Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter Read online

  When Ye Ye died, Father was too busy to inform Aunt Baba himself. Instead, she received the news second-hand, from a letter written by one of Father’s employees.

  CHAPTER 11

  Zi Chu Ji Zhu

  Original Ideas in Literary Composition

  My illness in 1951 was during the summer vacation. Most of the girls had gone home. I started coughing up blood, developed a fever of 104 degrees and had difficulty breathing. After two days I was admitted to hospital. At first the doctors thought I was going to die. They informed my family.

  I was lonely and afraid. No one came from home. Mary, my best friend from boarding school, was my one and only visitor. Her father kept a concubine. She lived with her mother in a separate house within walking distance of the hospital. She told me she had nothing better to do. I was deeply grateful for her trouble, whatever the reason. As my condition improved she brought me little treats: fresh sweet mangoes, roasted peanuts, Dairy Farm ice cream, dried persimmons. We played cards, drew pictures, solved puzzles and shared the food she brought. The fever abated. The cough diminished.

  One day, at lunch-time, Father suddenly appeared. Mary had gone home to eat. He walked brusquely into my room unannounced, dressed impressively in a dark blue suit. He stood by my bed looking anxious.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked. I wanted to reassure him. ‘I’m feeling fine, Father. I’m much better.’ The combination of pleasure, fear and surprise rendered me tongue-tied and I could think of nothing else to say.

  Apparently neither could he. He watched me for a few minutes until our mutual silence became awkward. Touching me vaguely on the forehead to gauge my temperature, he muttered, ‘Take care,’ and left.

  A nurse and Mary walked in at that moment. ‘Who was that?’ the nurse asked.

  I answered proudly, ‘That’s my father.’

  She looked at me, astonished. ‘We thought you were an orphan.’

  ‘Almost an orphan, but not quite.’ I looked at Mary, wondering if I had said too much.

  ‘Me too,’ Mary told the nurse. ‘I’m in the same general category.’

  ‘In fact,’ I added brightly, ‘you can find about fifty of us in the same general category at the Sacred Heart.’

  ‘But only among the boarders,’ chirped Mary and we giggled hysterically. The nurse left. At that moment I felt very close to my schoolmate. The thought suddenly struck me that here I was, yearning for my family to visit, day after day. Yet, when my father actually came, we had nothing to say to each other. Why should I force myself on my parents when there were loyal friends?

  Mary and I began to make plans to escape from Hong Kong and live in college hostels somewhere far away: London, Tokyo or Paris.

  When I returned to school after a week of rest at home, I found myself the only boarder because the holidays were not yet over. There was no one to talk to and nothing to do. I spent a lot of time in the library, flipping through books and magazines. In one of these journals I stumbled upon an announcement of a playwriting competition open to all English-speaking children aged between ten and nineteen. Buried in that library and with time on my hands, I set to work. My play was called Gone with the Locusts. It was about the ravages wrought by those insects in Africa. Time passed quickly and I was rather sorry when the play was completed. I sent off my entry and soon forgot all about it. School resumed and all the girls came back.

  One Monday, months later, I was playing basketball in the lunch-break when Sister Valentine (nicknamed ‘Horseface’) interrupted our game and told me that my family chauffeur was waiting for me. Ye Ye had died and was to be buried that day.

  I was driven directly to the Buddhist temple in my school uniform and saw Ye Ye’s photograph placed on top of his coffin. I started to cry and the tears would not stop, though I could see that no one else was crying. Father and Niang, James, Franklin and Susan sat stony-faced in front of the maids, the cook and the chauffeur. There were no other mourners.

  I wept throughout the ceremony, inundated with a tremendous sense of loss. As we walked out of the temple, I was still sobbing, not realizing that my tears were increasingly irritating Niang.

  ‘What are you crying about?’ she suddenly whispered angrily.

  Miserably, I looked up at her with my swollen red eyes and running nose, bracing myself for a cutting remark.

