The meeting was held in the auditorium of the First Technical School, and many young students, both male and female, had already gathered at the entrance, and when they saw us, someone called out, “Here we are.” At this time, a man came out from inside and said impatiently to the two people who brought me here: “What the hell? The meeting was scheduled to start at eight o’clock.” They both swept a glance at me: “Go ask her.” And they left me behind and hurried into the building.
The man said to me, “Come here!” And I followed him into the venue.
The spacious meeting room was already packed to the brim, and the front row of benches was filled with Asia’s doctors and senior staff. As for the drivers, janitors, elevator operators, workers, small staff and a large group of students, they sat in the back row, those young people may be technical school students. There were also many people standing in the aisle and in the empty seats in the back row. The hot sun was forcing its way in through the window, but in such a hot and stifling meeting room, few people were fanning themselves, and the air was filled with a tense and wait-and-see atmosphere.
We had been working together in the same office for nine years, and we met almost every day, but when I brushed past the senior staff in the front row and entered my assigned seat, none of them greeted me, as if they had become strangers. Most of them averted their eyes from me, and a few met my gaze, from which I could see that they were in a difficult situation.
I wondered how they had spent the months since the end of Asia’s proclamation. In fact, they were the real casualties. Most of them had served Asean for many years, some of them having joined the company in the 1920s. During the fall of the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, many employees traveled long distances to work for Asean in Chongqing, the capital of the war, but left their families behind in the fallen areas. Those who remained in Shanghai would rather endure various economic hardships than serve the Japanese takeover of Asia – then renamed the Japanese oil company. Many of the company’s employees have now reached the age of retirement. The asset-liability agreement concluded by the government authorities to accept Asean stated in detail that they would be assigned jobs by Chinese government agencies, but there was no mention of whether they would be assigned jobs and treatment comparable to Asean’s status. In fact, they could only work as petty clerks or general interpreters, receiving low salaries or low pensions. None of them dared to object to the agreement, because the government asked them to accept it. The last managing director, and I, tried to ask the union for guarantees that they would be treated accordingly when they left our company, but they told us that every employee was happy to accept the spirit of the agreement.
At the last meeting of the trade union of Asean, the president of the union had said to me: “Every employee rejoices in the bright future that will come after being freed from the unequal status of service in a foreign company. They are all willing to be employees of state agencies and contribute to socialism.” This official reference is difficult to convince all people. Later in the company, some of the senior employees who came to my office shook their heads helplessly, “There is no way out.” The meeting was adjourned from 9:00 a.m. to about noon, and by now it had been in session for more than three hours, and the temperature in the room was rising as noon approached, so I thought I had to conserve my energy and wait for the presiding officer to speak. The narrow and long bench, and the war in Chongqing bomb shelter bench is generally uncomfortable, I have been full of sweat. I opened my handbag to pull out a handkerchief, while glancing at a sandalwood fan placed in the bag by Chen’s mother, the silk surface is a peony flower painted by my art teacher, I used the fan to disperse some of the sweat and popularity of the room ……
Suddenly there was a commotion at the back, only to see several men, wearing short-sleeved shirts, knee-length coarse cloth short jacket, came in from the back door, straight up the stage, one of them walked to the podium covered with white cloth, the other few, sitting on a row of chairs behind him. In China, no one can tell how someone lives by his or her clothing, because everyone dresses like a proletarian. The Chinese interpret a proletarian as “a person who has no property”. Some Chinese thought that it was safe and fashionable to act shabby and poor at that time. So I can’t say for sure to what rank and position the presiding officer belonged, but I think he was probably the general leader of the trade union.
“Comrades!” he said, “our great leader Chairman Mao personally initiated and led the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. We have the leadership of our great leader Chairman Mao, and we will be invincible. The situation of our proletariat is great!
“The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is an unprecedented and great opportunity for us to strive to study Mao Zedong Thought in depth. This will raise our political vigilance, and only then will we be able to distinguish between the people and the enemy.
“The enemies of socialism are very cunning. Some of them are fighting against the red flag, and some of them are hiding swords in their smiles. They collude with foreign imperialism and the domestic bourgeoisie to oppose socialism, in the vain hope that the Chinese will suffer a second time and suffer a second crop of sins. Can you allow them to succeed? No! Of course not, a hundred times not!
“Seventeen years have passed since the liberation of Shanghai, yet until recently, foreign companies remained in the city. Their offices, occupying the best places, their cars, running on our roads, foreigners and a few Chinese who have forgotten their nationality, serving them and arrogantly bragging around about their great achievements. We know that these companies are agents of imperialism, who wish to continue their exploitation in China. We, the Chinese people, could not tolerate this and, therefore, we closed their companies and drove out the foreigners. Many of the Chinese employees of this company were corrupted by them, and their minds were so confused that we had to see them clearly. In fact, some of them were absolutely reactionary. Our task was to implement Chairman Mao’s policy of educating and reforming them. For several months, we held political theory study classes for them, but no one could accept the reformation. Conducting self-criticism and confessing guilt is the first step in reformation. If he himself does not face the facts and admit his guilt, then, in order for him to better conduct self-criticism, he must first accept the criticism of others. The conference held today is a critique of Tao Fang and his own self-examination.
“We all know who Tao Fang is. For thirty-five years he has been a lackey of Asia, a large multinational company with its agencies profiteering in every corner of the world. In Lenin’s words, this is one of the most vicious forms of exploitation in the capitalist enterprise.
“Capitalism and socialism are incompatible, and as a citizen of socialist China, Tao Fang cannot serve the interests of capitalist state enterprises. For a long time we have been helping him and hope he will see the bright side ……”
I was very surprised when I heard that Tao Fang, the past accounting director of our company, was the target of this conference. Because I always thought that they had a better impression of Tao Fang. His oldest son had been sent to study in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia in the 1950s, and later joined the Communist Party. I knew that every young man sent abroad to study had to be thoroughly vetted for his family origins, which also included his father’s work and political views. For Tao Fang must have passed the vetting when his son left the country, I don’t understand why he has to be pulled out and criticized now.
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