The heat was unbearable. The sun seemed to be suspended above my head, firing missiles of heat down onto my exposed skin. I could see the heat rippling in tiny waves around my feet. Mum and her friends from work were trying to start the barbeque, to no avail. The big oak tree I sat under was provided the only shade in the whole park.

Ha, I should be a writer, I thought amusedly as I went back to pore over the Girlfriend magazine in my lap and the all-important question of what I would do if my best friend’s boyfriend hit on me.

The smell of a barbeque smoke and an explosion of loud, harsh chattering cut into my thoughts like a sharp blade. Mum’s thundering coarse voice rose about the rest.
“My Jenny, she wear some clothes like this – one piece of cloth! And I say, what’s this? And she say very modern fashion.” There was another explosion of laughter and Auntie Ho simpered in a sugary sweet voice, “Meidi, ni tai qin song lah! I would never have let my daughter embarrass the family like that.”

I was boiling with anger. How dare my mum make fun of me in front of all those people? Why did Chinese people always sound like they were at the fishmarket? Auntie Go was an embarrassment to her family. I scribbled a hideous caricature of her in my magazine. I fumed and didn’t notice Mum until she had sat right beside me.
“It’s a beautiful day today,” Mum commented.
“What do you want now?” I scowled.
“Guo lai. I’ll tell you a story. The story of my childhood.” I looked up, surprised. This was the first time Mum had ever talked about her life. She continued, “My father was a poet, my mother, a painter. We lived in a small country town in the outskirts of Beijing where my parents made just enough money for us all by selling their poems and paintings.”

It was a relaxing scene, like so many peace evenings at home. A single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling cast a warm yellow light over the room, illuminating the many paintings decorated the shabby walls. The smell of incense lingered in the air. Ba sat at one end of the writing desk, reading to us from his beloved collection of books and scrolls, some dating hundreds of years old. Ma, at the other end, worked on her painting, immersed in her own beautiful world of colour, mountains and mist.

“Ba, the Red Guards are going to come for us one day if you keep on thinking these old thoughts,” I said. We had all heard the stories of people getting killed for practising the Old Ways.
Ba stroked his most prized possession - a copy of Libai’s most famous poem copied out by Ling Ching Chao herself 1000 years ago.
“Hear for yourself how beautiful this ‘old culture’ is.”

Night Thoughts - Libai
I wake and moonbeams play around my bed
Glittering like hoarfrost to my wondering eyes
Upwards the glorious moon I raise my head
Then lay me down and thoughts of home arise

Ba sighed as he put down the silk scroll. His eyes were soft and thoughtful. “This is what the government does not understand, Meidi. By destroying the Old, what will be the foundation for the New?”

“Our comfortable life was shattered on the happiest day of the country,” Mum said bitterly.

The noise was extraordinary – loud drums, cymbals and instruments of all kinds mixed with the exuberant, feverish shouting of propaganda slogans.
“Long live Chairman Mao!”
“I love Chairman Mao!”
Chairman Mao was to speak at our here, at a mere country village! Thousands of red banners and flags were waved by thousands of enthusiastic hands. People sang and danced, eagerly clutching their Little Red Books in their hands. Emotions were at fever pitch and people around me wept with joy and pride. However, I couldn’t help feeling slightly uneasy as I thought about Ba’s teachings about the Olds.

Mao only spoke for a short time, his speech constantly interrupted by applause. He spoke of his Cultural Revolution. How, by bringing an end to old culture, old ideas, old customs and old ideas, the New China would be able to go forth into the future with the wealth of the present. The year 1966 would be the year where China would amaze the world.

I replayed his speech in my mind as I walked home. Chairman Mao had said to destroy the old, but the old culture was what my parents had been living on all their life. Who was right? As I neared home, I heard loud banging and the sound of broken glass. A gruff voice shouted, “Chen Ming, Wang Xinling, you are traitors to the government! Anti-revolutionaries! A disgrace to the country.”

Through the doorway, I saw Red Guards smashing furniture, ripping Ba’s beloved poems and Ma’s beautiful paintings. In the midst of it stood my parents, wide-eyed with horror, as they saw their lifetimes’ work being destroyed before their eyes.
“Ba, Ma, what’re they doing?”
‘Go away, Meidi,” my mother said softly.
“But – “
“Go away!”
Blank faced Guards pushed my parents out of the door, knocking me to the ground. Someone tossed a match through the door. There was a momentary stillness and the house erupted in bright orange flames, hungrily consuming the culture of thousands of years. My life, my parents lives, were burning away into ash. The last Guard turned around to give me a sympathetic glance and then turned around and walked away. I was alone.

Mum was sobbing quietly, her shoulder shuddering despite the heat.
“They didn’t do anything wrong.”
I involuntarily put my arm around her – something I hadn’t done for a long time. It was as if our roles had been switched around as my mother cried on my shoulder and I murmured words of comfort.
“It’s OK. It’s all in the past now. Don’t cry.”
As I stood with my arm around Mum, I wondered what sort of people my grandparents were. The devastation Mum must have felt as she saw her parents being dragged away from her forever. I didn’t want to lose my mum either. My chest tightened at the realisation.

Mum wiped her tears and pointed to the picture I had drawn in my magazine on my lap.
“You seemed to have inherited your grandmother’s gift with art,” she smiled. “I never really liked that Mrs Go.” I grinned.
“It’s a beautiful day today.”