Last Boat Out of Shanghai

by Helen Zia

  Going to and from school in Changshu was a carefree walk through the city park. After crossing the family’s moat, he’d traverse the city’s central gardens toward the Fangta Pagoda, dedicated to Changshu’s patron deity Kwan Yin, goddess of compassion and mercy. His school was located next to the pagoda and surrounded by ancient ginkgo trees. If he didn’t dawdle, his journey took him only about ten minutes. But the curious boy liked to stop on the way, visiting the vendors along his path to school. He enjoyed teasing the tailors who sewed his family’s clothes and jabbing at the bookkeepers who sat huddled over the accounts in the courtyard. They pretended to try to grab him, calling him “jo guei”—naughty little devil.

  Ho’s school in Changshu was so small that there was only one teacher much of the time, so Ho and his elder brother and sister were often in the same class. That one teacher covered all the traditional primary-school subjects, including the Chinese classics and language, basic mathematics, and the multiplication tables. It didn’t matter to Ho if the lessons were aimed at the older children; he absorbed them all. From an early age, he demonstrated a gift for numbers. He was less enamored by the language and literature classes, but he did well enough to rise to the top of the small school.

  Even so, Ho didn’t take his education for granted—not after the time he brought home some upsetting news:

  “Mother, tomorrow there is no more school. The teacher is leaving.”

  Ho’s mother put down her embroidery. “What do you mean?”

  “He said there is no more money to pay him, so he must leave.”

  Ho’s mother sprang into action. She went to a locked box in her bedroom and took out a small piece of her wedding jewelry. Ho accompanied her to a pawnshop in town, where she traded her jewelry for cash. Next, she visited the teacher and persuaded him to stay by paying the rest of his salary.

  As Ho grew older, he watched his mother dip into her shrinking stash of wedding jewelry again to hire a tutor to teach her children basic English and calligraphy after school. His mother didn’t know a word of English herself, nor could she write, but she wanted her sons and daughter to be equipped for the modern world.

  Seeing his mother pawn her jewelry for his education sobered Ho’s outlook on school. He resolved early on to be a good student, to make her proud.

  * * *

  —

  IT WAS HO’S EDUCATION, not the threat of war, that had started him on this trek to Shanghai. By early 1937, he had completed his primary schooling. In small towns and cities like his, that signaled the end of studies for most children—if they had been fortunate enough to go to school at all. Since Changshu didn’t have a secondary school, it was unlikely that Ho would be able to continue with his education.

  After his classes ended that spring, his teacher took the unusual step of visiting the Chow family. Ho was playing in the courtyard when he saw his teacher crossing the bridge over the canal. He ran to greet him.

  “Hello, Lao Shi, how may I help you?” Ho asked, bowing his head in respect.

  “Good day, Young Master Chow,” he replied. “Can you please see if your mother might allow me to speak with her?”

  Ho brought his teacher to the courtyard where his mother was going over dinner preparations with the cook. Ho stood quietly outside the open door, straining to listen as his teacher spoke.

  “Chow Tai-tai, please forgive me for disturbing you,” he began. “I beg to inform you that your second son, Ho, has a gift for mathematics and science. With further study, he could go far. These are troubled times for China, as we all know. Nevertheless, I hope you will consider sending him to study further in Shanghai, where there are many fine schools.”

  Ho felt his pulse quicken. He was secretly longing to continue his schooling somehow, but he knew from the adults’ talk about Japan during dinner each night that they had many urgent questions on their minds. He listened closely for his mother’s response. There was only silence. His heart sank as he imagined his mother’s expression, her creased brow and pursed lips. He knew that she had already taken exceptional measures by educating all her children through primary school. Many Chinese families poured their limited resources solely into their Number One Son.

  Finally he heard his mother speak.

  “Thank you, Lao Shi, for bringing me such good news about my second son. He has been fortunate to have you as his teacher. I am grateful that you have made this special trip to speak so highly of him.” After another pause, she began again. “As you mention, there are difficult times ahead. Like many other families, our Chow clan is unsure where we will be in the coming year. With so much uncertainty, I don’t know if I can send my youngest child away to such a big city,” she said. “He’s still just a boy. Who would take care of him? But I will think about your words.”

