Host: Chloe Salmon
[overture music]
Chloe: [00:00:14] This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Chloe Salmon. A saving grace is what usually rescues something or someone from being a lost cause. But I've always appreciated another, more optimistic view. A saving grace as the support we get unexpectedly and often when we most need it. In this hour, stories of finding grace in surprising places.
It seems fitting that our first story comes from a man named Hope. He told it for us at a SLAM in Chicago, where we partner with public radio station WBEZ. Here's Hope Iyiewuare, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Hope: [00:00:56] So, growing up in Houston, I was shaped by a couple things that I couldn't escape. One of them was my siblings. They're good people. My sister, Praise, is three years older than me. My younger brother, Peace, is one year younger, and Truth is two years younger. But don't let names for you. They're okay. [audience laughter] We were all really close in age and we were all really close in size. So, we were really cramped. And the second thing that shaped me, this tiny apartment, two bedrooms, the bathroom was frankly disgusting for the kids, at least. A big part of that was the routine of us cleaning that and the entire house, honestly, the entire apartment.
My mom would come into our room. We heard her before we saw her, because she was singing Nigerian gospel music. [audience laughter] We knew that it was that Saturday that we were going to clean the bathroom. [audience laughter] It was a little traumatizing, the bathroom itself. There was a corner that was just completely mildewed. I think the roaches there would have rent other roaches. [audience laughter] It wasn't a good look for anybody. But thankfully, we were able to move out of that apartment. My mom and dad bought a house, thankfully moving up, but that routine continued.
We had the Saturday morning gospel music, the Saturday morning cleaning things continued as usual. I'm thinking back to a time when I was about 15, and my mom had come upstairs, she was directing us where we were going to go, and she points to me, she's like, “Hope, all right, go fix up that room, sparkling clean and then go take care of this bathroom.” The one thing siblings are good for is the chore rotation. It was not my week for the bathroom. As people who have been in bathrooms before, no one likes to clean them. [audience laughter] And it was not my week, more importantly. [audience laughter]
I tried to get my mom to see the injustice of making me clean it when it was Truth’s week, and she said, “No, I'm going to go to the store. When I get back, you're going to have clean this bathroom.” So, I storm off. I head to my room and I try and slam the door, but I catch it real fast because I'm raised right. [audience laughter] I just pace around my room and I'm looking at-- I need to release this anger. So, I see the wall right beside my window and I'm just-- I'm getting ready. I draw back and I smack the wall, expected to hear that same pop.
But instead of hearing that pop, I feel my fist give a little. I realized that instead of cinder blocks and wallpaper, that was the walls of my old apartment. This house had drywall. And I learned about its existence the hard way. [audience laughter] I stepped back and I just look at my face, and my first thing is to go wash my hand and then go wash the bathroom, [audience laughter] out of just fear of what would happen if my mom found me at the crime scene. My second instinct was to figure out how I was going to tell her, because I didn't want her to find out and find me. I'd rather break the news to her gently. But at the same time, my thoughts were just racing.
I couldn't imagine what would possess me to do this, because I'm not an angry kid. [audience laughter] Something from my high school classes just like clicked in my head, and I rushed downstairs to go catch my mom before she leaves for the store. I tap on her window and she rolls down, I'm like, “Mom, I have to tell you something. I think I'm going through puberty, [audience laughter] because I was mad that you told me to clean the bathroom when it wasn't my week [audience laughter] and I punched a hole in the wall.” [audience laughter]
I didn't see her face, because I was really, really focused on the ground. But I would just hear her say, “I will do what I can when I get back” and then she rolls out the window and peels out. I just stumbled back into the house, just a 15-year-old shell of a boy, [audience laughter] just abjectly terrified of what's going to happen when she gets back. So, I go upstairs and I finish cleaning the bathroom, I go to my room, I finish cleaning my room. And slowly, this unintentional plan starts forming in my head where I go help Peace and Truth with their room.
