Last Boat Out of Shanghai

by Helen Zia

—

  THE AMERICAN SHIP OFFERED Ho a first glimpse into his upcoming life in America. To cool off from the heat of the sticky August day, he took a shower—his first experience with such a contraption. Nearby was the water fountain—another first. After a few cautious sips, he quenched his thirst from this amazing device that dispensed a continuous stream of clean water—no boiling necessary. In the third-class dining room, he waited in a long but orderly line for servings of sausages, potatoes, carrots, rice, bread, fruits, tea—and sugar, a precious commodity in Shanghai. The unlimited quantities stunned him, especially the sugar. That night he jotted down a new American phrase: “All you can eat.”

  With Ho, more than three hundred of China’s brightest young minds were heading to the United States to continue their educations. Like him, fifty-two were Jiao Tong University graduates, and thirty-three were headed to the University of Michigan. The students held meetings onboard to prepare for life in America, with topics ranging from transportation to their schools to dealing with American culture and cold Michigan winters. Ho attended all the meetings and volunteered to compile a list of everyone’s names to help them stay in touch once they scattered to their respective destinations.

  The ocean voyage exposed Ho to another new concept: leisure. He’d brought along some books to study but barely opened them. Instead, he played bridge, watched movies, and spent time with new acquaintances. Most of the students were male, but several were female—including a lady professor. Ho had never gone to school with girls or women—and he was surprised to learn that they had big dreams for their educations too. At some point, Ho realized that he wasn’t practicing much English, in spite of the many American passengers and crew. “I could pass the entire voyage to America speaking only Chinese!” he wrote, resolving to start using more English. It was for this reason that the father of another Shanghai student, Ming Cho Lee, insisted that his son enroll at Occidental College in California—he feared that if his son went to school in the northeastern United States, he would spend his time mostly with other Chinese.

  Ho, ever the engineer, eagerly explored the bowels of the ship to understand its mechanics. He admired the genius of a vessel that could cut through the powerful waves as though gliding on ice. The vast beauty of the ocean, with its different hues of blue, gray, and black, mesmerized him.

  When they reached the open sea, sick passengers began skipping meals. Ho, too, grew queasy, but he had paid for the meals and was determined to eat them all. He took careful notes on the Americans’ habits. He wondered why people would want to eat bread at every meal but then realized that the rice was just for the many Chinese passengers—it was the only item familiar to most of them. By week’s end, the students grew bored with the bland American food. One of Ho’s cabinmates groaned, “I miss Chinese food more than I miss my wife.”

  One thing disturbed Ho: the vast quantities of wasted food. He thought of the starving beggars in Shanghai. “One would exclaim in astonishment at the amount of leftover food at every meal,” Ho wrote in his journal. “The leftovers are all dumped into the ocean, along with countless boxes and bottles.”

  On day eleven, the ship docked in Honolulu. Ho couldn’t wait to step on land again. Before disembarking, all third-class passengers were assembled to play “Search for the Yellow Fish”—a hunt for stowaways—with no instructions on what to do if they found any. At the harbor, a huge crowd welcomed them, including representatives from the Consulate of China. After he’d posted his letters to his family, Ho and his friends took a tour of Honolulu. Most impressive to him was the courteous traffic on the smooth wide roads painted with lines. Motorists stopped briefly at intersections without a traffic cop, while pedestrians crossed the roads at spots designated by white lines. He questioned whether Shanghai’s teeming millions could ever be so orderly.

  The California coastline came into view toward evening on day fifteen. After saying goodbyes and settling accounts with the purser, Ho joined the cheering crowd on deck as they passed under the dramatic arc of the Golden Gate Bridge. He thought that with all these talented students going to study in America, they should be able to build such bridges in China one day.

  Ho entered San Francisco in the early morning of September 8, 1947. He was brimming with enthusiasm: “From this day forward, everything will be new: I will see what I have never seen and hear what I have never heard before,” he wrote in his journal that night. “By learning from my new experiences, I will be able to accomplish much with my life.”

  * * *

  —

  IN SAN FRANCISCO, the shipmates went their separate ways. Back home, the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists was heating up. The stability that had allowed the students to exit Shanghai and to change their yuan to dollars peaceably had been a fleeting moment in time. Now the storm that had raged throughout Ho’s youth threatened to explode with renewed fury. Ho and his fellow travelers were far away and unaware that they were at the front of a mass exodus soon to follow.

  SHANGHAI, LATE 1948

  At the soft edge of dawn, Benny lay under the covers staring at the ceiling of his St. John’s University dormitory room, watching as the darkness faded into the first rays of the morning light. He treasured the quiet stillness, a momentary reprieve from the daily anxiety he’d endured over the past three years, ever since his father’s arrest for being a hanjian, a traitor to the Chinese people. Ever since his family’s free fall into calamity. Especially on days like this, when he planned to visit his father in prison, where he still awaited trial.

  Just thinking about the prison never failed to dredge up painful memories in vivid detail. How difficult it had been to find himself responsible for his four younger siblings—without money or relatives to help. Another seventeen-year-old might have sized up the situation and run away, just as his mother had. Benny couldn’t do that. Because he was the eldest son, it fell on his shoulders to care for his family and honor his parents. But in his darker moments, he had to admit that he deeply resented the father who had put his family in such jeopardy and the mother who had left them to fend for themselves.

