Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

by Jung Chang

  As part of their education, my mother and her classmates had to watch newsreels of Japan 's progress in the war. Far from being ashamed of their brutality, the Japanese vaunted it as a way to inculcate fear. The films showed Japanese soldiers cutting people in half and prisoners tied to stakes being torn to pieces by dogs. There were lingering close-ups of the victims' terror-stricken eyes as their attackers came at them. The Japanese watched the eleven and twelve-year-old schoolgirls to make sure they did not shut their eyes or try to stick a handkerchief in their mouths to stifle their screams. My mother had nightmares for years to come.

  During 1942, with their army stretched out across China, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Ocean, the Japanese found themselves running short of labor. My mother's whole class was conscripted to work in a textile factory, as were the Japanese children. The local girls had to walk about four miles each way; the Japanese children went by truck. The local girls got a thin gruel made from moldy maize with dead worms floating in it; the Japanese girls had packed lunches with meat, vegetables, and fruit.

  The Japanese girls had easy jobs, like cleaning windows.

  But the local girls had to operate complex spinning machines, which were highly demanding and dangerous even for adults. Their main job was to reconnect broken threads while the machines were running at speed. If they did not spot the broken thread, or reconnect it fast enough, they would be savagely beaten by the Japanese supervisor.

  The girls were terrified. The combination of nervousness, cold, hunger, and fatigue led to many accidents. Over half of my mother's fellow pupils suffered injuries. One day my mother saw a shuttle spin out of a machine and knock out the eye of the girl next to her. All the way to the hospital the Japanese supervisor scolded the girl for not being careful enough.

  After the stint in the factory, my mother moved up into junior high school. Times had changed since my grandmother's youth, and young women were no longer confined to the four walls of their home. It was socially acceptable for women to get a high school education. However, boys and girls received different educations. For girls the aim was to turn them into 'gracious wives and good mothers," as the school motto put it. They learned what the Japanese called 'the way of a woman' looking after a household, cooking and sewing, the tea ceremony, flower arrangement, embroidery, drawing, and the appreciation of art. The single most important thing imparted was how to please one's husband. This included how to dress, how to do one's hair, how to bow, and, above all, how to obey, without question. As my grandmother put it, my mother seemed to have 'rebellious bones," and learned almost none of these skills, even cooking.

  Some exams took the form of practical assignments.

  such as preparing a particular dish or arranging flowers.

  The examination board was made up of local officials, both Japanese and Chinese, and as well as assessing the exams, they also sized up the girls. Photos of them wearing pretty aprons they had designed themselves were put up on the notice board with their assignments. Japanese officials often picked fiances from among the girls, as intermarriage between Japanese men and local women was encouraged. Some girls were also selected to go to Japan to be married to men they had not met. Quite often the girls or rather their families were willing. Toward the end of the occupation one of my mother's friends was chosen to go to Japan, but she missed the ship and was still in JMzhou when the Japanese surrendered. My mother looked askance at her.

  In contrast with their Chinese Mandarin predecessors, who shunned physical activity, the Japanese were keen on sports, which my mother loved. She had recovered from her hip injury, and was a good runner. Once she was selected to run in an important race. She trained for weeks, and was all keyed up for the big day, but a few days before the race the coach, who was Chinese, took her aside and asked her not to try to win. He said he could not explain why. My mother understood. She knew the Japanese did not like to be beaten by the Chinese at anything. There was one other local girl in the race, and the coach asked my mother to pass on the same advice to her, but not to tell her that it came from him. On the day of the race my mother did not even finish in the first six. Her friends could tell she was not trying. But the other local girl could not bear to hold back, and came in first.

