It took six long years for Bao Chengmo (James Bao), an education expert from New York State, to complete his memoirs, The Elegy of Communism: Years Under the Red Flag, recording for posterity his arduous life of 32 years in mainland China.
“‘Autocracy turns people into ghosts, and a free society turns ghosts into people. My experience is the best reflection of this sentence.” His dearest wish: “I hope the Chinese people will no longer suffer what I suffered.”
In 1984, at 32, he left China and arrived in the United States to study. During his 30 years working in the New York education system, he enjoyed a free, democratic, affluent, and comfortable life.
After his retirement in 2018, the 66-year-old Bao Chengmo began writing his memoirs: “When I started writing, I had to face the pain of the past, as if I was walking through the hellish past all over again.”
Destined to become a pariah
In his memoir, Chengmo says: “I was born carrying the heaviest cross, and the original sin I was born with destined me to be a pariah at the bottom of the new society….”
Bao Chengmo was born in Shanghai in 1952. When he was just 3 years old, his father was arrested for “historical counter-revolution” crimes during the “anti-revolutionary” movement. On top of all that, when he was only 5 years old, his father was sentenced to life imprisonment for “current counter-revolutionary crimes.”
His father, Bao Zuxian, joined the Kuomintang at the age of 19 and served as its Shanghai Executive Committee member at the age of 26.
In 1947, the 27-year-old Bao Zuxian opened a trading house in Wusong and became a successful businessman. Chengmo said his father owned a British Lanlin bicycle and a German Leica camera. His home had a complete set of mahogany furniture and crystal chandeliers. The mahogany wardrobe was full of British tweed suits.
He decided to stay on
When the Kuomintang (KMT) retreated to Taiwan, Bao Zuxian chose to stay on the Mainland. His relatives and friends later felt sorry for him because he had joined the KMT’s Three Youth League and had a relationship with Chiang Ching-kuo.
At that time, Bao Zuxian optimistically thought: “When the Kuomintang was in power, everyone knew that my two younger brothers were Communists, so no one would make things difficult for me. When the Communists come, I will be fine with my two younger brothers protecting me.” However, the facts proved that he miscalculated and underestimated the brutality and cold-bloodedness of the Communist regime.
Soon after that, Bao Zuxian was arrested, and he and his brother were imprisoned. His wife was labeled a counter-revolutionary, and Bao Chengmo became a pariah at the bottom of society and was bullied mercilessly: “We children became ‘bastards who were discriminated against.'”
When Bao Chengmo was in primary school, his classmates cruelly taunted and shouted at him: “Your father is a counter-revolutionary.” During the Cultural Revolution, he was classified as one of the “Five Black Categories.” In 1969, at 17, he was taken from Shanghai and began his years of “going to the countryside to work in the fields” in Huaibei, Anhui Province.
“While In the countryside, they (the Communist Party) never treated me as a human being. They have no humanity. They said that killing people was just like killing a dog and allowing them to live is the greatest gift to them.” Bao Chengmo described the experience as being treated like a “ghost.” His first 32 years were a life of grinding, unbearable hardship, and suffering.
Researching his ancestral archives
In 1994, Bao Chengmo returned to China to visit his family. His family elders asked him to sort out the ancestral genealogy. So he began collecting, compiling, and archiving the family records. The seeds that prompted him to write his memoirs were deep in his heart for a long time. He recalled two unexpected and pivotal incidents when he was sent to work in the countryside in Huaibei.
Working endlessly in harsh conditions day after day, year after year, Bao Chengmo, like other educated youth, longed day and night to escape the grinding conditions of the countryside.
Personal tragedies become opportunities for freedom
Once, Zhou Zhaoguang, an educated youth and friend of Bao Chengmo, got to work in the county steel mill. It turned out that Zhaoguang’s mother in Shanghai did laundry and worked hard to earn money to bribe the company officials. At the same time, Zhaoguang took great pains to curry favor with the officials to get this “hard-won” opportunity.
