Black in China

by Vessup, Aaron A. ;

  When there were birthday celebrations in Little Tony’s backyard, I had to watch through the fence, but Little Tony always made sure I received a slice of cake. Of course, I had to share it on my side of the fence.

  But our friendship was doomed. Somehow my parents perceived our neighbors as trying to undermine their authority and child-rearing practices. “Undermining” was a word used a lot in our home. Neighbors, teachers, friends, anyone not in our parent’s inner circle could be accused with attempting to undermine their control. Even some of our relatives were the targets of this screening and indictment process on suspicion of values and beliefs being undermined.

  My mother and Melrose had ceased speaking to each other. Little Tony’s family was Lutheran and saw no reason to switch to some other brand of devotion. That may have been why Mom and Melrose had their falling-out. But it may also have been the cat. My mother repeatedly told us how much she detested cats, and Melrose owned one that would sometimes make a circuit of our backyard. Seeing that cat prowling around would send my mother into fits of rage. I loved my mother and did not like seeing her unhappy (partly because I usually suffered the sting of her mood swings), so I made it my mission to get rid of the troublesome feline, and I did. I never told her, but I suppose Melrose was smart enough to guess what happened. Nevertheless, she was still kind to me because Little Tony and I had always been thick as thieves.

  One afternoon when I aged around eight, I came home from elementary school to find my mother absent and the door locked. I cried and yelled for a long time, probably disturbing most of the quiet neighborhood, and Melrose came to my rescue. She took me over to their home and gave me hot soup, saltine crackers, and an opportunity to watch cartoons on television. When my mother appeared, I overheard Melrose tell her what had happened and saying, “Ellene, your son really loves you. I have never known a kid putting up such a tantrum over anyone’s absence.”

  “Oh, I know him,” my mother replied. “He just wanted to get inside to play with his new toy gun and his flute. But thank you for watching him. You’re such a dear. I’m sure he probably loves those things much more than me.”

  The flute was a plastic piano-harmonica type instrument and a Christmas gift and I could not bear to be parted from it. When we were finally alone inside our own home, she looked vexed and I feared that I would get a whipping.

  “Mister Man,” she quietly said, “just wait until your father gets home. He is going to hear about this. Waking up napping children and disturbing the neighborhood is uncalled-for. You knew that I would be back. You must learn to not let the Devil use you like that. It’s undermining our authority, that’s all. You know that we do not want you watching television. It’s the Devil’s toolbox. You just had to have an excuse to have things your own way. Well, let me tell you, you are going to learn from this not to let the Devil tempt you when we’re not around.”

  Shortly after, some people came to our house questioning my Mom and Dad about a child crying, as reported by some unnamed neighbor. The word “undermining” was hurled around, but nothing more came of it. My father exploded with “a man’s home is his castle!” tirade. Doors were slammed and that was that.

  My mother’s attractiveness was verified by Ford, a light-skinned man from the church. That light skin tone we called “high yellow” and there are many Asians I know who have exactly that same color skin. Ford smiled at my mother a lot. He was a mischievous character and also on the surface a close friend of my father. He clearly knew that most women found him to be attractive—his toothy smile with a single gold tooth flashing, naturally wavy styled salt and pepper hair—and he was an outrageous flirt. Smooth-talking Ford for a while had the habit of coming around during the day with the excuse of just dropping by for a friendly chat. He would be playful and my mother would laugh nervously. It was after one or two of these visits that she no longer sent me into the backyard to play, but insisted that I remain in the kitchen until Ford had left. Finally she put her foot down and Ford’s visits came to an end.

  I loved my father fiercely as a child, there was nothing that I would not have done for him. In my adolescent mind, both my father and mother were the best parents in the world. But this blind commitment began to be tested as I found myself thrust into sometimes harmful and even life-threatening situations when obeying my parent’s wishes. To question them would bring down the wrath of God, sooner or later. “Do what I say, or else!” Otherwise both my parents and God would punish me. That was the general sentiment. It dawned on me at the age of sixteen or seventeen that love had limits. My entire life could be forever under their thumbs, or I could choose to live a life of my own.

  Thoughts of this sort percolates through my brain as I competed in sports, writing, choral singing, and in public-speaking competitions. In each endeavor, my parents seemed to create obstacles, but one day, they crossed a line that set me on the course of independence.

  We had moved from Los Angeles to San Bernardino and now lived in a new, four-bed-room house on 20th Street, a middle class Black neighborhood. Everything was new here, except for my father’s voice.

  “You may think you can do that, but you can’t. Look, you have never done anything like this before. Listen to me. Stop wasting your time and do something constructive. Why aren’t you reading your Bible instead?”

  He was not yelling as he usually did, his voice sounded genuinely concerned. But here he was judging my attempts at a woodcarving project I had created on my own. My father had no inkling of this, he just saw me whittling away. I had bought the right carving tools and I had the picture sketched faintly on the wood surface. All I needed was patience and time. With this in mind, I worked ever slower, meticulously attacking every micrometer, each curve, every line with the utmost care. The result was an art piece that drew admiration from my siblings. I then decided to do a much larger wood relief etching, fancier and with even greater detail. I entered these two pieces in the California State Orange Show Hobby Fair, earning one Blue Ribbon and a Red Honorable Mention. I showed the awards to my parents, and while my mother said, “That’s nice,” my father was silent. The carvings were of the Liberty Bell and The Entombment of Christ.

