NOVPUBHan Qingsong nodded slightly, “Teacher Fan is a sensible person. I would actually like to ask you the real reason why you were sent down to the labour camp.”
To be honest, a lot of the files were written by people with little to no education at all. Some people just wrote random documents, which sometimes made the readers’ teeth hurt after gritting them for so long.
Fan Yikun was arrested and sent to a labour camp on the charge of embezzling student meal expenses.
It was such a nonsense charge that Han Qingsong, an outsider, couldn’t believe it.
Fan Yikun said, “My crime is due to my inciting students to pursue the ideas of capitalism.”
He explained that, in other words, students were encouraged to study hard. They were to focus on learning and not be too indulged in politics or formalism. His academic means conflicted with several teachers and school leaders. For example, he emphasised Chinese studies but wanted the children to learn foreign languages as well. For that, he was criticised for wanting to restore the country and pursue capitalism. At a time like this, such actions were a serious crime and could be labelled as rebellion.
Han Qingsong looked at him steadily, “Teacher Fan, if I may ask, have you ever written the words Dear Comrade Jiang, Jie or Shi”?
Fan Yikun’s expression changed as he shook his head and sighed. It was as if this topic was a stain that he didn’t know how to explain.
Han Qingsong, “I’ll take it as a yes.”
Fan Yikun suddenly appeared to be a bit more eager to share, “To be fair, even if I have written these words, I do not think that this is an act of rebellion. On the battlefield, the winner is the winner whereas the loser remains the loser. Furthermore, when the Red Army(1) and our National Army entered the city, everyone was prepared to have two different flags. In the morning, everyone would raise one and in the afternoon, they’d raise the other. If you look at things this way, was everyone meant to be guilty then?”
(T/N: The Red Army was the military wing of the Chinese Communist Party in history.
But during the Chinese Civil War, they were renamed as the People’s Liberation Army)
Han Qingsong told him to calm down, “Teacher Fan explained that you were both right and also at fault. Can you explain that?”
Fan Yikun, “Forget it, I confessed my guilt a long time ago and I admit my mistakes. Now, I’m still writing inspection materials every week. If the commune needs to have someone set an example for a struggle session(2), you can simply arrest me and I will not resist.”
(T/N: Struggle sessions, or public denunciation rallies, are when someone who is tacitly agreed upon to be evil or villainous ends up being escorted publicly on the streets while making way to their detention centre/prison. There, the criminals will usually be surrounded by enraged members of the public and might be subjected to verbal cursing or have food being thrown at them)
Sometimes when approving of a struggle session, it would appear as if the person in question would suffer. However, everyone would still treat the person with fair treatment. The lesson was meant only to serve its purpose for the public, but they did not represent that everyone would treat the captive the same way outside the public eye. Plus, only intense hatred was evident towards national criminals, not someone who tried to better society in the only way he knew how.
