Will the Boat Sink the Water?: The Life of China's Peasants (17 page)

Village Chief Gao did not expect to be rebuffed by an old granny. He took a step back and looked the old woman up and down as if not quite believing his eyes. Then he stepped up to the frail old lady and issued an ultimatum: “Pay up, or accept the consequences.”

Trembling with anger, Granny shouted back at him, “No way!”

Village Chief Gao, shocked at the force of the old woman’s defiance, raised his voice even higher. “I’ll see to it that you are charged with an antitax crime!”

The loud altercation attracted a number of villagers, who took Granny’s side, saying that the village chief had no right to demand another payment of the one-time house-site tax.

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Village Chief Gao was losing face in front of people whom he considered his inferiors. He turned fiercely on Granny again and said, “You paid? Where’s the proof?”

Granny Gao, provoked beyond endurance, went up to the bully, pointed her finger at him, and demanded, “Dare you swear—”

Before she had finished the sentence, Gao Xuewen swung his arm and gave the old lady a resounding whack on her cheek. She tottered, almost losing balance, and a big purple bruise immediately started to appear and her cheek started to swell.

The shocked villagers gathered around and began berating Gao for hitting an elder.

The pig-headed Gao did not give an inch. “So what if I hit her? I’m going to raid her house, just you watch!” And then and there he stomped into Granny’s house like a wild beast, smashing pots and pans and everything in sight.

Having vented his rage, the village chief walked away. Poor Granny fainted.

Thus ended the first in the chain of events that preceded the Gao Village incident.

Seeing the village chief apparently beating a retreat, the villagers agreed that this time he had gone too far. They were not surprised to see Zheng Jianmin, the deputy chief of the Fengmiao Township security station, show up at around one o’clock in the early afternoon, soon after Village Chief Gao’s departure. They were all gleefully looking forward to seeing how the village chief would be dealt with by township security after attacking an old lady and wrecking her home.

But instead of hauling over the village chief, as the villagers expected, Deputy Security Chief Zheng Jianmin headed straight for Granny Gao’s place, followed by his men in a police car. Without any explanation, he went in and tried to arrest Granny and her son. The villagers could not believe their eyes. They proceeded to tell Zheng what had really happened in the morn—

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ing and advised him not to arrest innocent people. But the security chief wouldn’t listen to them. He had already heard Village Chief Gao Xuewen’s version of the story, and did not want to hear anything else.

“Who is arresting innocent people?” he asked angrily. “You are!” the villagers retorted.

“Why don’t you do some investigation?” one villager added. In recent years, many villagers had been to the city as migrant workers and they had some inkling of how things are run in a more modern society; it was obvious to them that Zheng was

violating regulations.

Zheng Jianmin looked at the villagers contemptuously; to him, they were born to toil on the land and were not worthy of his attention. Just then, a man who seemed to stand above the rest of the villagers walked out from the crowd. He was Gao Guanghua.

Gao Guanghua confronted Deputy Security Chief Zheng face to face: “Gao Xuewen served Granny with a duplicate demand for payment of a one-time house-site tax. So he was wrong in the first place. Then he hit her, which is an additional offense. On top of that he wrecked Granny’s house, which constitutes a third legal offense. If you security officers actually believe his story, how can we common people ever trust you to protect us?”

Said right in front of the villagers, Gao Guanghua’s words to the security officer caused the latter to lose face. In a harsh voice, he rapped out an order to his men: “Take him away!”

Gao Guanghua struggled against Zheng’s men, shouting, “What right do you have to arrest me?” Zheng answered, “You are obstructing me in carrying out official duties.” Zheng’s men overpowered Gao Guanghua and threw him into the police car. By now the villagers were thoroughly agitated; they surrounded Zheng and accused him of abusing his authority. Zheng, cornered, pulled out his gun. “What are you trying to

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do?” he asked hysterically. He pointed the weapon now at one villager, now at another.

