If we felt confused, it was also the young man’s turn to look with questioning, as well as sheepish, eyes.
Chen sighed. “Revolution is old, but older yet is the sentiment of this painting, of love and of poetry.”
We studied the painting. We admired the swift brushstrokes, rapidly accomplished in a single sitting. How could such a thing seem so simple? It was a demonstration of a life of training revealed in a moment. It was unlike the Western oil painter’s painstaking labor of color and light and perspective revealed over many years.
Chen continued, “I don’t have an answer except for the experiment, as you say, of my own life. If it’s your own experiment, how can it fail?”
The young man looked up.
“A long life might be many lives, many ephemeral lives within one life.”
The ferry chugged into its slip, and we ambled onto Angel Island. Angel Island felt like it might be our island; so much of our history was here. But it was now a state park, and the authorities in control were friendly park rangers who directed hikers and picnickers. They had mostly forgotten the old history of the island.
The young man followed Chen, who walked quickly toward an old two-story building. A park ranger came forward to greet them. “Professor Chen? I’m Alexander Weiss.”
We followed Ranger Weiss to the dilapidated building. “You’ll excuse the mess. This building was a barrack. It’s been used as storage. As you know, it’s slated for demolition. I thought we should see what was in it before we tore it down. You never know. I didn’t expect to find any treasure.” He turned the key on the lock and shoved the door open. The light through it illuminated a cloud of dust, and we stepped inside.
“Watch your step. Upstairs. Over here.” Weiss held a flashlight to a section of the wall.
Chen scrutinized the wall. Looking closely we saw the wood was carved away, inscribed in Chinese characters. We saw Chen’s fingers delicately touch the wall. We thought he closed his eyes as if a blind man reading vivid Braille. He translated slowly:
Leaving behind my writing brush and removing my sword, I came to America.
Who was to know two streams of tears would flow upon arriving here?
If there comes a day when I will have attained my ambition and become successful,
I will certainly behead the barbarians and spare not a single blade of grass.
“A poem,” said the young man.
“It’s haunting,” said Ranger Weiss. “I’ve searched the other walls. There are many others. Like cave paintings, I think. A record of each man’s time here.”
“Plans for demolition will stop?” Chen asked.
“Yes, hopefully we can stop it. I’ll have this building cleared out so you can see safely.”
“When?”
“In a week or two? Can you return?”
“Yes, yes!” Chen said excitedly. He stepped back to the carved wall and read the bitter, defiant poem again, this time in Chinese.
We heard the long quiet in those barracks as his recitation came to a close, standing with three men in a jubilant circle in a dusty path of light.
We left Angel Island with Chen and his young companion. They took the ferry on to the far side of the bay, to Tiburon, their conversation filled with plans and possibility.
“We’ll get Edmund involved. He can help with the translations.”
“But a poet’s sensibility about language is necessary, to transmit the feeling of the poem into English. You should help with this.”
We saw Chen’s racy white Shelby Mustang GTO was parked conveniently at the ferry port.
“How about the Siata? How’s it running?” the young man asked.
“I raced the Monterey Historic last week,” said Chen, gunning the engine to emphasize his boast.
“Are you angry with me for disappearing?”
We tooled with the racecar up the hills to the familiar layered pavilion that was Chen’s house overlooking the bay. “I’ve been too busy missing you to be angry.”
Chen set a table on the terrace. He placed stemmed glasses, silverware, and candles in a precise pattern on the cloth. We followed him back and forth from the kitchen. “One of my specialties,” he said, fussing over a complicated sauce. “I learned it from a French chef.”
“Julia Child?”
“How did you know?”
We didn’t argue, since Chen was the sort of person who might really know Julia.
“Julia’s instructions are to grill duck breast rare.”
We stared at a photograph of a woman decked out in racing gear—gloves, goggles, and helmet—and standing next to a car. “Porsche 356 Monza. I’ll never forgive Nica. She gave it to a girlfriend who one day just drove it away.”
We continued to stare at the photo, trying to see the woman behind the goggles while pretending to scrutinize the car. What does a baroness look like?
“Nica was a bit older than me.” Chen thought for a moment. “Our marriage was happily arranged. She and I were excellent company. I cared for her when she became ill.”
He popped a bottle of champagne and nudged a glass at the young man. We looked out at the island where we had passed the day, and at the city’s hills. They toasted the sunset over the bay, slipping behind the Golden Gate.
The young man knew as he had craved his knowing in sepia tones on the ferry that morning. And Chen had also known the ephemeral moment that would constitute another life in a long wish for a long life. Once again they leaned out over a railing, their shoulders touching, the soft youth of a man newly twenty-one and the toned muscularity of a scholar of many lives.
Many years later we would sing the poem penned in the morning after:
Speaking of love and the revolution across the bay.
Speaking of ferrying south, that endless intent.
