by Andrew Kwong
After we returned to Australia, Baba continued his community work in downtown DC. But the following May we were all heartbroken when he was suddenly struck down by acute leukaemia and passed away.
Mama lived on in Maryland with the Kawamuras and continued visiting us in Australia nearly every year after Baba’s passing, up to her eightieth birthday. Her English became good enough for her to deal with transits through airports, and she never missed a flight to and from DC. She went to eternal peace in her sleep in 2017, at the ripe old age of ninety-seven years, still holding the record as Shiqi’s most persistent applicant for a departure visa, from 1960 to 1980.
Putting behind her all the pain of the denouncements and purges in Shiqi, Ying found work in the kitchen of the Hyatt Hotel in Washington and eventually became assistant banquet manager, organising and decorating every buffet lunch and function in the hotel until her retirement in 2018, when the hotel honoured her with a lavish party to which she was brought by limousine and then entered via a red carpet lined by the entire staff, from the general manager to the bell boys. Hao-ming still works at the same hotel as a sous-chef.
Weng changed her name to Anne. Her son, Alan, is currently completing an MBA at Cornell University after a stint as a US Marine Corps captain. To our great sadness, Weng passed away in 2009 after a brief battle with cancer.
Third Aunt migrated to New York in the mid-1960s to be with her husband. I went to see her during our 1989 visit to the United States. ‘You’ve made it,’ she told me as she fumbled with her beads, ‘You’ve steered your boat well.’ As I hugged her, I thanked her for all the prayers she’d said for me, and for teaching me good table manners.
Sixth Aunt passed away in Shiqi during the festivities of the annual dragon boat race in 2014, at the age of ninety-eight years. She is survived by my cousin Yiu-wei, who still lives in the family’s ancestral home on Kwong Street.
After his imprisonment in the 1960s, Eighth Uncle was never employed as a teacher again. In 1996 he visited Australia when The Phantom of the Opera was in full swing. We went to the musical, where he repeatedly wiped his eyes and blew his nose. He later told us how, during the Japanese invasion of China in the 1940s, he had been tasked with leading more than one hundred children of army officers to safety in Guangzhou while dodging the pursuing enemy. When provisions dwindled, he and the children staged plays and operas for the locals in return for food and a place to rest their feet. He passed away in 2006 in Shiqi. Whenever The Phantom of the Opera soundtrack is played, I feel his presence.
I never forgot my promise during my 1977 and 1980 visits to Shiqi to try to help my cousin Yiu-hoi. On my return to Australia, I assisted him with his application to leave China and work as an electrician in Fiji, the only place that would accept him. In 1984, he came to Australia as a tourist. One evening he said to me on the phone, ‘I don’t want to leave Australia, Big Brother. This is my adopted home now. I have a driver’s licence and I’ve found work around Sydney. Soon I’ll have saved enough for a cheap car.’
He changed his name to Thomas and, making the most of his skills, soon established a sizeable clientele among the Chinese community in Sydney. He steadily improved his English and gained formal qualifications as an electronics technician from a college. While making many new friends, he also got to know the families of some sojourners from Shiqi. Thomas’s residential status was eventually normalised and he became an Australian citizen when the Hawke Government granted an amnesty to Chinese nationals soon after the Tiananmen Square massacre. He is married with two bright Australian children, Anthony and Juliet, who are both successful in their own fields. Recently he retired from his electronics business to focus on music, and he now plays violin and cello with a Sydney orchestra and has even performed at Sydney Town Hall on several occasions.
Like Weng, my cousin Ah-ki, as the child of a disgraced family, was sent to live in the country for many years. He became a group leader of a People’s Militia unit guarding part of the China–Macau waterfront during the time when many Chinese were attempting to flee to Macau. Once he told me how some of his comrades dropped their weapons and swam to Macau under the cover of night. Not willing to shoot at them, he walked the other way. He has retired now and lives in Shiqi with his wife, while going on regular trips to many beautiful parts of China. They have two grown-up children.
