Last Boat Out of Shanghai

by Helen Zia

  Ho instinctively smoothed out his shirt and slacks, straightening his back to look taller. He introduced himself, hoping not to sound foolish.

  “I’m Ho Chow, and I’m very pleased to meet you. I’m a doctoral student at NYU. Mechanical engineering.” He wanted her to know that he was in a desirable field. “How long have you been in New York?” Ho avoided any sensitive subjects, such as when and how she managed to leave China. “You’re from Shanghai? My family lives in the former International Settlement on Medhurst Road,” he offered. She replied that her family was in Hong Kong but had once lived not far from his home, on Jessfield Road.

  Smiling, she answered his questions without a trace of shyness. Ho liked Junlin immediately and knew that he wanted to spend more time with her. But his friend’s business with her brother was done, and Ho could think of no good excuse to linger.

  “Nice to meet you,” Ho heard himself say. “And welcome to New York.”

  Afraid she would find his comments awkward, he stole a glance as he exited and thought he saw a smile on her face.

  Back outside, Ho peppered his friend with questions about the young woman and her family. Her father was a high-level businessman with the Bank of China. He had left China for Hong Kong when the Communists took over. Her father had managed to send his children, including a son, a physician daughter, and Junlin, to school in the States. That was all Ho could learn.

  But he was in luck, as he soon ran into her at the China Institute in its building donated by the Luce family at 125 East Sixty-fifth Street. High-society Americans like the Luces supported the institute’s programs—and the China lobby to aid the Nationalists. Sometimes the stranded Chinese students held social activities in the organization’s basement. Junlin was a volunteer there. As she helped serve tea and cookies, Ho reintroduced himself to her.

  Laughing, she said, “I remember you very well, Mr. Chow. I saw you only a few days ago!” Then she turned to greet the other guests.

  There were several other bachelors like himself at the event that afternoon. Ho knew he was bound to have competition for Junlin’s attention. He would have to be bold. Going back for another cookie, he asked, “Would you like to join me for a walk or at least allow me to escort you home after this party?”

  She looked at him quizzically for a moment, then met his gaze. Tilting her head, she said, “I’ll have to let my brother know, but yes, that would be lovely.”

  Ho grinned as he sipped his tea and waited for the event to end. One of his friends noted his buoyant mood and asked, “Did Junlin add something to your tea?”

  On their way home, Junlin and Ho went to the park and talked all afternoon. He learned that she had lived at the Bank of China’s compound on Jessfield Road in Shanghai, next to the notorious 76. She had been there when the dreaded puppet police from 76 shot three accountants to death in the driveway because of the bank’s affiliation with the Nationalists. Afterward, her family had fled with the rest of the bank staff to Kunming. There, she’d had to be ready to run to an air-raid shelter at any moment. Often, she could see the bombs fall from the sky as she ran. When the war was over, her family had returned to Shanghai, and she had attended Aurora College for Women, run by the French Sisters of the Sacred Heart. When the Communists came, she’d fled with her family to Hong Kong. After trying for six months to get a visa to study in America, she had finally entered the United States a year before, in June 1950.

  Ho was entranced by this bright and beautiful twenty-two-year-old woman. He told her of his family home in Changshu and his harrowing escape to Shanghai during the war. He was not one to brag, but he wanted her to know that he was a top student, a country kid who had worked his way up to being the number one mechanical engineer at Jiao Tong, and that his prospects were good. Ho tried to sound casual in mentioning that he had a good job—and that, one day, he intended to provide financial help to his family in Shanghai and Taiwan. Shyly, he even shared with her his dream to build cars in China and that he had several inventions in mind.

  To Ho’s delight, they hit it off. Junlin wasn’t put off by his commitment to his family. Although her family in Hong Kong didn’t need her to send money, she was determined to support herself by looking for work and was soon hired as a file clerk at Oxford University Press.

