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

  Chasing an errant ball one afternoon while my brothers were away at a school function, I crept under Gregory’s bed and found a lidless box containing school stationery, seal and ink. James later confided that Gregory had solved his cash-flow problems by printing fictitious invoices for small sums on school stationery. Gregory had befriended a clerk at the accounting office, who would ‘refund’ in cash for any ‘overpayments’. This gave him a steady stream of pocket money and a happy life.

  Meanwhile, Ye Ye started to notice that from time to time, banknotes were disappearing from the upper left drawer of his writing desk, where Aunt Baba regularly placed half her monthly salary. Ye Ye suspected that the culprit was one of us, but did not make an issue of it. Disagreeing with Father’s austerity programme and sympathetic to our plight, he kept his counsel and never reported the periodic losses. His was an awkward predicament because he approved neither of stealing nor of the circumstances which led to it.

  Things came to a head one day in 1948. Inflation was rampant and Chinese money was worth less and less. As a valued employee, Aunt Baba was being paid in US currency and silver dollars (called big heads because of the imprinted profile of Yuan Shih-kai, a Qing dynasty general who had proclaimed himself Emperor of China for eighty-three days in 1916). As usual, she placed half her salary in Ye Ye’s desk.

  Chinese currency depreciated so fast that the central bank in Shanghai could not print money fast enough. Soon one US dollar was being exchanged for two million Chinese yuan. Huge bundles of banknotes changed hands for the simplest purchase.

  The thief, who happened to be Edgar, had taken a few American dollars from Ye Ye’s drawer and changed them on the black market. He was given an enormous sackful of local currency. Now he was in the terrible dilemma of having so much money that he had no place to hide it. There were just too many banknotes to slip under the mattress. Besides, the three boys shared a room.

  Edgar dug a large hole in the garden and buried all the money. He thought his secret was safe, but he had forgotten Father’s dog, Jackie.

  Next day, while we were away at school, Jackie dug up the small patch of earth with his paws and sniffed out the stacks of cash. Soon banknotes were flying everywhere all over the yard. Meanwhile, the maids found a foreign exchange slip in Edgar’s trouser pocket in the laundry basket.

  Niang instructed the servants to pick up all the money and tidy up the garden. Not a word was mentioned until dinner had been served and eaten. Then, instead of the usual fruit bowl, the maids brought out a large platter stacked with soiled banknotes, a veritable mound of local currency.

  Father was as much taken aback as everyone else. He launched into a terrible tirade. After interminable threats and much fulmination, Niang revealed what she had known all along: that Edgar was the culprit. Father followed with another of his diatribes about dishonesty, untrustworthiness, bad blood from our dead mother and a doomed future for all of us, especially Edgar, who would bring nothing but shame to the Yen family name. He insinuated that Ye Ye and Baba had overindulged us to such an extent that we were all worthless. Finally, he took Edgar upstairs and thrashed him with Jackie’s whip.

  We second-class residents gathered in Ye Ye’s room. We could hear the sounds of the lashes and Edgar’s whimpers. Ye Ye, Baba, Gregory and I winced at every stroke, but James merely shrugged his shoulders and nonchalantly suggested a game of bridge to ‘pass the time’.

  Throughout our childhood, James was the only stepchild never singled out for punishment. He survived by detaching himself emotionally. We were very close and shared many confidences but never did he come to my defence. Once he gave me this piece of advice: ‘Don’t trust anyone. Be a cold fish. I hurt no one. And no one can hurt me.’

  Franklin and Susan were the pampered ones, the empress’s son and daughter: favoured and privileged. To us on the second floor, the antechamber seemed like paradise. But paradise turned out to be Franklin’s own private garden of Eden.

  He used to bully Susan, grab her toys, pull her hair, slap her face, twist her arm. Niang chose to ignore this. Every night she came into the bedroom to kiss Franklin goodnight. She sat on the edge of his bed and cooed and teased and talked to him without even acknowledging Susan’s presence. On those evenings when Franklin was away with his French cousins or friends, Niang did not bother to visit their room at all.

