Last Boat Out of Shanghai

by Helen Zia

  * * *

  —

  HO HAD NEVER FELT so unhinged. Like their fellow Chinese students throughout the United States, Ho and his friends gathered together, seeking comfort from one another as they scoured the papers and radio reports, parsing each word as though that could help them comprehend the magnitude of this “liberation” and its impact on their families, their country, and themselves.

  In Shanghai, the Communists hastened to announce that life would go on in the city—business as usual. To slow the brain drain and flight of capital, to calm the wealthy and middle classes who had not yet fled, the Communist Central Committee announced a policy of “evolution, not revolution” to make the “rational reforms” they envisioned sound less drastic and frightening.

  Many of Ho’s fellow students were overjoyed that the Nationalists had been driven out. Chinese students in America were well aware of the Nationalists’ corruption and had little sympathy for the retreating army. They believed that a new dawn was breaking for the beleaguered Chinese people. But Ho remained skeptical. Influenced by his elder brother’s and sister’s opinionated letters about the shifting political winds, he knew it was safest to steer clear of politics and politicians. In spite of their criticism of the Nationalists, his family had stood with the old regime. His brother-in-law had worked for the Nationalists as an engineer—and, having heard nothing from his sister in some time, Ho could only hope that her family had made it to Taiwan.

  Most maddening of all, Ho hadn’t received a single letter from anyone in his family for several weeks, during the worst of the turmoil. It was the same for the other students. Those with extra money tried wiring relatives in Hong Kong or Singapore, grasping for any bit of information, sharing their news, as they all longed to learn the fate of their families.

  A few weeks after Shanghai fell, a thin blue letter finally arrived for Ho. It was from his brother and dated June 9, 1949, two weeks after the Communists had taken over the city. Ho realized with a shock that this letter from his brother was quite different. The handwriting was Hosun’s, but the tone was unfamiliar. For one, he no longer referred to the Communists as “bandits,” as he always had before. Ho had to wonder if someone had dictated the letter:

  MY DEAR BROTHER:

  THERE IS LIBERATION HERE. AFTER LISTENING TO THE SOUND OF GUNSHOTS THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE NIGHT OF MAY 24, SHANGHAI WAS LIBERATED. WE ARE FINE, JUST A LITTLE FRIGHTENED. MANY ESTATES NEAR HONGQIAO HAVE BEEN DESTROYED. STORES, FACTORIES, AND BANKS HAVE ALL REOPENED, BUT BUSINESS IS BAD.

  EVERYTHING IS UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF THE “MILITARY CONTROL COMMITTEE.” I DON’T KNOW THE FUTURE NOW. WE ARE TRYING OUR BEST TO LIVE OUR LIVES. THE PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY HAS REALLY GOOD PRINCIPLES, AND THEY HAVE THE SPIRIT OF WORKING HARD. NOW THE WHOLE COUNTRY FEELS LIKE BUILDING THE COUNTRY AFTER THE WAR. I THINK IT’S GOOD.

  OUR HOMETOWN, CHANGSHU, HAS BEEN LIBERATED FOR TEN DAYS. IT’S GOOD THERE TOO. SECOND AND THIRD UNCLES ARE IN CHANGSHU. YESTERDAY ANOTHER UNCLE CAME TO SHANGHAI AND SAID HE WANTED TO CONTRIBUTE A LARGE AMOUNT OF RICE TO THE COMMUNIST PARTY. MOTHER IS HAPPY NOWADAYS, SO YOU TAKE GOOD CARE. YOU KNOW OUR PEOPLE’S GOVERNMENT CHERISHES THE PEOPLE WITH TECHNICAL SKILLS. DON’T WORRY ABOUT COMING BACK. I KNOW FROM YOUR FORMER LETTER THAT YOU GOT A SCHOLARSHIP. I’M VERY HAPPY FOR YOU. YOU CAN DECIDE FOR YOURSELF WHETHER TO STAY IN NEW YORK OR TO RETURN TO MICHIGAN. OUR SISTER AND HER HUSBAND ARE IN TAIWAN; I CAN’T REACH THEM FROM SHANGHAI. CAN YOU TELL THEM HELLO FROM ME? MOTHER IS HEALTHY AND THE KIDS STILL THINK OF YOU.