  They met again. Ho told her how his five housemates at Michigan had rented one cap-and-gown set and taken turns wearing it for the all-important photos to send home. She laughed at herself while recounting her first night at Meredith College, where she had arrived after a long train ride. The housemistress had handed her some sheets for her bed—and Junlin had had no idea what to do with them. She had never made a bed before. He shared his amazement at seeing so much food wasted in America, while Junlin described the dismay she felt about racial discrimination. She’d seen segregated restrooms and water fountains marked “Whites Only” and “Coloreds” while attending college in North Carolina. Being Chinese, she hadn’t known which to use.

  In late 1951 his draft board wrote to him stating that, because he had turned twenty-seven, he was over the draft age. To his tremendous relief, he would be reclassified as Class 5-A and was unlikely to be called to duty for the war in Korea.

  But then came some disappointing news. Ho’s doctoral adviser informed him that a PhD candidate at another school had submitted a dissertation solving the exact problem Ho was focusing on. His work had been for naught. If he wanted a doctorate, he’d have to find a new dissertation topic—and to start again. Ho had set his sights on getting a PhD ever since his vocational school teachers had encouraged him. But at his age, he didn’t want to start again, especially not when he had a more important goal—he had met the woman he wanted to marry.

  Determined to show Junlin that he was such a good catch that she couldn’t possibly want to marry anyone else, Ho searched for a better job. He got a driver’s license. But his biggest challenge was learning to dance. Junlin was a wonderful dancer, while Ho had never ventured a single step. He took a few lessons and dared to ask her to go dancing, hoping she’d overlook his clumsy feet. In August 1952, he was offered an engineering position with the Celanese Corporation of America at more than four times his draftsman’s salary.

  Ho’s campaign to charm Junlin was a success. He telephoned her father in Hong Kong at considerable expense for permission to marry his daughter. She had already told her family all about Ho in the two years they’d been dating, and her father approved. But with the continued embargo against Communist China, Ho was unable to call his own mother in Shanghai. Still, he was sure that she would be happy for him.

  With a corsage and dinner at a restaurant proffering white tablecloths, its own photographer, and no Chinese food, Ho tries to sweep Theresa Junlin Wong off her feet.

  On April 5, 1953, Ho Chow and Theresa Junlin Wong were married. About two hundred guests celebrated with them at the Hotel Greystone on Broadway and Ninety-first Street, a popular venue for Columbia students. At the simple reception, they served sandwiches of chopped egg, chopped liver, ham, and sardines. On Ho’s happiest day, his only regret was that no one from his family attended his wedding. His life in America would be perfect if only his family could be together.

  NEW YORK, 1950

  After the wedding festivities in Oakland, Bing and her husband, John Yee, headed to New York by plane. The roller-coaster flight made several stops to refuel before landing at Idlewild Airport on Long Island. Elder Sister and Peter had taken a transcontinental train to New York. The plan was for Bing to meet up with them before they boarded their ship to Denmark.

  John had hired some painters to spruce up his apartment in anticipation of Bing’s arrival, but since they hadn’t finished in time, he rented a cheap hotel room in Times Square for a week. During the long days while he was at work, Bing explored midtown Manhattan, admiring the skyscrapers and bustling city. There was even a Chinese restaurant in Times Square�
�Chin Lee’s—but unlike the eating places she had known in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the customers were American, not Chinese. When she saw the high prices, she didn’t eat there either. Instead, she walked and gawked. New York was bigger, taller, brassier than Shanghai, but the energy was instantly familiar and reassuring. Where San Francisco was comfortable and friendly like Suzhou, New York was electric, just like Shanghai. Times Square resembled the more risqué sections in the Badlands and near the Bund, complete with bright lights, prostitutes, and beggars—though instead of the downtrodden being Chinese, here they were all Americans—a strange reversal to the young woman from Shanghai.

  When Elder Sister’s train arrived, she booked a room at the Hilton near Times Square, where she and Peter would stay a couple of nights before crossing the river to New Jersey for their ship. Stepping into the palatial lobby to meet them, Bing had to smile: Of course Elder Sister would pick a fancy hotel no matter how tight her finances, never the modest place that John had chosen. Elder Sister spotted Bing first and bellowed, “You’re so thin! What’s wrong with that husband? Is he starving you? I warned you that Cantonese men are cheapskates!” Bing grinned broadly, glad to see Elder Sister and already sad to have to wish her a bon voyage, not knowing if they’d see each other again.