  The Japanese soon took their revenge. Every morning there was an assembly, presided over by the headmaster, who was nicknamed "Donkey' because his name when read in the Chinese way (Mao-h) sounded like the word for donkey (mao-h). He would bark out orders in harsh, guttural tones for the four low bows toward the four designated points. First, "Distant worship of the imperial capital!" in the direction of Tokyo. Then, "Distant worship of the national capital!" toward Hsinking, the capital of Manchukuo. Next, "Devoted worship of the Celestial Emperor!" meaning the emperor of Japan. Finally, "Devoted worship of the imperial portrait!" this time to the portrait of Pu Yi. After this came a shallower bow to the teachers.

  On this particular morning, after the bowing was completed, the girl who had won the race the day before was suddenly dragged out of her row by "Donkey," who claimed that her bow to Pu Yi had been less than ninety degrees. He slapped and kicked her and announced that she was being expelled. This was a catastrophe for her and her family.

  Her parents hurriedly married her off to a petty government official. After Japan 's defeat her husband was branded as a collaborator, and as a result the only job his wife could get was in a chemical plant. There were no pollution controls, and when my mother went back to Jinzhou in 1984 and tracked her down she had gone almost blind from the chemicals. She was wry about the ironies of her life: having beaten the Japanese in a race, she had ended up being treated as a kind of collaborator. Even so, she said she had no regrets about winning the race.

  It was difficult for people in Manchukuo to get much idea of what was happening in the rest of the world, or of how Japan was faring in the war. The fighting was a long way away, news was strictly censored, and the radio churned out nothing but propaganda. But they got a sense that Japan was in trouble from a number of signs, especially the worsening food situation.

  The first real news came in summer 1943, when the newspapers reported that one of Japan 's allies, Italy, had surrendered. By the middle of 1944 some Japanese civilians staffing government offices in Manchukuo were being conscripted. Then, on 19 July 1944, American B-29s appeared in the sky over Jinzhou for the first time, though they did not bomb the city. The Japanese ordered even household to dig air-raid shelters, and there was a compulsory air-raid drill every day at school. One day a girl in my mother's class picked up a fire extinguisher and squirted it at a Japanese teacher whom she particularly loathed.

  Previously, this would have brought dire retribution,-but now she was allowed to get away with it. The fide was turning.

  There had been a long-standing campaign to catch flies and rats. The pupils had to chop off the rats' tails, put them in envelopes, and hand them in to the police. The flies had to be put in glass bottles. The police counted every rat tail and every dead fly. One day in 1944 when my mother handed in a glass bottle full to the brim with flies, the Manchukuo policeman said to her: "Not enough for a meal." When he saw the surprised look on her face, he said: "Don't you know? The Nips like dead flies. They fry them and eat them!" My mother could see from the cynical gleam in his eye that he no longer regarded the Japanese as awesome.

  My mother was excited and full of anticipation, but during the autumn of 1944 a dark cloud had appeared: her home did not seem to be as happy as before. She sensed there was discord between her parents.

  The fifteenth night of the eighth moon of the Chinese year was the Mid-Autumn Festival, the festival of family union. On that night my grandmother would place a table with melons, round cakes, and buns outside in the moonlight, in accordance with the custom. The reason this date was the festival of family union is that the Chinese word for 'union' (yuan) is the same as that for 'round' or 'unbroken'; the full autumn moon was supposed to look especially, splendidly, round at thi
s time. All the items of food eaten on that day had to be round too.

  In the silky moonlight, my grandmother would tell my mother stories about the moon: the largest shadow in it was a giant cassia tree which a certain lord, Wu Gang, was spending his entire life trying to cut down. But the tree was enchanted and he was doomed to repeated failu/e. My mother would stare up into the sky and listen, fascinated.

  The full moon was mesmerizingly beautiful to her, but on that night she was not allowed to describe it, because she was forbidden by her mother to utter the word 'round," as Dr. Xia's family had been broken up. Dr. Xia would be downcast for the whole day, and for several days before and after the festival. My grandmother would even lose her usual flair for storytelling.

