Last Boat Out of Shanghai

by Helen Zia

  Just beyond the immense prison gate, Benny collected his father’s worldly goods from the surly guards—some articles of clothing and his wire-rimmed spectacles. There was no body to collect; it had already been disposed of.

  Is this all that’s left of him? Benny wondered. He choked back his remorse for failing in his duty to give his father a proper burial. He asked for his father’s forgiveness as the heavy door slammed behind him.

  When Benny returned to Nanjing, he received more shocking news. His mother, too, was gone. After learning of the execution at Tilanqiao Prison, his mother’s lover apparently had concluded that the Communists were coming for them next. Rather than face arrest, imprisonment, and execution, he had shot Benny’s mother dead, then killed himself.

  Shutting his eyes, Benny pictured his beautiful and gentle mother. He could almost feel her soft hand reaching out to him, brushing his hair out of his eyes, as she had done so often when he was a boy. He had been her favorite then. She had made no secret of that, indulging his every wish. He had adored her too. Before the ugliness of his father’s arrest and his mother’s departure, nothing pleased him more than bringing a smile to her face.

  After all their misfortunes, now this. Hot tears rolled down his face as he choked back a sob. The ominous prophecy his mother had flung at Doreen had come true: They would never see her again. No one would. His father’s decision to work with the Japanese had come at a terrible price. Now both of Benny’s parents were dead under odious circumstances. None of the extravagant pleasures they had enjoyed were worth this, Benny decided. His head bowed under the weight of his sorrow. In the quiet of his room, he dropped to his knees and prayed for his parents and once proud family.

  * * *

  —

  BENNY FOUND HIS RELIEF in solitude. During lunch breaks, he’d walk along the Qinhuai River or the shaded streets near the Temple of Confucius, where the heavy fragrance of osmanthus soothed him. At work, Benny concentrated on his daily tasks as a secretary at the YMCA headquarters as well as his Christian outreach work. Talking to others about God’s mercy brought him comfort in the face of his own losses. He was grateful to be in Nanjing—not just for his anonymity, but also because in Shanghai the Communist Party seemed especially determined to keep watch over the city’s huge and volatile population. His Christian colleagues there seemed more on edge. At least in Nanjing he could suffer through his grief in private, safe from the judgment of others.

  During his trip to recover his father’s effects, Benny hadn’t visited his sister or other relatives. With their father labeled a counterrevolutionary and traitor of the worst order, they tacitly agreed it would be unwise to see one another. Benny didn’t dare to look for his youngest siblings, Edward and Frances. They were now wards of the Communist government, and it could be harmful to them to have someone from their father’s family add to their stigma. At least they were teenagers, he reasoned, hoping they could fend for themselves.

  The Communist Party had begun instructing the general population to root out Rightists and counterrevolutionary behavior. Benny had heard the stories of neighbors, coworkers, family members, even children, being enjoined to report on anyone they suspected of being an enemy of the state. Kenneth Wang, the president of Aurora College for Women and a Harvard Law School graduate, had planned to stay in Shanghai with his wife, Mary, and their three young sons. But they knew it was time to leave their beloved city when their seven-year-old challenged their “incorrect behavior” for listening to Voice of America on the radio. Vem Chuang was eight years old when his prominent Shanghai family was held under house arrest in their luxury Embankment Building apartment as Communist officials subjected the children to a “struggle session,” exhorting them to speak up against their adult family members. Eventually, one child reported that his uncle had committed crimes against the revolution; the child was praised and his uncle executed.

  Yet in the two years since the Red Army marched into Shanghai, the city had changed for the better in notable ways. Pedicabs, carts, lorries, and trams still fought for space on the crowded streets, but the beggars, prostitutes, black-market peddlers, and opium dens that were once deemed permanent fixtures in Shanghai had virtually disappeared. This impressive feat instilled a certain public confidence in the new regime. In addition, the trains between Nanjing and Shanghai were running on time, and prices for tickets and other goods had finally stabilized after the years of wild inflation under the Nationalists, improving everyone’s lives. Shopkeepers’ doors were open for business, though with noticeably fewer goods to sell, a situation that the new government blamed on the imperialist bombings and embargo by the Nationalists and Americans.

  * * *

  —

  AFTER THE LIBERATION, the workers, peasants, soldiers, and others on the “red” proletarian side of the class spectrum had taken to the streets in wild celebration of the revolution that was supposed to break the chains of their oppression. On the opposite “black” counterrevolutionary side, the capitalists and landowners who hadn’t fled in the exodus were nervously hoping to ride out the storm, praying that the upheaval would soon pass.

  Between those extremes was the middle class—the petite bourgeoisie of skilled professionals, small business owners, and intellectuals. Premier Zhou Enlai himself issued assurances that they had nothing to fear, that a peaceful transition to socialism would keep them unscathed, and that they should call on their sons and daughters studying overseas to return and rebuild China. Zhou promised that they would be welcomed back with open arms.

  Prisoners, en route to be executed, are paraded through crowds lining the main streets of Shanghai.

