The Great Flowing River Page 15

  In addition to publishing, my father opened Time and Tide Bookstore in the best location on a large street in Shapingba in early spring 1941. It was spacious and bright, and in addition to displaying their own publications, there was also a comprehensive selection of the classics and all other publications that could be obtained from around the country during wartime. Since profit was the principal motive for the store, students were welcome to read there, so some books ended up in tatters from being read so much and had to be repaired. During the war, many students had no money to buy books, so many went to Time and Tide Bookstore with no qualms to go through book after book, absorbing knowledge. Some called it the most “up-to-date” library around; others, Zhao Shumin, for example, recalled that for her it was her school of enlightenment.

  Every weekend on my way home, I’d stop at Tide and Time Bookstore to return books, and on my way back to school, stop and borrow some more. As long as there was a book to read, I rarely missed it. During the years of Nationalist and Communist cooperation, many Russian works were translated into Chinese. In addition to reading the works of Turgenev and Tolstoy that I worshipped, I was deeply impressed by Gorky’s Mother; another title that attracted me was Lucia in Love, but other than the title, I can’t remember the author’s name or the story line. Of left-leaning literary works, the most respected at the time was How Steel Is Tempered by Nikolai A. Ostrovsky, which is the autobiography of a worker during the Russian Revolution in 1917. At the time, I really couldn’t understand such strong political ideology, but around 2002, I stumbled on a copy in the used book market in Taipei; it was like encountering an old friend, so I bought it and took it home to reread. The political fanaticism of the Communists that I hadn’t understood sixty years earlier had driven us out of mainland China, and they themselves, prompted by their own fanaticism, ended up killing one another over many years, through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Thinking of all that has happened, one can only feel the unspeakable tragedy of it all. I’m sure the rational basis for my opposition to communism was rooted in me early on, and that sort of book formed the basis for my judgment.

  Having the large and up-to-date library at the Time and Tide Bookstore, I read the Chinese translations of famous Western literary works. Most of those who dared to translate for publication in those years were from literary or education fields, with a solid foundation in Chinese and a thorough grounding in the the study of Western literature. In the days before television, there was no threat to the survival of the publishing world, there was little competition in it, and publishing a book was one way to gain recognition and a true position in society. Editors had broad vision and a good deal of authority and thought it unworthy to be motivated solely by sales. But the vernacular writing in those days was more restrained, not as natural and fluent as it is today.

  Some books that I found moving began to wear out after a few readings because of the poor-quality paper and and the difficulty of printing during wartime. After graduating from high school and waiting for the results of the National Joint College Entrance Exams, I purchased a notebook of the highest quality paper, in which I respectfully copied out Andre Gide’s The Pastoral Symphony and Chinese Garden, a collection of poems by He Qifang, Bian Zhilin, and Li Guangtian. I still treasure the volume today, though the poor-quality ink has faded over the years. Dayan Publishing, founded by Jian Zhen, published a string-bound version of He Qifang’s Painted Dreams in 1989, a copy of which I treasure, also with the feeling of reencountering an old friend.

  At a key time as I was growing up, the impact of Time and Tide on me was profound and far-reaching. Not only did it provide the foundation for a lifetime’s pursuit of knowledge, it also opened my eyes to the world and helped me learn to examine things from a macro perspective. I am most grateful to my father for precisely this, that he took education so seriously, even though I was just a girl.

  THE MASSIVE BOMBINGS

  Life is full of irony, and as I think about it today, there are indeed many things that leave me not knowing whether to laugh or to cry.

  I started to discuss literature when we were taking cover during the air raids on those clear days and moonlit nights. In junior high, my thinking was quite simple, talking about difficult points in the textbook or about the little joys and sorrows of my classmates as we dispersed to the suburbs. Although it was frightening, sometimes missing class (especially mathematics in the morning) and getting out and running around was also quite interesting. But missed classes had to be made up, often in the evening when we were fighting off sleep.

  The bombings were particularly bad in my first year of senior high and the casualties were heavy. Responding to the government call, Time and Tide constructed a pretty sturdy air-raid shelter on the mountain slope. The shelter could hold about twenty people; inside were a small desk and a number of wooden stools, electric lights, and water and dried food. This allowed the editors to work on manuscripts while taking shelter. My parents told me to go there immediately in the event of an air raid via the small path through the paddy field. The school encouraged the senior high students to take three to five junior high students along when they took shelter. I usually brought Hong Chan and Hong Juan, the daughters of my father’s friend Uncle Hong Lanyou, with me. After the all-clear signal, we’d pass by my house and eat our fill before going back to school. The threat of death was always present outside the air-raid shelter, but every living moment listening to the grown-ups discuss the current political situation and analyze current events was precious and inspiring for me. In those days, the sound of bombs reverberated in our ears, but the books read in the shelter also stirred my heart. On the way back to school, I’d often retell what I’d read in a book. This was probably the only way to assuage the fear in those days.

