I am standing with a foot in two rowboats gliding side by side down a river. Everyone around me has already sat down on their respective boats, but I have not. Both boats are rocking precariously as the two sides are shouting angrily and pulling at each other. The sound of dozens of shouts mixes with the current to become a large roar in my ears, but I instinctively know that I’m supposed to choose which boat to go on. Looking around at my hectic surroundings, I feel a sudden sense of panic. I look around helplessly, for even as I try to choose a side, it feels as though my feet have sunken right where I am standing. My stomach twists tightly all of a sudden, and I realize that if I don’t choose soon, the rapid river current will pull the two boats apart and I will be forced into the river. I brace myself for the indication of divergence, certain that it will come at any moment, and the icy current will surround me. And then I wake up.
***
I was not on a boat. I was not on a river. I was a seventh grader in my safe, river-free house, and the only thing I was about to fall off of is my bed. Confusedly, I sat up and pulled the warm covers of my comforter back, instantly feeling the sharp chill of a winter morning overtake me. The strange vividness of my dream had combined with the briskness of morning air abruptly pushed the remnants of sleepiness out of my mind. Taking a careful glance around at my room, I looked around carefully for some sign of abnormality, certain that some part of my dream must have bled through into reality. Perhaps even a trickle of water. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I shook my head gently and dragged myself out of bed, padding sluggishly to the bathroom. By the time I made my way to the bus stop, fumbling with the pages of a book in one hand while clutching a half-eaten bagel in the other, my strange dream had been long forgotten.

On the bus-ride to school, I sat leaning against the cold and dirtied window pane of the bus, attempting to finish reading the final pages of the book I’d been fumbling with as I left the house, Red Scarf Girl. Furrowing my brow in concentration, I attempted in vain to drown out the noise of the more rowdy sixth graders as I tried to work through my confusion. The book I had just finished seemed muddled and quite far away in my thoughts, as though the center of cognition in my brain had been surrounded by a woolly thickness. Although none of the words had been difficult to understand, it seemed to me that I must have misunderstood what the book had said.
My affable English teacher, Mr. Flanders, had lent me a copy of the book a few weeks back when I started my research project on the Cultural Revolution for history class. I had chosen the topic mostly out of curiosity. My parents, both of whom had grown up in China during the era of the Cultural Revolution, or as it was called at home Wénhuà Dàgémìng, could still remember many verses of Mao’s Little Red Book. While both my parents readily admitted that the Cultural Revolution had been a mistake, my father in particular, still held a deeply ingrained respect for Chairman Mao. The Chairman Mao who I had learned of at home was a respectable man, a persistent man, and an intelligent man.
On the other hand, the book which I had just finished minutes ago had not depicted a cultural hero, or a steadfast leader. Instead, it had depicted Chairman Mao as a manipulative dictator who had brainwashed the country using propaganda. The cool disapproval displayed throughout the book contrasted completely from the warm reception his name had always been associated with at home. I still vividly remembered seeing his name and portrait all over the place during my visits to China before I started school, nearly eight years ago. This was the man with his face on coral-colored one-hundred dollar bills. This was the man who had a statue erected in honor of his six-thousand-mile march on the behalf of China. This was the man who owned a huge gated estate the length of a city block not five minutes away from where my grandparents lived. I had gradually formed a mental-picture of him as a George Washington-like figure, the first leader of modern China, a champion of the people who had rebelled against the ruling tyrants. The clear discrepancy between the Mao of my imagination and the Mao portrayed in this book confused me, but I didn’t get a chance to contemplate further, as I felt a tap on my shoulder.
The bus had stopped outside the school, and everyone else was filing out of the bus. The person who had tapped me, a girl whose face I recognized but whose name I didn’t know, gave me a strange look. Feeling my cheeks heat up in embarrassment, I murmured an apology before scurrying out of my seat and off of the bus. As I felt my feet hit the pavement, I faltered for a moment, trying to decide what to do next. Usually, I would go find my friends by the columns of the main entrance, so that they could fill me in on the latest happenings before school started. Today however, I ducked my head as I weaved my way past the crowded main hall, and made a beeline for the English hallway. As the heels of my shoes squeaked against the newly waxed floors, I began formulating hypothetical explanations in my head for why my English teacher had given me a book which had depicted Mao so differently. Perhaps he had given it to me to reveal the darker aspects to the country during the time period. Or perhaps he had given it to me to display that despite the good things Mao had done for the country, he had been blamed for things out of his control. Still, neither seemed to be strong arguments, and I arrived in my English classroom even more eager for answers.
