What price to pay?

Lin Biao
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Life will not answer to reason. And meaning is too young a thing to have much power over it. 

Richard Powers Overstory Loc 2075

A foreigner with a little language

Is still a novelty in 

Hangzhou in the 90s.

So much so that I 

Bargain a pair of gloves, 

For a knock-down price.

My Chinese friend is

Miffed when he goes back 

The next night but

Can’t do so well.

“How come you sold it 

Cheeper to the foreigner?”

He asks and is answered

With a shrug.

I buy a plaque of Mao

But pass over a similar

Memento of Lin Biao -

The official villain of 

Modern Chinese history. 

It costs 5 times more.

Later that day we

Visit Lin Biao’s 

Holiday compound. 

Unused for years

It feels like a wealthy 

European suburb.

Acres of manicured 

Forest with several 

Two storied villas 

Dotted about.

Delightful in their 

Colours and porticoes

But eerie in their emptiness.

Entering one villa we

Go behind the stairs 

To find a metal 

Blast door and 

A passage.

The lights are on.

We descend

Into a network 

Of bunkers;

Choose the path 

That is lit; 

Walk down 

Concrete corridors 

And through rooms

Clad with iron.

30 million dead,

The price of Mao’s

Great Leap Forward.

Another 20 in the

Cultural Revolution

For which Lin and the rest 

Of the Gang of 4 

Took the fall. 

His last stand 

Wasn’t in this bunker 

But in an airplane 

Lost over Mongolia.

Mao took some blame too.

80% good, 20% bad

Is the official Communist 

Party valuation. 

The gentle dean of 

The department 

At my Chinese University 

Tells of primary school

When he shouted

To scare birds

Who flew until they 

Dropped exhausted

So he could 

Jump on them.

Scapegoats for the

Failed harvest.

Miscalculation of a 

Horrifying leap 

In the dark.

When the path ascends

We find ourselves 

In a carpark.

The occupant of the ticket box

Looks perplexed

And doesn’t charge us

For coming the 

Wrong way out of

A history that 

Isn’t easy to value.