The Soong Sisters

by Emily Hahn

  The noise of girls shouting and applauding at a picnic in honor of the Soong sisters had spread three blocks and reached the door of the Chungking Hostel. We foreigners watched them marching back to their school afterward, several hundred of them in uniform. The Soongs had just time to keep their next appointment, a visit to a hospital for wounded soldiers. They paused in the prisoners’ ward, where four Japanese patients sat in their kimonos in bed and stared at the ladies.

  An American man approached Madame Chiang. “I’ve just arrived overland from Nanking, where I attended the inauguration of Wang Ching-wei,” he said. “I’ve got some photographs here of the ceremony. Would you like to see them?”

  “Oh yes,” said Mayling; “I haven’t seen any pictures of Wang since he — well, since he left us.”

  The three sisters crowded around and examined the photographs, singling out this face and that as they recognized old acquaintances. They looked absorbed, fascinated; their faces, even in this unguarded moment, carefully schooled against bitterness. From their beds the Japanese prisoners stared solemnly, wondering what it was all about.

  It is four o’clock in the afternoon. Under a glaringly bright blue sky the walls of Chungking houses — ancient gray and yellow, modern gray and black — stand out so clearly that even from the South Bank one can count the windows. It is a jumble of rocky hill and climbing road and perching buildings. There is a heavy silence over the city that is uncanny. No smoke comes from the chimneys; the lanes and alleys are empty of coolies in their faded blue shirts. There is not a soul in the streets; not even a dog or a cat moves. In the distance, behind a row of hills, a cloud of smoke and dust drifts out, lazily swelling and thinning — the last trace of a bomb that fell fifteen minutes ago.

  One cannot see very well from the South Bank; the full effect can be had only from an airplane, but most of these walls enclose charred emptiness. There are places where not a roof remains on a house for whole blocks. There are empty hillsides where a few beams and a little plaster dust is all that remains of a group of houses. Some of those walls have just been rebuilt. The telephone and electric system is made of wire that has just been replaced since yesterday’s raid. Still, from the South Bank the impression is of a standing city, unaccountably deserted.

  A hum comes from the hills; the drone grows louder and louder. Then from behind a group of fleecy white clouds they come in a formation, approaching at terrific speed. Winging over the airfield in the water, some of them drop bombs that strike the river, blowing up fountains of smoke and water. The roar comes later, horrible in the stillness. More bombs have been dropped in the town; spouts of black debris are shooting up in a line that follows one of the main roads. The roar fills the air with an irregular rhythm. It is not for long: the planes have passed over the town and are away again, with one last bomb plowing up a fountain over the hillside.

  Silence for a second. Then the whine of an attacking Chinese pursuit sounds through the air, and there is again silence. The dust spouts grow. From a group of shattered houses there rises a tongue of red flame. The semblance of life it gives to the dead city is not the only activity on that part of the foreshore. Surprisingly there comes a thin note, the call of a bugle. Dozens of small figures appear out of nowhere; they are fighting the fire. All over the rest of the town, however, it is still perfectly quiet.

  Twenty minutes pass. The flame has been defeated and the foreshore is quiet again. On several high points, sticking up from street corners and buildings, there are masts that can barely be seen against the glaring sky. At the end of those twenty minutes something happens to the masts; they bear fruit. Two little red lanterns appear on each. There is another quiet space of about ten minutes. Then the red lanterns disappear and a green one takes their place. At the same time a siren starts hooting.

  It is the same siren that has given the alarm, but now it carries no hint of horror. The whistle sounds long and clear, and other whistles answer it on the same note. Suddenly the city is transformed. As if they have shot up from the ground, there are people everywhere, climbing out of their caves and starting up the hills toward their homes. The dead city is transformed; there is life and color and noise everywhere, particularly noise. It throbs through the air, it carries over the river, it fills the city — chattering, calling, laughing. It clears away the obscene noise of the bombs. It brings the spirit back from another and more horrible world. Outrageously, without reason, it recreates that hope which is the only reality. God himself takes heart when he hears it — the undefeatable din of China.