  To this day, I recall the exact words my father said that changed my attitude from blind obedience to free thought.

  “I’m the man of this house,” he said, “and as long as you live here you will do what I say and not ask questions, or I’ll tear that hide of yours up.”

  I began to seriously plan on extricating myself, hopefully without have to resort to violence, a possibility which became a disturbing, nagging thought. My father was a fanatic and there were signs that he might decide to make his “sacrifice” to God, just as Abraham had done.

  Our family moved again to live on the church property at Waterman Avenue. All seventeen members of my family in a small three-bedroom shack of a house. Things went downhill fast. My fathers’ business in Los Angeles dried up, my older brother was constantly fighting with my father over the 10pm curfew, and my younger siblings were getting into frequent brawls at school. Church membership had dwindled from fifty or so regulars to just our family and five other faithful but very old outsiders. Our father somehow purchased another house on Lincoln Avenue, about eight house lots away from the church. All of the girls and our parents moved into this house, while we boys stayed in the Waterman Avenue hovel which had no kitchen, working indoor toilet or bathing facilities. For toilet needs, we used the free-standing facilities located midway between the house and the church building, which meant the inconvenience of middle-of-the-night toilet runs in the dark. Bathing was done in the small outhouse using a twenty-gallon wash tub. There was no hot water.

  Our father viewed these dramatic changes as God testing his faith. In his words, we all needed to strip ourselves from anything worldly and prepare to meet the returning Jesus with no earthly weights holding us down. “As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lor
d!” he declared.

  My older brother finally bolted from the house after one last pathetic tussle. Then two of my younger brothers were beaten by a stranger passing through the neighborhood, and one of my younger sisters was raped while on her way from the church building home to the Lincoln Avenue house. Stressful worship intensified. For weeks, we all were forced to fast every day from dawn to 4pm, with additional prayer hours and worship days. No police were to be involved, this was God’s matter. Both of my parents were relentless in making sure that we saw “Jesus, nothing but Jesus” in all aspects of our daily lives. The family was falling apart. It became clear to me that I had to leave.

  21

  Smooth Operators

  Three long, luxury coach buses entered the guarded and locked gates twice a day during the week, transporting teachers to and from the eastern, northern and southern districts of Changchun. It is a city that boasts of having manufactured the first automobile in China (when the Japanese ran the city in the 1930s), and is home to a massive Volkswagen assembly plant.

  The Huaqiao Foreign Language Institute campus was a place where students were viewed as important customers deserving special attention. Teachers were known to have been quickly axed if a significant number of students opposed their retention.

  The residence buildings for students and faculty, each four stories high, dotted the huge compound. There were pine, birch and willow trees dotted around through which walking paths meandered, providing places for quiet conversations, undisturbed oral language practice and, I would have assumed, romantic escapades. But males and females were forbidden to hold hands on campus, and I was told that in the past faculty members had been assigned night duties to hide in dark park areas, to jump out to surprise young lovers at play. A clear, well-maintained stream stocked with goldfish passed through the campus and then close by a Buddhist temple. The campus president, strangely, was an avowed Buddhist.

  The CEO of the Institute was a woman named Madame Xu, and she was a complex character. Many feared her, yet many were also intensely loyal to her. Her mission, she told people, was to make this institution the “Harvard of the East.” Her leadership style was regimental, tough and matron-like and while she claimed the campus personnel were “family”, her actions and words were often harsh. Madame Xu was married and in her late forties. She had an oval round face with rosy cheeks, short-cropped hair and a ready smile. She gave the immediate impression of being a modern-day politician. Her favorite fabric colors were creamy whites and grays with small pearl earrings matching the single-strand pearl necklace she was rarely seen without. Her dressing routine only varied on campus-wide Sports Days, and then she wore a warm-up suit with short-heeled pumps.

  Some faculty members complained about the constant meetings, claiming that Madame Xu operated like a medieval tyrant, impulsive, brow-beating and vindictive. Administrative meetings usually involved Chinese-only faculty attendance, where I was told one could expect long ranting tirades from Madame Xu. Teachers had been punished for being open and candid. The word was that Xu mothered her workers with the iron fist of love. It raised some echoes for me.

  Perhaps this was why the turnover rate was high among teachers, and students sought to escape the campus whenever possible. The gates were closely monitored and the campus was in virtual lock-down, but taxis lined up on the south street knowing that business was a possibility. There would be jumpers and runners from this academic prison. Usually there were portable food and vegetable carts also lined up nearby. One bitterly frigid morning, the dead, frozen body of an old man was discovered outside the campus gates, but the taxis were still lined up next to him. It was several hours before the human body was removed.

