The Great Flowing River

by Chi Pang-yuan

  Professor Yuan Changying’s husband, Professor Yang Duanliu, who had studied in England, was a specialist on currency theory and joined with Professor Liu Naicheng to make the economics department at Wuhan University into a key center for nurturing a generation of talented economists. Husband and wife had taught at Wuhan University for more than twenty years. During the difficult years of the War of Resistance, these scholars, who dedicated themselves to serving the country, maintained academic standards and the dignity of scholars. When their progressive daughter Yang Jingyuan attacked the current situation, her father offered her the following advice: “Although the present government has many faults, if you stop and consider, without it now, would we be able to be as well off as we are today? The Japanese would have destroyed the country long ago. Although the Nationalist government is not perfect, without it, we would not have been able to hang on until today. It is not fair to say that it has accomplished nothing. A great deal has been built since the Republic was founded; just compare it to the Qing dynasty and the progress will be clear.” His daughter replied, “What’s the point of a university education? What good is simply studying? It has nothing to do with reality.” Her father said, “How can a person understand the world without studying? How can one tell the difference between what is right and what is wrong? A person is entirely reliant upon their mind for an understanding of an issue. Without study, how can a mind be trained?”

  Opinions like Professor Yang’s were mentioned by the president and teachers at every school meeting during my three years at Leshan. In those critical days when withdrawing the students to the Lei-Ma-Bing-E mountainous region was considered, a Ministry of Education directive also said, “Studies should go on uninterrupted.” Even in the class on Russian literature, Professor Miao required us to read a number of important works in order to understand the depth of and changes in Russian culture. Perhaps he lacked a similar depth of perception regarding the changes in Chinese culture. He and other left-leaning professors, such as Wen Yiduo, incited students on campus to oppose the government, and the effect of such efforts outstripped those of the early military power of the Communists. If anyone on campus dared to refute their inciting words, they were first mocked and then condemned as a professional Nationalist student, and later the insults grew more real. After the June 1 Massacre in 1947, violent beatings occurred in the boys’ dorm.

  Starting in 1946, the civil war between the Nationalists and Communists was in full swing. In 1947, under the leadership of the Communists, the student movement with its stated opposition to civil war and famine, which had spread throughout the land, was getting out of control. In May, 6,000 students in Nanjing, Shanghai, Suzhou, and Hangzhou who took to the streets to demonstrate met with suppression. Following this, more than 1,700 students from Wuhan University set off another wave of demonstrations and petitions. The students stormed the provincial government, surprising the Wuhan authorities, leading to the garrison headquarters action of entering the Wuhan University campus to arrest Communist teachers and students on June 1.

  That morning at around six, some classmates in the boys’ dorm near the school gate had already got up to wash when they discovered that several military trucks were parked at the gate. Soldiers with guns and live ammunition were putting Professer Miao Langshan on one of the trucks. He shouted loudly for help and a number of students went to stop them; in the ensuing scuffle, the soldiers fired and three people fell to the ground dead, one of whom was still holding a washbasin, and several others were wounded.

  Instantly more students gathered and rescued Professor Miao. Under orders, the military trucks sped away. The wounded were taken to the clinic and the dead were carried to the auditorium on wooden doors, their bodies covered with blankets. All had been shot in the head, so their chests and above were left uncovered.

  The faculty and students all gathered in the auditorium. The president and teachers were in charge and the place was filled with the sound of crying. At that moment, a leader-type student ran up on stage and spoke loudly, saying that we all knew the school would handle the funeral matters, but that some student representatives had to participate. Several names were put forward and written on the blackboard on stage. Three or four from the girls’ dorm were nominated, among whom was Wang Yuncong. Suddenly I heard my name clearly pronounced, but I couldn’t see who said it amid a thousand heads. I just saw my name written on the blackboard.

  After the meeting, those whose names had been written down were asked to stay and take part in the final arrangements. Before the meeting broke up, everyone walked in front of the dead to show their respect. I recall one who had a huge wound from which the blood still flowed. I could also see his eyes were still open.

