SPIDER EATERS
SPIDER EATERS
A MEMOIR
Fifteenth Anniversary Edition
With a New Preface
RAE YANG
University of California Press
Berkeley·Los Angeles·London
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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 1997, 2013 by The Regents of the University of California
First paperback printing 1998
ISBN: 978-0-520-27602-4
eISBN: 9780520955363
An earlier edition of this book was catalogued by the Library of Congress as follows:
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Yang, Rae, 1950-
Spider eaters : a memoir / Rae Yang.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-520-21598-2 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. China—History—Cultural Revolution, 1966-1969—Personal narratives. 2. Yang family. 3. Peking (China)—Biography. 4. Yang, Rae, 1950- . I. Title.
DS778.7.Y42 1997
951.05'092—dc20
[B]96-31622
CIP
Manufactured in the United States of America
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Rolland Enviro100, a 100% post-consumer fiber paper that is FSC certified, deinked, processed chlorine-free, and manufactured with renewable biogas energy. It is acid-free and EcoLogo certified.
To my dear Aunty, Tian Xi Zben,
my grandmother, Zhang Hui Zhen,
and my parents
Many historic lessons were obtained through tremendous sacrifice. Such as eating food—if something is poisonous, we all seem to know it. It is common sense. But in the past many people must have eaten this food and died so that now we know better. Therefore I think the first person who ate crabs was admirable. If not a hero, who would dare eat such creatures? Since someone ate crabs, others must have eaten spiders as well. However, they were not tasty. So afterwards people stopped eating them. These people also deserve our heartfelt gratitude.
—Lu Xun (1881-1936)
Contents
Preface to the Fifteenth Anniversary Edition
Author's Note
1.A Strange Gift from the Pig Farm
2.Old Monkey Monster
3.Nainai's Story Turned into a Nightmare
4.Nainai Failed Her Ancestors
5.Why Did Father Join the Revolution?
6.Second Uncle Was a Paper Tiger
7.The Chinese CIA
8.When Famine Hit
9.A Vicious Girl
10.Aunty's Name Was Chastity
11.Beijing 101 Middle School
12.The Hero in My Dreams
13.At the Center of the Storm
14.Red Guards Had No Sex
15.Semi-transparent Nights
16.“The Hero, Once Departed, Will Never Come Back”
17.In a Village, Think, Feel, and Be a Peasant
18.“The Tree May Wish to Stand Still, but the Wind Will Not Subside”
19.Death of a Hero: Nainai's Last Story
20.Remorse
21.Friends and Others
22.My First Love, a Big Mistake?
23.What Have I Lost? What Have I Gained?
24.Epilogue
Illustrations
Preface to the Fifteenth Anniversary Edition
It makes me sad that, forty years after the Cultural Revolution, the topic is still taboo in China. Serious discussion about this historical event, which involved millions in the 1960s and 1970s, is still unattainable.
As a result, young people born after the Cultural Revolution know next to nothing about it. When I asked my Chinese students at Dickinson College, they told me they knew about it. It was in their history book.
“What does the book say?” I asked them, surprised.
“It says: due to mistaken decision(s) made by the country's leader(s), the Cultural Revolution was a ten-year-long catastrophe.” (Here the Chinese sentence does not reveal if the nouns are singular or plural.)
“That's it?”
“That's it.”
But the Cultural Revolution I lived through was a lot more complex. It meant entirely different things for different groups of people: the élite, the small potatoes, the old, the young, those who had revolutionary families to brag about, and those whose families were condemned ... Some benefited from it. Others suffered unspeakable losses. How can it be summed up with a one-sentence conclusion?
As for those who lived through the Cultural Revolution, many have “joined the ancients.” Those who are still alive have, after four decades, either revised their memory conveniently or lost the bulk of it. The vivid details are washed away by the relentless torrent of time. Tell me about the transient nature of our memory! From my own experience now I understand.
Therefore I am glad that I began to write Spider Eaters in the early 1980s, only a few years after the Cultural Revolution was over. My memory was still fresh. For this, I should thank America, because I would never have written such a memoir and confessed that I had beaten people and raided homes in 1966, if I had stayed in China. I'd have gotten myself into big troubles. Maybe that's why, to the best of my knowledge, up till now only two former Red Guards have admitted that they beat someone. Who would understand me if I were to tell them that I committed those crimes out of my best intentions for mankind? Meanwhile, of course, I was also driven by fear. I was eager to display that I loved Chairman Mao. I tried to be more revolutionary than others.
Tom Tymozcko is the one I should really thank for this book. I would not have written it had I not met him in 1981 and had we not shared stories about our pasts. In that year I was accepted by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst as a graduate student. When the university gave me options about my housing, I chose a host family. I wanted to learn more about American culture and society. I was eager to improve my English. At that juncture, none of us Chinese students knew how long we would be allowed to stay in this country. The gate of China had just opened up.
The host family I got was a family of five. The couple was in