  I was fortunate (or perhaps unfortunate) to have been born into the household of a revolutionary, so the tragic historical scenes I heard about and saw as well as personally experienced were all branded on my mind. The peace and happiness of the second half of my life were not sufficient to erase them. The most profound and lasting of all occurred between the ages of thirteen and twenty—the relentless and violent bombings by the Japanese throughout the years of my growing up. Every day the sun would rise as usual, but in the sunshine, survival was a luxury.

  When I recall all the frightening scenes that took place during those dark nights sixty years ago, they are just as vivid today. Rereading the history of the War of Resistance, even the simplest such as Daily Record of the Major Events of the Republic of China (published by Biographical Literature, Taipei, 1989), which contains just a few lines for each day, for August 1940, in addition to important international news and reports from the front lines, there is also recorded the following:

  August 9: Sixty-three Japanese planes attack Chongqing.

  August 11: Ninety Japanese planes attack Chongqing, five of which are shot down.

  August 19: One hundred ninety Japanese planes bomb the urban district of Chongqing.

  August 20: One hundred seventy Japanese planes again bomb Chongqing. A huge fire burns in the urban district and civilian losses are massive.

  August 23: More than eighty Japanese planes attack Chongqing.

  September 13: Forty-four Japanese planes attack Chongqing, six of which are shot down.

  September 18: The ninth anniversary of the fall of northeast China. Li Du reports that in the first half of the year, the volunteer army of the northeast fought more than 3,200 times, which amounts to attacking the Japanese bandits on average twenty times a day.

  October 7: Fierce air battle over Kunming.

  December 29: President Roosevelt, in a fireside chat, proclaims that the fates of China, the United States, and England are closely linked and that America has taken upon itself the duty of being the arsenal of the democratic nations and will be sending large quantities of military supplies to assist China.

  In his famous fireside chat, Roosevelt said there was no Shangr
i-la left in the world. This was the famous place name in the English writer James Hilton’s book Lost Horizon, published in 1933, a place still world famous today.

  On June 5, 1941, the Japanese bandit planes attacked Chongqing at night. A tragic incident of suffocation occurred in the large tunnel at the entrance of Jiaochangkou, and more than thirty thousand city residents were killed or injured. The report points out that the Japanese bombed the various exits of the tunnel, cutting off all escape routes. Amid the conflagration, rescuers were able to open two or three exits. Most of the people trapped in the tunnel had torn open their clothes and clawed their chests before suffocating, and their faces were etched with the struggle and suffering; there were few survivors. The brutality of the Japanese is evident throughout these blood-soaked pages, but such cruelty served to further unify resolve to fight them. The national hatred that cannot be omitted from the historical record still fills me with anger and grief to this day.

  On August 7, 1941, the Japanese planes began around-the-clock bombing of Chongqing, with the goal of breaking the Chinese people’s resistance. Almost every day more than a hundred planes would bomb different parts of Sichuan, and several small cities were half destroyed. Until the thirteenth, they attacked for one week, day and night, with less than six hours between bombings. There was no drinking water or light in Chongqing and people had no food and no place to sleep, but under such maltreatment, the will to fight was even stronger. On that day, eighty-six planes attacked Commander Chiang’s troops stationed at Zengjiayan, dropping bombs three times without hitting the target. On the thirtieth of the same month, they attacked the war council’s meeting place at Huangshan, killing many guards and destroying the Nationalist government’s auditorium.

  Throughout August, bombs fell on Chongqing, which is called one of the three great summer furnaces along with Nanjing and Hankou. In the high heat of midsummer, residents of the city were besieged by bombings and countless fires caused by the incendiary bombs. Not a single street in Chongqing was undamaged, and the residents seemed to live in a purgatory, tasting all sorts of tortures.

  One day the Japanese planes bombed Shapingba, intending to destroy the spiritual bastion of the cultural center. Half my house’s roof was blown off, and the neighboring farmer was killed; his mother sat on the ridge between the fields and cried for three days and three nights. Hong Chan, Hong Juan, and I bravely returned to the still-standing dining room, found the rice still warm in the wooden rice bowl, and even ate a bowl before the two of them returned to school. That night, a torrential rain fell, and our entire family, half sitting and half reclining, squeezed into the half of the house where the roof remained. My mother was sick and had to lie in her own bed, over which was spread a large oilcloth to keep the rain off. My father sat at the head of the bed, holding an oilpaper umbrella in one hand to cover his head and my mother’s, waiting for day to break.…

  That was one of the earliest scenes from my youth. Death could fall from the sky night or day, but the life force of the survivors grew ever more resilient. Even at seventeen or eighteen, a fiercely unconquerable spirit was fostered, along with a yearning to roar with anger.

