Read an Excerpt from Eileen Chang's Novel 'Naked Earth'

VICE is proud to present this excerpt from Eileen Chang's Naked Earth, out today from NYRB Classics. Originally commissioned in the 1950s by the United States Information Services as anti-Communist propaganda, Chang's novel is a searing portrait of the absurd and frequently brutal elements of life, love, and war in Maoist China.

"This book is based on real people and their true stories," writes Chang in her author's note. "My hope is that readers, in turning its pages, get a whiff of what real life was like for the people living through those days."

—James Yeh

Overnight the nation-wide Campaign for Increased Production and Economy had changed into the Three-Anti Movement, anti-corruption, anti-waste, anti-bureaucratism. Probably, Liu thought, because the drive for greater economy had brought to light many cases of corruption and wasteful spending among the kan-pu, the new movement promised to be an ordeal for all kan-pu, great and small. But, reading about it in the Liberation Daily News, Liu couldn't help think that the more ominous it sounded the more hopes there were of great changes and a new start. And perhaps even faster advancement for those kan-pu who could show a clean slate. His own record would stand up under investigation, Liu was quite sure. Perhaps there was nothing wrong with the regime that could not be righted by a thorough housecleaning.

Early in December the government began to pick out "politically pure, non-proletarian-origined, non-Party-member kan-pu" to attend a special class for the study of the policy of the Three Antis. Liu's name was on the list. He moved into the Organizing Department of the City Government, bringing his own bedding roll, and lived there for three weeks. Like a boarding school, he thought.

At the end of the course he returned to his own unit to propagate the principles of the Three Antis in evening classes and unit meetings, preparing everybody for what was coming. Then he was sent down to the headquarters of the movement—the old Committee for Increased Production and Economy—to assist in the examination of material. Now thousands of letters were pouring in every day informing against guilty kan-pu. It seemed that the vengeful fury of the public had proved to be stronger than their scruples. The contents of some of the letters Liu read stunned him—bribery and falsified accounts amounting to billions of JMP, the investment of embezzled funds in private enterprises, army officers getting the pay of large numbers of nonexistent soldiers. In his blackest moments he had not guessed that things were as bad as that. But how much could he believe of those charges? Ch'en I, the mayor of Shanghai, had said encouragingly at the start of the movement, "Charges need only be five percent correct."

His job was to sort out the letters of denunciation, refer the important ones to his unit leader, file the rest and keep his mouth shut. But the sense of responsibility did him good. The government was drawing on young kan-pu like him for the "frontline operations of the Three Antis." He and his comrades were newcomers who hadn't had time to form strong connections with any one clique and would be less inclined to shield anybody. Officially it was put like this: these young kan-pu were"politically pure, essentially good, but often vacillating in thought and infirm in their standpoint, and could do with being tested and trained in the firing line of the Three Antis." It made Liu happy too, to have his status so aptly defined. It was reassuring to know that there were many others like him. Perhaps the rebellious moods he felt so guilty about could be merely symptoms of an awkward stage in his development, and nothing escaped the all-seeing, all-compassionate eye of the Party.

After two weeks at headquarters he was given three days' leave in order to take part in the mass confessional meeting at the newspaper office. Under the new "queue-up system" all the names, from the leading kan-pu's down to the office coolies, had been listed, in a row. One by one they walked to the platform, made a confession, and subjected themselves to group discussion.

Liu was lucky that his work had never required or entitled him to handle money. And his position had been too low to afford him the remotest opportunity for taking bribes. Since he got paid under the Supply System instead of in cash, he had no savings and never sent money home. Alone in Shanghai, he was free from all suspicion of ganging up with capitalists. Still, when his turn came there was no lack of attackers who shouted accusations at him, clapping all kinds of "hats" on his head—individual hero-ist, bureaucrat, saboteur of public property, among other things.