  I had seen many dead people along the road when we took flight from Nanjing; I had also seen many charred corpses after the bombings in Wuhan and Chongqing. But I had never seen one so close. Being shaken that way is something I will never forget, and something tears cannot assuage.

  Staying behind after the meeting, I wondered why I had been nominated, since I had taken no part in any school activities outside the Nankai Alumni Association and the Christian Fellowship. No simple matter, clearly it was a challenge that couldn’t be avoided. I thought of my father’s constant admonishment, “You must be able to stay composed!” I wasn’t going to speak first, but wait and see. Sure enough, after the dozen or so students discussed the important matters, someone suggested that Chi Pang-yuan write the words for the memorial ceremony.

  I stood up and said that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to write such an important piece in just two days. “Aren’t you Zhu Guangqian’s prize student? It should be a simple matter for you.” Someone else with a softer voice said, “Doesn’t the petit bourgeois Divina Commedia contain revolution and violence?”

  After going two days with scarcely any sleep or food, I managed to produce the memorial text. As I wrote, I saw that bleeding wound flash before my eyes and I could hear Professor Zhu intoning the lines, “The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; / The port is near, the bells I hear” from the poem O Captain! My Captain!. I wrote that the three had not died at the hands of the invading enemy, but at the hands of their compatriots after victory. When would poor China be able to rise above the blood of suffering and hate and allow the safe pursuit of knowledge, and freedom of thought? If that were to happen, they would not have died in vain.…

  I wrote that brief elegy in all sincerity. It was taken and written as a large poster and many copies mimeographed. The response was positive. I started with the human heart and finished with the freedom of knowledge and thought. I sincerely expressed what most people thought, as well as foretelling my own lifelong attitude. When I read it at the impassioned and fervent memorial ceremony, it seemed to possess an earnest solemnity. Perhaps the progressive students weren’t entirely satisfied, but they could not condemn me for anything.

  Professor Wu Mi, my advisor and the head of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, assured the safety of Professor Miao and personally took him to the airport and put him on a plane to Hong Kong. The central government ordered Peng Shan, the Wuhan garrison commander, to resign, and seriously undertook to apprehend those who had fired their weapons. The June 1 Massacre became a big cultural weapon for the Communists in their struggle for power, but twenty years later, when countless students and teachers were killed in the Cultural Revolution, who was there to appeal to?

  UNIVERSITY GRADUATION, FUTURE VAGUE

  At noon on the day after participating in the student representative meeting, my roommate Kuang Shufang; Xie Wenjin and her husband, Meng Baoqin; a few Hong Kong classmates from the English Association; and I went to a small restaurant near the school gate to celebrate our graduation and to say good-bye.

  Everyone was in pretty high spirits and we ordered a big bottle of sorghum liquor (it was probably all they had there). The restaurant owner brought some small teacups to serve as wine cups
along with some small plates of peanuts and dried tofu. Even the patterns on the plates were the same as those in the small teahouse on the riverbank at Leshan (probably all the same Yangtze River culture).

  In one year, the ancient city at the confluence of three rivers, the beautiful scenes of the various trees and bushes in flower in late spring in March, and the friends who had strolled hand in hand had become strangers. I found myself in such a complicated situation, as if it were another world. Everyone raised their glasses. I emptied mine, followed by five more, leaving everyone so startled they didn’t know what to do. Wenjin and Shufang carried me back to the dorm. It was quite a ways, and no one had a bicycle. I felt like I was walking on clouds, stepping on emptiness, but managed to get back. Entering the dorm room, I fell on the bed and passed out.

  The following day I woke and wondered where I was going and what I was going to do.

