Last Boat Out of Shanghai

by Helen Zia

  When the tangle of people finally thinned, Annuo gulped the cool evening air as they stepped onto the platform. She hadn’t been back to the city of her birth in four years and had forgotten how bustling it was. In a few moments, her father and uncle found them. Her father grabbed Muma’s bags and took Li-Ning by the hand, leading them to a waiting car. “You’re so late! We must get some rest,” he urged. “Our flight is early in the morning.”

  As they settled in for the night at the apartment of Uncle Shu-shu and Aunt Yiniang, Muma’s sister, Annuo’s father tried one last time to convince Uncle Shu-shu to bring his family to Taiwan. Uncle simply replied, “I’m just a lawyer working for an American company. I wasn’t a Nationalist, and I’m not a capitalist or a landlord. The Communists won’t bother with me.” He went on to explain that even if he had wanted to go, it would be impossible. As an eldest son, he was responsible for taking care of his parents in their old age. They refused to leave Shanghai, and Uncle could not leave them behind.

  In the dark of the next morning, their families said goodbye.

  “We won’t be gone long,” Annuo’s mother promised.

  “We’ll be back before the year is out,” Annuo’s father assured them.

  Inside the crowded airport, Annuo and Charley stood by the windows and stared in silence at the deep craters in the runway, evidence of the latest Communist bombardments. Could the plane really fly from here? Charley wondered aloud. Annuo said nothing, taking her cue from her tight-lipped mother. When they climbed aboard the military transport plane, Annuo and Charley had to sit on their suitcases because the space was so packed. Everybody seemed certain they’d be back within six months. Annuo already pictured herself back at her desk at her middle school.

  Annuo could feel the sensation of speed and the roar of the engines at lift-off—but she was hemmed in too far from the tiny windows to see anything but strangers pressed tightly together. So much for her first plane ride. As the too-familiar stench of perspiration, tobacco, garlic, and mothballs enveloped her once more, she worried that Charley would get sick, as he had on the boats during previous escapes.

  The airless flight would be short, someone said, lasting only a few hours. A baby started wailing behind her toward the back of the plane. Nobody paid any mind. A woman seated nearby wept quietly for the entire flight, upset that she’d left two of her young children and her elderly mother in Shanghai. Her husband tried to comfort her. “We’ll only be gone for a short time; we’ll see them soon,” he said, repeating the words that everyone else wanted to believe. Annuo glanced at her mother, knowing that she regretted leaving her own mother behind in Hangzhou. But her face revealed nothing.

  After flying four hundred miles due south, following the mainland coast along the East China Sea, the cargo plane was nearing the island of Taiwan. Annuo braced herself as the propellers made a high-pitched whine during the plane’s descent. Even sheltered schoolchildren like her had heard the gruesome tales about overloaded planes crashing and colliding in the rush to escape from the Communists. Prominent Americans had died in some of the crashes, including Quentin Roosevelt II, the grandson of the American president Theodore Roosevelt. Scavengers reportedly took jewelry and valuables from luggage and even from body parts that washed ashore.

  With each bump and jolt, Annuo fretted that they would join the grim statistics. She peeked at Charley, who seemed buoyed that the flight was nearly over and he had managed not to get sick. He flashed Annuo his impish it’s all okay smile. Charley’s confidence was infectious, and she slowly exhaled.

  Not far from her, she could hear her father and other men on the plane vigorously discussing what to expect during their short stay in Taiwan.

  “We have an obligation to teach the Taiwanese how to be Chinese again,” said a man who described a previous trip he had taken there. “Japan brainwashed them to forget who they are!”

  Another man scoffed. “Who cares about the local bumpkins on this little island? Our only priority should be to regroup and defeat the Red Bandits.”

  “With what?” derided someone near her. “Without Truman’s support and America’s military, it’ll be hard enough to keep the Reds from invading Taiwan.”

  Annuo ignored the men. She was trying to conjure up something, anything, that would help her envision this unfamiliar place. Her mind simply drew a blank. She’d studied at one of the top schools in China, yet she couldn’t recall a single lesson on Taiwan, its history or its people—not even when her fellow students were fleeing to the island with their Nationalist families.