  However, less obvious to Benny and other observers of the new regime were the decisions of the Communist Party Central Committee in Beijing to consolidate its power. Having gained control over national security and essential services, the government began extending its reach into other aspects of everyday life. At work, Benny noticed that more worried letters were coming to the YMCA national office, asking for guidance on how to handle the increasing demands and pressures on church groups—such as the heavy tax levies imposed on schools, churches, and businesses. The Sisters of Loretto, who had operated schools for girls in Shanghai and elsewhere in China since 1923, were drowning under the onslaught of new taxes. The remaining American administrators of St. John’s University discovered it was nearly impossible to exchange monies sent by the American Episcopal Church Mission to pay for an unexpected government assessment of eighteen million renminbi (approximately four thousand dollars).

  A number of missionaries intended to stay in China “for the duration.” To allay their concerns, they pointed to a letter by Premier Zhou Enlai signed on February 26, 1949, stating, “The faith of the Christian churches and our party’s ideology may differ, but we are one in service of the people. The Christians’ love for the common folk, their nurture of human personality and boundless efforts for the common good especially, have won our party’s high esteem.”

  But that was before the revolution was completed. Now many who stayed in China found themselves in an impossible position: The government ordered them to pay higher wages and heavier taxes while drastically limiting their ability to cut costs. To keep the precarious economy from being flooded with more jobless workers, the new government forbade employers to lay anyone off, from clerks and factory workers to domestic household servants. Employers would first have to provide expendable workers with severance packages in amounts to be determined by the Communist government. In the meantime, employers were still required to pay the rising taxes.

  The changes worried Benny. The rhetoric had grown more feverish after the United States entered the Korean War in June 1950 and sent its Seventh Fleet to support Taiwan, then threatened to drop atomic bombs on China. In response, a mass force of People’s Liberation Army troops had headed into the frigid Korean Peninsula. Some Chinese soldiers had n
o weapons or ammunition and were instructed to get their weapons by killing enemy soldiers.

  Just as in the United States and Taiwan, the government in mainland China further tightened its control in the name of national security. Chairman Mao had written, “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance of the revolution.” The Communist leadership launched a new mass movement against internal enemies called the “Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries.” Its targets included formerly respected leaders of a more traditional and “feudal” Chinese society who were now deemed “counterrevolutionary” and “Rightist.” Extending the campaign to the cities, Communist officials organized mass meetings to “struggle against” those “bad elements” and teach them the errors of their old and backward ways. Previous land reform campaigns hadn’t touched the urban capitalists and middle classes in cities like Shanghai or Nanjing. With a war going on against the American imperialists, this campaign would put Shanghai’s urban elites on a tighter leash.

  Religious organizations, too, were declared counterrevolutionary. In April 1951, the government in Beijing had called together a “Conference of Christian Institutions,” during which prominent Communists leveled devastating accusations at leading missionaries and Chinese Christians. Overnight they were labeled agents of American imperialism. It was a signal that the Communist Party was ready to take on religion—what Karl Marx had called the “opium of the masses.” Benny and other YMCA workers could feel the earth trembling beneath their feet.

  At the conference, a bishop, Francis Xavier Ford, and his secretary, Sister Joan Marie Ryan, of the Maryknoll Society, one of the largest American Catholic missions remaining in China, were denounced for engaging in “espionage activities behind a false missionary front.” The two had already been arrested and were imprisoned. Seven other leaders of various denominations were accused of being “tools of American imperialist aggression.” Some leaders within the National YMCA itself attacked the Y’s international leadership for doing “undercover work” in the service of their “American masters.” In each case, the accused were denounced by close friends and former colleagues. The message was clear: Independent religious organizations were no longer welcome in China.

  * * *

  —

  BENNY’S QUIET LIFE IN Nanjing was endangered—the YMCA had become unsafe for the son of a traitor. In his St. John’s network, other graduates reported being shamed for having attended a “black imperialist university.” While red symbolized everything good and revolutionary under the Communist government, black signified everything counterrevolutionary and bad beyond redemption. The harsh words worried him.

  Though Benny had endured fewer fellowship meetings and worship services, now the Christian teachings themselves were being changed. The Communist Party launched the “Three-Self Patriotic Movement” to bring foreign missionary teachings in line with party ideology. Christian churches were required to adopt the Three Selfs: self-governance rather than foreign church leadership, self-support rather than foreign financing, and self-propagation—no missionary proselytizing. Foreign religious doctrine, including the Bible, was suspect.

  Benny knew that it was time to leave the YMCA. If he stayed, he too might be singled out as a yang nu—foreign slave—or a zou gou—running dog. He made discreet inquiries about other work and learned of a position at the Nanjing Agricultural University. Its library needed someone to type index cards in English for their card catalog. With the exodus of so many foreign residents and educated Chinese, a large number of English-language books had been collected by the library and needed to be cataloged. How ironic, Benny mused, that his English education at the “black imperialist school” landed him the job.