  Appendix

  THE SOONG SISTERS’ BROADCAST TO AMERICA

  CHUNGKING, APRIL 18, 1940.

  (By Madame Sun Yat-sen)

  Friends of Democracy:

  The struggle of the Chinese people against the aggression of Japanese militarism will soon be almost three years old. The fifth part of mankind that Japan, with her superior military power, boasted she would bring to her knees within three months, has successfully fought and is continuing her fight with determination and full confidence in final victory.

  The future history of the peoples of the Pacific and of the whole world will be different and brighter because our 450,000,000 people, instead of becoming the helots of an all-conquering slave empire, have taken up arms for their own freedom as well as yours.

  You will listen to the impressions of Madame H. H. Kung from Chungking, our war capital, of how our people and Government are meeting the problems of our armed resistance, wartime reconstruction, rehabilitation and relief. Madame Kung is eminently fitted for this task as she is not only one of the foremost pioneers who blazed the difficult path to enable Chinese women to participate actively in our national life alongside men, but has also rendered most valuable patriotic services and is the distinguished sponsor of such significant movements as the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives, Child Welfare work, and “Friends of Wounded Soldiers.”

  I now have the honor to turn over the microphone to Madame Kung.

  (By Madame H. H. Kung)

  Good morning, everyone:

  When I am speaking to America I feel and know that I am speaking to truly sympathetic friends of China. We have evidence of that sympathy in a much-needed practical flow of contributions to our relief funds.

  That help has been received with abiding gratitude. It has been used to good purpose. How great is the extent of the requirements, however, was only borne in upon me by the airplane flight I recently took over several hundred miles of our western country. It was all mountains — an illimitable sea of them. They stretch as far as the eye can see, and thousands of miles further than that.

  Into this great remoteness have poured millions of people. They fled from the invading Japanese troops and their far-flying bombers. But the migrating masses came westward with hope; and great numbers have joined the old inhabitants cultivating the mountainsides. I saw terraces of cultivation climbing up steep slopes thousands of feet above sea level.

  Away to the east, far beyond sight, were the great plains, the granaries of China, which fed and nourished the bulk of our population.

  These are the productive areas which the Japanese invaders have always longed to bring under their control.

  These they sought to conquer for exploitation when they began their ill-starred aggression. They can never conquer them. Already the Japanese forces are shrinking under the blows our armies have dealt them. Already they are shortening their lines to go on the defensive. Already their military leaders have endeavored to hide their shamed faces behind the flimsy curtain of the pathetic puppet show that they have at last set up at Nanking after so many futile failures.

  That so-called government is a mockery; it is an insult to human intelligence. Instead of possessing power to make treaties, it has been formed to break treaties and destroy foreign interests in China at Japan’s dictation. It represents nothing in China but the dregs of the political cesspool. The names of the treacherous tools of Japan are anathema in China; as they
should be in every respectable part of the world. Those people who may curry their favor will frown at their own folly soon enough. Nemesis rides hot upon the heels of the traitors. It will not be stayed by the barriers of falsehoods which they and their Japanese masters are erecting to frighten old friends of China.

  An array of facts stands out as clear as crystal. The chief one is that Japan has already shot her bolt in China. China, without any assistance at all, and with comparatively feeble armament, has fought Japan to a standstill.

  The unity among the Chinese defenders is beyond question. The determination to continue resisting is staunch and resolute. There is no thought of peace; there can be no talk of peace while Japanese soldiers are on our soil.

  At the end of almost three years of war our fighting strength is greater than ever it was. We are planning with the hope of being able to carry on to the end both financially and economically. We are erecting in West China a reservoir of manpower and products which we hope will always fortify us against want.