  As the plane skidded onto the airstrip, Annuo held Charley’s arm tight in case they crashed. When they didn’t, she let out a sigh of relief and turned toward her parents. As usual, her father was bantering with other passengers while her mother’s face was calm. The scene resurrected a buried memory of another uncertain time years before when her mother had fallen out of a bus and Annuo had thought she was dead. That moment of terrible dread suddenly gripped her again. This time she shook it off. Facing the airplane door, eyes wide with anticipation, she waited to get her first look at this strange, backward place.

  SHANGHAI, LATE SUMMER 1948

  After staying at the Weida Hotel on Avenue du Roi Albert for nearly a year, Bing had grown accustomed to the large single room. Elder Sister, Kristian, and Peter slept on a bed and cot in one corner, while Bing unfurled her bedroll at night and slept on the floor by the makeshift kitchen next to the bathroom. There was still enough room for Bing and Ah Mei to play with Peter and Ole, now five and nine. During the day, Kristian and Elder Sister were usually away—he at Texaco’s Caltex offices and she socializing with friends. After the evening meal together, Ma would take a reluctant Ole with her to stay the night at her small room in a nearby lilong.

  A few months earlier, Ah Mei had married a portly Jewish man from Iran. He was part of Elder Sister’s circle of friends who enjoyed going to clubs and dance halls. Occasionally he’d stay for dinner. No one suspected a romance until he and Ah Mei surprised everybody by eloping. In the evenings, Ah Mei would stay with her new husband. Bing was happy for her and glad that she had found someone who treated her well. And she could still see her friend every day.

  After Ma, Ah Mei, and Ole left for the night, Bing would ready Peter for bed. Then she’d relax and listen to Elder Sister and her husband launch into the same ongoing debate: When should they leave? Where could they go? How would they start again? They’d managed to pull through the long occupation years. Like so many others, they wondered, could the Communists be worse than the Japanese?

  “The Russians who waited too long lost everything. When they got to Shanghai, they could only find work as bodyguards and dance-hall girls,” Elder Sister would sniff.

  “At least they were alive, unlike the ones who didn’t leave and were slaughtered by the Bolsheviks,” her husband would remind her. Here was the heart of the quandary: No one in Shanghai wanted to risk death, nor did they want to follow the path of the humbled White Russians to become lowly “White Chinese.”

  As a Danish citizen, Kristian expected no problems in getting the visas to repatriate to Denmark with his wife and sons. Those plans did not include Bing, nor would she have expected them to—of course an adopted sister-in-law counted for nothing. She’d be left behind, just as when Mama Hsu went off to Chongqing. But now she was older and more confident, able to maneuver around Shanghai and to stick up for herself. At least Ma and Ah Mei would still be there. Though Bing would miss Elder Sister and the boys, they could be back within the year, after the Communist government collapsed—that was what everybody said.

  On this much Elder Sister and her husband agreed. But they could not decide where to go. Kristian did not want to return to Denmark; it would be too stifling after forty years in China. Besides, Elder Sister and the boys spoke no Danish. He had his eye on Australia instead. “It’s a modern country, and English is the com
mon language,” he’d venture once again. Bing would groan to herself. The mere mention of Australia made Elder Sister bristle.

  “How many times do I have to remind you that Australia is for whites only?” she would scold. “That’s okay for you, but what about me? And our half-Chinese boys?”

  America was also high on Kristian’s list. It was on everyone’s wish list, especially with much of Europe and Asia still recovering from the war. But while a Northern European like Kristian Jarldane could get a visa, prospects for Elder Sister and the boys were dim. The U.S. Congress had recently authorized entry visas for several thousand stateless Jews and European refugees, but Chinese were another story.

  “Don’t you know that America had a law to keep Chinese out—just Chinese! Even now, only a hundred and five Chinese people are allowed to immigrate each year—no matter where in the world they’re from,” Elder Sister would sputter indignantly. “Only the richest Chinese with the best connections will get those slots.” If they decided to take their chances and apply for the necessary visas, the process could take weeks, perhaps months. By then it might be too late to get out.

