Last Boat Out of Shanghai

by Helen Zia

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  WITH DOREEN SAFE AND NEARLY to Hong Kong, Benny prepared to move to Nanjing for his job at the National YMCA office. His boss and benefactor, Dr. Tu Yu-Ching, had been criticized by some of the foreign Episcopal staff at St. John’s for his time as president of the university. They felt he had been too acquiescent toward the more radical students as the Communists took power. But now Benny’s colleagues at the YMCA hoped that his boss’s prior “soft” treatment of Communist students would help keep their Christian organization in the good graces of the new regime. Benny was glad to be moving to Nanjing. No one would know of his family’s history there, and there would be fewer painful reminders of what once was.

  Shanghai’s constant state of political agitation was another reason Benny wanted to leave. Everyone was on high alert as Nationalist forces continued to terrorize the city with air strikes from their island bunkers in Taiwan, using American-made planes and bombs. The Communists had depended on guerrilla warfare and received little material aid from the Soviets. Even in victory they had neither an air force nor an antiaircraft program. By February 1950, the steady bombardment of Shanghai by the Nationalists was so severe, at times the city lost electricity and water.

  Instead of diminishing the revolutionary fervor, however, the attacks only further inflamed the outrage and clamor for radical change. The new Communist government publicized its efforts to ferret out any remaining Nationalist assets and secret opposition forces. The Avenue Pétain mansion of former finance minister T. V. Soong became the Communist Party headquarters. Benny had often gone past the imposing villa. Newspapers recounted that the “imperialist running dog” Soong had fled to Paris and New York with his wife and aides, while Chiang Kai-shek and his wife had reportedly taken millions of dollars in cash to the United States for safekeeping, angering many Chinese. Other reports said that the Chiangs, the Soongs, the Kungs, and other high-profile Nationalists had misused diplomatic passports and skimmed millions of U.S. dollars intended as aid for the relief of war-stricken Chinese.

  Benny feared that the constant stoking of hatred against the old guard didn’t bode well for his father. Each day, news stories reported on atrocities committed by the Nationalists in the last days of their rule, such as the many arbitrary executions. The Communists had captured more than a hundred thousand Nationalist soldiers, placing the higher-ranking ones in the hulking Tilanqiao Prison—the same location as C. C. Pan.

  A people’s tribunal was reviewing backlogged cases of criminals charged with various offenses, from black-marketeering and theft to possession of Nationalist assets. Almost daily, accused counterrevolutionaries were being paraded before jeering crowds in Shanghai’s parks and public grounds. The huge Canidrome in the former French Concession and the British racecourse in the former International Settlement became arenas for public recrimination, judgment, and execution. Each time one of these spectacles was announced, Benny cringed and asked himself, Is it my father’s turn?

  When it was finally time for Benny to leave Shanghai, he took the train to Nanjing. The station was almost calm, without the frenzied crush to escape he’d experienced when he was last there with Doreen and his mother. Nanjing, the former Nationalist capital, was China’s second-largest city, but its population of 2.6 million seemed placid compared to Shanghai’s 6 million. Benny moved into a room at the YMCA, where he found both camaraderie to ease his newcomer status and anonymity to mask his family shame. In his job as secretary to Dr. Tu, his English skills grew sharper from typing reports and correspondence. He could even save some money. Most gratifying of all, he was doing God’s work to help the Christian movement in China continue. This way, he hoped to make some small atonement for his father’s sins.

  In the first several months after the founding of the People’s Republic, the government struggled to keep the economy and essential services running while consolidating its control over public order. The new regime hastened to assure frightened capitalists that their factories and shops could continue without disruption. Similar promises were made to intellectuals and skilled professionals of the petite bourgeoisie. Communist or not, the country could not afford to lose the entire class of professionals, technicians, business owners, and managers to the panicked exodus well under way. Even foreign missionaries with the YMCA and other Christian groups were told they could keep their church doors open—at least for the unspecified future.