  We have dragged machinery for hundreds of industries from the eastern provinces. We have created some fourteen hundred industrial co-operatives so far, with units of from less than ten up to as many as three hundred members each, and they are all in places where they cannot be bombed. There are perhaps thirty thousand actual worker-members of the Industrial Co-operatives, and they are supporting families and dependents.

  The whole of this western country has been transformed by the influx of technical experts, educators, producers, artisans. An astonishing spirit of vital energy seems to invest everyone and everything.

  But the most revealing and impressive manifestation of our inherent power and will to win to victory is embodied in the women. We have never seen anything like it. Women have escaped from their cloistered lives and are working everywhere: at the front with the fighting men and the wounded; behind the lines with the war-shocked country people; far in the rear, in rural work, in hospitals, in war orphanages, in industrial and community services. And so we are digging in to resist to the bitter end.

  A remarkable change has come over the attitude of the whole of our people toward the troops. In olden days soldiers were mercenaries, and were ranked low in the scale of life. Now we have a Citizen Army. It works with the people, and the people work with it. The Friends of the Wounded Soldiers, sponsored by the New Life Movement, has become nationwide. It is a Movement of voluntary service by the people for their defenders. The people feel that through it they are all helping to resist the invader; and that spirit of unity will yet defeat the invader.

  While unceasing warfare has been disastrous to life and property in China, it has, however, done a thing acutely observable in these western regions, if not in our coastal cities. It has stimulated the people to respond again to the old national spirit of co-operation. That, coupled with our age-old ability to survive the most overwhelming calamities, will, I am confident, ensure that we will save our heritage, and preserve it for ever.

  Now my sister, Madame Chiang Kai-shek will speak to you.

  (By Madame Chiang Kai-shek)

  Good morning, friends in America:

  I have only a few minutes in which to add a few words to those of Madame Kung. They must be confined to a direct appeal to all liberty-loving people to see that China is promptly given the justice that is her right; the justice she has earned by almost three long years of unparalleled bloodshed and suffering.

  We in China ask that a stop be put to one of two things: either the Congressmen, who are the lawmakers of America, should stop expressing horror at aggression, or they should stop encouraging aggression by permitting gasoline, oil, and other war materials to go to Japan.

  We are fighting the battle of free men under dire handicaps, but we could have surrendered.

  I wonder if your Congressmen have ever given one thought to what would have happened if China had surrendered to the believed invincible might of Japan?

  The answer is obvious. Japan would have had her naval, military, and air strength intact. She would have been able to use our territory, our manpower, and our resources in support of Totalitarian operations against the Democratic countries.

  She would have been able to strike swift and powerful blows in the seizure of Indo-China, Burma, the Malay States, the Dutch East Indies, Australia, and New Zealand.

  She would have avoided the Philippines. She has been taught to believe that so long as she does not actually touch the possessions of America, the Congressmen will take no steps against her, no matter what the people of America may think.

  But she would have been able to secure complete mastery over the Pacific, and been able to hold it with resources under her own command. She would no longer have required American markets, gasoline, oil, or anything else.

  The swift defeat of Democracy was, however, prevented by the resolute resistance and sacrifices which we have been making in China. But if continued American assistance to Japan compels us to succumb there is no telling what still may happen.

  If such a fatal thing should occur, this much is certain: Japan’s navy, which, it is reported, is being feverishly enlarged by the construction of several great and secret battleships, will be free to take possession of the Dutch East Indies, if the opportunity arises. That opportunity will surely arise if Japan can contrive it. You already have the spectacle of her coldly calculating upon the embroilment of Holland in the war; and you see her unable to hide the plans she is eagerly making to prevent the Democracies from placing a Protectorate over the islands. So far as Japan is concerned her success, if she steals a march, would merely be further fulfillment of the notorious Tanaka Memorial; but it would be a windfall gained by her because of Democratic failure to recognize the importance of fostering China’s resistance.

  Through our refusal to accept Japan’s dominance we have bogged down her army in China; and can keep it there. While we can defeat it in time, we will do it all the sooner if justice is done to us. Then it cannot possibly be of any service to the Totalitarians in this present world upheaval. That is help to the Democracies which is beyond price at this juncture.

