One Bright Moon

by Andrew Kwong

  Life has never seemed more promising and exciting for Mama and Baba, and for the Chinese people as a whole.

  My story begins in these auspicious times.

  PART I

  By the Wonder River

  CHAPTER 1

  ‘Long live Chairman Mao!’

  ‘Long live the Chinese Communist Party!’

  ‘Down with the capitalists!’

  In Shiqi, surrounded by a sea of red flags and accompanied by a thundering roll of drums, trumpets and gongs, my classmates and I shouted at the top of our voices.

  On my first day at kindergarten in September 1954, I was proud to already know the revolutionary slogans, songs and jingles. I’d been born amid the drone of them, into a noisy world filled with enthusiasm for a good life and hatred for the evildoers, both local and foreign, who had exploited China for centuries. Since infancy I’d been infused with cries of revolution, denunciation and the struggle for freedom – indeed, they were my first babbling words, and now I loved shouting them with the other children. The red stars on the flaps of our schoolbags shone in the morning sun and reflected in our happy faces. We were a sea of little soldiers in khaki, ready to conquer the bad world under Chairman Mao.

  The Party Secretary of the town’s First Central Primary School and Kindergarten spoke to us through the megaphone. ‘Precious Ones, Little Masters of New China, welcome to the big family of Chairman Mao. Welcome to our kindergarten. You are our first pure proletariat generation. You are Chairman Mao’s children. You are our future!’ His face glowed, exuding passionate and progressive pride as he punched the tepid air along with all the big people around us. We clapped. Our parents and teachers clapped too. Our spirits soared even more, and we felt invincible and patriotic. The teachers then led us into our classrooms to begin our education as the first ‘pure’ generation of the PRC.

  Reaching our classroom, we hurried to discover what our parents had packed inside our schoolbags. My neighbour Ah-dong, my old friend Sammy (nicknamed Flea from when he was a toddler), and a few new friends pulled out long green spring onions, some with roots still attached, and lettuce leaves, all neatly wrapped in string or a strip of red paper as a good omen for the first day of learning, even though it was only a half-day introduction to the kindergarten.

  ‘The vegetables mean intelligence, and they bring you wealth,’ I heard one boy tell some others while he chewed on his crunchy lettuce leaf. Then they pulled out lucky money in red packets: aluminium coins of two or five fen (cents).

  I searched my schoolbag, similar to the ones my older sisters had. I had waited a long, long time for it – then suddenly, the week before kindergarten was due to start, there it was, right next to my pillow as I opened my eyes one morning, this khaki schoolbag with a belt that you could swing over your shoulder. Every day I’d put it on and march up and down the house like a little People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier, feeling like I couldn’t wait for the big day to come. I smelled its sweet raw cotton, felt the strong coarse fabric and cherished the red star.

  Now I looked carefully in every pocket and corner of my schoolbag, hoping to find some lucky money. All I found was a sharp pencil, a small eraser and a thin writing pad. How am I going to be intelligent like my father without spring onions and lettuce leaves, and wealthy without the two fen? I must have looked inconsolable because the teacher told me to cheer up.

  ‘Baba, why didn’t I get what my schoolmates got?’ I asked my father as soon as he arrived to pick me up from school at noon.

  ‘Those things are superstitions, Ah-mun,’ he said without a pause, ‘nothing but decaying traditions that we and modern China don’t need anymore under Chairman Mao.’

  Baba crouched down to look me in the eye, holding me close with his large hands. He kissed me, then smiled. I loved it when he called me Ah-mun – a shortened, endearing version of my full name, Yiu-man. I craved for the cuddle and warmth of Baba. His mention of Chairman Mao also made me happy.

  ‘You’ve got to be progressive like the comrades. One day you can become a scholar, or a scientist, or even a leader like Chairman Mao,’ he continued, reinflating my spirit even more. ‘But you must be diligent in learning.’ Baba pushed his PLA flat cap, khaki with a red star at the centre, away from his large eyes. His handsome face looked like those of the revolutionary figures on posters that covered every available wall in town.

