Those first few weeks at the Beijing Dance Academy were an agony of loneliness. Nights were the worst. I couldn't wait to get to bed so I could clutch onto my niang's quilt, my only security.

I knew I had no choice but to stay in Beijing. My parents, my brothers, relatives, friends, my old school teachers and classmates, my village and commune, all of their wishes and expectations made it impossible for me to go back. The loss of face would be unbearable. It would damage my family's reputation for ever. My success was my parents' only hope of breaking that vicious cycle of poverty. I couldn't let them down, even if I did feel trapped in a cage of rules and routines. Every day I couldn't wait for the year to end so I could return home to see my family and roam the streets and fields once more.

I wasn't alone in missing home. I witnessed many teary eyes among my fellow classmates. The girls sobbed more than the boys. Our political heads and teachers showed more tenderness towards the girls. The boys would be told that crying was a sign of weakness.

The city kids seemed to cope better than the country ones. They were more confident. The Shanghai kids coped well – they were generally fairer skinned too. We country kids were darker. I was probably one of the darkest. Fair skin was considered beautiful in China.

Our first weeks weren't made any easier when a virus swept through the school. I was among those who had the severe cough, sore throat and high fever. Naturally I did what my niang would have done – I took out a few pieces of my precious dried snakeskin and wrapped a green onion in them. I offered to share it with some of my classmates but it was as though I'd offered them poison. I lost a few friends over that, but I did notice that their symptoms lasted much longer than mine.

The toilets were another challenge. I appreciated the idea of being able to flush away the poo to who knows where, but the reality that always confronted us was blocked toilets. The smell was revolting. Toilet rush hours were the worst – in the mornings after waking up, after breakfast, after lunch, after nap time, and the worst time of all was after dinner before the 'go to sleep' bell. I would close my eyes, hold my breath and charge into the toilet, trying to breathe as few times as possible.

The toilet might have been one of the worst things about the Beijing Dance Academy, but the showers were one of the best. We were assigned to take showers three times a week. We had to get in early because the hot water would run out. Latecomers had cold showers.

My very first shower was like magic. One of our teachers led ten of us to the changing room, which had wooden benches along the walls for us to put our clothes on. It was very damp, with a pleasant soapy smell. Massive amounts of steam pushed out into the changing room as the class of students before us came out. Hesitantly I followed the other boys into the shower. I was a little afraid, but I'd once heard some adults in our village talking about this thing called a shower, so I tentatively popped my head under the jets of water. It was wonderful! Warm water streamed down my hair and over every part of my body. I opened my mouth to breathe. Warm water filled it up and it felt so good that I kept my mouth open as I let the water glide over me. This was a thrilling experience. I had never felt cleaner. (We didn't know, then, that in winter we would be encouraged to take cold showers, to make our hearts and minds grow stronger.)

The food at the academy was beyond good. We had rice nearly every day. And fresh fruit twice a week! Apples, pears, occasionally even bananas. With enough food to eat for the first time in my life, I was in ninth heaven.

One of the treats at the academy once a month was watching documentaries and occasionally a movie. All the foreign films were from other communist countries. A North Korean movie I remember particularly well was about a young man who had lost his ambitions for the communist cause, and a beautiful girl, a Communist Youth Party member, who helped him and fell in love with him. What I enjoyed most about this movie wasn't the politics but the love story. For the next couple of weeks I started to behave differently towards the captain of the girls' class, a pretty Qingdao girl with big, bright eyes. I imagined that if I performed badly enough in class, the political head might send this girl to help me, but the longed-for love never materialised.

Within the first month of our arrival in Beijing, we heard that the President of America, Richard Nixon, was to pay an historic visit to China. It was February 1972. People in Beijing were jubilant. The government's propaganda machine went into full swing and the Chinese media boasted of nothing else. This visit by Nixon was confirmation that Mao's communism had won the final battle against capitalism. I didn't care about Nixon. I was too homesick. But I did notice that the attacks on America's evil capitalist values by the Chinese propaganda machines eased considerably while President Nixon was there.