by Cheng Nien
Next morning, the newspaper printed a report of the memorial meetings of the film studio. Meiping was listed among the dead artists. The news of my own rehabilitation also spread as a result. During the following month of December and over the New Year holiday period, I had many visitors. Relatives who had kept their distance and avoided my daughter and me when our lives were under a cloud now claimed me as their dearest and nearest. They told me that they had worried about me and cried for Meiping. Some of them offered to live with me and take care of me, while others nominated their children for me to adopt so that I would not be childless. None of them attempted to explain why they had not shown us sympathy or given us help when we needed it. They felt no remorse for neglecting us, partly because some of them had had difficulties of their own and partly because they had behaved in exactly the same manner as millions of other Chinese living under the shadow of Mao Zedong. They thought I would understand.
Even minus a large sum that had somehow got lost after the Red Guards took my money away, the money returned to me from bank deposits was more than I could possibly use. Through the Party secretary of the Residents’ Committee I learned that the Federation of Women had started a program to rebuild nursery schools and day-care centers that had been destroyed by the Red Guards. To help young working couples with small children seemed a worthy cause. I gave the Party secretary a donation of 60,000 yuan (about $40,000 at the exchange rate of 1978). And I distributed cash gifts to my husband’s and my own relatives, the young people who had helped me after my release from prison, my old servants, and widows of former Shell staff members who had died since the Cultural Revolution. To absorb the large amount of cash that had been returned to the people, the government released on the market such household appliances as refrigerators and television sets imported from Japan, and organized a travel agency to offer sightseeing trips to scenic spots. The prices charged were very high. For instance, a twenty-inch Hitachi television set was priced at over 2,000 yuan. But the Shanghai people, starved for consumer goods, eagerly bought them. As for those who had large sums returned, they went on a spending spree.
On New Year’s Day, 1979, China and the United States established diplomatic relations. This development triggered a terrific vogue for studying English. When I went to the public park to join a class for taijiquan exercise in the mornings, I saw young people on the benches, on the lawn, and in the pavilions reading English textbooks or spelling English words aloud. The daily English lessons broadcast by the Voice of America became very popular. The young people boldly purchased powerful radio sets and tuned in. The fact that they also listened to the News Bulletin in Special English following the lessons was incidental. As the government took no action to stop this trend, even people not learning English began to listen openly to the Voice of America broadcasts. To listen to foreign broadcasts had always been taboo in Communist China. Those of us who listened surreptitiously never dared to talk about what we heard, even before the Cultural Revolution. Now people not only listened to the Voice of America but discussed what they heard openly. In the schools, English became the first foreign language taught to the students. Even eight-year-olds were given English lessons. Now when I met the schoolchildren who used to yell, “Spy, imperialist spy!” at me, I was greeted with “good morning” or “good afternoon.”
Early in the New Year, the Party secretary of the English Department of the Foreign Language Institute called on me to offer me a job as a teacher of English.
“I’ve come to invite you to join our department. There is now a great need to teach our young people foreign languages, especially English. We are expanding the department and hiring new teachers,” he declared with a big smile, happy in the knowledge that he and his department had suddenly acquired prominence.
I had already heard that the former Shell doctor had been invited to teach English at the Foreign Language Institute. But I had no intention of getting myself involved and prejudicing my plan of eventual departure from Shanghai. Unemployed, I had a much better chance of getting a passport, for no one would be able to say I was needed for some kind of work and use it as an excuse to deny my application to go abroad. Since I was going to refuse his offer, I thought I should be extra polite to put him in a good mood. “I’m honored by your visit,” I said. “You are the Party secretary of the department, with a lot of responsibility, yet you have taken the time to come to see me yourself rather than sending a deputy. I’m indeed most honored. But I’m afraid I am not well enough to take on a full-time job. I have had rather an unusual experience and a serious operation.”
“I know all about that,” he said. “I have already checked with the Public Security Bureau.”
“Since you have been in touch with the Public Security Bureau, you know I have only recently been rehabilitated. I need time to get my personal affairs in order,” I told him.
“Don’t you want to serve the people?” he asked.
“To serve the people” was perhaps the most publicized slogan of the Chinese Communist Party. It was a phrase taken from an essay Mao Zedong wrote in 1944 to commemorate the death of a Party member, Zhang Side. Whenever the Party wanted a man to do something he did not want to do, the official would ask, “Don’t you want to serve the people?”
