hose first few weeks at the Beijing Dance Academy were an agony of loneliness. Nights were the worst. I couldn't wait to get to bed so I could clutch onto my niang's quilt, my only security. I hated myself for it, but the quilt was like morphine, soothing my pain, and in those first months at the academy I became introverted and spoke very little.

I knew I had no choice but to stay in Beijing. My parents, my brothers, my relatives, my friends, my old school teachers and classmates, my village and commune, all of their wishes and expectations made it impossible for me to go back. The loss of face would be unbearable. It would damage my family's reputation for ever. My success was my parents' only hope of breaking that vicious cycle of poverty. I couldn't let my parents down, even if I did feel trapped in a cage of rules, routines and frustration. Every day I couldn't wait for classes to end. Every day I couldn't wait for the year to end so I could return home to see my family and roam the streets and fields once more.

I wasn't alone in missing home. I witnessed many teary eyes among my fellow classmates. The girls sobbed more than the boys. Our political heads and teachers showed more tenderness towards the girls, though. The boys would be laughed at if they were discovered sobbing. The boys were told, time after time, that crying was a sign of weakness.

The city kids seemed to cope better than the country ones. They were more confident and adjusted to the routine faster. The Shanghai kids coped well—they were generally fairer skinned too, but us country kids were darker. I was probably one of the darkest, but fair skin was considered beautiful in China so even there I felt inadequate compared to the others, and I stuck with the students from the countryside.

Our first weeks at the academy weren't made any easier when a vicious virus swept through the school. I was among those who had the severe cough, the sore throat and high fever. Naturally I did what my niang would have done—I took out a few pieces of my precious dried snakeskin and wrapped a green onion in them. I tried to be polite and offered to share it with some of my classmates but it was as though I'd offered them poison. They thought I was evil. So to prove my sincerity I ate one in front of them, but my teachers and classmates were so repulsed they moved quickly away. I lost a few friends over that, but I did notice that their symptoms lasted much longer than mine, despite their expensive pills.

The academy's toilets were another challenge. I appreciated the idea of being able to flush away the poos to who knows where, but the reality that always confronted us was blocked toilets. We had no choice but to poo on top of a hole that was already full of shit, and the smell was revolting. It penetrated through the walls. It lingered in the building. Often I had to run to other floors to use the toilets there and most of the time other students would already be waiting. Toilet rush hours were the worst—in the mornings after waking up, after breakfast, after lunch, after nap time, and the worst time of all was after dinner before the "go to sleep" bell. I would wait until I was absolutely desperate. I would close my eyes, hold my breath and charge into the toilet, trying to breathe as few times as possible.

One day as I joined the queue for the toilet, I saw a classmate of mine standing outside meditating. A dreadful smell pushed through my nose and I knew immediately that at least one or possibly both toilets were blocked.

"How many?" I asked.

"Both of them!" he replied desperately. I backed out of the bathroom, took a deep breath from the open window by the stairs, and charged onto the wee stand.

On my way out, my classmate was still outside taking deep breaths. "Still working up your courage?" I asked.

"I'm sure the smell will damage my health!" He shook his head in disgust, but he too took a deep breath and charged in.

The toilet might have been one of the worst things about the Beijing Dance Academy, but the showers were one of the best. We were assigned to take showers on different days, usually three times a week. We had to get in early though, because the hot water would run out and latecomers were always left with cold showers.

My very first shower was like magic. One of our teachers led ten of us to the changing room, which had wooden benches along the walls for us to put our clothes on. It was very damp, with a pleasant soapy smell. We had to bring along a facecloth, a washing-basin and soap. We had no shampoo. Massive amounts of steam pushed out into the changing room as the class of students before us came out. I hesitantly followed the other boys into the shower. I was a little afraid, but I'd heard some adults in our village talking about this thing called a shower, so I tentatively popped my head under the jets of water. It was wonderful! Warm water streamed down my hair and over every part of my body. I opened my mouth to breathe. Warm water filled it up and it felt so good that I kept my mouth open and let the water glide over me.

