China's Son by Da Chen

subjects. They didn't try to help me. They generally left me alone, and I was forgotten. They thought I was the rotten type that they had to cut off, so they never inquired about my homework and never asked me questions in class. They knew I hadn't prepared for it. I was always with I-Fei, leaving early to rehearsals or coming back late from them. It was a wonderful feeling for a while, because now I had finally become what I had wished to be and could not be in elementary school. There were no enemies chasing me at every corner, concocting dirty tricks behind my back every day. I was respected and had a lot of friends, significant friends. I was my own master. I did not have to fear, worry, or fight. I felt safe and anchored.
    But soon I was feeling empty about school. I used to love studying and had known the joy of being at the top of the class. I knew about basking in affirming smiles from the teachers, people my family had taught me to respect. Though I was having a good time, I felt as if I was violating something special.
    In class, serious teachers began to talk about the possibility of restoring our country's college system. During the Cultural Revolution, all colleges either were closed, or they enrolled only a small number of students from politically correct families through a corrupt system of selection. The teachers would end their speeches by saying that even the musicians had to pass other tests to go to art school. They would cast a look my way.
    The more they talked about college, the more I was determined that I wanted to be an artist, because I was doing so badly in school. I was sure I was beyond hope, academically speaking. I had to do something with my life.
    One day that winter, Mo Gong ran breathlessly to our home and told me that our county's performing troupe was holding public auditions for actors and instrument players. I was so excited that the next day I-Fei and I rode his bike and headed for Putien so that I could sign up for the audition. During the next few days, Dad dug out some old music scores, traditional classics that had been banned for the past twenty years, and said, “The Red Guard music is over. Pick one of these for your audition.” He understood my feelings and appreciated my passion for art. After all, it was he who had inspired me.
    His friends had only to make the slightest demand and he would nudge me into playing a few songs on my violin, which his friends mysteriously called “the Western instrument.” He would introduce the violin, explaining the relationship between the four strings, and show off the amazing range of the tiny instrument by plucking the strings with his fingers. Sometimes he would ask me to tag along on his occasional gigs playing classic Chinese folk music for weddings, which probably made me the first to render the thousandyear-old melodies on such an instrument. At those gigs, traditional instruments—gongs, drums, and flutes—usually drowned out my tiny violin.
    Soong had warned me of the temptation to play everything on the violin. Being a purist, he had asked me how I could play that stupid traditional music on something on which so many magnificent masterpieces had been played. He said it would ruin my style, but I had ignored him. I wanted to make Dad happy.
    Since the classic romantic plays were coming back into fashion as Dad had foretold, I concentrated on my flute, not the Western instrument, for the audition. For three days, I practiced only three short classical pieces while Dad listenedand coached. On the day of my audition, my sister Si carried me on the bike to Putien at sunrise, where we waited in a long line of self-proclaimed artists, eating our packed breakfast of cold and dried yams.
    My teeth kept clicking as the line began to move. I had to run to the smelly bathroom every five minutes for a twosecond pee. Si saw how nervous I was and said that I was still very young and that if I failed this time, I could always try again. I