One Bright Moon

by Andrew Kwong

  He took a long sip of his drink, raised his head, and looked at Baba, the way he used to when he was training. But his eyes were filled with sadness that day, seeking forgiveness.

  Baba nodded.

  Ho-bun broke down and wept. His muscular body convulsed.

  Baba reached across the table and put his hand on Ho-bun’s shoulder, saying nothing. He looked away from his distressed student and stared at his cigarette again. A few patrons looked our way. I stared back at them. The café was suffocating.

  More tears. More sighs. More cigarettes. I was not embarrassed. I was sad for Ying and Ho-bun. How could life be so unfair?

  ‘Yes, the tide has turned,’ Baba finally said. ‘For all of us.’

  CHAPTER 28

  Just days after Ho-bun’s arrival in Hong Kong in May 1966, I was preparing dinner in Diamond Hill, sizzling up the garlic for a stir-fried vegetable dish that we all loved, and of course, grilling the fish and browning its skin and edges to send out a welcome-home aroma that Baba and Ping would notice as they walked through the front gate of the bungalow after a long day at work. The automatic rice cooker gave off the distinctive sweet fragrance of cooked rice – a comforting smell I’d always loved and a symbol of food and survival during the famine; it still makes my mouth water and my stomach rumble.

  ‘The world belongs to you. China’s future belongs to you.’ Chairman Mao’s voice burst into the kitchen through the Radio Hong Kong news I was listening to as I cooked.

  I shook.

  ‘It is your right to rebel!’ he went on, inciting the youth of China to wipe out the decaying Chinese culture and rebel against the authorities and administration. ‘In every organisation, village, town and city, province . . . all over China.’

  The latest slogans were much more ominous than the revolutionary ones I had shouted. They were also confusing. Haven’t we already been successful in our revolution? Haven’t we already beaten the capitalists and cleansed the people? Why another revolution? I stopped stirring the vegetables. I sensed terror ahead. Fear for the safety of Mama, my sisters, Ah-dong, Yiu-hoi, Ah-ki and my other cousins and friends seized me the way it had done when Baba was arrested by the People’s Militia.

  The vegetables and fish burned.

  ‘Sorry I forgot to add soy sauce to the fish,’ I said during dinner. ‘I was thinking of the family and friends at home in Shiqi, and worrying about their safety. Those ferocious slogans, I’m not sure what they mean.’

  Baba didn’t reply.

  ‘I saw several communist posters near our office in Victoria,’ said Ping. ‘There were loudspeakers blaring from the Bank of China building, calling for the dismissal of the British colonial government.’ She looked to Baba for an explanation.

  ‘The world is dangerous,’ Baba finally said and sighed. ‘Communist factions have emerged on the mainland and are fighting for control. It’ll affect us here in Hong Kong.’ He frowned.

  ‘But Chairman Liu is in charge now,’ I said.

  ‘My son, don’t ever believe what they say. For the communists, power comes from the gun barrel. All revolutions are bloody and violent, infused with ruthlessness and terror.’

  In the weeks that followed, more and more slogans and news flooded the local media. After dinner, we crowded in front of the landlady’s black and white TV watching news clips of the Red Guards marching and masses of people moving about in China. Most of them were my age, young teenagers. They wore red armbands and waved Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book (a famous collection of his sayings) in the air while chanting slogans and declaring their allegiance to the Great Leader. I looked hard at the screen to see if any of my friends and cousins were in the mobs, and felt relieved when I didn’t recognise anyone.

  Launched in 1966, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, a campaign to purge capitalist elements from Chinese society and thereby preserve communism, had erupted and swept through China and even Hong Kong like the biggest typhoon ever. Hordes of Red Guards began to demonstrate in the Chinese border town of Shenzhen; on several occasions they tried to march across the border into Hong Kong. The Chinese border guards, the Hong Kong Border Police and the Royal Ghurkha Guards were able to stop them initially, but then the Chinese guards refrained from interfering, and there were even exchanges of gunfire between the Chinese border guards and the Hong Kong authorities. Both sides suffered casualties. In 1967, left-wing protesters in Hong Kong began striking, marching around and waving their Little Red Books to imitate the mainland Red Guards. Riots broke out in Kowloon. Violence and terror began. Bomb hoaxes and unrest escalated in many parts of the colony.

