My Father's Wisdom

by

Xiaosui Zhou

I was born in 1966, the year China the Culture Revolution began. My mother told me when I was just born that a nurse held me in her arms and said, "come, look at this girl, she is so pretty, her eyes are so big". Another nurse who was in the room standing in front of the window, said, "come here and look at the people marching down the street wearing high caps!"

They were the people the Gong Chan Party (The Communist Party) had branded as counter-revolutionary. They were being marched down the street as an example.

These are some of the stories my father taught my in this time.

Chapter One

Why do you make yourself upset when other people do the wrong thing?

I was eight years old, I very like Chinese dance. I often danced in the school. Teacher very like me, she always teach me a lot. After one year, I dance very well. I went to factory, army and other schools, many places to perform.

One day, teacher asked me to go to her office. She told me I can’t dance for the school any more. I was very upset. I asked, “why?” Teacher said: “somebody told to school that your father is a bad person who is oppose to Mao. So you have a bad family, you cannot dance any where.

I cried long time when I went home. I didn’t want talk to anybody, I didn’t want eat food, I just cried and cried. I was ill; I stayed in the bed two days. I couldn’t go to school. My parents didn’t know what happened to me. They were worried. So they went to school to find out what happened.

I remember, one morning, when I woke up, my father was gave me a book. It was a very old book, with many dance pictures in the book. I look and no interested. My father smiled and asked me: “ Do you think your father is a bad person”. I shook my head. Father laughed, and then he said: “you are right, our family is a very good family. We never done the wrong thing to anybody. You are a best dancer, they don’t want you dance, it is they who are losing. My daughter you haven’t lost anything. You must be happy again, you can dance at home, our family can have dance party every week. My daughter, you must remember, don’t use other person do the wrong thing to punish yourself.

Yes, my father was very right. After this thing, when I am upset for someone, I always tell myself : ‘why you make yourself upset for other people doing the wrong thing.’