I was surprised to see my classmates show no particular reaction one way or another to the shower. Maybe they'd had one before, I thought. But all I wanted to do was stay under all day. Compared with the filthy, cold water in the washing-basin back home, this was a thrilling experience. I wished my family could have the same privilege. I had never felt cleaner. But we didn't know, then, that in winter we would be encouraged to take cold showers, to make our hearts and minds grow stronger.

The food at the academy was also good. Beyond good. We had rice nearly every day and it tasted so glorious because I rarely had it at home at all. And, luxury of luxuries, we had fresh fruit twice a week! Apples, pears and occasionally even bananas. We would get one piece each, or if we were lucky, sometimes even two. I savoured every bite. With enough food to eat for the first time in my life, I was in ninth heaven. I wished I could share the food with my family too: my niang and my dia deserved to have this.

One of the treats we soon experienced at the academy was, once a month, watching documentaries and occasionally a movie. All of the foreign films were from other communist countries. A North Korean movie that I remember particularly well was about a young man who had lost his ambitions for the communist cause, and a beautiful girl, a Communist Youth Party member, who helped him and fell in love with him. What I enjoyed most about this movie was not the politics but the love story. For the next couple of weeks I started to behave differently towards the captain of the girls' class. She was a pretty Qingdao girl with big, bright eyes. I imagined that if I performed badly enough in class, the political head might send this girl to help me, or more excitingly, perhaps she might even volunteer. But all I got was criticism and dirty looks. The longed-for love and attention never materialised.

Within the first month of our arrival in Beijing, we heard that the president of America, Richard Nixon, was to pay an historic visit to China. It was February 1972. People in Beijing were jubilant. The government's propaganda machine went into full swing and the Chinese media boasted of nothing else. This visit by Nixon was confirmation that Mao's communism had won the final battle against capitalism.

I didn't share this euphoria. I didn't care about Nixon. I was too homesick. But I did notice that the attacks on America's evil capitalist values by the Chinese propaganda machines eased considerably while President Nixon was there.

The first few weeks and months of our dance training I found impossibly hard. I had no idea what I was doing. Nothing made sense, I couldn't do the exercises no matter how hard I tried, and I doubted myself constantly. My torn hamstrings from Teacher Gao's exercises were continually painful and I'd injured my back during the acrobatics classes too. I knew I was destined to fail —it was just a matter of time before they sent me home.

One day we were given some exciting news: Madame Mao was coming to our university in person, in just a few weeks time. Our academy was to prepare some dance exercises and a small group of students would be selected to perform for her.

I wasn't included. I was heartbroken. I had been so excited at the thought of performing for Madame Mao, and now it wouldn't be.

After Madame Mao watched the specially prepared performance, she said to the officials, "The dancing looked all right, but where are the guns? Where are the grenades? Where are the political meanings?" She wanted us to combine traditional ballet steps with some Peking Opera movements, so from that point on our teachers made major changes to our training syllabus. In the middle of a classical plié we had to stiffen our hands into Kung Fu gestures while we were doing port de bras, and we had to finish off with a death-like stare we called "brightening the presence". Our teachers took it all very seriously. We had to prepare these "model" ballets, a combination of Western and Chinese styles that were a monument to Madame Mao's obsession. In reality, it was political ideology gone mad. But our university strictly followed her instructions and policies. We became nothing more than Chairman Mao's political puppets.

I knew that some of our teachers were incensed by this approach, but they had to bury their integrity and their love for Western ballet in their hearts. If they didn't, they would risk being labelled counter-revolutionaries, and be sent to jail or the pig farms. It could cost them their lives.

They knew Madame Mao's approach could never work. In classical ballet training we had to turn our joints out, but with Beijing Opera movements we were required to do the opposite. Ballet steps needed fluidity and softness. Beijing Opera required sharp, strong gestures. But propaganda ensured we believed that the Chinese model ballets were the world's best. They were groundbreaking. They were "uniquely Chinese". Nobody dared to question this, and we continued to do what we were told.

