My story 5 – 1949(1)

My story 5 – 1949(1)

If the Communists had not come back to influence my life the second time, I would have been a Western medicine practitioner in my native county. I had actually planned to take the entrance exams to several medical colleges. Or I could have been a middle school teacher, because the educational system was expanding fast while industries had not developed to offer enough opportunities for engineering graduates, of which the field I was also interested in should I fail in my first choice.

The Communist occupation of my county in the 1920s and 1930s did not have any direct impact on me. To me, the torture, killing, and other cruelties under the Chinese Soviet rule were only tales. So as the Nationalist Army was pushed back in the civil war, and the government was no longer in control over the situation, economically and socially, even in their own area, I followed the general trend and adopted the prevalent feeling of disappointment against the Nationalist Government. After the governor of Shandong Province was captured by and he surrendered to the Communist in late 1948, I even published ten satiric poems in a paper called Da Hua Evening News. I still can recall two of them:

The fighting proved fruitless,

And the governor was eventually captured.

I wept over the news,

I was puzzled,

But the hard fact also threw some light over the whole thing.

費心費力空抗拒，

省長大人卒被俘，

使我淚下泣唏噓，

悶葫蘆，

一半兒明白一半兒烏。

Please do not talk about the messy current affairs,

The warning of the owners of tea houses is surely not empty,

Because the talk makes everybody sad,

Just take it easy,

Pretend to be stupid and also stay lazy.

無端國事君莫談，

茶店老闆非空言，

談了也只恁辛酸，

等閑看，

一半兒糊塗一半兒懶。

One day after the New Year of 1949, I was startled by the paper boys’ running and yelling. The news reported that the decisive battle north of Yangtze River had come to end, and that the five Nationalist Group Armies, the main force of Nationalist Government, had been completely wiped out by the Communist forces. Within a couple of days, streets suddenly filled with refugees and soldiers. The subject of conversation among our students shifted from current affairs to personal concern – where was our future, what should we do now. A traditional saying went:  “A good iron ingot is not meant to be made into nails; a good man should not enter military services.” ﹝好鐡不打釘，好男不當兵。﹞ The lawless behavior of military officers and soldiers that I had witnessed reinforced this traditional bias. Once on a bus, I saw the ticket boy ask an army officer to buy a ticket because he had squeezed aboard without buying one. The officer answered by pounding his clenched fist hitting the clipboard holding the tickets pad, so hard that it crashed to the floor. (I considered the boy lucky that the fist did not land on his head.) Therefore whenever friends asked me what I was going to do, I always answered decisively: “Anything but military.”

Then my grandfather sent me a letter which was the only one I ever received from him. My family did not write letters partly because of inconvenience –the nearest postal service for my village was in the town across the river – but also because country people were not used to writing letter. At the beginning it said that everybody at home was okay so I should not worry about them. It then proceeded to inform me of that, although my grandfather had put property on sale for a while, not one had sold, so he no longer had money to send for me to go on.  When I related the letter to my 3rd uncle, who was my guardian in Nanchang, he insisted that I should stay on trying to get into a college. He gave me 10 silver one-yuan coins right on the spot. So I stayed. 

Eventually, a notice appeared on our school bulletin board assuring us that there was nothing to fear about the coming change. Should the Communists really come, it would mean only a change in life style. The notice encouraged us to stay. However, some students had already left or were preparing to leave. Everyone in the city was seized with panic and did not know what to do.  More and more officers and soldiers and their dependents, exiled students, as well as common refugees crowded the streets. 

On the morning of April 22, 1949, the headline across every paper’s front page announced that the Communists had crossed the Yangtze River. Before then, we had still hoped that the Nationalist army could hold the Communists to the north shore of the river. The government had assured us that the Yangtze was a natural obstruction, and that it would be impossible for the Communists to cross over. Considering the river’s 4 mile expanse and the Communist’s lack of a navy, many of us believed that the Nationalists Army could regroup on the southern shore and fight back. Suddenly, these hopes fell apart.  To make the situation worse, the gate city at the south of Nanchang was occupied by a guerrilla force sympathizing with the Communists. Nanchang became an isolated city and my way home was cut off.

