Six-Fingers (Mr. Ni) Character Analysis

More and more, Six-Fingers and the rest of the Neighborhood Dictatorship Group seemed to be everywhere. They suggested names of possible Black Category families to the Neighborhood Party Committee. They monitored what members of the Black Categories did during the day, recording any visitors to their homes, watched their Morning Repentance and Evening Reports, and supervised their sweeping of the alley twice a day. In addition, the Neighborhood Dictatorship Group patrolled the neighborhood day and night […]

One evening they actually caught a counterrevolutionary! A ragpicker, who was collecting scrap paper to recycle, pulled some old da-zi-bao off the wall and happened to tear the newspaper that was posted underneath. A picture of Chairman Mao on this newspaper ripped in half. Witnessing this criminal act, Six-Fingers and his deputies immediately detained the man and took him to the police station.

All my treasures were scattered on the floor. The butterfly fell out of its glass box; one wing was crushed under a bottle of glass beads. My collection of candy wrappers had fallen out of their notebook and were crumpled under my stamp album.

My stamp album! It had been a gift from Grandma when I started school, and it was my dearest treasure. For six years, I had been getting cancelled stamps from my friends, carefully soaking them to get every bit of envelope paper off. I had collected them one by one until I had complete sets. I had even bought some inexpensive sets with my own allowance. I loved my collection even though I knew I should not. With the start of the Cultural Revolution all the stamp shops were closed down, because stamp collecting was considered bourgeois. Now I just knew something terrible was going to happen to it.

Du Hai’s mother was standing on a stool, her head lowered to her chest. Two torn shoes, the symbol of immorality, were hung around her neck, along with a sign that read, Sang Hong-Zhen, oppressor of the young, deserves ten thousand deaths. Her disheveled hair dangled around her shocked, gray face. I hardly recognized the once-powerful Neighborhood Party Committee Secretary.

A short man was standing in front of her, shouting […] “She lied to me! She told me Xinjiang was like a flower garden. […] And what did we find when we got there? Nothing! Not a damned thing! […] She fooled us into going to Xinjiang and then didn’t care whether we lived or died. Is that any way to treat a sixteen-year-old boy? While I was sick and begging for my food in Xinjiang, what was she doing here? She was running around with men and having a good time.”

I had just read an article in the paper. It told of a “historical counterrevolutionary,” who, as a local official before Liberation had killed two Communist guerrillas. The paper explained that because he had confessed and had a positive attitude, he was pardoned. Meanwhile, an “active counterrevolutionary” was convicted of slandering the Red Guards. He refused to confess and was imprisoned.

So this was their policy of psychological pressure. No wonder Uncle Fan thought he should confess to something he had not done. Had he confessed to listening to foreign broadcasts? If he had, why hadn’t he been treated with leniency? Why had he been detained? I could not figure it out.

More and more, Six-Fingers and the rest of the Neighborhood Dictatorship Group seemed to be everywhere. They suggested names of possible Black Category families to the Neighborhood Party Committee. They monitored what members of the Black Categories did during the day, recording any visitors to their homes, watched their Morning Repentance and Evening Reports, and supervised their sweeping of the alley twice a day. In addition, the Neighborhood Dictatorship Group patrolled the neighborhood day and night […]

One evening they actually caught a counterrevolutionary! A ragpicker, who was collecting scrap paper to recycle, pulled some old da-zi-bao off the wall and happened to tear the newspaper that was posted underneath. A picture of Chairman Mao on this newspaper ripped in half. Witnessing this criminal act, Six-Fingers and his deputies immediately detained the man and took him to the police station.

All my treasures were scattered on the floor. The butterfly fell out of its glass box; one wing was crushed under a bottle of glass beads. My collection of candy wrappers had fallen out of their notebook and were crumpled under my stamp album.

My stamp album! It had been a gift from Grandma when I started school, and it was my dearest treasure. For six years, I had been getting cancelled stamps from my friends, carefully soaking them to get every bit of envelope paper off. I had collected them one by one until I had complete sets. I had even bought some inexpensive sets with my own allowance. I loved my collection even though I knew I should not. With the start of the Cultural Revolution all the stamp shops were closed down, because stamp collecting was considered bourgeois. Now I just knew something terrible was going to happen to it.

Du Hai’s mother was standing on a stool, her head lowered to her chest. Two torn shoes, the symbol of immorality, were hung around her neck, along with a sign that read, Sang Hong-Zhen, oppressor of the young, deserves ten thousand deaths. Her disheveled hair dangled around her shocked, gray face. I hardly recognized the once-powerful Neighborhood Party Committee Secretary.

A short man was standing in front of her, shouting […] “She lied to me! She told me Xinjiang was like a flower garden. […] And what did we find when we got there? Nothing! Not a damned thing! […] She fooled us into going to Xinjiang and then didn’t care whether we lived or died. Is that any way to treat a sixteen-year-old boy? While I was sick and begging for my food in Xinjiang, what was she doing here? She was running around with men and having a good time.”

I had just read an article in the paper. It told of a “historical counterrevolutionary,” who, as a local official before Liberation had killed two Communist guerrillas. The paper explained that because he had confessed and had a positive attitude, he was pardoned. Meanwhile, an “active counterrevolutionary” was convicted of slandering the Red Guards. He refused to confess and was imprisoned.

So this was their policy of psychological pressure. No wonder Uncle Fan thought he should confess to something he had not done. Had he confessed to listening to foreign broadcasts? If he had, why hadn’t he been treated with leniency? Why had he been detained? I could not figure it out.