  Ho’s world was spinning out of control. Had his brother had a change of heart, or was he too afraid to write the truth? Ho hadn’t heard from his mother and didn’t know the whereabouts of his sister. His entire network of Chinese students was seized by panic, everyone asking themselves the same nervous questions. Where were their families? Were they safe? Should they return to China? If they stayed in America, how could they survive?

  With so many questions and so little information, Ho felt stymied, stuck. He was a man of science, not a soothsayer. But one thing seemed clear: Whatever path he chose would determine his future in ways that he couldn’t anticipate or fathom.

  SHANGHAI, MAY 1949

  All through the spring of 1949, Shanghai had been in a state of imminent apocalypse. Even at the insular St. John’s campus, Benny was on heightened alert, awaiting the presumed Communist takeover of the city. Any Americans and foreign nationals who had not yet evacuated received “last chance” warnings from their governments. But not everyone at St. John’s was disheartened by the turn of events. It was an open secret that his campus, like many others, had underground Communists and sympathizers among its students, even those from wealthy families. Those hidden Communists didn’t dare reveal themselves, knowing they’d face summary execution.

  Still, the biggest concern in Shanghai was not the Red Army’s approach but the crippled economy. Life for the city’s six million residents had grown increasingly harsh under the rigid martial law imposed after the Nationalists’ string of defeats. A strict curfew prohibited going outside for any reason between 6:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M., whether to tend to a sick family member or to get some hot water from the corner tiger stove. Violators could be shot. Shanghai’s famed nightlife ground to a standstill, further sinking the economy. Only Nationalist soldiers were out past curfew—which gave necessary cover for them to move machinery, antiquities, goods, documents, and China’s entire treasury onto ships headed for Taiwan.

  After the Communists crossed the Yangtze River on April 21, Benny had to scramble for a place to stay when the Nationalists ordered fifteen Shanghai universities shut down, including St. John’s, Jiao Da, and Fudan. Though the Nationalists claimed the closures were for students’ safety, no one believed them, and news reports said the authorities anticipated that students would rally in support of the Communists.

  Benny found temporary shelter with the help of his buddies and the few relatives who would still speak to him. Thankfully, St. Mary’s Hall wasn’t shut down, and Doreen was safe there. But he had no idea how his father was doing; Benny hadn’t visited him in months because of the fighting near Tilanqiao. Benny hoped that the Nationalists’ wave of street executions hadn’t spilled over into the prison.

  The closer the Red Army came to Shanghai, the more bizarre the news seemed to Benny. On May 24, with the Communists surrounding the city and ready to attack at any moment, the British consul general R. W. Urquhart and other British diehards celebrated “Empire Day.” The once-powerful overlords of the foreign treaty ports toasted the shrinking British Empire over lunch at the Long Bar of the elegant Shanghai Club, at number 2 on the Bund.

  A few blocks away, an even more surreal event was taking place. The Nationalist garrison in Shanghai was staging a colorful, flag-waving “victory parade” from Nanjing Road through Hongkou Park. Caravans of jeeps rolled by, and soldiers marched along, distributing handbills urging all to “resist the aggression of the Communists to the bitter end.” Benny and his friends dubbed it a “retreat parade”: At the end of the route, the troops and vehicles kept right on moving toward the Wusongkou wharves, where they boarded ships headed to the East China Sea and Taiwan.

  All that night, the sound of bombs and machine-gun bursts punctuated the darkness, the acrid smell of gunpowder and burning rubber filling the air. By the next morning, on May 25, the city’s eerie silence was broken only by the occasional boom of distant explosions. Shanghai awoke to find its main avenues lined with thousands of Communist troops—country boys in tattered green uniforms. They had marched into the city quietly, no pounding footsteps coming from their cloth or straw shoes. By 7:30 A.M., they made their way to the Bund, running on the double-quick through the major thoroughfares of the former French Concession. The only opposition arose in a few areas near the Embankment Building and the post office by Suzhou Creek from rear-guard Nationalist soldiers who seemed unaware that their comrades were already in ret
reat at sea. General Tang Enbo himself, the Nationalist commander in charge of Shanghai’s defense, who had declared that he would fight to the last man, was on his way to Guangzhou by the time the Red Army marched into the city.

