he train trip back to Beijing this time was a happier experience. Even the settling-in period at the academy was easier because by now all of us could communicate with each other in Mandarin. I couldn't stop thinking about my dia's pen though, and his pride-provoking words. I knew that every time I used that pen, I would feel guilty, because my attitude towards my dancing hadn't changed. I still hated it.

In May that year, Madame Mao visited our university for the second time. This time I did get to perform for her and afterwards we all gathered at the sports ground where, with indomitable authority, she told us to study hard and be good students of Chairman Mao's. Her entourage of cultural officials stood beside her with expressions of the utmost admiration and respect. She told the university officials that the dance students were technically weak. So additional classes were added, including martial arts.

Madame Mao also ordered two young champions from the Beijing Martial Arts School and the Beijing Acrobatics School to join us as model students. They were awesome. I was especially impressed with Wang Lujun. He could master ten back flips in a row with ease. He could do "double flying legs" with incredible height, but his "butterfly" was the most difficult and exciting step to watch. You had to swing your body from right to left, with head and body at chest height, at the same time pushing both legs up in the air in a fanning motion. When the movement was done properly it looked just like a butterfly flying in the air. Wang Lujun could do thirty-two of them in a row! He was legendary.

Although Lujun was good at acrobatics, martial arts and Beijing Opera Movement, he struggled hard at ballet. Because he had come in the middle of that second year, he'd missed learning the basics, and the way the muscles were used in ballet was so different to the way they were used in martial arts. He told me many times that he wished he could go back to martial arts again but, for the same reason as me, he felt trapped. He had a duty to perform and there was no way back.

Lujun was honest and he had a strong sense of fairness. Later he was nicknamed the Bandit and he liked it so much that the name stuck.

One day, later in that same term, I remember the Bandit bought ten fen worth of sweets: his father often sent him spending money and he would occasionally slip a sweet or two into my hand. But this time his class captain found out and told the head teacher. The Bandit was ordered to write three self-criticisms. He dug deep, but he genuinely couldn't think of a single reason why he shouldn't buy sweets. So I gave him some ideas —the ten fen he'd spent on sweets could have saved someone from starvation. Or his selfish action could corrupt his mind. I didn't really believe this, but I had to convince him that it was the only way to get him out of trouble. He had to learn how to survive this psychological brainwashing too. Fortunately, it worked and his self-criticism passed the test.

After that incident, the Bandit and I became good friends, and a few weeks later, to my great surprise, he asked me to become his blood brother, a tradition from the Kung Fu masters' era and a bond that would last a lifetime. But in many ways the forming of this bond often rivalled real brotherly love, so at first I said no. I had six brothers already. I didn't need another. The Bandit was very disappointed, but he wasn't deterred and the following Sunday, he invited me to go for an outing. We got permission to leave the university (without this we were never allowed beyond the gate) and the Bandit took me to a small eatery at the base of a mountain on the outskirts of Beijing. He ordered a small bottle of rice wine and a small plate of pig's head meat—a wonderful delicacy. It was white and full of lard. Delicious! What my niang would give for such a treat! I didn't like the rice wine though, because it was so strong, nearly one hundred per cent proof.

After we'd finished, the Bandit took out a small knife, a piece of paper and a pen. He asked me once again if I wanted to be his blood brother. He had tears in his eyes as he prepared himself for my rejection.

I thought carefully for a while, then told him my real fear, the fear that I couldn't live up to his expectations. I took my six brothers for granted. I had never considered how best to be a good brother.

He laughed at that, and said he loved me for who I was.

I relented. We cut our fingers and dropped some blood into a cup of rice wine and shared the same drink together. We then made up a poem. The rhythm and the sounds of the Chinese words were beautiful, and we worked on it for over an hour. We knew our friendship would be special—life at the academy was so lonely and so tough, the only thing we had was friendship. When the Bandit and I became blood brothers, we knew we were establishing a bond that would ensure our emotional survival for the next few years.

• • •

That year, the different academies in our university selected even more students, and our complex in the countryside just wasn't big enough to accommodate them all. So Madame Mao ordered each academy to go back to its old location in the city. We were told to pack our few belongings, because we would be moving out when we returned from our next three-week summer holiday, which would be spent with the workers at a garment factory outside Beijing.

