In the spacious dance studio at the National Taiwan Academy of Arts, patient Ma Lao Shih (Teacher Ma) was instructing Dance Department students in the fine points of "opera dance."
Suddenly, one girl tripped and fell, and Ma Lao Shih ran over to her immediately and asked if she has hurt. She has not.
Other students jumped on the opportunity for petty advantage, chorusing in put-on tones of child-like eagerness: "Lao Shih, we practiced so hard last night preparing for next week's anniversary celebration (for the school). Let's relax a little today, O.K.?"
Ma Lao Shih, crumbling, proceeded now to instruct her students in the crucial eye skills for opera performers, Her own eyes seemed especially bright and active, Demonstrating, she told the students that the serious opera performer must "train the eyes to speak." Following her lead, the students moved their eyes with great effect. A new mood—serious, but expressing itself in a friendly harmony-was generated in the class.
The dance instructor the students call Ma Lao Shih is Ma Ti-liang, better known both by people here and on the China mainland by her stage name, Hung Hung. The famous Kwangtung Opera actress left mainland China last year to seek freedom in the Republic of Chin on Taiwan.
She remarked last year at a press conference that, living here in the ROC, she can now, for the first time, "really comprehend the meaning of serenity—a life so free of burdens and pressure—so free of fear."
On February 24, 1984, Hung Hung joined a Kwangchow group on a trip to Hongkong. On March 2, the day the group was scheduled to return to Kwangchow, Hung Hung, who was traveling under her real name, Ma Ti-liang, disappeared.
Then last year, on the eve of Double Ten, the national day of the Republic of China, Hung Hung suddenly reappeared at a press conference staged by the Free China Relief Association, where she denounced the Chinese Communists.
Of course, Communist China has lost numerous individuals from mainland groups going abroad in recent years. But Hung Hung's disappearance had a special impact on the mainland—and here and in Hongkong-Kowloon—because of her celebrity status.
Hung Hung's parents were both famous Kwangtung Opera actors. Her father, Ma Shih-tseng, has been hailed as the "Emperor of Kwangtung Opera," and her mother, Kwang Chien-lien, whose stage name is Hung Hsien Nu, Red-Thread Maiden, was also, at one time, a very popular Kwangtung Opera actress. Hung Hung (literally, "Red Rainbow"), the couple's only daughter, had been expected to take over as director of their" Red Tune" (Red School).
The Hongkong magazine Cheng Ming noted: "Hung Hsien Nu enjoyed a monthly wage of 1,500 RMB (very high in Communist China), and Hung Hung was given many opportunities to perform abroad. In (Communist) China, Hung Hung was indeed a privileged member of a privileged stratum. But even she could not stand living there.... "
Hung Hung confirms that she was a member of the privileged elite on the China mainland and that she lived much better than most others. Therefore, she underlines, she did not flee the mainland for material reasons.
"I kept looking at things around me. My mother, especially, was a true mirror for me. Her rises and falls, for capricious reasons, made me very wary of the Communists. I decided to take my own road "
Ever since she was a teenager, Hung Hsien Nu had immersed herself in a life of Kwangtung Opera. She had been a student of Kwangtung Opera star Ma Shih-tseng, and a romance developed. In 1943, Ma divorced his first wife and married the 19-year-old Hung Hsien Nu, about 30 years his junior.
Then, after Hung Hung was born in Kwanghsi Province in 1945, the family immediately moved to Hongkong.
In her early childhood, Hung Hung recalls, she seldom experienced family warmth. Her parents quarreled often and, in 1953, ended their marriage, but associated professionally.
The Chinese Communists were well aware that Ma Shih-tseng and Hung Hsien Nu would be useful propaganda yang pan ("sample plates"). A former Communist China "vice premier", Tao Chu, was once quoted as saying, "Hung Hsien Nu is a treasure of Kwangtung. We would give up one thousand Communist Party members to get one Hung Hsien Nu."
Tao thus agreed to three "conditions" in order to tempt Hung and her husband to return to the mainland: First, their status would not be less than that of Hsueh Chueh-hsien (another famous Kwangtung Opera actor); second, they could engage more in teaching and in fewer performances; third, their life-style would not be much changed.
For the Chinese Communists, involved in eliminating the "classes" and enforcing a "proletarian dictatorship," the conditions reeked of hypocrisy.