  It came. She turned to Father. ‘I do think Adeline is getting uglier and uglier as she grows older and taller. Just look at her!’

  We returned to the house after the funeral, and Niang called me into the living-room. She wore a smart black suit and her long nails were painted scarlet. The powerful scent of her perfume caused me to feel faint. She stared at my shabby school uniform, straight, unpermed hair and stubby, bitten fingernails. I felt small, plain and worthless.

  ‘Sit down, Adeline,’ she said in English. ‘Would you like some orange juice?’

  ‘No. No, thank you.’

  ‘I noticed you crying just now at the funeral,’ she said. ‘You are growing up. You really should spend some time grooming yourself. Make yourself presentable. No man wants an ugly bride.’

  I nodded, telling myself that this was not what she had called me in to tell me. I clenched my fists and waited.

  ‘Your father,’ she said, ‘has seven children to support. Thank goodness Lydia is safely married off. However, there are still six left. It is not too early to be thinking of your future. What plans do you have?’

  Thinking of my report card studded with A grades, I glanced at the menacing presence in front of me. I knew that if she could, she would see to it that I never had a future.

  Terror-stricken, looking at my feet, I muttered something about hoping to attend university like my brothers, preferably in England.

  ‘Your father,’ she interrupted, ‘does not have an endless supply of money. We have decided that you should learn shorthand and typing and find yourself a job.’

  I was fourteen years old when Ye Ye died. James was going to London to continue his studies that summer. My teachers had told me that the best universities were in Europe and America. Back in my convent school I wrote letter after letter to Niang and Father, begging them to allow me to go to London with James, enclosing report cards filled with commendations, prizes and awards. There was no reply. I seriously considered running away to join Aunt Baba in Shanghai to continue my education. I was determined to go to college.

  One Saturday afternoon about a month later, Mother Valentino came to me again with the news that the family car was waiting for me. I wondered who had died this time. The chauffeur assured me that everyone was healthy. Then I asked myself what I had done wrong. I had dread in my heart all the way home.

  At last, my luck had changed. I did not know it, but I had been nominated first-prize winner of the play-writing competition I had entered seven months earlier. The review board wrote to the Hong Kong educational department which released it to the newspapers. The announcement was given great prominence and carried as a front-page insert. My name, age and school were mentioned as well as the fact that the competition was open to students from all over the English-speaking world. Father was going up in the lift to his office that Saturday morning when an acquaintance nudged him and showed him the news article. ‘Would the winner, Adeline Jun-ling Yen, be related to you?’ he asked. ‘You have the same uncommon last name.’ Father, elated and bursting with pride, read and re-read the article. That afternoon, he sent for me.

  Arriving home, I was told to go immediately to the Holy of Holies, a room I had never been in before. Niang had gone out and Father was alone. I could see that he was in a happy mood. He showed me the article in the newspaper. I could hardly believe it! I had actually won! Father wanted to talk to me about my future.

  My heart began to beat wildly. ‘Father, please let me go to England to study. Please let me go to university.’

  ‘Well, I do believe you have potential,’ he replied, ‘and might even possess zi chu ji zhu (original ideas
in literary composition). Tell me about your career plans. What subjects do you wish to pursue?’

  I was silent for a long while. I had no idea what I wanted to study. Going to England was all I dreamt of. It was like going to heaven. Did it matter what you did after you entered heaven?

  Father was waiting for a reply. Flushed with the thrill of my recent triumph, I said boldly, ‘I think I’ll study literature. I shall become a writer.’

  ‘A writer!’ he scoffed. ‘What sort of a writer? And what language are you going to write in? Your Chinese is very elementary. As for English, don’t you think the English people can write better than you?’

  I readily agreed. Another of those awkward silences followed.

  ‘I’ve thought about it,’ Father announced. ‘I’ll tell you what the best profession is for you.’

  I was relieved. I would do whatever he advised.

