Last Boat Out of Shanghai

by Helen Zia

  Status and money hadn’t been so important to Doreen. She wanted to be educated, to use her mind. In that way, she was much more like Benny. She remembered fondly how the two of them would trade quips during the fancy Sunday parties while Annie and Cecilia looked for rich playboys to flirt with. Now Doreen had to listen to her sister’s constant rants. If she wasn’t pushing Doreen to find a rich husband, Cecilia harangued her about money to help with household expenses.

  “Why can’t you go to one of the nightclubs or dance halls and make a few dollars each night?” Cecilia would ask. “Lots of Shanghai girls are doing it, even girls from high-class families. Too proud to sell a few dances? Who do you think you are? If it weren’t for us, you’d have to sell a lot more than that!”

  There was nothing Doreen could say in reply. Everyone in Hong Kong knew that Shanghai girls were considered hot commodities among the sailors and other men on the prowl. Doreen was sickened by her sister’s attempts to steer her in that direction. In the gritty parts of Hong Kong, Shanghai nui had become almost synonymous with prostitute. In Wan Chai and near the docks of the busy port city, it was true that plenty of desperate Shanghai women had no other way to survive. Gossips whispered the family names of Shanghai women rumored to be selling their bodies. Was that what Cecilia wanted her to become?

  I will never sink to that, Doreen vowed to herself. I will never sell my smile or my soul in a dance hall—or worse. Never!

  To keep her sister at bay and to try to make a life for herself, Doreen began searching for a job. When she could get away, she’d head to Hong Kong Island on the Star Ferry, the dependable green-and-white boats that cost only a few pennies for a ride on the second-class deck. She would always jockey for a spot with a view of the Customs House clock tower and the Peninsula Hotel so that she could watch them recede as the ferryboat chugged across the wide shipping lanes to Central, the main administrative district of the British colony.

  Hunting for work, Doreen quickly learned to keep her Shanghai background and attitude to herself. The vast majority of the Hong Kong Chinese were Cantonese from Guangdong Province—and they thoroughly disliked the refugees from the north, especially those from Shanghai. Their reasons were wide-ranging: There were just too many refugees; the city was already too crowded; the very character of Hong Kong was changing because of these outsiders. Every day, Doreen passed news hawkers shouting headlines “Shanghai Exodus Continues,” “Two More Ships Come to HK with Refugees,” “HK’s Growing Population Reflected in Traffic Accidents.”

  Moreover, the Shanghai migrants simply rubbed many Hong Kongers the wrong way. Locals considered them to be show-offs, arrogant braggarts, and spendthrifts who offended Cantonese values of thrift and modesty. A common saying summed up the local attitude: “When Cantonese have a hundred dollars, they act as if they only have one dollar. Shanghainese with one dollar act as if they have a hundred.”

  Hong Kong natives tended to lump together the migrants from the north as though they were all the same, labeling them all as “Shanghainese” no matter what part of China they were from. Everything wrong with the refugees was blamed on the Shanghainese: Beggars on the street who scrounged for coins or scraps of food had to be Shanghainese; prostitutes were Shanghainese; the aggressive beggars who threw themselves onto the hoods of cars and refused to move until they received a handout—they were most definitely Shanghainese. Some Cantonese made a game of wrapping their leftovers and trash in newspaper and tossing them out of their upper-story windows to watch the “Shanghainese” beggars scramble for the contents on the street below.

  Hong Kong’s refugee crisis was exacerbated by the British colonial government’s decision to do nothing to aid the overwhelming number of new arrivals. Instead, the British overseers deferred to wishful thinking—that the problem was temporary and the million-plus refugees would soon leave. Indeed, many of the refugees wanted to leave. But most had nowhere to go. The colony’s governor, Alexander Grantham, opposed large-scale relief efforts to provide basic sanitation or housing, saying there was “no reason for turning Hong Kong into a glorified soup kitchen for refugees from all over China.” Hong Kong’s British authorities resisted using the very word refugee, as refugees would require some kind of international humanitarian response. Instead, the colonial government referred to the critical situation as a “problem of people.” Geopolitics further complicated the crisis: Both the People’s Republic of China on the mainland and the Republic of China in Taiwan claimed to be China’s sole legitimate government, yet neither was willing to acknowledge the mass exodus or provide assistance for the refugees. Caught in the crosscurrents of global interests, the “problem people” languished in their Hong Kong no-man’s-land.

  Doreen’s ability to speak passable Cantonese was enough to get her into doors as she inquired for work at every opportunity. But as soon as she was pegged as a Shanghai nui, she was finished. With a million new refugees looking for work in Hong Kong, unemployment was at astronomical levels. Searching bulletin boards, shops, and gathering places for possible leads, she realized that so many other Shanghainese were far more experienced or skilled than she. For example, John Chan, one of Benny’s St. John’s schoolmates, once ran his family’s hundred-year-old stevedore business. It took him more than a year to land a job with a group funded by the U.S. government called Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals, created to help the most educated refugees. Doreen couldn’t qualify for their assistance. She couldn’t even compete with Shanghai teenagers like biracial Myra dos Remedios, who had taught herself to type and learned stenography—and was desperately searching for work while living at the dog racetrack in Portuguese Macao, now converted into a refugee camp. Migrants like Myra were even hungrier for work than Doreen. With so much competition, Doreen fell into despair.

