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18
Farewell to Shanghai
A FEW DAYS AFTER I had handed in my passport application, A-yi brought me an official-looking letter. It was from the “Bureau for Sorting Looted Goods,” which I thought was a unique title for a government department. The letter invited me to go for an interview. Mrs. Zhu and her husband had received a similar call. She was given back a few pieces of costume jewelry, and her husband was told to go to a warehouse and search through the dusty volumes stored there to see if he could find some of his books. After being in the airless warehouse for over ten years, the books were rotting with mildew. When he picked up a volume, it fell apart in his hand and exuded a strong, unhealthy odor. He returned to the Bureau for Sorting Looted Goods empty-handed and agreed to sign a pledge relinquishing all claims to his looted property. Mrs. Zhu likewise had to sign a receipt for the costume jewelry. It listed “three rings, one brooch, etc.” without identifying them as costume jewelry. When she asked the man for her rings of real diamonds and jade, he asked her to produce evidence to prove she actually had them when the Red Guards looted her home.
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It seemed the things taken from the looted homes had not been securely stored away. In the course of the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, many people must have had access to them. Now that the government had decreed that looted goods should be returned to their owners, the local officials had to make a show of doing so. Thus they organized this bureau to put on an act and invited us to take part. When a sufficient number of receipts for worthless objects had been collected and enough pledges made to relinquish claims, the work of returning looted goods to their rightful owners could be considered accomplished successfully.
While I was not hopeful that I would recover anything of value, I could not very well ignore a letter from a government department. Therefore I went at the time and on the day specified. I was received by a woman official who asked me right away if I would be interested in going to a warehouse to look for books and records.
“I’m pretty certain all my books were burned. As for records, it’s possible a few were saved, but I’m not interested in getting them back. I’ll sign a paper to that effect,” I told her.
“I have some really good news for you,” she said, laying emphasis on “good news” and “you.”
After rummaging through the files on her desk, she took out a sheet of paper and said to me, “Some of your porcelain pieces have been located because they were in boxes bearing your name. These pieces are at a warehouse. However, the Shanghai Museum is interested in purchasing fifteen pieces from you. These fifteen pieces are at the museum. You can go to the warehouse and show the man in charge this letter of authorization.”
She handed me a document identifying me as the owner of the pieces of porcelain contained in boxes bearing my name.
“What about the pieces displayed in my house and not put away in boxes when the Red Guards came on August 30, 1966?” I asked her.
“If there was no identification, it would be very difficult to find them.”
“What about my white jade collection?”
“Items made of precious stones or semiprecious stones were put away with the jewelry. We are still trying to locate them,” she said rather impatiently. I thought she was displeased that I had mentioned them. She was probably thinking that I should be satisfied that my porcelain pieces had been found.
“I ask only because there were some in boxes with my name on them,” I explained.
“You may find a few pieces with your porcelain,” she said.
“Thank you very much for locating my porcelain pieces. It must have been hard work.”
“The Shanghai Museum helped us. They want to get in touch with you about those fifteen pieces.”
I was overjoyed that some of my porcelain pieces had been saved, and when I got home I got in touch with Little Fang, asking him to help me get them back. It would seem my fight to save them in 1966 when the Red Guards were looting my home had not been in vain.
A few days later, Little Fang drove me in his power company truck to the underground warehouse at the other end of the city. After I had presented the letter to the security guard, we were allowed to enter the dark, cavernous interior. The man in charge told us to wait by a long, dusty table under a feeble light. Others were already gathered there. We waited with anticipation, moving restlessly in the airless room.
When the items were brought out and laid on the table, we were told to identify our things. There were scrolls, fans, boxes of various sizes, and containers tied together with string. Everything was covered with a thick layer of sooty dust peculiar to coal-burning, industrial Shanghai. A man sighed deeply and uttered a stifled exclamation that sounded rather like a sob when he picked up his antique fan to find that the paper, on which had been a valuable painting by a famous Ming dynasty painter, had rotted away with mildew. A woman standing beside him, perhaps his wife, murmured to him to throw away the now worthless fan. But he carefully took out his handkerchief and folded it lovingly around the fan to take it home.
Back home Little Fang helped me to carry my boxes upstairs to my room and took his leave. The odor from them was overpowering. I opened each box and took the porcelain pieces out. Then I took all the dirty and broken boxes out to the fresh air of the balcony. I saw that some of the vases, bowls, and plates were chipped or cracked; a few had been broken and then glued together again. All had identification numbers and other indecipherable writing on the delicate glaze. On a large plate of Ming celadon, some Revolutionary had expressed his hatred for the rich by declaring in writing that collectors were bloodsuckers. I was heartbroken to see the beautiful pieces so carelessly defaced. But I knew that they might easily have been smashed if someone somewhere hadn’t succeeded in talking the Red Guards into taking them to the underground warehouse.
I filled the bathtub with lukewarm water, sprinkled a little soap powder in it, laid towels at the bottom of the tub, and placed the pieces there to soak. In the water the patched pieces disintegrated. I bent over the tub and washed each piece with a soft cloth to remove the markings. After rinsing, I placed them on a sheet spread on the floor of my room. It was already nightfall when I had finished. I realized that less than half of my original collection was left intact, including my Dehua Guanyin, covered with black ink stains but not broken. After washing, it was as gleaming and beautiful as ever. I placed it on my desk and sat down to enjoy looking at it. It was like being reunited with an old friend after a long separation.
I checked the list of the fifteen pieces the museum wished to buy and saw that it included what was left of my Xuande blue-and-white as well as an apple green (fenqing) Yongzheng vase I particularly liked. It had a raised pattern of a lizard with such a fluid line that it looked as if it were ready to slither off the vase. The Shanghai Museum also wanted my Zhengde chicken-fat-yellow plate and my best piece of Song dynasty Ding ware with an incised pattern of waterlilies.
Should I accede to the museum’s request for the fifteen pieces, or should I refuse? Before the Cultural Revolution, when I was writing my last will, I had discussed the matter of my collection with my daughter. It was at her suggestion that I had willed my collection to the Shanghai Museum as a gift. Her death and the careless disregard for cultural relics demonstrated during the Cultural Revolution had cooled my enthusiasm for leaving my collection to the museum, a bureaucratic organization of the government, subject to political pressure. On the other hand, I had already decided to leave China. None of my collection was exportable. Would it not come to the same thing whether I left it to the museum or not? Therefore I decided I would give the museum the fifteen pieces they wanted rather than accept a token purchase price arbitrarily arrived at by some official who had no knowledge of the true worth of the pieces in question. However, I should get something out of the deal, I thought. All the blackwood stands that went with the pieces had disappeared. If I wished to enjoy looking at my collection until I left Shanghai, I must have stands to display it. I decided to ask the museum to make a few stands for me in exchange for my fifteen pieces. It was not an equal exchange by any means, but I did need the stands, and there was no other way to get them.