  ‘I had to come home early today,’ I said to Baba and Ping at dinner one evening near the end of the school year. ‘There was a bomb planted at the school. They said it was because La Salle College is foreign and has many gweilo teachers and students.’

  ‘Keep your eyes peeled. Be alert and don’t touch any parcels lying around on buses or in the streets,’ Baba warned us. ‘They are saying in the papers that the communists infiltrated Hong Kong during the refugee influx a few years ago and are now trying to get rid of the British. The police found out they are making bombs in leftist schools and factories. Eight thousand homemade bombs have been detonated. Unbelievable. Barbaric. Senseless,’ Baba said, his eyebrows locked together and pain showing on his face. He was smoking more again; his night terrors had returned.

  When an eight-year-old girl and her two-year-old brother were killed by a bomb outside their home, it brought a stronger reaction from the people of Hong Kong. Lam Bun, a popular radio commentator, fiercely attacked the terrorist leftists. Soon after, he was burned alive in his car, together with his cousin. This cruel act aroused even more unforgiving condemnation from many people in the colony, and soon they too were on the assassins’ list.

  Hong Kong plunged into turmoil. Strikes organised by leftist unions broke out amid more terror and violence. Many businesses were affected, and within months many had abruptly shut down. The Hang Seng Stock Exchange Index dropped 90 per cent during the period of riot and terror, according to the adults. We, and all the people in Hong Kong, were worried.

  Looking out of the packed double-decker bus on my way to and from school, I often saw protesters being chased by squads of policemen in riot gear. Why the terror and violence? Why can’t we live in peace? Why is life so challenging? More questions swamped my head. Even Baba had no answers for them. I felt powerless to avoid a bomb in a crowded bus, and called on God and General Guan Gong to protect me. I dreamed that the District Head was in the crowds looking for Baba and me, and woke up in a pond of sweat. The image of Pig Head Hill loomed large. The sanctuary we’d found in Diamond Hill was clearly fragile. But where else could we go?

  Baba talked little while watching the unrest going on. I could sense his anxiety. ‘We need to look beyond Hong Kong, far away from here,’ Baba said one evening when things seemed less chaotic in the streets. ‘The quiet out there won’t last, and we’d better be prepared. But the family in China is the biggest worry.’

  ‘We can go to Hawaii,’ Ping said. ‘We’ve family there.’

  ‘We are already indebted to the Young family,’ said Baba, ‘and I wouldn’t like to burden them further. Besides, the grandparents are getting older, and the uncles have their own families to look after and worries of their own. Also, since Grandfather declared his children had been lost during the war, we have no official status as family members. No, we’ll have to figure it out ourselves.

  ‘No countries accept immigrants these days unless they are immediate family,’ Baba said, directing his gaze towards me. ‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t try. We have to come up with a long-term plan, which might demand a lot of resources we don’t have.’

  A warm glow flashed across his face. ‘Ah-mun,’ he said to me. ‘How would you feel about studying overseas? Anywhere, any country. I don’t mind if I have to take on more work to support you.’

  Ping nodded and said without hesitation, ‘I’d do
my best to help you out too. Hong Kong is no longer safe for us, and we have to leave. I heard from friends that some students work to support themselves while studying abroad. It’s hard, but possible.’

  Education, education, education. Third Aunt’s words rang loud in our rented room in Diamond Hill that evening.

  Some people who could afford to leave Hong Kong had already left. I later read that special British envoys were dispatched to Beijing to make deals to end the troubles. That probably explained why towards the end of December 1967, much to everyone’s surprise, the riots abruptly ended in Hong Kong.

