Letters in the Jade Dragon Box

by Gale Sears

  Wen-shan let the scroll roll together on her lap. She was silent.

  “Maybe it was good in the beginning. Maybe your father thought he was helping. The Great Leap Forward. That sounded good.”

  But everything Wen-shan had been learning said the Communist rule wasn’t good. Mr. Pierpont had told her that the Communists had gotten rid of opium and gambling and had brought the people together under one government. Those were good things, but the cost was tyranny. The Communists, under Mao Tse-tung, had complete control over people’s lives.

  • • •

  That night Wen-shan confessed to her uncle that she’d read the letter and left him to read it by himself. The thought of hearing her Communist father’s words again made her stomach hurt.

  She climbed into bed but couldn’t get comfortable. The humid air was oppressive, and she found it hard to breathe. She knew some of the pressure would release with tears, but tears did not come.

  When she finally did begin to drift into a gray nothingness, ghost voices whispered warnings in her mind of their power and told her to walk carefully because their icy fingers were always waiting and the black water was always lapping on the shore.

  Wen-shan moaned and turned on her side. Oh, go away, she thought groggily. I have a math test tomorrow and I need my sleep.

  Notes

  Yaodong: A dwelling place carved into the side of a cliff. As a leader of the fledgling Communist Party in Yan’an, (1936–1948), Mao Tse-tung lived in a yaodong. It is kept now as a national shrine.

  The Great Leap Forward: The Great Leap Forward (1958–1962) was a campaign begun by Mao Tse-tung to bring China into the forefront of economic development. Everyone in China was to be involved in steelmaking, and the rural communities were expected to triple their crop production so that China could become a superpower. Much of the food produced, however, was sent to Russia in exchange for machines and industrial goods. The experiment was a disaster, causing nationwide famine and the deaths of thirty-eight to forty million people.

  Chapter 9

  Wen-shan tapped on the store window just as Mr. Pierpont was flipping over the closed sign. The man jumped, and then broke into a big smile. He motioned her to the front door.

  “Mrs. Chen, so good to see you again! Are you here for more furniture?”

  “Yes, Mr. Pierpont,” Wen-shan said imperiously, stepping into the store. “I’m here to furnish my entire mansion.”

  Mr. Pierpont beamed. “Words of glory to a furniture man, Mrs. Chen!”

  Wen-shan giggled at being called “Mrs. Chen,” but then, remembering she had questions for Mr. Pierpont, she sobered. “Actually, I’m here for something else.”

  Mr. Pierpont grunted. “I knew I couldn’t be lucky enough for an entire house. Oh, well. Come in! Come in, Wen-shan. What can I do for you? Your uncle is not here. He and Mr. Ng are overseeing a delivery to . . .”

  “A new office building. Yes, I know. He told me he’d be late getting home tonight.”

  “Ah, quite the knowledgeable one, aren’t you?”

  “It’s you I wanted to see, Mr. Pierpont. I need to ask you some questions.”

  “Well then, come to my office. I have a few things to put away, and then we can talk.” He started off and then stopped. “I have a better idea! What say I take you out for dinner? Have you eaten?”

  “No. I was going to get wonton on my way home.”

  “Well, whatever you’d like. I just hate eating alone, and I thought if . . .”

  “Actually I’d love dinner out, Mr. Pierpont. That’s nice of you.”

  They stopped briefly in his office where he gave his secretary some final instructions, filed a few account papers, and picked up his raincoat and hat.

  They walked several blocks, all the while debating whether mathematics was really useful. Wen-shan concluded no, Mr. Pierpont concluded yes, but only as far as adding up sales was concerned.

  As the sun set, a light wind picked up, and Wen-shan hoped it meant a break in the muggy weather.

  “Here we are!” Mr. Pierpont said, stepping up to the entrance of Xiao Nan Guo.

  “Do you like to eat here?” Wen-shan questioned.

  “Love it!”

  “This place is very Chinese,” Wen-shan said as he opened the door for her.

  He hesitated. “You don’t like it?” He closed the door. “We can surely go elsewhere. Someplace with meat and potatoes.”

  Wen-shan laughed. “No, this restaurant has wonderful food. I’m just surprised you like it.”

  Mr. Pierpont tipped his tweed hat. “Don’t judge a book by its cover, Miss Chen.”

  They stepped inside the small space and were assaulted by Chinese voices, scraping chairs, calls for orders, and clattering dishes. Flavor-filled steam permeated the air, and Mr. Pierpont took a deep breath.

  “Ah, heaven.”

  Mr. Pierpont hung his coat and hat on the coatrack, and he and Wen-shan squeezed their way to an empty table at the back of the restaurant. It was not an easy trip as space between tables was miniscule. Mr. Pierpont held Wen-shan’s chair for her as she sat down.