We spent a lot of time at the academy studying Mao's theories. We were expected to memorise every word in his Red Book and relate them to our daily activities. In fact, we spent more time on Mao than we did on ballet and all other subjects combined. Often we were divided into small groups to discuss Chairman Mao's most recent ideas. We were taught to focus on the meaning of each word. Once a student even suggested that if we really understood the meaning of Mao's words, then we wouldn't need to eat. His golden words would replace our daily food. That student received high praise for his remarks from our political head. I just thought he was crazy—he'd never known starvation, that was clear.

We were encouraged to tell everyone about our impure thoughts. We were rewarded for reporting when a fellow student's behaviour wasn't in keeping with Chairman Mao's great political vision. We were even told once, by one of the political heads, that a brave and faithful young Red Guard loved Chairman Mao so much that he informed the police that his parents had Taiwan connections. Both parents were arrested, and their son was upheld as a national hero, Mao's model guard.

I too would have done anything for Chairman Mao. Anything, except tell on my parents. I loved my niang and my dia too much to betray them for my belief in Chairman Mao's revolution.

Madame Mao also wanted us to spend three weeks each year with the farmers, the workers or the soldiers. These were called the "Learning Three Classes" sessions. We had to live and work amongst the peasants or workers or soldiers and at the same time keep up our dance training. At the end of each "learning session" we had to put on a performance.

Our first three-week summer holiday was spent in one of these learning sessions, with the peasants in a nearby commune. How I welcomed the wheat and the cornfields, the smell of manure, the sound of the crickets! Even the raw earth was wonderful to see, but it all made me homesick too. I wanted to go back to my village and catch my beloved crickets and dragonflies again. I wanted both worlds: the good food of the academy and the freedom of my home.

I worked well in the fields, and I was surprised that my classmates from the city had little idea about how to work on the land. I truly believed Chairman Mao was right: if these kids didn't come to the commune and work with the peasants, they would have no idea where their food came from.

We continued to practise our ballet, acrobatics and Beijing Opera Movement every day while we were living with the peasants. We used wire poles and walls for our barre. The dirt ground was uneven and uncomfortable and the scratching sounds of our feet brushing through each movement were unbearable—like fingernails scraping down a piece of glass. Our ballet shoes wore out so quickly and they were always filthy with mud. We even had to do cartwheels and backflips in the fields. Sprained ankles were not uncommon.

We slept and ate at different peasants' homes during our stay, but by the third day so many students suffered stomach cramps and diarrhoea that the school officials had to quickly call in our own academy chef to cook for us. The male students, including me, were assigned to guard our kitchen supplies so nobody would steal them.

"Why would anyone steal our food?" I asked one of our political heads. "Aren't the peasants our role models?"

He thought for a moment. "We are not guarding against the peasants' stealing," he said. "We're guarding against the enemy's evil motives. They might try to poison us. It's the hidden things we must watch for. Do you understand?"

I didn't understand, but I nodded anyway. I saw his expression and knew this was the end of the discussion. I thought that surely by now all our enemies would have been wiped out in all of Mao's campaigns and revolutions.

The weather was still hot when we returned to our university. And shortly after, the dreaded visit to the swimming pool occurred.

"Students who can't swim, raise your hands!" the same political head who'd asked me to wash his sweat-stained shirt instructed. A few hands went up—mine was one of them. Almost all of the kids who couldn't swim came from Shanghai or Beijing. I was the only one from Qingdao who couldn't swim.

"A boy who comes from a city by the sea and can't swim?" the political head sniggered.

I felt the blood rush to my face. I wanted to go back to my dormitory. But I knew I couldn't, so I followed instructions and hesitantly took off my clothes.

"Where is your swimming suit?" the political head asked me. Everyone looked at my practice shorts.

"I don't have a swimming suit."

"Didn't I tell everyone to buy one yesterday?"

I didn't answer. I didn't want to tell him that I couldn't afford one.

He gave me an annoyed look and shook his head. "Okay, everyone. Students who can swim can go now. Students who can't, follow me."