The Shanghai Museum sent me an invitation for an interview, and I went there to see them. The men received me with excessive politeness. They brought out my fifteen pieces, all beautifully clean and gleaming against the white satin lining of the new boxes in which they lay, and allowed me to examine each piece. Then we talked about them as if we were disinterested connoisseurs, pointing out a particular color or design and turning them over to examine the markings. When they deemed that sufficient courtesy had been shown me to establish themselves as civilized individuals and to put me in a receptive mood, they turned to the business at hand. The man who seemed to enjoy deference from the others said to me, “The museum has to work within the limits of a budget. We have to be very selective when we make purchases. You have many beautiful pieces in your collection, but we have decided, for the time being, to request you to sell us only these fifteen pieces.”
“Of course. You can have the fifteen pieces you have selected. It’s better to have visitors to the museum enjoying them than to leave them in my cupboard,” I said.
They all beamed, and the man who had spoken nodded with approval.
“I’ll make you a gift of all fifteen pieces if you meet my conditions,” I added.
“What do you want us to do?” the man asked me.
“Nothing very difficult for the museum,” I told him. “I would like the museum carpenter to make me some stands so that I can display the pieces that have been returned to me in my room and enjoy looking at them. I’ll of course pay for the wood and the labor of your carpenter.”
They looked at each other, surprised at the nature of my condition. Then they all laughed heartily.
“That’s easy. I’ll send our carpenter to your house to measure the pieces. How many do you want made? Do you want a stand for each piece?” the man asked me.
“No, of course I can’t ask you to make so many stands. I think maybe ten or twelve will be all I want,” I said.
“That will be perfectly all right,” he promised readily.
“About your idea of making these fifteen pieces a gift to the museum, will you furnish us with a formal letter to that effect?” another man said.
“Certainly. I’ll give it to the carpenter when he comes. Could he come tomorrow?”
“I’ll get the carpenter now, and you can discuss the matter with him yourself,” the man said and left the room.
When he came back with the carpenter in tow, the old man seemed unhappy to have this extra job thrust upon him.
“I have got a lot of work on hand just now,” he muttered.
“It doesn’t seem right to ask this old comrade to do this extra job for me during working hours. It might delay whatever he is doing for the museum. What about asking him to do my work in his spare time, and I will settle with him about payment?” I suggested.
“You can’t do that,” the museum official said firmly. Obviously he couldn’t condone such a practice. But he had decided to let me have my stands, so he told the old carpenter to put aside whatever he was doing for the museum for the time being. We arranged that the carpenter would come to my apartment the next day to measure the pieces.
“We are holding an exhibition next week of our recently acquired items. All friends of the museum who have pieces displayed in the exhibition are invited to a special preview and a banquet afterwards. We hope you will come,” the man said, handing me a gold-embossed invitation card. My name was already written on it. Evidently they had been quite certain I was going to let them have my fifteen pieces. Of course, since the Shanghai Museum was a government organization, their request to purchase was as good as a polite order to sell. Nevertheless, one doctor had refused to sell his collection of Tang porcelain pillows, as I was told by one of the Shanghai Museum officials with a great deal of regret and indignation.
The special exhibition was held in the hall on the ground floor of the Shanghai Museum. Strolling among the well-lit cases were the private collectors who had contributed the exhibits, their wives, and a large number of government officials, escorted by museum personnel. With each exhibit was a card giving a description of the piece and the name of the donor. Of my fifteen pieces, four were on display, including a large Xuande blue-and-white plate sixteen inches in diameter, with a pattern of grapes, and the Yongzheng vase with the raised pattern of a lizard. The museum official showing me around explained to me that due to the limited space, only token pieces from each collector were shown.
The most senior official present was a vice-mayor of the city, Zhang Chengzhong, who was concurrently the director of the Commission for the Administration and Control of Cultural Relics. He was surrounded by a large entourage and many museum officials ready to answer his questions. After everybody had looked at the exhibits, we were invited to sit down on chairs already placed in the center of the spacious hall. Vice-Mayor Zhang made a speech praising the patriotic spirit of the private collectors who had added to the collection of the Shanghai Museum. In particular he welcomed a young couple who had traveled to Shanghai from the United States to attend the ceremony as representatives of their grandfather, who had died during the Cultural Revolution and could not personally witness his own collection being included in this exhibition. After his speech, a representative of the museum invited the private collectors to come forward. As each man came to where Zhang Chengzhong was seated, the vice-mayor stood up to present him with a certificate of merit in a gold frame and a red envelope containing the purchase price. While this was going on, an official of the museum slipped into the seat next to mine and told me in low whispers that a separate ceremony would be held for me because I had donated my pieces. After everybody had been called, we were taken by special buses to the newly opened tourist hotel on Huashan Road and given an elaborate banquet in the large dining room.
The young couple from the United States and the collectors who had links with businessmen in Hong Kong were given the seats of honor at Vice-Mayor Zhang’s table. Since the declaration of the new policy of attracting foreign investment, these individuals’ personal importance in the eyes of the People’s Government had increased a thousandfold. Until the government succeeded in establishing firm business ties with foreign countries, these men were useful for their ties with overseas Chinese in Hong Kong and elsewhere. The rest of us sat wherever we happened to find ourselves. At each table, an official of the Shanghai Museum acted as host. I knew no one at my table. We did not introduce ourselves or make conversation. And no one ate very much of the delicious food put in front of us. We were stiff and formal, patiently waiting for the banquet to end. The museum people were, however, in high spirits. They went around from table to table, wineglasses in hand, to toast each other.
Collectors do not like to part with their collections because they form a sort of sentimental tie with each item. Throughout the meal, I was thinking of the pieces I had surrendered to the museum. Though I did not regret having given them away, I felt rather sad. I thought the others were probably in the same frame of mind. It was true they had all been paid a purchase price, but they were not really in need of the money, and it was a certainty that the price represented only a fraction of the market value of the items.
When we saw Zhang Chengzhong preparing to leave, we quietly laid down our chopsticks too. The moment Zhang Chengzhong disappeared out the door with his entourage, we stood up to shake hands with the host at our table. Then we filed out to the elevators. Those at other tables behaved in exactly the same manner. It was only when we were on the street and about to mingle with the crowd, far from the aureole of officialdom, that we smiled at one another and said goodbye to those within earshot.
A week later, two museum officials took me in an official car to the Shanghai Mansions, an apartment hotel for foreign visitors. The ceremony of presenting me with the certificate of merit was to be held in the penthouse apartment reserved for official use. In the spacious lobby, an attendant led me to a table on which were an ink slab and several writing brushes. As I signed my name in the brocade-covered guest book, a cameraman took several photographs of me. The officials signed their names after mine. The attendant then threw open the double door leading to the reception room. Other officials of the museum, including the director, were introduced to me. I saw that my neighbors, Dr. and Mrs. Gu Kaishi, had been invited to make up the party. Dr. Gu was an eminent surgeon, and his wife a gynecologist at the No. 6 People’s Hospital. He had given his family bronze collection to the Shanghai Museum.
