a bullet than to a bunch of old biddies with scalpels.
Wang Jiao, the Women’s League chairwoman said, Don’t be so stubborn. All they do is tie off that little tube . . .
They ought to sew up that thing of yours, Wang Jiao retorted crudely, pointing at her crotch.
As he waved his pistol, Ning gave the command: Tie him up!
I’d like to see you try, Wang Jiao threatened as he reached behind for a shovel, then held it out in front of him, eyes blazing. I’ll lop off the head of anyone who comes close!
The diminutive Wang Dan chose this moment to stand up, still holding her mirror. She was thirteen at the time, but stood only two and a half feet tall. Though extraordinarily small, she wasn’t misshapen, and was like a lovely Lilliputian. She shone rays of blinding sunlight into Wang Jiao’s face with her mirror and giggled with girlish naivety at the sight.
The militiamen took advantage of Wang’s temporary blindness to rush him, wrench the shovel away, and yank his arms around behind him.
As they started to wrap their ropes around him, he burst into loud wails. There was such agony in his howls that rubberneckers sprawled atop his wall or gawking at his gate were pained by what they heard. The four men stood there helpless, ropes hanging from their hands.
Are you a man, Wang Jiao, Yuan Lian asked, or aren’t you? How can a little procedure like this put such a fear in you? I already did it, and it hasn’t affected me at all. If you don’t believe me, have your wife ask my wife.
That’s enough, Wang Jiao sobbed. I’ll go with you.
That bastard Xiao Shangchun set a bad example at the commune, Gugu said. His rationale for opposing the vasectomy campaign was his trifling service as a stretcher-bearer for an Eighth Route Army underground hospital. But when research determined that he was to be removed from his public office and sent back to his village to work the land, he rode his rickety bicycle up to the health centre and insisted that I personally perform the procedure. A notorious lecher, he was a filthy-mouthed hooligan. As he climbed onto the operating table he said to Little Lion: Here’s what puzzles me. There’s a saying – ‘When the essence reaches fullness, it will flow on its own.’ But if you tie off my tube, where will my essence flow to? Will my belly swell to bursting?
She looked at me, red-faced from embarrassment. Prepare him for surgery.
I hadn’t expected him to have an erection while she was prepping him. She’d never seen anything like that before; she dropped the scalpel and cowered in a corner. Clean up your thoughts! I demanded. My thoughts are perfectly clean, he said shamelessly. It got stiff on its own, and there’s nothing I can do about that. All right, then, Gugu said as she picked up a rubber mallet and, with a nonchalant tap, put an end to his erection.
I swear to the heavens, Gugu said, I took scrupulous care in carrying out the procedure on both Wang Jiao and Xiao Shangchun, with total success, but afterward, Wang Jiao walked around bent at the waist, complaining that I’d cut a nerve, and Xiao made a pest of himself at the centre, complaining to county officials that I’d made him impotent. Of those two, Wang Jiao was probably emotionally unstable, while Xiao was nothing but a troublemaker. During the Cultural Revolution, as head of a Red Guard faction, he raped more women than you can count. If we hadn’t performed a vasectomy on him, he might have retained some scruples out of a fear that he’d impregnate someone and suffer serious consequences. But tying off his tubes freed him from all that.
15
Winter, 1967
So many people turned out for the rally to denounce Party Secretary Yang Lin that the revolutionary committee head, Xiao Shangchun, came up with the ingenious idea of moving the site to the retarding basin on the northern bank of the Jiao River. It was the dead of winter. As people looked out over the ice-covered river, they were treated to a
Wang Jiao, the Women’s League chairwoman said, Don’t be so stubborn. All they do is tie off that little tube . . .
They ought to sew up that thing of yours, Wang Jiao retorted crudely, pointing at her crotch.
As he waved his pistol, Ning gave the command: Tie him up!
I’d like to see you try, Wang Jiao threatened as he reached behind for a shovel, then held it out in front of him, eyes blazing. I’ll lop off the head of anyone who comes close!
The diminutive Wang Dan chose this moment to stand up, still holding her mirror. She was thirteen at the time, but stood only two and a half feet tall. Though extraordinarily small, she wasn’t misshapen, and was like a lovely Lilliputian. She shone rays of blinding sunlight into Wang Jiao’s face with her mirror and giggled with girlish naivety at the sight.
The militiamen took advantage of Wang’s temporary blindness to rush him, wrench the shovel away, and yank his arms around behind him.
As they started to wrap their ropes around him, he burst into loud wails. There was such agony in his howls that rubberneckers sprawled atop his wall or gawking at his gate were pained by what they heard. The four men stood there helpless, ropes hanging from their hands.
Are you a man, Wang Jiao, Yuan Lian asked, or aren’t you? How can a little procedure like this put such a fear in you? I already did it, and it hasn’t affected me at all. If you don’t believe me, have your wife ask my wife.
That’s enough, Wang Jiao sobbed. I’ll go with you.
That bastard Xiao Shangchun set a bad example at the commune, Gugu said. His rationale for opposing the vasectomy campaign was his trifling service as a stretcher-bearer for an Eighth Route Army underground hospital. But when research determined that he was to be removed from his public office and sent back to his village to work the land, he rode his rickety bicycle up to the health centre and insisted that I personally perform the procedure. A notorious lecher, he was a filthy-mouthed hooligan. As he climbed onto the operating table he said to Little Lion: Here’s what puzzles me. There’s a saying – ‘When the essence reaches fullness, it will flow on its own.’ But if you tie off my tube, where will my essence flow to? Will my belly swell to bursting?
She looked at me, red-faced from embarrassment. Prepare him for surgery.
I hadn’t expected him to have an erection while she was prepping him. She’d never seen anything like that before; she dropped the scalpel and cowered in a corner. Clean up your thoughts! I demanded. My thoughts are perfectly clean, he said shamelessly. It got stiff on its own, and there’s nothing I can do about that. All right, then, Gugu said as she picked up a rubber mallet and, with a nonchalant tap, put an end to his erection.
I swear to the heavens, Gugu said, I took scrupulous care in carrying out the procedure on both Wang Jiao and Xiao Shangchun, with total success, but afterward, Wang Jiao walked around bent at the waist, complaining that I’d cut a nerve, and Xiao made a pest of himself at the centre, complaining to county officials that I’d made him impotent. Of those two, Wang Jiao was probably emotionally unstable, while Xiao was nothing but a troublemaker. During the Cultural Revolution, as head of a Red Guard faction, he raped more women than you can count. If we hadn’t performed a vasectomy on him, he might have retained some scruples out of a fear that he’d impregnate someone and suffer serious consequences. But tying off his tubes freed him from all that.
15
Winter, 1967
So many people turned out for the rally to denounce Party Secretary Yang Lin that the revolutionary committee head, Xiao Shangchun, came up with the ingenious idea of moving the site to the retarding basin on the northern bank of the Jiao River. It was the dead of winter. As people looked out over the ice-covered river, they were treated to a
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