I loved Russian ballet and excelled at folk dancing. In the afternoons we had folk-dancing class, Beijing Opera class and, finally, drama class. I will never forget those screams as long as I live - like pigs being butchered!Īt 8am it was time for Russian ballet and Beijing Opera acrobatics. After that, the ligaments started to rip and it was pure hell. For two or three minutes you could hold it it hurt, but it was bearable. Once at maximum stretch, our legs were bound to our pillar with rope and we were told to stand like that for 15 minutes before resuming the torture on the opposite leg.
IREHEARSE DANCE FOR WINDOWS SERIES
Then a series of pulleys were lowered from the ceiling next to each student and, to my horror, the teacher proceeded to attach them to our outstretched legs before giving the signal for the pulley to yank back upwards. The instruction came to stretch a leg up against the column until we were all doing the vertical splits.
We were arranged into pairs and told to stand against a pillar, one on either side. The gym was in a large auditorium, its ceiling supported by towering pillars. Then there was jogging, followed by an hour of indoor gymnastics. Our blankets had to be tucked in with corners as sharp as blocks of tofu and our caps lined up perfectly on top. At night we slept like spoons, seven boys in one bed and six in another. There were 13 of us boys, aged between nine and 17, and I was the youngest and smallest of the lot. They introduce themselves to my parents, and explain that they have been impressed by my talent and would like to invite me to join the army's dance troupe. "Jin Xing! Jin Xing is called to the director's office!" The following day, the officers show up at our home.
IREHEARSE DANCE FOR WINDOWS FULL
One day at school, five People's Liberation Army officers in full uniform appear and my name hisses through the loudspeaker. As a result, she must undergo interminable interrogations by the Red Guard every night. My mother, however, is regularly accused of being a spy - in part because she is Korean and works as a Japanese translator, but also because when she first came to China she was given shelter by a known traitor. He is a "red": in the army his nickname is Jin the Marxist-Leninist. The Red Guard denied my mother permission to live with him, so we see him only rarely. Now, six years on, we are in the middle of the Cultural Revolution and my father works for the Regional War Office in Shenyang.
My sister Jin Xianglan was born in 1964 and I followed in 1967. It was there that she met my father, a handsome older officer in the People's Liberation Army of China. My mother and her sister fled Korea during the war, seeking refuge in northern China. We lodge with an old lady in a small Manchurian village about 100 kilometres from Shenyang. Then I twirl round and round, pretending I am the white-haired heroine.īack in the real world I am a young boy again, living with my mother and my elder sister. I climb up onto my kang - my brick sleeping platform - peel off a pillowcase and make a headdress. I have just come home after watching a performance of The White-Haired Girl, one of communist China's first major ballets. I know there is a long way to go, but my childhood dream is finally becoming reality. I can't believe that I have made the first step. The day after I have my first operation, I cup my hands around my new breasts, astonished. If you hit 75%, you are encouraged to undergo "re-masculinisation" therapy - something I must avoid at all costs. If only 60% of your answers come up as "feminine", you will not qualify for sex-reassignment surgery. They would bother you when you dance, she says.īefore I'm allowed anywhere near the scalpel, I must take a psychology test. No way! It is laughably flat, like a 15-year-old girl. That's the one I want, but Dr Yang praises the elegance of the smallest one. I prod the largest one as if I were shopping for fruit. I turn 28 in August.Īt the Hospital of the Perfumed Hills, Dr Yang shows me her collection of silicone breasts. It is 1995 and we have just celebrated Chinese New Year.
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