  After his teacher left, Ho’s mother said nothing about the visit. Nor did he dare broach the subject when he, too, had mixed feelings. He was elated by his teacher’s high praise and the thought of continuing with school, but he could not imagine living apart from his mother and family.

  In the weeks after his teacher’s visit, the adults became singularly preoccupied with the growing threat of war in the Yangtze Delta area. Signs of an approaching clash were everywhere. Nationalist soldiers set up encampments in the areas outside of Shanghai as the army built up its troop strength. Changshu’s proximity to the Yangtze River and the East China Sea made it a prime staging area for both friend and foe. Its location near Shanghai, Suzhou, and Nanjing, China’s capital, put their town directly in the line of march. If a war came, any battle would roll over Changshu. Ho’s grandmother, mother, and uncles all agreed that they should follow the time-honored practice when catastrophe loomed: They would need to tao nan, to flee. But to where? What about the land, the rent, their businesses, and the compound that supported so many people?

  The ultimate decision fell to Ho’s grandmother. It was customary for ownership of a family’s property to be held only by male heirs, but an elder dowager could maintain control. Grandmother ran the family and its holdings, taking responsibility not only for the Chow fortune but also, most important, for keeping the Chow family’s heirs and lineage safe.

  Weighing their options from fragments of available information, Grandmother reminded her family of the stampede of refugees to Shanghai in 1932, the first time that the Japanese attacked the city. No one could forget how the foreign concessions had been unharmed amid the carnage in that terrible year. There had been other panicked swarms into Shanghai, such as during the violent Taiping and Boxer Rebellions in the 1800s, when the foreign presence had also offered Chinese some protection against the chaos.

  “If war comes to Jiangsu Province, who knows what will happen to Changshu and our Chow family home?” Grandmother warned. “But everyone will rush to Shanghai for safety, as they have for almost a hundred years. Of that there is no doubt. We must plan for that day as well.”

  Grandmother made her decision: The family had to leave their beloved home and find safety elsewhere. She and Ho’s mother would prepare the family and the household’s servants for their departure. They made arrangements for the collection of rents from the tenant farmers in the Chows’ absence. In the meantime, Grandmother dispatched her second son, Ho’s Second Uncle, to Shanghai with instructions to find the family a suitable house in the city’s foreign concessions.

  * * *

  —

  ONCE IT WAS CLEAR that they would all leave, Ho’s mother had her own difficult decisions to make. Shanghai was not a good place for Ho’s elder brother, Hosun, who was recovering from early-stage tuberculosis. His mother didn’t dare expose his lungs to the city’s damp, sooty air. Before the visit of Ho’s teacher, she wouldn’t have considered splitting up her family. But now there was the teacher’s prediction that Ho could do well if he continued with school.

  Then came the news that Second Uncle had purch
ased a lilong-style house in the British and American section of Shanghai. Though the price had been high, he’d been lucky to find anything. The house was considerably smaller than their compound, but there would be room enough.

  With the knowledge that Ho could stay with his grandmother in Shanghai, Ho’s mother decided to find a middle school for him there. She’d send her daughter to Shanghai too. Wanyu would attend nursing school—a practical profession for a daughter. The two could stay together at the family house that Second Uncle had found while Mother would take Hosun to a safe and healthier place near Suzhou. She was mindful, too, that separating her children could improve their chances that some would survive the war.

  Ho’s mother turned her energies to assisting Grandmother in shuttering the compound. Only one trusted servant would stay on the property as a caretaker. Most of the others had already left for their own home villages.

  Ho didn’t know which school he would attend, and he didn’t care. He was excited to be able to study again and that his sister would be there too. With his elder brother ill, young Ho knew that his family might have to depend on him one day. He vowed that he would try his best to show his mother that he was worth the expense of an education.

