One of my favourite places I'd discovered in the academy was the library. It was only a small room, with just a few shelves of books. There were no foreign books and almost all of the books were picture books-stories about foreign children written by Chinese authors, and the stories were always sad and tragic. Most of them were about struggling coloured children in America and how the whites mistreated them, or they were about the struggle between good and evil. The good characters were always beautiful and handsome. The evil characters always had big crooked noses and fat ugly faces. They were Chiang Kaishek's Guomindang officers and spies, or the foreign enemies. I hated the evil guys and felt so sad for these impoverished coloured children. I often shed sympathetic tears and I felt even more grateful for the heavenly life that Chairman Mao had given us. If our life was heavenly, then these poor children's lives in America must be hell indeed.

There were several different newspapers delivered to our academy too, for the political heads and teachers to read. The People's Daily was the official paper of the government, but there were also the Workers' Daily, the Soldiers' Daily and some other industry papers. All were full of propaganda and all were controlled by the Gang of Four. We could only read them after the adults had finished with them, and by then they were a day or two old, sometimes up to a week old. But still we read the editorial comments-the Cultural Revolutionary ideas and themes, pages upon pages of domestic news, unbelievable human achievement stories that denounced the old filthy ideas of the rightists and anti- revolutionaries. There would perhaps be a couple of pages of sport and less than a page of international news-the information pitifully thin. There was also the Reference Paper, but this was only available to a certain level of Communist Party member and it included slightly more international news and slightly less propaganda. Occasionally though, someone would find an old copy and pass it around.

We'd only been at the academy about two weeks when one day all of us were called out into the grounds, just before lunch. We waited in our usual four lines. All three political heads were looking very stern indeed as they stood on the stairs in front of us.

Director Wang began. "We have discovered a serious misconduct by one of our students," he said. "According to this student, there were others involved in the same misconduct. I want this matter thoroughly investigated!" We all looked at each other. No one knew what he could possibly be talking about.

Director Wang continued. "We have told you before that no one is to touch the Reference Paper. Today, we have discovered a student reading it! I want to know who took the paper from our offices, who read it, and how long this has been going on. This is a most serious matter. The first class this afternoon has been cancelled. You will instead discuss why this is a serious matter and how you should prevent it from happening again. I want the students who have read the Reference Paper to write a self- criticism and to search deep into their souls!"

During lunch, the guilty students went to the three political heads and confessed. I was one of them. I spent my entire nap time trying to work out what crime I had committed just by reading a newspaper. There was nothing in it that could shake my faith in Chairman Mao.

When the bell rang to signal the end of nap time, I was still scratching my head for answers. At least I hadn't actually stolen the paper, I thought. Someone had passed it to me. Thankfully he'd also confessed so at least I didn't have to tell on him. That was something I never wanted to do.

Our afternoon discussions about the matter went by very quickly. Under the guidance of our political heads we discovered several major issues we hadn't even thought of before: we were too young to digest the contents of this newspaper so we could get the wrong impression and our communist faith could be affected; stealing was a serious crime; reading something that was only restricted to Communist Party members and knowingly passing it around to others was dishonest; and finally, we had broken the academy rules.

I wrote my self-criticism based on these four findings and it passed the first time. But deep down I didn't feel good about it at all. I still couldn't think of anything that would affect my belief in communism. Certainly not a newspaper. After all, I'd only read some sports and international news.

Those first few weeks at the Beijing Dance Academy were an agony of loneliness. Nights were the worst. I couldn't wait to get to bed so I could clutch onto my niang's quilt, my only security. I hated myself for it, but the quilt was like morphine, soothing my pain, and in those first months at the academy I became introverted and spoke very little.

I knew I had no choice but to stay in Beijing. My parents, my brothers, my relatives, my friends, my old school teachers and classmates, my village and commune, all of their wishes and expectations made it impossible for me to go back. The loss of face would be unbearable. It would damage my family's reputation for ever. My success was my parents' only hope of breaking that vicious cycle of poverty. I couldn't let my parents down, even if I did feel trapped in a cage of rules, routines and frustration. Every day I couldn't wait for classes to end. Every day I couldn't wait for the year to end so I could return home to see my family and roam the streets and fields once more.

I wasn't alone in missing home. I witnessed many teary eyes among my fellow classmates. The girls sobbed more than the boys. Our political heads and teachers showed more tenderness towards the girls, though. The boys would be laughed at if they were discovered sobbing. The boys were told, time after time, that crying was a sign of weakness.

The city kids seemed to cope better than the country ones. They were more confident and adjusted to the routine faster. The Shanghai kids coped well-they were generally fairer skinned too, but us country kids were darker. I was probably one of the darkest, but fair skin was considered beautiful in China so even there I felt inadequate compared to the others, and I stuck with the students from the countryside.

Our first weeks at the academy weren't made any easier when a vicious virus swept through the school. I was among those who had the severe cough, the sore throat and high fever. Naturally I did what my niang would have done-I took out a few pieces of my precious dried snakeskin and wrapped a green onion in them. I tried to be polite and offered to share it with some of my classmates but it was as though I'd offered them poison. They thought I was evil. So to prove my sincerity I ate one in front of them, but my teachers and classmates were so repulsed they moved quickly away. I lost a few friends over that, but I did notice that their symptoms lasted much longer than mine, despite their expensive pills.

The academy's toilets were another challenge. I appreciated the idea of being able to flush away the poos to who knows where, but the reality that always confronted us was blocked toilets. We had no choice but to poo on top of a hole that was already full of shit, and the smell was revolting. It penetrated through the walls. It lingered in the building. Often I had to run to other floors to use the toilets there and most of the time other students would already be waiting. Toilet rush hours were the worst-in the mornings after waking up, after breakfast, after lunch, after nap time, and the worst time of all was after dinner before the "go to sleep" bell. I would wait until I was absolutely desperate. I would close my eyes, hold my breath and charge into the toilet, trying to breathe as few times as possible.