  Sometimes, before heading back to her sister’s place in Kowloon, Doreen would make her way up to Victoria Peak. Walking around the park near the summit, she’d descend into such deep thought that she’d barely notice the famous view.

  Was it a mistake for me to come to Hong Kong? she asked herself. There’s no life for me here and no hope. Doreen felt lost, just one of more than a million refugees from China, gasping for air and a place in the clogged colony. Sometimes she closed her eyes, thinking that her best option was in the deep blue sea surrounding her.

  TAIPEI, 1950

  Furious at being abandoned by the United States in his quest to retake the mainland, Generalissimo Chiang continued the bombing sorties over Shanghai and the mainland coast. His air force not only inflicted heavy civilian casualties, but Chiang also targeted two of the American companies still operating in the city, Standard Oil and the Shanghai Power Company, on the grounds that their fuel and electricity aided the Communists. A few Americans who remained in Shanghai witnessed the attacks—and the irony that Chiang had bombed them with American-supplied planes and ordnance. Though the U.S. government protested Chiang’s actions, it could not stop his attempts to push Washington to the brink of war with Communist China. The people on Taiwan, living under military control, braced themselves for the impending showdown between the mainland giant and the tiny island. Even schoolchildren like Annuo were gripped by fear and dread. To reinforce its control over the terrified populace, the Nationalist government further tightened martial law.

  That fear drove yet more desperate refugees onto Taiwan, arriving by overloaded boats and planes, at their peril. Chiang’s military and his secret police, now under his son’s command, turned many away after subjecting the new arrivals to extreme screening, ostensibly to root out potential Communist infiltrators, spies, terrorists, dissidents, and anyone who was not in lockstep with the regime. Somehow two of Annuo’s maternal uncles managed to make their way onto the island: her mother’s eldest brother as well as a younger brother, his wife, and daughter. They had escaped separately from Shanghai to Hong Kong, then to Taipei. One after the other, they found Annuo’s family. Now
every inch of tatami matting in the small house was occupied.

  * * *

  —

  A FEW ANXIOUS MONTHS after President Truman’s abandonment of Taiwan, everything abruptly changed again. On June 25, 1950, a new war broke out in Korea, seven hundred miles to the north. Annuo, now in her second year at the Taipei First Girls’ High School, was in class when the school principal assembled the entire student body to announce the alarming development: The North Korean army had invaded South Korea. There was war on the Korean Peninsula.

  Annuo’s teacher explained how, after Japan’s surrender in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union had arbitrarily divided Korea, a Japanese colony since 1910, into two parts at the thirty-eighth parallel north. The Communist North was aligned with the Soviets and Communist China while the South was allied with Washington. North Korea’s leader, Kim Il-Sung, had launched the attack to unify the peninsula under his rule, aided by military support from Stalin and Mao. It seemed that the world was on the brink of another global war.

  More war? Annuo and her schoolmates listened in stunned disbelief. War had defined their lives, and they knew too well the turmoil and devastation that would follow. Annuo worried about her brother, Charley, who was turning eighteen and would soon have to report for service in the Nationalist army. Every male in Taiwan was required to serve for one year. Images of low-flying bombers and soldiers with bayonets came rushing back to Annuo. She instinctively shut her eyes as if to block the memories of the violence she had already seen and to shut out what was yet to come.

  At home that night, Annuo learned more details of the attack by listening to the adults’ animated talk. North Korea had crossed the thirty-eighth parallel with 89,000 assault troops and 150 Russian tanks, taking the American-supported South by surprise.

  Although the civilian population was fearful that the nearby war could engulf Taiwan, many of the island’s thousands of idle soldiers seemed energized by the news. Annuo’s father and his Nationalist friends hoped that the war in Korea would compel the American military to stand against the Chinese Communists. It could be the break Taiwan needed.

  On June 27, 1950, two days after North Korea’s invasion, President Truman made an about-face from his speech abandoning Taiwan, just six months earlier: “I have ordered United States air and sea forces to give the Korean government troops cover and support.” He followed his announcement with a longer statement about Taiwan:

  The attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt that Communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war….The occupation of Formosa [Taiwan] by Communist forces would be a direct threat to the security of the Pacific area and to United States forces….Accordingly, I have ordered the Seventh Fleet to prevent any attack on Formosa.

  Concerned that Chiang Kai-shek would inflame the conflict with Communist China, Truman also called on the Nationalists to cease their provocative air raids and other military operations against the mainland. Undeterred, Chiang promptly offered to send his army’s “fighting force of thirty-three thousand Nationalist soldiers” to Korea. Pentagon generals rejected his proposal, questioning its real value. But any offense Chiang might have taken was more than mitigated by the long-hoped-for influx of American aid. The U.S. Navy was returning to the East China Sea. Taiwan’s Nationalists fervently hoped that American military and economic aid would pour into their coffers once again.