  * * *

  —

  AFTER ALL THE PLANNING and preparation, they had finally reached Shanghai. Ho’s grandmother didn’t hesitate to remind him of his close call. “The water ghosts almost pulled you into the sea; you’re lucky that your sister snatched you from their hungry mouths! You must be more careful here in Shanghai. There are many wicked demons looking for you in this dangerous city.”

  Head down, Ho replied, “Grandmother, I won’t cause you any worry.” Well aware of his sheltered, small-town background, the boy didn’t need to be reminded that death had brushed his sleeve. He would have to be more careful.

  The towering stone buildings seemed to mock his discomfort. His hometown had just one tall building, the Fangta Pagoda. At nine stories high, it was the landmark for miles around. None of these Shanghai buildings remotely resembled the Chinese style he knew. A riverfront clock tower with Western numerals suddenly rang out an odd and unfamiliar tune. Was he now in the land of foreigners?

  Soon Second Uncle arrived to take them to the house. With so many people on the crowded street, Ho stuck close to his big sister. He and Wanyu climbed into a rickshaw, and Second Uncle and Grandmother each took their own. The coolies proceeded to pull them through the busy streets along the length of Nanjing Road. Ho had never seen such crowds, all walking much faster than anyone did in Changshu. And the foreigners! Some wore dapper white suits; others were red-turbaned Sikh police in Western-style uniforms, directing traffic from tall raised booths. There were Annamese gendarmes in conical hats, Japanese women on high wooden sandals, pale Europeans with long noses and straw-colored hair. He craned his neck to peer at the tops of the multistory department stores, their colorful neon signs brightening the streets with their names: “Wing On,” “Sincere,” “Sun Sun,” and “The Sun.” And there were fancy-looking Chinese people dressed in foreign-style clothing—men in pants and jackets and women with short curly hair, showing their legs and high, spindly shoes. Shanghai was simply overwhelming.

  But what impressed Ho even more than the tall buildings and the exotic people were the shiny automobiles. He had seen a Model T in Changshu and observed how it worked, but these looked so sleek and fast, he imagined that they could fly. Back home, wooden carts powered by water buffalo or by humans were the everyday vehicles, and Ho could always outpace them. His eyes widened at the sight of the polished, chauffeur-driven Packards and zippy red MG convertibles. He twisted and turned to stare as they sped by.

  Before long, their rickshaws stopped at a large complex of attached homes on Medhurst Road connected by a web of lanes. Second Uncle called them lilong houses—a distinctive Shanghai style of identical row homes. Each was three stories high, with three to four rooms to a floor and a kitchen toward the back where a few servants could live. Grandmother would stay on the first floor, the two uncles and their families on the next, and Ho and Big Sister in the attic. The building was compact and modern compared to the sprawling old compound in Changshu. Most curious to Ho was the running water in the kitchen and bathrooms—and the flush toilets. Ho pulled the chain on one of them several times, intrigued by the swirling water. In Changshu, they had dumped all waste into the canals, but Ho saw no waterway by the house. Where did it all go? he wondered.

  Their house on Medhurst Road was located almost directly behind the Lido Ballroom, one of the busiest dance halls and cabarets in Shanghai. On the night that Ho arrived, he could hear the music and gaiety drift up to the dormer window of his third-floor room. Before he could think of stepping outside for a closer look, his uncle warned that the Lido nightclub was frequented by members of the powerful Green Gang, the underworld organization that served as a shadow government in some parts of Shanghai. This information prompted his sister and grandmother to launch into a new round of stern warnings about the big city and its fast-talking slickers, enemy soldiers with rifles and bayonets, and fellow Chinese who might be thieves, gangsters, prostitutes—or Communist bandits. A naïve country boy like Ho, unfamiliar with the dangers all around him, should focus on his schooling and stay clear of trouble in this city ruled by mayhem, they repeated at every opportunity.

