casual air force meal of braised prawns, spicy chicken nuggets, eggs and day lily, and as much rice as he could eat. His description of the meal made us green with envy. For me, there was pride as well. Not just because it was Wang Xiaoti, but because I had a brother who’d eaten in the air force mess.
Wang Xiaoti also gave your father a harmonica, a very expensive one. Your father characterised Wang as multi-talented. He wasn’t a bad basketball player, who could shoot from all angles, and as well as the harmonica, he could play the accordion; he was also a fine calligrapher and painter. He had tacked a sketch of his onto the wall, a portrait of Gugu. There wasn’t a blemish in his family background. His father was a high-ranking Party cadre, his mother a university professor. Why would someone like that fly to Taiwan and go down as a thoroughly reviled defector?
Wang’s squadron commander said he’d defected after secretly listening to enemy propaganda broadcasts. He had a short-wave radio capable of receiving broadcasts from Taiwan, in particular a KMT station announcer with a sweet and highly alluring voice who called herself ‘Night Air Rose’; a real killer, she was, he assumed, and what ultimately turned Wang into a defector. Did that mean my aunt wasn’t attractive enough for him? The doddering former squadron commander said: Your aunt wasn’t bad, with an excellent family background, good-looking, and a Party member. By standards of that time she was an ideal catch, and we all envied Wang Xiaoti. But your aunt was too revolutionary, too principled, and not appealing enough for someone like Wang, who had fallen for the poisonous appeal of bourgeois thinking. Afterward, the security division examined Wang’s diary, in which he had given your aunt the nickname ‘Red Blockhead’. It was a good thing they had his diary, his squadron commander said, for it left your aunt in the clear. Without it, she could not have recaptured her good name even if she’d jumped into the cleansing waters of the Yellow River.
Sensei, I told my nephew that his great-aunt wasn’t the only one who nearly met destruction by Wang’s hand. The authorities investigated your father several times, I said, and that harmonica was confiscated as evidence of Wang Xiaoti’s corruptive influence on the young. He’d written in his diary:
Red Blockhead introduced her dumb nephew to me, another Red Blockhead, and he had a goofy name: Wan Kou, Wan Mouth!
Again, it was that diary that saved your father.
Maybe Wang did all that on purpose, my nephew said.
Your great-aunt came to that conclusion later. She believed that Wang had left his diary behind to protect her. That’s why last night she said that he’d ruined her, but he’d also saved her.
Sensei, my nephew was mainly interested in how Wang Xiaoti managed to defect. He especially admired Wang’s flying skill. He said the slightest miscalculation while flying eight hundred kilometres an hour no higher than five metres above the water could have sent his Jian-5 plunging into the ocean. It was a skillful, gutsy performance, according to the youngster. There’s no denying his cockpit mastery, regardless of weather conditions. Before his defection, every time he flew a training mission over our village, he’d wow us with his aerobatics. We used to say he could fly down to the watermelon patch on the eastern edge of the village, pluck a melon out of the ground, and, with a wing wave, soar back up into the clouds.
Did they really reward him over there with five thousand ounces of gold? my nephew asked.
Maybe, I said. But even ten thousand ounces wouldn’t be worth it. You mustn’t envy him, Xiangqun. Money and beautiful women are as transient as floating clouds. Country, honour, and family are the only true treasures.
You must be joking, Third Uncle, he said. Who says things like that in this day and age?
10
In the spring of 1961, after Gugu came out from under the cloud of the
Wang Xiaoti also gave your father a harmonica, a very expensive one. Your father characterised Wang as multi-talented. He wasn’t a bad basketball player, who could shoot from all angles, and as well as the harmonica, he could play the accordion; he was also a fine calligrapher and painter. He had tacked a sketch of his onto the wall, a portrait of Gugu. There wasn’t a blemish in his family background. His father was a high-ranking Party cadre, his mother a university professor. Why would someone like that fly to Taiwan and go down as a thoroughly reviled defector?
Wang’s squadron commander said he’d defected after secretly listening to enemy propaganda broadcasts. He had a short-wave radio capable of receiving broadcasts from Taiwan, in particular a KMT station announcer with a sweet and highly alluring voice who called herself ‘Night Air Rose’; a real killer, she was, he assumed, and what ultimately turned Wang into a defector. Did that mean my aunt wasn’t attractive enough for him? The doddering former squadron commander said: Your aunt wasn’t bad, with an excellent family background, good-looking, and a Party member. By standards of that time she was an ideal catch, and we all envied Wang Xiaoti. But your aunt was too revolutionary, too principled, and not appealing enough for someone like Wang, who had fallen for the poisonous appeal of bourgeois thinking. Afterward, the security division examined Wang’s diary, in which he had given your aunt the nickname ‘Red Blockhead’. It was a good thing they had his diary, his squadron commander said, for it left your aunt in the clear. Without it, she could not have recaptured her good name even if she’d jumped into the cleansing waters of the Yellow River.
Sensei, I told my nephew that his great-aunt wasn’t the only one who nearly met destruction by Wang’s hand. The authorities investigated your father several times, I said, and that harmonica was confiscated as evidence of Wang Xiaoti’s corruptive influence on the young. He’d written in his diary:
Red Blockhead introduced her dumb nephew to me, another Red Blockhead, and he had a goofy name: Wan Kou, Wan Mouth!
Again, it was that diary that saved your father.
Maybe Wang did all that on purpose, my nephew said.
Your great-aunt came to that conclusion later. She believed that Wang had left his diary behind to protect her. That’s why last night she said that he’d ruined her, but he’d also saved her.
Sensei, my nephew was mainly interested in how Wang Xiaoti managed to defect. He especially admired Wang’s flying skill. He said the slightest miscalculation while flying eight hundred kilometres an hour no higher than five metres above the water could have sent his Jian-5 plunging into the ocean. It was a skillful, gutsy performance, according to the youngster. There’s no denying his cockpit mastery, regardless of weather conditions. Before his defection, every time he flew a training mission over our village, he’d wow us with his aerobatics. We used to say he could fly down to the watermelon patch on the eastern edge of the village, pluck a melon out of the ground, and, with a wing wave, soar back up into the clouds.
Did they really reward him over there with five thousand ounces of gold? my nephew asked.
Maybe, I said. But even ten thousand ounces wouldn’t be worth it. You mustn’t envy him, Xiangqun. Money and beautiful women are as transient as floating clouds. Country, honour, and family are the only true treasures.
You must be joking, Third Uncle, he said. Who says things like that in this day and age?
10
In the spring of 1961, after Gugu came out from under the cloud of the
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