Last Boat Out of Shanghai

by Helen Zia

  HONG KONG, 1951

  Benny’s letter arrived one summer morning when the steam of Hong Kong’s heat was already stifling. Doreen was at a low point, discouraged by her fruitless job search as ever more refugees arrived to compete for the lowest-paying jobs. With tensions high because of the war in Korea, Benny’s letter had been delayed even more than usual. Mail to or from the Chinese mainland was screened twice, by censors on each side of the border scrutinizing for pro- or anti-Communist subversion, depending on which direction it was headed.

  The Pan sisters hadn’t heard from their brother in some time. As Cecilia scanned the letter’s contents with nervous anticipation, she let out a terrifying scream. Doreen rushed over and read the shocking news: Both their mother and their father were dead. Killed under the most grievous of misfortunes. She collapsed with a protracted wail.

  The news was almost too much to bear. Mother and Father both shot to death? The two sisters momentarily put aside their differences to clutch each other, as if to pull their parents back from the hungry ghosts. Doreen wept tears of regret and guilt. “If only I had stayed behind as Mother wanted,” she cried, “perhaps she’d still be alive!” The next time Doreen went to Victoria Peak, she seriously contemplated flinging herself from the mountaintop. Maybe then she’d see her mother and father in the next world. Consumed with remorse, Doreen fell into depression. She grieved for her parents and worried about Edward and Frances, who were not much younger than she. Benny had written that their welfare was now in the hands of the Communist authorities.

  Walking with her eyes downcast one afternoon, Doreen had a chance encounter with fate. She’d come up empty after another day job hunting. Not eager to hear her sister’s complaints, Doreen dawdled along the narrow, winding streets of Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon. Many Shanghai exiles lived in the tall apartment buildings there, crammed into rentals that had been divided and subdivided so many times, there was barely space for a cot. She found small comfort walking among the crowded buildings, listening to passersby speak the Shanghai dialect—a tiny slice of home. Suddenly she heard a familiar voice shout, “Doreen! Doreen Pan!” She spun around to see a well-dressed young woman about her age waving. It was Mamie Tong, her closest friend from St. Mary’s Hall. Overjoyed, Doreen ran to Mamie, and the two friends clasped hands.

  “I thought I recognized you—I’ve been running to catch up with you!” Breathless words spilled out of Mamie’s mouth.

  “I can’t believe it’s you! I thought I’d lost all my friends,” Doreen exclaimed. Mamie was one of the few girls who hadn’t shunned her after Pan Da’s arrest, but Mamie had disappeared from school when her family fled Shanghai as the exodus reached full throttle in late 1948. Her father and brother worked in the shipping business and had left for Hong Kong months earlier, sending for Mamie and the rest of the family once they were settled. The two former classmates stood on the narrow street catching up in nonstop Shanghainese as other pedestrians streamed by.

  Mamie had been in Hong Kong for over two years. She had a good job with a company that was well known in Shanghai, the Moller Shipping Line. The Mollers were a Jewish family who had arrived in Hong Kong from Sweden in the 1860s, later expanding to Shanghai and making their fortune in shipping, insurance, real estate, and other businesses. Everyone in the former French Concession knew the huge Scandinavian-style Moller castle not far from where Doreen’s family had once lived. Mamie’s elder brother James had told her about the Moller office in Hong Kong—and that the relocated Moller managers from Shanghai preferred to hire other Shanghainese. They wanted employees who were sophisticated and would project the professional demeanor of Shanghai. All five of the office clerks were former St. Mary’s girls.

  After relating all this, Mamie shared the most important bit of information: Lowering her voice, she told Doreen that their classmate Isabel Chao was quitting Moller to take a job at the American consulate. Isabel had always been one of the sharpest and most poised girls in their class, Mamie noted. No wonder she’d been hired by the Americans. So there would soon be a job opening at the Moller company! The office hadn’t started looking for a replacement, Mamie said. If Doreen needed work, she’d have a good chance.

  “Do I need work?” Doreen’s eyes widened. “Oh my, yes! I’ve been hunting for a job ever since I got to Hong Kong, and no luck! I’ve been so discouraged.”