As I pushed open the door to the classroom, Mr. Flanders was already sitting at his desk with his feet propped up and his hands tapping on the seat, joking around with another teacher. While Mr. Flanders was nearing his sixties, he had a light, youthful energy about him. Between his easygoing smiles and his quick-witted humor, Mr. Flanders was the sort of man who was simply very easy to get along with. He gave me a smile of acknowledgement as I came in, the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes turning up.
I smiled back, giving a small wave, before turning and sending a greeting to a couple of my classmates who had gotten there before me. Taking a seat at my usual desk, I dropped my backpack onto the ground with an unceremonious thud, waiting for him to finish his conversation with the other teacher. Three long minutes passed by, I found myself tapping my foot and glancing at the clock every once in a while, eager to go up and ask him about the book he’d given me. When the conversation finally winded down and the other teacher finally made his way down the hall, I jumped out of my seat, intent on getting some clarification before the bell starting the school day rang.
As I approached Mr. Flanders’ desk, he looked up and smiled again. “What’s up Catherine?” he asked good-naturedly, flipping his pen back and forth in his hands, as though the act of sitting still was a burden.
“I finished the book you gave me last week,” I began without preamble, “The Red Scarf Girl book?”
He nodded enthusiastically, “Yeah? What did you think of it?”
“I mean, I thought it was good ---” I hesitated for a second. For all my curiosity, I didn’t know how to phrase the question. “I just -- I was wondering -- why the book, like, why it portrayed Chairman Mao in such a bad light?”
The look he gave me was one of bemusement, as though he couldn’t believe that I had not understood what the book was saying about Chairman Mao. “Because he was not a good person of course. He was a dictator.”
Because he was not a good person. That seemed rather harsh to me, and I didn't understand how my good-natured English teacher could give such a harsh assessment. In my mind, Mr. Flanders was the man who walked into first period and banged his tin lunchbox on the heater to wake us up, who handed out candy during exam week, and the one who would never be needlessly cruel in passing judgment. If he said this man was a bad person, then surely he had to be. Except why didn’t my parents agree?
“But surely they couldn’t have only done bad things. They helped people too, didn't they build the nation back up after the mess of the previous decades?” I recalled my father's words many nights at the dinner table.
Mr. Flanders gave me a smile, but it was quite different from the warm ones he had given me before. This one rather resembled the patronizing smiles which adults feel is suitable for children who simply did not understand, "He did much more harm than good, which I’m sure you’ll learn about as you do research for your project."
Not wanting to cause a scene for the sake of conversation, I let it go, casting a wary eye at the book that had suddenly created so many unanswered questions. However that afternoon when I returned home, I found myself looking up Chairman Mao on Wikipedia for the first time. What I read, a criminal accusation of starvation, gang wars, and travesties, rather than clarifying things, confused me even more. How was it possible that a man who my father had such high regard for, whose large portrait still hung in Tiananmen Square surrounded by brightly-colored flowers, was considered a dictator, a murderer?

That night, at dinner, I found that my disconcerting discoveries of the day had sapped me of my appetite. I pushed my rice apart with my chopsticks, eating without much gusto. It didn’t take my parents very long to notice that I wasn’t eating, and they instantly began picking me apart for reasons of my lack of appetite. Had I eaten a snack when I had gotten home? Was I sick? Was there something wrong with the food?
I shook my head, and after another minute of being pestered with questions, my mother finally hit a mark. “Did something happen at school?” she asked, inspecting my face for a reaction.
“Did one of the students say something?” my father followed up immediately, quickly assuming the worst.
“No-- no” I responded hastily, suddenly finding the lighting fixtures on the ceiling extremely fascinating. “It’s just, you know how you guys always talk about Wénhuà Dàgémìng and Mao Zhuxi? Well, I read this book about that time period and stuff, except like, the book was really harsh about China during that time period.” I finally looked down, meeting my father’s eyes.
“We have never said that Wénhuà Dàgémìng was a good thing,” he replied hastily. “It was a bad time for China.” My mother nodded in agreement, using her chopsticks to add vegetables to my bowl.
“Yeah--yeah I know that,” I said, debating how to explain my sentiments. “That’s not the thing. It’s-- the book made it sound like Mao Zhuxi was a bad person. They made it sound like he manipulated the people into doing stuff.” I began to explain to my parents what I had read that day, as well as what my English teacher had told me.
