Read an Excerpt

Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party

A Novel

Henry Holt and Company

Father's Ponytails

The summer of 1972, before I turned nine, danger began knocking on doors all over China.

My parents worked as doctors in City Hospital Number 4. It was the best hospital in Wuhan, a big city in central China. My father was a surgeon. My mother, a traditional doctor of Chinese medicine, treated patients with herbs and acupuncture needles. When my doll got sick, I treated her with candies.

We lived in a three-story brick building in the hospital compound, near the Yangtze River — the longest river in China. All year round, the river and railroad brought us sweet dates and tea from the East, beautiful silk and candies from the West, tropical fruit from the South, and roasted duck from Beijing, in the North. Father often told me, "Our city is like a human heart — all the body's blood travels through it."

One evening, like many others, the white lace curtains on our open windows danced on the breeze from the courtyard. The sweet smell of roses and the familiar aromas of garlic, ginger, and sesame oil filled our spacious second-floor apartment. We sat around our square table, eating dinner in the living room with its wide picture window that faced the courtyard.

The kitchen and bedrooms were across from the living room. All the rooms on that side had large windows overlooking the rose garden and the walls of the hospital compound.

Mother set a small blue bowl and matching soup-spoon in front of me. "Ling, your hair is as dry as dead grass. Eat your soup." It was filled with tofu, spinach, and seaweed. I didn't want it, but I knew better than to say so. I picked up a bit of tofu, hoping that would be enough. I had already stuffed myself on my favorites: pan-fried dumplings, egg-fried rice, and steamed fish with Mother's tasty black bean sauce. I had even tasted some of the orange sesame chicken, a special treat for Father. Today, though, he ate only two pieces, leaving most of the chicken in its serving bowl.

"Hurry, Ling!" Mother said sharply. She was clearing away plates and would want my bowl soon — but empty. With my eyes, I asked Father if I really had to eat the awful brown soup.

He smiled the way he always did. Little wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes. "It's hot today. You need the liquid and sodium. At least drink the broth."

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and slurped down the broth. Blocking the chunks with my teeth, I made sure none of the slippery seaweed or spinach got in my mouth.

Mother took the dirty chopsticks and teacups into the kitchen.

Scooping up the seaweed and spinach in my spoon, I quickly raised it to Father's mouth. His eyebrows lifted. Then his face relaxed.

"Open please, Daddy!" I whispered.

Father opened up and the yucky greens disappeared. He smacked his lips.

"Love you, Daddy!" I whispered. With two hands, I carried my bowl to the kitchen.

I was glad Father was home for dinner. When he was around he always saved me from Mother's strange food. On nights when Father performed surgery at the hospital, I had to eat everything Mother thought was good for me: jellyfish would get rid of my freckles; fish tails would help me put on weight; pig's liver would make me smarter; bitter tea would give me smooth skin. All of it tasted horrible. I once told Mother that if we had a dog, even the dog would not eat pig's liver. She rapped my head with her chopsticks and put a second piece in my bowl.

When I returned to the living room, Father still sat at the dinner table, holding a blue porcelain teacup in his hands. The ceiling fan spun slowly above him. His eyes were fixed on the teacup, as if he were studying it.

I didn't like to see him this way. For months Father had been drifting off in thoughts, even in the middle of our English lessons. Wanting to cheer him up, I tiptoed behind him to the bamboo bookshelf that stood next to the wide, brick fireplace. I reached up to the top and took down a yellow magazine with a picture of a human brain on the cover. It had arrived from America last week.

I walked past the fireplace and climbed up onto Father's black chair. It felt wonderful to stretch my sweaty legs across the soft, cool leather.

"Daddy, it's time for ponytails!"

He turned to me and smiled. After setting the teacup beside the matching dishes, he stood and slid his chair under the table, as Mother wanted us to do.

"Read this." I hugged my legs and made room for him.

Father took the magazine and sat beside me. I shifted onto the wide padded armrest and curled up like a little cat. Carefully, I drew together a tuft of his hair, twisted it into a ponytail, and secured it with a red elastic band from my wrist. Father sat still with a grin.

Two years ago, when I turned seven, Mother stopped braiding my hair. She told me I was old enough to do it myself. But I couldn't get it right. My thick, long hair tangled. It was difficult to divide it into three equal parts as my arms grew tired from reaching back. I begged Mother to braid it for me, but she refused, so I wore loose and floppy braids for weeks. Then I came up with the idea of practicing on Father. His straight hair was much shorter than mine, too short for braids. But I could put ponytails in the front, where it was longest, and practice fastening bands. I worried about hurting him by pulling too hard, but he never complained and always sat still. Though I had mastered ponytails last year, Father still let me practice on him in the evenings when he was home for dinner.

Through the open windows, the warm breeze carried in the voice of a neighbor as she rehearsed a new revolutionary song.

Dear Chairman Mao,
Great leader of our country,
The sun in our heart,
You are more dear than our mother and fa-a-a-ther
Fa-a-ther
Fa-a-ther ...