And then, I go downstairs, I help Praise with the kitchen. I start cleaning the refrigerator, I clean the stove, I clean the counter, I clean the dining room and then I go to the living room, sit down and just open my Bible and hope that [audience laughter] my mom will find me like that. A couple hours later, she pulls up and I stop praying. I dash outside to help her with the groceries. She's noticing a couple things that are different, and she's like, “Oh, that refrigerator, who cleaned that?” And I was like, “That was me, mom.” [audience laughter]
She notices the dishes and she's like, “That one's a little dirty. Was that you?” I was like, “No, that was Praise. That was Praise.” [audience laughter] She sits me down, and instead of me getting the anger and the wrath that I deserved for punching a hole in a house that still smelled like Home Depot, [audience laughter] she gives me love, which was unexpected. I think it's the thing that shaped me most outside of the routine, outside of my apartment, outside of my siblings. It's made me slow to react. It's made me think about what I do. It's made me quicker to smile than to react in anger, because things that are done in anger I can't take back so easily.
So, I didn't escape the routine. I didn't escape my siblings. We did leave the apartment, but more importantly, I did dodge the whooping that could have stopped me from being 6’4”. [audience laughter] Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Chloe: [00:07:08] That was Hope Iyiewuare. Houston born and Nigerian raised, Hope now lives in Chicago. And by the time you hear this, he will have finished his final year of medical school. You can usually catch him cycling through the city on the hunt for the best Korean barbecue that Chicago has to offer, or teaching himself new skills, like patching drywall. To see a photo of the Iyiewuare family, again, that's Hope, Peace, Praise and Truth, plus their mom, Adesuwa, head over to themoth.org.
[softhearted music]
Our next story is from Onnesha Roychoudhuri, who found herself looking for support in a place where things are usually everyone for themselves, the New York City Subway. She told this at a virtual mainstage, which means she took the stage from her living room. Here's Onnesha Roychoudhuri, live at The Moth.
Onnesha: [00:08:21] So it's a cold, rainy November evening. And I am sweating profusely. And that's because I am currently entrenched in that very specific hell that is lugging heavy groceries on a subway to get home. Luckily, I force myself onto this crowded hot F train, but I find this coveted spot by the back doors. So, I get there, I'm able to put my bags down, and lean up against those doors and I heave this big sigh of relief because I think I'm home free. But the next stop, this guy gets on the train. He's holding a bible in one hand and he just launches into this really hateful monologue. He starts talking about how some people, based on who they love they're going to hell. Other people, based on where they're from, what they look like, they're probably going to hell. I mean, this monologue is going on for a while. The basic gist, though, that I'm getting is that there are a whole lot of us and we are all going to hell.
My fellow New Yorkers and I, we do our job, right? Like, we do our job of ignoring him. The problem is this guy, he is not following the rule. So, the unspoken rule is, you get on a train car, you say your crazy shit, but you keep it snappy, and then you move on to the next train car down and then you say your crazy shit there. Everyone understands that this is the unspoken rule, except this guy. He did not get the memo. He keeps on going and going. And the longer he's going on for, the more the atmosphere in that train changes.
I think a part of that might be, because this was only a couple weeks after the 2016 presidential election. There'd been this uptick in hate crimes even around New York City, and these shared public spaces that I had started to take for granted would just be safe, it suddenly felt less safe. And in this moment, I really started to feel this deep need to do or say something to make him stop. I know my fellow New Yorkers did too. There was one guy who just told him to shut up, but of course, that didn't work. And the longer this is going on, the more this sensation, the closest thing I can explain it as is just like this full body itch starts growing.
But alongside this itch, this need to say or do something, comes this really old mantra that goes a little something like, “It's not that big of a deal. Keep your feelings to yourself. Don't make a scene. It'll be over soon.” And this mantra is so familiar, because it's been with me since I was a kid. See, I was that kind of kid where all through elementary school, my teachers would tell my parents, “She's really well behaved. She's quiet, she's thoughtful.” And it's true. I was really well behaved. But that's only because all of the not well-behaved feelings, thoughts, the anger, the questions, the frustration, I mostly kept to myself, or I funneled it into these quiet, private spaces like diaries.
When I was a kid, I also used to go to Florida every summer to spend time with my mom's side of the family. And Florida meant a lot of really great things, a whole lot of rule bending. I got to stay up late, I got to eat a whole bunch of sugar, got to set off fireworks. But it also met my Uncle Bill. Now, my Uncle Bill didn't believe in what he called mixed marriage. And because my father is Indian and my mother is white, he didn't approve. What this actually looked like is he just never spoke to me, he didn't look at me, he didn't acknowledge me. And this made for some pretty awkward family dinners, at least for me.
