'I Grew up in Communist China, My Dad Was Sent to a Labor Camp'

I was born in Guangzhou City, China, in 1964. I grew up in a turbulent time, during the Cultural Revolution, where landlords, farm-owners, business owners, and scholars were often treated as "bad elements" and publicly humiliated, beaten, sent to labor camps or even executed.

My father was sent to a labor camp to be "re-educated" for being from a landlord family. Our family lost our resident permit and became vagrants. At the age of one, I was sent to live with my maternal grandparents in the countryside, near the south of Pearl River.

I could not walk normally by the age of three due to a lack of nutrition. Even as I got older, I was always hungry because there wasn't enough food. Since my grandparents' farm and orchards were declared state property, I could only look for food in the wild. A fishing pole made of bamboo was my "toy," which I used to catch small fish and shrimp in a canal next to our house. We would then cook these for dinner.

When I spotted a small hole in a bamboo shoot, I knew there was a worm inside. Since I rarely ate meat, the bamboo worm was a delicacy for me because it was full of oil. I would shake the shoot very hard, until it broke, and I would fry the worm in a wok. I also ate bee worms, but getting them was a big adventure. The local boys and I would be chased by hundreds of bees.

I was reunited with my mother and sister when I was about four, and they came to live with us. We would often take a ferryboat from our village in the evenings, traveling overnight to Guangzhou city. We would arrive by dawn, and my mother would enter a government office building where two armed guards stood at the front gate.

The purpose of the many trips to the city was to get resident permits for us. These attempts were all unsuccessful because my father had been sent to a labor camp. Without a resident permit, we could not get coupons to buy food, and my mother could not get a job.

I first realized I had a father when he started sending money to my mother from overseas. My father had served a number of years in the labor camp. He managed to escape China by swimming for eight hours in the ocean to Hong Kong. Later, he emigrated to New York. After that, people in the village called me "Spy Girl." But I didn't care. I was used to being bullied because of my family's background.

I attended school during the period of the Cultural Revolution, where Mao tried to purge all traces of capitalism from Chinese society. We spent most of our time not in the classroom, but working in the fields or attending public accusation meetings—or, "denunciation rallies." At these meetings, we were taught to fear and hate American imperialism, Soviet revisionism, and capitalism, and told that local landlords and business owners represented these ideas.

Once, my oldest uncle was on the stage with a few other "bad elements." His hands were tied behind his back, his body was bent almost 90 degrees, and he wore a tag around his neck. I was shocked. My classmates all looked at me and started to gossip, making me feel ashamed. He was accused of engaging in "capitalist merchant trading with speculation and profiteering" because he had been caught selling products on the black market.

At that time, people could only buy and sell products at government stores at a fixed price, using the required food coupons. However, even with a coupon, store shelves were often empty. Therefore, people had to buy from black markets at higher prices.

My uncle kept a very low profile after that incident. I narrowly escaped a similar situation myself. When I was 10 or 11, I sometimes rode a bicycle with my cousin to sell bananas and cabbages in a nearby town. I could make more money in one day than my mother's one-month salary as a commune member.

I was caught in the act, and put on a blacklist to be sent to a detention center as a "capitalist trader," which terrified my family. However, I was spared by Mao's death, which brought an end to the Cultural Revolution.

Deng Xiaoping's reform allowed us to emigrate to the U.S. and reunite with my father. Since that time, we have enjoyed life with freedom.

I live in Maryland now and work in the local public school system. I like that the U.S. has a more mature democracy. However, I miss my home village in China, with the natural beauty of the countryside, the canal and the farm animals.

Unfortunately, that village has now been replaced by a big city with tall buildings. History seems to fade under the shadows of tall buildings. That is why I wrote my memoir, Flowing with the Pearl River: to make sure that this part of China's history will never be forgotten.

Amy Chan Zhou is the author of Flowing with the Pearl River, which is available now.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.