  The next day, Doreen put on a dark, striped qipao, one of her few dresses—not too flashy, suitable for an office. In Hong Kong, it was easy to pick out the Shanghai women in a crowd: They were the ones with a confident flair, who could look fashionable in a plain dress. Haipai, some called it, the notorious Shanghai attitude. Hong Kong women resented those from Shanghai, but the local men didn’t mind staring. Doreen managed to hide her nervousness as she followed Mamie to the Moller Shipping Line office.

  Inside, Doreen saw women busy at work on what Mamie explained were Hollerith machines. As Doreen drew near, she recognized all of the young women. It made her so happy, seeing these women who once were like sisters, having boarded together from the time they were in junior middle school. Doreen fought the urge to rush over to them. Instead, she flashed her friends a discreet smile and waited primly for her interview. In the Shanghai dialect, a supervisor called her over. He fired off questions as he looked her over: “You went to St. Mary’s too? So you know English and Western etiquette like the other girls? Can you type?”

  Nodding vigorously, Doreen answered,“Yes, sir!” in English. “I speak English fluently. I’m a quick learner, and I can type fast in English. I’ll get along well with the others too.”

  Doreen was hired on the spot. Mamie showed her how to use the big Hollerith card-punching machines. Doreen was thrilled to be working at a well-known Shanghai company, with the added benefit of being with her friends from St. Mary’s. During their breaks, they told her the latest gossip about other Shanghai classmates who, like her, had once been pampered Shanghai princesses. They whispered about former Shanghai playboys who were now driving taxicabs or washing dishes—if they were lucky enough to have jobs. Even more shocking were the familiar names of young women from good Shanghai families who were making money as dance-hall or singsong girls in Hong Kong. Doreen decided not to tell the others about her sister’s pressure to become one of those girls herself.

  Doreen Pan (far left) and three of her St. Mary’s schoolmates in Hong Kong visit with one of their former teachers (center) in the early 1950s.

  * * *

  —

  DOREEN’S JOB AT MOLLER gave her more than an income. She gained back her confidence and reconnected with a circle of old friends who had known her in a happier time. In those long-ago days, she used to wear the latest styles, even sporting a mink coat at school. All of them had lived the luxurious life of Shanghai’s Chinese elite. Back then, none of them could have imagined having a job, let alone needing one.

  It didn’t take Doreen long to master the office machines. She produced balance sheets and shipping reports with the punch cards, sorters, and collators. She was glad to learn the new skills when everyone was saying that computational machines were the wave of the future. And she could practice her proper American English with customers from around the world.

  Her pay was 350 Hong Kong dollars a month—about 40 U.S. dollars. She gave 100 HK dollars to her sister Cecilia, who sniped and caviled that Doreen’s office wage was small change compared to what she’d get at a dance hall. To Doreen, it was a fortune. She sent another 100 HK dollars to Benny as often as she could. The periodic letters from him contained only the most superficial and upbeat news. But newly arrived refugees from China told another story, about food rationing, continuing shortages, hunger. Pro-Nationalist agitators in Hong Kong spread stories about mass meetings where thousands of “red” workers and peasants were stirred up to demand confessions from the “black” capitalist enemies for their crimes against the working people and
to humiliate, beat, even kill the counterrevolutionaries. Doreen knew she couldn’t believe everything the partisans said about the Communists, but she had no doubts that Benny, with their family’s background, would be considered very black. She knew that, in spite of his cheerful letters, his life could not be good. She sent him what she could, sometimes sending rice, oil, and sugar instead of money. She figured that he could use the little she sent.

  With the remaining money from her paycheck, Doreen covered the costs of her bus and ferry fare. There wasn’t much left for new clothes. She stopped eating meals at her sister’s apartment so Cecilia would have one less cause for complaint. Fortunately, the Moller owners, themselves exiles from Shanghai, gave their employees food vouchers in addition to their salaries. The Mollers wanted their staff to have at least one decent meal a day. They knew that if they provided cash for food, their workers would likely scrimp on meals and spend the money on other necessities. The food vouchers, for use at Café Wiseman on Queen’s Road Central, would buy a set lunch of soup, entrée, vegetables, and dessert, Western style.