There were a lot of things sitting across that dinner table from Uncle Bill that I wanted to say or do. I think mostly I wanted to grab him, and shake him and just make him look at me. But I didn't do anything. Instead, I sat there. Maybe I closed my eyes and thought, it's not that big of a deal. Don't make a scene. It'll be over soon. I think I was afraid that if I actually expressed my feelings or ask questions, I wouldn't feel supported by those around me, and I would end up feeling more alone and alienated than I already did. And so, that's how it went every summer in Florida. And those feelings stayed there, but they became old furniture in a familiar room, so that I was aware of them in as much as I moved around them. But that was about it. It was just there, fading into the background.
The real problem, is that that inability to express my feelings when I most wanted and needed to followed me into adulthood. I'm going to give you just a snapshot of what that looks like. So, I'm in my early 30s, and I am hanging out with a good friend of mine who I just so happen to have a massive crush on. I know I need to tell him I have feelings for him. And so, we spend this amazing day together. It's coming to an end. He walks me home. We hug good night. He turns to go, and I'm like, “Okay, now's the moment. Don't let it go by.” So, I say, “Wait.” And he turns. And then, I watch as though outside of my body as I go in for a high five. Yeah, so I gave my friend a high five instead of telling him that I had feelings for him.
So, all of these moments from my past are just running in my head as I'm still on that crowded, hot train. It's like the world's shittiest this is your life movie montage. I feel convinced that if I do not do something in that particular moment, I'm just going to be condemned to repeating these moments, and I don't know, probably dying alone, like all of that is happening in my head. And so, I get this idea. As soon as I do, this younger version of me is like, “Oh, there's no way we're doing that.” And so, I know I have to get ahead of this younger version of me. So, I just look at this guy who's still hateful monologuing, and I'm like, “If you don't stop talking, I'm going to start singing” which as soon as I said out loud, I was like, “Oh, no. What now I actually have to do it because I said I would.”
So, of course, he keeps going and I start singing, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, because it is literally the only song that I could think of in that moment. I was really hoping it would come out strong and powerful, even though it was a silly song. But it was just like, I'm not a great singer, so it was just like weak and sad and weird. But I'm like, “Okay, you got to commit.” So, I'm singing. This guy looks at me and it's like, pity. Like, he pities me and I'm like, “Oh, God, how is this going to end? This is going to be bad.” But I'm like, “I committed to this. I got to keep going.”
I get through like a couple rounds of Row, Row, Row Your Boat on my own. And then, I lock eyes with this kid who's in a stroller across from me. I notice he's clapping and I get to like, Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. And he starts singing. I feel such relief. I'm like, “Okay, it's just you and me, kid, but we got this.” But then, the fact that he's singing gets his parents in the mix. So, then it's the four of us singing. So, this guy, he has to get a little bit louder. I'm feeling a little bit better. And then, I notice there's this other guy who's at the other end of the train. He's in his 20s. He takes down his Beats headphones, and he's like, “Oh, yeah. All right, I'm in.”
So, he starts singing. This other guy who's a divinity student who earlier had been like, “Have you even read that Bible?” to the guy and he starts singing. And before long every single person pretty much on that train is singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat with me, and that guy, he's trying to keep up with us and get louder, but it's nearly impossible because there are so many of us. We're singing and we're singing. I start to get cocky. I start rounds. We are singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat in rounds. And this guy, as much as he's trying to match us, he just can't and he gets off the train.
We keep singing, because it's just this magical moment in which we've reclaimed the space without even having to address this guy directly. I can feel my face hurting, because I'm smiling so big. Because here's this moment where I spoke up and I was afraid that I would just be alone, but I was backed up by this whole crowd of strangers. And even though it was still hot on that train and even though that song was off key, it's still one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. Thank you.
Chloe: [00:17:00] That was Onnesha Roychoudhuri. Onnesha told that story for us once before in person at a pre-pandemic mainstage at the New York Historical Society. While we couldn't quite cart an audience into her living room for this virtual version, we thought you might like to hear the love that she got from the crowd after her last line that night. Feel free to clap along.
