Escape from Shanghai

by Paul Huang

  Ming told the story of his experiences with fear, passion and hatred—a near venomous diatribe that’s never left my mind.

  After the war, I found out that my cousin Ming had joined the Resistance and returned to Nanking. He had been haunted by the images of his friends being decapitated and it drove him mad. His blood was hot with the idea of killing as many Japanese as he possibly could. No one could stop him. One night, he slipped away and was never heard from again. (The Samurai sword was such a dreaded and hated weapon that General of the Army Douglas MacArthur ordered all of them confiscated and melted down. With one stroke, so to speak, MacArthur had destroyed the symbol of Japanese aggression.)

  Meanwhile, in Southern China on October 1938, the Japanese had carved out a one-hundred-mile bulge out of the fertile Pearl River delta that included the port city of Canton (Guangzhou). Within this semi-circular bulge were the British colony of Hong Kong and the Portuguese colony of Macao. Many foreign countries owned a piece of China, but few people in the outside world knew much about it. (During a substantial part of the nineteenth and all of the twentieth centuries up to this point, China had ceded “concessions” to foreigners—pieces of territory essentially autonomous and run by American and European companies and bankers. Japan’s invasion put an end to most of these concessions and colonies. After the war a few, like Hong Kong and Macao, would survive—but not for long. Hong Kong was the remnant that, by treaty, was returned to the control of the Peoples Republic of China in 1997.)

  By the end of 1938, the fearsome Japanese had conquered nearly all of the industrial north of China, from Manchuria to Shanghai and Canton, a landmass that was over one thousand miles long and some three hundred miles wide. This is comparable to taking states from New York to Florida, as well as all of Pennsylvania, the Virginias, the Carolinas and Georgia—virtually the equivalent of the greater part of the east coast of the United States.

  For us to escape from Shanghai, my mother and I would have to travel a thousand miles down the coast to Canton, then somehow make our way through the Japanese lines and into free China, some one- hundred-and-seventy-five miles north of that city.

  Jane Sun (Ch’i Ying Sun), my mother, received her Bachelor of Sciences Degree from Yenching University on June 24, 1935. (Now Beijing University.) My father, K.P. Huang had also graduated on that date. Mom and Dad were madly in love and they wanted to get married immediately. But, grandpa wouldn’t approve of it. He wanted my mother to get her Masters Degree in America before anything else.

  At grandpa’s urging, my mother applied to the University of Michigan for a Master’s Degree. She became one of the first Chinese women to be accepted to Michigan’s graduate school.

  Unbeknownst to my grandfather, Dad had also applied to Michigan. Mom and Dad had decided to circumvent grandpa’s edict. They thought of themselves as a modern, westernized couple. And in keeping with their desires, they had decided to elope. So in January 1936, they boarded the President Coolidge for San Francisco. A few days out to sea, Edward James, the shipboard Minister, married the young lovers.

  On October 23, 1936, a healthy baby boy was delivered to the happy young couple at the University Hospital, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

  Eight months later, in June 1937, the newly formed family of three returned to Shanghai for a two-week visit. At the end of those two weeks, Dad had to return to Michigan to complete his PhD. Mom, with grandma’s urging, decided to stay in Shanghai a bit longer. She had no educational obligation to satisfy at Michigan. So we stayed, thinking that we’d go back to America later in the fall.

  Dad left Shanghai for San Francisco in July of 1937.

  Unfortunately, about a month later, on August 14, the Japanese attacked and bombed Shanghai. They blockaded the coast of China. No ships could either enter or leave Shanghai.

  That’s how my mother and I got stuck in Shanghai, and that’s how Dad was separated from us by the Pacific Ocean for the duration of the war.

