Nien Cheng- A Profile in Courage

It is often said that the hallmark of a human being is the way in which he or she reacts to adversi- ty. When things are going well there would be smiles all around, but when things take a turn for the worse, only those who possess fortitude and courage would be able to stand up and face the chal- lenges without batting an eye lid. Adversity can range from mild physical discomfort to extreme de- privation of all material comforts, including liberty and food. Those who have survived ordeals caused by extreme adversities invariably develop a halo around them and are revered throughout the world. Leaders like Nelson Mandela, Aung Sang Su Kyi had to to undergo incarceration in pris- ons for long periods for political reasons while the likes of Mother Teresa chose a life of deprivation to better serve the cause of diseased and the underprivileged. But lesser known are the experi- ences of ordinary people who are suddenly forced to face severe hardship for which they are not prepared. People living in war zones and those caught in the middle of civil wars, riots etc fall un- der this category. They remain mere pieces of statistical data for the rest of the world who hear about them in terms of numbers who died, got wounded, were displaced and forced to live in refugee camps etc. It is seldom that persons who survive such misfortunes write about their expe- riences and inform the rest of the world about how they faced the challenges.

Nien Cheng was born into a well to do Chinese family during the second decade of the twentieth century, when huge changes were taking place in the Chinese society. She met her husband, an- other fellow Chinese, while studying in London; after their marriage, he joined the diplomatic ser- vice of China in 1939. When the Communists came to power at the end of a bitter civil war in 1949, he tendered his resignation from the diplomatic service but was coaxed by the new regime not to leave China. They stayed back in and he took up the job as General Manager in Shell Petroleum Company, which was one of the few multinational companies working in China at that time. After his untimely death in 1957, Shell requested Nien Cheng to join the company as execu- tive assistant to the new General Manager, who was of British origin, more for the purpose of liais- ing with the labour union and government officials. When Shell wound up their operations in China in 1966, she lost her job. However she was able to lead a life of relative comfort on account of the savings of her late husband and herself. Nien Cheng was a person of refined tastes who was very proud of her porcelain collection, and she lived in Shanghai with her daughter Meiping, a talented actress attached to Shanghai theatre, in a large house, with the help of three servants.

This cosy, comfortable nest that Nien Cheng had built for herself and her daughter was thrown into disarray when Mao Zedong, Chairman of the , launched the Great Prole- tarian in 1966. Though the official reason given by the Communist Party and its Chairman for embarking on this movement was to cleanse the party and government of the capital- ists and right roaders who had crept in, the real cause was believed to be the infighting within the top echelons of the Communist leadership. Chairman Mao appealed directly to students and work- ers and exhorted them to questions and criticise the party and government bureaucracy, while the police and armed forces were given strict instructions to stay away. Soon, groups of “” took upon themselves the task of implementing directives of the Chairman with no one daring to stop or restrain them. A call to break away from “Four Olds”- Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits and Old Ideas- resulted in these Red Guards vandalising temples, libraries, museums etc looking for anything old that could be destroyed. In a span of three months the whole country was plunged into turmoil and disorder.

Nien Cheng had her first experience of Cultural Revolution when she was forced to attend struggle sessions where some former colleagues of hers were made to confess their “crimes” involving working against the interests of the proletariat, serving the capitalists and belonging to the category of class enemy. However, things soon took a turn for the worse when Red Guards barged into her house and started destroying her personal possessions, including her precious porcelain collec- tion. She managed to salvage a part of her collection but was forced to stay in one room in her house without any contact with her daughter who was allotted another room, while the remaining portion was taken over by the Red Guards. Big character posters appeared outside her house ac- cusing her of being a “class enemy” and a “running dog of imperialists”. The phase of this virtual house arrest was short-lived as she was soon imprisoned in a proper detention facility for refusing to “confess her crimes against the People’s Government”, during a .

Little would Nien Cheng have imagined on 27 September 1966 when she first stepped into the de- tention facility that she would be forced to stay in solitary confinement there for more than six years. She was subjected to interrogation sessions repeatedly, often accompanied by physical vio- lence, as her tormentors sought to extract confession from her about the functioning of Shell Pe- troleum Company and her role in some of the decisions taken by this entity. She held her ground and refused to confess, which made her interrogators extremely angry. Once she was manacled with her hands pinned behind her back and forced to remain in that state for 11 days in a dark room; she survived that ordeal by sheer force of determination that she would not capitulate before injustice. She was hospitalised on many occasions on account of various illnesses caused by poor living conditions and malnutrition but she escaped death, hanging on to life by her will power.

Nien Cheng was released from prison on 27 March 1973, after the authorities decided to show her “proletarian magnanimity by refraining from pressing charges against her”, though she vehemently maintained even at the time of her release that she had not done anything against the government. However, she was soon dealt with a blow worse than any of the sufferings she had endured, when she found that her daughter Meiping had committed suicide when she was in prison. She refused to believe that Meiping would take her own life and went about investigating the matter tenaciously, to find that her daughter had died during a struggle session wherein she had resisted pressure from her tormentors to give false evidence against her mother. Though Nien Cheng was treated with respect by the authorities after her release from prison, her attempts to bring to justice those responsible for the death of her daughter did not bear fruit. Finally she left China in September 1980 and settled down in USA, where she penned her experiences and had them published under the title “Life and Death in Shanghai”. This book soon became a bestseller with more than one mil- lion copies being sold. Nien Cheng died in 2009, at the age of ninety four, at her home in Washing- ton.

“Life and Death in Shanghai” is more than the chronicle of of Nien Cheng’s years in jail. It is the story of a woman’s fight against injustice and a cruel system that accused an innocent person of crimes she did not commit. The qualities of fortitude, resilience, determination, will to fight against heavy odds and ability to stand up for what is true and fair, that helped Nien Cheng to survive the years of solitary imprisonment and overcome the mental trauma caused by her daughters death, is brilliantly portrayed in simple language. The book also offers a glimpse of life in Mao’s China during the period of Cultural Revolution and the distress and pain suffered by common folk during times of chaos and anarchy. Reading this work would also help one to realise the good fortune of living in a country like ours where rule of law is held to be sacrosanct; it also opens one’s eyes to the fact that many of the freedoms that one tends to take for granted are denied to huge segments of popula- tion in many parts of the world. The significance of books like “Life and Death in Shanghai” would never cease, though it pains one to think that this masterpiece was triggered on account of injus- tice inflicted on the author.