I did not get into trouble in those days, in spite of my obvious lack of enthusiasm. Apart from the fact that the Red Guards were loosely organized, I was, according to the 'theory of bloodlines," born bright red, because my father was a high official. Although I was disapproved of, nobody did anything drastic, except criticize me.

At the time, the Red Guards divided pupils into three categories: 'reds," 'blacks," and 'grays." The 'reds' were from the families of 'workers, peasants, revolutionary officials, revolutionary officers, and revolutionary martyrs."

The 'blacks' were those with parents classified as 'land-lords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionary bad elements, and rightists." The 'grays' came from ambiguous families such as shop assistants and clerks. In my year, all pupils ought to have been 'reds' because of the screening in the enrollment. But the pressure of the Cultural Revolution meant that some villains had to be found. As a result, more than a dozen became 'grays' or 'blacks."

There was a girl named Ai-ling in my year. We were old friends, and I had often been to her house and knew her family well. Her grandfather had been a prominent economist, and her family had been enjoying a very privileged life under the Communists. Their house was large, elegant, and luxurious, with an exquisite garden much better than my family's apartment. I was especially attracted by their collection of antiques, in particular the snuff bottles which Ai-ling's grandfather had brought back from England where he had studied at Oxford in the 1920s.

Now, suddenly, Ai-ling became a 'black." I heard that pupils from her form had raided her house, smashed all the antiques, including the snuff bottles, and beaten her parents and grandfather with the brass buckles of their belts. The next day when I saw her she was wearing a scarf. Her classmates had given her a 'yin and yang head."

She had had to have it completely shaved. She wept with me. I felt terribly inadequate because I could not find any words to comfort her.

In my own form a meeting was organized by the Red Guards at which we all had to give our family backgrounds so we could be categorized. I announced 'revolutionary official' with great relief. Three or four pupils said 'office staff." In the jargon of the day, this was different from 'officials," who held more senior positions. The division was unclear, as there was no definition of what 'senior' meant. Nevertheless, these vague labels had to be used on various forms, all of which had a space for 'family background." Together with a girl whose father was a shop assistant, the children of 'office staff' were branded as 'grays." It was announced that they were to be kept under surveillance, sweep the school grounds and clean toilets, bow their heads at all times, and be prepared to be lectured by any Red Guard who cared to address them. They also had to report their thoughts and behavior every day.

These pupils suddenly looked subdued and shrunken.

Their vigor and enthusiasm, which they had had in abundance up to now, had deserted them. One gift bent her head and tears streamed down her cheeks. We had been friends.

After the meeting I went over to her to say something comforting, but when she raised her head I saw resentment, almost hatred, in her eyes. I walked away without a word, and wandered listlessly through the grounds. It was the end of August. The Cape jasmine bushes spread their rich fragrance. It seemed strange there should be any scent at all.

As dusk was descending I was walking back to the dormitory when I saw something flash by a second-floor window of a classroom block about forty yards away. There was a muffled bang at the foot of the building. The hazy branches of some orange trees prevented me from seeing what was happening, but people started to run in the direction of the noise. Out of the confused, suppressed exclamations I made out the message: "Someone has jumped out of the window!"

I instinctively raised my hands to cover my eyes, and ran to my room. I was terribly scared. My mind's eye fixated on the blurry crooked figure in midair. Hurriedly I shut the windows, but the noise of people talking nervously about what had happened filtered through the thin glass.

A seventeen-year-old girl had attempted suicide. Before the Cultural Revolution, she had been one of the leaders of the Communist Youth League, and had been a model in studying Chairman Mao's works and learning from Lei Feng. She had done many good deeds like washing her comrades' clothes and cleaning out toilets, and frequently gave talks to the school about how loyally she followed Mao's teachings. She was often to be seen strolling deep in conversation with a fellow pupil, with a conscientious and purposeful look on her face, carrying out 'heart-to heart duties with someone who wanted to join the Youth League. But now, suddenly, she had been categorized as a 'black." Her father was 'office staff." He worked for the municipal government, and was a Party member. But some of her classmates who found her a 'pain," and whose fathers were in higher posts, decided she should be a 'black." In the last couple of days, she had been put under guard with other 'blacks' and 'grays' and forced to pull grass out of the sports ground. To humiliate her, her classmates had shaved her beautiful black hair, leaving her head grotesquely bald. On that evening, the 'reds' in her form had been giving her and the other victims an insulting lecture.

She retorted that she was more loyal to Chairman Mao than they were. The 'reds' slapped her and told her she was not fit to talk about her loyalty to Mao because she was a class enemy. She ran to the window and threw herself out.

Stunned and scared, the Red Guards rushed her to a hospital. She did not die, but she was crippled for life.

When I saw her many months later on the street, she was bent over on crutches, her eyes blank.

On the night of her attempted suicide, I could not sleep.

The moment I closed my eyes, an indistinct figure loomed over me, smeared with blood. I was terrified and shaking.

The next day I asked for sick leave, which was granted.

Home seemed to be the only escape from the horror at school. I desperately wished I would never have to go out again.

Home was no relief this time. My parents seemed distracted, and hardly noticed me. When Father was not pacing up and down the apartment, he was shut in his study.

Mother threw one waste basketful of crushed paper balls after another into the kitchen stove. My grandmother also looked as though she was expecting disaster. Her intense eyes were fixed on my parents, full of anxiety. Timorously, I watched their moods, too afraid to ask what was wrong.

My parents did not tell me about a conversation they had had some evenings before. They had been sitting by an open window, outside which a loudspeaker tied to a street lamp was blasting out endless quotations of Mao's, particularly one about all revolutions being violent by definition – 'the savage tumult of one class overthrowing another." The quotations were chanted again and again in a high pitched shriek that roused fear and, for some, excitement. Every now and then there were announcements of 'victories' achieved by Red Guards: they had raided more homes of 'class enemies' and 'smashed their dogs' heads."

My father had been looking out at the blazing sunset.

He turned to my mother and said slowly: "I don't understand the Cultural Revolution. But I am certain that what is happening is terribly wrong. This revolution cannot be justified by any Marxist or Communist principles. People have lost their basic rights and protection. This is unspeakable. I am a Communist, and I have a duty to stop a worse disaster. I must write to the Party leadership, to Chairman Mao."