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LEARNING THE HARD WAY

Master Yu’s personality seemed to have changed overnight. Before my initiation, he’d been my protector and my only friend, and we’d spent evenings drinking tea, eating cookies, and talking about my favorite subject: Afterward, I seemed to have turned invisible—I became just another problem, one whose solution was rigorous training, ear-shattering lectures, and the occasional beating.

I quickly learned to watch the other children careful. Whenever they stood up, I stood up. If they sat down, I sat down. Whatever they said, I said, and whatever they did, I did. Not only did it make it less likely that Master would single me out for punishment, but it also helped to create a bond between us, me and my brothers and sisters. I made friends with many of the younger children, and even my worst enemies, Yuen Lung and Yuen Tai, stopped making me the constant target of their torments.

Things got better. Life was hard, but simple. I slowly grew used to the routine.

This was a typical day at the academy: at 5 a.m., Biggest Brother would wake us up—first with a shout, then a brisk shake of our shoulders if we didn’t get up immediately. Then we’d and put away our blankets, and march outside to the stairway that ran up the side of the building, climbing to the roof. Making as little noise as possible to avoid disturbing the neighbors—who were all asleep—we’d run several laps around the rooftop, just to wake up.

After the run, we’d march back down to breakfast, the sweat still wet on our bodies. There was no time was no time to stop for a bathroom break, because it was Master’s theory that any need to use the toilet in the morning meant we hadn’t training hard enough. As he put it, all of the body’s toxins should have been sweated out during the morning run… And so, the first time I made the mistake of asking to relieve myself, I was given ten extra laps to run. (Better to actually let loose in your pants—but heaven help you if Master found out.)

Breakfast itself was barely a meal, just a bowl of congee, which is a thin rice porridge. The idea was to fool the stomach into thinking it was full, but not to eat so much as to get in the way of practice, which lasted five or six straight hours with barely a chance to breathe: warm-up exercises,

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Then footwork training, martial arts, and acrobatics, all performed in tight ranks in the academy hall, boys and girls together.

The most difficult instruction we had was in the aerial maneuvers that give Chinese opera its visual splendor: flips and somersaults, all learned and practiced without a net or harness. After watching the others do their backflips with ease and grace, I was eager to learn. Master, gratified at my enthusiasm, told Yuen Ting and Yuen Lung to teach me how.

Without warning, they grabbed me by the waist and flipped me over. All of a sudden, the room was whirling around and the floor was much too close to my head.

“The next time, your hands should be farther back,” said Biggest Brother.

“You have to be stiffer in your neck and head,” said Yuen Lung. And then they told me to try it on my own. That was the sum total of the teaching I had in this spectacular—and dangerous—maneuver.

After a series of tries on my own, under Master’s watchful eye, I managed to land awkwardly on my feet, but not before some terrible and frightening falls. I was lucky, escaping with just bruises, head bumps, and the occasional twisted limb. Some kids weren’t so fortunate. When a really bad injury happened, there was no doctor around to make sure that no permanent damage had occurred.

In fact, being hurt or sick was seen by Master as an attempt to get out of practice; in his eyes, if you could move, you could fly, so anything short of a crippling handicap was just a lame excuse—so to speak.

One day, of the younger boys went to a corner and sat down during somersault practice, immediately drawing the attention of Master. Earlier that morning, he’d complained quietly to Biggest Brother about feeling dizzy. Biggest Brother had told to take it easy, saying that he’d explain it all to Master.

But Master didn’t want to her any excuses. “Why are you sitting, boy?” he asked, his voice icy with contempt.

“Master, he told me he’s not feeling well,” said Yuen Ting, stepping between them. Master looked at Biggest Brother with surprise. Yuen Ting had never stood up to Master before. Then again, no one ever did.

Brushing Yuen Ting aside with a gesture, Master pulled the woozy student to his feet. “Do a dozen somersaults, and you’ll feel better,” he said.

A suggestion from Master was the same as a command, so the boy rubbed his head and attempted to flip himself through the air.

He managed two shaky somersaults, and then fell sideways, smashing his head against the corner of a table and landing on the floor, unconscious. All of us looked on in horror. Blood was oozing from a wound on his temple. He wasn’t moving.

You’d think an injury like that might reasonably be expected to result

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in a quick call to the hospital. Instead, Master leaned down and checked the boy’s pulse.

“Yuen Ting, bring my bag,” he said, his voice firm.

Biggest Brother, his face pale, went into hall to Master’s room and returned with the small leather bag that was Master’s all-purpose first-aid kid. From the bag came a handful of tobacco leaves, which Master pressed against the wound to stop the bleeding.

“Move him aside,” he told Yuen Lung and Yuen Tai. The elder brothers quietly the boy’s prone body and set it near the wall, out of the way. Soon practice continued as usual.

Four hours, the boy awoke, wincing at the pain his skull.

“Master, he’s awake,” said Yuen Ting.