  Although I didn’t quite understand what he meant, I was proud of Baba. I’d always felt fortunate to have a father like him. I couldn’t wait to get to the kindergarten every morning to learn to read and write like he did.

  *

  Shiqi, a river town near the mouth of the Pearl River Delta, is not far from Hong Kong and Macau. It became an important town following the Chinese defeat in the Opium Wars of the mid-1800s against British and French forces. Many local heroes, such as Sun Yat-sen – by then known as the father of modern China – and his comrades in the struggle to defeat the Qing emperor, had made us proud. Shiqi had a relatively small population of fifty thousand but had a rich folklore of fascinating stories and legends, the most memorable of which described how the region was indebted to Buddha’s magical control of an unruly tiger. I drew comfort from living in a tranquil place where a seven-storey pagoda on a hill held down the head of the once-wild tiger, while a smaller pagoda pinned its tail. The town had grown around Pagoda Hill, whose slopes descended to the surrounding flatland and allowed people to easily escape to higher ground when summer floods came.

  Our kindergarten was housed in the ancient Dragon Mother’s Temple, which, when I was very young, was hidden behind thick shrubs and imposing banyan trees that made the temple seem mystical and scary. Inside were ghostly cold rooms with unfathomably high ceilings and huge round pillars, where towering statues of deities stood. The temple’s big, ancient bell had long tolled on the hour, resonating across Shiqi to assure its residents of peace and equanimity. Baba said the temple had been there almost since the founding of the thousand-year-old town; people had prayed there for compassion, safety and blessings to help them endure summer floods and other disasters.

  I was puzzled by the story of the Dragon Mother and her adopted sons: five little snakes that hatched from a rock she found by the Xijiang River, a big tributary of the Pearl River, far, far upstream from us. The snakes grew to become five dragons who helped their mother to protect and guard the local people from unpredictable weather and anything else that was evil or perilous. It perplexed me that the five dragons later took human form and became scholars in order to continue the good work their mother had started; but it excited me that Shiqi was close to the South China Sea, to which the dragons had returned after accomplishing their mission to help the people.

  Given this folklore, it seemed logical to turn the Dragon Mother’s Temple into a place of learning. And the townspeople didn’t need reassurance from the temple bell anymore, because the PRC’s many slogans boosted their optimism for a bright future. So the grounds were cleared and the buildings converted into our school and kindergarten.

  After that, I was no longer frightened of the place. The choking smoke from incense sticks was gone, leaving only noisy sparrows and swallows that had been there for generations. They seemed to take pleasure in aiming their droppings at us as they stuck to their flight paths. My friend Ah-dong, with his big head, skinny limbs and protruding stomach, seemed to cop the most, and he often reeked of bird poo. He didn’t seem to mind, chuckling each time it happened and saying it was good luck. He sat next to me in class.

  The name plaques of the town’s dead, once revered on the temple walls, were just the right size to make stools for us kids. Sitting on these plaques didn’t worry me – I even farted on them. Some of my classmates peed on them when they couldn’t hold their bladders until the bell rang.

  Comrade Teacher Wong greeted us each morning with, ‘Good morning, Precious Ones. You are Chairman Mao’s good children.’ Like many female Party comrades, she wore a PLA cap over two plai
ted ponytails. Baba told me Mama had taught Comrade Wong in primary school, before she’d run off with the propaganda brigade of the PLA when they’d first reached town. Mama said she’d been a good singer.

  ‘Good morning, Comrade Teacher Wong,’ we chorused with pride.

  She smiled at us before leading us into ‘The East Is Red’, our favourite song:

  The East is red and the sun rising,

  Now our great saviour Mao Tse-tung

  For people’s happiness he is fighting . . .

  Chairman Mao was on posters at school and on walls along the streets. I loved him, and I loved my parents and my three sisters too.