After a little while, Vice-Mayor Zhang Chengzhong arrived. He sat down in the middle of the long sofa that had been left vacant for him. The attendant served us green tea while we chatted about the weather and politely inquired after each other’s health. When the preliminary exchanges were over, one of the junior officials of the museum brought a framed certificate of merit and placed it on the coffee table in front of the vice-mayor. Zhang made a short speech praising my patriotic act of presenting the museum with pieces from my collection. Then he stood up, took the certificate of merit, and held it out to me with both hands. I stood to accept it and bowed to him. He also presented me with a scroll and said it was a gift from the Shanghai Museum to show their appreciation of my donation. I accepted and bowed again.
The scroll was taken out of its brocade cover and unrolled. It was a beautiful reproduction of the famous painting A Lady with Peony, by the great Ming dynasty painter Tang Yin. The original was one of the Shanghai Museum’s proudest possessions. The scroll was about two yards long and twenty-eight inches wide, so perfectly reproduced that it was the exact replica of the original. It now adorns the wall of my Washington, D.C., condominium and is enjoyed by my friends.
When the presentation was over, Zhang Chengzhong sat down. I made a short speech expressing my pleasure at being able to add to the museum’s collection. During the proceedings, the man with the camera took several pictures. These and the book containing the signatures of the guests were later given to me as souvenirs of the occasion.
The attendant announced that lunch was served. Led by the vice-mayor, we went into the adjacent dining room and were seated around the table. A sumptuous meal, the most elaborate I had ever had in socialist China, was served to us, with three kinds of wine, fruit, and dessert. The vice-mayor and everybody else were extremely polite and pleasant. During the meal, the vice-mayor told me that he himself had been incarcerated. When I expressed surprise and indignation, he said, “You are surprised that an old revolutionary like myself could be locked up by people who claim to be revolutionaries? Politics is a very complicated thing, you know.”
Encouraged by the example of the vice-mayor, others also told me about their imprisonment. It soon emerged that among the ten people seated around the table, only three had escaped imprisonment.
“However, we are all rehabilitated now,” one of the officials declared.
Led by the vice-mayor, we all raised our glasses and toasted the Chinese Communist Party, which had made our rehabilitation possible.
It seemed the People’s Government in Shanghai wanted to put me in the right frame of mind. They could so easily have given me my certificate of merit when the others received theirs. They did not have to organize a separate ceremony and an elaborate party. I thought they were giving me the treatment usually reserved for foreign government visitors of senior rank mainly because I had applied to go abroad. They wanted me to leave Shanghai with a good impression of the post-Mao government. Even the vice-mayor’s seemingly casual remark that he himself had suffered imprisonment was intended to make me look upon my own unfortunate experience in its proper perspective. He had tried to make me feel that I had somehow joined the distinguished company of veteran revolutionaries and senior officials of the government.
Next morning, in a corner of one of the Shanghai Liberation Daily’s four pages, a news item appeared stating that I had made a donation of porcelain to the Shanghai Museum. The report called it a patriotic act and added that I had not accepted monetary compensation. Since the Shanghai Liberation Daily, like all the other newspapers, was controlled by the government, which decided what was to appear in its pages, I felt that the Shanghai officials were continuing their efforts to put me in a good mood.
With the publication of this item of news, I became an instant celebrity. My friends and neighbors, including the Party secretary of my Residents’ Committee, called to offer their congratulations and to examine the certificate of merit, which they told me should be hung up on the wall. People who had avoided me now crossed the street to greet me. Lu Ying, who had criticized my clothes only a few years ago, now complimented me on my neat appearance and asked me where I had bought them. It seemed I had come a long way from the days when I was a nonperson suffering insults and persecution. Yet I had not changed one iota. It was the Party’s policy that had changed.
When the furor of congratulations had died down, Comrade He, a representative of the Shanghai Federation of Women, came to invite me to join their study group for women intellectuals. I readily accepted her invitation because it meant I would no longer have to attend the rather dull study group meetings of the Residents’ Committee. I hoped the women at the federation would be more interesting and congenial.
According to China’s Constitution, women and men enjoyed equal rights, but in practice there was a great deal of discrimination. Although in the cities there was no difference in pay or benefits for women doing the same work as men, the great majority of women remained in specialized occupations that traditionally employed women; they were textile workers, shop assistants, hospital nurses, and schoolteachers. The Chinese traditional attitude of a woman’s position being determined by the position of her husband was still upheld. The widow of Marshal Zhu De was the president of the National Federation of Women. Among its local presidents and vice-presidents were wives and widows of other senior veteran Party officials. However, the women who did the actual work of the federation, such as Comrade He, were Party bureaucrats. Like other organizations in China, the Federation of Women was a government organization that orchestrated its members’ activities.
“We are organizing two study groups,” Comrade He said. “One group consists of pre-Liberation female factory owners and wives of prominent capitalists who used to have jobs in their husbands’ factories. The other group consists of female intellectuals. In this group we also include wives of well-known scientists who have made a special contribution to socialism. After careful consideration, we have decided to put you in the latter group. We think you will find this group congenial.”
“I hope you will convey to the senior authorities of the federation my appreciation of your invitation. I consider it an honor, and I look forward to coming to the study group meetings,” I told her politely.
“We are having a joint session of the two groups at an inaugural meeting next Wednesday at two in the afternoon. It’s going to be at the premises of the Shanghai Political Consultative Conference on Beijing Road West. We will be using their premises for our weekly meetings too, and they will invite all of us to their special events. There is also an ‘internal’ shop and restaurant for the convenience of our members,” she added.
“I’ll be there at two on Wednesday,” I promised.
She took her leave. As I closed the front gate after Comrade He, I saw Mrs. Zhu coming out of her room to the garden.
“Was that Comrade He of the Federation of Women?” she asked me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Has she come to invite you to join their study group activities?”
“Yes. But how did you know?”
“I’ve also been invited. But I’m going only to the one on the district level. You are going to the one on the municipal level, I suppose?”
“I’ve no idea which one I’m going to.”
“If you are meeting at the Shanghai Political Consultative Conference premises on Beijing Road West, then you are going to the one on the municipal level,” she said.
“Well, it’s just another study group. It makes no difference what level it’s on,” I told her.
“Oh, it makes a lot of difference. On the municipal level you will be invited to many events that are not open to those on the district level. What’s more, you can use the ‘internal’ shop and restaurant. You’ll be able to get things not available to the general public, such as good cigarettes.”
I was about to enter my part of the house when she added, “The reason you are invited to the municipal level is that your donation to the nursery school program is the second-largest in the city.”
“You seem extremely well informed,” I said dryly.
“You are the subject of gossip in many circles. People are saying you make fine gestures in order to buy a passport to leave the country,” she said, watching my reaction.