Master walked over to the boy and helped him to his feet. “You’ve been sleeping while the others were working hard,” he said bluntly. “When lunch is over, you can show them what a well-rested person can do.”

The boy nodded groggily and joined the rest of us noon meal, leaning on Biggest Brother’s arm. I saw the expression on Yuen Ting’s face. It was grim look.

A look of hatred.

Lunch at the school was a more substantial meal than breakfast, consisting of soup, made from tofu and green vegetables, and then rice with fish. After eating, we were finally allowed to go to the bathroom. Then we moved on to the most essential—and painful—part our training: flexibility exercises. Opera performers have to be able to do a complete leg split, horizontally on the ground, and vertically, holding one leg above the head. And so we practiced splits against the walls, against the floor, against everything. As soon as the exercises began, the room would be full of howling, because frankly, it hurt like hell.

The worst thing was that, if you couldn’t split all the way, Master would send Biggest Brother over to push your body down until it felt like your joints were going to come apart. And if he couldn’t do it alone, he would call other older students over, and they would hold your legs apart while he pushed you. It didn’t matter how much or how hard you cried; eventually, you’d go down into a split.

It was a nightmare. This might sound terrible, but eventually you actually felt happy to see other kids crying, because it meant that someone else was being tortured, not you. Oh god, it was awful. And it would go on for hours, until walking, or sitting, or even standing was agony.

After we practiced splits, we would move on to handstands. An opera performer has to be as comfortable on his hands as on his feet, so the brief handstands that any adolescent child can manage were not enough

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for us. Master decreed that his students would have to be able to stay on their hands for at least half an hour at a time. After fifteen minutes, our arms would grow limp, our blood would rush to our heads, and our stomachs would begin to turn flip-flip. But we couldn’t show any weakness at all. A limb that moved would receive a whack from the master’s rattan cane, and woe to the student who allowed himself to hall over!

Still, Master could pay attention to only a single student at one time, and when he was occupied with adjusting his or her form—a blow at a time—one of the senior brothers would quietly turn his body to lean his legs against the wall. The rest of us would soon do the same…until Master turned around, of course, at which point he’d see an innocent row of dutiful young students, upside down and ramrod straight.

After practice, we’d divided into groups—although, after doing splits for hours, we felt divided already. Some of us would be sent to do chores, like washing dishes, cleaning the hall, or tending to the ancestral shrine. The rest would go to singing or weapons instruction.

Then came dinner, which was just a larger version of lunch. We would always try to draw out dinner as long as possible, because what came afterward made all of the physical torment of the day look like a walk on the beach.

Once dishes had been cleared away, we’d file silently down the corridor into a large room with desks and chairs. At the front of the room was a chalkboard, usually covered with obscene words, stray graffiti, and unflattering drawings of the older brothers (or sometimes, if one us was feeling really brave, of Master).

The first time I’d walked into the room, I’d felt betrayed. It was a classroom! I didn’t mind training until I cried from exhaustion, or even being beaten when I deserved it—but lessons! That was more than I could stand.

Luckily, I wasn’t alone in feeling that way. None of us at the academy were scholarly types, and putting fifty twitchy children in a single room with an unsuspecting tutor was a recipe for disaster. The lessons were mostly tedious stuff, like reading, writing, classics of literature, and Chinese history. The tutors were mostly old, retired schoolteachers or young, naïve college graduates. Master was nowhere to be found, having left the academy to amble or visit old friends. There is an old line about mice and cats, and what one does when the other’s away—

And so, as soon as our poor tutor began his boring lecture in his dry teacher’s voice, we’d do our best to drive him crazy. Books would be thrown on the floor. Faces would be made behind the teacher’s back. The class would break into fits of laughter. Balls of crumpled paper would fly. Some of the younger boys would begin to wrestle, until the older ones had to dive in to break it up. The girls would talk loudly with each other, ignoring the chalkboard and whatever dull lesson had been

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scrawled on it (replacing our much more amusing pictures). I the tutor raised his voice, we’d just drown him out.

Of course, if Master came back early, he’d find us sitting quietly and politely in our seats, because the classroom had a window that overlooked the courtyard, and all of us had sharp eyes and ears.

It wasn’t easy to find teachers who could stand this kind of treatment, considering the stingy pay Master gave them. If you walked into a classroom full of disobedient students, didn’t make much money, and they treated you like dirt, you’d quit too, wouldn’t you? During my time at the academy, we burned out eleven different teaches, none of whom lasted more than a year. About the only thing we ended up learning was how to say “Good afternoon, Teacher!” Because that was how far class would get before things dissolved into chaos.

Sometimes, when we were on trips outside of the academy, we’d run into schoolboys and schoolgirls in their uniforms, good little boys and girls who laughed at us ragged-looking kids—al the boys with shaved heads and all the girls with short hair and no pretty dresses. And even though they teased us, we didn’t envy them at all. We never even thought about what it would be like to be in a regular school, siting in class and doing lessons all day. Those kids had nothing in common with us. Our life was all about surviving. Each of us knew that, if the master hadn’t hit us that day, then that day was a very good one, and we were very lucky. And that was all that mattered.

