The Untold Story of Many a Heiwulei Child

The Untold Story of Many a Heiwulei Child
is intended to offer the first ever glimpse
into heiwulei children of China and
shed rare light on an education system
instrumental in implementing policies
against such children. The first-person
narrative of a girl who grew up a heiwulei
brings back a time in Chinese history
when so-called five black categories of
class enemies were being rounded up
to be executed or prisoned or laborcamped.
Just a second grader, the girl
struggled with having a father who was
a class enemy in prison. Then the Great
Cultural Revolution started, labeling as
heiwulei any child with a heiwulei parent.
Setting old family photos on fire in the
middle of a night didn’t help. Still her
mother was hauled away, leaving the
ten-year-old home alone to fend for
herself. In the spirit of a fabled snake
her maternal grandma had told her,
the girl tried to be strong like a boy by
working on her wushu moves and even
joined a small group to reach Beijing
on foot. Surveilled throughout her years
in secondary schools, she found herself
often having to denounce her thenalready-
dead father or being denounced
for having such a father. Even though
she knew she didn’t have any future, she
kept going simply because she was raised
not just by a mother who was a master
in the ancient art of calligraphy but also
by stories she heard, legendary or real,
which always ran like an undercurrent of
strength for her.