was more military and regional. Put simply, their political perceptions and cultural level was quite low. Cases such as myself were very rare in Meizhou Prison.
Cadres selected labour-reform leader from the prisoners in each cell. The leaders were responsible for the cell management and reporting the situation and individual behaviour (we called it 'lighting ashes') in his cell. Most prisoners would try to please him in order to have a better record.
'I was bullied and tricked into making mistakes'
My relation with all of them was quite bad, because I insisted on not pleading guilty, and I was labeled as an extreme reactionary, even worse than Jiang Jie-shi (the ex-leader of KMT). I was included in almost all the bad things and was blamed whenever there was any dispute. As all the cell-mates knew that the cadre disliked me and I was bullied and tricked into making mistakes. As a result, I was punished frequently. I was locked up in dark- room (solitary confinement) twice and I was foot-shackled for more than once. I could still remember one such experience: when I was working in the workshop someone pushing an iron trolley passed by me and kicked me off my stool which started an argument between us. I became irritated and splashed a cup of water on him. My punishment for this was being foot-shackled for more than three weeks. Other prisoners were usually on shackle for only three or four days, but for me seven to eight days was the mini- mum and sometimes as long as a month.
Whenever I was shackled, I had to self censor my thoughts until it satisfied the cadres. No matter how tough I was, eventually I had to write self criticizing articles to confess my faults. If the cadres were unhappy with it, it had to be rewritten.
There were different weights of shackles and usually I got the heaviest. Three rings weighting more than ten pounds and about half a metre long, linked my feet together and made walking very difficult. I was forced to march from my cell to the workshop every day with other prisoners but when I got there I was not allowed to work but had to sit still as an example.
Days in the dark-room
The days in the dark-room were worse. It was a small room, slightly more than one metre wide and two metres deep, with no windows, and lit only by a 30 watt light bulb. It had double doors with a tiny barred window at about head height and, at the bottom, a small swing door for sliding meals through. The only fixtures were a toilet bowl, wash basin and a board. Each time I was locked in, I was also foot-shackled. I could do nothing there, I could see no-one all day. I could distinguish day from night only through a tiny hole in the ceiling where the sunlight could come through and through which I was constantly watched. To mark the days I would stick a piece of rice on the wall and count
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