  “Thank you, Mr. Pierpont.”

  “My pleasure.” He sat down across from her and gleefully rubbed his hands together.

  An older woman came up, yelling a Cantonese litany to the kitchen. She plopped down two teacups and a pot of tea, and then glanced at the two new customers. “Ah, Mr. Pierpont, sorry.” She grabbed up one of the teacups. “You not want tea. I get you glass of water.” She scurried away.

  Wen-shan chuckled. “You must love this place.”

  “Indeed I do. So, what would you like?”

  “I like the prawns in garlic sauce.”

  “Yes, that’s good. What else?”

  “I usually only order one dish, Mr. Pierpont.”

  “Well, we’ll have to remedy that. How about goose meat with noodles or shoyu chicken?”

  “Both sound delicious.”

  The woman returned with a smile and a glass of water. “Here you go, Mr. Pierpont. You want your regular?”

  “Yes, and an order of prawns with garlic sauce, goose meat with noodles, and shoyu chicken.”

  Wen-shan could tell the woman was delighted.

  “Oh, all good choices. Good choices.” She turned toward the kitchen, snapping off the order in rapid Cantonese.

  Mr. Pierpont picked up the teapot and addressed Wen-shan. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Yes, please.” Wen-shan pushed forward her cup. “You’re not having any?”

  “No, I don’t drink tea.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  Mr. Pierpont smiled. “Oh, I like it very much. When I was a young man, I think I had tea in my veins instead of blood.”

  “But?”

  “The Church asks that I not drink tea or coffee or alcohol.”

  Wen-shan put down her cup. “Of course. Is that why my uncle doesn’t drink tea?”

  “I would imagine so. Have you never inquired?”

  “I did once when I was about ten.”

  “And?”

  “All he said was that there were more healthy things for the body. I didn’t think much about it.”

  “And now?”

  “I guess I’m more interested in what my uncle’s life was like before I came along.”

  “The best way to find out, Wen-shan, is to ask him.”

  Wen-shan raised her eyebrows.

  “You might be surprised.”

  Actually, over the past week, she had been surprised by her uncle’s reaction to things. It seemed as though the paintings and letters were making little cracks in the wall that surrounded him.

  Wen-shan realized that her thoughts had been drifting. “So how did you get mixed up with the Mormon Church, Mr. Pierpont?”

  Mr. Pierpont grinned. “By the best of luck. I would love to share it with you, but it’s a long story.”

  “I love long stories.”

  He tapped his fingertips together. “Hmm
. . . where to begin? When we started the furniture business, my brother and I had two stores, one here in Central and one on Nathan Road in Kowloon.”

  “Impressive.”

  “And a furniture factory.”

  Wen-shan really was impressed.

  “Now this is going back to 1955, so don’t fall asleep.”

  “Not me,” Wen-shan promised.

  “So, one day I went to check on the Kowloon store, and my able employee Ng Kat-hing told me he had just made the biggest sale of his life: eight custom-made beds—extra long—and eight nightstands. Well, I thought it was too good to be true, especially when he said the young man who ordered it was a very tall American who spoke perfect Cantonese and who had a young wife and little baby boy with him.”

  “He was making it up to tease you.”

  “That’s what I thought. But, no! It was true, every word of it. The tall American was Elder Grant Heaton. He and his wife, Luana, had just arrived in Hong Kong to set up a mission home for the Church. In fact, Elder Heaton was going to be the mission president for the Southern Far East Mission.”

  “What did that mean?”

  “That meant missionaries from the Mormon Church were coming to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Guam, and the Philippines.”

  “How many missionaries?” she asked, picturing hundreds.

  “Well, they started out with eight, right there in Kowloon, Hong Kong.”

  Wen-shan chuckled. “That’s why they needed the eight, extra-long beds.”

  “Right you are.”

  “How old was Mr. Heaton? He couldn’t have been too old to have a little baby like that.”

  Mr. Pierpont smiled. “Twenty-six.”

  Wen-shan frowned. “Now you’re teasing me.”

  “I’m not. He was twenty-six.”

  “How could your Church send someone so young to do such a big job?”

  “A very good question. I think it had something to do with revelation.”

  “Revelation?”

  Just then the platters of food began arriving, and Mr. Pierpont’s attention was diverted by vegetables, meats, and sauces. Wen-shan was hungry too, but answers seemed more important than prawns in garlic sauce. After they had both taken several bites, Wen-shan pursued the conversation.

  “You were talking about revelation, Mr. Pierpont. Did you mean revelation from heaven?”

  “Yes.” He took a drink of water. “Revelation from heaven to a prophet.”

  “You mean like the Hebrew prophets?”

  He gave her an admiring look. “How do you know about Hebrew prophets?”

