera so the centrally
located guards can monitor all the occupants. If anything is out of order
in the cell a guard will come over and inform the cell boss or take
discipline enforcement into his own hands. The only place the surveillance
camera cannot see is directly beneath it. This is where the cell boss
takes inmates if they are to be ³punished.² Because the soap opera plots
are so mindless, this ritual is like a kind of torture for me. I close my
eyes a little, I still have to keep up the pretense of watching, and sit
in meditation, praying and repenting to my ³god.² Every night during this
time my mind flashes back like a high-speed rewind over the past events of
my life, reexamining the events that led me to end up in this cell.