Unlike our academy in the countryside, our new city site was much smaller and very cramped. Boys and girls occupied different sections on the second floor of a three-storey building, with eight students sleeping in each small room. We slept in four-bed bunks with one tiny drawer for our personal belongings. Anything that didn't fit there would have to be stored under our bed. We would share those poky little rooms until we graduated.

We had a new director now too. And there were more new teachers.

On the first day in our new academy, we were told we would have a new ballet teacher, Xiao Shuhua.

Teacher Xiao was a small boyish-looking man. Other teachers called him by his nickname, Woa Woa, which meant baby. "I'm excited to work with you," he said to us in the first class. "Although I'm your teacher, I'm also your friend. We will work together and learn together, and make our classes fun. Not only will I teach you ballet steps, I'll also try to teach you the appreciation of ballet. Ballet is the most beautiful art form in the world. I hope, by the time I'm finished with you, you'll have the same appreciation. We should know each other's strengths and also our weaknesses. For a start, I want all of you to know that your new ballet teacher can't turn. I have the worst pirouettes in the world!"

Teacher Xiao was a happy man with a quick temperament. His happiness and emotions fluctuated depending on how his students performed. He encouraged us to write down our achievements, mistakes, new discoveries, even the combination of dance steps, every day, in our diaries. He was intolerant of laziness and lack of commitment. He would fume with anger if we didn't remember the dance combinations or his individual corrections. But he was also quick to praise and to demonstrate. He had a breathtakingly enormous jump and he was very lean and fit. He always carried a notebook to his classes, with every step and every combination written down in detail.

Although Teacher Xiao's own turning ability was poor, he was determined to help his students perfect their turns, so he embarked on months of turning classes. We would complete our barre work within fifteen minutes and the rest of the two hours would be all pirouettes. The first thing he wanted to tackle was our fear of turning. Sometimes I felt the whole universe spinning around me when I walked out of these classes. Many nights I dreamt about doing multiple pirouettes and the feeling was incredibly exhilarating. It was like a "millet dream", I thought. There was a well-cited fable in China which Teacher Xiao repeated to us many times:

A poor Chinese scholar, on his way to the capital to attend the Emperor's annual scholars' competition, suddenly ran out of money. He was still far from Beijing, and now he had no money to hire a horse. He was hungry and tired and as he passed a small, run-down home he smelled a wonderful fragrance coming from within. He knocked on the door and an old lady stood in front of him. He begged her for some food but she was so poor she only had millet soup to offer him. He thanked her and sat in a corner to rest while the soup cooked. He immediately fell asleep and dreamt that he had won the competition and that he would live a wealthy and happy life with many wives, concubines and children. When he woke up from his dream he believed this was his fate, until he glanced at the millet soup cooking in the wok, and realised that he was in truth just an ordinary man and the things he had dreamt were too good to be true.

"Great things don't come easily!" Teacher Xiao insisted and I thought of his unattainable pirouettes. We worked on three consecutive turns for over a year. It seemed impossible to master. The perfect balance on a high demi-pointe, the shape of the hands, the crisp spotting with our heads, the turn-out of both legs, straight back, pressed-down shoulders—the coordination of all these elements together. So many things to remember! For a long time, it seemed that we would never achieve more than three pirouettes but still Teacher Xiao worked us tirelessly, day in and day out.

Teacher Xiao didn't seem to notice me much in the first two classes. I was shy and physically underdeveloped. He seemed to think I was the one with the least interesting face and couldn't understand why I had been chosen in the first place. But during our third class he apparently noticed something unusual about my eyes. He began to try to find out what kind of boy I was. The more he found out, the more interested he became. He discovered that I remembered every word he said, as long as I was interested. So he made me interested in ballet, and quickly realised that I didn't cope well with forceful shouting, which was common practice among the teachers at the Beijing Dance Academy. Instead I responded well to gentle encouragement. He noticed every subtle improvement I made. He made sure that I knew he'd noticed. He gently and gradually led me into the intricacies of ballet, nurtured me, dealt with my self-doubt and inadequacies with encouragement, and slowly moved me from the back of the class to the front.

Apart from more and more ballet, we also started geography and history classes that year. We spent very little time on international geography. Our teacher tried hard to mention America as little as possible and no one took his class seriously, but I wanted to know about the other countries, even though I had to hide my interest. Our history class also dwelt mainly on China, but here I found the rise and fall of the different Chinese dynasties fascinating, especially the Tang and Ming dynasties with their great art, crafts, porcelain, medicine and splendid poetry.