Onnesha: [00:17:20] And even though it was hot and cramped and totally off key, it was the most beautiful song I've heard. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Chloe: [00:17:38] Onnesha Roychoudhuri is an author and educator. And she calls herself a strategic troublemaker. Her book, The Marginalized Majority: Claiming Our Power in a Post-Truth America, was named one of the best books of the year by Kirkus Reviews. She lives in Kingston, New York, where she is learning with varying degrees of success, how to refurbish a house that was built in 1903.
When we return, an unprepared triathlete and a TMI mother-daughter moment for the ages, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
[Row, Row, Row Your Boat rhyme]
Jay: [00:18:34] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Chloe: [00:18:42] This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Chloe Salmon. We're listening to stories of finding grace where it's least expected. This next story comes to us from Gregory Brady, who told it for us at a SLAM in New Orleans, where we partner with public radio station WWNO. Here's Gregory, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Gregory: [00:19:08] I'm a heroin addict in recovery. I started shooting heroin at 17 and I did it for years and years and years. In 1999 was one of my worst years, worst experience. I was shooting dope every day. I got in a car accident. I was half blind. I had broken my shoulders. The doctors gave me Percodan and Valium, and I still had my dope and I was losing time. A judge put me in Bridgewater State Prison, which was a place where they put heroin addicts for 30 days just to get the drugs out of your system. It was probably the closest I came to death in my whole life.
I get out of there, and I'm in my living room in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. I was living in the Berkshire Mountains, and I'm with my best friend, Marilyn, and my daughter, Bianca. My daughter at this time is 11. Marilyn was reading the paper and she was talking about the Josh Billings. And I said, “Well, what's the Josh Billings?” She said, “It's a triathlon. You go 28 miles on a bicycle, 5 miles in a canoe and 7 miles on foot.” And so, Bianca said to me, “Daddy, you should do the Josh Billings.” It was a big joke. And I said, “One second.” I said, “I'm going to do it.” Okay. So, I did.
I began to train, okay, a little at a time. My body mended. I came back to life. I thought it was great. The Berkshires, the foliage, the mountains, the lake. Marilyn had a bike. It was an inch smaller than others, but that was okay. She had a great big canoe that was okay. We duct taped it together. [audience laughter] We tried to make it proper for the race. I had my Converse basketball sneakers. And so, I trained and trained, and I finished first every night that I trained in my mind. [audience laughter] You know what I mean? [audience applause]
I could not be defeated. I was so much feeling life. And so, I'm playing the Stones, my earphones and I'm listening, Daddy, you're a fool to cry. I'm coming right over the finish line like this. [audience laughter] It was just absolutely awesome. The day of the race came, okay? I go to the race now. I got my little bike, which is okay. I see people clipping their shoes into the pedals of their bikes and I went, “My God, that's dangerous. What are these people doing?” [audience laughter] And so, first is a mile uphill. I'm passing people and I'm feeling good, “Man, man, I might not even finish last. This is great.” And then, going down the hill, they went [whooshing] right by me. They flew right by me. And so, little by little, I was starting to understand where I was going to finish this thing.
So, I get to the lake, I get to the canoe. There's canoes everywhere on the lake and I was so excited, because all I wanted to do was finish and not be last. That's all. And so, I get in my canoe, and it's like a family canoe. I have a milk crate in the center of it, [audience laughter] and I'm rowing it. You know, kids are flying by me in kayaks with their eyebrows shaved and their head [audience laughter] shaved, flames on their boat and all of that. And I'm in like the Titanic, [audience laughter] and I'm up high and everybody on my milk crate. So, I screamed, “Is this moving?” [audience laughter] A man answered me. He said, “Yeah, you're moving. I can see that you're moving.” He said, “Look at the hill. You'll see the--" [audience laughter]
He took the question literally. He thought I [audience laughter] was really asking if I was moving. So, we go around the lake and go around the lake and go around the lake and go around the lake. You had to go four times. I think I went five, I might have gone five, because [audience laughter] we get to the end. I got a quarter mile left. Marilyn’s waiting for me at the end, and the lake is like ice and I'm the only canoe on it. And so, I go like hell. I go like hell. “That's all right. That's all right. I'm going to finish. I'm going to finish. I might not be last.” I get to the end, I say, “Marilyn, give me the water. Give me the water.” She said, “I drank it all.” [audience laughter] She said, “You took so long that I got thirsty.” [audience laughter]
So, I get my water, and then I'm off. My sneakers are wet now, because I screwed up in the water. I'm running my seven miles to Tanglewood. Now, the race ends at Tanglewood, which is an outdoor theater in the Berkshires, and the Boston Symphony plays there all summer. When the race ends, everybody parties up there. And so, I'm running and it's like post-apocalyptic. There’re tables, nobody. There’re chairs, nobody. [audience laughter] There's just glasses of water there waiting for me. I was losing it a little bit. I get to the entrance of Tanglewood, and there's all people there. I thought they would have been gone by now.