  Ye Ye and Father were overjoyed when the Japanese Occupation finally ended after America dropped the atom bombs in 1945. However, civil war recommenced almost immediately between the Nationalists (Kuomintang) and Communists. In the next three years, they were increasingly alarmed to see the balance of power shifting towards the left. Mao Zedong, the Communist leader, and his armies were on an inexorable march.

  Newspapers those days were full of stories of atrocities committed by the Communists against landlords and merchants. There were daily reports of fresh barbarities and appalling savagery. The prevailing impression, goaded on by Chiang Kai-shek (ruler of China since the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925) and his Kuomintang press, was that if Shanghai should fall into Communist hands, there would be a bloodbath.

  By 1948 a colder wind tempered the economic climate for businessmen like my father. In a last-ditch effort to stabilize the currency, the Nationalist government had just announced the issue of a new form of currency called the Gold Yuan Certificate. This measure was necessary because the people had lost all confidence in the old currency, called Fa Bi or legal tender. Rampant inflation had escalated to the point where one US dollar was being exchanged for eleven million Chinese yuan: even more than Edgar got for his stolen dollars.

  Official announcements called for all Chinese to turn in their old banknotes, their personal caches of gold and silver and their foreign currency by 30 September 1948. Gold Yuan Certificates would be given in exchange, supposedly backed by gold and worth four to each American dollar. Immediately there was a gold rush as most private depositors withdrew their precious metals and foreign currency from local banks. No sane mind believed that there was any gold to back those certificates. Big capitalists like my father spirited their wealth abroad to Hong Kong, the United States and Europe. Small wage earners such as Aunt Baba were obliged to obey government instructions. The value of the Gold Yuan Certificates fell with each Communist victory until they became as worthless as the old currency which they replaced. By obeying Chiang Kai-shek’s orders, Aunt Baba lost all her savings.

  Father was making all sorts of contingency plans and it was simply a matter of time before he made his move.

  It must have been the Sunday immediately following my classmates’ disastrous visit when Father suddenly appeared alone at the doorway of Ye Ye’s room. He summoned Aunt Baba and ordered me to go and play on the roof terrace. He seemed preoccupied, but attempted a semblance of respect towards his father and sister. Aunt Baba reflected sadly that this was the first time the three of them had spoken alone together since the family moved back to Shanghai five years earlier. For a short while a sort of intimacy was restored. Father started talking about the civil war, and the possibility of Shanghai being occupied by the Communists. He and Niang had decided to move to Hong Kong. Would Ye Ye and Baba go with them?

  It dawned on Aunt Baba that besides leaving her friends she would have to give up her job at Grand Aunt’s bank and revert to being the spinster living on charity under Niang’s critical eye. She wondered if life under the Communists could really be any worse than a life under Niang. She decided to remain in Shanghai.

  Meanwhile, beads of sweat had appeared on Ye Ye’s brow and his face had turned white with fear. Tremulously, he accepted his son’s invitation to move to Hong Kong and together risk their chances under British rule.

  ‘Surely we don’t have to leave right away?’ he asked. ‘Maybe Old Chiang (Kai-shek) can still pull it off with the help of the Americans.’

  ‘Of course we don’t have to go immediately,’ Father replied. ‘We still have a few months at the very least. Jeanne and I plan to fl
y to Tianjin next week and sell off as much as possible. It looks as if Beijing and Tianjin will fall before Shanghai. I will convert all my funds into Hong Kong dollars and take them with me to Hong Kong.’

  Father now asked Ye Ye to show him where he kept his money, stressing that it should always be locked away. He meandered on distractedly about how wrong it was for children to be put in the way of temptation, turning to my aunt and accusing her of favouring me over my siblings. Aunt Baba dismissed the notion, adding that she would have given a silver dollar to any of his other children if they, too, had reached the top of their class. She reminded him that children needed to be rewarded if they excelled in their endeavours.