“Do you mean to suggest that the People’s Government is an agency for selling passports?” I asked, trying to appear incredulous. Actually I was rather amused by what she was telling me. The Chinese people are extremely sharp and cynical. They believe fine gestures and noble behavior are always motivated by selfish designs.
Rather alarmed, Mrs. Zhu said hastily, “Nobody is saying the People’s Government would sell passports.”
“Good! In that case, there is no point in trying to buy one, is there?” I did not wait for her reply but went inside.
I thought Mrs. Zhu was jealous because in her view I had somehow got ahead of her.
The Political Consultative Conference was a United Front Organization, a part of the campaign for national unity. The appointed delegates had no real voice in affairs of state. In theory they were there to be “consulted”; in practice they were there merely to add an affirmative voice to decisions already taken by the Party. The organization in Shanghai was housed in a large mansion that was once a part of the famous Zhang family garden. Other palatial mansions in Shanghai were often relics of the days of foreign domination. This particular house, however, enjoyed a certain revolutionary mystique, as it used to be the clandestine meeting place for prominent supporters of Sun Yatsen before the revolution of 1911, which established the Chinese Republic. The large garden with its lake and many pavilions had long disappeared. Other buildings had been added, and the mansion itself had been turned into an assembly hall on the ground floor and conference rooms upstairs. At the entrance to the lobby was the “internal” shop, and in a corner of the garden was the restaurant. Both establishments were nonprofit organizations run by the state for the convenience of the delegates.
After I left Shanghai, I met many Europeans and Americans who thought Communist China was an egalitarian society. This simply is not true. The fact is that the Communist government controls goods, services, and opportunities and dispenses them to the people in unequal proportions. The term “internal” was used for goods and services available to officials of a certain rank and a few outsiders on whom for one reason or another the government wished to bestow favor. I have heard the term “internal internal” used to describe goods and services reserved for the very senior officials, especially in the military, who seemed to get the first choice and the lion’s share of everything. Though the salary of a member of the Politburo was no more than eight or ten times that of an industrial worker, the perks available to him without charge were comparable to those enjoyed by kings and presidents of other lands. And the privileges were extended to his family, including his grandchildren, even after his death.
The members of the Federation of Women study group were not really important in the eyes of the government. We were courted by the Shanghai government to accommodate the new political trends: national unity embracing the capitalist class and the “open door” policy of the Four Modernizations. Nearly all of us had some ties with Chinese living abroad. The government was being kind to us in order to win the support of our relatives and to create an image of tolerance for the Western democracies. As far as those “perks” were concerned, they were minimal; even so, I became the envy of my friends and relatives. And they did not hesitate to ask me to buy things for them at the shop or to bring special food home from the restaurant. Soon I discovered that every member of our study group had the same problem. It was an embarrassment I was glad to leave behind when I finally departed from Shanghai.
A-yi was very proud that I had been invited to join the study group of the Federation of Women. She thought I had at last achieved the ultimate in respectability: not only received back into the ranks of the people but also raised by the government to a select group. On the day of the inaugural meeting, she served lunch early and hovered around me to make sure I wore clothes she approved of.
“I think the pale gray. You look so nice in that,” she suggested.
“Not the navy blue?” I took the navy blue trouser suit out of the closet.
“No, pale gray is better. Much younger-looking. I wish you would dye your hair. You would look so much younger if you had black hair.”
I put the navy blue suit back in the closet and took out the pale gray. She smiled with satisfaction and went into the kitchen. “Tell me all about it tomorrow,” she said.
About seventy women, all middle-aged or older, were present at the inaugural meeting of the study groups. We sat in a large, clean conference room with high windows that admitted ample daylight and sunshine. We were served hot green tea in covered glasses. One of the vice-presidents of the federation welcomed us and spoke to us about the Four Modernizations Program, which, she said, had been first proposed by the late Prime Minister Zhou Enlai at the Tenth Party Congress and approved by the late Chairman Mao Zedong. Then she praised our Wise Leader Chairman Hua for smashing the Gang of Four and paving the way for the realization of the Four Modernizations Program. Like all official speakers, she repeated the same ideas, almost in the same language, contained in Party resolutions and speeches by leaders in Beijing.
After we had duly applauded the vice-president, a woman in her early fifties, smartly dressed in a black trouser suit, was introduced to tell us about her recent trip to the United States with her husband, a former capitalist. She apologized for being hoarse and said that she had lost her voice from making many speeches since her return from abroad. Her popularity as a speaker was explained by the content of her speech. She not only described life in the United States as rather less than desirable due to muggings, drugs, drunkenness, and costly medical service, but she also told the audience that in spite of being offered a lucrative job in America, her husband had decided to come back to China to continue his work as chief engineer of the factory he had handed over to the state. Her husband’s greatest ambition was to serve the Four Modernizations Program and to do his part in the effort to make China strong, she said. When she had finished, we applauded heartily.
Obviously her speech was a political message the government wanted the people to hear, but I did not think its purpose was to malign the United States. The government was probably embarrassed by the crowds outside the American consulate general waiting to apply for visas. Her speech was useful to discourage would-be emigrants. In fact, the newspaper had already published several stories of young people who had gone to the United States as immigrants only to find that they could not get jobs or be assimilated into American society. Disappointed, they returned to Shanghai. To their surprise and joy, they found their old jobs waiting for them, and their Party secretaries gave them a hero’s welcome. The stories invariably ended with the young people pledging to work hard for the Four Modernizations Program.
For over a year I was a member of the study group organized by the Federation of Women. We studied the same documents and speeches the Party gave out to study groups all over the country. We joined the delegates of the Political Consultative Conference to hear speeches by prominent officials on subjects ranging from cultural affairs to international relations. And we made use of the shop and restaurant with self-imposed restraint so that we did not appear too eager to take advantage of or abuse the privileges accorded to us.
There were thirty-two women in my study group; the average age was just below sixty. The leader was the seventy-year-old wife of a vice-mayor. Comrade He was one of two Party officials designated to oversee our meetings, take notes of the proceedings, and guide the discussion should it stray from its appointed course. But the vice-mayor’s wife was an experienced chairman, and the rest of us were intelligent enough to know what was expected of us. Our study group activities went along smoothly, never causing Comrade He and the other young officials from the federation a single moment of embarrassment or anxiety.
Though I never once spoke at the study group meetings of the Residents’ Committee, I had to say something every week at the federation meetings. The youngest member of our group, a writer of fifty, was called upon to read the government document we were to discuss. Then it was up to us, seated around a large conference table, to respond. To be overeager to speak was considered just as uncouth as a refusal to talk. If one spoke first, one might say the wrong thing; if one spoke last, one might find that all the right remarks had been made already.
