by Lisa See
So, out into the streets. Hong Kong bustles with life: flower and bird sellers, street markets, British businessmen in three-piece suits, beautifully dressed women holding umbrellas to shield them from the sun. I could say that Hong Kong is just a bigger, gaudier, richer, more cosmopolitan version of Chinatown, but then I’d have to admit that it isn’t like my adopted home much at all, except for the food, the streams of white tourists, and the Chinese faces. I could say Hong Kong is closer to how I remember Shanghai, with its lively waterfront, the sex and sin for sale, and the smells of perfume, coal, and delectable treats being cooked right on the street, except that it isn’t nearly as grand or wealthy as the city of my girlhood.
An hour later, I reach the Soo Yuen Benevolent Association’s office and approach a thin man of about fifty years, wearing a cheap suit, standing behind a counter, drinking tea. I extend my hand. “I’m Pearl Louie and I’m from Los Angeles,” I blurt. “My daughter was born in America. She looks Chinese on the outside, but she’s an American. My daughter …” Tears well in my eyes, and I manage to hold them back. “She’s only nineteen and she’s run away to China—Shanghai, I’m pretty sure—to find her father. She thinks she’s smart and she has a lot of enthusiasm for what’s happening there, but she doesn’t know anything about it.”
How can I say these things to a total stranger? Because I can’t expect this man to help me, if I’m not honest with him.
“Are you planning on going to the People’s Republic of China?” he asks, unimpressed.
“You say that like it’s nothing, but China is a Communist country. It’s closed.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says in a bored tone. “The Bamboo Curtain and all that.”
I can’t believe his attitude. I just poured out my sorrows and worries and he acts like neither thing is important.
I rap my knuckles on the counter to get his attention. “Are you going to help me or not?”
“Look, lady, it’s a bamboo curtain, not an iron curtain. People go in and out of China all the time. It’s not a big deal.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask impatiently. “China is closed—”
“The People’s Republic of China is very good at propaganda, but so is your country. You Americans think the People’s Republic of China is completely closed. That’s part of your government’s campaign to isolate China—refusing diplomatic recognition, prohibiting trade, restricting family reunification visits …”
I’m fully aware that the United States is punishing China for its role in the Korean War and for supporting the Soviet Union in the Cold War. If that weren’t enough, there’s the constant irritant of Taiwan, as well as the threat of the spread of communism.
“But the British are still doing business there.” He leans forward to stress his point. “All those Eastern European countries are doing things there. Even Americans—journalists invited by Mao and the government—go in and out of China. But mainly, we Chinese have continued to do business there. Hong Kong and mainland China have had a special business relationship for hundreds of years, long before Hong Kong was a colony. How are we to live without Chinese herbal medicine, for example?”
When I stare at him blankly, he answers his own question. “We can’t. We need ingredients for all kinds of afflictions—mumps, fever, problems below the belt … And remember, in forty years Hong Kong will go back to the People’s Republic of China. Don’t think those Communists aren’t trying to get their fingers in the pie already. Through Hong Kong, the Peking regime can absorb foreign exchange, buy materials that are hard to get elsewhere, and export certain materials to other countries. Not that getting people and things in or out is completely painless—”
“One of my greatest fears is that my daughter went to China and was immediately taken out and shot. Are you saying that didn’t happen?” I ask, because nothing he’s telling me matches up with anything I’ve read or been told about what’s happening in the PRC.
“Propaganda,” he says, emphasizing each syllable. “Again, you don’t understand how many Chinese are going back to China every day. Since Liberation, over sixty thousand Overseas Chinese have gone back to Fukien alone. Another ninety thousand have returned to the motherland from Indonesia. You think the government would kill all those people?” he scoffs. “But if you’re so worried, maybe you shouldn’t go.”
“But I need to find my daughter.” (And I don’t care what he says. I’ve read the papers. I’ve seen the news. It’s Red China, for heaven’s sake.)
He looks me up and down, appraising me for the widow I am. Then he says, “As you say, she’s a daughter. Maybe she’s not worth it. If she were a son, that would be different.” Hong Kong may be a British colony, but Chinese ways and traditions are old and deep. I’m so angry I want to hit him. “Forget this stupid girl,” he adds. “You can have other children. You’re still young enough.”
“Yes, yes,” I agree, because what’s the point in arguing about a daughter’s value or putting this man in his place for offending a widow’s vows? “Still, I’m going to China and I need help.”
“Ah! Square one! What kind of help do you need?”
“Just two things. I need to receive letters and money from my sister, and I need to be able to write back to her.”
“Have you done this before—written to China?”
“My father-in-law used this association to send money back to his home village,” I answer.
“Tell me your family name again.”
“My maiden name was Chin. My married name is Louie.”