We had a new teacher for our politics class too that term, Chen Shulian, but we really only studied communist history and Mao's political ideas. We were starved of knowledge from anywhere outside of China. We learnt a little about Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, but only as a backdrop to Mao's great political achievements. "Our Chairman Mao is the one who has brought Marx's communist philosophy to life!" Chen Shulian told us one day. "He is leading us to the first stage of communism."

"Are we in the first stage of communism now?" a student asked.

"Yes, but this is a long road. We have to work hard at it."

Another hand was raised. "What is the final stage of communism like?"

"Oh, it is the ultimate wonderland! There is no starvation, no class distinction, no need to work long hours. There will be total equality. Everyone will work willingly and share equally. There will be no greed or laziness, no cheating or unfairness. We will have the best of everything! It will be total happiness!"

Chen Shulian's vision was like morphine for the sick. It gave us a reason to bear our present harsh conditions. She portrayed Chairman Mao as the greatest political strategist ever, a man who could out-manoeuvre all his political enemies. She rigidly followed the textbooks. It was uninspiring to me but I felt this was an important class all the same if I wanted to become a true communist of tomorrow. Chen Shulian must have impressed her superiors though, because she became the head teacher of our group the following year.

Our Chinese folk dance class became my favourite class that year. I liked Teacher Chen Yuen's jokes. Sometimes he took students to catch frogs in the rice fields, or cicadas at night with our flashlights. On weekends, we would fry the frogs' legs and cicadas in his room on a small electric burner. His hobby was photography and he often invited some of the students to help him.

But during the first half of that year, Chen Yuen's personality suddenly changed. He joked less. He stopped organising out-of- school activities. He stopped his photography and became withdrawn and sad. I didn't understand and asked if there was anything wrong. His answer was always the same. "Nothing is wrong." Then one day, suddenly, he disappeared. Later we heard that he had been discovered engaging in homosexual activities. He was sent to a pig farm in the countryside to cleanse his filthy mind. Homosexuality in Mao's China was a serious criminal offence.

A year later, just as suddenly, Chen Yuen returned to the school as a carpenter. He had lost his reputation, his teaching job, his wife and his position in society. Most significantly, he had lost face. His association with dance had come to an end. He was now in the lowest class of people in China, and his every move was monitored. He had to write a weekly self-criticism and progress report to the Communist Party Monitoring Committee in our academy. I never saw him smile again.

But Chen Yuen's misfortunes went from bad to worse. One Sunday he was using the big machine saw and lost three of his fingers. There was no compensation and he had to pay all his medical expenses. He couldn't use a saw after that and he ended up cleaning the toilets. His loss of dignity was unbearable to watch, even for a young boy like me.

Chen Yuen's replacement was his former teacher, Ma Lixie. Small, thin and animated, he had an unusually loud voice and a habit of rubbing his palms together at furious speed before demonstrating an exercise, as though this gave him courage or inspiration. I learned so much from Ma Lixie. His demonstrations were of perfection. He taught us a Korean crane dance, encouraged us to learn the essence of the dance, every subtle eye and even hair movement to feel like the bird's feathers. He dared us to think the unthinkable and explore the unexplorable. He dared us to be better than him. "Qi//ng c//hu yu lan e//r s//he//ng yu lan," he would say: the colour green comes from the colour blue, but it is the stronger of the two. He challenged us to be the colour green.

That year I also met a new student, Chong Xiongjun, a tall boy with a spotty face, from one of the outer suburbs of Beijing. He was two years older than me. After lunch one day, he asked me if I'd like to spend one Sunday with his family.

"I would love to, but I don't know if my teacher will let me," I replied.

That afternoon I went to one of our political heads to ask permission to go to Chong Xiongjun's home. He said that my parents would have to write a letter to the academy. The academy couldn't take responsibility if something should happen to me, and even if my parents did give their permission, I would only be allowed to go once a month.

A reply from my parents would probably take at least three weeks by the slow Chinese post.

In the following weeks, I received my parents' reply, written by my second brother Cunyuan. They were excited about me going to the Chongs' home, especially my niang, who was happy that I would have a family close by to go to.