  By the end of the week, Elder Sister had departed, and John’s apartment on the Lower East Side was ready. The taxi stopped at a six-story walk-up at 32 Henry Street, on the edge of Chinatown. When they stepped into the old, dark building, Bing thought there was some mistake. John unlocked the door to an apartment on the ground floor. Bing looked around in disbelief: The rooms were small and cramped. A covered bathtub sat in the middle of the kitchen, doubling as a table and lit by a circular fluorescent light that cast an eerie glow on the tin-type ceiling. The ill-fitting windows in the front rooms did little to block the sounds and soot from the busy street. Bing straightened her back when she realized there was no bathroom. Before she could ask, John cleared his throat. “The bathroom is down the hall. We share it with the other tenants.”

  At first Bing said nothing. Finally, she spoke. “The worst place I ever lived in Shanghai was better than this. Must we stay here?”

  John gave her a pleading look. “The rent is only eleven dollars a month; that’s how I saved two thousand dollars to pay your sister. Please give it a try. That’s all I ask.”

  Bing gave a reluctant nod. Her new life would not be as she had hoped, but she would try to make the best of the situation.

  * * *

  —

  NEW YORK’S CHINATOWN WAS smaller than San Francisco’s, with far fewer Chinese people. Yet it seemed more congested, hemmed in by Little Italy and the tenements of the Lower East Side, home to generations of immigrants from all over. Each morning after John walked to the Bank of China branch at Chatham Square, Bing went about her own routine. As in San Francisco, most of New York’s Chinatown residents were from Taishan and elsewhere in Guangdong’s Pearl River Delta. During her months in San Francisco, Bing had already begun picking up some Toisan dialect, which was more useful in America than her own. And as in San Francisco, wherever Bing went, the Chinese workers in the restaurants, shops, and laundries stuck their heads out to get a glimpse of the Shanghai nui.

  One day, as Bing walked across Doyers Street, an older woman leaned out of the corner curio shop and exclaimed loudly, “Nung Shanghei-ni? Are you from Shanghai?”

  Bing swung around, startled. This woman spoke her own Shanghai dialect! Excited, Bing went over, and the two began chattering in rapid-fire Shanghainese. Her name was Mrs. Fung, and she claimed she could spot fellow Shanghainese just by the way they carried themselves. She was married to the Cantonese merchant who owned the curio shop and, having lived in New York’s Chinatown for several years, could speak the Canton, Toisan, and Shanghai dialects as well as English.

  “I didn’t think there were any Shanghai people in Chinatown,” Bing confessed.

  “Oh, there are quite a few,” Mrs. Fung said. “On weekends there are even more—the high-nosed ‘uptown’ Shanghainese only come to Chinatown to eat or buy groceries. But a number of Shanghainese live here, mostly young—like you. They stop at my shop for tea in the afternoons. Come by and meet them.”

  Soon Bing was a regular at Mrs. Fung’s curio shop at the corner of Doyers and Pell, becoming fast friends with the circle of other displaced Shanghai exiles. Some, like Bing, had fled China because of the impending revolution. Others had gotten out during the tumultuous war years. Unlike the stranded students and intellectuals, these “downtown Shanghainese” weren’t inclined to leave America for a revolution-in-progress—and few could have afforded to go back in any case, or their travel documents might have been too irregular to risk leaving. Bing’s circle included Mary and Maybing, two sisters who had married brothers, all from Shanghai. The brothers both were Chinatown waiters who worked at fancy Jewish resorts in the Catskills during the summer. One of the brothers had served as a GI in the Pacific, and thanks to postwar federal legislation, could marry a “war bride” from China without having to apply for one of the 105 immigration quota slots allotted to Chinese. The other brother was a merchant seaman who had jumped ship and bought the paper name of Sing.