  ‘You are to go to England with James to study medicine. After you graduate, you will specialize in obstetrics, just like Grand Aunt’s best friend, Dr Mary Ting. Women have babies and someone has to deliver these babies. Women patients prefer women physicians.’

  That night I was allowed to stay at home. James and I talked late into the night. We were full of plans. The future seemed limitless. Then I started to worry. Suppose the English should discriminate against us? What about eating English food daily? Would we be the only Chinese in our English schools and be considered rare or odd? At midnight, we were searching the dictionary, with James proclaiming that we would be called ‘rare’ if the English liked us, and ‘odd’ if they did not, when the door opened and in walked Niang.

  Father and Niang had been out to a dinner party. She was dressed in a black sequinned evening gown with diamonds flashing at her throat and matching jewellery on her ears and fingers. Her long nails were polished black. She did not look pleased. ‘What are you two doing wasting electricity and laughing at this time of night?’ she demanded. ‘It’s bad enough that you do nothing but eat and sleep during the day. It’s intolerable that you should continue to waste your Father’s money and joke around until all hours of the night!’ With that, she switched off our light and left the room, slamming the door after her.

  We climbed quietly back into our beds. I tried to comfort James. ‘At least she didn’t forbid us to go to England,’ I told him.

  ‘No matter how bad it is in England,’ James declared, ‘no matter how much they discriminate against us, no matter what names they call us, just remember, it can’t be worse than this!’

  CHAPTER 12

  Tong Chuang Yi Meng

  Same Bed, Different Dreams

  In January 1949, Lydia fled from Tianjin to Taiwan with her husband Samuel and his parents. Samuel’s father, our family doctor in Tianjin, soon established another medical practice in Taipei. He started an affair with a younger woman and brazenly established her as his concubine. The situation became unbearable for Samuel’s mother. After a bitter quarrel, she left and returned to Tianjin in 1950.

  Taiwan in the 1940s was a semi-tropical island with an economy based on agriculture and fishing. There was hardly any industry. Jobs were scarce and living conditions primitive. Samuel was unsuccessful in obtaining suitable employment. After the birth of a daughter, they decided to follow Samuel’s mother and return to Tianjin.

  Father tried to dissuade them from going back to mainland China. Repeatedly he warned them of the hardships and tyranny under Communist rule.

  A few months after their return in 1950, Samuel was arrested and accused of being a counter-revolutionary. Samuel’s uncle had been a well-known political figure in the Kuomintang government, a prominent member of the ‘exploiting class’. Though this uncle had defected to the Communist side in 1949, Samuel’s background was considered tainted and his past required to be examined. During his imprisonment, Lydia and their daughter Tai-ling lived with Samuel’s mother. The two women did not get along.

  When Samuel was released after six months, his mother informed them that they had to get lodgings elsewhere. Husband and wife now remembered Father’s two houses on Shandong Road. Of the two houses, one was occupied by Father’s employees, the other by Niang’s Aunt Lao Lao. Lydia and her family decided to move in with her.

  When Niang found out they were living there, she was furious and told Father to write and threaten them with eviction if they did not move out immediately. Samuel and Lydia counter-attacked. They warned Father that they had found evidence showing that Father’s staff had illegally dealt in foreign exchange and precious metals all through the late 1940s and even after liberation. If Father tried to evict them, they would denounce him and his employees to the authorities. They then demanded and received a sum of money. They remained in Father’s house but he never forgave them.

  For Lydia the hardship of the years under Communism was exacerbated by this family estrangement. She became more and more embittered, blaming all her misfortune on her husband. She began to loathe him, and though they continued to occupy the same bed, they certainly did not share the same dreams: tong chuang yi meng (same bed, different dreams).

  Later, after our departure for England, Franklin dominated the household. Niang indulged his every whim and gave him large sums of pocket money while Susan was not given a penny.