They were all there. They were all partying. And then, I looked and the finished clock was still running, the great big clock, and it said 4 hours and 42 minutes. I fell down. I hit like a pothole in the thing and I fell down. I was going in and out of it and I couldn't-- Sounds were coming in and out. I heard somebody scream, “Get him an ambulance. Make him stop.” And then, a man came over and he put his hand on my back, and I felt safe. I just felt safe. And his wife walked around me and poured water on me. I couldn't look up. I was looking at their $500 running shoes. [audience laughter] I had this attack of shame.
He said to me, “Listen, buddy,” He said, “The guy that won this race in 2 hours and 3 minutes. Next week, nobody's going to remember this guy's name.” He said, “If you can get up and get yourself over the finish line, it says 4 hours and 43 minutes.” He said, “You're going to be a story for grandchildren for years to come.” And I went, “Oh, my God.” I kept getting up and staggering and falling. I could see Marilyn and my daughter at the finish line. And Bianca Lynn, my daughter, she was looking at me and she just had that awful look on her face. She was scared. She was looking at me like she had been looking at me my whole life. I was always in that kind of frigging condition.
And so, I got up and I fell, and the man stayed with me and his wife kept pouring the water and all of that. To me, it was just like a whole failure. And then, Bianca got right up in front, right next to the clock, and she clenched her little hands and she stuck her chest out and she screamed, “That's my daddy.” And my God, so I stood right up and I walked over that finish line and she jumped into my arms and she said, “I love you so much, Daddy.” Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Chloe [00:26:28] Gregory Brady now lives in Worcester, Massachusetts, and has written and published a book called Suicide Watch. He is a recovered heroin addict and provides opiate education through storytelling. When I reached out to him about airing this story, he made sure to tell me all about how proud he is to call Bianca his daughter, and asked if I could give her a shoutout. I couldn't say no to that. So, “Hey there, Bianca. Thank you for being such an important part of this story and for reminding us all to give our dads a call.” To see some photos of Gregory and Bianca together, head on over to themoth.org.
[Fool to Cry song playing]
Sometimes saving graces come as lightning bolt moments. And sometimes, like in our next story, they're as small and beautiful as a reason to laugh again. Charlotte Cline told this at a London GrandSLAM. Just a note that this story involves a funny misunderstanding about a part of the female body.
[cheers and applause]
Here's Charlotte, live at The Moth.
Charlotte: [00:27:41] We didn't have a lock on our bathroom growing up, [chuckles] which meant that there were often three or four of us in there at once. Two in the bath, one on the toilet and my dad soaping his bristles at the sink. They say that the kitchen is the heart of the family home. But in my house, it was the bathroom.
As we got older, my sister, Robyn, taught me how to wedge the dirty laundry basket behind the door. It took the two of us in fits of giggles to shift it, but it was no match for my family when they wanted in. Like, the time when I was reading in the bath, my mum crept in with a sketchbook tucked under her arm and begged to use me as practice for her life drawing class. [audience laughter] Outraged, I said, “No.” But she said that she was only going to draw my face. She promised faithfully she was only going to draw my face.
When I glanced up from my book a chapter later, she was sketching with joyful abandon across the full double page spread. [chuckles] And I realized I'd become an unwilling centerfold. Over the time when my first boyfriend, Griff, a flame haired Welsh metalhead, came to stay for the first time, I tried to warn him of the dangers and I told him to make splashing noises in the bath to signal that it was occupied. [audience laughter] But despite his best splashing efforts, my dad appeared at the door, Winnie-the-Pooh style, a shirt on his top half and completely naked [audience laughter] from the waist down. And nonchalantly went for a sleepy wee while Griff lay utterly horrified in the bath [audience laughter] and tried to act like he was cool with it.