At this point the white-haired old man called Gao Zongpeng, who had been watching the scene quietly from the sidelines, now came forward and confronted Zheng. “Remember, you are supposed to be the people’s security force. And now without any investigation, without giving people a chance to say a word, you actually threaten us villagers with a gun. You are completely lawless!” The old man put his face up to Zheng’s gun and taunted him, “Fire, if you have the guts. Aim here! We villagers may be worthless in your eyes, but we are not afraid to die!”

Zheng Jianmin was wavering, and the old man pressed on: “If this is called obstructing official business, then we are all obstructing your business. Go ahead and arrest us all! Can you kill us all?! Who’s afraid of that gun of yours?!” By then the villagers also crowded around to face down Zheng and his gun, saying, “Fire! Go ahead and fire if you have the balls!”

Faced with the fury of the crowd, Zheng’s hand began to waver, and finally he holstered the gun, but not before giving the white-haired old man a piercing look, as if to imprint his image and remember to settle the score later. During this set-to the other villagers had managed to rescue Gao Guanghua from the police car.

Stony-faced, Zheng jumped into the police vehicle without saying a word. Slamming the door shut, he sped off, leaving behind a trail of dust and smoke.

The crowd in front of Granny Gao’s house dispersed, laugh-ing at how the deputy chief of Fengmiao Township security had slunk away.

Thus ended the second episode in the chain of events that led up to the Gao Village incident.

*

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Old Gao Zongpeng did not share the villagers’ confidence that they had cowed the deputy security chief. He said to himself, “That gang will never give up so easily. How can they bear to be put down by us mere country bumpkins? They’re bound to find an excuse to come back for revenge in a big way.” He was right. This second episode ushered in a third

Just as the white-bearded old man feared, Deputy Security Chief Zheng Jianmin returned to the security station in Fengmiao Township and told the other officials what had happened. He made up his own version, adding many exaggera-tions and distortions. Security Chief Ma Li and Political Director Zhu of Fengmiao Township security were both men of some standing in the region. To them it was preposterous that the village bumpkins had actually gotten the better of one of their own. They promptly went to the administrative head and the Party boss of the township, adding their own embellish-ments to Zheng’s story.

What followed was what the white-bearded old man had expected. Later in the afternoon of October 4, the same day of the events at Granny Gao’s house, two vans showed up suddenly in the village, and a group of men emerged. Among them were Security Chief Ma Li; Political Director Zhu Xianmin; two deputy heads, of the township Party and administration, respectively; as well as a number of cadres from the township finance, trade, and tax offices.

This group of officials had come from Fengmiao Township, more than five miles away, and by now it was close to dusk. Villagers who saw them coming wondered what they were here for, and how they were going to conduct any business before their return to Fengmiao, since it would soon be dark.

The villagers were naïve enough to hope against hope that this batch of officials were going to deal with the outrages that had taken place that day: Village Chief Gao Xuewen’s attack on Granny Gao in the morning and Deputy Security Chief Zheng’s

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whipping out his gun and threatening villagers in the afternoon. But this did not, after all, seem likely. The villagers followed the officials warily with their eyes and saw them looking around here and there, sometimes pointing with a finger at this and that, but never talking to anyone, never asking questions, much less doing anything to deal with the day’s outrages. Then they made preparations to leave. The villagers were totally confused and asked one another, “What are they here for?”

A few villagers worked up the courage to approach the cadres and say that the village chief, Gao Xuewen, had attacked an old granny unprovoked that very morning and smashed up her house, and could the honorable gentlemen please look into the matter. But none of the township officials deigned to glance at these villagers, much less give them an answer as they got ready to step into their vans.

The villagers who had seen something of city life knew that the so-called leaders of the township, and even those from the county, were just small fry in the official hierarchy, what people would call “piddling sesame officials.” They were thoroughly annoyed by the high and mighty airs these puffed-up petty township bureaucrats were putting on. Some of them muttered that this lot of “public servants” were downright bloodsuckers, not lifting a finger on behalf of the people who were feeding them. Others went a step further. They walked to the vans and said, “We can’t stop you from going and we can’t stop you from staying, but unless you deal with the problem of Gao Xuewen attacking people and smashing homes, the vans must stay.”