It was impossible for me to say that I didn’t want to serve the people. I thought a compromise was in order. “Would you agree to my teaching a few students here at my home?”
“You mean teaching them individually?”
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid we’ve never had that kind of arrangement before. How are we to calculate your pay if you do not come to teach at the institute?”
“I would be quite happy to do it without pay. To serve the people, as you have said.”
After thinking over my proposal for a few moments, he said, “I’ll have to discuss your suggestion with my colleagues. I will let you know what we have decided.”
He took his leave.
I never heard from him again. By offering an alternative he could not accept, I put the ball in his court and saved his face. Instead of my refusing him, he was refusing me. This was the only way to deal with people who hated to be refused.
The newly opened United States consulate general was located on Huaihai Road, a few blocks from the small park where I did my daily taijiquan exercise. On my way to and from the park in the early hours of the morning, I would see people in long lines outside the gate waiting patiently to apply for visas. And my students would bring me news of relatives and friends being given passports to leave the country. The major subject of discussion among young people was no longer how many lovers Jiang Qing had or how many innocent people had been killed during the Cultural Revolution but which Politburo or Central Committee member was sending his sons and daughters to America on the student exchange program. Now that China was welcoming visitors from abroad, overseas Chinese flocked into China to visit their relatives. They brought consumer goods with them as presents and offered to help with the education of family members who had missed going to college because of the Cultural Revolution. To go abroad, especially to go to the United States, became the most prestigious thing to do for young and old alike.
The political situation in China in 1979 was also good. Although Hua Guofeng continued to be the head of both the Party and the government, Deng Xiaoping was expanding his power and more collaborators of the Gang of Four were being ousted from Party leadership. There was an atmosphere of relaxation and hope in the country, reminiscent of the middle fifties, before Mao Zedong clamped down on the intellectuals with the Anti-Rightist Campaign.
I thought I must somehow get a passport before the Party tightened up again. The question was what reason I should give the authorities for my proposed journey abroad. It had to be good enough to ensure approval, because a refusal recorded in my dossier would prejudice future applications.
One night when I tuned in to the Voice of America’s program of international news, I learned
that China was applying to the United States for most-favored-nation status. Tucked away somewhere in a corner of my mind was a news item I once saw to the effect that the United States Congress would deny most-favored-nation status to countries that hindered family reunion. This was aimed at the Soviet Union, where a large number of Russian Jews were waiting to go to Israel. But I knew the Chinese Communist Party would take note of this condition. After I had switched off the radio, I thanked God that on this night the voice of the announcer had come through the atmosphere strong and clear so that I did not miss hearing the news. It was something unlikely to be reported in the Chinese press.
I had two sisters in the United States of America. When the Communist army took over China, they were students in American universities. Subsequently they married and settled in the United States. The younger of the two sisters was only a small child when I left home in 1935 to go to England. We had not seen each other for over forty years. My other sister, Helen, had accompanied her husband to Shanghai for a short visit a couple of years ago. Since then, I had maintained a sporadic correspondence with her. Now I sat down immediately and wrote her a letter requesting her to send me an invitation to visit both my sisters in California for “family reunion.” Helen seemed to understand the situation perfectly. She quickly sent me a suitably worded letter signed by both sisters.
Early in March, when the warm current from the South Pacific began to reach Shanghai and the moisture in the wind reawakened the frozen sycamore trees lining the streets, I walked hopefully to the Xujiahui District Public Security Bureau, where the special office for passport and travel applications was situated. When I reached my destination, I realized that I should have come an hour earlier.
Though it was only a quarter to seven and the office did not open until eight o’clock, there was already a large crowd waiting. By the time the iron gate was opened at half past seven, I found myself in the first third of a long line that wound its way around the block. Slowly the line moved forward as the people were let into the waiting room. I was squeezed behind a young woman just inside the door. The rest of the line waited outside in the courtyard. The large waiting room was packed with people sitting tightly against each other on the narrow benches and standing next to each other in the aisles. Everybody was good-natured. When the door to the office opened at eight, there was no jostling for position. People went in one by one. Some came out with a smile and a blank form in hand. Others came out empty-handed and did not look so happy. After some time, the young woman ahead of me got a seat. As she moved on, I sat down beside her.
“Are you hoping to go abroad?” she whispered to me.
I nodded.
“Which country?” she asked.
“The United States,” I said under my breath.