Xiongjun and I set off at eight o'clock the following Sunday morning. It took three different buses to get to Chaoyang district, and it was nearly ten o'clock by the time we arrived at their house. Xiongjun's grandmother was outside waiting for us. She gave him a big hug and told him she missed him so much. Xiongjun called her Lau-Lau. She reminded me of my na-na—she was old, small, with bound feet, poor eyesight and very few teeth. She looked at me and smiled broadly. "You can call me Lau-Lau too!"

The Chongs lived in a row of single-storey concrete apartments, very much like the commune layout in Li Commune, except that the space was wider between each row and the apartments were built with concrete blocks. Even the floor inside was concrete.

The Chongs' apartment had three rooms. The entrance room was used as the kitchen, dining room and living room, and the rooms on each side of the entrance room were the bedrooms. There were no doors between each room; instead they had black cotton curtains. There was no toilet, only one outside the building which was shared by about twenty families.

I soon learned that both of Xiongjun's parents worked at a local glass factory. His father reminded me of my dia, a hard worker and a man of few words. His mother seemed a little younger than her husband and, like my own niang, she was the personality of their family.

We played cards after our tea, a game called "Protecting the Emperor", which at first concerned me a little. I thought it sounded very anti-revolutionary. Then I helped to make dumplings. Xiongjun's mother was surprised. "Look at Cunxin's dumplings. They are so pretty and I bet they will taste good too."

"Ma, if you keep embarrassing my friend, he won't come again!" Xiongjun said.

That day was also the very first time I'd tasted beer. It was room temperature because there was no refrigeration, and my first mouthful was all foam.

"Do you like it?" Xiongjun asked, laughing at me because the beer made me cough.

"Yes, I like it a lot," I replied, but I felt very light-headed after my second glass.

Besides the dumplings and the beer, we also had a dish of freshly caught fish, stewed with soy sauce, vinegar and different spices, cooked until the bones were soft enough to eat. It was delicious. Xiongjun's mother was a good cook and I could tell they had spent a lot of money on this meal. They were clearly in a much better financial position than my family. Here there were two full salaries feeding five people, and plenty of food.

After lunch, his father took us all to the glass factory where he worked. There I saw hundreds of thousands of crystal clear marbles in huge piles, and special machines which heated the glass up and pulled it into thin threads. I loved playing marbles at home and they were expensive to buy, so I asked Xiongjun's father if I could keep one as a souvenir and take it home to show my brothers. Without a word, he went over to talk to the gatekeeper and when he came back I couldn't believe my ears. "You can have a pocketful of them," he told me.

"Really?"

He nodded. I was so excited when I put my hands into the huge pile of glass marbles. My brothers and my friends would be amazed. There would be enough to give one each to my brothers, cousins and even a few to my best friends. I held the shiny balls in my hands and looked at Xiongjun's father again. "Are you sure?"

He nodded once more and smiled. I was beside myself with excitement. It was as though they were balls of gold.

That Sunday with them was the best Sunday I'd had since leaving home. They made me feel like I was a member of their own family. Before I left that day, Xiongjun's mother handed me a small bag of dates. "I hope you like our family. You will come back again, won't you?" she asked sincerely, holding my hand tight.

I nodded excitedly. I only wished I could go home to see my own family on Sundays too.

The next Sunday visit was a whole month away and I longed for it to come sooner. But after my second visit the bus fare had nearly eaten up all my spending money and I knew that I couldn't ask my parents for more. The third time Xiongjun invited me to his home I had to make an excuse. "I don't feel well, I can't go."

He was very disappointed and went without me.

The next month I tried to make another excuse.

"Are you still my friend?" he asked.

"Yes, of course."

"Don't you like my family?"

"Don't be silly, of course I like your family." I felt dreadful not telling him the truth.

"Are you embarrassed by my mother's praises of you?" he persisted.

"No, you have a wonderful mother!"

"Then why don't you come? When you don't come, they think we've had a fight and that you don't like me any more. I had to defend myself! Please come, everyone is looking forward to seeing you again."

Tears welled in my eyes. I looked away. "I can't afford the bus fare. I only have eight yuan for the entire year. I can't ask my family for any more."

"Why didn't you tell me earlier! I have enough money for both of our bus fares. My family will kill me if they find out that you couldn't come because I had the money and didn't pay for you!

Come on, the bus will be full if we don't hurry."

We left around nine o'clock and the queues at the bus stop were so long that by the time we arrived at Xiongjun's home it was nearly noon. But, as before, my day with the Chongs was filled with happiness and affection. "The dumplings aren't the same without Cunxin's involvement," Xiongjun's mother said at lunchtime.