Some students organized an emergency committee and I promptly joined. Our dorm in the run-down Accessory Building of Sheng-jin Tower was flimsy, so the committee negotiated with a private middle school that had buildings with thick walls. The stone wall at the base was one foot thick, which we thought would withstand a direct hit of small canon fire. We all contributed for buying 3- months supply of food and moved to a basement of the school. After that, there was nothing to do, so we loafed about by roaming the streets.

It was a pitiful scene. People set up temporary stalls to sell things that previously had been the owner’s precious possessions. Beautiful dresses, suits, watches, and even such novelties as radios, all were on sale at dirt cheap prices. But nobody gave them a second look. All the buses and trucks, public or private, were commandeered by the military for the withdrawal of troops. Those vehicles  lined up in the middle of the main thoroughfare for several miles. Most stores were closed; a few remained open, but only served the customers they knew through back doors or small openings in the front doors.

On the third day after we moved, as I was going out, I met my cousin, LWei, the eldest son of my 1st uncle, at the front gate. I was surprised he was in town. However, he was looking for me and told me that my 3rd uncle was worried about me. He wanted me to go home. I protested, saying that under such circumstances it was absolutely impossible to obtain any transportation. He then assured me that he found someone to take me and asked me to follow him. I wanted to go back to my place to pack up. He said there was no time. Then he grasped my hand and would not let go. He nearly dragged me to a side street where three topless trucks were parked. Soldiers sat on the curb. LWei approached an officer, who turned out to be the commander, a native of our county, from the same village as my cousin. He must have already agreed to take me. After a few words with the commander he said good bye to me and left. The commander then turned me over to a squad leader. The soldiers ignored me, except when I walked a little further the squad leader would command me in a rude way to come back. It made me feel like a new conscript who would desert at any chance available. They cooked their lunch in the street, and the leader handed me a big tea cup and chopsticks so I could share theirs. In the late afternoon, order came that we should go. The guerrilla force had been driven out and the highway through the gate city was temporarily open. We boarded one of the buses and started the journey. 

A scene from that departure struck me like lightning. It still always comes back in vivid details. A woman with her teenage daughter had been waiting with us. When the truck started to roll, the mother and daughter also tried to climb aboard. But the leader would not let her. She said her husband was an officer stationed in Canton and they wanted to join him. She pleaded and pleaded, but the leader refused. She then offered her daughter, saying, “You take her, you take her”. (  你帶她，你帶她。) The leader cursed and said that he could not even take his own daughter. The daughter just held her mother tight and cried, “No! No! If we die, we die together.” Whenever the scene comes back to me, I always pray that they were able to overcome the most difficult time in their lives.

We reached the gate city at dusk and continued going south through the night. Next morning I woke up seeing on both sides of the highway there were two long lines of foot soldiers walking toward the same direction as ours, some carrying stretchers. Several times, some soldiers stood in the middle of the road trying to stop our truck, but the driver just sped up. The soldiers jumped aside in the very nick of time and cursed. They were so angry that I feared they might shoot at us. But luckily no one did. In the afternoon we reached downtown of my native county. The trucks stopped and the commander came to let me off and told me to go home. That day was May 31, 1949.

The next day was Dragon Festival, the 5th day of 5th lunar month. Normally we decorated our doors with fragrant leaves of oriental cat-tail and Asiatic dog wood, drank wine mixed with orpiment and ate sweet rice wrapped in bamboo leaves and red rice cakes. In the town and some villages they even had boat races. It was an exciting festival. I expected that everybody at home should be in a frenzy preparing for the next day’s celebration.  But when I reached home, it was cold and cheerless. Everybody was surprised at my sudden arrival, as if I were an unwelcome stranger. My grandfather muttered that I should not have come home, it was better to stay away, anywhere but home. They were in no mood to celebrate the festival.

On the day of Dragon Festival, instead of celebrating, the family held a serious meeting. My grandfather explained that the situation was not like the last time as the Communists came to our county in the 1930s. My grandparents and parents were young then without children, so the family could escape together. Now, my grandparents were old, my brothers and sisters were too young, and my father was not in good health. There was no choice but to stay put and resign themselves to their fate. I was the only one who could get away. I would also be on my own, because they were short of cash and could not help. It was up to me myself to decide whether to stay or leave.