The rest of the house was always fairly lawless and alive, so I don't know why we expected the bathroom to be sacred. I always thought that I wanted more privacy and more boundaries when there was a time when those things unexpectedly and uninvitedly crept in. When in the summer before I turned 13, the house went quiet and we lost my sister, Robyn, in a car accident. Afraid to upset one another further, we gave each other privacy. We built those boundaries and we locked invisible locks. And it didn't feel like home. I missed the madness that had once driven me crazy. [chuckles]
We were all looking for our own ways to cope. My mum had started swimming to try and find her happy place again. She came home and she went for a wee and I wandered uninvited into the bathroom, something which I hadn't done for a while. As she looked down, she found, tangled in her pubic hair, a purpley-pink mysterious blob that looked like. It should have been attached to an intimate part of her body and now wasn't. She held it up in shock. And a look of recognition passed between us, mother to daughter, daughter to mother. And she said in the most British way possible, when you think you have spontaneously lost your clitoris at the local swimming pool, [audience laughter] “Oh, Charlotte, I think something terribly important has fallen off.” [audience laughter]
So, she squeezed it, and it squished and she held it up for a closer look. It smelt of strawberries. [audience laughter] The pink mystery blob was in fact a piece of strawberry, Hubba Bubba bubblegum, [audience laughter] that had been chewed completely accidentally into anatomical perfection by its careless previous owner and found itself stuck to her as she sat on the bench at the swimming pool changing room. [audience laughter] Sorry, I'm going to ruin that gum forever for anyone. We dissolved into fits of giggles reserved only for times of absolute relief, not only for the lost and now found clitoris, [audience laughter] but also the sounds of joy and silliness starting to return to our house again. It felt good to laugh.
My teenage self behind me, I can see what we lacked in privacy we found in this beautiful naked closeness of what it means to be a family forever bound by blood and bath water and bubblegum. I have a house and a family of my own now, funnily enough, with that first flame-haired, Welsh boyfriend, Griff, who didn't run for the hills as he ought to have done. A few years ago, as I went to close our bathroom door, the lock mechanism, which had been wobbly for a while, came off in my hand. As I held it in my fingers, I realized something terribly important had fallen off [audience laughter] and decided to keep it that way. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Chloe: [00:32:53] Charlotte Cline is a graphic designer who lives in Brighton, England with her husband and seven-year-old twins. Beyond the visual stories she creates with her work, she also aims to make magical life stories that her kids will remember. She says that her parents are still rocking the same 1970s avocado green decor and that the family continues the tradition of lockless bathrooms and the beautiful madness that follows. To see photos of Charlotte and her sister as children, visit themoth.org.
Right after the break, a creative and courageous fight against the book burning of the Chinese culture Cultural Revolution, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
[whimsical music]
Jay: [00:33:51] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Chloe: [00:33:59] You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Chloe Salmon. In this hour, stories of saving graces and the surprising places we find them.
Our final story was told by Wang Ping at the Mesa Arts Center in Mesa, Arizona. Here's Wang Ping, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Ping: [00:34:23] When I was six, the Cultural Revolution spread to the island where I live. It was in the East China Sea. It crushed my dream to read every good book on earth. Everything was shut down, stores, factories, schools, libraries. My father was exiled, my mother arrested for teaching Western music. As the eldest child, I had to feed my family, my grandma, two sisters and a brother. I raised chickens, grew vegetables in the backyard, and walked six miles every morning through minefields and bullets to look for food for the family. Two years went by. My dream seemed to be more and more dangerous and impossible.
One early morning, I took out my stove to light a fire. This little stove cooked three meals every day for my family. I opened the door and saw Jaja. She was reading Mao's book under the streetlight. Her face smeared with tears. Who would weep over Mao's words these days? Let alone Jaja, the uppity girl from Beijing who had been exiled to the island with her father, waiting for the verdict from central government, either to go back to Beijing as a general or go to Mongolia to die.