The reading of the document was generally followed by a few minutes of silence while we gazed at our note pads as if seriously considering what we had just heard. Then our chairman, the vice-mayor’s wife, would offer a few hints to guide our discussion. After another moment of silence, one of the bolder ladies would take a sip of tea and raise her head to speak. Others followed. Gradually everybody added something. I generally tried to make my banal remarks in the middle of the discussion, but sometimes I did not succeed. Then I would hope to be overlooked and get away with just listening. However, either Comrade He or the other federation official would always ask me, “What do you think?” and I would have to make a contribution. To speak at the study group was an art. Obviously one could not afford to be original, and there were only a limited number of ways of saying the same thing over and over again. We generally chose to be boring rather than different.
As I got to know Comrade He better and found her free of the class prejudice that inhibited relationships between Party officials and people like myself, I tried to enlist her help to get Meiping’s murderer brought to justice. She was extremely sympathetic and introduced me to a female official from the newly reestablished United Front Organization of the Shanghai Party Secretariat. Comrade He brought the official, Comrade Ma, to my apartment to see me one evening.
After I had told the whole story, Comrade Ma promised to discuss the matter with her superiors. A few days later, she came again with Comrade He.
“I’ve been instructed to inform you that your daughter’s case will be dealt with in due course. There are many cases of mysterious death in Shanghai, and many families are appealing to the government for clarification. For instance, the former director of our department was supposed to have committed suicide. Now his family has raised doubts and provided evidence to show he was probably murdered. Cases like that, which happened so many years ago, are very difficult to clarify. Even when you can prove death was not caused by suicide, you still have to locate the person or persons responsible. Who is going to point an accusing finger at another man who might be working in the same organization? And even when someone is ready to step forth and denounce someone else, can we really believe him?”
“It does seem difficult,” I conceded. “But I believe it isn’t impossible to find the culprit if the government is determined to do so.”
“You must trust the Party and the government. In the not too distant future, there will be an official verdict on the Cultural Revolution. After that, our work to clarify all residual problems will become easier,” Comrade Ma told me. From what she said I understood that since the Cultural Revolution had not yet been officially repudiated, the Revolutionaries who had committed the crimes could not be denounced, because they committed the crimes in the name of the Cultural Revolution. What Comrade Ma did not say but everybody in Shanghai knew was that many Revolutionaries had joined the Party in the meantime and become officials. It is much harder to confront a Party official than an ordinary person.
The two ladies took their leave, and I accompanied them to the front gate. I thanked Comrade Ma for coming and promised her that I would wait patiently.
I did not see Mrs. Zhu standing in the dark on her terrace. After I had closed the front gate, she stepped off the terrace and came towards me. “Were you talking about your daughter?” she asked.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, we were talking about her,” I said.
Since I had been bringing Mrs. Zhu special cigarettes from the “internal” shop at the Political Consultative Conference, our relationship had become more cordial.
“Well, my son told me that the man responsible for her death has been taken into custody. It seems he was involved in several other deaths too.”
“How did your son know about it?”
“It seems his friends in the militia told him.”
I was surprised by this information and wanted to verify its authenticity, so I asked that she send her son up to see me.
He came up later in the evening, but he refused to talk to me about Meiping’s murderer and flatly denied having told his mother anything about the case. “My mother made a mistake. She got things mixed up,” he said.
I did not give much credence to what Mrs. Zhu had told me, brushing it aside as mere gossip, for I thought if the man was in custody the Security Bureau would have informed me and Comrade Ma would have known. In fact, Mrs. Zhu’s son had been correctly informed. A week after I left Shanghai, the man was publicly tried in the Cultural Square, with members of the families of his other five victims in attendance. Da Gong Bao, the left-wing newspaper in Hong Kong, reported the trial and stated that the man was sentenced to death but the sentence was suspended for two years.
One morning in Hong Kong I opened the newspaper, and there was this news item glaring at me, with my daughter listed as one of the victims. When the initial shock subsided, I realized that the Security Bureau had deliberately waited for me to get out of the country before holding the trial. The Cultural Square had seating for over a thousand people, and representatives from every walk of life were normally invited to attend such trials. Members of the families of the victims would occupy the front-row seats and would be invited to express agreement with the verdict and the sentence. China had not abolished the death penalty. According to Chinese law, a convicted murderer should suffer immediate execution after sentencing. The officials at the Security Bureau knew very well a suspended death sentence would not be acceptable to me. In every petition I had sent to the bureau I had stated as much. They had waited until I was out of the way to hold the trial so that I could not be there to protest the verdict. Meiping’s murderer lives in China today, for a suspended death sentence meant that he could go free after two years.
The year 1979 was an important one for Deng Xiaoping and for Communist China. The adoption by the plenary session of the Central Committee in December 1978 of Deng’s favorite Marxist adage that “practice is the only criterion for determining truth” opened the way for his plan to reform and restructure China’s economy. His visit to the United States and the warm reception he received there established him as a leader of world stature. And the war “to punish Vietnam” for her border incursions rallied everyone around the Party in a surge of patriotism. It also helped to convince most of the military leaders, hitherto steeped in Mao Zedong’s concept of People’s War, of the need to modernize China’s armed forces. Deng’s position was further strengthened when four of Hua Guofeng’s supporters were ousted from the Party leadership. Although for the moment Hua Guofeng remained chairman of the Central Committee and prime minister, he had become an isolated figurehead with power slipping out of his grip.
One of the measures of economic reform undertaken by Deng Xiaoping was to open China’s doors to foreign firms. British Petroleum was the first oil company to open an office in Shanghai. Then I read in the Shanghai Liberation Daily that other oil companies, including Shell International Petroleum, had been invited to take part in offshore exploration. I became more hopeful that I would be given my passport in the not too distant future. In fact, I was so confident that I stopped giving English lessons. But it was another nine months before I could leave Shanghai.
When it was Chinese New Year again, in February 1980, I decided to have a big celebration for what might be my last Chinese New Year in Shanghai. I invited my students, the young people who had helped me, and their children to eat “foreign food” and watch fireworks with me. A-yi and I made pork hamburgers and cream of tomato soup for over thirty people. For dessert I ordered three enormous cakes topped with fresh cream from a former White Russian bakery, now state-owned but still producing the same cakes and pastry. My guests were jammed into my apartment. My bed had to be dismantled to make room, and we all sat on the floor to eat our supper. Then we took the large collection of fireworks I had bought into the garden, where for two hours my guests, especially the children, had a wonderful time letting off noisy firecrackers and illuminating the night sky with brilliant bursts of colorful stars and sprays. My neighbors opened their windows and leaned on their balconies to share the fun. The entire Zhu family also came out to watch. But I thought there must have been complaints too, for when I met Lao Li on the street a couple of days later, my policeman asked me, “What was this great noise you were making the other night?”
“Only fireworks to celebrate the Chinese New Year,” I told him.
“Was it necessary to have so much of it?”
“Oh, it was a double celebration, in fact. We were also celebrating our victory in Vietnam.”
I was with one of my young friends when I met Lao Li. After we had left the policeman, she said to me, “Have you heard what people are saying about the war in Vietnam?”
“No, what are they saying?”
