On November 17th, the annual Suzhou Food Festival opened again. My wife and I are retired and have nothing to do at home, so going to the food festival to join in the fun is inevitable. Last year, my wife and I went to the festival before lunch, intending to have lunch there. But when we got there, we found that the huge so-called food festival didn't have any suitable lunch options for us. Since I had done my research beforehand, I said to my wife, "It's okay, there's a restaurant called Da Hong Yun on Niujiaobang, northeast of Xuanmiao Temple, where the food festival is located. It has some traditional Suzhou snacks, so why don't we go and try some of the long-missed local traditional flavors!"
I went there once and thought it was alright, so when my parents-in-law came to Suzhou for a short stay last month, I specifically included the snacks from Niujiaobang in my meal plan and made sure to include them.
The so-called Suzhou Food Festival is getting worse every year, and this year's festival was no exception. Even our hopes of having lunch there were dashed once again. So my wife and I had to go to Da Hong Yun again (actually, just in case, we had already parked our electric bikes there early on). We ordered a plate of pan-fried buns, a plate of glutinous rice shumai, a plate of crab roe xiaolongbao, and two plates of fresh pork wontons. For 34 RMB, we had a lunch that left us feeling completely stuffed.
"Isn't this Uncle Wang!" As I led my wife out of the restaurant, three elderly men and two women, all over seventy years old, approached us. One of them was the senior I called Uncle Wang: "Hello, Uncle Wang!"
"Ah, hello! It's been years since we last met." Uncle Wang's legs were unsteady, and he was clearly not as good as when I last saw him, but his voice was still booming: "Where's that photo of the two of us from last time?"
The photo Uncle Wang mentioned was taken during the Spring Festival of 2011 when I accompanied my ex-wife, who was suffering from terminal cancer, to Shantang Street. Just as I was taking a picture of her, I suddenly felt a familiar face appear in the frame. When I put the camera down and looked again, I realized it was Uncle Wang, whom I hadn't seen in a long time. I immediately asked my ex-wife to take a picture of me and Uncle Wang embracing each other.
“I used that photo on my blog online. I even won an award for it in a cultural tourism essay contest for Shantang Street. Why don’t you go online…” Before I could explain, an elderly woman next to me pointed at Uncle Wang and said, “He’s illiterate (or rather, computer illiterate). He knows absolutely nothing about computers!”
"She is Wang Yongzhu!" Uncle Wang introduced her, fearing I wouldn't recognize her.
Wang Yongzhu? I'm very familiar with this name, but I've never liked this person. Back when the Cultural Revolution was just beginning, on June 5, 1966, under the direction of the "Four Cleanups" work team sent by the Third Ministry of Machine Building, Wang Yongzhu led the Suzhou Changfeng Machinery Factory in posting the first big-character poster attacking the Suzhou Municipal Party Committee, thus beginning the ten-year turmoil in Suzhou. At that time, I was studying at the Affiliated High School of Jiangsu Normal University and had joined the school's pro-revolutionary Red Guard organization. To understand the activities of the rebels at the Changfeng Factory, I and several other Red Guards made a special trip to visit Wang Yongzhu. Wang was very busy receiving visitors; we usually had to wait in line for a long time to be received. When we were finally received, Wang was very enthusiastic, and her dignified demeanor and impassioned speech deeply moved us. Because her theoretical basis was all based on "Chairman Mao taught us to bombard the headquarters..." and so on, we found it difficult to equate her with counter-revolutionaries. Just because we royalists were opposed to their rebel faction, I refused to shake hands with Wang Yongzhu from the beginning until we parted.
Looking at Wang Yongzhu's life, it was a tumultuous one, marked by dramatic ups and downs, joy and sorrow. After seizing power through rebellion, she held the important positions of Deputy Secretary of the Suzhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China and Deputy Director of the Municipal Revolutionary Committee. After the downfall of the Gang of Four, she was known as the number two figure in the "Suzhou Little Gang of Four" (Hua Linsen, Wang Yongzhu, Zou Xueqi, and Zhao Baokang). Ultimately, she was expelled from the Party and stripped of all her Party and government posts. In July 1982, the Suzhou Intermediate People's Court convicted her of counter-revolutionary incitement and false accusation, but exempted her from criminal punishment due to her genuine remorse. In September 1982, Changfeng Machinery Factory dismissed her from her post. In April 1983, she became an ordinary worker at the Suzhou Instrument Transformer Factory, retiring in March 1993. Hua Linsen, who ranked before Wang Yongzhu, was not so fortunate. After the Cultural Revolution, Hua was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment and deprived of political rights for 5 years for counter-revolutionary crimes.
"He's Minister Zhang's youngest son!" Uncle Wang introduced me to Wang Yongzhu again, and then gave an example: "He's Minister Zhang, the author of the novel 'Becoming a Eighth Route Army Soldier'!"
The novel *Becoming an Eighth Route Army Soldier* that Uncle Wang mentioned was probably my father's early work. However, during the later stages of the Cultural Revolution (when I was serving in the army), some unknown force unearthed that long-forgotten novel and vehemently criticized it as a major poisonous weed. Looking back, those in power at the time were figures like Hua Linsen, Wang Yongzhu, and Zou Xueqi, and it's an undeniable fact that my father held differing political views from them. Therefore, during my time in the army, the unit conducted an annual political review in Suzhou, specifically to check if my father was still working normally or if he had been persecuted again…
I have never liked Wang Yongzhu. At the beginning of this century, when I was the general manager of the Machinery and Trade Group, one of my retired senior leaders, who had once been the factory director of the instrument transformer plant, borrowed our small conference room for an event. Afterwards, the office director reported to me, "Wang Yongzhu also came to participate in the event!" I immediately replied, "From now on, whenever Wang Yongzhu participates, the conference room will not be lent out!"
Throughout our conversation, Uncle Wang and I held hands tightly until he introduced me and Wang Yongzhu. Only then did I slowly release his hand and extend my hand to Wang Yongzhu. Time has passed. My father, who was brutally persecuted by the rebels during the Cultural Revolution, is now long gone to meet his idol, Marx. Wang Yongzhu is now among me, an ordinary retired worker. Besides, the Cultural Revolution wasn't something the rebels could have orchestrated at will.
Forty-seven years later, I finally shook hands seriously with Wang Yongzhu, a once-famous figure whom I used to despise.
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