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Under Dad's Mausoleum
On my trips home, I would stop at Xiamen, pay a visit to the mausoleum and pick a sprig from the fir trees that sheltered the mausoleum. Under the mausoleum was a great cave two stories deep. Remains of the dead—thousands of them—all officially recognized martyrs, were kept in earthen pots and placed on wooden shelves. I went down there during a visit in December 1966 when I decided to place my Red Guard’s band on the pot holding my father’s remains. The cave was dark and oppressive, but I felt neither disgust nor dread—nobody in my situation would, knowing that it was his dear one who lay there. On climbing out of the cave, I felt more keenly my attachment to my father and to the cause for which he had died. The inscription "Long live revolutionary martyrs" on the memorial shielding the mausoleum now shone in resplendent sunlight. It was the calligraphy of Marshal Chen Yi, whose personality I adored and whose inscription I had treasured. (Click image to enlarge.)
(Click image to enlarge)
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Updated November 18, 2015 网页更新 2015-11-18
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I
thought of my father, who had died so young. He had had his dreams
and visions of a new society in which people would no longer suffer
from poverty and would be masters of their own land. Now the remains
of my father were buried in the Mausoleum for Revolutionary Martyrs
in Xiamen. He had died in his last effort to evacuate his comrades
and other persons whose names he knew had appeared on Kuomintang’s
blacklist. On every Chinese New Year’s Eve since Liberation, government
officials would call on Mother with kind words and token gifts.