  On the night of the festival in 1944, my mother and my grandmother were sitting under a trellis covered with winter melons and beans, gazing through the gaps in the shadowy leaves into the vast, cloudless sky. My mother started to say, "The moon is particularly round tonight," but my grandmother interrupted her sharply, then suddenly burst into tears. She rushed into the house, and my mother heard her sobbing and shrieking: "Go back to your son and grandsons! Leave me and my daughter and go your own way!" Then, in gasps between sobs, she said: "Was it my fault or yours that your son killed himself? Why should we have to bear the burden year after year? It isn't me who is stopping you seeing your children. It is they who have refused to come and see you… Since they had left Yixian, only De-gui, Dr. Xia's second son, had visited them. My mother did not hear a sound from Dr. Xia.

  From then on my mother felt there was something wrong. Dr. Xia became increasingly taciturn, and she instinctively avoided him. Every now and then my grandmother would become tearful, and murmur to herself that she and Dr. Xia could never be completely happy with the heavy price they had paid for their love. She would hug my mother close and tell her that she was the only thing she had in her life.

  My mother was in an uncharacteristically melancholy mood as winter descended on Jinzhou. Even the appearance of a second flight of American B-29s in the clear, cold December sky failed to lift her spirits.

  The Japanese were becoming more and more edgy. One day one of my mother's school friends got hold of a book by a banned Chinese writer. Looking for somewhere quiet to read, she went off into the countryside, where she found a cavern which she thought was an empty air-raid shelter.

  Groping around in the dark, her hand touched what felt like a light switch. A piercing noise erupted. What she had touched was an alarm. She had stumbled into an arms depot. Her legs turned to jelly. She tried to run, but got only a couple of hundred yards before some Japanese soldiers caught her and dragged her away.

  Two days later the whole school was marched to a barren, snow-covered stretch of ground outside the west gate, in a bend of the Xiaoling River. Local residents had also been summoned there by the neighborhood chiefs.

  The children were told they were to witness 'the punishment of an evil person who disobeys Great Japan." Suddenly my mother saw her friend being hauled by Japanese guards to a spot right in front of her. The girl was in chains and could hardly walk. She had been tortured, and her face was so swollen that my mother could barely recognize her. Then the Japanese soldiers lifted their rifles and pointed them at the girl, who seemed to be trying to say something, but no sound came out. There was a crack of bullets, and the girl's body slumped as her blood began to drip onto the snow.

  "Donkey," the Japanese headmaster, was scanning the rows of his pupils. With a tremendous effort, my mother tried to hide her emotions. She forced herself to look at the body of her friend, which by now was lying in a glistening red patch in the white snow.

  She heard someone trying to suppress sobs. It was Miss Tanaka, a young Japanese woman teacher whom she liked.

  In an instant "Donkey' was on Miss Tanaka, slapping and kicking her. She fell to the ground, and tried to roll out of the way of his boots, but he went on kicking her ferociously.

  She had betrayed the Japanese race, he bawled. Eventually "Donkey' stopped, looked up at the pupils, and barked the order to march off.

  My mother took one last look at the crooked body of her teacher and the corpse of her friend and forced down her hate.

  4. "Slaves Who Have No Country of Your Own"

  Ruled by Different Masters (1945-1947)

  In May 1945 the news spread around Jinzhou that Germany had surrendered and that the war in Europe was over. US planes were flying over the area much more often: B-29s were bombing other cities in Manchuria, though Jinzhou was not attacked. The feeling that Japan would soon be defeated swept through the city.

  On 8 August my mother's school was ordered to go to a shrine to pray for the victory of Japan. The next day, Soviet and Mongolian troops entered Manchukuo. News came through that the Americans had dropped two atom bombs on Japan: the locals cheered the news. The following days were punctuated by air-raid scares, and school stopped. My mother stayed at home helping to dig an air-raid shelter.

  On 13 August the Xias heard that Japan was suing for peace. Two days later a Chinese neighbor who worked in the government rushed into their house to tell them' there was going to be an important announcement on the radio. Dr. Xia stopped work and came and sat with my grandmother in the courtyard. The announcer said that the Japanese emperor had surrendered. Immediately afterward came the news that Pu Yi had abdicated as emperor of Manchukuo. People crowded into the streets in a state of high excitement. My mother went to her school to see what was happening there. The place seemed dead, except for a faint noise coming from one of the offices. She crept up to have a look: through the window she could see the Japanese teachers huddled together weeping.

