Page 327 - SELECTED WORKS OF ZHOU ENLAI Volume II

RECEPTION FOR HIRO SAGA, PU JIE, PU YI AND OTHERS 325

has become an artist now. Your seventh younger sister is dean of
pupils at a primary school and a model worker. Who can tell when
you walk down the street that you are former members of the im-
perial house? Your brothers-in-law have all changed too. These
former members of the imperial family, bureaucrats and nobles have
become workers, office staff or teachers.
Now let me introduce Mr. Lao She, an outstanding figure of the
Manchu nationality. He is a famous writer. After the 1911 Revolu-
tion, Manchus used to be bullied and discriminated against, so he
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didn’t let it be known that he was a Manchu. He has written many
well-known works, such as Rickshaw Boy and The Dragon Beard
Ditch. His wife is a painter. She started painting in middle age
and had Qi Baishi as her teacher. She is now working on a huge
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traditional Chinese painting in co-operation with the painters Chen
Banding and Yu Fei’an. 217
216
Let me introduce another person, the wife of Cheng Yanqiu. 122
Cheng Yanqiu was a famous Beijing opera performer and also a
Manchu. After liberation, he worked hard at his art and asked to
join the Communist Party. In 1957 Marshal He Long 218 and I in-
troduced him into the Party, but unfortunately he passed away the
following year. Do you like listening to records, Mrs. Hiro? (Hiro:
Yes, very much.) I can give you some records made by Cheng Yan-
qiu. I enjoy his records very much. When I can’t sleep well, I listen
to them for a while. In the old society Beijing opera performers were
looked down upon. Now we call them performing artists, and we
are all on an equal footing.
I’d also like to introduce the nurse who looks after my wife and
me. She is also a Manchu. She didn’t tell me that, but I guessed it.
There are many Han comrades here, and I shall not introduce them
one by one. Old China was rigidly stratified, cursed by inequality.
In the Qing Dynasty, if people like us happened to see Pu Yi, they
would have to salute him on their knees. Actually, they would never
have had access to him. Things changed after the 1911 Revolution,
but not much. The oppressive Qing government was overthrown,
only to be replaced by a handful of Han people, and that regime was
even worse. The northern warlords went on fighting year after
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year, and war never stopped under the rule of the Kuomintang, so
that the people were reduced to abject poverty. It was only after
the victory of the Chinese revolution that the society began to change
and the people across the land became equal. The present social