  The library offered exactly the obscurity Benny had hoped for. Wartime politics had condemned his parents, and he was determined not to let that happen to him. If he had learned anything from his family’s catastrophe, it was to lie low. He was glad to learn that the library had a vast number of books to catalog. It would take him a long time to plod through them, typing one card at a time.

  Benny moved from the YMCA in the commercial center of Nanjing to the university on the quiet outskirts at the base of Purple Mountain, its peak graced by Sun Yat-sen’s mausoleum. It all suited Benny just fine. He wanted to get away from the mass movements and public denunciations that disrupted the busier parts of the city.

  With every turn of the Cold War, China was becoming more isolated from the rest of the world, to the alarm and dismay of the cosmopolitan Shanghainese and educated elites who had remained. U.S. efforts to “contain” China and block its recognition in the UN further limited its international contact. But in Benny’s quiet corner of the library, he had access to English-language publications and news. There he learned that thousands of Tibetans had fled into exile after Tibet’s annexation by China in September 1951. He read about General MacArthur threatening to use nuclear weapons and wanting to send Nationalist soldiers in Taiwan to attack China—acts that could lead to a new world war, with China in the crosshairs.

  Benny had quit the YMCA just in time. In 1952, the Communist Party initiated another mass political movement, this time against Rightist thinking. Virtually all foreign religious institutions were finally shut down, with any remaining missionaries charged with various crimes and ultimately forced to leave China. The Sisters of Loretto had to shutter their schools under the watchful eyes of police so that they would not steal “the people’s property.” McTyeire School for Girls was converted into a public school with the proletarian name Shanghai No. 3. St. John’s University was dismantled: Its medical school and departments of agriculture, architecture, and engineering were absorbed by other universities. Some of its notable alumni were listed as criminals; campus buildings were reborn as the East China University of Political Science and Law. After seventy-three years in Shanghai, the beloved school that had educated three generations of Benny’s family had vanished.

  Each political firestorm and mass movement was followed by another campaign more disruptive and vehement than the last. The Three Anti campaign targeted corruption, waste, and bureaucratism to tighten the reins on party members. This was followed by the Five Anti campaign—a full broadside aimed at the evil ruling class that Benny was part of. The bourgeoisie was under attack with the goal of purging its five poisons: bribery, tax evasion, stealing of state property, cheating on government contracts, and insider trading. Once again, the entire population was mobilized to search for the poisoned ones in their midst, to publicly struggle with them, and to make them confess and reform.

  This intense new political movement gave Benny another reason to be grateful that he was out of Shanghai. If he’d stayed there, the son of the traitor would have been hauled in front of a mass gathering to be criticized and humiliated into confessing his sins. In Nanjing, he could still be relatively anonymous. But even in Nanjing, Benny had to answer to the Five Anti campaign. As a graduate of the black imperialist school, he faced interrogation to root out his “bourgeois thinking.” There was nothing he could do but grit his teeth and cooperate by confessing to everything he could think of.

  If they say one plus one is three, I, too, will say three, he told himself. He relied on advice that his dear grandfather dispensed during sessions with his opium pipe: “A dog who can tuck his tail between his legs will live to be an old dog.” With this latest political upheaval aimed at people of Benny’s background, he did his best to keep his tail down.

  Benny didn’t try to hide his father’s collaboration with the Japanese or his connection to 76. They’d have found out anyway. He told them that he had ridden his bicycle at 76. His questioners were appalled and disgusted, but they had to concede that he had been only twelve years old then. Benny managed to avoid getting labeled as a counterrevolutionary or Rightist. Fortunately, he had never spoken out on political issues and was too young to have done anything quest
ionable during his father’s days as a collaborator. He was released from his interrogations without incident.

  Benny retreated further into the bowels of the library to find shelter among the books. With no church services or fellowship gatherings available, he didn’t dare show his Bible in public. Instead, he repeated the Lord’s Prayer in silence. It was his way of “self-preaching,” his private protest of the Three-Self movement. Yet he was lonely. He missed his friends and family but couldn’t contact them. They were all from counterrevolutionary class backgrounds, and they might be accused of plotting and scheming together if they stayed in touch. He’d face even more trouble if he communicated with Doreen and Cecilia, for they lived among the imperialists in Hong Kong. He hadn’t written to them since just after his parents’ deaths, not even to give Doreen his new location.

  At times he felt as if he were moving through life while standing still. He lived simply, staying in a single room in the staff dormitory and taking his meals at the communal canteen. He tried not to think of his family’s misfortunes, but some memories still seeped into his thoughts. Glorious Sunday dinners in the big mansion on Jessfield Road. Annie’s wedding at the Paramount ballroom; dancing on the glass floor with colored lights glowing from below. There were all those good times he’d had with Dennis and George in their BDG Club. It was another lifetime ago when they zipped through the streets of Shanghai, first on their bicycles, later on motorcycles, getting a steak with eggs and mashed potatoes at the Cosmopolitan for one U.S. dollar. Or hot chocolate at DD’s. Benny could almost taste the creamy sweetness of the White Russian baker’s cheesecake. Rather than cheering him, the once-happy memories now intensified his feelings of loss and regret.