  Taking advantage of the Mollers’ generosity, Doreen and her clever St. Mary’s classmates found that by skipping lunch or sharing one meal between them, they could sell their weekly vouchers for 4.5 HK dollars each. If they sold six vouchers, they’d have enough to buy fabric and hire a tailor to make a new dress. A coat took a month’s worth of vouchers. With better clothes and good friends, Doreen went out with her pals and started to meet young men. That also mollified Cecilia, who feared that her unmarried sister would be a burden forever.

  Occasionally, Doreen ran into others from her past life in Shanghai. Some classmates had fared much better than she: While Isabel Chao’s superb English had landed her a job at the American consulate, Diane Tang Woo, whose father had been killed by a bullet intended for T. V. Soong, moved in with an aunt on Robinson Road, one of the finest locations in Hong Kong’s Mid-Levels and the highest point where Chinese were allowed to live. Doreen heard about others who were not doing as well, including some classmates of Benny’s from St. John’s: George Shen had arrived with only five HK dollars and was sleeping on a table in an auto parts shop run by a family friend. Ronald Sun’s accounting degree from St. John’s was deemed invalid by the British accounting firms where he sought work. Valentin Chu, who had been a journalist with the esteemed China Press in Shanghai, was given such demeaning work at the British China Mail paper that he announced he was going to quit. Shocked that a Chinese would speak out, his editor argued that he couldn’t quit; he’d have to be fired. Defiant, Val said, “To hell with you” and walked out. His Chinese, Indian, and Filipino coworkers followed him to shake his hand—they had never seen anyone stand up to the British. “I’m from Shanghai,” he replied. “I’m not colonized.” Nevertheless, Val and the other St. John’s men struggled, moving from one vermin-infested hovel to the next.

  Once, as Doreen boarded a tram on her way home from work, she spotted a young man who looked familiar. As she looked in his direction, she saw him duck as if to avoid her. His skin was tawny brown from the sun, and he was wearing the janitorial uniform of the Ho Man Tin refugee resettlement authority. Then she realized with a start that it was Ben Char, another St. John’s fellow who had once dated her sister Cecilia! When they both arrived at the depot to catch the Star Ferry, Doreen called his name. Looking sheepish, Ben took off his worn cap and greeted her. “Doreen Pan—you’re looking well. How long have you been in Hong Kong?” While riding on the Star Ferry, the two shared sketches of their journeys.

  Ben had taken his brother’s car to Taiwan, almost running over several people in Shanghai when his brakes failed. On the ship, he’d had to sleep in the car on the open deck. Having no food, he ate with the crew from a communal pot of rice, with flies swarming so thick it was impossible to eat the rice without swallowing a few. “I was so naïve; I asked, ‘How can people live like this?’ The sailors called me ‘xiao ke’ ”—a worthless playboy. “But now I know. People do what they must to survive. That’s what I’ve had to do.”

  In Taiwan, Ben had joined his brother and their father, who had been a prominent businessman in Shanghai. But he couldn’t get a venture going in Taiwan, where commerce was limited and the best opportunities went to cronies of Chiang Kai-shek. Ben moved again with his father to Hong Kong, but his luck had been even worse here—his family had lost everything. Ben had to scrounge for any work he could find. He struck out on his own, moving into the kind of rough shanties that Doreen could see from the road. Ben described rats the size of dogs and rain gushing through his shack like a river. He finally got lucky, landing a job with the Ho Man Tin refugee resettlement authority, patrolling the housing projects. “At least it’s something. I have a decent place to live,” he confided.

  Doreen matched his frankness and told him how she was little more than a maid to her sister and how she had found a job with other St. Mary’s girls, skipping meals to pay for her dresses. By the time the ferry reached Kowloon, they were both laughing at the blind naïveté of their former privileged lives. With his cap in hand, Ben swept his arm in a deep bow. “Mademoiselle?” he asked. Giggling, Doreen curtsied. “You can tell your sister and the St. Mary’s gals that Ben Char is doing well. I really am,” he said, and smiled.