I tiptoed over and peeked. I gasped. The book she was reading had nothing to do with Mao. It was Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid, the story I had heard on the radio a year ago that sparked my dream for good books and go to college. I had begged mama to let me go to school a year earlier, so I could read on my own. Mama agreed and even promised she would buy me a whole set of Andersen's stories if I got good grades. But the Cultural Revolution began. Her students became Chairman Mao's Little Red Guards. They shaved her head, along with other teachers, paraded them on the street. They came to our homes, took all our books and burned them on the street. I had raked every book pile before burning, hoping to find my mermaid, but no luck.
Now, I found her in Jaja's hands, wrapped under Mao's red book cover. Jaja was so engrossed with her story, she didn't know I was reading over her shoulder until she heard me sobbing. She jumped. Little Mermaid clutched her chest. Her eyes told me she would fight me to death if I dared to report her. We glared at each other. Suddenly, we laughed, pointing at each other's tear-streaked face, so we know our secret is safe.
I begged Jaja to loan me the book, just for a few hours. I would read it in the cornfields. Grandma would pound me for not bringing food home this day today, but I didn't care. Jaja shook her head, walked back home. I said, “Wait, wait, I have something to trade with you.” She snorted and kept walking. I don't blame her. Why would she believe that I would have anything worthwhile for her? “I have Yi Qian Ling Yi Ye” I whispered. She paused. I took my time walking to the chicken coop to retrieve my book. I knew she would be waiting, because Yi Qian Ling Yi Ye AKA the Arabian Nights was the most banned and most difficult book to get. I had found it outside Uncle Shi's apartment. When he died of TB, his family threw out everything, including his book collection on the street, hoping the Red Guards would burn it for them. But nobody would touch his stuff.
The book had been rained upon, yellowed by the sun, but I didn't care. The stories had brightened my gloomy days. Arabian Nights [sings]. I sang, waving the book to Jaja’s face. She snatched the book from my hands and thrust the Little Mermaid into mine. “How and where did you get this?” She screamed. I smiled, “We underground book traders have this rule, no question asked.” [audience laughter] We agreed to return next day, to return the books or renew. But two weeks went by. I couldn't finish the book. I had to feed my family from morning till night, and besides, I had no place to read.
I shared the bed with my siblings. My grandma also slept in the same room. I tried to read in trees, in the public bathroom, in the cornfields, but I almost got caught a few times. So, Jaja finally let me in her bedroom. We load around on her bed reading, chatting. I finally confessed that Little Mermaid had inspired me to find every book and read and go to college. And Jaja confessed that she had been practicing dancing like Little Mermaid. We fantasized that someday we would love to form our own underground Little Mermaid book club, so we would have endless books to read. But we would need more than just two books in our hands right now.
One of my chores was to raise chickens. I have 10 hens and one rooster. My favorite was Silky. Silky had white feather and black face. Even her bones, her meat and blood were black. Grandma told me the best tonic for human. So, whenever Silky went into hatching mode, my mom would order me to kill her for the meat. I had managed to save Silky a dozen times, but this time, I knew she was determined to hatch her eggs. So, I started digging a nest for her behind the chicken coop to keep her away from weasels and mama.
A few strikes, my pickaxe hit a wooden box. I brushed away the mud and pried open the lid. Music sheets of Chopin, Beethoven. Underneath books, Shakespeare, Huckleberry Finn, Dead Soul, War and Peace. And to my disbelief, The Complete Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen. On the first page, mama's handwriting, “To my stubborn Ping.” [audience laughter] So, mama had actually fulfilled her promise, but she couldn't give me the book before the Cultural Revolution began. I ran to Jaja and dragged her over to the treasure box. We screamed, ran around like headless chickens, chanting, “Our Little Mermaid Club. Our Little Mermaid Book Club.” Jaja found a bunch of her friends who also exiled to the island with their families. They each had a cache of banned books. We gathered in the woods, cut our wrists, mixed our blood together to swaying as Little Mermaids. [audience laughter]
Now, we have hundreds of books to read. Stories, poetry, history, philosophy, math, physics, even military training manuals. We were careful. If we got caught, we would go to jail, including our families. A year went by, Jaja got ambitious. She wanted to expand the club, so we had more books to read. I told her to wait. Something bad was about to happen. That night, I dreamt a monster picked me up by my braids and threw me into a fire pit. I woke up in pain. Mama was dragging me out of the bed and into the kitchen. Andersen's book in her hand, “Where and how did you get this?” She screamed and a hist.