  But with each passing month, the revolutionary government grew more stringent and demanding. The new regime needed money to run the country. Under the Marxist principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need,” the bourgeoisie had to carry the heaviest load. Hefty taxes and higher wages for their employees were imposed on business owners at hearings conducted by indignant workers’ committees. Afraid to reduce their operations and face recrimination at worker-run tribunals, businessmen were leaping to their deaths from Shanghai’s tall buildings in shocking numbers. Pedestrians on the streets below hugged the buildings to avoid the crumpled bodies and to prevent themselves from becoming casualties. At schools throughout Shanghai, students were required to take new courses on political thought, while applied sciences were emphasized over the arts. At St. John’s University, its formerly prized English-language curriculum was no more.

  Attendance at Benny’s fellowship meetings and Sunday church services steadily shrank. As more Western missionaries departed from China, the future for the Y and other Christian institutions was dimming. When Benny had graduated in 1949, 33 of the 177 teachers at St. John’s had been foreign. Less than a year later, only five Western teachers remained.

  In Nanjing and other cities, enthusiastic revolutionaries organized rallies to conduct mass “trials” of big landlords and capitalists who were forced to wear dunce caps that listed their offenses, intended to “educate the laboring people” on the crimes of “running dogs of the imperialists.” The accused had to face public criticism to reform their thinking. To help them change, their wealth was seized and redistributed. In the rural countryside, China’s vast population of poor farmers also held mass meetings to “speak bitterness” and confront despicable landlords with their crimes and cruelty. Many were beaten to death when the big rallies turned violent. In the months following the revolution, more than a million landlords are estimated to have been killed as part of this land reform movement.

  Through his job at the YMCA, news of these events crossed Benny’s desk. With each new report, he felt ever more certain that he had done the right thing in sending Doreen to Hong Kong. For that, he was most thankful.

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  AT THE YWCA IN GUANGZHOU, Doreen had sent an urgent letter to her sister in Hong Kong almost immediately after arriving, asking for money to buy the train ticket for the short distance from Guangzhou to Shenzhen, where she could cross the border into Lo Wu, the first rail stop in the British colony of Hong Kong. Cecilia had written back saying she couldn’t afford Doreen’s ticket. Financial uncertainties were roiling her husband’s company, the China National Aviation Corporation, a distinguished airline that had flown airlifts over the Himalayas to supply the Nationalists during the war against Japan. Since the Communist victory, businesses in Hong Kong had faced constant labor disruptions due to the economic uncertainty. Several of CNAC’s pilots had even commandeered planes and defected to the Communists. According to Cecilia, her husband’s work was so erratic that they barely had money to feed their children. It would take time to scrape together the cost of her ticket.

  Doreen didn’t mind waiting. Miss Ling, the director, had plenty for her to do at the Y. Grateful to be of use, Doreen was pleased that her English skills were an asset. Living at the Y was a far cry from her life as a boarding student at St. Mary’s Hall, but she knew she was lucky to have this safe place to bide her time.

  Guangzhou continued to swell from the huge numbers of refugee
s pouring in, all with the hope of crossing into Hong Kong. Many had no place to sleep but on the streets. As one of the last major cities under Nationalist control, Guangzhou had also been one of the last places on the mainland to issue Republic of China passports. Refugees from all over had poured in to get the travel documents they needed to flee China, since the United States and many other countries still recognized the Republic of China as the only legitimate government. Even a year after the revolution, Guangzhou and Shenzhen continued to be the gateways to the British colony of Hong Kong and the Portuguese colony of Macao. But rumors swirled that those gates might soon close, as those colonies were overwhelmed by more than a million refugees. Doreen could only hope that the border would stay open long enough for her to cross.

  Within a few months, Doreen heard from her sister: She was sending the train ticket. Bidding a tearful goodbye to Miss Ling and her new friends at the Y—aware that they, too, would soon depart—Doreen left for the Chinese border village of Shenzhen, where she would cross to Lo Wu on the British side of the border and meet her sister’s husband.