  The question is, will justice be done to us? And that can only be answered by the people of America and by their Congressmen.

  The people of China are deafened by bombs, but they are anxiously listening for your reply.

  THREE RADIO BROADCASTS

  By Madame H. H. Kung

  I

  Good morning to all who are listening:

  I am speaking from Shanghai, China. I am glad of this opportunity of speaking to you and greeting you, for I look upon America as my second home. I spent my school days there, and among you are many who remember me, and whom I remember with affection. Apart from my personal friendships in your country, America is China’s traditional friend, and realizes that Japan’s armed aggression in China — the dangers and horrors of which are revolting to all who have human instincts — threatens not only China’s national life but the peace of the world itself.

  After the Great War it was believed that future peace in general was hedged in safely by a structure of treaties and facts — while that of China was particularly iron-barred — as a house is protected against burglars — by the Nine-Power Treaty. But just as any burglar would become active if the policeman disarmed himself, or weakened in his watchfulness, so did Japan bestir herself as soon as she felt that the greater nations had become indifferent, and were being swallowed in the whirlpool of world depression. Japan, who suffered least of any nation from the Great War, or its aftermath, spent her substance, her strength, and her time in arming to take advantage of the world weakness which she saw increasing all about her. She intensified her industrial production to steal world markets, but, more than that, she accumulated armaments in sinister quantities for the sinister purpose of stealing more territory from China.

  Out of the world’s troubles Japan calculated she could reap great fortune, and out of China she decided she could carve an expanded
empire. She was prepared to take any risks, and chance any consequences, to secure the loot she coveted, because she was convinced that she could, if the worst came to the worst, defeat any nation, or combination of nations, that might try to curb her ruthless aggressiveness and her treachery with regard to treaties. She was encouraged in this belief by the world’s failure to resent her contemptuous violation of treaties, or her invasion of China, when she seized Manchuria in 1931.

  Her successful tearing from the doors and windows of China those bars provided by the Nine-Power Treaty decided her to go further, and with more ferocity, in the hope of being able to burgle as she wished. So we find her plunging into widespread destruction of life and property in our land, and, so far, she has found herself unimpeded by the metaphorical policeman.

  Japan has, however, found something else much more of a surprise to her. Utterly unexpectedly she finds China up and fighting as she never fought before; fighting with courage and skill out of all imagining. China has consequently caused two things to be revealed; first, that we Chinese are not cowards, and second, and of greater significance, that Japan is not invincible. Even though we be overwhelmed we have pricked a bubble, or exposed a bogey, for the wide world to see. And what the combined great powers can now well ask themselves is: “Why be afraid any longer to insist upon proper respect for the sanctity of treaties in order to ensure the preservation of mankind?” Why be afraid, indeed? But if the world is still afraid then the whole outlook is black and forbidding.

  I imagine your asking what you can do about it? You can do a lot. To have peace you must have the courage to work for peace. Otherwise, you may wake up one day to find war brought to your very doors when you are still shouting from your house tops for peace, isolation and neutrality.

  How then can you help China to check Japan’s aggression and defend the peace of the Far East in accordance with the terms of the treaties that should be upheld? It is our conviction that you need not go to war. We do not ask you to fight our war. But short of going to war, there are many effective ways in which you can help us and the cause for which we are righting. We know we have your sympathy and your moral support, and we appreciate them. But we need from you more than that. We need within measure your material support. If that is denied us you help Japan to crush us. We need arms and ammunitions; we need help for the millions of innocent homeless women and children whom treaties have failed to protect, and for the tens of thousands of wounded. At the same time we want your co-operation to prevent Japan getting money to continue her aggression. That can be done by buying nothing from, and selling nothing to, the Japanese. Let no ship leave American shores with arms, ammunition, or any cargo for Japan which will be used for killing thousands upon thousands of innocent and peace-loving Chinese.