Ho-bun did not marry until many years after Ying did, and later migrated to Vancouver in Canada. He died several years ago. He and Ying never saw each other again following that fateful evening by the bank of the Nine Meanders River.
In a quest to find all the missing links in our family’s story, I made a special trip in 2015 to Hong Kong to track down Ding-yan Lee, the Shiqi swimming instructor who escaped with Baba. Mr Lee had slotted into the Hong Kong metropolis with little effort and become a successful businessman. When I met him he had retired after suffering a stroke. He told me how Baba’s persecutor stayed on in Macau to collect the fares promised by his fugitive passengers, but was later kidnapped by Chinese secret agents and smuggled back to Shiqi. He was taken to Pig Head Hill and executed for betraying China. Mr Lee wished he knew the whereabouts of the little child who had cried at that crucial moment on board the Pearl River 173 during their quest for freedom. She would now be nearly sixty years old.
*
In 1995 a well-dressed businessman marched into my medical practice asking to see me. From his portly frame and jolly demeanour, I immediately knew it was my old friend Ah-dong. Laughing and chuckling as he always did, he explained that he was on a business trip to Australia and had made a great effort to locate me. I was so delighted that he hadn’t sold himself for food for a hundred yuan, as he had threatened to do.
Ah-dong told me that he had also left Shiqi in 1962. His uncle was a senior comrade in town and, sensing the dire situation facing his people, he had issued Ah-dong with an exit visa, thereby releasing another young carp into the water. Ah-dong became a motor mechanic apprentice in Macau. During his whole apprenticeship, he lived in the workshop and slept in customers’ cars. Later he became one of the best escalator mechanics in town, and when the gambling industry boomed he established his own escalator service and installation company. It’s now one of the biggest firms in Macau.
Ah-dong was proud to inform me that before Macau was returned to the PRC he had sent his family to live in Toronto so that they would have a more secure future. ‘I’m now an astronaut, ha, ha,’ he said, his voice buoyant with confidence. ‘Like many others in Hong Kong and Macau, I fly to faraway Canada to visit my family these days, at least twice a year. I’m glad they’re safe there.’ Ah-dong no longer stuttered; he glowed.
‘I wish I’d had a good education like you,’ he said in parting. ‘I always knew you’d do good one day.’ Then, before being driven away by his chauffeur, he added, ‘Now that I’ve seen you again, I can die happy.’
Fortunately, he is still alive at the time of writing and we have since visited each other’s homes and are in regular contact on social media.
*
In February 2012, Sheree and I paid a visit to Shiqi and Macau in the hope of finding some of my childhood friends like Big Eye, Hui, Earring and Ah-bil, initially to no avail. On the evening before leaving Shiqi, we took a walk in the old part of town, retracing familiar paths of fifty years earlier. I was hoping someone in the street might know my friends. I stopped at what had been the site of Come Happiness Bridge. The Nine Meanders River had been filled in and a park had replaced the bridge. It was now an unremarkable spot in the middle of a city of over two million people. Not far from there, I found Ah-bil’s family home. It was old, falling into decay, and was no longer occupied. Disappointed, I then tried to reach Big Eye’s house nearby. A high-rise apartment block stood on its site.
We backtracked to the good Mrs Lee’s house, home to Flea, with whom I’d first left Shiqi and who now lives in Virginia, in the United States, not far from Ping. A café occupied the former front room. I took many photos t
o send to Flea. Until his recent retirement, he was an environmental scientist with a PhD from Stanford University, occupying a senior position with the US Environmental Protection Agency in Washington.
Heading south along Come Happiness Road, we reached Kwong Street, now not much wider than a laneway, in which only a few of the original ten houses still stood. Small remnants of the levee wall were still visible. They had become part of other, smaller buildings, obviously erected illegally, which made the street difficult to navigate. The paddy fields had long gone, the locals told us, together with the commune’s vegetable gardens, lotus pond and fishponds, as had the lychee trees, and the gum trees we had helped plant. No one flew kites anymore, as the sky was now crisscrossed with electrical cables; instead, young children nearby were busy playing their handheld computer games, talking on their mobile phones or staring at me and my gweilo wife. Maybe they were wondering what kind of sojourner I was, but they probably didn’t care that I hadn’t brought any tasty biscuits for them. McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken, their favourites now, were just around the corner.