  I’d already decided to be like my progressive parents, so I kept up the long walk every day to the kindergarten and didn’t complain about not getting the two fen to be rich. My little legs grew tired along the seemingly never-ending Come Happiness Road to Come Happiness Bridge, which ran over the Nine Meanders River, a small branch of the Wonder River that traversed the town. Come Happiness Street began there, taking me to the town square, and that was only halfway to the kindergarten. Every day one of my parents, sometimes both, walked with me all the way to make the slog easier. They had still not been assigned jobs by the Party, but I was happy they spent time caring for me and my sisters.

  At kindergarten we sang revolutionary nursery rhymes and songs about the Long March, the Second Sino-Japanese War, the civil wars and the recent Korean War. We marched around with our schoolbags on our shoulders like little PLA soldiers, our heads high and our chests puffed out. Our days were devoted to exalting our great Chairman Mao while studying communism. From an early age we knew of the revolutionary pioneers, such as Stalin, Lenin, Marx and Engels, and the many heroes and martyrs who had sacrificed themselves for the founding of the PRC – and for our freedom. Comrade Teacher Wong told us every morning, ‘China, together with big brother Russia and little brother North Korea, and our archenemy the United States of America and their running dogs, make up the whole wide world. We must continue our struggle against our capitalist enemies, ridding ourselves of the corruption of the past, and setting ourselves free from the tentacles of ancient customs and superstitions.’

  For reasons unknown to me then, our teacher also wanted us to be vigilant: to be aware of the hidden counter-revolutionaries and bad elements who might undermine Chairman Mao’s vision for a strong China. She told us that class struggle must eliminate the unwanted classes of people as designated by the Party, at any cost.

  Our teacher always concluded the morning’s political lesson with the message that China, together with our communist brothers, would be the triumphant proletarian power of the world. We repeated these words after her, not knowing what they meant, before moving on to other subjects.

  Much to my envy, many children at school wore a red scarf or neckerchief – the symbol of revolutionary youth – to indicate that they were members of the Young Pioneers of China; when they reached high school they would begin learning Russian. You had to be selected for this coveted organisation in primary school, and now that I had my schoolbag I aspired to become a ‘Red Scarf’ myself one day and learn Russian so that I would be even more revolutionary. The motto of the Young Pioneers was ‘To fight for the cause of communism. Be ready. Always ready.’ We were all proud that our town was very much part of the revolution with so many Red Scarves and PLA soldiers, comrades and of course the khaki schoolbags flooding the streets every day, not to mention the red flags with gold stars.

  Our teacher told us that many millions of ordinary people like us had lost their lives during the drawn-out wars that had led to the founding of the PRC. So when a campaign to replenish our country’s population was initiated by the government, we eagerly took part. Our first task was to stir up the revolutionary spirit of young women with a new song:

  Eighteen-year-old girls go get married soon,

  Bring up your sons, and quickly will they grow

  To be men and Liberation heroes,

  Defend our Motherland bravely will they go . . .

  At first, the young women in town couldn’t stop giggling when we sang it to them in the streets, parks and wherever else we came across them. At home I was proud to teach my younger sister Weng and cousin Yiu-hoi to sing it too. Later we saw many wedding processions, and before long there were pregnant women everywhere. My parents said the many babies that were subsequently born were the direct result of our revolutionary action.

  *

  My family lived at Number 1 Kwong Street, on the southern edge of Shiqi, in a larger-than-average house that my paternal grandfather Woon-duk Kwong had built for himself, his wife and their nine sons. Baba, Shek-tong, the seventh son, told me that Grandfather had intended his descendants would live there happily for generations to come. The building was one of ten single-storey houses in a neat row, all with similar façades. They had been constructed around the same time from grey bricks that it was believed would withstand the typhoons and floods that ravaged Shiqi almost every summer. The houses were also protected by a long double-brick levee wall. The compound had two entrances, one at either end, each wide enough to admit people four abreast, but too narrow for cars and large carts.

  I couldn’t wait to get home from kindergarten every day. The broad, concreted, level street was a safe playground for me and the other local kids – our oasis. There, facing the glorious east, we, the Precious Ones, were well protected.