She couldn't reach the high note on "father" so she kept trying, "faa-ther ... fa-a-ther," over and over like a broken record.

How could anyone be more dear than my father? Would Chairman Mao let me put ponytails on him? I started to giggle when I pictured ponytails wrapped with red and yellow elastic bands standing on Chairman Mao's square head.

I secured the first band over Father's slippery hair. Would my singing neighbor feel as happy as I was when she could finally reach the high note? I wished she would get there soon — or sing a different song.

Rubbing my nose against the ponytail, I took a deep breath. It smelled of antiseptics, like the hospital. The distinct smell always made him easy to find when we played hide-and-seek.

A sharp crash from our kitchen startled me. The sound of running water continued, but the scraping of a spatula against a wok stopped. My heart sank. Mother had broken another bowl, the second this week. I could picture her breathing deeply and pursing her lips as she held back her anger. Her bad moods always made me nervous. She criticized me more when things went wrong. I was no longer cooled by the chair, and my sleeveless white cotton blouse clung to my sweaty back. Father said that hot weather made everyone short-tempered. But Mother had been like this since last winter.

Father stopped reading. He gently patted my shoulder. As if he knew how I felt, he reached over to the large rectangular radio sitting on the round end table. Instantly, American folk songs filled our apartment. Wiggling to the beat, I felt cheerful again. It must have been six-thirty. That's when Voice of America played a half hour of music between English-language newscasts.

I slipped a pink elastic band off my wrist and wrapped it around Father's second ponytail. He now looked like a clown in the circus.

"Daddy, I'll be nice. I'll only put in two today."

"Don't let me forget about them." Father glanced at his watch. "I have to operate on a patient in two hours, and I don't want to wear ponytails to the hospital again." He burst out laughing. The sound was deep and loud. I joined in his laughter.

"Of course, Daddy." I looked right into his loving eyes. I didn't understand why some children stared at their shoes when talking to their fathers.

Father started my English lessons when I was seven. I hated remembering all the rules of English, such as the s, es, and ies. Yet I had fun pronouncing English words. They sounded like the frogs singing in the field behind the hospital. During my lessons, Father told me stories about America that he had learned from his American teacher. And he taught me English songs and new words and — best of all — I had Father's full attention, with few interruptions from Mother.

We often started our lesson with the picture in the heavy gold frame on the mantel.

We walked to the fireplace. I stood on my tiptoes and reached for the picture. "I'll dust it today, Daddy."

Father took it down and handed it to me.

I slowly ran a blue silk handkerchief over the glass. Inside was a photograph of a long orange bridge with clouds wrapped around it. I dreamed of flying among those clouds.

"Daddy, why are there so many wires on top of the bridge?"

"It helps strengthen the bridge." He took the picture and put it back in the center of the mantel. Picking up the medical journal from the floor under his leather chair, he sat back down.

I climbed in beside him. "It's called — I know, I know — it's called 'sus-pen-sion.'" After carefully saying the difficult English word, I bounced.

"Careful! You'll fall." Father took hold of my arms.

"But you could always stitch me back up, right?" I winked at Father.

Father smiled. "Remember the name of the bridge?"

"Of course! It's called the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, America." I proudly said all this English in a single breath.

"Very good!" Father patted my shoulder.

I had heard the story many times. Dr. Smith gave Father the picture as a farewell present before going back to San Francisco. He had invited Father to go to work in a hospital near the Golden Gate Bridge. But Father decided to stay to help build the new China.

Our entire building used to be Dr. Smith's home. What was now our apartment had been his study and living room. It was here Dr. Smith taught Father and other doctors Western medicine and told them stories about his hometown near the Golden Gate Bridge. Father liked to share those happy times by telling the stories again and again.

"Daddy, I know why you put the picture in a thick golden frame. Because the bridge is heavy!" I burst into laughter.

Father laughed, too.

"Ling," Mother yelled from the kitchen. "How many times do I have to tell you? Don't laugh like that!" Plates clattered in disapproval.

Father covered his mouth with his right hand.

I covered mine quickly, the way Mother had taught me, even though I was no longer laughing. I didn't understand why Father liked my laugh but Mother didn't.

She disapproved of me much of the time. I laughed too loud and forgot to cover my mouth, rudely showing my teeth. I forgot to cross my legs and tuck in my skirt when I sat down. I talked too much. I ate too fast. My feet were too big, and my hair was too dry.

Maybe I could have a good laugh without showing my teeth. But how could I change the size of my feet, which were almost as big as hers? And what could I do about my dry, tangled hair? I ate fast because I loved to eat. If I took small bites like Mother, it would take all night for me to finish dinner. Or I would be hungry all the time. I wished she loved me the way I was, like Father did.

I believed Mother was unhappy with me because she had never wanted to have a daughter. She told our neighbor Mrs. Wong if she were younger she would try to have a son.