He took us to the shallow end of the pool and demonstrated the so-called "frog-style", or breaststroke. Following his instructions, I tried to swim but my body sank as soon as I started to circle my arms. I kept swallowing water. I looked across and saw my classmates swimming and diving like fish and wished I could be like them. The political leader spent all his time helping the girls. He never looked in the boys' direction once. I dipped my head under a couple of times and my nose filled with water. I wondered if I would ever learn to swim.

But by the end of that summer I did learn, even though I was still constantly afraid of the water. It was a couple of my classmates who eventually taught me.

That summer in Beijing was hot. We had no air-conditioning or fans, and when the heat became unbearable, we slept on the floor in the dance studio. Over twenty of us slept in there, and even with the studio's many windows, the body heat made it difficult to sleep. Mosquitoes would come out in the thousands and zoom around like little vampires. We slapped about frantically, trying to chase them away, and the slapping sounds could be heard throughout the night.

• • •

During the second half of our first year, the school added several new classes. One of them was Art Philosophy, Madame Mao's brainchild, the one we'd been told about on that first day, and surprisingly I liked it. It was designed to help us understand the relationship between the arts and politics. Chairman Mao's idea was that the arts should be important political tools.

Our teacher for Art Philosophy was a tall, talkative man. During class one day, he went into one of his little detours, talking about Mao as a brilliant political strategist. "The one political strategist I think was the best ever was Adolf Hitler! Like Chairman Mao, he seized on the psychological needs of an entire nation. He rallied millions of people to go to war for him. He made them believe it was all for their own good. Both Chairman Mao and he are master politicians, brilliant at understanding the peoples' psyche."

I, like most of my classmates, didn't have a clue who Hitler was. I thought he must have been a great communist, just like Chairman Mao.

Our teacher was brave to draw parallels like this, and often his true interests seemed to lie in areas other than the subject he was ordered to teach. He tried to show us how to look at a subject beyond the surface, beyond the obvious. One day he brought a plaster model of a man's head into our classroom. The surface of the model was as smooth as porcelain. He sat the model on his lecture table. "Raise your hand if you think the surface of the model is rough?"

What a stupid question, we all thought. It was obvious the surface was smooth. Nobody raised a hand.

"Now, raise your hand if you think the model has a smooth surface."

Everyone raised their hands. "I think you are all wrong or at best, you are only half right. I want you to look at it more closely and then tell me your answers."

This time there was a magnifying glass beside the model. We looked through it and were surprised to discover millions of tiny holes on the smooth surface of the head.

That class only lasted one and a half years. It was mysteriously dropped after that and I never saw Madame Mao's Art Philosophy teacher again. I once asked one of the political heads about him. "He is no longer needed at our academy," he answered bluntly. "He has been assigned a different job."

Throughout that first year at the Beijing Dance Academy, I was considered a laggard by most of my teachers. I laboured through the days with no aim, no self-confidence, and I couldn't keep up with the pace. It was too much for an eleven-year-old peasant boy. I felt that not a single teacher liked me. I wanted to shrink and run for cover. I longed for my parents' comfort and love, but here there was no one to go to for help. So I pulled myself further inwards, desperately trying to stay afloat, but constantly sinking.

We'd been at the academy for about nine months when our teachers organised another daytrip for us, this time to the Great Wall. Again, fear of motion sickness terrified me, but I wasn't going to miss this opportunity for anything.

It was a windy autumn day. We were given three hours to climb the wall. Its bulk and beauty stunned me. The size of the stones, its breathtaking height into the misty mountains, its endless snake- like meandering—it all made me gasp. I had seen pictures of the Great Wall before, but to actually stand on it, to look upon this incredible human miracle… I shook my head in disbelief. A fable that my niang had once told me immediately came to mind. It was about a poor young man, Wang Shileong, and his bride. Wang Shileong's name meant "ten thousand humans". It was said there was a section of the Great Wall that could never be built unless ten thousand bodies were buried as its foundation. Rumour had it that Wang Shileong's body alone could support that section. When the imperial soldiers buried him under the wall, his new bride stuck a knife through her heart and was buried there with him. I remembered my niang had said that this story portrayed a Chinese woman's determination to remain faithful to her man. "But this principle of faith also applies to a man," she'd said. "You are expected to be faithful to your woman with all your might until death eventually separates you. A girl's heart is pure and sincere. If you treasure her, she will love you unconditionally until the end. But you must never take a girl's love for granted."