Before we left that day, Xiongjun's mother handed me two yuan. "For your next bus fare. Make sure you leave earlier next time or I'll have no one to help me make the dumplings," she said.

At first I refused to take the money, but she insisted. "This is the best two yuan I have ever spent. Take it!"

Along with the Bandit, Xiongjun became one of my closest friends. I formed a strong relationship with each and every one of the Chong family. Everything the Chongs made for Xiongjun, I also received a share of, and I continued to visit them regularly throughout the next few years. They unofficially became my adopted family.

I went home to my own family in Qingdao for the Chinese New Year holiday that year, and this time I went with much improved grades. Chinese New Year had always been my favourite time of the year, but now it was even more special because it was my one chance to see my family and friends once more. My family could never visit me in Beijing. Just one return train ticket was equal to half my dia's salary for a whole month.

I brought back some Beijing sweets and a bag of jasmine tea from the Chongs as gifts to my family, and the marbles were an enormous hit among my brothers and friends. "They are the most beautiful marbles I've ever seen!" Jing Tring cried with excitement. He flew outside and proudly showed them to all his friends. He even placed them under his pillow that night.

My family shared the sweets and tea with some of their relatives and friends and they were deeply touched by the Chongs' generosity. In the end they had only enough tea left for one pot to have themselves, on the eve of Chinese New Year. My niang declared that this was the best tea they had ever had.

My holiday month at home went by too fast. My parents and brothers showered me with love and affection. Their lives hadn't changed much from the year before but I did notice some friction between my second brother Cunyuan and my parents. A few days before I was to leave for Beijing, my parents made Cunyuan write a thank you letter to the Chongs to express their appreciation for looking after me. Cunyuan had to rewrite it several times because my parents weren't satisfied with the words he used. Two nights before my departure, just as our niang sat on the kang after dinner, Cunyuan read his latest version.

"And if you don't like it, write it yourself!" he said, annoyed.

"It's better than the last one," my niang said, "but it's still not deep enough. Can't you say something like, `We are so touched by your generosity that we could have kowtowed for you if you were here`, but without actually saying that?"

"Why don't you cut your heart out and send it with Cunxin to show them?" Cunyuan was growing angry.

"I would if someone else could wipe your bottoms for you when I'm not here any more!" she replied.

"If you really want to show the Chongs your heart, why don't you give Cunxin to them, like you did Cunmao?"

"Watch your tongue!" Our niang gave him a stern look.

"You would give us all away before Cunxin. He is our family's crown jewel," Cunyuan continued.

"You are all my treasures," our niang said. "I love each one of you. I would rather die than give any of you away!"

"Hnnng!" Cunyuan was sounding bitter, disgruntled.

"Hnnng what? Have I done any less for you?" our niang asked him.

"Yes! You let your other sons go and pursue their futures! Except me! I can't even marry the person I love!" Cunyuan was shouting now. "Why should I be kept at home? Why can't you let me go to Tibet?"

"Haven't we explained to you before? We need you here," our dia waded into the conversation.

Cunyuan looked at our dia and hesitated. Our dia's words were indisputable in our family. They represented a certain kind of finality.

But Cunyuan was too emotional and wouldn't let it go. "So, I'm the one being sacrificed! Why don't you just say that I'm the least important of all your sons!"

"Can you repeat what you've just said?" my dia asked calmly. I could tell he was trying hard to contain his rage.

"I said…"

Whack! Dia reached over and slapped Cunyuan on his face with such enormous force that I feared his jaw might break.

"I dare you to repeat such ungrateful things about your niang!" Our dia then leapt off the kang and charged at my second brother.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Our niang stood between them. Cunyuan was holding his face, stunned. A moment later he came to his senses and fled.

Our dia was still raging with anger. "I can't believe we have such an ungrateful son!" Niang was sobbing by this point. "What have I done wrong with him? What have I done wrong?"

We sat there in shock, soaked with sadness. I was deeply upset by Cunyuan's accusations against our niang. I couldn't believe he was so angry. I couldn't understand why. But I did feel sorry for him. I had heard about the central government wanting more young men to go to Tibet and Big Brother Cuncia had suggested to our parents that Cunyuan should go. I'd thought the whole issue had been resolved by now.

My niang was upset and teary all through the next day.

"How long has this been going on?" I asked her when the two of us were left alone.

