The egg cake was buttery, enticingly golden-brown, and perfectly round. This oily morsel of heaven, a ten cent luxury, was all hers. As the girl devoured her treat, her aunt looked on approvingly, glad that the child was behaving herself. “Rub your lips together,” she told her niece, “make sure the oil spreads across them. It will brighten you up.”
The girl was on her way to audition for 小红花, a performance group of primary school students that consisted of singing, dancing, and playing various traditional Chinese instruments. The children performed to foreign dignitaries every one or two weeks, serving as living proof of the glorious Communist Party’s healthy, promising youth. Nanjing was divided into three counties, each with their own respective 小红花. Every year, scouting agents descended upon kindergarten classrooms in search of “promising” children. After identifying one, they would notify the student’s teacher, who would then relay to the child’s parents that their child had qualified for tryouts. The final decision process was intensely selective: only two or three children, out of hundreds, were invited to join the group.
When news came that the girl had been chosen as a dancer, she began to walk an extra thirty minutes each day to another school located closer to the practice studio. At five years old, the girl found 小红花 to be a fun, albeit rigorous, extracurricular. Rehearsals ran every day after school for a minimum of two hours. Nonetheless, the girl liked dancing and was delighted by the lifestyle the program afforded her. She had devoted dance teachers who supported her and was provided with daily lunches, dinners, and most importantly, cakes for dessert. All of these resources were free: once chosen to be in 小红花, the government paid for everything. The girl knew that she was special, that she was a big deal, because she was being taught to dance when none of the other children in her community were. On her way to school sometimes, she noticed parents pointing her out to their children, whispering, “Look there, that’s the girl who’s in 小红花!”
What the girl loved most was performing. Sometimes she was a model student, helping a naughty boy with homework and helping him adopt more studious habits. Other times she played a dutiful daughter washing her family’s clothes. One of her favorite roles was as a girl working on a tea plantation. She would serenely pick imaginary tea leaves and put them in her basket as a triumphant nationalist tune played in the background. She knew little about the adults watching her perform. She noticed their different skin tones and would sometimes hear words she recognized from her history class, like “Romania” or “Africa”. Not of it mattered much to the girl. As long as she could dance and perform, she was content.
At every year’s end, each member of 小红花 was re-evaluated. Some children were allowed to continue on for the next year, while others were told to quit. Three years after joining, the girl was asked to leave. Her teachers told her she was responsible for packing her things up and notifying her parents. No reason was given and the girl knew better than to ask for one. They presented her with some money as a parting gift, which was expected to be given to her parents. On her walk home, tears pricked her eyes. She was terrified of telling her mother the news and of the spanking that would follow. She felt humiliated, worthless, and tossed aside. Above all, she was ashamed: it was her fault that she was not good enough. She noticed a food stall on the side of the road and came to a halt. She found herself handing a dime over to the stall owner in exchange for a bag of candied nuts, an expensive treat that would almost certainly exacerbate the spanking awaiting her. Yet in that moment, she felt brave. Empowered. She popped a handful of nuts into her mouth and let the sugar dissolve over her tongue, the sweetness making everything a little better. She swallowed her tears, then continued home.
This was a story about my mother, who was a member of 小红花 from ages 5–8. She did not realize 小红花 was a propaganda tool until high school.
