For those of us who grew up during the Cold War, the Communist Party retains a certain dark mystique. Yet during the first three months we were living in China, I wasn't aware of its existence at all. We were not followed and I seriously doubt that our phone was bugged. But then I learned that the highest levels of administration at our college (at all schools, actually) was mirrored by Communist Party staff. Therefore, the secretary general of the college's Communist Party is exactly equal in power to the college president. The Party staff investigates the political backgrounds of prospective employees and scholarship recipients and also provides study sessions for staff and students. For instance, my class with the English teachers was once canceled because they had to attend a lecture by a psychologist about the dangers of Falun Gong. What's more, on the first day of the spring semester, my speaking class did not take place because every single one of the college's three thousand students had to stand in the school parking lot for more than an hour listening to speeches against the Falun Gong. They ultimately signed pledges to avoid and oppose this movement.

During the fall semester, I started wondering about a man in my speaking class for teachers. This guy's name had never appeared on the list of enrolled students. He showed up the second week of classes and sat in the back reading a newspaper. I was quite offended, but masked my resentment and asked if he had the textbook. Since he didn't, I instructed him to sit next to another student and share her book. He came most nights and never got the book (which is given to students when they enroll). I still had to remind him sometimes to sit with a partner, but for all practical purposes I treated him as a regular student.

One night I decided all the students should be able to clearly state in English what their job was so I asked them what they taught. It took some doing for us to figure out the English word for his work, but it seemed as if he taught "morality." This was quite surprising to me since the academic focus of the college is very forestry-oriented. You can't study psychology, history, literature, etc. so I was surprised to hear there was a morality class. I began to wonder if he was one of the Party staff assigned to monitor the class. His English was too poor for him to be very effective at monitoring me, but maybe he was watching the teachers in the class to see if they ask for help in defecting, or getting past China's internet censors, or spreading the word about Falun Gong. (I assure you, they didn't!) From my closest Chinese friend there, I learned that he married into a high position in the Communist Party; he was in charge of propaganda for our school. But the days of hard-core Communism have passed, and there is really very little for him to do these days, so keeping an eye on me may just have helped justify his salary and pass the time.

It was hard to know what to suspect. Last November, when the director and assistant directors of the waiban staff first started coming to my classes, I initially thought they were doing performance appraisals. But they never went to even one class of the other foreign teachers. The other foreign teachers said they came to my classes because they were just waiting to hear what will come out of my mouth next; I was famous for my truthful answers. My feeling was, if you can't handle the answer, don't ask the question. I really didn't think my frankness worried the waiban staff; but I didn't understand why they were focusing on me.

Anyway, a few months later I discovered the reason my classes had been observed. The college nominated me for a provincial award, and for their nomination report needed to describe my teaching methods. That knowledge sure helped put paranoia in perspective!

Still, for months I wondered, who was a Party member and who wasn't. As it was, I found it amazing that Zhou Xueying, my best Chinese friend and a smart and sophisticated scholar, had happily consumed baby mice and fried cockroaches in her childhood. How had I become close friends with someone who never had a pair of shoes until she entered middle school? But the possibility that Zhou Xueying might also be a member of the Communist Party seemed even stranger. I thought it about it all the time, but I couldn't bring myself to ask her directly. My frequent oblique questions finally yielded an answer: no, she is not a member.

Miss Pi, I assumed, was a shoo-in for Party membership, and in fact, during our days as Communist Chorus comrades, she proudly confided that she had been admitted at an unusually early age.

And what about Swallow, my sweet Chinese tutor who seemed to be the most apolitical person in Kunming? "It's very useful to be a Party member," she told me once, just a touch defensively. It took her three tries before she was admitted.

The Chinese government insists that democracy does not necessarily have to include political freedom. But it isn't just political freedom that is lacking here. Theoretically, Chinese now enjoy freedom of religion, but that liberty only extends to state-sponsored religion. If you want to follow the Pope or the Dalai Lama--you're asking for trouble. And don't even think about Falun Gong! Furthermore, the Party requires members to be atheists, although when I inquired about this point, Swallow once said, "I think everyone believes in God a little bit."

It is okay to publicly criticize the implementation of a government policy, but not the policy itself. The government-run press is censored, but there are dozens of independent newspapers that do a lot of finger-pointing. Now admittedly, those editors sometimes end up in prison camps, but they persevere, and somehow, my Chinese colleagues always seem to know about the news the government is trying to suppress.

What strikes me as strangest, however, are the very small matters of personal liberty that we take for granted. For instance, one time when I commented to Miss Pi about Zhu Jing's chestnut-colored hair, Miss Pi said, "Zhu Jing's hair isn't brown! She dyes it."

"Really?" I replied, surprised at what an excellent dye job it was.

"Really. You know, Deborah, as long as our danwei (work unit) approves it, we are free to change the color of our hair," she announced with no small amount of pride. It had never occurred to me that the great Communist leaders of our college devoted any time at all to deciding whether hair dye would compromise the socialist spirit of the workers here.

Especially because the top Communist officials were men! Although China probably has the best record for women's rights in Asia, and one of the academic vice presidents was a woman, the college's cadres are all men. Interestingly, they were surprisingly good-looking men! They looked a little healthier than the rest, and their clothing was undeniably smarter. The secretary general was the only man in the college who regularly wore a tie. To me, they were unfailingly gracious--even before I joined the Communist Chorus. The secretary general told one of my friends in the Foreign Languages Department that he really wanted to learn English so he can communicate better with the foreign teachers. I can't help wondering just what is it that he wants to say. Maybe when we come back my Chinese will be good enough for me to find out.