“They are saying that Deng Xiaoping ordered the attack on Vietnam to avenge the defeat of the Americans. It was all arranged quietly between him and the American president, Carter, when he was in the United States,” she told me in low whispers.
“That sounds like something put out by the remnants of the Gang of Four. Don’t believe it and don’t talk about it,” I said. Actually, from that time on until the present day, Deng Xiaoping has been plagued by such rumors circulated by opponents of his policy in the Party.
My young friend said, “Yes, you are right. Shanghai is still full of followers of the Gang of Four. But the people are with Deng Xiaoping. Have you seen the historical film Jia Wu Naval Battle?”
“No, what about it?”
“Well, when a naval commander by the name of Deng appears on the screen, the audience cheers and claps. That’s the people’s subtle way of saying they like what Deng Xiaoping is doing.”
Greatly intrigued by what my young friend had told me, I went to the local cinema to see the film for myself a few days later. It was indeed just as she had said. The audience broke out in loud cheers when the naval commander appeared on the screen and was addressed by his subordinate officer as “Your Excellency Deng.”
Before the Chinese New Year, I had received a large gold-embossed card from the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee, the Maoist successor to the municipal government, inviting me to a Chinese New Year celebration at the Shanghai Exhibition Hall, the Sino-Soviet Friendship Building back in the heyday of China’s cooperation with her northern neighbor. The card admitted two persons, so I asked my young friend to accompany me. Since it was a fine day and buses were usually overcrowded during the Chinese New Year holiday period, we walked there in spite of the subfreezing temperature.
As we approached the exhibition hall, cars sped past us, enveloping us in clouds of dust, and we saw that the parking area outside the hall was full of chauffeur-driven cars. However, masses of other guests were on foot like us. It seemed everybody in Shanghai who was considered anybody at the time was invited. I presumed I was on the list submitted by the Federation of Women, since in the crowd I saw several other members of my study group.
We showed our invitation card at the door and were allowed to go in. The place was terribly hot, with central heating at full blast, the more unbearable because we had no heating at home and were not used to it. The hot air hit us like a tidal wave, and perspiration broke out on my forehead. We quickly shed our padded jackets and sweaters as well as our topcoats and added them to the mountain of similar garments discarded by others before us. My young friend was impatient to get to the “internal” shop at the exhibition hall, which was well known to the Shanghai public but inaccessible. She told me that she had boasted to her friends and neighbors that she was coming with me to the party; consequently they had all asked her to utilize the opportunity to buy them commodities they had long coveted but had been unable to obtain in the ordinary shops.
I told her that since we had come for the celebration, we should at least make a show of taking part in some of the planned activities before going to the shop. Meekly but impatiently, she followed me through the halls where games were being played, the theater where artists were performing, and the cafeteria where refreshments were being served. Then, because of the crowds everywhere, we were able to make our way in haste to the shop without attracting too much attention.
Much to my young friend’s disappointment, when we got there we found that a large crowd had preceded us and that the staff was regulating admission into the shop. We had to join the line and wait. When we finally got in, half of the things she wanted were sold out. However, we still managed to spend several thousand yuan on items ranging from cashmere coat material to steel saucepans. We each had four shopping bags weighed down with her purchases, so that we barely managed to stagger to the front entrance to claim our coats and jackets. We tried to get a taxi without success, and there were no pedi-cabs. Then my young friend telephoned home to enlist the help of her two younger brothers, who were asked to come on their bicycles. As we stood in the icy air outside the exhibition hall waiting for her brothers, others similarly laden joined us. Those driving away in chauffeured cars could afford to depart in a dignified manner, without the encumbrance of parcels, because they had their own “internal” source of supply.
Soon after the holiday, almost overnight, temporary housing sprang up on both sides of our street. The structures were no more than makeshift shacks of old timber, bamboo poles, and broken pieces of brick, built against the walls of the existing houses and gardens. The trees on the sidewalk were enclosed in the structures or used as poles. Soon the leaves dropped and the trees died. Each shack was allocated to one family of several people. There were no washing facilities and no toilets. The Residents’ Committee at first told us to keep our front gate open so that our garden taps would be accessible to the people outside. But after several households reported loss of personal property, taps were installed at each end of the street. A young woman sanitation worker came each morning to collect the night soil from buckets in each shack. The odor this operation created was overpowering.
Mrs. Zhu told me that the decision to house the people on our particular street was made by a female official promoted to the district government during the Cultural Revolution. The official said that she had selected our street to house the displaced people because it was too full of former class enemies and capitalists, too clean, and too quiet. To put a large number of proletarians in our midst would be “good” for us. I was astonished to hear this and asked Mrs. Zhu why the other officials did not oppose her. Mrs. Zhu said, “Nobody wants to offend former Revolutionaries promoted to official positions. They are afraid things will change back again.”
We had a shack on each side of our front gate. At first, there was enough space left for us to go in and out. But as time went on, much of the space was taken up by the people in the shacks for storage of their odds and ends. These were covered with old plastic sheets and smelly straw mats to protect them from the weather. Our passage was reduced to a very narrow lane of no more than two feet in width. Boys urinated against our gate, and laundry dripped from a line across our entrance. From morning till night, incessant human voices mixed with the noise of several radio sets tuned to different stations. Our “too quiet and too clean” street was certainly no longer quiet, and far from clean. It was impossible to use the garden or sit on the balcony. But by tacit understanding the Zhus and I put up with the inconveniences without complaint. We were very conscious that the spirit of “class struggle” still lurked and that Party officials, steeped in Mao’s philosophy, could not change easily. Their old working habits had already become second nature to many of them. They simply did not know any other way to discharge their responsibilities. Besides, because the Party leadership had not taken the bold step of totally repudiating Mao’s philosophy, the diehard believers in Maoism could not be removed from office and new blood brought in. These disgruntled Party officials would inevitably make use of every available opportunity to assert their Maoist point of view and to sabotage Deng Xiaoping’s new policy, which they regarded as a betrayal of socialism and Mao Zedong Thought. To this day, even though Deng Xiaoping’s power has increased significantly as compared to 1980, the problem of recalcitrant Party officials remains the most thorny he has to face. And as long as this problem is not resolved, the situation in China will remain subject to sudden change when Deng Xiaoping departs from the scene.
The Zhus and I knew that although we were rehabilitated, our position in Chinese society was by no means secure. Therefore, we put up with our new neighbors and even extended all possible help to make their lives more tolerable. We allowed them to store food in our refrigerators and loaned them our mops and brooms. We were only too thankful that the female Revolutionary Party official had not ordered the shacks to be erected right inside the garden. If she had, there was simply nothing we could have done about it.
Perhaps other residents of our street who were not former class enemies or capitalists were not so restrained. Lu Ying called on Mrs. Zhu and me to have a chat, and the Residents’ Committee officially informed everybody that a new apartment building was being built for the displaced persons. When it was completed, the people would be moved and our street would be restored to its old shape and condition again.