The ocean is wider than the sky, your grace taller than Tamalpais.
How could spring rain turn rocky cliff into soft soil?
How could sprouts grow taller than this outlook?
Wind chimes have replaced the sound of water on the roof.
I’ve been too busy missing you to be angry.
I’ve been too busy missing you to be angry.
6: Tofu Tigers
For those born after the liberation, it is necessary to attend speak-bitterness sessions and to listen to the old folks talk about the old days, what they suffered and how they were abused by the old system. The new generation does not know this past; they only know about the days after liberation. Chairman Mao says that the world and China’s future belong to the youth, but because of their inexperience they cannot comprehend the hardships of the past and the struggle required to establish a happy socialist society. This must also be true of overseas Chinese people. Although they may confront hardships, their struggles have not yet led to socialism. Lately, many overseas Chinese citizens return to visit the motherland. They come in the spirit of pride and learning and are welcomed as compatriots and comrades. They are quickly infected with the energy and spirit of the people, and they acknowledge their industry and progress.
This return coincides with the visit last year of the American President Nixon to the People’s Republic of China. This is a momentous event that signals a new era of exchange and equal standing between great nations. The People’s Republic of China in a short time accomplishes the unification of the country. This is a long and arduous road for which millions of Chinese sacrifice their lives. Since May 4, 1919 the Chinese people fight bravely for three decades to expel the Japanese imperialists and defeat reactionary nationalists. This struggle is won through the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the revolutionary army it commands. Thirty years later on October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao stands on the rostrum of Tiananmen Square and announces a new era for the Chinese people. This is a great victory for the worker and peasant masses, who together bring about this great proletarian socialist revolution. Now in fewer than twenty-five years since the liberation, the Chinese people demons
trate their ability to change the social, political, and physical landscape of China by removing, one by one, the three big mountains of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat-capitalism.
Chen Wen-guang and Lee Yat Min are such overseas Chinese returnees; they are traveling in China to experience for themselves the great changes that have occurred in their absence. Chen is invited to continue his study of Chinese literature since the liberation. For six months, he is actively collecting newly published books and interviewing writers. Lee, who is Chen’s student, has come for a shorter period of one month with a group of Chinese American journalists. Since Lee is fluent in several dialects of the Chinese language, he is the interpreter for his group. Not all returning overseas Chinese are so fluent in the language or so knowledgeable about China. Understandably their memories of the China they left behind mix with new realities. Such a leap in time may be a shock. For Chen it is more than twenty years. For Lee it is only a decade, but for the young man as for the older, this leap in time represents almost half of their lifetimes. To accompany their new understanding and many sensations is to learn about the past and to participate in their rebirth.
Lee and his group of Chinese American journalists arrive from Hong Kong, stepping into the People’s Republic at Shum Chun. The transition—crossing from a decadent colonial to a prosperous socialist society—cannot be more apparent. On the one side, a city of grimy poverty, crime, and prostitution, rich tourists ignoring children begging under the signs of Coca-Cola and Lucky Strikes. On the other, verdant hills laced with communal rice paddies, happy children playing under newly planted trees, red flags, and posters with encouraging slogans to the people.
Members of the Chinese Communist Party, specially trained as guides for foreign guests, meet Lee’s group as they board the train. Everything is carefully planned; journalists like Lee will report back to their people to tell the truth about China’s revolution. The guides welcome the overseas Chinese back to China, although most of them were born abroad and have never been to China. This is the feeling of brotherhood and solidarity extended to Chinese people all over the world. The excitement and pleasure of the group is evident as they choose seats near the windows to view the landscape. Lee interprets: “This train was built entirely in China by the Chinese people.”
His is a group of ten, almost all of them young. They represent student newspapers and underground papers for mass organizations. One older comrade writes for a Chinese-language newspaper considered to be left-leaning. He and Lee interpret for the group, although only Lee can also speak Mandarin and, as it turns out, the dialect of Shanghai. One sister-comrade gets to work quickly and initiates a conversation with one of the train workers. Lee is called to sit between them.
The train worker says, “I graduated high school four years ago and have been working on this train since that time.”
She asks, “Did you wish to go to college?”
“I applied, but it’s my country’s wish that I work here.”
“Would you rather go to college?”
“If my work benefits the country, then I do it wholeheartedly.”
“Did you study America in school?”
“Yes, we studied the history and politics of the United States. I learned that there is a wide gap between the rich and the working people that is not right.”
“If you were an American citizen living in those conditions, what would you do?”
“Start a revolution.”
“That is not so easy.”
“I know, but we did it here. So it is possible to move such mountains.”
Lee himself asks no questions. He is trying to listen to more than the answers. He is grateful for the direct questions that he himself feels uncomfortable asking, but he tries to put himself in the train worker’s place.