Liu had learned some useful tips in his studies of the Three Antis. Ch'en I had said in one of his speeches, "The struggle of the Three Antis will strike like a violent storm, assailing everybody, both the good and the bad. Only thus can we make certain who might survive and who must be exterminated." He had quoted this to Su Nan again and again so she wouldn't be so nervous when her time came. But it wasn't so easy to remember this when he himself was standing up on the platform besieged by howling voices. They were merely putting up a good show, he kept telling himself, and he must not lose his head or his temper. He managed to keep silent and look pleasant, taking notes all the time, until his accusers had run out of abuse. Then he pleaded guilty to roughly half of the charges, carefully choosing the less serious ones. The audience expressed dissatisfaction as a matter of course. He made one or two amendments, scolding himself bitterly for holding back. And they let him pass.

Several other people went up on the platform before it was Ko Shan's turn. When her name was called and she stood up before the crowd to account for herself, Liu found that the palms of his hands had unaccountably started sweating. He felt the collar of his jacket wet against the back of his neck. But she made a good strong speech exposing her State of Thought, glibly accusing herself of Deserving Officialism, Pleasure Viewpoint, a Tendency toward Extravagance, a Free and Rambling Style of Behavior, and a Rough-Branch-Big-Leaf Style of work (a phrase borrowed from Chinese painting, meaning carelessness).

Somebody shouted, "These are nothing but chicken feathers and garlic peels—the merest trifles!"

"Yes, you're avoiding the big issues!" a woman called out.

Then a man stood up in the back rows to call out, "Comrade Ko Shan! Everybody knows that you're depraved and corrupted! Your private life is not solemn. You're still setting up those abnormal man-woman relations of the old society. Isn't it time that you make a real confession?"

"We'll set her right today if it's the last thing we do," an angry voice boomed out.

"Got to fell her in the Struggle!" echoed another voice. "And she's a Party member too!"

"Beat down Depraved Elements! Purify the ranks of the Party!"

Still smiling, Ko Shan tucked the cuff of her thick scarlet knitted sweater further inside the sleeve of her Lenin suit. It had been showing a little. She waited till the angry babel had died down. "I accept completely the criticism brought forward to me," her voice rang out. "I have nothing to say in my own defense. I feel very much ashamed that even now—after so many years spent in the very nucleus of the struggle—even now there still exist in my consciousness certain bad traits of the petit-bourgeois. I have this Tendency toward Freedom and Looseness. And then when I fought in the guerrillas I got into the Guerrilla Style of behavior. Ever since then I've found it hard to Regularize my life. Now the matter of man-woman relations. My starting point was comradely love. But, it has gone out of bounds and has led to Obscure Behavior. I'm a Party member and yet, instead of setting an example before the Masses, I'm sabotaging the Party's prestige. I deserve to be penalized most severely, but I still hope that all of you will consider giving me a second chance. In that case I will happily wash off the dirt on my body and voluntarily undergo a thorough self-reform."

It was such a fine speech that there was a moment of silence after she had finished. Then somebody shouted, "Pu hsing! Pu hsing! Won't do! Won't do! Confession not concrete enough!"

"Who has Obscure Relations with you? T'an-pai, confess, quick! T'an-pai! T'an-pai! Give us the name! Quick!"

Liu had been fidgety at the very start of the attack on Ko Shan. Now he was very tense. It was no use telling himself that he was not the only one who had been on intimate terms with her, that she did not really hate him, since it had been of little importance to her. Even if she had been angry and hurt at the time, she had had time to cool off—it had been months ago. She could have revenged herself on him before now if she had a mind to, couldn't she? he argued desperately.

"T'an-pai! T'an-pai!" The shouts rose and fell around him like wind and rain, driving up in a sudden shrieking crescendo. The mass meeting had been going on for three hours. The crowded meeting hall smelled close and stuffy. But the tired congregation were temporarily revived by this injection of new excitement, Liu told himself. Smart planning it was that brought Ko Shan to the platform now; Ko Shan, the woman some of them had had, and the woman so many others would have enjoyed having.

Even Ko Shan was beginning to look a bit nervous standing up there. She was still smiling but her eyes were shifting around uncertainly, slightly out of focus. Was she having difficulty making up her mind which one of her lovers she should give up? Because to name him was to break with him. It would be impossible to continue man-woman relations afterwards with everybody watching them, spying for the Organization. But it would cost her nothing publicly to sever relations with somebody she already had broken off with. It would be a great convenience, Liu suddenly realized with a sinking heart.