Since 1978 I had seen several visitors from abroad, including my sister Helen and her husband. As the news that I had survived the Cultural Revolution spread among my friends in Europe and North America, I began to receive letters from them. In July 1980, I got a letter from an old friend, Sir John Addis, telling me that he was coming to China and would be in Shanghai in August. He asked if I could see him. Sir John Addis was a Sinologist with a deep understanding and appreciation of Chinese culture. My husband and I had known him since the forties. When he was serving at the British charge d’affaires office in Beijing in the fifties, he was a frequent guest in our house. During the years he served as British ambassador to Laos and the Philippines, we had kept in touch, and in 1965, when he came to China on vacation, he visited me in Shanghai. He was a knowledgeable collector of Chinese porcelain. His collection had been given to the British Museum. I was always interested in hearing his opinion of the pieces I had acquired.
In 1972, while I was in prison, I read about his appointment as the first British ambassador to Beijing. When I was released in 1973, the political situation was such that I could not get in touch with him. Then, in 1974, again from the newspaper, I learned he had left Beijing to retire. I certainly would like to see him again; on the other hand, I did not want to do anything that might be misunderstood by the government and so prejudice my chance of getting my passport. I decided to seek the advice of my policeman, Lao Li, before replying to John’s letter.
I went to the police station and asked to see Lao Li. When he came out of the inner room and sat down across the table from me, I said, “I’ve received a letter from a former British ambassador to Beijing. He’s an old friend. He’s coming to Shanghai. In the letter he asks if he may come to see me.” I took the letter out and translated it verbatim into Chinese for Lao Li.
Lao Li listened to my translation but said nothing. I asked, “Do you think I ought to see him?”
“That’s entirely up to you. It’s your private business,” said Lao Li.
“Perhaps I should not see him?” I asked again.
“Wouldn’t he think it rather strange if you refuse to see him?” Lao Li said.
“Do you mean to say you think I ought to see him?” I said, trying, of course, to find out what he really meant.
“I didn’t say anything like that. It’s entirely your own private business whether you see him or not,” he said rather impatiently.
“I need advice from the government. Sir John Addis was an ambassador, not a schoolteacher or someone like that. He’s a political person,” I told Lao Li.
“I can’t give you advice on your private life,” Lao Li said.
“All right, in that case, I’ll write and tell him I can’t see him,” I said.
“Did I tell you not to see him?”
“Perhaps I should see him?”
“It’s entirely your own private business,” Lao Li said again.
It suddenly dawned on me that I was putting Lao Li in a very awkward position by requesting his advice. I sensed that he was in favor of my seeing Sir John but did not want to be held responsible for saying so outright. I said, “All right, I’ll write and tell him I’ll see him.”
Lao Li smiled and said, “It’s entirely your own decision.”
“Do you think I should invite him to dinner?” I asked.
“Can your A-yi cook a dinner suitable for an ambassador? Besides, what about those shacks outside your door? He has been to your home before the Cultural Revolution. What would he think of your living conditions now?” Lao Li became quite animated as he dispensed advice freely.
“All right, I’ll take him to a restaurant. Thanks for the advice.” I got up from the bench to leave.
Lao Li stood up also. “I didn’t give you any advice,” he said. “It’s entirely your private business.”
“Anyway, thanks for listening to me. I’ll let you know when Sir John comes in August,” I said and went home to answer John’s letter.
On a hot summer’s day in late July, I received a form letter from the Public Security Bureau calling me for an interview at the office where I had applied for my passport. When I got there, I found only one other person in the waiting room, a young man. He was obviously agitated, pacing among the benches, brushing past one and knocking against another. When he saw me, he said, “Have you come for an interview about your passport application?”
I nodded and sat down on a bench. He stood towering over me and said nervously, “Do you think you will get it, or do you think you will be rejected?”
“I’ll soon know, I suppose,” I said.
“Can one apply again if one gets rejected?” he asked.
“Please sit down and wait quietly. I don’t know whether one can apply again or not. You can ask when it’s your turn to go in,” I told him.
He sat down but fixed his eyes on the door to the inner room. When it opened, he jumped up. But I was called. Obviously he had come much ahead of his appointed time.
After I had closed the door and sat down, I laid the printed form I had received on the desk. The official said to me, “You have applied for a passport to go to the United States?”
“Yes.”
“What is the purpose of your trip?”
“To visit my sisters for a family reunion.”
“Do you intend to visit other countries?”
“Yes, on my way there, I’ll visit friends in Canada and Europe.”
“Do you know many people abroad?”
“A few friends here and there.”
He pulled open a drawer and took out the passport I had been waiting for. “Your application has been approved. Here is your passport. The People’s Government wishes to facilitate family reunion. You may go to see your sisters in the United States, and you may visit your friends elsewhere. When you see them, encourage them to come to China. Tell them about the new conditions here and how we are building socialism. Tell them in Taiwan to come back and visit. They will be allowed to come and go freely.”
“I don’t know anyone in Taiwan,” I said.
“Then tell your friends in Hong Kong to come and invest in joint ventures here. Encourage everybody to come and visit.”
I nodded and picked up the passport, glancing at the photograph to make sure the man had not made a mistake.
“When you arrive in the United States, report to our embassy and register,” he said.
“My sisters live in California. The embassy is not there,” I told him.
“Is there no Chinese office where you are going?” He seemed not to believe me.
“No, my sisters live in the country,” I said and left the room.
In his eagerness to come into the inner office, the young man collided with me in the doorway and nearly knocked me over.
My next job was to get a visa from the United States consulate general. To avoid having to line up outside the gate at an early hour of the morning, I paid a call on the local Chartered Bank manager, a Britisher interested in birdwatching. Taking the initiative to see a foreign resident was a bold move not lightly entertained by a Chinese not working for a foreign firm. It was after many days-of consideration that I ventured to the bank’s office on Yuanmingyuan Road. My late husband and I had banked with the Chartered Bank since the early forties, but we had dealt with its branches in Hong Kong and London. Nevertheless, we were not unknown to the succession of managers who had come to Shanghai. Before the Cultural Revolution, they had been guests at our home. The young British manager received me with surprise and welcome, saying that the bank’s officials in Hong Kong and London had been informed I had died during the Cultural Revolution. He also told me that my death had been recorded by the American correspondent Stanley Karnow in his book Mao and China, and by my former Yanjing schoolmate Han Suyin in one of her autobiographies.
I asked him to notify the bank in Hong Kong immediately that I was alive and well and to make an appointment for me with someone at the American consulate. He told me that several American officers of the consulate lived in his apartment building, set aside for foreign residents by the Chinese government, and that he would be glad to speak to them about my case.
Two days later I called at the American consulate general and was given a visa.