  In Washington, talks were under way to provide $300 million to Taiwan to help keep the strategically located island out of Communist hands. Within a few years, the total aid would reach $2 billion. The Yanks were back. Before North Korea had crossed the thirty-eighth parallel, there had been fewer than a hundred Americans in all of Taiwan. Now thousands were on their way, to use the island as a base for their efforts in Korea. With the massive injection of U.S. support, overnight Chiang’s control over Taiwan became stronger than ever. Annuo’s father and other Nationalist wai sheng ren could rest more easily on the island while still holding tight to their dream of taking back the Communist mainland.

  With Taiwan’s new strategic significance to the United States, in 1950, infusions of American arms and aid boosted the Nationalists’ military, reinforcing their rule by martial law.

  * * *

  —

  WITH HER FATHER’S NEW job and Taiwan’s security assured, Annuo’s family finally moved to a larger house in Taipei. This one had a real kitchen and three bedrooms, and to the great relief of Annuo’s mother, there was furniture. By then, another uncle—her father’s younger brother—had joined the household, with his wife and two teenagers, whom Annuo was to address as Elder Brother and Elder Sister. With the addition of a live-in cook and a maid, the household swelled to fifteen. The crowded living arrangements were typical of most every mainlander family on the island. For Annuo, the additional relatives pushed her further to the side. Elders, including siblings and cousins, were first in line when it was time to eat, bathe, or even to use the toilet. At mealtimes, the adults helped themselves first. Next came her elder brother and the teenaged cousins. By the time Annuo could reach into the serving bowls, any tasty morsels were gone. There would not be a trace of egg yolk left to add color or flavor to her small bowl of rice. After breakfast, she had to wait for the elder children to prepare their lunches for school first, leaving little for her by the time she had her chance. When it was her turn to bathe, the bathwater had turned cold and gray, already used by nearly everyone else.

  Annuo’s sister, Li-Ning, was younger, but she was also her father’s favorite. He made sure to set aside some of the best food for her. Annuo was the small and ugly daughter who would never amount to much, as her father often pointed out. In the pecking order under her father’s ironfisted control, Annuo came last.

  * * *

  —

  IN SPITE OF HER unhappiness at home—or perhaps because of it—Annuo blossomed at school, outshining her cousins and siblings. With more arrivals from the mainland every day, there were many more girls from backgrounds like hers. In her second year, about 30 percent of the students at the First Girls’ High School were wai sheng ren, many from Shanghai; the following year, it was more than 50 percent. The school’s student body grew more familiar to her, its sequestered grounds her refuge. There, Annuo was special, one of Taiwan’s top students. Her school years passed quickly, though not fast enough for her.

  Annuo adored literature and the stories that transported her to czarist Russia, medieval France, the American frontier, or imperial China. She began writing poetry. When she was sixteen, she placed second in a national essay contest, behind an accomplished and much older writer. At dinner that night, Annuo eagerly told her extended family about winning the high honor—and her father promptly used the opportunity to ridicule her. She had used the pen name “Zi Ruo,” meaning self-confident. In front of everyone, he mocked her by twisting her pen name into “Zi Ku”—self-tortured. When any family member attempted to praise her work, her father contorted his face as if he had swallowed a bitter pill. Annuo’s extended family erupted in laughter at her expense. What was supposed to be a proud and happy moment for the quiet teenager turned into profound humiliation. Annuo didn’t dare to write again. In her imagination, she was a weed in the cracks of Taipei’s harsh concrete, stepped on with every flowering.

  But outside of her home and away from her family’s derision, Annuo’s efforts at school paid off. She graduated at the top of her class and was admitted to the elite and highly competitive National Taiwan University or Tai Da. Her escape plan was still intact.

  Instead of being pleased, Annuo’s father piled on more criticism and pressure. Entering college students had to declare their intended majors before they started school. Annuo wanted to study English literature, to immerse herself in the books that lifted her from her grim reality. Her father insisted that she study medicine
instead, to care for him in his old age. Annuo, the best student in the family, was his only hope for a doctor in the family.

  “English literature? What possible use will come of that?” he asked. “You should think of how you will help your family. I absolutely forbid such a selfish act. If you wish to remain my daughter, you will study medicine!”

  Annuo listened to her father’s angry words without comment, but this time she was unable to choke back her defiance. She simply couldn’t do as her father commanded. After witnessing illness and death as a child, she couldn’t bear the sight of blood. The thought of being in a hospital again nauseated her.

  Never before had Annuo refused to obey her father’s command. A taut and smoldering silence settled over their house as Annuo and her father remained deadlocked. Her father was the supreme commander in their home, and no one ever challenged him—not even her mother or uncles. Annuo trembled at her own audacity.

  Near Annuo’s house, one of Taipei’s major waterways coursed by. For many hopeless refugees, the river offered a tempting end to their misery. Lifeless bodies were fished out with numbing regularity. Annuo stared hard at the waterway and its promised release from her father’s pressure. She could almost imagine the peace she would feel as she slipped into the deep waters. But then she’d remember her plan to escape, maybe even to America. She could never get there by studying medicine. Yet her father would berate her till her dying day if she chose the humanities. She would have to decide soon or else forfeit her acceptance to Tai Da.