  The train was choked with people and luggage, an unpleasant reminder of her wrenching train ride from Shanghai. At least this time Doreen felt hopeful. She was looking forward to college and the chance to study overseas—maybe even in America. When the train reached its last stop at Shenzhen, all passengers had to get out and walk the final stretch. Doreen had been warned by her friends at the YWCA that she’d have to pass by some border police before she would be allowed to walk across a small bridge marking the border. Then she’d be in Lo Wu, located in the sparsely populated New Territories beyond Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.

  Even though her friends had coached her on what to expect, Doreen grew nervous as she joined the long queue to reach the border guards. The Chinese exit police were inspecting everyone’s bags, just as the horrid inspectors at the Shanghai station had done. She watched as inspectors seized money, gold, and jewelry from travelers who hadn’t hidden their valuables carefully enough. Exiting Chinese were permitted to take only the equivalent of five Hong Kong dollars in cash out of the country. “These belong to the people of China, not to the running dogs of imperialists and their lackeys,” the inspectors said. Doreen had nothing left for them to take. She was quickly waved on.

  As she continued toward the Hong Kong side, Doreen soon encountered another set of guards, both English and Chinese, all wearing British uniforms. Instead of checking packages, these guards asked questions—and depending on the answers, they were turning some people back. Even from the end of the long line, Doreen could hear the anguished cries and entreaties of those who had been barred from entering: “We’ve come from so far. You must let us through!” “My mother is gravely ill. I must go to see her!” The guards were unmoved. No one had mentioned this step to her—was this a new trap?

  As she reached the front of the queue, Doreen squared her shoulders and murmured a little prayer. The soldier asked her, in English, if she could speak Cantonese.

  “Hai-yaah!”—yes!—she replied firmly, in the Cantonese accent she had carefully honed during her stay in Guangzhou.

  “Where will you stay in Hong Kong? Tell me quickly,” he shot back.

  Doreen fired off her sister’s address in rapid Cantonese. With that, the Hong Kong guards allowed her in. They didn’t ask for her papers or proof of her intended destination. The British wanted to admit only those already from the area—and to bar any more refugees from distant regions like Shanghai. Woe to those who couldn’t answer in Cantonese—they were summarily turned back. Until this new requirement, there had never been restrictions on ethnic Chinese entering or leaving the colony. Now, to keep both refugees and Communists out, that had changed.

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  AS DOREEN ENTERED LO WU, she murmured her thanks to her Cantonese great-grandparents for keeping their ancestral tongue alive in Shanghai. Other Chinese walked quickly, as if to get away before the guards could change their minds. Some in expensive-looking Western clothes appeared crumpled and haggard; Doreen guessed that they’d had to sleep on the station grounds until approved for exit—and they, too, had to carry their own bags. Looking at the ground as she walked, Doreen suddenly realized that she had crossed the border out of China and was in British Hong Kong! She scanned the waiting crowd and spotted a man in a CNAC uniform. Rushing over to him, she saw it was indeed her brother-in-law! With difficulty, she restrained her excitement, greeting him with a demure nod in the formal Chinese way. He gave a reserved nod back but offered, “You made it—welcome to Hong Kong!” She followed him onto the next train from Lo Wu to Kowloon, the peninsula across from Hong Kong Island, and sat quietly with a big smile of relief across her face. Soon she would be in the safe embrace of family again.

  After they reached Kowloon station, the two walked through curving streets and alleys that were even more crowded than the lanes of the Dasheng lilong where her family had once lived in Shanghai’s former French Concession. The concrete apartment buildings seemed taller and narrower than any she had known, while overhead shop signs and bamboo poles with drying laundry jutted over the roadway. Her brother-in-law turned in to one of the buildings, and they trudged up several flights of a dark, narrow stairwell. Entering one of the small apartments, Doreen was overjoyed.