When Sir John Addis arrived in Shanghai early in August, I was able to tell him that I would definitely leave China in the autumn. We sat in easy chairs in the middle of the large, empty hotel lobby, in full view of the hotel clerk at the end of the room. Although he was really too far away to listen in to our conversation, I did not dwell on my imprisonment and my daughter’s death; rather I talked mainly about my rehabilitation and the memorial meeting for Meiping. When I told Sir John that my collection of porcelain had been returned and I had donated fifteen pieces to the Shanghai Museum, he asked if he might come to my apartment to see the pieces I had left. Because the official banquet for him was to take place next day at noon, I invited him to dinner at the East Wind Restaurant, formerly the Shanghai Club, a famous British institution with the “longest bar in the Orient.” I said, “I will see whether I can arrange for you to come to my apartment after dinner.”
“I would like to see how you have been living during the last few years,” John said.
When I told Lao Li that Sir John had arrived and that I had seen him, Lao Li asked, “Did you tell him everything that happened to you and your daughter?”
“He knows all about the Cultural Revolution already. He was stationed in Beijing himself, so I wouldn’t think it was a surprise to him to learn what happened to us,” I told him.
“Still, it’s somebody he knows personally,” Lao Li said.
“He has many Chinese friends, including Party officials, I believe. I think he knows China very well indeed.”
“Is he friendly to China?”
“Oh, yes, he is most friendly to China. Would he be invited back now if he weren’t?”
Lao Li visibly relaxed. To him, the Chinese government’s acceptance of Sir John as a friend made a great deal of difference.
“I’ve invited him to a dinner party at the East Wind Restaurant this evening. I’ve also invited the Chartered Bank manager and two Chinese friends to make up a party. Is that all right?” I asked him.
“Certainly, certainly, there must be a few other guests to show him due respect. He was an ambassador,” said Lao Li.
“I’m afraid he wants to come and see my porcelain after dinner. What shall I say to him?”
Poor Lao Li was taken aback. “Oh …” He wrinkled his brow, stroked his chin, and looked thoughtful. I knew he was thinking about those shacks.
“You know, Sir John was stationed in Nanjing and Beijing for many years. He must have seen worse sights than the shacks outside my door,” I reminded him.
“Yes, yes, you are right. In any case, you can’t very well refuse to let a friend come to your home. Bring him after dinner. What time would you be coming?” Lao Li asked.
“Maybe nine o’clock or a little later,” I told him.
When I brought John and the Chartered Bank manager to my apartment by taxi that night, I found the entire street cleared of people. No laundry was hanging outside the shacks, and no radios blared. The things that blocked our entrance had all been removed, and the sidewalk had been swept clean. When John stood on my balcony to look down at my garden, he commented on how peaceful and quiet the place was and said, “Your living conditions are much better than I had imagined.” I didn’t tell him that Lao Li had probably ordered the shack people to remain indoors and keep quiet for his benefit.
I have recorded John’s visit here mainly because I think Lao Li’s behavior rather interesting. While he controlled my life, he did not want to appear to do so. It was up to me to anticipate his wishes and act accordingly. All Chinese Party officials behave in exactly the same manner towards the people. But of course not all of them are so touchingly human as my policeman, who was basically a very kind individual.
After obtaining visas from the embassies of the countries I wanted to visit during my trip, I rented a house for two weeks on Moganshan, near Hangzhou, and went up the mountain for a retreat. In spite of all that had happened, I was sad to leave China, never to return. All Chinese have this feeling of attachment to our native country. No matter how far we travel or how long we are absent, eventually we want to return to die in China. “The fallen leaves return to the root,” we call it. But I had decided already that I would never come back. I would die elsewhere, in some country that would accept me. Now that my departure was imminent, I felt terribly sad. I wanted to sort out the conflicting emotions in my mind through prayer and self-examination before embarking on a new chapter of my life.
When I returned to Shanghai, a farewell tea party was arranged for me by my Federation of Women study group. After our leader announced that I was about to go abroad to visit my sisters, I made a short speech, thanking the Federation of Women for giving me the opportunity of joining such a distinguished group of ladies for my political studies. I praised their intelligence, their patriotism, and their high degree of socialist consciousness and told them that I had greatly benefited from their example. Several other ladies spoke politely too, urging me to tell my relatives and friends abroad about the new situation in China and to encourage them to visit. Comrade He informed everybody that I had booked a passage on a steamer of the newly opened shipping line linking Shanghai and Hong Kong, and she invited a few ladies from our group to join her to see me off.
On September 20, 1980, I left Shanghai. Because private individuals without official passes were barred from the waterfront, only Comrade He and the five ladies from the study group came to see me off in their capacity as representatives of the Federation of Women. They picked me up in a small bus recently imported from Japan. There were very strict rules governing the amount of luggage and money a traveler could take out of the country; I had only one suitcase and one grip. In my handbag was twenty U.S. dollars’ worth of Hong Kong dollars, obtained through the Foreign Exchange Department of the Bank of China. My Chinese bank account and everything else, I had to leave behind.
A light rain was falling by the time we reached the wharf. In spite of Comrade He’s official pass, the ladies were not allowed to go into the passenger waiting room. I said goodbye to them in the rain, and they returned to the bus. They wished me a pleasant trip and a happy reunion with my sisters, but none of them mentioned anything about my coming back. I think they knew that I was unlikely to return to the city that held for me such tragic memories.
After a long wait, the customs office opened and the passengers filed in. My suitcase and grip were thoroughly searched by two customs officials. They also looked in my handbag and counted the Hong Kong bank notes. When they were done, I followed the others into a bus that took us to the ship, anchored some distance downstream.
When the bus stopped alongside the ship, the light rain had become a heavy downpour, accompanied by thunder and lightning. I had neither a raincoat nor an umbrella. Hastily I staggered up the slippery gangway, my luggage dripping with rainwater. The ship was an old steamer of British origin bought by the Chinese government and refitted for the Hong Kong–Shanghai run. My first-class single cabin had a small shower. I warmed myself with a shower and put on dry clothes. Then I went on deck to have a last look at Shanghai.
The ship had lifted anchor and was sailing upstream in order to turn around. Through the misty curtain of rain, I caught a glimpse of the Shell building and the window of my old office. Already the past was assuming an unreal, dreamlike quality. The ship was gathering speed, sailing down the remaining stretch of the Huangpu River. When we reached the Yangzi estuary, the storm was over and rays of sunshine were filtering through the thinning clouds.
Many times in my life I had sailed from Shanghai to go abroad, standing just as I did now on the deck of a ship, with the wind whipping my hair while I watched the coastline of China receding. Never had I felt so sad as I did at that moment. It was I who had brought Meiping back from Hong Kong in April 1949, in response to my husband’s request. The shocking tragedy of her death, I believed, was a direct consequence of our fatal decision to stay in our own country at that crucial moment of history. Therefore I felt guilty for being the one who was alive. I wished it were Meiping standing on the deck of this ship, going away to make a new life for herself. After all, it was the law of nature that the old should die first and the young should live on, not the other way around. Also I felt sad because I was leaving forever the country of my birth. It was a break so final that it was shattering. God knows how hard I tried to remain true to my country. But I failed utterly through no fault of my own.