  Hong Kong was just across the border from Guangdong Province and would be relatively easy for them to reach. But it would also be easy for the Communists to take Hong Kong. On the other hand, Elder Sister had heard rumors that certain employees at the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong could be bribed—and were selling visas to the States for three thousand U.S. dollars apiece. For four of them, that would be a huge amount to bet on a rumor. If it turned out to be a trick to take their money with no visas forthcoming, they’d be stuck in Hong Kong and heavily in debt.

  They nixed Singapore, the Philippines, Malaya, and other points in Southeast Asia because too many other Chinese were fleeing to those countries and Kristian might have trouble finding work. With the massive influx of Chinese and others, the swelling antiforeign resentment was also a consideration. At least the two of them agreed that Taiwan was a place for Chinese Nationalist diehards, not for people like them who found politics and corruption to be different sides of the same filthy coin. Brazil, Argentina, and Peru were possibilities with more relaxed immigration requirements. Brazil encouraged skilled people from China, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere to immigrate. But South America was so remote and undeveloped—and neither of them could speak Spanish or Portuguese.

  The next day, they’d pick up the debate where they’d left off, adding new intelligence from the latest rumors. But as the summer of 1948 pushed on, their nightly exchange took on a more urgent tone following a spate of Nationalist defeats in Manchuria and three northern provinces—the Communist-“liberated” areas were now encircling Beijing. Communist commanders under Chairman Mao had successfully transformed their guerrilla campaigns against the Japanese into larger units. The Red Army had become capable of beating back the Nationalist troops by integrating large numbers of defecting enemy soldiers. In addition, their land reform efforts throughout their liberated zones were winning the Communists significant local support. The Nationalist armies, demoralized and stretched too thin over large expanses of territory, were losing up to half a million troops in each major battle as the Red Army advanced southward toward the Yangtze—and toward Shanghai, only four hundred miles from the main battle zones.

  * * *

  —

  WITH THE LOCAL ECONOMY spinning further into chaos, Bing found new and technical-sounding words in Kristian’s English newspapers. Hyperinflation was one. As Elder Sister explained, “It means that prices are going up like crazy—even faster and higher than the price increases during the Japanese occupation. No end in sight.” Bing nodded. Everyone in Shanghai had had the unsettling experience of looking in a shopwindow as a clerk reached in to cross out one price and scrawl a new, much higher price, often x-ing out prices several times in a single day. Not even the belt-tightening inflation during the war had prepared them for costs that seemed to multiply by the minute. In June 1948, a sack of rice had cost 6.7 million yuan; within a few weeks, the price had reached 63 million.

  To address the massive discontent over the crushing inflation, on August 19, 1948, Chiang Kai-shek appointed his thirty-eight-year-old son, Major General Chiang Ching-kuo, to fix the worsening financial crisis. The young Chiang, born of his father’s first marriage, used his authority as a finance commissioner to announce new policies to end hoarding, stock manipulation, black-market speculation, and price gouging. He told a nervous city that the new rules would apply to everyone, including the rich, powerful, and well-connected, who were known to be the most egregious speculators. They amassed vast fortunes by creating shortages through hoarding, driving up prices to then make huge profits by selling the hoarded goods.

  Diverging from the usual topic of conversation at the hotel room, the grown-ups’ discontent turned to these economic developments. Kristian hoped the Chiang government was finally getting serious about the out-of-control inflation. Elder Sister and Ma remained skeptical—especially when chaos erupted over Chiang Ching-kuo’s most dramatic edict.

  The newly appointed finance commissioner ordered citizens to hand over to the government all of the gold, silver, foreign currency, and the old version of Chinese yuan in their possession. Scofflaws would be executed, he declared. But the middle class and wealthy closely guarded their savings of precious metals and stable foreign currency, their main protection against the rampant inflation. To allay those fears, young Chiang guaranteed that his freshly minted currency would hold its value. To persuade the doubters, he dispatched trucks with loudspeakers throughout the former foreign concessions to blare his harsh warnings: “Those who hoard are public enemies” and “Those who damage the new gold-based currency will have their heads chopped off!” The government claimed to have special metal detectors that would root out any gold, silver, or other metal hidden in walls or floors, sending shivers of fear through the city.

