Performance of a Malaysian Country Dance on the Loess Plateau of Yan'an

From the 70's of the present century when China adopted policies of opening to the outside world, Chinese girls of yellow complexion could be seen everywhere in the world. Going abroad has become the fashion for Chinese girls.

Yet in the ranks of Chinese servicewomen during the War of Resistance Against Japan, there was a number of overseas Chinese compatriots.

Liao Bing's first impression of Yan'an was rather disappointing to her. All the hardships and travel fatigue involved in drifting on the sea for days from Singapore to Hongkong and then from Hongkong to Xi'an via Guangzhou she could put up with. After all it wasn't an easy thing to fight with the Japanese devils. Throughout the journey it kept raining. When Liao and her classmates reached their destination--the branch campus of Yan'an North-Shaan'xi Public School, their dresses were so covered with mud that it was impossible to make out the colours. They expected to take a refreshing bath upon arriving at the school. While the male students were assigned to a village, Liao and several other women students were assigned to Group 37 of the Third Sub-Unit (the Group of Women Students). When their guide said: "Here we are," Liao discovered that the place was also a village. Only it had a nice name--Flower Palace Village. She looked all around: Where could the school be? There were no classrooms, no auditoriums, and no desks, chairs or benches. Of course, there were no flowers, either. All her mental preparations for hardships before she parted from home appeared

to be rather feeble as compared with the reality. What was most unbearable to her was lack of water. Though she was covered all over with mud, there was no place where she could take a bath. She would take two baths each day when she was in Singapore. Now, however, the 10-people squad had to share one basin of water to wash their faces each morning. The steamed buns and cooked millet were covered with flies....She held a steamed bun in her hand, yet she dared not take a bite, nor could she swallow. In the evening, lying on the bed with her body covered with dirt, she simply couldn't fall asleep. She could never forget that day--July 23, 1938.

Her classmates doubted whether this "Miss Malaysia" could hold on.

That Liao Bing had selected Yan'an wasn't accidental. The mission she shouldered was twofold. The Japanese invaders' aggression against China evoked a common hatred for the enemy among the overseas Chinese. Liao Bing was director of the Women's Society of the Malay Culture Association in Singapore. Their goal was to seek survival for the nation and emancipation for women. On March 8, 1937, the supplement to China Morning Post of Singapore devoted a full page to Liao Bing's autobiographical prose "She Regenerated," which narrated her experience of frustrations in breaking off her child bride engagement and seeking the freedom of life. On March 8, 1938, as chairwoman of the Yibao Meeting in Commemoration of the International working Women's Day held in Singapore, Liao Bing put forward the call for bringing into play women's role and mobilizing them so as to fight against Japan and strive for national independence and liberation. Her call was warmly welcomed by women from all walks of life. When she raised the plan of returning back home to Yan'an to fight against the Japanese, she got a warm response from the Yibao Women's Mutual Aid Society, staff members of the China Morning Post, printing workers, and primary and middle school teachers. They raised funds and prepared luggage for this young woman. Before she left, her third elder brother gave her these words of encouragement: "Take hold of the reality and understand life at the point of the bayonet." Her friends filled her autograph album with poetic lines written in Chinese or English. Liao Bing felt that what she shouldered was not just personal deep feeling for the motherland but also the sincere heart of the overseas Chinese for the country. Upon entering Guangzhou from Hongkong, she didn't stop to see her aged parents; rather she embarked upon the train for the North at the risk of air bombardment by the Japanese invaders. With war going on, the train now moved, now stopped crawling like ants. Liao Bing perceived a motherland covered all over with wounds and scars and fellow countrymen homeless and wandering from place to place. Crowded among the troops going up to the North, she had only one thing in mind: to carry on the War of Resistance Against Japan to the end even at the

sacrifice of her life.

The Women's Group's meeting to welcome the new classmates was held not in an auditorium but on the folks' sunning ground, upon which the students were seated. Liao Bing, who had been studying in Singapore from childhood on, found this hard to adapt to, too. This was the first time that she sat cross-legged on the ground! But she was soon attracted by the novel, vigorous, and lively spectacle. The sound of singing rang out continuously and the rooters were extremely lively. She had never experienced this before. Suddenly, attention was turned to her: "Let's invite our classmate from Malaysia to sing a Malaysian song and dance a Malaysian dance!" "Come on!" "Come on!".... Mentally unprepared and totally at a loss what to do, Liao Bing felt red in the face and nervous in the mind. Having a strong character from childhood on, she couldn't be forced to do anything which she wouldn't do. Yet the rooters at the meeting were still shouting to her enthusiastically. This was a kind of enthusiasm which she found it hard to, nay, simply couldn't turn down. Eventually her heart was melted. Amidst the waves of enthusiasm, she sang a song titled Good-bye to Malaysia. This was a song that expressed the determination of the overseas Chinese to return back to their motherland to take part in the war. The comrades-in-arms on the ground applauded and cheered for her to the tune of the song. Then she danced a Malaysian country dance. She found that her classmates were all very enthusiastic. Like her, they were in the prime of their life and were burning with righteous indignation against the Japanese invaders. Here their hearts and hers beat as one. This was a kind of circumstance she couldn't find in Malaysia. Liao Bing wrote to her friends in Malaysia about the stirring scene. Later she learned that they had her letter published in a progressive Yibao newspaper as a dispatch from north Shaanxi. The overseas Chinese students in the school also set up a sodality, with Zhang Guojian, a returned overseas Chinese from Indonesia, being the director. He had participated in the Long March and was now director of the Political Department of the branch campus. He delivered lectures on guerrilla warfare to the Women's Group and all the students respected and loved him. The associate director was Comrade Zhu Shoulin, an overseas Chinese from Thailand. Liao Bing was selected secretary-general. There were close to a hundred overseas Chinese students. Their school courses included: national united front, issues of the Chinese revolution, guerrilla warfare, mass movement and military training. Many of them went from here straight towards the anti-Japanese front.