  My mother knew how to read and write both Chinese and English. An educated bi-lingual person of either sex was unusual not only in China in 1941, but also in much of the rest of the world as well. After Pearl Harbor, her linguistic skills would become invaluable to both the Chinese and the American high command. Communication between the two countries would have been difficult, if not impossible, without people like my mother. Both she and grandpa knew it. They thought that one way to get us out of Shanghai was to immediately join the underground resistance. Their strategy was to get us out of Japanese-occupied territory and join up with the Chinese Army fighting in the southwestern portion of Free China.

  Unfortunately, I was never able to get her to tell me the whole story of how she contacted and joined the underground movement. For some reason, and she wouldn’t tell me what it was, she wanted to keep the process a secret. In any case, the details meant naming names and I wouldn’t have a clue as to who was important and who wasn’t. But, from the few hints that I got over the years, the process involved grandpa and his connections, both business and social. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang Party had been financed by China’s big businesses and wealthy families—especially those interested in keeping the Communists out of power. The only thing I am sure of is that grandpa paid a handsome fee to help things along, though Mom would not tell me how much. Discretion and humility was a great part of our lives. To boast of our good fortune would bring the wrath of the Jealous upon us. It was better to be humble than to gloat. That sounds old-fashioned, but those were the mores of the times. At least it was in my family.

  Within six weeks, sometime in January 1942, the resistance delivered our forged travel documents, a new Chinese birth certificate for me, and steamship tickets. Because I was born in Michigan, the only way out for us was through deception. Now I was a real Chinese with a fake birth certificate. If we could escape to Canton and reach unoccupied territory, then Mom would have a job as the private secretary/translator to the Governor of Canton Province.

  This was a rather important assignment considering that Canton Province has a land area of 69,400 square miles which is roughly equivalent to the land mass of New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts combined. When Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the President of the Republic of China and the supreme military commander, realized that he was about to lose Canton, he reorganized the provincial government and appointed a new governor: Li Hanhun. Governor Li was also a General in Chiang Kai-shek’s army. And, as part of Chiang’s sweeping reorganization, the Generalissimo granted Governor-General Li the title of Chairman of the Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party in Canton Province.

  These three titles gave absolute command and control of Canton Province to one man, Li Hanhun. Not only was Li the Commander-in-chief of the 35th Army Group, but he also had the power to appoint the top civilian bureaucrats who headed up the departments of finance, taxation, education, communication, law enforcement, and the use of the political party apparatus.

  And, most importantly, the Generalissimo had ordered his friend, the Governor-General and party leader, to protect the hoard of gold bullion in the Bank of Canton from the invading Japanese.

  Obeying his orders, Governor-General Li moved his military headquarters, the civilian government, and the gold bullion to the city Shaoguan, the new wartime provincial capital.

  Shaoguan is roughly 175 miles due north of Canton.

  Now, all we had to do was to get there.

  How do you prepare a five-year-old for an escape from Shanghai?

  Mom began the process by telling me a story.

  “Your great grandfather was the second boy of three sons in the family. His name was Sow Ping, or Little Soldier. That’s right. That was his name. And you are the youngest soldier in China, too,” she said with her usual smile.

  “You see, Sow Ping was already eleven years old when he had to leave their small farm. The land couldn’t produce enough food to feed three growing boys. Being the Number 2 son, he was the one chosen to go to the fishing village of
Shanghai.”

  (For much of Shanghai’s modern history, from the 1860’s on, banks and trading companies from England, France, Germany, Russia, Japan and the United States had offices in the city. It has been argued that it was these trading companies that turned a small Chinese fishing village into an International commercial port. And their employees lived in the Foreign Concessions.)

  “That’s right, in those days, Shanghai was just a small seaside fishing village, not anything like what it is today. Well, Sow Ping and his parents had heard a lot of stories about Shanghai. You see, the foreign devils had sailed their big ships there, and the village was growing. He wanted to see those big foreign ships, and if Shanghai was growing, then maybe he could find a job. If necessary, he was willing to work for the foreign devils. He had heard that they paid well.