  Father began a litany of my deficiencies: my small stature and thinness; my poor appetite, no doubt due to secret snacks between meals provided by Aunt Baba; my arrogance and aloofness. He demanded that Aunt Baba write down every fen she had given me over the past year and was sceptical when my aunt insisted that the silver dollar was all that I had received. He marched her into her room and demanded that she open up her small box of snack foods which she was in the habit of keeping, making a list of its contents:

  Salted preserved plums:

  2 packets

  Pork jerky:

  1 packet

  Beef jerky (sweet):

  ½ packet

  Beef jerky (spicy):

  2 packets

  Roasted peanuts:

  1 four-oz bag

  Peanut candy:

  1 eight-oz jar

  Dried melon seeds:

  1 packet

  Ye Ye and my aunt watched in astonishment as he made this inventory. Father then began a harangue about my worthlessness, my want of moral fibre, my excessive consumption of snack foods and my monstrous behaviour. Aunt Baba tried to defend me, telling him that I was just a little girl who never knew her own mother, but Father waved her protests aside.

  Aunt Baba asked whether Father had made any provision for us children. Lydia was living with Samuel and her in-laws in Tianjin. Father’s inclination was to leave his three teenaged sons in their Shanghai schools until graduation, then send them to university in England. Franklin and Susan were to go to Hong Kong with our parents. There was a short pause.

  ‘That leaves wu mei (Fifth Younger Daughter),’ Ye Ye said. ‘What do you intend to do with her?’

  Father picked up the ‘food list’ and scoured it. ‘Lately she has become very rebellious. Her successful performance at school has given her a high opinion of herself. You have both spoilt her by giving her too much praise. We have decided to discipline her.’

  Ye Ye was startled. ‘What has she done to deserve this?’ he asked. ‘She is only a little girl in primary school. What are you punishing her for?’

  ‘This is the problem!’ Father replied. ‘The two of you are entirely too protective. It is not exactly what she has done or not done. She must be taught to be obedient and modest. She should know her place and realize that her opinions and desires count for nothing. After all, she is nothing without her Father and Niang. We have decided to remove her from this cocoon of permissiveness. When we go to Tianjin next week, we are taking her with us. We plan to place her as a boarder back at St Joseph’s. She is to be left there on her own. I forbid you to write or mail her food packages like these!’ He started waving the list in Aunt Baba’s face. ‘She will not be allowed to send or receive letters. The nuns will be instructed to keep her locked behind gates until she graduates.’

  ‘The Communists! What about the Communists?’ Aunt Baba asked, ‘The newspapers report intense fighting in Manchuria. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are pouring into Tianjin. Don’t you remember reading about those university students fleeing south? They were demonstrating in Tianjin for food and shelter when they were actually fired on by Kuomintang troops. Is it safe for her to go to school there now?’

  ‘This must be stopped at once!’ Father shouted, brandishing the list. ‘She must be separated from you two.’ Still clutching the list he rushed from Aunt Baba’s room, slamming the door behind him.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ Aunt Baba asked Ye Ye in a shaky voice. ‘The child has done nothing. He behaves as if he wants to destroy her. He knows it will shang xin (wound her heart) to be taken away from us. Can you make any sense of it?’

  Ye Ye knew. ‘His child has done no wrong. But every day her presence is like a thorn in their side: she annoys them by simply being around. They’re sending her away because they want to be rid of her.’

  Those were uncertain times. Every other family with property, Kuomintang ties or even western professional training agonized over what to do next: to stay or to go. For established businessmen with homes, offices, families, friends, and guanxi (connections), the choice was particularly hard. Time was running out. Chiang Kai-shek’s army lost city after city. Were the Communists really as bad as all that? Could anyone be certain how things would evolve under the new regime? Many did not stay to find out. Everyday, trains, planes and boats were loaded with refugees heading for Taiwan and Hong Kong.

  In later years Father would relate the fate of an acquaintance who wavered at the very last minute. He was actually on his way to Shanghai airport with his wife and son. He could not believe that he was a big enough player to be singled out for persecution. He stopped at the house of his cousin. They exchanged places. The cousin flew with wife and daughter to a life of prosperity in New York. Father’s friend stayed and was eventually stripped of everything he owned. His son was imprisoned for criticizing Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife. His wife committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution.