"Ever since your big brother wrote from Tibet a few months ago," she replied.

"Why don't you let him go?" I asked again.

"He has just started working. We need his income for us all to survive. How can we lose him so soon after we have lost your big brother to Tibet? We just can't afford to! The best thing for him would be to marry that nice, steady girl your big aunt introduced him to," she sighed.

"Couldn't he send money back from Tibet?" I asked.

"Have we seen a single fen from your big brother in Tibet? He can't even feed himself from what the government gives him!"

We both fell into silence. Now I understood.

"You are the luckiest person with enough food to fill your stomach," my niang continued, "and now the Chong family likes you!" Then she became more serious. "Never forget where you come from," she said. "Work hard and make a life of your own. Don't look back! There is nothing here except starvation and struggle!"

Cunyuan didn't come home for the next two days. I was worried. I knew our parents were worried too. He came back on the morning I was to leave for Beijing. He looked terrible, as if he had not slept for the two days since he'd run away.

Everyone was quiet at breakfast that day. "Take care, be good. Listen to your teachers. See you next year," my dia said to me before he left for work. Soon after, Cunyuan rode off on Dia's bike and told me he would be back in time to take me to the train station.

Nearly two hours later he finally arrived home and handed me a small brown paper package. "You can open it when you're on the train," he said.

I recognised the wrapping paper from the only county department store and I knew he would have ridden all this time to get there and back.

When it was time for me to leave, my niang walked outside to the gate with us. "Write as soon as you arrive or I'll be worried sick!" she said. She turned to Cunyuan. "Be careful, especially on the narrow roads. Just stop if you see a truck coming."

"Why do you care?" Cunyuan muttered under his breath.

"Niang, I'm going now," I said to her, trying to defuse the tension.

She didn't say anything. Tears welled in her eyes. I hesitated. Maybe I should have asked her sewing friends to come.

Cunyuan wanted to leave earlier than was needed, so I sat on the back seat of my dia's bike and waved at my niang, at my brothers, relatives and neighbours. I tried hard to fight back my tears. Maybe it was the distraction of Cunyuan's situation, but I felt slightly easier leaving home this time. Cunyuan rode away as fast as he could as though this would release his anger and frustration.

Once we were on the main road, I asked him how he was. He didn't reply. He just pedalled harder. About halfway to the station he hopped off the bike and said, "Let's talk."

Now I understood why he wanted to leave home so much earlier.

"I'm sorry you had to witness this unpleasantness," he said as he pushed the bike off the road. It had been a crisply cold morning when our dia had left for work, but now it was mid-morning and the sun had made it warmer. The train wasn't scheduled to arrive for at least another two hours and we were about half an hour away. Cunyuan took out a small bag of tobacco, rolled a cigarette and sat crouching against a concrete power pole.

"Are you all right?" I asked, trying to find something to say.

No answer. He puffed his cigarette furiously. I could tell from the movement of his chest that his emotions were like a rough sea. All of a sudden he dropped his cigarette, hid his face in his hands and sobbed. I didn't know how to comfort him, so I just rushed up to him and held his shoulders.

"Why me?" he said. "I should never have been born!"

I felt helpless. There was nothing I could say.

Eventually he lifted his head. "Why won't our parents listen to me and let me go to Tibet? Why won't they let me marry the person I love? What have I done to deserve such treatment? What is my future here? Should I be satisfied to work in the fields for the rest of my life? Tibet is the only opportunity I have to do something with my life. At least I could get a government- sponsored job and see what's out there! Look at our big brother, look at you, and then look at the rest of us!"

"I wish I could give you what you want. Can't you talk to them again?"

He shook his head. "I've tried so hard to convince them both about Tibet and my marriage. They don't want to lose another labourer in our family." He rolled another cigarette, then continued, as though he was talking to himself. "I dived into the dam on the Northern Hill one day last summer. I thought of staying under the water and never coming up. Maybe I will have a better life in another world." He sighed. "Why do we have to live in this world? There is no colour in this life! I wake up early every morning before the sun is up, I go and work in the fields. Under the burning sun, in the pouring rain, in the freezing snow and with an empty stomach, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks of the year, no Sundays off, no free days. I only come home to sleep. My dreams are the only comfort I have and most of those are nightmares. Often I am too tired even to remember my dreams. I'm twenty-four years old! There is no end to this suffering!"