  By 1968 the Vietnam War was in full swing too, and once the riots in Hong Kong had ceased, many American soldiers spent their leave in the colony. It was clearly one of their favourite destinations, judging from the number of them coming and going. I couldn’t stop wondering how much rice, vegetables and fish from home in Shiqi were being consumed by the visiting Americans, the arch-enemy of China, and how many American dollars were flowing to the mainland. That made my world seem even more perplexing and dangerous – as befuddling as Hamlet’s.

  On the Star Ferry, I often saw American soldiers and sailors in their smart, well-laundered uniforms – there were no holes or patches like those in the PLA uniforms. Some of these young men and women were Ying’s age. They looked and acted like the other gweilo people in Hong Kong, chatting, laughing and marvelling at the beauty of Victoria Harbour. I was curious about them and tried to sit close to them. They smelled fresh, and stood up to offer their seats to women and older people. I liked the way they said, ‘Yes, sir’, ‘No, ma’am’, ‘Thank you’ and ‘Please’. I was surprised to hear they also listened to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Cliff Richard and Elvis Presley, and talked about the Top 40 hit songs, just as we did at La Salle College. It was so different from what I had been told in Shiqi: that they were nasty and ugly with big crooked noses and evil eyes. Sometimes I said hello, seizing an opportunity to practise my English. And they would say ‘Hi’, and smile. Then I’d not know what to say and just giggle at my inadequate conversational English.

  Baba said thank goodness when the riots settled, and told us Hong Kong would begin to prosper again with the big influx of American tourists, as long as the Vietnam War continued. It sounded awful to Ping and me, but it was something for which to be grateful, for now. But at whose expense? My teenage brain found it hard to comprehend such a crazy world as the one in the 1960s, with those endless wars, conflicts, revolutions, invasions, starvations, killings, persecutions, imprisonments, murders, illicit drugs, prostitution . . . It was more complex than I’d ever imagined it could be, making the thought of going overseas quite terrifying. It was a relief to listen to those rock-and-roll hits, that sometimes angry music, which raised a voice of protest only we, the young ones, could understand.

  By the summer of 1968, the fury of the Cultural Revolution was intensifying across the border. Every day, large numbers of corpses began floating down the Pearl River into the waters of Hong Kong and the surrounding islands. The bodies were different from those that had appeared during the mass exodus to escape starvation a few years earlier; they were not starved and emaciated like the refugees of earlier years.

  Graphic photographs of atrocities appeared in the local newspapers, including images of victims who had been bound and gagged, and had multiple wounds. In some cases, several people appeared to have been chained together and drowned. The dead were mostly young people, and many were wearing Red Guard armbands. Some had been partly eaten by sea life as they’d floated to the South China Sea. Baba wouldn’t watch the evening TV news; instead he sat in our room and grieved over the loss of human lives. I often sat with him in silence, wishing the rumbles of dragon boats were there to revive us, to rekindle our hope for humanity.

  ‘Another one hundred and fifteen bodies from the harbour.’ Baba shook his head as he mumbled to himself after checking the morning newspaper. Every day he started at the top left-hand corner of the front page, where the number of bodies retrieved around the colony’s waters was inscribed in a black box like the outline of a coffin – this daily official count appeared on every newspaper in the colony. Before he left for work, he read every bit of news about China, the scar in the middle of his forehead twitching as he frowned and grimaced in sorrow. He talked little but drew hard on his cigarettes. There was nothing we could do but keep hoping that one day the family would be together again.

  For months, the daily count ran into the hundreds. The Royal Hong Kong Marine Police were no longer able to cope and the Colonial Government began hiring local fishermen to recover the bodies to stop them from floating into busy Victoria Harbour. A bounty of ten Hong Kong dollars was paid for each body recovered. It was more profitable than fishing.