In 1955, Hung Hung returned with her estranged parents to the China mainland. "My first impression, coming from Hongkong to Kwangchow, was 'Why is the place so poor?' Endless lamps could not light that darkness. I saw that elementary school pupils had no proper clothes and went to school barefoot. Was this the progress of the 'mother country? '"
Hung Hung's father and grandmother-resided in the frontal area of the special "Overseas Chinese Village," while Hung Hung and her brothers lived with her mother in the center of the village. The family's appliances and furniture—including a full sofa, a refrigerator, television set, etc.—were better than those allocated to many high ranking Communist cadres.
"During the 1950s in poverty-ravaged Kwangchow, our lives could be described as heaven-favored. Now as I recall it all, I wonder what my life would have been if I were not the daughter of Ma Shih-tseng and Hung Hsien Nu, with their many privileges."
In 1957, her mother arranged for Hung Hung to enter the Affiliated High School of the Peking Central Musical College, where she formally began her artistic studies. At that time, though the school only accepted children from Communist China's privileged families, the school's equipment was very limited.
"For my major, piano, for instance, the studio had so few pianos that the students always rushed to get one. Since I joined the school late, I needed more practice and had to struggle in earnest for a piano."
By very hard practice she earned an "A" in the course, but she overdid it: arthritic hand pains finally stretched to her waist. A doctor advised her to drop piano, and she transferred to the Peking Dance School.
But renewed physical pain forced her also to give up the dance, and her mother persuaded her to study opera. In 1960, Hung Hung entered the Shanghai Opera College to study both the Peking and kun chu opera forms.
In the following year, Hung Hung transferred to the Kwangtung Opera College, where her father and mother were now, respectively, dean and vice dean. Under the shelter of her parents (her father died in 1964), Hung Hung's life was generally smooth.
When at school in Peking where her mother had become a member of the "National People's Congress," Hung Hung had many opportunities to meet and travel with such high ranking Communist figures as Chou En-lai and Teng Ying-chao. Nevertheless, she saw beyond the privileged lives of the elite Communist Party class.
"Of course, every society has its darker side. But in my opinion, the dark side of Chinese Communist society is indelible; it will never be lightened. From 1959, when I studied at the Peking Dance School, I was deeply aware of the specter of widespread famine on the China mainland.
"In the worse year, 1962, I went to Peking for a one-year course in basic opera skills. At that time, also, I enjoyed special care. At that time, 'special care' was having a kind of dark wowotou (steamed bread of corn, or sorghum, etc.) to eat everyday.
"The girls had lesser appetites and could tighten their waist belts to get through it; but the boys were hungry all day long. It often puzzled me: If even we, the privileged, were so miserable, how could ordinary people live?"
In 1964, Hung Hung's father died. "I grieved terribly. It was the first real tragedy in my life. But, witnessing my mother's ordeal later during the 'great cultural revolution,' I began to feel that my father was blessed in dying before it got to him.
"Many of my father's acquaintances said that with his disposition, if he had been alive during the 'great cultural revolution,' he wouldn't have been able to endure the inhuman humiliation—would have been forced into suicide."
Her mother, Hung Hsien Nu, popular across the mainland as an opera actress, and with a presence in both political and stage circles, became an early target of "struggles" after her original backer, Tao Chu, was ousted from power. His proteges were hounded.
Hung Hsien Nu was forced to change her stage name to "Hei Hsien Nu (Black-Thread Maiden)." Later, Red Guards tore her from the stage. They burned her librettos, music scores, and stage costumes and ornaments. After cutting off her hair to create the tattered semblance of a lowly niu (cattle) bit-player, they finally threw her out of her house and held her in custody.
Hung Hung, then four months pregnant, was sent for "labor reformation" to the Ying Te Tea Planation, where she was a forced laborer from dawn to dusk.
"I am a human being; I have human emotions," said Hung Hung. "And we Chinese often repeat that sheng li szu pieh (to part forever from family or friends) is the most miserable experience in life. But, when an originally happy family, for no reason at all, is torn to pieces and made to live in ways that are even worse than dying—so that getting together again becomes even worse than parting —isn't that even more tragic than sheng li szu pieh?"
Hung Hsien Nu and Hung Hung (as factional strife turned the mainland end-to-end) were restored to their former status as the "Gang of Four" gained ascendancy; indeed, Hung Hsien Nu was returned to the political stage by Chiang Ching, a former actress. But, when the
"Gang of Four" subsequently collapsed, Hung Hsien Nu, for the second time, became a main target for denouncement. And Hung Hung, who originally had had nothing at all to do with Chiang Ching, was suddenly labeled "the adopted (or God) daughter" of Chiang Ching and appropriately derided.