However, less than a week after Zhaoguang left and feeling delighted with himself, the shocking news of his death suddenly came back. In an excited mood, Zhaoguang and a group of new young workers went swimming in the ditch next to the steel plant during lunch break. Zhaoguang jumped into the water and never appeared again. Bao Chengmo recalled: “It was a hot day, but it was not yet summer, so the water was very cold, very icy, and the water plants entangled him, so he couldn’t escape and died in the water.”
Another female-educated youth, Liu Yan, finally got a chance to be recruited. Still, her father secretly gave the “recruitment form” to her second sister, so her second sister snatched away the rare opportunity. Her parents did not favor Liu Yan; she had long been filled with grievances and resentment.
On the day her second sister left, Liu Yan committed suicide by jumping into a well. Bao Chengmo recalled: “The well was several meters deep and only one meter in diameter. She was very determined to leave and didn’t want to live anymore. She didn’t want to live anymore. She was desperate and lost hope.”
The sudden death of two young lives, the instant transformation from joy to tragedy, deeply shocked Chengmo. “I thought about myself. I, too, am the most discriminated against in society, and my family is also the most unfair to me. So where is my future? They are all dead. What is the road ahead for me?”
“I suddenly felt the fragility and brevity of life and felt confused about the meaning of life.” So he asked himself: “What should I leave behind for this world so my life will not be in vain?”
These tragedies and his search for the true meaning of life planted the seeds for him to write his memoirs at some point in the future.
Grandma’s enlightenment to the rescue
Bao Chengmo still feels Liu Yan’s state of mind: “This is the greatest pain. It was hopelessness and despair. There was no way out. Some people have moved away from the countryside, but some, like us, didn’t stand a chance. We got no chance at all. All opportunities were snatched away from us.”
To this day, the pain lingers like a nightmare. “Decades later, I still have nightmares about being oppressed in the countryside. I wake up in the middle of the night and think, oh, it was just a dream, I have escaped from that place, I am not there anymore.”
His grandmother’s words played a crucial role in building Chengmo’s resilience and determination, which helped him endure the daily grind of rural Huaibei.
In his ninth year in the countryside, his grandmother once said: “From the day you are born, all kinds of hardships await you. You must be strong and able to withstand them.”
Grandma went on to say: “Even great men have to die. You are so young. What are you afraid of? One word: WAIT! I have seen many dynasties changing.”
“Change of dynasty!” Chengmo thinks his grandmother said it confidently: “I think it can only be understood as coming from her firm belief.” He lived in his grandmother’s home in Wuxi from birth until he was 4 years old and had a deep relationship with her.
His grandmother once told him that when she was young, she had breast cancer and was cured by a miracle. Since then, his grandmother has been worshipping Buddha for many years and getting up before dawn every morning to recite sutras.
Bao Chengmo was greatly encouraged. After returning to Huaibei, he no longer fantasized about being recruited to return to the city. From the third year of junior high school to the third year of high school, he studied mathematics, physics, chemistry, and English courses every night.
At the end of 1977, Bao Chengmo took part in the first college entrance examination after the Cultural Revolution. During the Chinese New Year of 1978, he received a college admission letter and immediately went to Wuxi to tell his grandmother the good news.
When his grandmother saw him coming, she said confidently, smiling: “I knew you would pass the exam. I prayed to the Buddha every day for you.”
So did you believe what grandma said? “Yes!” he said without hesitation.
In 1978, Bao Chengmo ended his nearly 10-year rural life and studied at Anhui Normal University. Five years later, he received an admission letter from the University of Iowa, and the following year, he went to the United States to study and start a new life.
Grandma taught me the philosophy of life: Faith and charity
When talking about his grandmother, Bao Chengmo felt very grateful for her kindness and wisdom. “When Grandma was middle-aged, her husband died. When she was 60 years old, her only and beloved son died. Later, my father, her son-in-law, was imprisoned. She encountered great disasters in her life.”
“Despite it all, she lived up to 88 years of age. How could she bear it? The fact is she was always very calm. You would never see her as someone who had suffered great disasters.” Bao Chengmo believed that it was the power of faith that enabled his grandmother to remain calm and at ease amidst numerous hardships.