  Desperation had driven him to a resourcefulness he had never known he had, forcing him to put away the pride he could no longer afford. Soon after the five Pan siblings packed themselves into one room at his uncle’s home, sixteen-year-old Cecilia had decided she’d had enough. She ran off and married an airman—a cockpit radio operator—and moved with him to Hong Kong. Unlike Benny’s sister Annie, with her storybook wedding at the Paramount, Cecilia had no fancy nuptials. Benny could only wish her a better life. One bit of good news: St. Mary’s Hall would allow fourteen-year-old Doreen to return as a boarding student, giving the family time to sort out the payments later.

  With only the two youngest siblings left to worry about, Benny began to think about getting himself back to school. He had missed the first semester of his freshman year at the university. To go back, he’d needed to find help with the two children as well as money for his tuition. Benny made the rounds again, this time calling on his father’s former associates. He reached out to the ones who had patted him on the head and praised him as Xiao Pan. Most shook their heads, clucking, or simply refused to talk with him. But two of his father’s pals were willing to listen. Benny tried to disregard their cold demeanor, cunning eyes, and hulking size, as well as the likelihood that they were part of his father’s Green Gang brotherhood. He needed their help.

  “Honorable Uncles, my father’s misfortune has caused our family many hardships. I was supposed to enter St. John’s University to become a doctor, but I have no money for school. My father always told me that if I ever needed help, I could turn to you. I humbly ask if you could find me worthy of your supporting the cost of six years for college and medical school. When—if—my father is released, he will repay you, or I promise to do so once I am a doctor.” As Benny spoke, he kept his head down out of respect—and to av
oid looking into their hard faces.

  They balked. “Six years? Who knows what could happen in six years!” Then they turned their backs on him and conferred.

  Soon the man with the pockmarked face replied. “Xiao Pan, we have worked with your father for many years and have watched you grow up. Your father has always stood by us, and we know that he would want us to help you. We will arrange to pay your school fees as a favor to your father—but only four years, no more.”

  Benny gulped. He had always intended to enter the six-year medical school program. If he accepted their money, he would have to abandon his dream. But he was in no position to refuse. “Thank you, Honorable Uncles. I am most grateful and forever in your debt.”

  “Don’t thank us. We will ask you to return the favor someday.”

  Benny bowed as they left, somewhat dismayed by the thought of the favor they might ask of him. But at least he was going to college with a chance to make something of himself, to claim a piece of his future back.

  * * *

  —

  THERE REMAINED A FINAL hurdle before he could start at St. John’s: He couldn’t leave eleven-year-old Edward and nine-year-old Frances alone at his uncle’s while he was in class. Nor would he be able to study with the children in his care. No relatives would take them in. There was only one possible solution—he would have to ask his mother for help.

  Benny hadn’t seen her since the day she had deserted them. She hadn’t even bothered to inquire if they were alive. He knew that she was living in nearby Suzhou with his father’s former bodyguard. If there’d been another option, Benny might have bypassed his mother to avoid seeing the added shame of her new living arrangements. Because he thought she might try to spurn him, Benny decided to surprise her. He and the children would take the train to Suzhou and catch her off guard. Once they were at her door, she’d have to look him in the eye to deny him.

  When they reached his mother’s address, Benny was in for another surprise. As he faced his mother after so many months, Benny was stunned to see her swollen belly. How could he have imagined she would be pregnant! He couldn’t let it throw him. He averted his eyes to speak to her. “Mother, you must help us,” he implored. “I found a way to attend St. John’s, as you always wanted me to. But I can’t go to college and mind the young ones too. Edward and Frances will be all alone with no chance to grow up properly. Please help them, Mother. Please help me!”

  His mother paused for a long moment—so long that Benny considered turning around and leaving. Then she broke the silence, calling him by his childhood nickname. “Long-Long, don’t think too harshly of me.” In an instant, the softness of her voice warmed him to the mother he had adored and who had doted on him, her eldest son and favored child. “You’ve always been a good son. Go to St. John’s.” Taking Edward and Frances by their hands, she stepped back into the house.

  Unnerved, Benny felt no joy. Another baby—with his father’s bodyguard? He left quickly, almost running. After he rounded a corner, he staggered toward a lamppost, doubled over, and vomited.

  * * *

  —

  BENNY HAD TO WAIT until the spring semester in 1946 to start at his beloved university. He would soon be eighteen. Because he had missed a full semester, he wouldn’t graduate with his classmates. But that mattered little when he almost hadn’t made it to college at all.

  Getting back to the tranquil campus was a homecoming. Benny had lived there as a boarder since he was eleven, spending more time at school than at the big mansion. Those were his happiest years, before his family’s disaster. It calmed him to sit with his books in the shade of the expansive hundred-year-old camphor tree. He was finally able to walk into the stately gray-and-red brick university halls. As a boy, he had looked up to the college men. Now he was one of them.