He knew from his own experience just now that you could not distinguish between the faces amassed below the platform. But he kept feeling Ko Shan's glance brushing over his face. Nobody had ever been executed for improper man-woman relations, he reminded himself. But Su Nan would soon hear of this. What would she think? Perhaps he could have made her understand if he had been smart enough to have told her about it himself. It was an entirely different matter with all the sordid details dragged out in a mass meeting and with everybody talking about it afterwards, laughing over it. She might forgive him, but it would never be the same again between them. He should have told her. Now he had lost the opportunity forever.

"Let's have it! Your lover's name! Your lover's name!" As Chinese nouns have no plural form, they could have meant either "lover" or "lovers." But Liu knew they would never be satisfied with one. They always clamored for more, always taking for granted that you were keeping something back.

"All right, I'll t'an-pai!" Ko Shan suddenly shouted, her voice harsh and tight with the effort of speaking loud enough to be heard. Her face was slightly flushed and still faintly smiling. "It's Chang Li." The shouted words hung suspended awkwardly in the sudden hush.

The name meant nothing to many of those present. There was a hubbub of mistrustful questioning.

"Chang Li of the Resist-Aid Association," Ko Shan said very loudly in that forcibly raised voice that did not sound like her own. Liu turned and looked back, vaguely searching, as lots of other people were doing. Chang had substituted for him as liaison officer when he left to study for the Three Antis, so Chang was also at the meeting. With astonishment he saw Chang stood up, looking grave.

"Comrades," Chang said, "I admit I have Perpetrated an Error."

"Make him go up and t'an-pai!" people were shouting. "Give a thorough account of it!"

Chang's self-criticism was dramatic. Like repentant sinners at revivalist meetings he spared no effort to paint himself black to show up his momentous about-face. He had first seen Ko Shan in the middle of August at an evening meeting. A bestial impulse and weakness of will prompted him to make advances at her when he saw her home that evening. The advances, he was ashamed to say, had been successful. He tried to break himself of the habit of visiting her but had succumbed every time to the temptation of the flesh. He gave a full, colorful account, pausing only to lash himself with his tongue.

Somebody spotted Ko Shan trying to leave the platform while he was holding his audience enthralled. "Hey, just a minute! We're not through with you yet! Who're your other lovers? The names! The names!"

"There's nobody else," she called out loudly, smiling and trying visibly to check her exasperation.

Everybody yelled at her but she insisted.

Then the chairman came to her aid, probably because both she and Chang were Party members and he thought enough was enough. "You seem very sure that Comrade Chang Li was the only one," he said to Ko Shan severely. "Now you think back carefully after you go home. Both of you will report to your respective Party unit at nine o'clock this evening." He turned briskly to the audience. "The records of their confessions will be sent over to the Party Branch Office right after this meeting. We will now go on with the next case." Liu swallowed a sigh of relief. When the next man, a Culinary Officer named T'ang, was called to the platform, he tried to bury the memory of his fear by joining in the chorus of charges. Hooting and jeering with the rest at the cook's stumbling effort to explain a discrepancy in his rice account, Liu felt a strange exultation as if, after holding out against a whirlwind, he had let go and had joined it to tear at the roofs and walls of the familiar world.

But when Chang did not come home to the dormitory all night, he began to feel uneasy again. What had happened? Was it that serious? Even if Ko Shan would not mention him, wouldn't Chang drag him into it under pressure? Chang certainly knew something about him and Ko Shan—the way he warned him off her. That was at the end of August, two weeks after Chang started going with her himself.

The mass meeting continued the next day. They had not yet gone through half the personnel. Liu was surprised to find that Ko Shan was present at the meeting and quite active too, making accusations and shouting out questions. Later he heard from other people that she had got off lightly, had merely been told to submit a full confession in written form.

Chang did not come back to the hostel that second night either. It turned out that he had been temporarily detained in a spare room in the office building. The Party unit was conducting an investigation into his other depravities. He went under discussion every evening until late at night. He was required to contribute to those discussions with interminable self-criticism. In the daytime he was shut in his cell for Isolated Retrospection.

