It was Christmas Eve. A few snow flurries were falling from the sky. This was a college town in the Mid-west. Most of the students had gone home for the holiday, and the town was very quiet.

 Yuen was making miniature omelets when the door bell rang. Ping rushed to answer the door and cried out, "Zhang Ming is here." 

 Zhang Ming stepped into the house and dusted the snow flakes from his jacket. In no time, his glasses fogged up because of the heat and humidity. Sniffing the air,  he said, "Smells so good! What goodies are you cooking?" 

 "Hometown dishes," Yuen answered. "Don’t forget we came from the same locale." 

"You were brought up in Taiwan and have never been to Shanghai. How can you claim to be a Shanghainese?" Zhang Ming said, smiling.

"All right, maybe I am not. But here is a native Shanghainese."

Yuen pointed to the other side of the kitchen and said, "Mr. Shen is a new student in our department. He just came  from Shanghai last week."

 By this time, Zhang Ming's glasses had cleared up. He noticed a young man in his twenties sitting at the table. The man quickly stood up, bowed slightly to Ming and said, "I am Shen Shiaodong. Shiaodong, means modeling after Mao Zedong. Nice to meet you." 

 Wrinkling his forehead a little, as if he was reminded of something, Zhang Ming quickly replied, "Oh, I am Zhang Ming." 

"Mr. Shen said that he had never participated in any Christmas activities before. So I invited him to join us in caroling tonight." Yuen said. 

 Ping had already finished setting up the table. A steaming hot pot was put in the middle of the table, and around it were dishes of sliced meat, miniature omelets, tofu and green vegetables. Happily, Shen said, "I was just planning to munch on hamburgers for the holiday. This is such an unexpected treat for me." 

 They chatted while they ate. Ming and Ping were classmates and she knew that Ming’s parents were Christians. So she asked, "Did you celebrate Christmas when you were in Mainland China?"

 Ming shook his head, "I don’t remember. Maybe long time ago we did. Then it stopped. Of course during the Cultural Revolution days, we did not."  

Ping remembered that Ming had mentioned before that his family suffered a lot during the Cultural Revolution. She was about to change the subject when she heard Yuen ask Shen, "Didn’t you say that you were a Little Red Guard before? What did you guys do?"

 "Rebel, of course!" Shen answered. 

"Weren’t you afraid?" Yuen asked. 

"Afraid? No! It was fun. When we did not feel like going to school, we would go pick out a landlord and level all sorts of charges against him. As long as we did not need to go to school, everybody was happy."  

Ping suddenly noticed Ming’s lengthened face and the burning in his eyes. She nudged Yuen slightly with her foot trying to stop her from pursuing the subject. Yuen got the signal and stopped. Placing one omelet in Shen’s plate, then another in Ming’s plate, she said, "Let’s eat. We need to go caroling soon." 

Taking a deep breath, Ming stood up, looked at his watch and said, "We need to get going, others may be waiting. I’ll go start my old junk heap. You can take your time." 

The old car roared down the snowy streets, and inside, Ming’s heart was screaming also. The same vivid scene came clearly to his mind again -- Slightly bent, his tiny, thin mother stood on the podium on trial. Mr. Shen, one of the teachers who belonged to the rebellious group, was reading aloud accusation after accusation against her. The mob was chanting "Down with her!" "Down with her!"

After the trial, his mother was pronounced as a Capitalist teacher. She was segregated for interrogation. Unable to bear such insult, she jumped off a building trying to commit suicide. She did not die but became crippled. The day Ming heard of the incident, he took a cleaver and tried to dash out the door. His two younger sisters grasped hold of his arms on both sides and dragged him back. All the while he cried, "Let me go! I’ll kill them!"  

Ming jumped out of his car. The chilly air cooled his head. Unthinkingly, he searched his pockets for a cigarette but could not find one. Then he remembered. He had quit smoking three months ago when he was baptized as a Christian. Something else slipped out of his pocket though, and fell to the ground. Ming picked it up. It was a key chain attached to a rough wooden cross. It was a gift from his aunt who gave it to him when he left the country. He had kept it with him all the time.

It pained him very much every time he thought of his aunt. His aunt was a very devoted Christian. Before the Communists took over China, she was the principal of an elementary school. At the time of the "Down with Rightists" movement, someone asked her, "Who is greater? Chairman Mao or Jesus?" She answered, "Chairman Mao is a human being and Jesus is God. Of course Jesus is greater." 

She was locked up for ten years. When she was released, people again asked her the same question and she gave the same answer. She was locked up for another seven years. They purposely locked her up with prostitutes and thieves. Yet she cared for those women with love and gentleness. 

After the Cultural Revolution, people came to visit her every day to listen to her talk about Jesus. One day the one who had persecuted her the most also came to see her and asked her to explain to him the teachings of the Bible. 

 "Do you hate those who persecuted you?" Ming asked his aunt.  

"I have never hated them," she said. "Everything is God’s grace. At the time I did not fight back or complain. Afterwards, I did not harbor hatred or hold grudges. Just as God has forgiven us, in the same way we ought to forgive our enemies."

 Ming sighed and put the little cross back into his pocket. He turned around and walked back to the house.  

Shen got out of the car and waved happily to those still inside, "I did not know it would be so much fun going caroling. Next time you have other activities, please let me know."

 "No problem." Ming said.  

After watching Shen leave, Ping turned around and said to Ming, " Big Zhang, I was worried that you would start a fight with Shen when we were eating." 

"When I realized Shen was the son of the one who persecuted my Mom, indeed I was disturbed." Ming said. "But now it is over. Didn’t the Bible tell us to love our enemies?" 

Yuen cut in and said, "Big Zhang, you look much happier now."

"Oh, yeah?" Ming smiled.

He was whistling the tune of Silent Night as his drove his car through the snowy night.     

Abridged from pg. 8-9, December 1995 issue of Overseas Campus Magazine. 

This is a true story. Ms. Huang is teaching at Cedarville College in Ohio