  I was enchanted by my family’s house. Its ten main rooms were separated by two courtyards that opened to the sky, making it an airy, light-filled home. The three large lounge rooms were lined with heavy rosewood chairs inlaid with pieces of cool marble, breaking the monotony of the grey brick walls. Decorative wooden partitions sectioned off parts of the lounges as indoor playgrounds for the children. An incense stick burned all day long in the third lounge room where the ancestors were revered, creating a tranquil space filled with a sense of magic and awe.

  I had three sisters. Ying was the oldest of the four of us, and Ping two years younger. I had arrived three years after Ping, then another two years later my little sister Weng had come along. Poor Weng was a limp baby for the first three years of her life and many a time she was not expected to live. I can still remember how worried and upset I was whenever she was sick; I wouldn’t leave her side.

  Ying was the big sister I looked up to and admired; my parents often said she was an intelligent and strong-willed child. We all knew how Baba adored her. I didn’t know Ping well, because when I was a baby she moved to Shenmingting to live with my maternal grandmother, Grandmother Young, in order to lighten the burden on my unemployed parents; however, she had recently returned to Kwong Street. I was more than glad that I had an extra older sister at home. I soon learnt that Ping was gentle and pleasant, if not a quiet girl to have around.

  My sisters occupied the living quarters that had formerly been used by our Third Aunt, who was married to Third Uncle, my father’s third elder brother. Long before the PRC had come into being, he had moved overseas, just as other sojourners had done, to seek a living to support his young family. Around the time I started kindergarten, with Western anti-Chinese and anti-communist feeling rising, sojourners were prevented by foreign governments from transferring money directly to China. They could, however, send money to relatives in Hong Kong or Macau, from where it could be redirected to China. In response, even though it restricted the movement of its citizens in and out of the country, and even between districts, the Chinese government began to encourage relatives of Patriotic Overseas Chinese, as the sojourners were known, to move to those nearby colonies so that they could maintain the supply of foreign currency, which was desperately needed to help rebuild China. Third Aunt and Grandmother Young answered the call.

  After being granted an exit visa by the local authorities in Shiqi, Third Aunt had gone to live in Macau before I started kindergarten, where she received money monthly from Third Uncle, who was by then residing in New York. More recently, Gr
andmother Young had moved to Hong Kong, so that she could continue to receive and transfer money monthly from our grandfather in Hawaii. I overheard my parents saying how important it was to keep foreign money coming into China to increase prosperity – something I didn’t understand – and that the more money our relatives sent, the more ration vouchers we would receive from the government (there was even a special shop in town, the Overseas Chinese Friendship Store, where you could exchange these vouchers for goods not available elsewhere). The adults also talked about what a good opportunity it was to leave China, and lamented the fact they couldn’t go too – only one member of each family was permitted to do so. Many from Zhongshan had already gone.

  I shared my parents’ room, which also served as our family room. By the time I began kindergarten, my paternal grandparents had passed away and my father’s other brothers had left home. My Sixth Aunt and her daughter Yiu-wei took up one of the quarters. My father always looked out for Sixth Aunt, the widow of the brother born before him, my Sixth Uncle, who had been closest to him growing up. He and his ten-year-old son had been killed in a house fire in Hong Kong before the PRC was proclaimed. Baba often talked about him. Sixth Aunt was an office worker at a local hospital.

  My Eighth Uncle, the brother born after my father, and Eighth Aunt lived in the other living quarters in the front section of the fathomless house. Standing 185 centimetres tall, Eighth Uncle was a giant in town as well as in the family. He and Eighth Aunt somehow still had jobs and they spent a lot of time away teaching in schools in different towns, and came home only one weekend a month, usually at different times. Their two boys, Yiu-hoi and Ah-ki, were cared for by their maternal grandmother, who lived in one of the other rooms. When Eighth Uncle was home for his monthly break, he filled the house with his wonderful singing, ranging from opera to revolutionary songs. Despite all these occupants, the house seemed happy and peaceful to us children.