Liu thought he was extremely lucky to be out of it. "I really ought to go and see Ko Shan and thank her," he thought guiltily.

There seemed to be a curfew on during the Three Antis. Everybody stayed home after the office and kept himself to himself. In times like these you never could tell what would happen to somebody who had seemed perfectly all right a minute ago. Even a telephone call might implicate you. When Liu came to the house where Ko Shan lived, he felt he was sneaking through a blockade.

"What're you here for?" she said at once when she opened the door. She looked very annoyed. "You'll get me into more trouble if someone should see you."

"I'm sorry. I'm leaving in a minute."

"Even if you leave right now there's still a chance of your being seen."

"I'm sorry," he said again.

It was so cold in the unheated room that she was dressed as if to go out, wearing fur-lined suede boots and a plaid muffler over her padded uniform. She returned to her chair and took up her knitting. There were sheets of paper covered with writing on the table next to her. She had been working on her confession, pondering some changes while she knitted.

The room had such a chastened air, Liu almost felt like laughing. It seemed emptier and tidier than he ever remembered it and was everywhere covered with clean-looking undisturbed dust. Ko Shan could very well be a college senior staying behind in the deserted dormitory working on her thesis while everybody was away during the winter vacation. These Party members, he could not help thinking, how they do change their lives with the policy of the moment, so quickly and with a kind of nonchalant docility—you would think only children could carry it off.

"I've got to thank you for what happened yesterday," he said. "For leaving me out, I mean."

Her scarlet piece of knitting was warm and bright on her lap. Without looking up she lifted her eyebrows slightly instead of shrugging. "There's no need to."

"No, but I'm really grateful."

"To be quite frank with you," she said, "I mentioned Chang instead of you because I could trust him not to get me into a bigger mess than what I'm in already. Which is more than I can say for you."

Liu smiled, ashamed. "Yes, I know." After a pause he said, "Chang is undergoing Isolated Retrospection. Looks quite serious. The Party unit has been discussing and criticizing him for several nights running. Up to three o'clock, I heard."

"You don't have to worry about him," Ko Shan said, smiling. "Chang's all right. Since when has a Party member been afraid of criticism? Even being penalized means nothing. Our Chairman Mao has been penalized six times, you know that? The same sentence each time: Membership retained but under observation. All but expelled from the Party."

Liu smiled again, saying nothing. Then he asked, "Does Chang know about us?"

"Of course he knows something about it. He's no fool. And he's not crazed with jealousy—he's not that kind of person. So there's no point in keeping things from him."

Liu was silent. "He didn't mention me yesterday," he said eventually.

"Of course. What good would that do him? He'll just make an enemy without making things any easier for himself. Sorry, I want that chair." She was untying a new bunch of wool. Liu stood up awkwardly and she pulled his chair near her, stretched out the wool on the chair back and started to pull it out, winding it into a ball.

"I'm going," Liu said smiling, taking the hint.

She did not say goodbye. Sitting there alone winding wool she suddenly lifted both hands, first one then the other, to wipe tears from her face. With dye-reddened hands she continued to wind the wool.

Eileen Chang (1920–1995) was born into an aristocratic family in Shanghai. She studied literature at the University of Hong Kong, but the Japanese attack on the city in 1941 forced her to return to occupied Shanghai, where she was able to publish the stories and essays (collected in two volumes, Romances, 1944, and Written on Water, 1945) that soon made her a literary star. The rise of Communist influence made it increasingly difficult for Chang to continue living in Shanghai; she moved to Hong Kong in 1952, then immigrated to the United States three years later. Two novels, both commissioned in the 1950s by the United States Information Service as anti-Communist propaganda, The Rice-Sprout Song (1955), and Naked Earth (1956), were followed by a third, The Rogue of the North (1967). In spite of the tremendous revival of interest in her work that began in Taiwan and Hong Kong in the 1970s, and that later spread to mainland China, Chang became ever more reclusive as she grew older. She was found dead in her Los Angeles apartment in September 1995. In 2006 NYRB Classics published a collection of Chang's stories , Love in a Fallen City, and in 2007, a film adaptation of her novella Lust, Caution, directed by Ang Lee, was released.