I looked at her. She knew damn well where I got this book. I wanted to know how she found this book. I had hidden it under grandma's mattress, the last place she would look because the two of them were constantly fighting. Mama slapped my face with the book, busting my mouth open from inside. I tasted blood. “Go, get the whip,” she said. Her whip was made of bamboo skin and it hurt more than leather belt. We had to bring it to her as part of the punishment. “You want to kill us all, you stupid girl? I'm going to kill you first.” She wept. I covered my face with my hands. The pain was unbearable. Not from the whipping, but from knowing that I would never see my mermaid again.
“Go bring the stove,” she ordered and opened the window. Then she watched me tear the book page by page and feed it to the fire. I could hear Little Mermaid scream as she turned into ash. “Where is the rest?” she asked. I knew she had to find everything from the box and destroy them before they destroyed us. But I had sworn to protect my book with my life. Mama threw down her whip and started searching, pulling up floorboards, mattresses and drawers. She knew where to look. She was my mama. Soon, a huge pile gathered by the window. She sat down and watched me burn every book.
When all was gone, she went back to bed. I walked to the chicken coop. Silky came over with her babies, nudging my hand for food. I looked up. No star, no moon, no hope. The book club had been my only joy and now it's gone. I was choking with tears. When a voice came, “Go to the mountains, Little Ping. Tell your story to trees, birds and your mermaid friends. They could burn your books, but not your story.” I stood up. I knew what I was going to do.
I finished my chores that day as usual, then went to the woods with Jaja. Nobody said a word. The bruises on my face said everything. We looked at each other for a long time. Suddenly, words flew out of my mouth like stars forming a constellation of Little Mermaid, her beauty and courage to go after her dream at any cost. Everyone was listening as if it were their first time. This is how we started our storytelling club. We would tell stories to each other in the woods, to our siblings at home. Then we moved to the yard. Children and adults gathered over fire. Everyone would bring a piece of wood. We were hungry and cold, but we had stories. Soon, when we finished all our stories from our collection, we started making our own. And people loved it even better.
When Jaja turned 14, I threw her a big party. She was leaving the island with her father to Mongolia. I told a story that sparked our friendship five years ago, the story about a girl from the sea who had kept us alive all these years. Over the blazing fire, I spotted mama. She had tears in her eyes as she listened. My heart quivered with joy. I might have lost my book battle with her, but I had won the war. No, we had won the war together. Our books had been burned, but not our story, not our hope. That was the moment I realized my college dream would come true, even though it still seemed dangerous and impossible. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Chloe: [00:48:24] That was Wang Ping. Ping was born in Shanghai and came to the US in 1986. She is the founder and director of the Kinship of Rivers Project that builds solidarity among the people who live along the Mississippi, Yangtze, Ganges, Amazon and Nile rivers through exchanging gifts of art, poetry, stories, music, dance and food. Her poetry book, My Name is Immigrant is out now.
Ping remembers the first bookstore that opened near her at the end of the Cultural Revolution. She saved for months and finally had the money to buy the first book she'd ever legitimately owned. After so much time surreptitiously reading worn copies of books with missing pages, she says holding a brand-new book made her heart beat fast. One of her dearest treasures is an old print of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. The Little Mermaid is still one of her favorite stories. And she tries to pass on the mermaid spirit, persistence and dream to her sons, one of whom is named Ariel.
This hour has been about saving graces. My tiny wish for you is that one taps you on the shoulder when you least expect it. Thank you to all of our storytellers in this episode for sharing with us and to you for listening. We hope that you'll join us next time.
[overture music]
Jay: [00:49:52] Your host this hour was Chloe Salmon, who directed the stories in the show along with Meg Bowles and Catherine McCarthy. The rest of The Moth’s directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness and Jenifer Hixson. Production support from Emily Couch. Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers.
Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Bruce Cockburn, the Young Lions, The Rolling Stones, Mark Orton and Derek Fiechter. You can find links to all the music.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison with Viki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. Special thanks to our friends at Audacy, including executive producers, Jenna Weiss-Berman and Leah Reese-Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.