According to statistics, there were as many as 3,000 young intellectuals who came back from overseas to fight with the Japanese. Large numbers of young women stepped outside their families and entered society. At the same time when they sought after national

liberation, they were looking for their own new place in life. As the old women-suppressing system posed constant threats to them, they needed an organization and an opportunity to create and develop their own culture. New values were constantly clashing with old ones. Even women who had received intermediate or high education must go through the process of knowing society and themselves anew. Not a few of them, unable to stand the rigorous trials of war, went back to their original starting-place. Liao Bing tried to dissuade them from going and deplored their act.

July 20, 1939 was a memorable date in the history of the Chinese women's movement. It was also a date that still remains fresh in Liao Bing's memory. On that day, the Chinese Women's University, initiated by Comrade Mao Zedong, was founded. Liao Bing was recommended to be a student of a senior class of the university. The gate of the Women's University was shrouded in an atmosphere of anti-Japanese national united front. Apart from a portrait of the deceased Mr. Sun Yat-sen, there were portraits of the leaders of the Kuomintang and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border region. The portraits of domestic and foreign leaders of women's movements--Zetkin, Krupskaya, Dololes, Song Qingling, He Xiangning, Cai Chang, Deng Yingchao, and Kang Keqing were put up together with that of the revolutionary mother old Mrs. Xia, martyr Zhao Shiyan's mother-in-law, which was especially attractive. At the opening ceremony of the university, Comrade Mao Zedong, standing at the rostrum covered with wild flowers, delivered an important speech: "The Women's University will not only have to train large numbers of theoretically armed women cadres, but also have to train large numbers of cadres of the women's movement who will do practical work." His famous prophecy: "The day women throughout the country rise up will be the time of victory of the Chinese revolution" was verified by the revolutionary practice years later.

The line-up of the Chinese Women's University was noteworthy. Wang Ming, director of the Central United Front and concurrently secretary of the Central Women's Commission, served as president of the university. Ke Qingshi, deputy director of the Central United Front served as vice-president. Zhang Qiuqin, commander of the Women's Division in the Red Army, served as dean of studies. The university offered such obligatory courses as Marxism and Leninism, political economics, philosophy, issues of the Chinese revolution, theories of the women's movement, military education, and general medical and hygienic knowledge. It also offered such elective courses of vocational-technical training as accounting, sewing, news-writing, foreign languages, education, drama, and stenography. The university's General Regulation of Enrolment was distributed to all the anti-Japanese bases of the country as well as areas controlled by

the Kuomintang. Many young women, introduced by offices of the Eighth Route Army, the underground Party organizations, and the united fronts, came to the university after crossing the enemy-occupied areas and going through various risks. Some even laid down their lives as a result. By Aug. 1941, the university had developed into 13 classes, with over 1,000 people.

What Liao Bing cannot forget is that a day after Mr. Chen Jiageng, leader of the overseas Chinese, got to Yan'an for a visit, he came to the Chinese Women's University. Being classmates with the daughter of Li Tiemin, Mr. Chen's secretary, Liao Bing was introduced to Chen Jiageng. The latter inquired in detail this female member of the Eighth Route Army from overseas about her life in Yan'an and all that she had heard and seen. He also held a humorous and lively talk with the other 20 or so women students from overseas. Gazing at the tract upon tract of barren mountains and hills and the lined-up students, he asked: "Do you live such a kind of life of common soldiers year in and year out?" The servicewomen answered: "If we don't drill so, we won't be able to defeat the Japanese devils!" Mr. Chen said at a low voice to Liao Bing and some others: "I'm afraid that you have been so used to the life of young ladies in Malaysia that you won't withstand such a place on the loess plateau and barren mountains." The servicewomen from overseas told this elder straightforwardly: "We really felt somewhat unaccustomed upon first coming to Yan'an and had often made a fool of ourselves!" Hearing their innocent and interesting events in the past, Mr. Chen smiled. This was a group of "Misses Malaysia" he had never before seen. Their overseas background was familiar to him, and yet their life of being soldiers was strange to him. Meeting and knowing them increased his understanding of and sympathy for the Communist Party, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army and dispelled various doubts in his mind. This not only tilted the balance of his huge investments towards Yan'an; moreover, the servicewomen from overseas became beautiful images in the recollections of his later years.