“People with faith believe that doing good will bring blessing, and doing bad will bring fear, so there is a bottom line in life. Buddhism transcends this life. It believes in past lives and afterlife, believes in karma, and believes in spiritual practice.”
His grandmother was kind and charitable. She always helped others, even in difficult times. “Even if she only had one bowl of rice herself, she would share half of it with those in need.” This profoundly influenced Bao Chengmo.
He believes that faith is a power that is very concerned about past lives and the well-being of future lives: “Therefore, during the few short years of life on earth, people must do good deeds.”
Bao Chengmo believes in the existence of gods and Buddhas. If everyone in society holds a firm belief, then the Communist Party would have no chance to take advantage of the people: “Human nature has good and evil. If we carry forward the goodness of human nature, there would be no Communist Party. The Communist Party has taken the evil of human nature to the extreme, and there is no good left.”
Appreciate those who tell the truth
In the past 32 years, in addition to being grateful to his grandmother, Chengmo is also thankful to three people who told the truth. Here is what happened.
In 1977, Bao Chengmo took the college entrance examination and scored high on the English test: 103 points. This was the highest score among eight countries, and his total liberal arts score exceeded the admission score for key universities across the country, enough to enter East China Normal University.
After he finished the oral examination, three examiners from East China Normal University, Anhui University, and Anhui Normal University asked him to come to their residence that evening.
“The examiner at East China Normal University said that East China Normal University is one of the best in the country, and your total score in the college entrance examination meets the requirements of our school, but I can’t take your file.” The examiner at Anhui University continued: “The Foreign Language Department of Anhui University is dedicated to training cadres for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing. So we can’t take your file either.”
Finally, the chief examiner of Anhui Normal University said to him: “We at Anhui Normal University train primary and secondary school teachers so that I will take your file.” Bao Chengmo was finally admitted to Anhui Normal University.
“In China, everyone has a file. My file states that my father is in prison, my uncle is in prison, and my mother is also a counter-revolutionary.” So even though Bao Chengmo had excellent grades and met the requirements, he was still rejected by key universities across the country.
“The three teachers told me the truth. They did not have to tell me, but they told me the truth. People in China who dare to tell the truth are worthy of my gratitude.”
He left for the United States to complete his life mission
In 1984, Bao Chengmo came to the United States, a free, democratic, and equal society. He obtained two master’s degrees with excellent results and a doctorate in philosophy from New York University. “I received full scholarships for all three degrees.”
After retiring from the New York education system in 2018, Bao Chengmo lived a quiet and comfortable life: “I am now an American citizen, and my life is good. However, I was born in China, and I have to care about the well-being of other Chinese people.”
“I hope that my ups and downs in life, my experience of living in an authoritarian system for 32 years and living in a free society for 40 years, can arouse readers to think.” He hopes that his own experience can give Chinese people “enlightenment” in their thinking.
He believes: “An authoritarian society turns people into ghosts, while a free society turns ghosts into people. China’s future lies in the change of its system, and the premise of changing the system is the change of ideas. We must change the Chinese people’s idea of ’being willing to be slaves.’”
His book fulfilled the request of his family elders
“Human power is insignificant. If I had not left China, I would not have been able to write this autobiography.” After reliving and sharing his hellish past, he happily states that he has completed his mission in this life: “I hope that the Chinese people will no longer suffer the pain that I have suffered.”
About the author of The Elegy of Communism: Years under the Red Flag:
Born in Shanghai in 1952, Bao Chengmo, from January 1969 to February 1978, worked in Yong’an Commune, Su County, Anhui Province.
He graduated from the Foreign Language Department of Anhui Normal University in 1982. In 1984, he went to the United States to study at his own expense. He later obtained a master’s degree in education from Hunter College of the City University of New York, a doctorate in philosophy from New York University, majoring in multicultural and multilingual studies, and a postgraduate degree from Long Island University, New York, majoring in educational administration.
He taught at Seward Park High School in New York City and was an education reviewer for the 24th New York City Department of Education School District.
He served as the “Specialist for Improving Teaching Quality” at the New York State Education Department from 2005 until his retirement in 2018.
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