ABSTRACT
Every day at the Shanghai Number i Jail, journalist Zhang Weiguo led his dozen cellmates on an escape. Zhang roused the men from out of the stench of urine and excrement and led them in circles along the walls of the dark, cramped cell. Zhang sang the loudest. Charged with counterrevolutionary crimes for his role in the 1989 democracy movement, he was awaiting trial and expected a sentence of ten years or more. But Zhang was determined to maintain his self-respect. Every morning, in defiance of the prison regime, the gregarious, heavyset reporter led his cellmates in doing exercises: handstands, push-ups, and martial arts. His cell became known as "the gym." Zhang had been a model Communist during Mao's 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. As a Red Guard, he was compulsively obedient to Chairman Mao, his idol. One utterance from Mao, as the slogan went, and Zhang would "scale a mountain of knives and plunge into a sea of fire.".