  When Benny stepped beyond the quiet lane where he was staying and onto the wide main streets fresh with spring foliage, before him were endless rows of sleeping soldiers. Thousands of men and boys, many appearing much younger than he, lay on the sidewalks like so many neat wooden staves. After weeks of fighting, they slept despite the bright sunlight and the morning’s traffic.

  At a nearby intersection, Communist soldiers with green caps accentuated by red stars stood watch at blockades that the Nationalists had held only the day before. Benny watched as a small crowd of local residents edged closer, curiosity eclipsing their caution. Benny, too, wondered if these were a different breed of soldier, men who could seize a grand city without pillaging, raping, and killing civilians. There was no wave of terror, which had been the hallmark of both the Japanese military and the retreating Nationalists. To the surprise of onlookers, foreign journalists among them, the tired soldiers politely rejected offers of hot tea, food, even hot water. “The People’s Liberation Army does not take anything from the people,” replied a snappy young soldier.

  If the Shanghainese locals were bewildered by the disciplined ragtag soldiers lining their streets, those bleary-eyed country boys were equally stunned to awaken in the Paris of the East. Few had ever seen such towering skyscrapers, grand mansions, fine motorized vehicles, or Westernized Chinese who looked to them as alien as the foreigners.

  At St. Mary’s Hall, Doreen and several other girls had spent the night at a teacher’s cottage, huddled on the floor and out of the path of stray bullets. After Benny found her safe and unharmed, he couldn’t resist checking on his own nearby campus. A sea of soldiers greeted him: two thousand Red Army troops asleep on the grassy commons by the landmark old camphor tree. He would have stopped to pray at the Pro-Cathedral, but it, too, was occupied by soldiers sleeping on the pews and floor. In contrast to the chaos and looting of the retreating Nationalists, the Communist victory was almost peaceful.

  Some fighting flared up outside the city proper, in Pudong and Woosung in the east and by Hongqiao in the west. After a small Nationalist unit put up a last-ditch fight near the Bund, they surrendered once they realized they’d been abandoned by their fellow soldiers. Other Nationalist troops who had been left behind simply shed their uniforms and disappeared into the teeming city, clad only in their underwear.

  * * *

  —

  CURIOUS TO SEE WHAT other changes came with the liberators, Benny made his way to Nanjing Road, not far from his late grandfather’s former house on Tibet Road. The city’s center had broken out in wild celebration, welcoming the victorious Communists on the same blocks where the Nationalists had held their victory parade fewer than twenty-four hours before. Nationalist flags were swiftly replaced by red banners with yellow stars. Troops of enthusiastic youths paraded by, chanting anti-imperialist slogans, shouting to bystanders about the benefits of Communism. “May the People’s Liberation Army live ten thousand years! Welcome, People’s Liberation Army!” they shouted. Giant portraits of Mao Zedong had materialized overnight, covering the sides of Shanghai’s tall buildings, evidently the work of countless underground Communist supporters who had been secretly preparing for this moment. Boys and girls from the Communist Democratic Youth League put up thousands of colorful posters welcoming the troops. Teenagers with armbands stood in for the traffic cops who’d fled with the Nationalists. Girl League members, carrying big baskets of red carnations, put them in the buttonholes of the Red Army soldiers.

  Benny watched from the sidelines as university students, including some he recognized from St. John’s, swayed to the yang ko, a familiar line dance popular with peasant farmers, the backbone of the revolution-in-progress. They snaked through the streets in long triple lines that foreigners called the “Communist conga.” Though the festivities seemed never ending, Benny didn’t participate, not with his father in prison—and he wasn’t the only one to hang back. Others who tired of the continuous celebration could duck into movie theaters that stayed open while schools and other businesses were closed: Deception, starring Bette Davis, was featured at the Majestic Theatre off Bubbling Well Road, while I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now was at the Cathay. Benny didn’t dare waste any of his small earnings from tutoring on a movie. He’d have to keep closer tabs on his spending now that the economy was sure to be in even greater flux.