"I had never even seen Chiang Ching before. How could I, all of a sudden, become her God daughter? I had no opportunity to defend or explain my situation and was not allowed to perform. "
"I was ordered to do physical chores for the opera troupe-to carrying about the hundreds of opera trunks. I was on stage before, and such heavy labor was not only physical maltreatment, but deep humiliation."
Hung Hsien Nu was again rehabilitated and was raised to the position of member of the "National People's Congress." But the repeated rises and falls chilled her heart. Hongkong's Ming Pao magazine quotes Hung Hsien Nu's subsequent explanation to Hung Hung and her two brothers:
"I took the wrong road, and I feel sorry for your father. It was my fault; I forced him to return to the mainland....
"If you want to leave now...I would not disagree. Surely, everybody now takes this way out. I have many friends in the outer world; your third uncle will help you, too.
"Getting us into such conditions—I have only myself to blame. I know you blame me, but the past is past. I am old now... you go out to a better life."
Hung Hung's brothers, Ma Ting-sheng and Ma Ting-chang, facilitated by arrangements made by Hung Hsien Nu, fled to Hongkong and Macao. But Hung Hung, because of her great popular reputation, was more restricted and could not leave.
In her last years on the mainland, Hung Hung lived in Kwangchow, a mainland city that has a great deal of contact with foreign visitors and overseas Chinese. Every rumor of the free world was eagerly grasped by Hung Hung.
"Even imported goods can speak—clearly telling mainland Chinese how backward the mainland is," she said.
In 1980, as a part of their "smiling" united front propaganda campaign, the Chinese Communists showed a scenic film of Taiwan on mainland television, and the program stirred Hung Hung to endless reveries.
"At that time, my family had no television, and in order to see the film, I went to my friend's. As the scenes appeared, my friend's child asked, 'Where is that place?'
"'That's Taiwan, which is not liberated yet,' my friend answered.
'''Well, is that China's new or old society? How can they have so many high buildings and so many automobiles? Why can people dress so well? It looks as if they all are happy,' the child kept exclaiming. And my friend did not try to explain further."
In 1982, Hung Hung had the opportunity to go overseas for a series of performances—in the United States, Canada, and other countries. Before the tour began, the Chinese Communist authorities especially warned troupe members that the U.S. and Canada are "declining imperialistic countries" —like "the sun setting beyond the western hills ... they are in their last gasp;" they "do not know in the morning what may happen in the evening. "
"But, seeing was believing," said Hung. "If the two countries are in the situation the Communists describe, then Communism should long ago have rotted, leaving only the telltale skeleton."
She determined to flee the mainland.
Hung Hung's husband, Nie Lei, published a notice in a Hongkong newspaper this year to the effect that he would seek a court decree for divorce if Hung Hung did not contact him within one month. Their only son, 16-year-old Nie Ching, has reportedly been forced to quit school.
Hung Hung has responded only with deep sorrow. "My mother used to tell me, 'Look ahead.' Looking ahead, I see my son now must make his own road. Some day he may be able to choose his own future." She understands that the Communists are revenging themselves on her family.
This April, Hung Hung presented her first public performance in free China. "It was dedicated as a response to the great affection showered on me by my compatriots here," she said.
The presentation featured Li Chi Sung (A Song to the Lichee), Hsien Nu Men (The Fairy Maidens), Hsiang Chun Shou Lou (Hsiang Chun's Bitterness) and Hua Yuan Tui Chiang (Spear-Fencing in the Garden). Hung Hung presented a virtuoso range of her opera skills in song, dance, and the acting itself.
Coordinating her performance, the choreographer, director, the other actors, and the musical accompanists—all were students and teachers of the National Taiwan Academy of Arts. Hung Hung taught the student actors to mimic the Kwangtung dialect accent, word by word.
"In Kwangtung Opera, of course Kwangtung Province is the best, and Hongkong is second. But only on free earth can the arts not only flower, but flourish," said Hung Hung.
"The students here are very different from those on the mainland. They are more vivid. They take instruction without tension. On the mainland, the teachers influence the students' job possibilities after graduation; therefore, students are under great pressure to, conform," she said.
Rather than public performances, she prefers to teach, and hopes to advance her own knowledge of the theater arts and pass that on, too, to newer generations.
Stepping out of the Academy's dance studio, Hung Hung happily inquired how the weather could possibly be, at the beginning of winter, so wonderfully warm and sunny. She casually remarked that she had just passed her 41st birthday just days before, but that her age has not yet traced itself too strongly on her face.
Thirty years ago, she was brought back to the China mainland by her parents. Now, by her own will, she has won her freedom. It is easy to see that change is a spiritual sun that has dispelled the winter of her previous life.