But Father loved me. I was his special girl.

Mother walked into the living room with a bamboo tray. I glanced at her as she moved closer to the dinner table. Her white lace apron covered her slender waist and part of her black silk dress. As always, her silky black hair was neatly pinned back, with every hair in place. Her pearl necklace shone in the last bit of summer sunlight coming through the windows. I could smell her jasmine perfume from across the room. She was more beautiful than the lady on the jars of powdered milk sent to us by Father's friends in America. How could I ever be as beautiful and perfect as she was?

Mother narrowed her eyes as she looked at me. "Ling, you are too old to play with your father's hair. Take the ponytails out right after your lesson."

My stomach tightened. It was Father's hair, and he hadn't told me I was too old.

Mother set the blue rice bowls covered with small lotus flowers on the tray, one at a time. I still remembered how hard she scolded me when I stacked the bowls together.

How could I learn every one of Mother's rules so I wouldn't upset her?

As soon as Mother left the room, Father patted my back. He whispered, "Your mother has a lot on her mind these days. Be patient with her. Let's start our new words for today."

I wanted to ask Father what was on Mother's mind. Was it because she wanted a boy? But I was afraid she would hear my questions from the kitchen.

I worked hard to pronounce new English words after Father. "Pick, pike, big, beg, dig." I imagined father and daughter frogs singing in a pond.

"Fountain, mountain ..."

Looking up at him, I burst out laughing again. I had forgotten about his ponytails.

Waste Is a Great Crime

Summer ended with three weeks of nonstop rain. Everything smelled of mold. When I walked through the muddy streets, I tried not to step on the political posters the rain had washed off the walls. I hated getting my hands dirty peeling the grimy paper off my shoes.

Mother replaced the bamboo mat on my bed with cotton bedding.

On a gray fall afternoon, a strange man and woman came to our apartment while Father was at work. Mother introduced the woman as the Communist Party secretary for the city and the man as Comrade Li.

The woman had short legs and long arms. Her baggy blue pants were rolled up above her brown rubber boots. She and Comrade Li did not take off their shoes and walked around our apartment leaving mud stains all over the floor.

When they crossed the living room to the fireplace, the Secretary Lady tapped her broken fingernail against our blue flower vase on the mantel. "Did this come from overseas?" she asked in a nasal voice.

Without waiting for Mother's answer, she turned and went into my parents' bedroom. Comrade Li followed. His blue army pants hung on him like flat balloons. There she opened the wardrobe and rubbed the fabric of Mother's dresses between her thick fingers.

Leaving the wardrobe open, they walked into my room. She brushed her hand over the yellow silk comforter on my bed. Her calluses caught at the pink embroidered peonies.

I stayed close to Mother as she followed behind them. She wore the smile she gave only to visitors, but she kept rubbing the third button on her white shirt, something she did when she was nervous.

As the Secretary Lady walked toward the kitchen, she waved at Comrade Li. "Come here. Don't let me do all the work."

Once in the kitchen, Comrade Li used a chopstick to poke and stir inside our rice jar. In Father's study, he picked up Father's ivory cigarette holder from the bookcase and squeezed it as if he expected a cigarette to pop out. Maybe he had never seen one before. It was a special gift to Father from Dr. Smith in America.

The Secretary Lady turned several of Father's books upside down and shook them. Notes and bookmarks fell to the floor like dead leaves. She pointed at them. "Take those with us," she ordered.

Comrade Li bent down and scooped up the little pieces of paper, stuffing them into the big pockets of his army jacket.

The notes were written in English. I wasn't sure why she wanted them. Father had spent many hours reading those books and taking notes. I bet he wouldn't be happy if he saw Comrade Li crumpling them up like that.

"Check all the shoes," said the Secretary Lady.

At the entryway, Comrade Li picked up Father's brown leather shoes from the rack. He tapped the heels with his knuckles and peeked inside before putting them back. What could he be looking for?

As soon as they left, Mother locked the door and threw all the clothes they had touched in a washbasin, even her silk robe. I asked if it was because they had dirty hands. She hissed and said, "No questions now!"

If Mother didn't want them to touch our things, why didn't she stop them?

That weekend Father moved the furniture and books out of the study. He jammed the books into the bookcases around the fireplace. Mother told me Comrade Li was going to live in Father's study.

As Father nailed shut the door between his study and our living room, I asked, "Who is Comrade Li? Why are you letting him move in?"

With a serious look on his face, Father continued pounding at a long nail. "He is the new political officer for the hospital, and he needs a place to stay."

"What does a political officer do?" I asked.

"He teaches Chairman Mao's ideas. Now let me finish what I'm doing." Looking stern, he screwed a brass latch onto the upper half of the study door. I knew better than to ask more questions.

So Comrade Li was a teacher? Would Father have to take lessons from him? But how could anyone be smarter than Father?

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Excerpted from Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine. Copyright © 2007 Ying Chang Compestine. Excerpted by permission of Henry Holt and Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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