  At first, it seemed that Chiang Ching-kuo’s economic reforms had some teeth. He arrested a number of businessmen and, with much fanfare, executed some low-level black marketers. Fearing the government’s threats, many middle-class Shanghainese turned over their life savings to the government. Even Ma considered it, but couldn’t bring herself to part with her small savings.

  However, the well-intentioned younger Chiang went too far when he jailed the son of powerful Green Gang boss Du Yuesheng. If that wasn’t enough to show he was serious, Chiang Ching-kuo also arrested David Kung, the nephew of his stepmother, Madame Chiang. Upon learning that her favorite nephew was in jail, Madame Chiang stormed into her stepson’s office and slapped his face. Then she wired her husband, the generalissimo, who reportedly walked out of an important meeting with his generals in Beijing to address the family crisis.

  Chiang Ching-kuo’s reputation was in shambles after he’d suffered this major loss of face at the hands of his stepmother. Forced to abandon his currency reform program, he released the wealthy cheaters from jail. His monetary conversion plan crashed in a spectacular fiasco when it became clear that the government would not stand up to the wealthy and corrupt who were fleecing the failing economy. The newly issued currency collapsed, becoming instantly worth less than the paper it was printed on. Everyone who had obeyed the government’s orders to use the new currency lost everything; their assets of gold, silver, and foreign currency were now locked in Chiang Kai-shek’s treasury—and lining the pockets of profiteers.

  China’s economy resumed its rapid plunge, while Ma was overjoyed that she hadn’t been duped. “Never trust politicians who grow fat when everyone else is lean,” she warned Bing.

  As hyperinflation careened out of control, it became common on Shanghai streets to see people with baskets, handcarts, and pedicabs overflowing with near-worthless paper yuan to buy a few vegetables. Anyone on fixed salaries paid in Chinese yuan had to spend their pay as soon as they received it, before it lost more value. Workers went on strike, demanding t
o get paid in rice and commodities, not in cash.

  For many of Shanghai’s wealthy capitalists, the economy’s collapse was the last straw. It was now riskier to stay in Shanghai than to leave. The most prescient had already made arrangements to flee, renting space in Hong Kong and moving their chief assets there: bank accounts, factory equipment, key employees, eldest sons—hoping to salvage what they could from a country in free fall.

  Kristian was fortunate to be paid in U.S. dollars, better than gold against the collapsing new Chinese yuan. But his Chinese colleagues faced financial ruin. Shanghai’s middle classes were outraged, saying that Chiang’s government had once again used lies and trickery to steal from hardworking people. The middle classes were stripped bare while ordinary workers and the poor were flayed to the bone. Strikes and work stoppages by employees of all kinds disrupted the city daily, as ordinary people could no longer afford basic necessities. From day to day, it became impossible to know if streetcars, buses, and other city services would still be operating.

  It reached the point where Shanghailanders no longer discussed if they planned to leave but rather when. Chiang’s days were numbered, they all agreed. Many regretted not having fled as soon as General George Marshall left Shanghai to become President Truman’s secretary of state. Marshall, having witnessed the Nationalist government’s incompetence and corruption, opposed any further American military support for Chiang, in spite of Madame Chiang’s concerted lobbying of Congress with the aid of her influential American friends, such as the publisher of Time magazine, Henry R. Luce.

  In the face of the growing unrest and military defeats, the Nationalists imposed martial law over Shanghai in late 1948. They enforced a curfew and sent censors to newspapers and radio stations to screen all news, including both foreign and Chinese media. Newspapers appeared with blank spaces showing the caption “Removed by censor.” But it was impossible to suppress the news of one huge military defeat after another—not when hidden contraband radios told of the millions of Chinese soldiers and civilians dead. Though the Nationalists insisted they would defend Shanghai to the bitter end, no one believed them. Every office worker overlooking the Bund could see long lines of coolies chanting, “Hey ho, hey ho” as they hauled China’s entire treasury of gold, silver, and foreign currency onto Nationalist ships docked on the Huangpu River, all bound for Taiwan. The ships were also carrying nearly four thousand crates of China’s greatest art treasures to the island. Nationalist officials packed up or destroyed documents, equipment, vehicles, lightbulbs, toothpaste, screws—anything of possible use—to keep them out of the hands of the Communist “bandits.”