  One day, when he was thirteen, returning home from a birthday party, the chauffeur drove past a field of fresh strawberries. Franklin spotted a stall piled high with boxes of the freshly picked fruit. He stopped the car and bought two large boxes. On the long drive home, he ate every single strawberry.

  A few days later, he developed a sore throat and a slight fever. Father was at work and Niang was attending a social function. He put on his roller skates and went outside under the hot afternoon sun. Half an hour later he slumped into the house complaining of a severe headache. He asked Susan to get him a glass of water and then flopped into bed. When Susan brought the water, he took one swallow, complained that it was not cold enough and threw the glass at her. Susan picked up the glass and left the room.

  Three hours later, when Niang came back, Franklin was delirious and made strange sounds at the back of his throat. They admitted him to Queen Mary’s Hospital by ambulance. Professor McFadden (Lo Mac or Old Mac to his students) was consulted. By then Franklin could not swallow. He kept asking for water but when he attempted to drink, the water came out through his nostrils. Lo Mac took my parents aside and gave them the diagnosis. Franklin had contracted bulbar polio: a most dangerous variety affecting the brain stem. He had probably caught the virus from eating those unwashed strawberries. Chinese farmers fertilized their fields with human manure, a known method of transmission of the polio virus. Lo Mac said there was no specific treatment for the disease, only supportive measures. They made a hole in his trachea and placed him on a ventilator. His condition waxed and waned. Father visited him every day. Niang practically lived in his hospital room. Susan was kept at home to prevent her from catching the disease. Gradually, Franklin appeared to improve.

  John Keswick, the taipan of Jardine Matheson, was giving a ball which was the social event of the season. Niang very much wanted to go and consulted Lo Mac. He told her that her social life should not cease because of Franklin’s illness. Besides, her son’s condition appeared to be stable.

  It was a glittering occasion. Niang was dancing the night away in a green silk dress and matching jade earrings when she was urgently called to the telephone. It was Professor McFadden himself. He sounded tired and distressed. He said he felt duty-bound to give her the bad news himself. Franklin had suddenly taken a turn for the worse and had died.

  Niang never got over his demise. Whatever love she was capable of perished with her son. Afterwards, she did not turn to Father, nor to her only remaining daughter.

  Father was also devastated by the loss of his favourite son. He engrossed himself with work and did not complain, though it became increasingly obvious that he was happier at the office than at home.

  Susan
was growing into a ravishing beauty, tall and willowy, with thick black hair, long-lashed dark eyes and snow-white teeth. She was headstrong, outspoken and intelligent. Father adored her. Niang did not relish the pleasure they took in each other’s company. She felt supplanted by her own daughter.

  Father and Niang began to drift apart. Whenever the two of them had an argument, Niang would sulk and refuse to leave her bed. Father had to sleep in the guest room. He would return from his office and try to cajole and placate Niang, who once remained in her bed continuously for two months.

  Father started taking Susan everywhere with him, obviously proud of his pretty daughter. Their close relationship further aggravated Niang.

  CHAPTER 13

  You He Bu Ke?

  Is Anything Impossible?

  In August 1952, James and I sailed together to England on the giant P & O liner SS Canton. I could hardly believe my good fortune, recalling those countless nights on the balcony of my boarding school dreaming of just such a voyage. Throughout the month-long ocean voyage, I was suffused with elation.

  We were at last on a wonderful journey of discovery and independence. Life shimmered with hope. James quoted me the well-known couplet ? shan gao shui chang/ you he bu ke? (mountains are high and rivers are long/ is anything impossible?). We made friends with the small group of Chinese students on board. They nicknamed us Hansel and Gretel because we were inseparable.

  After we docked at Southampton, an agent employed by Father’s travel service met and transferred us on to a train bound for London. I had studied photographs of London in my school library but was unprepared for the grim bleakness of England’s capital city, still scarred from the ravages of the Second World War. Bomb craters dotted renowned city sites.