  I was graduating from university, but love and work were unknowns. Shufang left first for her home in Sichuan. Wenjin was anxious to get back to Shanxi and be reunited with her family. For as long as I could remember, I never had a home to which to return. My father was busy in Nanjing and Shanghai; my mother was living temporarily in Beiping; my brother was a war correspondent in the northeast, following the seesaw battle between the Nationalists and the Communists. There weren’t many career options for women in those days, and I still thought about pursuing a master’s degree. With Director Gui Zhiting’s help, I applied to and was accepted at Mount Holyoke College in the United States through his Christian Fellowship connections. However, my father was opposed to my going abroad and felt that I should first consider marriage before pursuing advanced studies; otherwise, given the unpredictable nature of the situation in China, I might find myself cut off from my family for the rest of my life and end up as an “old spinster.”

  At noon, with a scorching hot sun directly overhead, I turned in my last final exam. Even the final goal of my struggle was missing. I was graduating and returned to the dorm, exhausted in mind and body. In the half-empty room, I cried for a while over my vague future and grieved for the uncertainty of my country. At my age, my father had wanted to save China with all his heart and mind, and now I, faced with greater troubles within and without, wondered where I was going and what I was going to do. A long time ago I had been childishly presumptuous enough to want to study philosophy and understand life; that day, my own spirit, which was minuscule and powerless, had no place to rest.

  At least I still had my reason amid the confusion, and my parents were still around, and as long as they were alive and kicking, I had a home to which to return.

  Finally, the day of my last trip down the Yangtze River arrived. In the latter part of June, Yu Linwei and some classmates from Hong Kong and I boarded ship in Hankou for Shanghai. The boat had cabins, but they were so hot and stuffy, it was impossible to get comfortable. Along the railing around one hundred young men (new soldiers) were bound together with coarse rope. They were on their way to the northeast to help in the war to eradicate the Communists—in those days it was not permitted to say “war between the Nationalists and the Communists.”

  After sailing for half a day and one night, the soldiers outside the cabin watched us drinking water. They looked so thirsty that we couldn’t drink. Occasionally we would sneak a few of them some water to drink, and then others would ask us for some.

  The officer on patrol heard and came over to look, and told us that the time to give them food and drink was fixed and that we shouldn’t break military discipline. When the army was on the move, the greatest fear was that they would become too relaxed or desert.

  Under that sun, the lips of some of the soldiers had become black and cracked. Only when we closed the door of the hot, stuffy cabin did we dare drink water, because every sip we took felt like a sin.

  We went to bed that night totally exhausted. We were drifting off to sleep when someone outside the cabin shouted, “Man overboard!” The officer scanned the water with a large flashlight. How could anyone survive when the Yangtze was swollen and rolling along?

  One of the soldiers started crying, which caused many more to cry. A man said in a coarse, heavy, and stern voice, “I’ll shoot if anyone cries again!” The crying suddenly stopped and the darkness fell totally silent.

  I’ll never forget their sunburned faces and the thirst in their eyes for as long as I live. Sometimes when I’m watching a movie about a battle, even in the ancient West, I’ll break into tears when I see the soldiers raise their shields and rush into the fray behind an awe-inspiring general. Ancient or modern, East or West, those soldiers rushing across the land so that one general can establish his reputation on thousands of dead make me sad, a concrete symbol of war that hurts my soul.

  Back in Shanghai! Although it had only been a year, it seemed like ages, but I couldn’t recall it without pain.

  I had a home. My father had revived Time and Tide in Shanghai, moving it from northern Sichuan to a large building on Jessfield Road (renamed Fanwangdu Street after victory) in what had been the British concession. It was rented municipal property that was once the mayor’s residence, about which there were many mysterious rumors from the Japanese period. Most of the rooms were occupied by the staff and families of Time and Tide and the employees and families of the Northeast China Association in Chongqing, leaving three rooms for my father. Gradually, quite a few comrades from the anti-Japanese underground in the old days showed up in Shanghai and stayed there. The place was packed with people. Coming and going every day, countless old friends who had lost touch for years would run into each other and talk endlessly about all the thrilling things that had happened since they parted.