  “See you again,” they both said, parting ways and knowing that they probably wouldn’t.

  * * *

  —

  WHEN DOREEN WENT OUT with her friends on their lunch break in Central, men of all backgrounds stopped to admire the Shanghai nui. The young women kept their heads high as if not to notice their oglers. They went on outings together, to Ciro’s, a popular Shanghai nightclub, now reestablished in Hong Kong. Or to the Ritz, a fancy dance club in North Point, an area full of Shanghai refugees. With its Filipino big bands and large dance floor, the Ritz enabled the friends to pretend they were in old Shanghai for a few hours. It was even rumored that one of Du Yuesheng’s henchmen from the notorious Green Gang was running the dance club. To Doreen and her friends, that familiar connection only added to its appeal.

  One day, one of Doreen’s coworkers invited her to come along on a group date, as a last-minute replacement for another gal who couldn’t go. The coworker’s boyfriend was bringing another bachelor. He worked at the Nanyang Cotton Mill, owned by a Shanghai industrialist. Hong Kong’s newly established textile mills and factories had been introduced to the entrepôt by exiled Shanghai entrepreneurs, among them some of that city’s most successful industrialists. They had moved their factories and other assets to Hong Kong as early as 1947, when they realized that the economy was collapsing and the Nationalists could not prevail.

  Doreen figured the date would be a Shanghai fellow and agreed to fill in. But Andrew was Cantonese—and the two of them were like oil and water from the first moment. They began arguing about everything: food, music, life in Hong Kong, the weather. Soon the two were yelling at each other. Doreen’s girlfriend pulled her aside and asked her to calm down. “Do you have to make a scene? I invited you—please don’t embarrass me; you’re making me lose face in front of everyone.” Doreen stopped arguing with Andrew, but she continued to deride him in Shanghainese, assuming that no one else but her friends could understand her. “This guy is so full of baloney and bullshit—a typical no-good Cantonese,” she rattled on. “I hate Hong Kong boys, and I never want to see this guy again!”

  For her friend’s sake, Doreen made it through the evening. Andrew politely saw her out, and when he turned to say goodbye, he spoke to her in Shanghainese. He had understood every insult she had flung at him. Doreen figured she’d truly never see him again.

  Some months later, a major typhoon struck Hong Kong, destroying most of the lean-to shacks of mud and sticks, homes to many thousands of refugees. Andrew drove his car to the building where Doreen lived with her sister to check on her. “How’s the tough one?” he asked her in Shanghainese. Then he invited he
r to lunch.

  At the restaurant, he tossed her a menu, saying, “You order.”

  Doreen, surprised, threw the menu back at him. “No, you order!” The two proceeded to spar with each other. Then they laughed and relaxed. After lunch, Andrew took Doreen on a ride through the New Territories, and they began to talk.

  From Andrew, Doreen learned why local Hong Kongers had a terrible impression of Shanghai people. With their arrogance and fancy English, the Shanghai arrivals seemed to prefer the white foreigners to their fellow Chinese. But for all their flash, the Shanghainese couldn’t outsmart the Hong Kong Cantonese. He told her about the rich Shanghai exiles who thought they could take control of Hong Kong’s gold market just because they brought so many gold bars with them. But the Hong Kongers knew the local gold trade better, including alternate routes to smuggle in the precious metal from Southeast Asia, enabling them to circumvent customs duties and tariffs. The Cantonese held on to the gold market, and the upstart Shanghai traders lost everything.

  Not to be outdone, Doreen shared the opinions that Shanghainese held about Cantonese. The men were domineering toward women, tradition-bound with their rules on when women should kneel and bow to elders and how far they had to walk behind their husbands. Cantonese were inflexible, unwilling to accept new ideas and modern ways, rejecting Western improvements simply because they were foreign. And if Shanghai people were extravagant spendthrifts, Cantonese were the other extreme—tightfisted skinflints.