The man steps away, looks through some files, and comes back with an index card. “Money was sent from your family in Los Angeles to Wah Hong Village until just this month.” His attitude seems to change with this knowledge. “Shall I send money to you in Wah Hong?”
“I’m not going there.”
“That’s all right. We can still get mail to you as long as you’re somewhere in Kwangtung province. Our connections are just over the border, as they’ve been for over a hundred years.”
“But I’m going to Shanghai.” Joy said she wanted to meet her father. That’s where she has to be.
“Shanghai.” He grimaces. “I can’t send anything directly to Shanghai. We don’t have connections there.”
“If you send mail to our relatives in Wah Hong, could they send it on to me?”
He nods, but I need to verify what’s possible.
“How does it work?”
“You have someone send us money—”
“My sister will send letters and money, maybe even packages. We’ll have to consider the cost—”
“And the time. You can send an airmail letter from the United States to Hong Kong quickly and easily, but the cost to send a package by air is prohibitive.”
“I realize that. I’ll tell my sister to send packages by boat.”
“In any case, I’ll put whatever she sends in a new envelope—or package—and address it to your cousin”—he glances at the card in his hand—“Louie Yun. I’ll give it to one of my men, who’ll then take it with him on the train to Canton. From there, he’ll go to Wah Hong and deliver the letter to Louie Yun, who’ll put the letter in a whole new envelope and mail it on to you in Shanghai. Obviously, you’ll need to contact this cousin to tell him what he’ll need to do—”
I want to go straight to Shanghai, but I say, “I’ll take care of it.” After a pause, I ask, “Does it have to be so complicated?”
“If you want to receive just mail, then it’s pretty easy, although it might be read, censored, and maybe even confiscated entirely. If you want to receive money—”
“I don’t want anyone in the village to get in trouble,” I interrupt. “A while ago, we received a letter from one of the cousins in Wah Hong, saying they didn’t need our money any longer. ‘There are no wants in the new China,’ he wrote. He was later killed trying to escape—”
The man behind the desk snorts. “China is unpredictable, and the situation t
here changes from week to week. Right now, the Communists want people to send money. They need the money. They want foreign investment. Believe me, they’ll happily take your money.”
“I don’t want them to take my money, and I don’t want to invest,” I say. “I just want to make sure the letters that are sent reach the intended parties—on both ends.”
He throws his hands in the air impatiently. “Think, Mrs. Louie! If you want them to take some or all of your money, then just have your sister send her envelope directly to you and see what arrives. Or you can have her hide money in a package and use us to get it to you. We—and other family and district associations—have been doing this a long time. We know what we’re doing.”
“You swear that my relatives will actually receive my sister’s letters and that they won’t get in trouble.”
“If they’re caught, yes, they’ll get in trouble!” Which is equally true for May sending mail directly to or receiving it from Red China. “So let’s make sure no one is caught.”
I don’t feel confident about any of this, but what can I do? It may not be perfect, but I now have a way to get mail into China: from May to the Soo Yuen Benevolent Association, and then to Father Louie’s family in Wah Hong and on to me in Shanghai. The same process will work in reverse for me to send mail to my sister. I wish May and I had a go-between who was blood close, but that’s not possible. May and I are related to everyone in our home village of Yin Bo, but I left there when I was three and May was only a baby. My mother is dead. We never learned what happened to my father. I’m sure he’s dead—murdered by the Green Gang, massacred in one of the Shanghai bombings, or killed by Japanese soldiers after he deserted us. The people of Yin Bo might not remember me, May, or our parents. And even if they did, could they be trusted?
“May I offer some advice?” the man from the family association asks. “I told you lots of people are returning to China, and it’s true. Getting in is easy, but getting out is hard. You shouldn’t go there unless you have an exit plan.”
“I’m willing to remain in China as long as I can find—”
He holds up a hand to keep me from continuing. “Your daughter, I know.” He scratches his neck and asks, “So do you have an exit plan?”
“I haven’t thought beyond finding my daughter,” I admit. “I can’t let her be there by herself.”
He shakes his head at my doggedness. “If there’s a way out of China, it’s through Canton. If you and your daughter can get to Canton, then you’ll be just two of hundreds who leave every day.”
“Hundreds? You said that tens of thousands of people are returning to China.”
“That’s my point. It’s not easy getting out, but people manage to do it. Some days it feels like half of what I do here is send money back to home villages to take care of houses for people who’ve left. There are whole villages—deserted—just over the border. We call them ghost villages. Some people leave their houses just as they were that morning—furniture, clothes, cupboards full of preserved food—so that everything will be exactly the same when they return—”
“When can I depart?” I ask, cutting him off.
“When will you be ready?”