  I stayed in Shanghai for one week before going to Beiping to be reunited with my mother. My father hoped I would find work in Beiping and help look after the family. It seemed like the only reasonable route open to me at the time.

  My return to Beiping after graduating was a great comfort to my mother. In her mind, I had grown up and could take care of myself and had become a daughter with whom she could now discuss her concerns.

  She had been back in Beiping for one year, and all her dreams of returning home had seemed to vanish. The war in the northeast to exterminate the Communists was being fiercely fought. The two armies were fighting a bloody battle from street to street in Changchun. Those who had said nothing and become “subjects” of Manchukuo for fourteen years were now fleeing through Shanhaiguan. Our house in Dayangyibin Hutong in Beiping became the destination of friends and family seeking refuge. All the rooms were full and we had two tables for each meal, and sometimes two seatings. In all, there were the ten members of my two aunts’ families, four in my family, three paternal cousins (Zhenyong, Zhenfei, Zhenlie), two maternal cousins, and some relatives recently arrived from the northeast. Inflation was on the rise in those days and we only had three or four large dishes at each meal, such as eggplant stewed with potatoes and cabbage stewed with tofu and some meat. The quantities were large, but they were in no way gourmet dishes. My aunts’ kids and my sisters ranged from ten to fifteen or sixteen years of age, an age when they didn’t yet understand life’s difficulties.

  The money my father sent home every month didn’t keep up with the inflation, and my mother was finding her role more difficult to play. Taking advantage of my return, she accompanied my father when he made an official trip to the northeast and bravely returned to her parents’ home at Xintaizi to spend a few days and visit the graves of my grandparents, and my three uncles. During that period I helped my aunts do the marketing and discovered how much it cost for daily necessities such as fuel, rice, oil, salt, vinegar, tea, and sauces. The money my father sent at a fixed time every month no longer sufficed to cover expenses.

  Rumors abounded in Beiping. The Tainjin–Pukou Railroad was disrupted because it was often being worked on or due to fighting. My mother was extremely worried when she returned to Beiping. She had no jewelry left to sell—the jewelry that
was part of her dowry and the several thousand silver coins she had saved had all been exchanged by the banks for paper currency at the end of the War of Resistance. Later it was worth enough to buy a bolt of indanthrene fabric. If the Tianjin–Pukou Railroad was cut, there would be no hope of buying a plane ticket either. My father was working in Nanjing and Shanghai, so how would she survive with two children to care for? And there were also the ten members of my two aunts’ families. I slept in her room on a temporary bed. Hearing her tossing and turning all the time and sighing, I said, “Mom, don’t sigh so much. I can’t sleep.”

  ACROSS THE SEA, ALONE

  Several days later, I went to the Red House of Beiping University to see Professor Zhu Guangqian.

  He was very happy to see me and showed me his newly allocated housing, and said that his family would soon be joining him from the south. Those several temporary rooms were in an empty, newly built concrete one-story building. Actually, his new place wasn’t as good as his old house at Leshan with the courtyard in which you could hear the falling rain and rustling leaves, but he seemed pleased and said that now after victory, he could pursue academic development. He asked me what my plans were, having graduated. I simply said that I wanted to continue my studies and my family wouldn’t let me go abroad, but I didn’t mention anything about being an assistant, lest Professor Zhu think I had come to see him for the sake of a job, or perhaps I simply hadn’t made up my mind to stay in Beiping. Since childhood, my memory of old Beiping was just a gloomy old city gate, yellow dust blown down the winding hutongs, and off in the distance, desolate Western Mountain and the rooms scattered with lime.

  That night, my mother asked me about my visit with my teacher at Beiping University. In all seriousness, she said, “Since you didn’t ask your teacher for work, I hope you can find something in Nanjing or Shanghai. If Beiping were cut off from Nanjing and Shanghai, it would be hard enough for me with your two sisters, and who knows what your brother will be doing in the war-torn northeast. If you stay close to your father, it will be one less burden for me.”