  “To get him started in his new life, Sow Ping’s mother tied a money belt around his waist. In the belt were two small gold coins. She hid the belt under his shirt and told him not to lose the money because that was all they could afford to give him. He had to live on those two gold coins until he found work.

  “Sow Ping left his family knowing that his departure would help them have a better life. They would have more food because there was one less mouth to feed. With him gone, maybe the family could sell some of what they produced and make a profit. While Sow Ping didn’t want to leave his family, he knew that it was his duty to do so. Like any dutiful boy, he left for Shanghai.

  “Well, it took him two days of steady walking to get to Shanghai. By the time he got there, he had eaten all of the food that his mother had made for him.

  “In those days, the heart of the old town of Shanghai was protected by a tall circular wall that was twenty feet thick. Oh yes,” she said with a hint of awe in her voice. “Old Shanghai was a walled fortress! A deep moat surrounded the wall, and there were gates and bridges that could be raised whenever the Japanese Pirates attacked.

  “Yes,” she said with a sigh, “we have been defending ourselves against the Japanese since the beginning of time.

  “Anyway, your great grandfather went directly to the market square. Farmers sold their rice and vegetables there. Fishmongers sold their catch. People could buy live chickens and pigs. Or you could go to the butcher to buy special cuts of meat. Prepared foods of all kinds were displayed and sold. There was a bookstall and a scribe for those who couldn’t read or write. A pharmacy sold herbs and drugs. And there was a tent where traditional Chinese operas were performed and where magicians and acrobats showed their skills. But the most important thing to Sow Ping was the bank where the moneychanger worked. You see, it would not have been wise of him to use one of his gold coins just to buy some food. Showing the gold in public would only have attracted thieves. It would be much better to change the gold for coppers and use the coppers to buy what he needed.

  “Well, Sow Ping found the bank and the moneychanger. The man was exactly where his father said he would be. He gave the moneychanger one of his coins. The old Mandarin hefted the coin, frowned with dismay but said nothing. ‘Follow me,’ the man said. He led Sow Ping through the bank and into the back courtyard where the foundry was. He held the coin between the tips of his thumb and index finger. ‘This coin is a fake,’ he announced.

  “Sow Ping was shocked and dismayed. He couldn’t believe his ears. He thought his life in Shanghai was over before it even started.

  “‘Here, let me show you,’ the man said softly. He dropped the coin into a thick black metal ladle, then he placed the ladle on a hot bed of coals. He pumped the bellows with his foot and a sudden blast of heat and bright orange flames blazed against the bottom of the black ladle.

  “Sow Ping watched as the thin film of gold melted away from the cast-iron core. The gold pooled into a tiny drop of molten metal, and next to it was the base-metal coin.

  “‘The gold is only worth a few coppers,’ the Mandarin told him. ‘I’m sorry, but this kind of thing happens all the time to you farmers.’

  “Too shocked to respond, Sow Ping reached under his shirt and quickly removed the other coin from his belt. With trembling fingers he handed his last coin to the banker. He would be nearly penniless if this one turned out to be a fake, too. The Mandarin hefted the coin but this time, he smiled. He could tell by the feel that it was solid gold. Still, he didn’t leave this to his skill or experience. He weighed the coin and gave Sow Ping his money.

  “Relieved, Sow Ping left the bank. He felt lucky to have this money. He would have to double his efforts to find work.

  “First, he went to every shop and home inside the old town, but the story was always the same. There were too many farmers from the countryside looking for work. The prolonged drought had affected everyone. But Sow Ping refused to give up. He left the walled town to search the surrounding area. After all, Shanghai had outgrown the old town. To save money, he ate one meal a day. At night, he slept in alleyways and doorways. And he always made sure that he got up before dawn so that no one could see him stealing a place to sleep.