  (From the left) Bing in New York’s Chinatown at the curio shop with her downtown friends: Mary Yu, holding her new baby, Maybing and her husband, and the Fungs, the store owners.

  Then there was Vicki, a nurse, who had come to America after the Japanese war and married a Chinatown merchant, and Suzanne, divorced from her diplomatic-corps husband and overstaying her visa; she worked at the Bulova Watch Factory. These downtown Shanghainese had become friends, taking day-trips together to Jones Beach and Coney Island. Like Bing, most were in their twenties. None made enough money to pay uptown rents—and in any case, few landlords beyond Chinatown were willing to rent to Chinese. Chinatown was affordable, and they formed a downtown Shanghai community of their own.

  Like the Chinese exiled in the United States, everyone in the downtown Shanghai group had family members in China. They anxiously awaited any word from home, glad to receive even the most cursory news confirming that their families were okay. Sometimes the letters included tiny black-and-white studio portraits. Bing wrote letters to Ma in the painstaking calligraphy she had practiced since the third grade, her last year of formal schooling. She told Ma of her marriage to a good Cantonese man and her life in New York. Bing treasured each missive from home and sometimes caught herself missing Ma, relieved to know that she was safe and well cared for by other relatives.

  Yet even as these Chinese looked back to Shanghai, they were putting down roots. By the early 1950s, the women of the postwar marriage boom were having babies. That nasty “love potion” from John’s sister must have worked, for Bing was pregnant too. She felt lucky to have such a kindhearted and easygoing husband. When he complained about her cooking, she answered tartly, “Then you cook.” And so he did, preparing their dinners from then on. He was delighted to become a father at his age. As Bing’s pregnancy progressed, she had to stumble through the dark hallway at night to reach the communal toilet. John promised that he would look for a new place after the baby came.

  When their son was born, John named him Henry, the same name as their street. A girl would’ve been named Catherine for the cross street. Little Henry was as chubby and cheerful as Bing and John were proud and doting. When Henry turned one month old, they had a red-egg celebration at a restaurant. Bing’s Shanghai friends came, many with their own small children in tow.

  * * *

  —

  IT HAD BEEN MORE than a year since Bing had last seen elder sister Betty. Bing missed her but was glad to have finally set up her own household. Every day, Bing took Henry around Chinatown in his carriage, joining other young mothers out with their children at Columbus Park on Mulberry Street. She ended her daily outing at Mrs. Fung’s shop to see her downto
wn Shanghainese friends. There, Bing caught the latest news about the situation back home and the need for Chinese to be cautious in America. Her friends talked about the clean-cut lofan FBI agents, who stuck out like stinky tofu as they surveilled Chinatown, seeking Communists, potential deportees, as well as possible informants. On her way home, she’d pick up some fresh groceries for John to cook for dinner. Her life fell into a pleasant rhythm that offered more contentment than she’d ever dared dream of.

  Then came the letter from Elder Sister. She was returning to New York—alone. Her two boys were moving to Australia with their father. Because the mail delivery had been slow from Europe, Bing and John calculated that Elder Sister’s ship would arrive in just a few days.

  They flew into a frenzy of preparation for Elder Sister’s return. Bing couldn’t wait to show off her new baby and new life to her sister, but John was in a panic. “Oh, that sister of yours,” he moaned. “She’ll have nothing good to say when she sees this place.”

  John was right. Even as Elder Sister’s taxi pulled up to their building, Bing could hear the distinctive, booming voice: “Are you sure this is the right place? What kind of a dump is this?” Elder Sister stood outside the building in her leopard-skin coat and French high heels, with several leather suitcases. She practically bowled over John with her energy. “Is this where you brought my sister? No Shanghai woman would want to stay in a place like this.” Inside the apartment, she lectured Bing nonstop in Shanghainese, repeating the same basic message: You must learn to control your husband and get him to move into a more suitable location. Though John couldn’t understand every word, Elder Sister’s meaning was unmistakable.