The sister speaks to Lee excitedly as she copies everything down into her notebook. “Well, we’re not in Chinatown anymore,” she muses. “I know this sounds obvious, but you know when they talk about the Chinese being one-fourth of the world’s population? Well, I never really thought about it until now. That’s what we are a part of. I never really felt that way until now.”
The train is on its way to Canton, and from there, in the next few weeks, the group travels on to Peking, Nanking, and Shanghai. Before reaching Peking, walking through Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City and the requisite trip to the Great Wall, they make an important stop at the Tachai Commune in Shansi Province.
A three-hour documentary about Tachai describes the struggles of the Tachai Production Brigade to resolutely implement Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line. Tachai is a poverty-stricken village built against a steep mountain where the people live in caves. The soil is eroded and washed out from gullies on Tiger Head Mountain, but with their bare hands, the peasants of Tachai move the soil and rock from the ridges and fill the gullies to create terraced fields. They build twenty reservoirs and dams, fertilize the soil, dig wells, and build new houses. The peasants literally move mountains to create a productive agricultural community that boasts of contributing seventy percent of their crops to the country while keeping thirty percent for their own needs. Now corn and millet grow in the terraced fields. There are hundreds of acres of conifers, nut and fruit orchards, and they have electricity and machinery as well. They raise pigs and start a noodle factory. They also build a school and a health clinic. Chairman Mao says, “In agriculture, learn from Tachai.” Thousands of people visit Tachai every day from far places in the country to learn from their heroic example.
The sister-comrades in the Chinese American group ask to meet the sister-comrades of Tachai. Lee goes along as the interpreter.
This is a warm and excited meeting, the conversation going back and forth in a lively exchange.
“What is it like to be women in America?”
“We Chinese American women have to fight the oppression of both American society and the old Chinese patriarchal society.” A discussion continues for a bit about the patriarchy. Chairman Mao says that men are oppressed by three systems of authority: political, clan, and religious. Women, however, are further dominated by a fourth authority: their husbands.
A Tachai sister says, “Chinese women fought in the war for liberation. Some fought with guns and others with their labor. The war may be over, but the revolution continues. So we continue to prove our strength here in the fields.”
Then a Chinese American sister asks, “What do you think about your relationships with men? We struggle with the attitudes of men who we feel must share the work of the household.”
The Tachai sister answers, “It is the same here, but women must be strong enough to do both—to work and fight like men and to take care of the household and the children.”
The Chinese American sister replies, “If we are to change our position in society, men as well as women must change. Men must also care for children and cook. It is reactionary to think that women must be superwomen and do everything.”
When Lee translates the sister’s response, there is a confused murmur among the Tachai sisters. One sister rises in some distress; then all of the Tachai sisters follow her out of the room.
“What happened?” The Chinese American sisters look at Lee for an answer. “Where did they go?”
Lee shrinks down in his chair and shakes his head.
After a while, one woman returns with a tray of tea and nervously passes the cups around.
The sisters say to Lee, “Ask her where they went. Why don’t they join us for tea?”
Lee translates, but the woman only smiles.
“That’s so weird.”
“Is it something I said?”
Lee nods. “I think so.”
One of the guides assigned to the group walks in quickly and speaks with Lee. Lee nods and turns to the sisters. “He says that they said you called their thinking reactionary.”
“Right.”
“You can’t say that!” Lee jumps up, tipping over his tea.
“He’s right. Haven’t you figured it out? Being reactionary is like being an imperialist capitalist pig.”
“What did Mao say? All reactionaries are paper tigers.”
“What does that have to do with anything? You insulted her.”
“Oh, shit.”
After about an hour, the Chinese American sisters find a way to apologize and to get the Tachai sisters back into the room.
Lee translates, choosing his words carefully. “There has been a misinterpretation. What we meant to say was that in a historical context, women in China have advanced to a stage in which they are still proving their strength, and this is also the case for us in America, but in comparison we have also reached another stage, in which our men must share the burden of the household. This we see as a progression similar to the stages that lead from capitalism to socialism to communism.”
The Chinese American sisters look anxiously at the Tachai sisters, who break into smiles of relief.
“Yes, now it’s clear. An unfortunate misinterpretation.”
“Good job, Edmund.”
While Lee is busy interpreting, his teacher Chen is in Peking, housed at the Overseas Chinese Hotel and waiting anxiously to see, after an absence of twenty-five years, his old teacher and mentor.
As soon as Chen hears the hesitant knock at his door, he springs forward excitedly. The elderly man standing in the doorway of his hotel room chuckles to see his student, now a middle-aged man. Even after so many years, the gracious formalities of greeting each other seem improbable, and Chen finds himself speechless. As if to save Chen from any unseemly emotional outburst, the old teacher smiles and simply nods, “So it is you,” and walks into the room.
“I’ve been here for many weeks, but the process to see you has been complicated and very slow. You are the first person I asked to see,” Chen complains.
1968- Eye Hotel Page 8