Huge air-conditioned tour buses, trucks and cars ranging from popular Japanese economy models to prestige European limousines filled the streets. With its typical urban sounds, smells and pollution, Shiqi was now much like Hong Kong and any other big city. Not far from Kwong Street was a fast-train station, built in less than five years; from there, bullet trains depart for Guangzhou every thirty minutes. I was thrilled that trains had finally come to my town, as our teachers at the Dragon Mother’s Temple School had promised they would, but it saddened me somewhat that the sleepers for the railway tracks had not been built with the trees we planted, but with steel made from Australian iron ore.
My old world had gone. A new China had sprouted.
Accompanied by Sheree, I left the street with a heavy heart, dragging myself in the direction of our hotel.
‘Ah-mun?’
I turned to the call and recognised Ah-fat, who had once been a friend of Ah-ki and with whom I had been reacquainted during my recent visits to Shiqi. He had been made redundant at the age of fifty to make way for younger workers, and now worked as a bicycle courier.
I asked about Earring, Big Eye, Hui and Ah-bil. He simply pulled out his mobile phone and began dialling. His eyes brightened as he talked, addressing someone as ‘Chairman’. It was Earring on the phone, and he said he would help find my other friends. My heart leapt.
We decided to meet in the foyer of our hotel at eight o’clock that night. Ah-bil arrived at seven, unable to wait any longer. Soon, fifteen or more men and women streamed in, including Earring, now the chairman of a city council department.
‘You kicked gravel at us, then we never saw you again,’ joked Ah-bil, while holding my hand tight, as if to say, ‘I won’t let you go this time without saying goodbye.’
I tried to explain. ‘It was the circumstances—’
‘I know,’ said Earring, the chairman. ‘But it’s all different now.’ He spoke with confidence, if not a tone of authority, and nodded while patting me on my shoulder. ‘Welcome home.’
My friends then presented me with a copy of a photo that I couldn’t recall being taken. They reminded me that it was a prize awarded to the class for being the most progressive and patriotic group that year when we were making steel. I was unable to identify myself in the picture until a classmate put his finger on a scrawny little boy in the back row whose sad eyes stared straight ahead. I was shocked.
When I was leaving my friends, they gave me Big Eye’s phone number. He had migrated to the island city of Victoria, Canada. In October 2014, I made a special trip to visit him.
It was cold and raining on the afternoon I arrived, but I was glad, as the rain hid my tears – tears shed in joy but also for the time we lost, and had now found again. We talked for three days. He had just finalised the sale of his successful electronics business, and was now able to devote more time to working as a volunteer caring for the region’s ageing population of Chinese sojourners. We are now in touch regularly.
*
Ever since that hot and humid day when I left Shiqi as a young boy, I have counted my blessings and held in my heart the many family members and friends who helped me to get to where I am today – a successful general practitioner caring for a large number of elderly and infirm people, a father of three adult children who are good citizens and, even more excitingly, grandfather to seven healthy and happy young Australians. Most importantly, I am husband to Sheree, the gweilo girl with whom I experienced my first oxtail soup. She shares with me a love that keeps on growing and giving, and has accompanied me through many of the endeavours I’ve recorded in the latter part of this book. It was not until I began to write about my early experiences as a young boy that she realised how effectively I had buried my challenging past. It was the resilience of youth, I tell her.