  “Big Sister, I’ve been waiting so long to join you!” she exclaimed as Cecilia introduced her two daughters, aged one and two, who shyly clung to her skirt.

  “It was hard for us to save money for your ticket, Younger Sister,” she replied. “I wrote you that my husband doesn’t have steady work. It’s a good thing you’re here to help. The new baby is coming soon.”

  Doreen gulped. “You know I couldn’t buy the train ticket from Guangzhou because the immigration police in Shanghai took everything.”

  “That was your own fault—why didn’t you hide your money better? You and Benny should have expected their thievery,” Cecilia snapped.

  Cecilia led Doreen to an area off the tiny kitchen. “This is where you’ll stay—together with the maid.” As soon as Doreen put her bag down, her sister made her expectations clear. “You’ll help her with the children and her chores.”

  Suddenly the nineteen-year-old noticed the faded wallpaper, peeling in some places, and the discolored, moisture-stained ceiling of the cramped apartment. She’d never been in such a narrow, crowded building.

  “Of course I’ll help your amah with the children. Perhaps I could go to school for a few hours each day?” Doreen ventured.

  “School? What does a girl like you need with more schooling? Eldest Sister Annie and I were married by your age. You have your St. Mary’s diploma; that’s plenty.” Cecilia practically spat out the words. “Don’t you see all the refugees here in Hong Kong? You don’t have money to pay for school, and neither do we.” She closed the subject with an emphatic “Humph!”

  Doreen was surprised by her sister’s harshness. Though she had known that she’d have to help, she hadn’t expected this. But she could also see that one maid couldn’t handle all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Instead of continuing her education at a Hong Kong school, Doreen began spending her days watching over her sister’s two girls and helping the maid with the wash and whatever else she needed.

  Doreen knew she should be grateful to have a bed and a roof over her head—with more refugees streaming in each day, everyone talked about Hong Kong’s terrible housing shortage. According to local newspapers, more than a million Chinese had entered the colony, doubling its population almost overnight. At the end of World War II, Hong Kong had a population of 600,000. By 1950, it was bursting, with an official population count of 2,360,000. Having arrived by plane, boat, train, and foot, many of the new refugees became destitute after spending all their money on a short-term place to stay while searching for someplace cheaper. Many ended up as squatters in makeshift encampments on muddy hillside
s.

  The massive refugee crisis and squatter slums in Hong Kong included the notorious Shek Kip Mei slum, pictured here, which left more than fifty thousand refugees homeless after a catastrophic fire on Christmas Day 1953.

  At the same time, the Hong Kong government was afraid that both Communist and Nationalist agitators would stir up political discontent and turn the colony into a battleground. Crippling strikes and labor unrest caused constant disruptions. With Hong Kong’s economy dependent on trade with China, any economic embargo against the Communist mainland would have had an immediate and disastrous effect on the colony. And if the Red Army crossed the border into the New Territories, Britain was in no position to defend Hong Kong militarily.

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  IT WAS A TERRIBLE BLOW to become her sister’s menial housemaid, but Doreen didn’t dare voice her dissatisfaction. Cecilia’s worries over money made her ill-tempered. After the birth of her third child—yet another girl—Cecilia’s mood soured even more. At every opportunity, she picked on Doreen.

  “Why don’t you hurry up and find a husband who can pay us for the room and board you owe us?” Cecilia would say. “You’re an old maid already, and if you don’t get married soon, it’ll be too late for you!”

  Doreen could feel her ears and cheeks turn red whenever her sister nagged her about this. But she was different from her elder sisters. Annie and Cecilia had both gotten married by the time they were seventeen. Cecilia hadn’t even finished her middle school studies when she eloped. Both of Doreen’s sisters had always been more interested in fashion and social status—window-shopping with their mother, associating with the popular girls, and seeking the attention of rich boys. When the family’s status plummeted after their father’s arrest, Cecilia ran off to Hong Kong with her aviator husband rather than face social humiliation.