As I stumbled drowsily out into the searchlights, I was enormously impressed by the building, its ostentatious grandeur and its shiny marbled modernity. I had been used to traditional dark timber columns and rough brick walls.

I looked back, and with a surge of emotion saw a huge portrait of Mao hanging in the center, under three golden characters, "Peking Station," in his calligraphy.

Loudspeakers directed us to the reception rooms in a corner of the station. In Peking, as in every other city in China, administrators were appointed to arrange food and accommodations for the traveling youngsters. Dormitories in universities, schools, hotels, and even offices were pressed into service. After waiting on line for hours, we were assigned to Qinghua University, one of the most prestigious in the country. We were taken there by coach and told that food would be provided in the canteen. The running of the gigantic machine for the millions of traveling youngsters was overseen by Zhou Enlai, who dealt with the daily chores with which Mao could not be bothered.

Without Zhou or somebody like him, the country and with it the Cultural Revolution would have collapsed, and Mao let it be known that Zhou was not to be attacked.

We were a very serious group, and all we wanted to do was to see Chairman Mao. Unfortunately, we had just missed his fifth review of Red Guards in Tiananmen Square. What were we to do? Leisure activities and sightseeing were out irrelevant to the revolution. So we spent all our time on the campus copying wall posters. Mao had said that one purpose of traveling was to 'exchange information about the Cultural Revolution." That was what we would do: bring the slogans of the Peking Red Guards back to Chengdu.

Actually, there was another reason for not going out: transport was impossibly crowded and the university was out in the suburbs, about ten miles from the city center.

Still, we had to tell ourselves that our disinclination to move was correctly motivated.

Staying on the campus was intensely uncomfortable.

Even today I can still smell the latrines down the corridor from our room, which were so blocked that the water from the washbasins and urine and loosened excrement from the toilets flooded the tiled floor. Fortunately, the doorway to the latrines had a ridge, which prevented the stinking overflow from invading the corridor. The university administration was paralyzed, so there was nobody to get repairs done. But children from the countryside were still using the toilets: manure was not considered untouchable by peasants. When they trudged out, their shoes left highly odorous stains along the corridor and in the rooms.

A week passed, and still there was no news of another rally at which we could see Mao. Subconsciously desperate to get away from our discomfort, we decided to go to Shanghai to visit the site where the Communist Party had been founded in 19:zl, and then on to Mao's birthplace in Hunan, in south-central China.

These pilgrimages turned out to be hell: the trains were unbelievably packed. The dominance of the Red Guards by high officials' children was coming to an end, because their parents were beginning to come under attack as capitalist-roaders. The oppressed 'blacks' and 'grays' began to organize their own Red Guard groups and to travel. The color codes were beginning to lose their meaning. I rem em 4x 8 Wlore Than Gigantic Wonderful News' her meeting on one train a very beautiful, slim girl of about eighteen, with unusually big, velvet black eyes and long, thick eyelashes. As was the custom, we started by asking each other what 'family background' we were from. I was amazed at the unembarrassed manner with which this lovely girl replied that she was a 'black." And she seemed confidently to be expecting us 'red' girls to be friendly with her.

The six of us were very un militant in our behavior, and our seats were always the center of boisterous chatting.

The oldest member of our group was eighteen, and she was particularly popular. Everyone called her "Plumpie," as she was very well padded all around. She laughed a lot, with a deep, chesty, operafc sound. She sang a lot too, but, of course, only songs of Chairman Mao's quotations.

All songs except these and a few in praise of Mao were banned, like all other forms of entertainment, and remained so for the ten years of the Cultural Revolution.

This was the happiest I had been since the start of the Cultural Revolution, in spite of the persistent worry about my father and the agony involved in traveling. Every inch of space in the trains was occupied, even the luggage racks.

The toilet was jam-packed: no one could get in. Only our determination to see the holy sites of China sustained us.

Once, I desperately needed to relieve myself. I was sitting squeezed up next to a window, because five people were crammed onto a narrow seat made for three. With an incredible struggle I reached the toilet but when I got there I decided it was impossible to use it. Even if the boy who sat on the lid of the tank with his feet on the toilet seat cover could lift his legs for one moment, even if the girl who sat between his feet could somehow manage to be held up briefly by the others filling every usable space around her, I could not bring myself to do it in front of all these boys and girls. I returned to my seat on the verge of tears. Panic worsened the bursting sensation, and my legs were shaking. I resolved to use the toilet at the next stop.

After what seemed an interminable time, the train stopped at a small, dusk-enveloped station. The window was opened and I clambered out, but when I came back I found I could not get in.

I was perhaps the least athletic of us six. Previously, whenever I had had to climb into a train through the window, one of my friends had always lifted me from the platform while others pulled me from inside. This time, although I was being helped by about four people from inside, I could not hoist my body high enough to get my head and elbows in. I was sweating like mad, even though it was freezing cold. At this point, the train started to pull away. Panicking, I looked around to see if there was anyone who could help. My eyes fell on the thin, dark face of a boy who had sidled up beside me. But his intention was not to lend me a hand.

I had my purse in a pocket of my jacket, and because of my climbing position it was quite visible. With two fingers, the boy picked it out. He had presumably chosen the moment of departure to snatch it. I burst out crying. The boy paused. He looked at me, hesitated, and put the purse back. Then he took hold of my right leg and hoisted me up. I landed on the table as the train was beginning to pick up speed.

Because of this incident, I developed a soft spot for adolescent pickpockets. In the coming years of the Cultural Revolution, when the economy was in a shambles, theft was widespread, and I once lost a whole year's food coupons. But whenever I heard that policemen or other custodians of' law and order' had beaten a pickpocket, I always felt a pang. Perhaps the boy on that winter platform had shown more humanity than the hypocritical pillars of society.

Altogether we traveled about 2,000 miles on this trip, in a state of exhaustion such as I had never experienced in my life. We visited Mao's old house, which had been turned into a museum-cum-shrine. It was rather grand quite different from my idea of a lodging for exploited peasants, as I had expected it to be. A cap ton underneath an enormous photograph of Mao's mother said that she had been a very kind person and, because her family was relatively well off, had often given food to the poor. So our Great Leader's parents had been rich peasants! But rich peasants were class enemies! Why were Chairman Mao's parents heroes when other class enemies were objects of hate? The question frightened me so much that I immediately suppressed it…