“Ghost Stories” From Elementary School | 小学时的“鬼故事”
By Yifu Dong, BR’17
Yifu Dong explains how the passages in China’s elementary schools are actually “ghost stories.”
ORIGINAL
新中国的鬼，大多以“封建余毒”的形式存在。文革时，我的爷爷被打成“牛鬼蛇神的黑后台”，人被扣上鬼的帽子，人鬼捆在一起，一并被打倒。然而，鬼在大多数社会中都具有顽强的生命力，在中国也不例外。它们前仆后继 — — 封建时期的鬼现已几乎销声匿迹，新时代的鬼又被活活造了出来。
我在上小学的第一天就邂逅了不少中国当代的鬼魂，因为它们的画像整齐地挂在楼道里。还不识字的我一眼就能看出来，它们都长着一副英雄的样子。毫无疑问，在保家卫国的斗争中牺牲的战士值得后人的纪念和尊重。但是，在中国，对于应该把烈士当成人还是当成神的问题，一直存在不小的分歧。中国小学的语文课本，以及一些官方的说法，一般都会把烈士们当做“神”来称颂。这些“神”的故事，几乎都是无法自圆其说的“鬼故事”。
现在，几乎所有的中国小学生都读过的一个“鬼故事”就是邱少云牺牲的事迹。邱少云和他的战友们在朝鲜战争的一次战斗中潜伏在离敌人仅60米的前线准备突击，在突击前，美军的燃烧弹在邱少云身边爆炸，火烧到了他身上。然而，为了不让队友的位置暴露，邱少云一动也不动，直到半个小时后活活被火烧死。与邱少云同样出名的，还有黄继光。朝鲜战争中的一次战斗中，黄继光为了摧毁敌人的火力点，只身扑向美军的机关枪口，为战友做掩护。
第一次接触到这些“鬼故事”的时候，我几乎没有任何怀疑，还认为这些故事十分精彩。现在回看这些，我不禁打起寒颤 — — 中国的孩子从小就要学会欣赏烈士们以血腥的方式牺牲自己肉体的情节，更何况这些故事中的一些重点细节几乎都禁不住推敲。一般人被火烧到后都会出自本能的抽动，不可能一动不动。此外，当火灭了之后，邱少云身边的野草也都烧光了，潜伏的位置难道还没有暴露吗？黄继光堵枪口的一幕，仔细想来也是十分荒诞的。美军的机关枪可以轻易的将一个堵在枪口上的人打飞，即使黄继光真的扑上了枪口，他做出的牺牲并不能换来战友的安全。
在中国，这样的“鬼故事”还有不少。最近，一位历史学家根据《解放日报》的史料指出“狼牙山五壮士”官方版中诸多不实之处，却在法院败诉，被要求公开道歉。为澄清事实而公开道歉，这又是什么“鬼”呢？虽然神化英雄能够引起人们对烈士的尊重，但是其本身的罔顾事实是对烈士灵魂的亵渎。把烈士当做人来看，才是对逝去的灵魂最崇高的敬意。
TRANSLATION
In China, ghosts are destined to be a persecuted minority. They are relics of a reactionary, feudal and superstitious backward society. They simply cannot fit in the narrative of modern China. As a result, I didn’t grow up listening to ghost stories or thinking about ghosts — political campaigns took care of them decades ago.
The Communist regime has successfully purged most of the ghosts from the old Chinese society, yet it also created ghosts of its own, namely in the form of communist war heroes.
The stories of those communist war heroes were my absolute favorites among all the passages in my elementary school Chinese textbooks. Back in elementary school, the portraits of those martyrs lined the hallway in the school building, and I had no reason to doubt the authenticity of the stories. In retrospect, however, I realized that many of those fantastic, thrilling accounts were mere ghost stories: they might not have sacrificed their lives for the country in the way the official narratives intended for them to sacrifice.
Qiu Shaoyun was a Chinese “volunteer” fighting the Americans in Korea. One day soldiers in his platoon were lying on their stomachs, hiding in the grass, and only sixty meters away from the foot of a hill that they planned to take from the Americans. Chinese artillery rocked the hill, and the Americans returned fire. Suddenly, an incendiary bomb set the grass near the soldiers aflame, and the fire soon engulfed Qiu’s overcoat. He could have easily put out the fire by rolling to his side, but he remained still for fear of betraying the position of his platoon. The flames did not go out until half an hour later, when Qiu was burned to death. The Chinese soldiers were inspired by Qiu’s noble sacrifice and later took the hill from the Americans.
Another soldier, Huang Jiguang, was also trying to take a hill from the Americans during the Korean War. His platoon was battered by machine gun fire, so Huang volunteered to take out a stronghold. After getting hurt by machine gun fire and fainting after an explosion, Huang threw his body onto the muzzle, sacrificing himself while allowing his platoon to destroy the stronghold.
Graphic descriptions of burning to death and dying at close range by a machine gun are enough to trigger the imagination of elementary school students. Yet as many Chinese people have pointed out, those stories betray common sense.
When a person comes in contact with fire, it’s a physical reflex to try to move. Additionally, after the fire went out and the grass disappeared, their positions would have been betrayed anyway. Qiu perhaps died before flames engulfed him, or the author, one of his comrades, did not remember or present the facts accurately.
When a person throws his body onto the muzzle of an American machine gun, he will be blown away immediately. Thus, Huang’s heroics, even if true, could not have helped his platoon in any substantial way.
Heroic accounts such as Qiu and Huang are often hotly contested. Blogs questioning the accuracy of the stories abound, and so are Chinese official media’s responses. What we can be certain about now is that we may never know the truth behind these heroic stories.
After I grew up to care more about historical facts, the ghosts of these martyrs are haunting the way Chinese authorities impose historical memories upon the public. Everyone needs to remember and honor the martyrs, but the inability to present cogent accounts of what happened is truly a shame and dishonor.