Her face lit up with a grin. “That’s where I’m going too. To join my father, whom I have never seen. He left in 1949, a month before I was born.”
“Has he sent for you?”
“Yes, he has a restaurant, and he said that he wanted to help me if I was willing to work for him.”
“Have you a job in Shanghai?” I asked her.
“No, I’m waiting for employment. During the Cultural Revolution we had a hard time because my mother had not divorced my father. The Red Guards said my mother was an American spy. She died at the Cadre School. But recently she was rehabilitated,” she said with tears in her eyes.
“I hope you’ll be happy in the United States,” I said.
“I’m rather scared because I’m not sure my stepmother will like me. Do you think the government will let me go?” she asked anxiously.
“Oh, yes. I think you’ll have no difficulty.”
“Have you been to the United States?”
“Yes, a long time ago.”
“What do you think I should do to prepare myself for living there?”
“Study English, if you can find a teacher.”
She nodded and said, “I’m working hard at it now.”
As we chatted, we were moving towards the benches nearer to the door of the inner room. After more waiting, the young woman ahead of me went in. She wasn’t there very long. When she came out, she was smiling. Bending down, she whispered, “I got it,” and showed me the application form in her hand.
“Next!” a voice called from the room. I went in.
A rather stout middle-aged woman was seated behind a desk. There was a chair facing her, and a blank pad and a pencil on the desk. Otherwise the room was bare. She looked to be in an ill temper. It must have been a tedious way to spend a fine morning, interviewing masses of people eager to leave the country under one pretext or another.
“What is it?” she barked at me.
I sat down on the chair facing her and said, “I would like to make an application for a trip to the United States of America to visit my sisters, one of whom I have not seen for forty-four years.”
“Why do you want to visit them?” she said.
“Family reunion. We are getting on in years. We would like to have a family reunion.”
“Can’t they come to Shanghai to see you? Many visitors are coming from the United States,” she said.
“One of my sisters did come with her husband. But the younger sister I haven’t seen for forty-four years is too busy. She can’t spare the time to come.”
“Which is your unit?” she asked.
“I have no unit,” I said. “I’m not working.”
“Which was your unit when you were working?”
“I used to work for a foreign firm before the Cultural Revolution.”
“What’s your name? What’s the name of the foreign firm?”
I told her, and she wrote them down on the pad.
“During the Cultural Revolution I suffered wrongful arrest, but I am now rehabilitated,” I told her.
She wrinkled her brow and stared at me, thinking. I knew she was in a quandary as to how best to deal with me; naturally she did not want to make a mistake. To prevent her from refusing, which would have been final and irrevocable, I said quickly, “I’m known to the senior authority at the Public Security Bureau. Director Han and other officials of the bureau have been to my home. Why don’t you just let me make the application and leave it to them to approve or reject according to the policy of the government?”
After a moment’s consideration, she said, “All right, I’ll give you the application form. When you hand it in, you must present the required documents.”
“I have a letter of invitation from my sisters,” I told her.
“Bring your rehabilitation paper too and your resident’s book,” she said, continuing to stare at me. Her tone of voice had softened considerably since I mentioned Director Han. She must have been wondering how I knew her superior and whether she had not treated me too harshly. With her eyes fixed on my face, she pulled open one of the drawers, took out a form, and handed it to me.
I thanked her and left the room. In the waiting room, everybody watched me eagerly to find out whether I had been given a form. Their concern was later explained to me by one of my students who had been through the same experience. It seemed only a limited number of forms were given out each day. The more people coming out of the interview with forms, the fewer forms left for those waiting.
When I got home, to my surprise, I found the woman had given me an application for a travel document to Hong Kong by mistake. I had to go back to change it for a passport application. I quickly walked back. The waiting crowd kindly allowed me to go to the head of the line after I explained my problem.
The woman was rather disconcerted when I told her that she had given me the wrong form. But she changed it for me without saying anything.
Next morning I carefully filled out the application and handed it in with the required documents. I did not expect to hear from the Public Security Bureau for at least a year, the usual length of time for processing a passport application during 1979. But I also knew cases of people who had to wait several ye
ars just for permission to go to Hong Kong, before the Cultural Revolution. In any case, I was fortunate; the woman official did not refuse to give me the application form. If she had refused, there was absolutely nothing I could have done except to give up the whole idea of applying. Although her position in the bureaucratic structure could not have been very senior, the power she was allowed to exercise seemed frighteningly enormous.
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.
