Mao’s Last Dancer

As Cunxin and Mary fly on a tiny prop plane toward Qingdao, Cunxin wonders how much will have changed—or not—in his old village. He’s surprised when the plane lands at the same old airport where he and his friends got caught digging for half-burned coal long ago. Five of Cunxin’s six brothers come to greet him and Mary at the airport. It takes two trucks to bring everyone and the luggage back to the old village. On the drive, the old familiar smell of human manure on the fields brings back childhood memories flooding back. So do the sound and smell of the fireworks Cunsang lights when the trucks pull up outside the Li family home.

Niang pulls Cunxin into a Western style embrace when he climbs out of the truck. Everyone fawns over Mary, the first white person to visit the village since 1949. She and Cunxin hand out American cigarettes and candies to Cunxin’s brothers and sisters-in-law and their children. Cunxin is surprised—and slightly saddened—to realize that Japanese video game systems have replaced the simple games of his childhood even in this rural place. The children put on a singing-and-dancing show to welcome them, after which Cunxin and Mary show off some of their dance moves. Cunxin’s family’s eager questions about his and Mary’s lives and about life in America go on for hours.

Although increased living standards are evident in the Lis’ freshly paved courtyard, electric fans, and glassed-in windows, the house still lacks indoor plumbing. Mary takes it all—including the toilet hole dug under the courtyard wall—in stride. She and Cunxin stay in the village for three weeks, getting acquainted with Cunxin’s brothers and their families. The one-child policy has significantly changed family dynamics: Cunxin has many nieces but only one nephew. Only officially classified peasants like Cunyuan and Cunsang can have two children, and only if their first child is a girl. When the sisters-in-law explain that the government will force women to have abortions if they get pregnant a second time, Mary declares the practice barbaric. Cunxin, who for so many years had nothing but his family’s love to rely on, worries about the loneliness this generation of single children will face.

The lives of Cunxin’s brothers reflect the massive changes in Chinese society and culture. Cuncia rose through the Party ranks in Tibet until a change of policy caused the government to recall all ethnic Chinese people living or working there. Cuncia was given a nice job as the deputy head of a post office in a prosperous county. But a former Red Guard colleague, jealous of his success, lodged a formal complaint against him for something that had happened more than two decades earlier and got him demoted. Now, he is a senior manager at the Laoshan Post Office. He ruefully tells Cunxin that he’s just one of millions of victims whose youthful service to the Communist Party of Chairman Mao earned nothing but injured pride, lost belief, and enduring questions about the meaning of their lives.

Cunyuan eventually accepted his arranged marriage and grew to love his wife, with whom he has three daughters—two of their own and another whom they adopted after Cunyuan found her abandoned on the side of a road as a newborn. Cunyuan shows Cunxin his land allotment from the commune. It’s even smaller than the plot the Li family used to work, and Cunyuan lives in fear that even this will be taken away. The government owns all the land and often sells or appropriates it for whatever program the local officials endorse at the moment. Cunyuan is grateful for the improved living standards of modern China, but he still feels like the frog trapped in the well. He only hopes his daughters might escape to a better life one day.

One morning, the entire Li clan visits Na-na’s grave. As Cunxin and Mary kow-tow, he thinks about how much he still misses his kind, sweet grandmother. He doesn’t know if their offerings make it to her in the afterlife, but he feels good making them as tribute to her.

Cunsang did indeed leave the navy after his first four-year term ended so he could come home and marry his girlfriend. They live with their two children on a chicken farm. They’ve been successful, but their limited finances keep them from expanding the business. Cunxin and Mary give Cunsang a gift of cash to help, and Cunsang so overwhelmed that he can barely express his gratitude. Cunmao and his wife are businesspeople, and they live a comfortable life with their daughter. Cunxin asks if Cunmao ever came to terms with his adoption. Cunmao is surprised—he didn’t know that Cunxin overheard his fight with Niang on that long-ago day. He confesses that he has struggled with it his whole life. But he chose to be faithful to his adoptive parents, unwilling to tear the family—or himself—apart.

Cunfar replaced Dia when he retired from the Laoshan Transportation Company many years ago. He feels lucky, because this was his childhood dream anyway—driving trucks in the city was his way to escape the poverty of the village. He and Cunxin exchange many stories during the visit, especially about their champion crickets.