  “Well, one morning, Sow Ping woke up to the smell of cooking. Frightened that the owner would discover his trespass, he got up silently to steal away. But the odor of cooked food stopped him. He hadn’t eaten in two days and his stomach overcame his fear of discovery. In the darkness of the night, he hadn’t realized that he had chosen the doorway of a grocery to sleep in. And there, in the early morning light, he saw a broom leaning against the doorjamb.

  “Instinctively, he grabbed the broom and began sweeping the front porch. After all, he had nothing else better to do. Worse, he had no place to go. So why not work? Once he started sweeping, he couldn’t stop. Having been raised on a farm, work was a constant companion. If you wanted to eat, you worked. What’s more, the physical activity made him feel good. In the past weeks, he had done nothing but knock on doors looking for work. Now that he’s found it, he reveled in it. He enthusiastically swept the whole front of the grocery store.

  “When he finished, the owner came out and thanked him. But even better than words of thanks, the grocer’s pregnant wife offered him a bowl of congee for breakfast. (Congee is made with short grain white rice that’s been steamed with water into a thick viscous rice-laden liquid. Then you can add your choice of diced pork; sliced fish; thin slices of beef; or small chucks of chicken. Some chefs add diced chunks of thousand-year-old preserved egg for additional body and taste. Cook with salt and pepper. Sprinkle some diced scallions and finely sliced ginger to the congee. Top off with liberal drops of sesame oil and you’ve concocted the typical Chinese breakfast.)

  “After breakfast and without being asked, Sow Ping swept and cleaned the inside of the store, too!

  “And that’s how your great grandfather got into the grocery business. The grocer was expecting his first child and Sow Ping took over the chores of a very pregnant woman.

  “He worked hard and saved his money. In time, he opened his own store. And since Shanghai was growing constantly, his business grew along with it. Over time, he bought land and built more grocery stores to serve a growing city. Now our family owns stores all over Shanghai. And it was all because of your great grandfather.”

  It was cold when I woke up that morning. I could see my hot breath in the frozen air. The radiator felt like a chunk of ice. We had already used our small monthly allotment of coal. The fuel had been rationed to the civilian population ever since Japan attacked Shanghai. Sometimes, we didn’t get any coal because the Japanese war machine took it all. This was one of those times. Mom used to put my clothing under the quilt to warm them before I put them on, otherwise it’d be like wearing sheets of ice. But today wasn’t going to be like any other day.

  Mom sat down on my bed to help warm my clothing. Then she carefully laid out a long canvas belt on my thick, fluffy down quilt. The seemingly weightless belt sank into the soft feathers. Slowly and with a bit of melodramatic hand movements, she unfolded the belt to reveal a series of small secret pockets. (If abracadabra were
in the Chinese language, she probably would have used it.) Pretending to be a magician, she revealed a gold coin. Then with a flourish, a second one appeared. One after the other, coins, rings and diamonds glistened on the quilt.

  “You are going to wear this money belt just like your great grandfather did,” she said in a matter-of-fact way. Mom slid the canvas money belt under the quilt. It took a while to warm the gold coins.

  An undershirt, a wool shirt, a sweater and a quilted down overcoat covered the money belt wrapped around my belly. My Sixth Aunt said that I looked like a ball of quilted down.

  For a number of nights thereafter, I asked Mom to tell me great grandfather’s story. I didn’t tire of it. But, just as I had gotten used to wearing the money belt, Mom gave me another important assignment.

  She showed me a neat roll of Japanese occupation money. “When we get on the ship, the soldiers are going to look us over. This is just something that they do. When they get to us, I want you to hand this to the soldier, OK? Just hand it to him. He’ll be happy to get it.

  “We’re going to outwit the Japanese,” she said confidently.

  As a boost to my confidence, not only did she repeatedly tell me my great grandfather’s story, but she told me this one as well:

  “Once upon a time,” Mom said sweetly, “there lived a woman who was about to have a child. She lived in terrible times. The land was poor and she was hungry all the time. She lived alone because her husband was away fighting in a war, you see.