In 2015, the CCP announced that it would reward those who fought the Japanese with 5,000 RMB (£526), but Zeng had nothing to prove his war service. Like many other KMT veterans, Zeng destroyed documents, photographs and items proving his KMT membership to avoid persecution. Not long after, however, Zeng’s luck dramatically changed.
Zeng Defa in 2019. Photograph: Xue Gang
Zeng Defa in 2019. Photograph: Xue Gang
A local redress activist visited his house after reading an interview with one of his old comrades who had fled to Hong Kong in 1948. In the article, published online by a Hong Kong newspaper, this man mentioned fighting with Zeng in India. He had managed to keep an address book and a group photo which preserved Zeng’s personal information and image. Thanks to these documents, the activist successfully applied for Zeng’s medal and allowance from the central government. When receiving these honours, Zeng knelt to express his gratitude to the activist and burst into tears. He said:
“I returned home in 1951, and nobody cared about me until you came… I always feel deeply sorry for all my dead brothers-in-arms, as nobody knows to this day where and how they died. Without your charitable caregiving to us, we would have had no other ways (to deal with our situation). I owe you so much…”
Zeng also wrote a poem and hung it under the badge he was given by the state. When he met Lin in 2015, he asked her to translate his words into English:
“How we rode on bamboo horses in our youth, I still recollect / Now an old man remains of those momentous months and years / The warm breeze of high spring has left in haste / My efforts went nowhere, and my two hands are bare.”
Dr Lin says: “In the historical narratives and public commemoration events that serve the agendas of the party-state, the past lives of individuals like Zeng have been erased, distorted, and buried in political turmoil, historical chaos, and social oblivion.”
But Lin is equally interested in the volunteers who, despite once serving in the People’s Liberation Army, now dedicate their lives to honouring men once condemned as “counter-revolutionaries”. Their historical redress movement began online in the 1990s, initiated by a group of Beijing-based rock music fans; and by the 2000s, cultural elites and wealthy entrepreneurs were beginning to establish a nationwide charity programme to support the most vulnerable KMT veterans.
By recording oral histories and crosschecking the information given with that stored in historical archives, the volunteers seek to restore the identities of KMT veterans. But they also distribute charitable donations, arrange birthday celebrations, exchange military salutes, record war wounds and arrange photoshoots to celebrate the perceived “enduring love” between veterans and their wives.
In doing so, Lin has found that the volunteers, who self-identify as “brothers-in-arms”, connect their own suffering and difficulties – experienced as former PLA servicemen – to the stories, photos and other cultural representations of the older war heroes they now care for.
Volunteers in search of KMT veterans in Hunan Province in 2015. Photography: Zhenru Jacqueline Lin
Volunteers in search of KMT veterans in Hunan Province in 2015. Photography: Zhenru Jacqueline Lin
KMT veteran Zhong Zhenquan and his sister with a redress activist in 2018. Photography: Xiangguo Lila
KMT veteran Zhong Zhenquan and his sister with a redress activist in 2018. Photography: Xiangguo Lila
KMT veteran Zhong Zhenquan celebrates his 100th birthday in 2018. Photography: Xiangguo Lila
KMT veteran Zhong Zhenquan celebrates his 100th birthday in 2018. Photography: Xiangguo Lila
KMT veteran Xiao Chenping salutes a redress activist in 2018. Photography: Xiangguo Lila
KMT veteran Xiao Chenping salutes a redress activist in 2018. Photography: Xiangguo Lila
Many of the volunteers, usually in their 30s and 40s, tell Lin that they enjoyed serving in the military but were discharged after failing to gain promotion and then struggled in the wider job market, often contributing to marital breakdown. For these men – derided by some civilians as “army riffraff (bin pi)” – finding and helping KMT veterans has become a new mission, offering them a renewed sense of purpose and honour.
Yan Bing (not his real name), a leader of volunteers in a remote mountainous region of Hunan province, told Lin about the moment that compelled him to help:
“When I learned that this man, who was living like a dog, was a KMT veteran who fought during the War of Resistance, an immensely complicated mixture of feelings washed over me: anger, guilt, shame and confusion. How could the state and our society treat a man who had sacrificed his entire life to the protection of the motherland like this? As an (ex-)soldier, how can I allow this kind of injustice to happen? With this self-reflection and raft of complicated feelings, I started to search for War of Resistance veterans. It turned out to be an endless journey. The more injustice I witnessed, the heavier the burden on my shoulders.”
Lin’s research examines the creation of a shared soldier identity and the transfer of memories across generations and political affiliations. This, she argues, undermines the assumption, widespread in the West, that Chinese citizens are uniformly brainwashed to accept a CCP-approved version of the past.
Zhenru Jacqueline Lin was a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and St John’s College, Cambridge until May 2021. In August, Dr Lin became a Research Assistant Professor at the Centre of China Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Published 4th November 2021