If Master was in a good mood, after our lessons was another training session, though less rigorous and more fun than the morning and afternoon sessions. This is when we’d learn interesting things, like kung fu, face painting, and the proper way to use props and opera costume. All in all, between our morning and afternoon and evening sessions, we’d practice more than twelve hours a day. Our art was a complex one, involving many different skills. And we were expected to be experts in all of them before we set a single foot on the stage.

Training would go on until bedtime, which was midnight. All of us students from the six-year-old newcomers to the Biggest Brothers and Sisters, had the same schedule: 5 A.M. to 12 A.M., five hours of sleep, and then another day of training—day after day, seven days a week. Free time was rare, and a cause for celebration; opportunities to go out, away from the academy, were even rarer. So, until we grew old and skilled enough to perform, the gray walls of the China Drama Academy were nearly all the world we knew.

About the only contact I had with the outside world was through my mother, who came to visit me at the academy every single week. At first I loved these visits, because being with Mom was what I missed most when I first came to the academy. Lying on the floor and staring at the cracked,

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white ceiling of the practice hall, I would remember all the nights she’d sung me to sleep, and all of the nice things she’d cooked for me. And I would remember how it felt to lie in my lower bunk, knowing that my nom was in the bed above me—that she and Dad would protect me from any kind of harm.

But strangely enough, after I had been at the academy for several months, my attitude began to change. I’d learned how to survive at the school, and my carefree days on the Peak seemed farther and farther away. When my mom visited, she brought me candy and snacks, and I eagerly took them and shared them with my friends. But her visits were also times when she showered all the affection on me that she saved up during the days she was away. I was a growing boy, and her hugs and kisses humiliated me in front of the other students. Some of them had visitors, too; Big Brother Yuen Lung’s grandfather came and saw him once in a while, but their meetings were short and simple: his grandfather would ask him if he was healthy, and he’d say yes, and they’d talk for a while about the family and about the academy, and then his grandfather would leave, after thanking Master for his diligent training.

Not, my mom. In addition to cuddling me like I was still a little child, she’d always baby me in another way that I couldn’t stand. Along with her sacks of treats, she’d also bring large plastic bags full of boiling water. Asking Master for a large metal basin, she’d pour the bags in and give me a hot bath, scrubbing me down and washing my hair. I was the cleanest kid at school, but also the most embarrassed. After her visits, my clothes damp and my head wrapped in a towel, I’d be cornered by my older brothers, each with something stupid to say.

“Hey, mama’s boy, how was your bath?” Yuen Lung would sneer. Not to be outdone, Yuen Tai would jump in: “She remember to change your diapers?” And then another brother: “Maybe she wipes your ass after you crap, too, huh?”

And I’d just have to grit my teeth and walk away, because if there was one unbreakable rule at the academy—well, there were a lot of them, but this was the one we were taught never to forget—it was that you couldn’t hit an older brother. Even if he hit you first. Because if he hit you, you probably deserved it, but if you hit him, that was as terrible an act as hitting Master himself. And hitting Master was unthinkable. It was like hitting God.

One day, when my mother arrived, bathwater in hand, I grabbed the bags from her and dropped them on the floor. “No bath today, Mom!” I said. “I don’t need one. And I especially don’t need you to wash me. I’m big enough to wash myself.”

My mother looked at me with silent shock. I was always a rude little boy, and I’d always talked back to my father, with the expected results, but

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I’d never said anything impolite to her. She didn’t say anything; she just nodded, quietly, and sat down to open the sack of snacks instead. As she was untying the knots that kept the plastic bag closed, I noticed that her hands were raw and red, chafed almost to the point of bleeding. And then I remembered the long walk from the house on the Peak to the bus stop, and the even longer ride down the mountain road, and the lines at the ferry dock, and the crowded, twisting streets Kowloon terminal to the school.

Mom had boiled the water for the bath in the ambassador’s kitchen, and carried it for over an hour to bring it here to me.  She did this once a week, every week. And I was telling her that all of her caring and exertion and pain was for nothing.

I pulled her hands away from the bag and hugged her tight. “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. “I…I guess I didn’t realize how dirty I was. I really could use a bath.”

And I smiled up at her. She really was the greatest mother in the world. And she smiled back.

When she left that day, the older boys were ready to taunt me as usual.

“How was the bath today, honey?” said Yuen Lung, pulling his round face into a mockery of maternal affection.

I looked at him and wrinkled my nose.

“It was great, Big Brother,” I said, scrubbing the towel across my wet scalp. “You know, maybe you guys should consider taking one yourselves. ‘Cause something really stinks around here.”

And as their jaws dropped to the floor, I walked away humming one of my mother’s songs, towel in one hand, her bag of treats in the other.