  A THOUSAND PEOPLE SINGING TOGETHER

  Winter break in 1941 was spent amid the bombings. After classes resumed, the Nankai chorus practiced “A Thousand People Sing Together” each day for one hour under the direction of our teacher Li Baochen. The first performance was held in the auditorium on March 12. Later, another performance was held under a makeshift shelter amid the ruins of downtown Chongqing (later referred to as Spiritual Bastion Plaza). Twenty choruses from throughout the city joined together to sing patriotic songs, hoping that all the suffering compatriots in the city would hear, that all of the world would hear, and that all the lost souls would hear. We sang:

  China is certainly strong! China is certainly strong!

  Look at the eight hundred warriors, an isolated force rising to guard the eastern battlefield.…

  Arise, those unwilling to be slaves, and build a new Great Wall with our flesh and blood.

  The Chinese people are in great danger; each person is forced to roar in anger.

  That night, the sound of singing shook the sky, everyone’s blood boiled, and the tears were never dry, as we loudly sang out the suppressed grief and indignation of national emnity. Many years later Mr. Li recalled, “When I stepped up to the podium to conduct, I saw the buildings burned and destroyed by the Japanese planes behind the chorus and heard in the singing of a thousand people the magnificent sound of the Chinese nation.” The power of that singing is unimaginable in a time of peace.

  When we came out after the performance that night, there were several large military trucks to take us back to Shapingba. As our truck was going around a curve, the tailgate was forced open by the overload of people inside and we all spilled out onto the road. Falling down into a pile as we did, no one was really hurt, but all we heard was shouting, after which we picked ourselves up and set off in pursuit of the truck. A boy surnamed Hu, who ended up on the bottom of the pile, was a genius on the piano at Nankai and had played a piano concert on campus. I quickly got to my feet, helped him up, and asked with some urgency, “Are your hands okay?” Over the years I have occasionally thought about him, but I can’t remember his name or if he ever became a pianist.

  That evening we laughed as we pursued the truck over the damaged highway. The Jialing River flowing along the road as the moon was rising created a beautiful scene like a fairyland. Youth finally had a moment to catch its breath under the shadow of death amid the flames of war. That temporary respite of happiness is unforgettable.

  In addition to the academic atmosphere at Nankai, there were also many artistic and social activities, with concerts and choruses frequent on campus. Among the solo performers was the mezzo-soprano Zeng Hui’en, who sang “A Flower Is Not a Flower” and “I Live at the Head of the Yangtze,” which spoke directly to the heart. Some called her “Voice of the Angel,” and she was able to intoxicate us. Fifty years later, while attending an alumni meeting for the class of 1943, I learned that she had been teaching vocal music all along at the Hangzhou College of Music. Another memorable figure was Zhu Shikai, a tenor. He was the toast of the school because he sang “Brindisi,” the drinking song from La Traviata. Some were simply crazy about him, and each time he sang “Duna” even more girls came to think of him as their Prince Charming. Forty years later, I ran into him in Taiwan at a gathering of Nankai alumni. Old as I was, I still felt a fan’s admiration for him, telling him how all the girls were captivated by him back in the day. After he returned to the States, he sent me a handwritten copy of the lyrics of “Duna.” I sighed, lamenting over the dreamlike past. He had long been suffering from high blood pressure and died before he reached seventy.

  Another unique feature of Nankai was the Drama Society, which was set up by Principal Zhang shortly after the school was established. The original purpose was to arouse patriotism by performing patriotic plays, as art and culture were also ways to save the country. In the beginning Principal Zhang wrote and directed the plays. In the 1920s, Zhou Enlai studied at the school and worked on the stage settings and played a female role (as men and women could not perform together in a play back then). When I attended the school the society no longer limited itself to performing patriotic plays, and one year the graduating class performed Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan. Lu Qiaozhen, who played the leading role, was one year ahead of me. Normally she wore a uniform and was lively and refined, but on stage her every movement was filled with the charm of a mature, elegant lady, leaving everyone amazed.

  Stage performances, concerts, and all kinds of ball games at Nankai were great occasions at Shapingba and earned the support of National Central and Chongqing universities. There were some recognized stars who attracted a good deal of attention walking down the only street in town. One year the Nankai basketball team and Northeast Sun Yat-sen Middle School’s basketball team, both of which pr
oduced players of national caliber, had an exciting match, which Sun Yat-sen won by a whisker. Fortunately, I had already graduated; otherwise I would have had a difficult time deciding whom to root for.

  FAREWELL, ALMA MATER

  In addition to studying, friendship was something else that I cultivated and harvested during the three years of high school. As a person grows, aspiration gradually becomes an important factor in friendship, and from my first year in junior high to my last year in senior high school, only a little more than thirty people with whom I shared joys and hardships remained the whole time. Most of the others opted for the sciences when they were in their junior year, while I and around ten others selected the liberal arts.

  In general, the people in the liberal arts were not suited for the sciences, but that didn’t mean they were good at the liberal arts either. My Chinese and English scores were very high, and I was always selected as chief editor of our wall newspaper and won several writing contests. In the dormitory, where there were no academic divisions, I would tell stories from books or movies after lights out, which were always welcomed, and in this way I maintained my friendships with some old friends who studied the sciences.