  She hardly slept a wink that night and was up at the crack of dawn. When she opened the front door in the morning she saw a small crowd in the street. The bodies of a Japanese woman and two children were lying in the road. A Japanese officer had committed hara-kiri; his family had been lynched.

  One morning a few days after the surrender, the Xias' Japanese neighbors were found dead. Some said they had poisoned themselves. All over Jinzhou Japanese were committing suicide or being lynched. Japanese houses were looted and my mother noticed that one of her poor neighbors suddenly had quite a lot of valuable items for sale.

  Schoolchildren revenged themselves on their Japanese teachers and beat them up ferociously. Some Japanese left their babies on the doorsteps of local families in the hope that they would be saved. A number of Japanese women were raped; many shaved their heads to try to pass as men.

  My mother was worried about Miss Tanaka, who was the only teacher at her school who never slapped the pupils and the only Japanese who had shown distress when my mother's schoolfriend had been executed. She asked her parents if she could hide her in their house. My grandmother looked anxious, but said nothing. Dr. Xia just nodded.

  My mother borrowed a set of clothes from her aunt Lan, who was about the teacher's size, then went and found Miss Tanaka, who was barricaded in her apartment. The clothes fit her well. She was taller than the average Japanese woman, and could easily pass for a Chinese. In case anybody asked, they would say she was my mother's cousin.

  The Chinese have so many cousins no one can keep track of them. She moved into the end room, which had once been Han-chen's refuge.

  In the vacuum left by the Japanese surrender and the collapse of the Manchukuo regime the victims were not just Japanese. The city was in chaos. At night there were gunshots and frequent screams for help. The male members of the household, including my grandmother's fifteen-year-old brother Yu-lin and Dr. Xia's apprentices, took turns keeping guard on the roof every night, armed with stones, axes, and cleavers. Unlike my grandmother, my mother was not scared at all. My grandmother was amazed: "You have your father's blood in your veins," she used to say to her.

  The looting, raping, and killing continued until eight days after the Japanese surrender, when the population was informed that a new army would be arriving the Sovi
et Red Army. On 23 August the neighborhood chiefs told residents to go to the railway station the next day to welcome the Russians. Dr. Xia and my grandmother stayed at home, but my mother joined the large, high-spirited crowd of young people holding colorful triangle-shaped paper flags. As the train pulled in, the crowd started waving their flags and shouting' Wula' (the Chinese approximation of Ura, the Russian word for "Hurrah'). My mother had imagined the Soviet soldiers as victorious heroes with impressive beards, riding on large horses. What she saw was a group of shabbily dressed" pale-skinned youths.

  Apart from the occasional fleeting glimpse of some mysterious figure in a passing car, these were the first white people my mother had ever seen.

  About a thousand Soviet troops were stationed in Jinzhou, and when they first arrived people felt grateful to them for helping to get rid of the Japanese. But the Russians brought new problems. Schools had closed down when the Japanese surrendered, and my mother was getting private lessons. One day on her way home from the tutor's, she saw a truck parked by the side of the road: some Russian soldiers were standing beside it handing out bolts of textiles. Under the Japanese, cloth had been strictly rationed. She went over to have a look; it turned out the cloth was from the factory where she had worked when she was in primary school. The Russians were swapping it for watches, clocks, and knickknacks. My mother remembered that there was an old clock buried somewhere at the bottom of a chest at home. She rushed back and dug it out. She was a bit disappointed to find it was broken, but the Russian soldiers were overjoyed and gave her a bolt of beautiful white cloth with a delicate pink flower pattern on it. Over supper, the family sat shaking their heads in disbelief at these strange foreigners who were so keen on useless old broken clocks and baubles.