  * * *

  —

  HO WAS JUST SETTLING into his new home when Japan’s conquest of China began. With Medhurst Road two miles from the Huangpu River, where the Japanese flagship Idzumo and two dozen other enemy warships were moored, Ho learned about the Bloody Saturday bombings only from his uncles’ dinnertime accounts of the day’s news. But the fighting that continued for the next three months took place barely a half mile away in Zhabei. Ho tried to block out the whines and booms and the shaking of his house from the continual air and naval bombardment in the Chinese neighborhoods just beyond the International Settlement and French Concession. At night, Ho could hear the rat-tat-tat of machine-gun fire from the urban trench warfare only a few blocks north of his open attic windows.

  It was hard to sleep when Ho felt the city tremble with each explosion. These were the moments when the boy missed his mother the most. She hadn’t gone to school herself and hadn’t known how to go about finding one in Shanghai for Ho. From a distant relative, she had learned of a vocational school in the French Concession, not far from Medhurst Road. She hastily arranged to pay the tuition, enrolling Ho there while frantically making the preparations to flee. Ho wished he could show his mother how grateful he was, that he was diligent in minding his grandmother and sister, that he wouldn’t let her down. He hoped that she and his elder brother were safe and away from the bullets and bombs. He was convinced that they would all be together again one day. Then he would prove that he was deserving of her trust.

  * * *

  —

  THE ZHONGHUA VOCATIONAL SCHOOL became the center of Ho’s universe. He started each day with a quick breakfast of rice porridge and pickled vegetables, prepared for him by the cook Grandmother had hired. Then he set out on his march to school.

  Wanyu, just four years older, had mapped his route to avoid fast-moving autos, electric trams, and possible disturbance or danger, such as Japanese sentries and roadblocks, choosing smaller streets that weren’t packed with refugees. His grandmother gave him the same advice every morning as he set off: “Don’t pause to behold the temptations of this sinful city. Don’t slow down. If you go quickly and avert your eyes, the ghosts and demons will leave you alone.” Though the science-minded student had long rejected such superstitions, he would never challenge his wise grandmother. It was his filial duty as a son and grandson to obey his elders.

  Cutting through the maze of lilong complexes like his own, he crossed narrow lanes full of people heading to the hot-water “tiger stove” shops with large thermos bottles in hand or standing in their n
ightclothes, waiting to buy fried youtiao and plump steamed baozi from the street stalls that inhabited many doorways. He gave wide berth to the pungent ma tong, chamber pots, set outside to be emptied by the night-soil collector. It took all of his willpower to ignore the vendors with bright displays of candies and snacks.

  By following his sister’s carefully drawn route, Ho could reach his school while bypassing the worst traffic of Bubbling Well Road, one of the International Settlement’s main thoroughfares leading away from the Huangpu River and the Bund. As Ho walked to the French Concession, he had to be most careful crossing Avenue Foch, the border between the International Settlement and the French Concession. The traffic on that busy route was only part of his concern. At such jurisdictional boundaries between the British-, French-, and Chinese-governed areas, petty thieves, gangsters, and assassins could evade police simply by crossing the street from one jurisdiction to the next. Shootouts between police and thugs occurred often enough at such boundaries, so he had to stay alert, as his sister and grandmother often reminded him.

  Luckily, school wasn’t far, just about a mile away from home. At his brisk pace, he took only fifteen to twenty minutes to reach its central location near Avenue Joffre, the commercial heart of the French Concession. Attractions along the route included the popular Lyceum and the Cathay theaters, with colorful posters for the latest movies produced by Shanghai and Hollywood studios. Though Ho did his best to ignore them, sometimes he’d steal a glimpse through the fences of Le Cercle Sportif Français and the British country club, with their elegant private grounds for foreigners and the wealthiest of Chinese.

  When he returned to the house from school, all eleven family members would eat dinner together, just as they used to, except without his mother and brother. Even the cook was from Changshu, so Ho continued to enjoy his favorite hometown dishes, with finely chopped vegetables and steamed fish seasoned with light vinegar, sugar, and soy sauces. Meat was harder to come by after the war began. Ho took care not to fill his bowl when there wasn’t enough for everyone.