  Hong Kong was now as bleak as a gloomy, never-ending winter, even though it seemed to be booming with trade and commerce. People were subdued. Everyone was fearful for their families and friends back in China, as well as their own future. A glut of ghost stories circulated, each more horrible than the last, and we stayed away from the beaches for fear of vengeful spirits looking for replacements. Even during the day, I often looked behind me when walking along shadowy streets to make sure I was not being followed by wandering spirits. I’d hold my breath as I hurried to a brighter part of the street, then gasp for air to calm my pounding heart. I often felt chilled and couldn’t keep my face and hands warm; I rubbed hard to ease the tingling sensation around my lips and in my fingertips. Religious organisations held regular services by the waterside to pray for the lost souls and angry spirits, while the residents of the colony continued to count on their luck, and whatever blessings they had.

  At home in Diamond Hill, the three of us asked for blessings from our ancestors. Ping and I also prayed to God for the safety of our family in China. We began attending St Teresa’s Church regularly, and there we found comfort, and gained a sense of security and peace at mass. Hoping and praying were all we could do for our family and friends. We also prayed for others who were a lot worse off than us. And we prayed for a miracle.

  Every day I ploughed through the newspapers trying to understand what was going on across the border, as well as how it might affect us in Hong Kong. I shivered when I read about the vicious acts perpetrated by the Red Guards against comrades in charge of towns, cities, villages and even local enterprises like factories, schools and communes. Disputes between factions led to even more bloodshed, misery and grief. I was worried sick about our family and friends back home, and felt as helpless as Baba and Ping.

  How safe were Mama, Ying and Weng, and the rest of the family and friends in Shiqi? No one knew. They sent fewer letters and they were short, often saying little more than that they were okay. There was so much confusion over there; I imagined they all must have stopped criticising the Russians and Americans as arch-enemies for now, and focused on pledging their loyalty to Chairman Mao to ensure their survival. It was a confronting world.

  Then we heard some terrible news about Uncle Beng’e and his family. The Red Guards had arrested him for refusing to surrender his much-treasured copies of Chinese classics to be burned. Then he disappeared. His bound, gagged and mutilated body was later found in a nearby shallow stream. The authorities told Aunt Wai-hung that he had committed suicide, and when she and her son Young-syn, visited Shiqi for the funeral, they were not permitted to return to Macau. To return to Shiqi was to flirt with fate.

  I prayed more and wished harder. My prayers often brought me to tears as I struggled to grasp the magnitude of the suffering in China, a place I could no longer call home.

  We heard more snippets about the family in Shiqi from friends who were allowed to visit. Little sister Weng had lost her dimples and no longer smiled, and both she and Ying had been having a hard time. Ying had ended up unemployed after finishing high school. That she’d been allowed to complete high school was a miracle in itself, my father said; it probably had something to do with her having been a national s
wimmer as well as a member of the Red Scarf. As for Weng, she had been prevented from continuing to high school as retribution for Baba’s escape. I later found out that the same punishment had been inflicted on my cousins Yiu-hoi and Ah-ki after their father, my tall Eighth Uncle, was denounced by the Red Guards at public meetings. The guards also ransacked his home, as they did many others in Shiqi. Without education, the future was bleak for them.

  During the so-called Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement, a campaign launched in 1968 at the peak of the Cultural Revolution, Weng was among the first thousand or more young people of Shiqi to be sent to live in rural areas, ‘to learn from the peasants’. She was barely sixteen years old. Baba said it was the Party’s way of controlling the tens of millions of young people who had found themselves without work and were left to roam the streets, often terrorising people.

  In one of her few letters, Mama told us that Weng and many of her unfortunate schoolmates had been dispatched to remote, impoverished locations where the peasants hated them because they had to share their already meagre produce and food supplies. Some of those young people were the children of disgraced Party members who had lost their former privileges as a result of the Cultural Revolution, and they had to endure what many children of people who had fallen out of favour, like my family, had been suffering all along. It particularly worried us when we heard that Weng had been sent to a low-lying area in the Pearl River Delta that was prone to typhoons and frequent flash floods, and the scene of many drownings. No doubt many disgruntled ghosts roamed the delta.