In Yan'an, apart from the Women's University, there were the North Shaanxi Public School where Liao Bing first studied, the famous Anti-Japanese Military and Political College, Marxist-Leninist College, the Central Party School, and the Lu Xun Art Institute. All its institutions of higher learning were open to women. There were also women students from overseas in the women's group of the head training unit directly under the army headquarters of the New Fourth Army in the South of the Yangtse River.

The establishment of the Women's University not only prepared talents for a higher-level development of the women's movement but also laid the foundation for the development of the forces of Chinese

servicewomen and of female culture. Liao Bing and 3 other women students became journalists of the New China Post in Yan'an (predecessor of Liberation Daily). Later they fought from one place to another until they got to the anti-Japanese front in northwest Shanxi and took part in the establishment and development of Jin-Sui Daily and South-Shanxi Daily.

Like Liao Bing, all the other anti-Japanese servicewomen regarded Yan'an as a place where they were reborn. Over 50 years have passed, but Yan'an, whenever they think of it, is still so dear and familiar to them. Hao Zhiping, who gave up her studies in a women's normal college to fight with the Japanese, traveled a long distance to Yan'an at the risk of her life. She had planned to go back and study in her home town Kaifeng after overthrowning the Japanese devils, but the moment she stepped on the land of Yan'an, all her thoughts of returning home were gone. She said: "I was assigned to the 18th Group of the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Military and Political College and started a new life. That evening, lying on the newly-built kang, I felt damp and sticky beneath me. Rising up and turning over the straw mattress, I found that the mud which hadn't dried all melted. Just then the blisters and chilblains in my feet also began to trouble me. Aching and itching in the feet, I tossed about and couldn't fall asleep. Suddenly I thought of my mother. After all I was only 15. Unknowingly tears came out. I asked myself then: 'Didn't you want to find the Communist Party? Now that you have found it, why do you begin to miss home? What a good-for-nothing!' Early the next morning, as soon as the reveille sounded, I got up and started to pack up my things. Then I jumped out from the kang and were ready to run outside. But the moment my frost-bitten feet touched the floor, the pain pierced me to the heart, making me unable to run even if I wanted to. Seeing me walking with difficulty, the squad leader said sympathetically: 'Little devil, you're so young and your feet hurt so. Don't force yourself to run if you cannot. Go out to drill when you've recovered from your hurt.' These words made me feel strong, however. Straightening my back and standing at attention, I reported: 'Squad leader, my feet don't hurt much, and I'll feel better after some running. Watch me if you don't believe.' Feigning ease, I ran out towards the ranks in big strides. Each day, despite my limp, I went out to drill, carried food and firewood, feeling an inexhaustible strength in myself. Then political studies brought me to a new realm. Luo Mai, Chen Fangwu, Luo Pu, Ai Siqi and some other comrades lectured to us about Marxist-Leninist theories, the history of social development, and workers' movements, all of which we had never been exposed to in our former schools. They broadened my horizon and transformed my former sentiments of detesting the world and its ways into a strong wish to rescue society. Opening a piece of paper,

I wrote deliberately an application for admission to the Party. Immediately afterwards, I changed my name from the traditional and humble 'Binru' to 'Zhiping,' which means 'make peaceful.' It was here that I made the most important choice in my life, which made it possible for me to be still a servicewoman today."

Many of the servicewomen who graduated from the colleges have become leading cadres taking charge of a department or locality. But in their recollections they seldom mention female education or cultural activities in the colleges. Why is it so? First of all it is because they think it goes without saying that female emancipation and national liberation were consistent and joining the revolutionary ranks itself became the first mark of female emancipation. Liao Bing did have the opportunity and had actually been assigned by the leaders to conduct overseas Chinese affairs, but the didn't do it. She said that at that time revolutionary women should go and work in the forefront, whereas conducting overseas Chinese affairs was to her second-front work. Hao Zhiping said even more directly: "Later I followed the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College into the enemy's rear areas and changed my name to 'Red Madder'. This is the name of a plant which is red from the root to the leaves. I wished myself to be red all over and full of vitality, like the red madder." She did as she said, fighting together with her husband Luo Ruiqing in the general headquarters of the eighth Route Army, the anti-Japanese front, throughout the War of Resistance Against Japan. Besides, doing what men did and smashing the barrier of feudal relationships between men and women were also what the revolutionary women of that time sought after, while their sex they simply ignored in this pursuit of theirs.