My father looked at me solemnly from across the table as I spoke, furrowing his brow at my recollection of some of the more unsavory descriptions the webpages had used to describe China’s first leader. When I finished, silence seemed to echo around the kitchen as my parents both sat momentarily deep in thought. Eventually, my dad spoke, his voice slightly icy with disapproval, “Well all those things that America said, that was not solely Mao Zhuxi’s fault. He was trying to do what was best for the country, but because America didn’t like what China was doing, they portrayed Chairman Mao as a bad person.” I wanted to ask what exactly it was America didn’t like, but in seeing my father’s angry face, I realized it would be best not to interrupt. He added stubbornly, “That portrayal of course, is not necessarily truthful.” It was only until later, that I realized that my mother had remained silent.
To me it seemed that my father’s explanation had hardly explained everything. I still didn’t understand how one man could be seen in two such polarizing ways. It was clear which side my father took on the matter. It was also clear which side my English teacher took on the matter. The pounding question in my head was, was I supposed to take a side? Additionally, if I did take a side, which side would I take? Was I supposed to have obligations or loyalties to either side? Everyone was telling me different things and nothing seemed to add up.
On one hand I wanted to believe my father. He had never lied to me and additionally, he had lived through the Cultural Revolution and still had respect for Chairman Mao. Perhaps there was credence in his claims of protest against accusations. After all, my father had experienced it. On the other hand, all these sources that I waded through, Wikipedia, Red Scarf Girl, Mr. Flanders, all representatives of America’s opinion, were trying to tell me of otherwise. I had spent hours flipping through reference books, trying desperately to discover some semblance of truth within the glossy and credible pages. According to these pages, the Chinese people were tricked into appreciating Chairman Mao through intensely idealized mass-media propaganda. That would mean that everything my parents believed about Chairman Mao had really just been influenced by careful government created lies. So then, who was I supposed to believe? Who held the truth?
That night, as I was preparing to go to sleep a long 15 hours after I had first finished the book, I asked my mother why the American portrayal and the Chinese portrayal of Chairman Mao didn’t add up. She looked at my face intently, as though searching for something, before sitting down. “Your father didn’t really want me to explain this to you, because he thinks that you’re still a little too young to comprehend. But I think this is important for you to understand.”
I sat down next to her on my bed, looking up at her expectantly, pulling my legs up protectively and wrapping my arms around them. Perhaps my mother would have the answer. Perhaps she could explain this to me. My mother looked at me, as though searching my eyes for a moment, before she spoke. “America and China have had a different way of doing things for a long time. America was built on the principle of individual rights before all else. China has constructed itself on the principle of putting the nation above all else. The Chinese who grew up during the Cultural Revolution, your father and myself included, have a fierce protectiveness and pride towards their nation, maybe because of propaganda, maybe because that’s just who we are. Many are especially reluctant to admit any wrongs that Mao Zhuxi did, because we believe that he helped us a lot.”
“Does that mean that baba is wrong?” I asked, uncomfortably avoiding eye-contact. Instead, I stared at my rolled up socks which had been haphazardly tossed on the ground alongside my backpack. It didn’t seem right that my father would be wrong and refuse to admit it. It seemed childish.
My mother smiled at me, squeezing my hand gently. “No, there’s no wrong and right in this case. You see, America will always be biased, because America doesn’t like the way the Chinese government refused to be more like America’s government. I can tell you that Mao Zhuxi was not a bad person. In my opinion, he was a good military leader -- but a poor ruler. But that’s just my opinion, and everyone is entitled to their own. Just remember that he may have made quite a few mistakes, but making mistakes doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person.”
I let this sink into my head for a moment as we sat in silence. It didn’t feel right that no one was right. If no one was right, then where was the truth? “But then what really happened? Why isn’t there a book about the truth?” I asked confusedly.
My mother laughed when I said this, but she didn’t answer this time. Instead, she shrugged slightly, wrapping her arms around me in a loose hug, “Maybe there isn’t a truth.”
She kisses my forehead, and I close my eyes, finding myself thinking that I had been wrong to believe that I had to try and side with one country. It didn’t matter to me whether America or China was right. Both countries could bicker all they wanted about what the “truth” was, but it wouldn’t change the past, and it wouldn’t change who I was.
***
As I approach the edge of slumber, I dream again, that I am standing with a foot in two boats gliding side by side down a river. Everyone around me has already chosen which boat to ride on, and both sides are shouting and pulling, trying to convince me to come into their boat. But this time, I look down instead of getting caught up in the hysteria around me, and a strange calm enters my heart. I had somehow forgotten that at some point in the past, I had already tied the boats together. The boats aren’t going to leave me behind, because I am the one keeping them together. I don’t want to choose, and I don’t have to choose. As I realize this, the water hits the sides of our boats, pushing our boat forward on and on, and I turn forward to discover that I am not afraid.