The next day I went to town to see friends. I learned from them that General Hu Lian ﹝胡璉﹞, the deputy commander of the legion that had been defeated in the decisive battle, was authorized to form a new army, and that they were enlisting new recruits. A military academy was set up to train students as future officers. Because of the horrible experience with the Communists in the 1930s, the people in my county responded eagerly. I also signed up right away, despite the vow I made not long ago that I would do anything but military. I went back home to give my family what I heard and what I had done. They were sad but glad that I found a way to leave.

After a couple of days, before the day that I was supposed to report to the academy, I bade farewell to my beloved grandparents, parents, brothers, and sisters. My youngest sister was not there because she had been given away at birth. As I walked out the door, it was pouring. My grandparents came to the door and said the oddest thing, something they had never said to me before: “We wish you a bright future.” My father, barely recovered from a serious illness, and my mother walked with me in the rain about one third of the distance to the town before they returned home. Before I left, I was given a few one dollar silver coins, which was all my family could save. My grandmother also gave me one of her gold ear rings for emergency. It could be straightened to pin on my underwear, she advised, or to hide in a book page.  Her other earring she reserved for her beloved daughter, my aunt. They were from her dowry and the only property she owned in her whole life. The silver dollars were spent quickly. The ring was hidden as my grandmother advised, but, tiny as it was, soon got lost, never to be found. Luckily, although I often was short of money, I never needed to use her earring for an emergency as she worried.

The Academy occupied some classrooms in my old middle school, many of my old classmates also joined. The surroundings were comfortably familiar, so I did not feel so sad. A day later, my 1st uncle, still being the principal of the school, sent a janitor to fetch me. I followed him into a small office, there sat my mother and one of my aunts. My mother had never been in town in her whole life.  That was why she wanted someone to lead her to where I was. She had brought some clothing, as well as a new pair of shoes that she hand-made for me. We sat there not knowing what to say. At home I was always with my grandparents, and she was always busy with chores, so we seldom talked to each other. Now I was leaving; we would probably never see each other again, so she came to see me the last time. She was very sad. But at that time I did not feel her emotion. Actually, I felt embarrassed – nobody else’s parents came to visit.  This was not my first time away from home. I had spent more time at school than at home since my fifth grade. My anticipation of the excitement of the outside world blinded me, I did not see that this departure was different from all the others, and I did not understand her feelings.

Years later, I remember seeing a Norman Rockwell’s drawing on the front page of the Saturday Evening Post.  A father was seeing his son off to college. The son was like me, but the other person in the picture was a father instead of a mother. And my mother’s feelings would have been much stronger than the father’s in the picture, because she did not know if I could ever come home again.

My mother stayed overnight with a relative not far from the town. The next day, she came again and my father also came with her. We had another awkward meeting.  After some time, they said good bye to me and went home. The next day our troop departed. I left my native county and never went back.

As soon as I reached Taiwan, I wrote a letter home but did not get any answer.  In February of 1950, I received a letter from my cousin Lwei, who was in Macau. He informed me that my family had received my letter, knew I was in Taiwan, and asked me not to write again for the obvious reason that letters from Taiwan would cause them trouble.  He also related that my 1st uncle, his father, had been fined 150 dan, equal to 16535 Lbs, of rice grain. As that was far out of his financial reach, he fled to other city, found his way to Macau, and later went to Hong Kong through some underground channel. Eventually he applied and was admitted to Taiwan. Lwei returned to his family in the mainland and died in 1980s.

After I went to England in 1962, the first thing I did was to write a letter home. I was informed by my brother that my grant parents and my father had all passed away from the Communist persecution, but my mother was still alive.  Since then I have been sending money, clothing, cooking oil, and medicine home to help, except the couple years when I was back in Taiwan,  I did not dare communicate with the mainland because I would be suspected. During the tumultuous years of the Red Guards, I also refrained from writing for fear of causing them trouble, because they regarded overseas connections as a crime.

My mother’s health deteriorated for lack of food and medical care. But the main cause of her death was otherwise. Often being scolded, spat on, and even beaten, by fellow villagers who  became Red Guards to show their revolutionary zeal, my mother committed suicide by hanging herself in March of 1966. She could not stand the abuse any longer. People can be very cruel under some circumstances, especially if the system allows or even encourages it.

 After my return to Taiwan, I found the shoes that my mother made for me. They were in a box that I had stored in a friend’s home. I have treasured them ever since. They are the only thing that I have from home.

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