I was touched by my niang's story and I admired the bride's strong will and faithfulness. "Wouldn't it be nice to see the Great Wall one day?" my second brother Cunyuan had said. Now, here I was, climbing on the ancient stone steps and wishing that my family could see it too.

The end of our first year at the academy was approaching and the end-of-year exams were coming up. Our possible grades were: excellent, very good, good, below good, above average, average, below average and… bad. Tension was high among the teachers as well as the students. It was judgement day for the teachers as well.

I wasn't worried about my academic classes because I knew I wasn't the worst there, but my dancing classes were another matter.

There were four dance-related exams that year: ballet, acrobatics, Chinese folk dance and Beijing Opera Movement. Acrobatics and Chinese folk dance were less of a worry, because the teachers were kinder and those classes were fun. But for my ballet and Beijing Opera Movement classes I was scared to death. We had to perform in front of academy officials, students from other classes, Chiu Ho and a panel of teachers who had pen and pad in hand.

There were over fifty students, teachers and officials already sitting by the mirrors in the front of the studio on the day of the Beijing Opera Movement exam. The sunlight shone through the windows and I could see the dust entwined in the beams of sunlight. We walked into the room in a line—and upon seeing the many pairs of eyes, I froze completely. My mouth went dry and my tongue felt swollen. It was as though all those eyes were focused on me, and me alone. I even heard the sound of my own breathing and felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck.

We were placed on the barre first and before the pianist struck the first note, I was already dripping with sweat. I panicked. I couldn't remember the dance combinations even though we'd been preparing them for four weeks. It wasn't so bad on the barre, because everyone did the same exercises at the same time and I could follow the others, but once we moved into the centre of the floor, the ten of us were broken up into three groups.

I was trembling all over. My legs felt weak and I couldn't remember a single thing. I was in front now and I had no one to follow. I peeked at the mirror and I could see that others were following my mistakes. Teacher Gao Dakun looked at us with such anger, but he couldn't call names out because of all the people watching. As the exam went on I performed worse and worse as the dancing steps increased in difficulty. The agony lasted for over an hour. I wondered what other names Gao Dakun would call me after this!

I knew that exam had been disastrous. I was so distressed that I missed lunch and ran to my weeping willow trees. It was over two hours later that I went back to our dormitory. My confidence was shattered.

When I entered the room full of eyes again the following morning, I noticed our ballet teacher Chen Lueng was already standing by the piano looking very tense. My heart pumped faster. This exam was to be judged mainly on barre work—we spent over three- quarters of our class time on it—and with our thin vest and shorts, I felt every muscle, every technical fault would be exposed and magnified, even the scar on my arm. Each exercise seemed slower and more excruciating than in class. I didn't hear a single note of the music and before I'd even lifted my legs, I could already feel them cramping. Chen Lueng had screamed at us all year for holding onto the barre too tightly, and here I was, gripping onto it for dear life.

Finally the torture of those end-of-year exams was over. We waited for our grades, and I knew in my heart this was not something I should be looking forward to.

I was right. My highest grade was "below good" for maths and Chinese. The rest of my grades were "average", even for ballet, and my worst grade was "below average" for Teacher Gao's Beijing Opera Movement exam, which was no surprise to me at all. Nothing I did would ever please him.

I wasn't the worst student in my class, but with my poor results I was definitely near the bottom and I still felt wretched. We all knew each other's scores because our teachers read them out, loudly, in front of the entire class. My face flushed with each announcement of my low grades. Twenty-two pairs of eyes pierced me like needles. It summed up my miserable first year. I was convinced that soon Director Wang would call me into his office, tell me I was no good, and ask me to go home and never return.