I often think of Mama’s perseverance and patience as she waited so long for the dark clouds to disperse, and I thank my lucky stars – and the guardian angels, the door gods, the spirit of General Guan Gong and God – that she persisted and endured, and that, at last, a bright moon shines for us all.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It takes time to write a book. But it has taken me much longer than usual, as I wanted to make sure I wrote a good book. I am most thankful to Sharon Rundle, my original writing teacher, who so successfully drummed into my head the importance of ‘show, don’t tell’, which was a vital principle for me when recreating scenes from the past. Sharon’s continual encouragement over the protracted gestation of the manuscript is much appreciated.
I would like to acknowledge Professor Mabel Lee for her inspiration as a tireless, dedicated academic who has nurtured numerous scholars in studies of modern Chinese literature and culture. Most importantly to me, her well-measured, quiet advice helped bolster my determination to write a thorough, historically accurate account of the plight of an ordinary family during the early, desperate attempts of the PRC to raise the living standards of a long-oppressed people.
I am also most grateful to Susanne Gervay, an acclaimed author with whom I have shared space in two published anthologies of short stories – Fear Factor: Terror Incognito and Alien Shores – for believing in me and my story. More importantly, her regular cajoling helped me get over occasional impediments while I was trying to have my manuscript published.
It was an amazing privilege to have Carol Major as my writing consultant at Varuna, The National Writers’ House, in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. During several writing fellowships, her guidance, sensitivity and insights, and her thoughtful understanding of modern China, helped me bring my long-suppressed past back to life and, I hope, leap vividly from the pages.
I am also grateful to Stephen Measday and Peter Bishop at Varuna for their helpful input and encouragement during my several sojourns there, as well as to the dedicated staff, including the evergreen Vera Costello and consummate chef Sheila Atkinson, for providing sumptuous meals to complement the wonderful tranquillity and comfort there.
I would like to acknowledge the NSW Writers’ Centre (now Writing NSW) for supporting budding authors over the years. My One Bright Moon manuscript wouldn’t have been discovered without the centre’s annual open-pitch program.
I am indebted to my publisher, Mary Rennie, for discovering my manuscript. The hard work carried out by the team at HarperCollins, from Hazel Lam, the amazing designer who took a tiny portrait that I felt captured an unwavering spirit and turned it into a haunting cover, to Georgia Williams and the rest of the publicity department and the proofreader, Pam Dunne, is much appreciated. My deep gratitude also goes to my editor at HarperCollins, Scott Forbes, for his assistance in the editing journey and for ensuring the relatively painless and safe delivery of my book. Thank you for the succinct, wonderful and highly professional advice you have given me.
As the old saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. I am deeply indebted to my sisters, Ying, Pi
ng (Fannie) and Weng (Anne, deceased), for their sacrifices and arduous work during our challenging childhood, which helped maintain the family’s integrity. My gratitude also goes to the deceased members of the clan: Third Aunt, Sixth Aunt and Eighth Uncle. My cousin Yiu-hoi (Thomas) provided clarification of some past events while I was crafting the manuscript. A big thank you to the whole family for the nurturing that flows steadily from them, just like the eternal Pearl River.
Over the years, I have learnt a lot from my children, Serena, Harmony and Andrew-James. Their honest feedback and comments have been most helpful in maturing my manuscript. What’s more, their love, sensitivity and support have been vital. Jacqueline Fisher Kwong, my daughter-in-law, herself an editor, also provided much advice as I toiled with my story.
During my search for my past, my wife, Sheree, has not left my side. With me, she has shared many tears as I exhumed those confronting times I had long buried successfully, determined not to let them interfere with my educational and professional pursuits. A passionate book-lover herself, she has always been the number-one reader of my numerous rewrites and edits, and she provided countless valuable suggestions while taking care not to smother my voice. Her patience and support during my journey back in time are greatly appreciated. Throughout the decades we have shared, she remains the rock in my life. Sheree, I’ll always love you.
PHOTO SECTION
Mama, Wai-syn Young, and Baba, Shek-tong Kwong, in 1961 after Baba’s release from prison. Baba and Mama had both trained as teachers, and fell in love on a ferry on their way to Hong Kong before the People’s Republic of China was proclaimed in 1949.