  Father, Niang, Franklin and Susan left for Hong Kong in December 1948. Grand Aunt could not bear to leave her bank. She decided to stay and throw in her lot with the new rulers. Ye Ye’s departure was heartrending. He loved his home town and doubted if he would ever see it again. The sights, smells, sounds and memories of Shanghai were irreplaceable. He dreaded the life stretching before him in Hong Kong but knew that he had to flee. Up to the last he tried to change Aunt Baba’s mind. This she simply could not do. Thirty years later, my aunt was unable to describe their final parting without anguish.

  One by one, the cities fell: Luoyang, Kaifeng, Jinzhou, Chanchun, Mukden. In December 1948 Beijing was surrounded by Communist troops. The city was under seige. In January 1949 the die was cast when the Battle of Huai Hai was finally won by the Communists. Over 300,000 Kuomintang soldiers were taken prisoner. On 21 January 1949, Chiang Kai-shek resigned as President of the Republic. The People’s Liberation Army crossed the Yangtse River in April. In less than a month, they took Nanking, Soochow and Hangchow.

  The Red Army entered Shanghai in triumph on 25 May, 1949. Young, zealous and disciplined PLA troops were seen marching up and down Nanking Road. They cheerfully helped residents and shopkeepers clean up the sandbags and other impediments put up by the Nationalists. They were courteous and well fed. There was no looting.

  For my aunt, there now followed a period of unprecedented peace and happiness. Within a matter of days Grand Aunt’s bank reopened. The Communists bent over backwards to maintain law and order. Shops and restaurants resumed business as usual. Inflation was finally halted. Gold Yuan Certificates were changed into Jen Min Pi, the new currency of the People’s Republic. Prices of commodities stabilized and supplies became once more available. Public services such as transportation, mail delivery and street cleaning seemed better managed than before. The new regime repeatedly assured the populace in newspapers and radio broadcasts that properties and businesses of Chinese and foreign merchants would be for ever protected, and their religions respected.

  Aunt Baba was in charge of the household, supervising my three brothers who were still at school in Shanghai. She spent her bank salary for her own needs and collected the monthly rental income from Father’s properties to run the house. She trimmed the domestic staff down to two maids and Miss Chien. She was profoundly moved when she heard Chairman Mao’s broadcast from Beijin
g on 1 October 1949, proclaiming the founding of the People’s Republic of China. All her fellow employees gathered around a radio to hear Mao announce, ‘The Chinese people have arisen.’

  Her days were calm and orderly. After breakfast, she saw the boys off to school before going to work herself. They ate dinner together as usual at seven thirty and the boys were encouraged to bring their friends home. Each was given a fair weekly allowance so that they could take themselves off on outings from time to time. The Communist interference did not extend beyond the compulsory registration of everyone in the abode, including Franklin’s governess, Miss Chien. A hu kou (residents’ committee) was set up for administrative purposes. Later these committees became government tools to control and account for the movements of every inhabitant in Shanghai.

  Miss Chien was a spinster in her mid-thirties. After the departure of Franklin and Susan, she had no obvious function and feared that she would be dismissed. Her education had ceased at the age of fourteen and she was now unable to teach the boys in any subject. She tried to curry Aunt Baba’s favour by preparing regional delicacies from her home town. When the weather turned cold, she warmed Aunt Baba’s bed with hot-water bottles and brought up thermos flasks of hot water for Aunt Baba’s nightly bath. She spent her days reading the newspapers, gossiping with the two remaining maids, writing letters and knitting tirelessly. Aunt Baba was amazed at her seemingly endless supply of good-quality wool which was becoming impossible to procure in the neighbourhood stores. Many imported commodities were in short supply as westerners were leaving in droves and foreign firms were closing down. Generously, Miss Chien gave many of her hand-knitted cardigans to Aunt Baba and the boys as gifts.