  Old Ma was reliable, a hard-working taxi driver. His English vocabulary was limited, but his smile and cooperativeness were more than enough. He had walnut brown skin, a crowning mop of black hair, dark laughing eyes, and a protruding lower jaw resembling a horse’s mouth. In Chinese the word Ma means horse, so his surname fit him well. He was popular among the foreign teachers, known to be extravagant, who could not wait for one of the scheduled weekend bus shopping excursion and Ma’s green and yellow VW Santana cab was one of the few that routinely got past the security gates to pick up foreign teachers at the dormitory door. Chinese teachers preferred to walk or take the public bus. It was always good seeing Ma’s taxi heading over the final bridge across the lotus pond and gliding quietly toward my building.

  To Ma’s credit, his taxi was always clean, and carried a strong, often over-powering scent of lemon coming from a bobble-head deodorizer on the car dashboard, a small Hawaiian female dancer wearing a grass skirt, elbows up, and both palms against her ears. The hips shook and wiggled with the car’s motion. Ma was a careful driver. Riders did not need to worry about the usual reckless herky-jerky navigation of other local drivers, which could cause nausea. In this city, driving skills seemed to be at record lows. The daily automobile accident rate must have been high.

  One sure way foreign teachers could become popular with students was to use them as interpreters. This arrangement allowed students to get past the gates inside taxis without the usual written permits. Some savvy students, usually seniors, hung out close to the faculty quarters hoping to hitch rides into the city center, three or four miles away, with teachers. Most teachers learn early in their careers that students cannot be friends. Teachers, as a rule, generally stick together with colleagues, and students usually do the same with their peers. But in China, the lines of separation were often blurred.

  One day while riding on the campus bus, I had a revealing chat with a loud, White, brown-haired male with a humorous look on a well-fed face and a thin moustache on his upper lip. He introduced himself as the husband of my film class teaching colleague.

  “I know you!” he said.

  “You do?”

  “Yes, you must be Aaron. We have been just been talking about you. I’m Bob, and my wife Nachin Ying is your colleague in the English department. I believe you both co-teach the Cultural Film Studies classes.”

  He said the students were being downright mean to his Hong Kong Chinese wife and she was crying at all hours of the night. The students treated her as an outsider and complained about her English accent.

  Bob also gave me a bit of feedback about my own classes, thumping a small Bible in his hand as he spoke.

  “The students have complained about how there are too many Black people in the films you show. They are afraid of you.”

  I was surprised he did not make a segue through to talking about God or my soul. In China, you never know what a foreigner will be peddling.

  I went back in my apartment and to bed, but my breathing was difficult. I felt a heavy weight on my chest, and I became fearful that there was an evil presence in the darkness of the room, in the corner and coming closer and closer. It was a strange dark figure hovering over and around me like a cloud, searching for a way to hurt me. I dared not breathe or move. I felt I was in great danger. Suddenly, I summoned all my courage and just yelled out with every ounce of energy I possessed. Then I sat bolt upright on my bed. The strange presence and black cloud vanished. I slowly started breathing again.

  After a few minutes I regained my calm. I was dripping with sweat. I had experienced such night terrors many times before I broke away from the church, and they worsened during the first few years of religious separation. Over the years, the bad dreams ceased, but resumed during my years in China. Was this the Devil following me? I could not be sure. The chain of superstitions and the consequences of brain-washings had taken their toll.

  But the shadow of the Devil finally disappeared during my time living in Changchun. It was here that I fought the ultimate battle. It was a nightmare, a physical fight in the confines of some small space. In the fight, I was executing repeated hammer-kicks on the head of a man wearing a clergyman’s collar. This man was my father, long been decea
sed. My kicks, done with my left foot, were crushing and relentless. Upon awakening, my body reeled in pain, especially my left heel. As I lay in bed, topsy-turvy against the cold concrete wall of my campus apartment, pillows and covers scattered, it was clear I had been hammer-kicking the wall during the night. But I never again experienced nightmares after this. My sleep became completely restful. I suppose I have come to terms with my inner demons. At least, I tell myself so.

  I was talked into participating in a campus Badminton tournament held between various departments. Earlier, I had been asked to play ping-pong, which I have never played and so turned down that offer. I had played tennis for many years, and had hoped to continue in China. I had two well-strung racquets that saw some use in Changsha, but none in Changchun. There were two tennis courts on the Huaqiao campus but there were no takers when I announced that I sought a tennis partner.

  “Hey, Aaron, have you ever played badminton?” enquired Jackie, one of the female sports enthusiasts in the Foreign Languages department.

  “Sure, many years ago as a kid that was all I played,” I said.

  “Then will you mind representing our department in singles and also being a doubles partner?”

  “Sure, why not? I haven’t really played seriously for a number of years, since becoming a tennis fanatic, but I can play if you all want me to.”

  “That’s great! We’ll sign you up.”

  Many people assume that Black males are only into football and basketball, but I had played a wide range of sports when I was young, although it was something like twenty-five years since I had played badminton and nearly fifty since I played it seriously. But I was looking forward to this chance to play and meet more campus people. Jackie and I took a few warm-up practice sessions in the poorly-lit gym.