I crouched beside him and listened in shock and with an ever more saddened heart. I wished I'd had a magic cure for all his problems but I knew there was none. Millions of young people were going through the same agony and despair all over China.

"Let's not talk about my situation any more," he said at last. "How are you coping at the academy? Are you happier there this past year?"

"It's getting better. But I still miss home. I even miss the harsh part of life sometimes," I replied.

"But surely there is nothing here you would miss! I'd give anything to be in your position."

"Why don't we swap?" I teased, trying to cheer him up.

"The Beijing Dance Academy would laugh their teeth off if they saw my bowed legs! But to see Beijing would be a great privilege. Go back and work hard. You have the opportunity of a lifetime. Your brothers can only dream of it." After a brief pause, he asked, "Do you still like cricket fights?"

I nodded. Why, suddenly, would he ask me about cricket fights?

"Remember how great you feel when your cricket is victorious. Have you ever put yourself in the shoes of the losing cricket?"

I shook my head.

"Sometimes I feel like I am the losing cricket and I cannot escape. Life is the victorious cricket, chasing me around until it hunts me down and slowly chews me up. Did you ever have this feeling?"

Again I shook my head.

"I always imagined that as long as I could fight, I would be able to find a way out, but I'm not sure any more. I'm fighting against life, the life I was given, but not the life I desire."

I was speechless, silenced by his despair.

We arrived at the station and soon the rattling train slowly rolled towards our platform. A couple of my friends popped their heads out of the windows looking for me, and my brother passed my bag in to them.

It was time to part. We just stood there and looked at each other. There was still much that I wanted to say. I wanted to hug him but I couldn't possibly—it wasn't the thing to do for the opposite sex in China, let alone the same sex. "I'm going now," was all I said as we stiffly shook hands.

As the train moved away I could see him wiping tears from his face. I stuck my head out the window and waved. He just stood there, like a statue, until we moved out of sight.

I squeezed onto the bench seat beside my friends. I answered my friends' questions about my holidays, but my brother's aching voice kept echoing in my ears. Suddenly I remembered the parcel he'd given me. I took it out and untied the brownish strings. It was a box of sorghum sweets with a note attached, roughly written. "These are for your friend Chong Xiongjun's family," Cunyuan had written. "They represent your six brothers' mountain- weight of gratitude and our sincere thanks for their kindness in looking after you… Please forgive me for the last two days. What I want in life can only remain a distant dream. I beg you to forget it…"

I lost control then. I tried to stop the tears but the harder I tried the more they welled up and I covered my face with my handkerchief.

"What's wrong?" Several of my classmates became very concerned.

I didn't know what to tell them. "I just want to be left alone," I said.

I found myself trying to answer Cunyuan's unanswerable questions. I thought of the dying cricket trying to escape from his tormentor with neither the will nor the physical condition to do so. I felt sick. I felt an enormous swell of compassion for my poor, trapped brother.

My grief for Cunyuan continued to overwhelm me all through my journey back to Beijing. "There has to be a solution! There has to be a solution!" I kept telling myself. But I knew there was none. Poverty itself was his problem and I began to realise how enormously privileged I was to have got out of Qingdao. For my brothers it wouldn't matter how hard they worked or how long they persisted, little would change in the end. They would most likely be in the same situation, twenty, thirty or fifty years from now.

When the sun set and the stars began to appear I felt exhaustion overwhelm me. I asked my friend Fu Xijun to swap seats with me so I could sit against the window.

I knew now, with sudden shock, that I could never go back to the life I used to have. I would always miss my parents' love and my brothers' company, but I knew deep in my heart that my future now lay ahead, not behind. This trip home had once and for all stripped off the fantasy of the ideal countryside life I'd always thought was possible. What my second brother was going through in his mind was far worse than the lack of food, the starvation. His soul was dying. If I hadn't got out I too would have faced the same fate.

I fell in and out of sleep throughout that trip back to Beijing. We kept swapping seats so each of us could have a turn leaning against the window, but for the last three hours of the trip I was wide awake. I thought about the year ahead. I was looking forward to facing the challenges. A mysterious voice sounded in my ears: "Cunxin, you are privileged. You are lucky. Go forward. Don't be afraid and don't look back. There is nothing back there, only your family's unconditional love and that will always propel you forwards."

But now, for the first time, this voice wasn't my brother's voice. It wasn't my dia's. It wasn't even my beloved niang's. This voice was my own.