  More than anything, Benny hoped the Communists would allow students to graduate as scheduled. He gave a silent prayer of gratitude when classes resumed at St. John’s on June 13. New rules went into effect immediately—such as suspending morning prayers at the chapel. Startled but not surprised, Benny knew not to protest. A pro-Communist assembly was held instead to thank the soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army who had bivouacked at the campus during the weeks of Liberation. The students in charge praised the soldiers’ dedication to the people’s revolution. Benny held his own worship, praying alone in his room.

  A pro-Communist group emerged as the new student leadership on campus. Students like Benny were surprised to learn who among their classmates had been secret Communists. It had been rumored for some time that the women’s dormitory was a hotbed of radicalism. Schoolmate Tao-Fu Ying, whose family came from a long line of compradors like Benny’s, learned that his own sister was an underground Communist. The now openly pro-Communist campus group proclaimed its first priority: to bring the missionary school in line with the party’s political principles. English would no longer be spoken in the classrooms, ending one of the hallmarks of a St. John’s education. The dominance of the language at St. John’s was condemned as a part of the “slavery education” promoted by the missionaries.

  All over the country, the Chinese language would henceforth be taught as the language of learning and commerce. All classes, including his courses on American politics, were to be conducted in Chinese. Benny didn’t care. He could easily complete his course work in either language. By summer’s end, he’d have all the college credits needed to get his diploma at the September graduation. Then he’d be through with college, and he, too, might consider leaving.

  * * *

  —

  MARSHAL CHEN YI, SHANGHAI’S newly appointed Communist mayor, hastened to calm the city’s skittish residents, urging them to conduct their lives as usual while cooperating with the People’s Liberation Army. Within days, trolley and tram service resumed; electricity and water flowed. Train rails and bridges damaged in the fighting were repaired and street blockades quickly dismantled. River traffic started up again, and a few ships were allowed back into the once-bustling port. Thousands of mines left by the Nationalists in the waterways and government buildings had to be disarmed as the Communist Party leadership moved into the massive municipal government complex by the Bund on Hankou Road, once home to the British-dominated Shanghai Municipal Council.

  A new currency, the renminbi, was being introduced to replace the Nationalist gold yuan. Some clever Shanghai counterfeiters went to work on the new bills right away but were swiftly caught and arrested. The red flag with a large yellow star and four smaller ones flew over the Bund atop the Custom House, the Harbor Office, and General Post Office, which issued new postage stamps commemorating the Liberation of Shanghai and Nanjing. In one of their most popular moves, on June 24 the Communists eliminated the much-hated curfew and baojia system of neighborhood snoops, saying that the Nationalists had violated the rights of the people.

  With much fanfare, Communist commissioners handily accomplished what Benny’s father had failed to do as police commissioner: They quickly and efficiently shut down the vice industry of the Badlands. Prostitutes, dance-hall girls, gamblers, opium dealers, and addicts had to attend mandatory Communist reeducation sessions. Authoritie
s slapped stiff fines on the owners of ballrooms, gambling halls, and other businesses for tax evasion. Uncooperative owners and managers were arrested and punished. The tightening vise of regulations and entertainment taxes gradually drove many out of business.

  As the weeks progressed under the new regime, to Benny it seemed possible that the Communists could move Shanghai in a positive direction. Many welcomed those early measures as necessary and good, especially because of the economic stability that had been so absent under the Nationalists. But Benny was still worried about his father and had to wait for revised visiting procedures to be issued at the Tilanqiao Prison before he could venture back. In the meantime, he hoped that the Communist government would release his father and other prisoners.

  Although Shanghai had been liberated at the end of May and the Nationalists were in retreat, the Communists did not yet have control over all of China’s vast territory. Clashes between the two armies continued in the south and west. The Nationalists even launched air attacks on Shanghai from Taiwan, sending bombers in their American-made planes to strafe the city, killing Chinese civilians in Zhabei and Nantao, the same areas that had been leveled by the Japanese. The Communists had neither an air force nor antiaircraft defense, giving Chiang Kai-shek’s military unfettered ability to bomb the port of Shanghai and to gun down civilians on the streets below. Not even the Japanese “Zeros” had done that to Shanghai—a point that the Communist-controlled press emphasized. A Nationalist plane mistakenly bombed the British ship Anchises, a commercial vessel that had been allowed into Communist waters. Luckily, all passengers and crew were rescued, but the incident made it clear that the civil war was not yet over.