  The main college-level classroom buildings of St. John’s University, founded by American Episcopal missionaries in 1877, circa 1946.

  His BDG Club buddies, Dennis and George, had remained his loyal and true friends. The trio still ran around together as if nothing had changed, even though Benny no longer had money to spare. Now he had to earn every yuan by tutoring and doing odd jobs on the campus. On weekends his pals invited him to their homes for dinners and parties. They welcomed him to spend the night, for they knew he had nowhere else to go, and no food was served at the campus on weekends.

  But everything had changed for Benny. His shame was never far away. Not when the people of Shanghai were transfixed by the constant news of the Japanese war criminals and the Chinese traitors, collaborators, and puppets like his father. Wild accusations also flew against the innocent, including the former president of St. John’s William Z. L. Sung, whose apparent crime was to have kept the school open during the enemy occupation, relying in part on the advice of Pan Da at the time. Now Sung was locked up at Tilanqiao Prison, the same jail where Benny’s father was.

  “Hanjian, hanjian! Read all about today’s trial in the Shanghai High Court!” news hawkers shouted at the top of their lungs, selling their papers just outside the campus gates. Hanjian—that label had sent Benny’s life into a tailspin. Whenever a student bought a newspaper, others flocked around as well. Everyone knew about “C. C. Pan, the traitor and collaborator”—and that the hanjian’s son, their once free-spending schoolmate, was Benny.

  No one at the genteel school ever mentioned his father, at least not to his face. But Benny could feel the unspoken disdain of some. He did his best to avoid any awkward unpleasantries. Since he couldn’t study medicine, Benny chose the major that required the fewest credits so that he could get his degree as quickly as possible. Ironically, it was politics, the one topic he most wished to avoid. Luckily, at St. John’s he could concentrate on American politics, a subject that had nothing to do with Chinese collaborators.

  Try as he might, however, Benny could not sequester himself from news about the despicable traitors. The prosecution of local collaborators was a hot topic, just as the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes tribunals were on the global stage. Benny was finally learning why his fellow Shanghainese despised “No. 76”—his father’s headquarters, where Benny used to ride his bike—referring to it as the most dreaded level of hell.

  News accounts contained grisly details of water torture, cutting and burning, starvation, sadistic beatings, electric shocks, and other atrocities. His father must have known. How could he not have? Perhaps he’d participated in the torture himself. Constant insecurities gnawed at Benny as he imagined that his schoolmates hated him, son of a hanjian monster.

  Even with the friendship of his two buddies, Benny felt alone. He no longer cared to join the badminton and track teams or the other activities that he had once enjoyed. Instead, he sought calm in the stone Pro-Cathedral at the edge of the green, the large cross atop its tall steeple.

  Until the previous year, Benny had never given much thought to religion. Church services were compulsory in middle school. Though he attended the Episcopal services, the sermons had meant little to him, no different from boring but required lectures. In that way, he was the typical student described in his school newspaper, the Dial: “By a general observation, you will find that St. John’s students are rather indifferent to religion….Most students in this institution are not believing in any kind of religion. Their attendance at the College chapel is often looked at as a form of tradition that may be dispensed with.”

  That was before Benny’s inner turmoil led him to the church. At first he’d sit quietly on the smooth lacquered pews in the back. One day the choir director, Grace Brady, noticed him. She was an American missionary teacher from San Diego who had been at St. John’s for several years. Benny had taken her classes in English and music when he was in middle school, and he’d always warmed to her kindness.

  “Hello, Benny! Why aren’t you outside on the sports field with the other boys?” she asked cheerily.


  “I don’t know, Miss Brady,” he replied in a near whisper, looking down at his shoes.

  “That doesn’t sound like the boy I remember, Benny. Tell me, what’s on your mind?”

  Soon, Benny spilled out the fears he had been holding in. He told her that his father had done terrible things and his mother had abandoned him, that he felt guilty for his family’s wrongs, and that everyone must hate him. He worried that his fate was as doomed as his parents’ and there was nothing he could do about it.

  Miss Brady had been sitting beside Benny, studying his face as he spoke. When he came to a tearful stop, she took his hands and looked into his eyes. “Benny, God is merciful and will not punish you for the misdeeds of others. You are not to blame for the sins of your father. If you let God into your heart, he will help you to find the goodness in yourself and show you how to be better and more compassionate than your father.”

  As they sat in the cool quiet of the chapel, Benny was grateful to learn that the Christian God was forgiving. That he wasn’t condemned to his father’s fate. Benny found great comfort in Miss Brady’s counsel.

  “Don’t just take my word, Benny. Come to a fellowship meeting, and read the Bible yourself. You’ll enjoy the choir. As I recall, you have a nice singing voice.”

  With Miss Brady’s encouragement, Benny joined the school choir, adding to the harmony of uplifting songs. On Sundays, he attended services without fail, returning to school in time for the sermon even when he stayed overnight with George or Dennis. He began to make sense of the sermons he used to ignore, opening his mind to a world beyond himself. In time, Benny found his way to the evening fellowship and Bible classes. He made himself useful by doing chores, sweeping and cleaning the chapel and sanctuary. Before long, he was leading the fellowship worship.