After finalizing the arrangements—including making a plan for someone to pick me up at the Canton train station and take me to Wah Hong—he offers one last piece of advice. “The People’s Republic of China is almost eight years old. It’s changing all the time. It’s not going to be what you remember or what you think it should be, and it certainly isn’t going to be what you’ve heard in America.”
When I get back to my hotel, I ask the woman at the front desk for a form to write a telegram. Then I find a chair in the lobby and write to May: ARRIVED HONG KONG. TOMORROW I GO TO WAH HONG. WILL SEND MAIL DETAILS WHEN I GET TO SHANGHAI.
THE NEXT DAY, I put on the peasant clothes my sister bought for me twenty years ago to wear out of China. I go to the railway station, buy a one-way ticket on the Kowloon–Canton Railway, and board the train. It starts to move, and in minutes we’ve left the city and are crossing the New Territories, which are still part of the colony.
I wonder how Joy got across. What if she went to China and China didn’t want her? They would have known immediately she wasn’t from Shanghai. We always thought her Chinese was good compared with that of the other kids in Chinatown, but her accent … And I don’t know who or what to believe—the man at the family association or everything I’ve heard about Red China in Los Angeles. Is Joy dead already? What if people decided she was a spy? What if she was killed the moment she set foot in China? This is my greatest fear, the thing that turns my heart black with despair. What point will be served if I follow her? Just another death—my own. Other questions torture me too: If I find Joy, what physical and emotional shape will she be in? Will she even want to see me? Will we be able to repair our relationship, which, after all, was based on a lie? Will she come home with me, assuming we can find a way out of the country?
The twenty miles to the border—a bridge above the Sham Chun River—comes sooner than I expected. The flag of the People’s Republic of China flaps in the breeze. Guards come through the train. They check the identity cards of those who are returning home from doing business or visiting relatives in Hong Kong. It’s a large number, which confirms what the man at the family association told me. This is, it occurs to me, much like the border between California and Mexico, where many people cross back and forth each day to do business.
When I tell the guard I’m an Overseas Chinese who’s returning home, I’m taken off the train, along with a few others. Memories of entering America flood my mind: my sister and I being separated from the other passengers and being sent to the Angel Island Immigration Station, where we were interrogated for months. Is that what’s going to happen now?
I’m escorted into a room. The door is shut and locked behind me. I wait until an inspector enters. He’s a lot shorter than I am, but he’s wiry and tough.
“Are you stateless?” he asks.
Hmmm … Good question. I don’t have a passport. All I have is my Certificate of Identity issued by the United States. I show it to the inspector, who doesn’t know what to make of it.
“Are you an American citizen?” he asks.
If this really is like Angel Island, then I have to follow what May and I did back then—muddle the story to thwart the bureaucracy.
“They wouldn’t let me become a citizen,” I answer. “I wasn’t good enough for them. They treat the Chinese very badly.”
“What is the purpose of your return to the People’s Republic of China?”
“To help build the nation,” I answer dutifully.
“Are you a scientist, a doctor, or an engineer? Can you help us build an atomic bomb, cure a disease, or design a dam? Do you have airplanes, a factory, or property to donate to the government?” When I shake my head, he asks, “Well, then, what are we supposed to do with you? How do you think you will help us?”
I hold up my hands. “I will help with these.”
“Are you ready to give up the filthy, stinky American ideals you’ve cherished in your heart?”
“Yes, absolutely!” I answer.
“Are you a returning student? We have a special reception station in Canton for returning students, who are expected to make a clean breast of their reasons for coming back to China, their ideas about fame and profit, and any anti-Communist thoughts they might harbor.”
“Forgive me, but do I look like a student?”
“You look like someone who is hiding something. You don’t fool me by wearing the clothes of the people.” The scrape of his chair against the concrete floor as he stands feels ominous. “Stay here.” He leaves the room, once again locking the door.
I’m confused and scared. The man at the family association said this would be easy, but that’s not what I’m feeling. Could Joy have gone through this? Did she declare herself stateless and give up her passport? I hope not.
The
door opens, and a woman enters. “Remove your clothes.”
This really is too much like Angel Island. I didn’t like being examined then and I don’t want it to happen now. Ever since the rape, I’ve been afraid to be touched by anyone, not by those I love and who love me, not even by my own daughter.
“I have other people to search. Hurry up!” she orders.
I strip down to my underwear.
“A brassiere is a sign of Western decadence,” she says derisively. “Give it here.”
I do as I’m told and then cross my arms over my breasts.
“You may dress.”
The inspector returns, and I’m questioned for another hour. My bags are searched and some items, including my other bra, are confiscated. I reboard the train. And then, in moments, we cross the border into mainland China. I don’t have a chance to see it, however, because a guard enters the car and orders all shades closed.
“Any time we pass a bridge, an industrial site, or a military installation, you will lower your shades,” he announces. “You will not get off the train until you reach the destination on your ticket.”