  “My teacher, Mrs. Yang, had us read some of the Bible. She says we have to learn about everything.”

  “A wise woman, indeed.”

  Wen-shan sat unmoving, her chopsticks poised over her food. “But, you’re talking about a prophet in modern days.”

  “Yes.”

  “And my uncle believes this?”

  “I imagine so.”

  “And you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s why you were baptized.”

  “Me, and my wife, Minnie, and Ng Kat-hing.”

  “The one who sold Mr. Heaton the beds?”

  Mr. Pierpont beamed. “Yes, indeed. We all took the plunge!”

  “In the swimming pool?”

  Mr. Pierpont laughed.

  “You were teasing me about the swimming pool.”

  “Only a little.” He put some shoyu chicken on each of their plates. “Actually the mission home where the Heatons lived had a swimming pool in the backyard. They’d fill it up about thigh-deep and use it for baptisms.”

  Wen-shan stared at her jovial dinner companion.

  “Eat, eat, eat!” he ordered. “Don’t let my babbling stop you from eating.”

  She picked up a bite with her chopsticks. “Mr. Ng is delivering furniture with my uncle. Is it the same Mr. Ng who joined the Church?”

  “It is. While studying the doctrine, he helped the missionaries with their Cantonese.”

  “And he still attends church?”

  “He’s actually a leader of a small congregation—a branch president.” Mr. Pierpont dished up the last of the goose meat. “Indeed Brother Ng is the one who brought me and Minnie along. So there you have it. What did you think of my swimming pool story?”

  Wen-shan ate a bite of shoyu chicken and thought about all Mr. Pierpont had told her.

  “I think there’s a lot to think about.”

  “Exactly, Wen-shan. There is a lot to think about.”

  “And how did my uncle become interested in the Church?”

  Mr. Pierpont gave her a gentle smile. “That is a story for your uncle to tell.”

  They ate in silence for a time and then finally, between bites, Mr. Pierpont spoke. “May I tell you something, Wen-shan?”

  “Yes,” she said warily.

  “I like this new you. The question-asking girl.”

  Wen-shan blushed. “Better than the screaming little girl in church?”

  He laughed loudly. “Yes, yes. I would have to say yes.”

  As she looked at Mr. Pierpont’s happy expression, Wen-shan knew he truly was a good friend to her uncle.

  • • •

  1959

  We have been killing sparrows. Chairman Mao Tse-tung says they are pests like rats because they eat the grain, and so we are killing them by the thousands. We should be harvesting the grain, but everyone is mad with sparrow killing. Comrade Chen says the government might pay us money for the dead birds. I wonder why people want money—there is nothing to buy. I must criticize myself for thinking against the wise commands of our great leader.

  We spend much time killing sparrows and making steel. Our great leader, Mao Tse-tung wants China to make more steel than Britain and America. We are many millions of people, he says. If we all work together we can do anything. There are small neighborhood smelting furnaces to melt the metal that we find. Chairman Mao says that “to hand in one pickax is to wipe out Imperialism, and to hide one nail is to hide one counterrevolutionary.” So everyone looks for metal. We have all thrown our woks and cooking utensils into the furnace. No one cooks anymore anyway. We all eat at the neighborhood canteen. The government takes care of feeding us, and we make steel and kill sparrows.

  Wen-shan tore her eyes away from the parchment. The look on her face was a mixture of anger and disbelief. “They killed sparrows? Why would they follow such an order?”

  Her uncle looked at her with an even expression. “What were they suppose to do, Wen-shan? You read what your mother wrote about the criticism meeting. Out of fear, people were turning on each other. There were party officials everywhere. What do you think would have happened to someone who spoke out?”

  Wen-shan stood and began pacing. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Why didn’t someone in the government stand up to Mao? Why did they let him get away with such stupid things?”

  Her uncle’s voice was stern. “Fear. You don’t know how much power lives in fear.”

  Wen-shan stopped pacing and stared at him. “You do. You know about fear.”

  He looked at her straight on. “Yes. I do.”

  Wen-shan followed his gaze to her grandfather’s painting of the heavenly mountains.

  “When your Auntie Mei-lan and I left Guilin, there had already been many killings of captured Nationalist soldiers. The death of an officer and his wife would have been made into a great public spectacle. There is no doubt that the entire family would have been killed.”

  Wen-shan felt again that icy water being poured on the top of her head. “My mother?”

  “Yes. Your mother and your grandfather.” He clasped his hands together. “Mei-lan and I hid in the small vault under our family’s ancestor shrine. The entrance is not detectable unless you know about it. We were there five days. My brother—your grandfather—would bring us food. For others to see, he was bringing food for the ancestors, but Mei-lan and I ate it.”

 
Wen-shan could tell these memories were causing him anguish as he gripped his hands tighter and tighter.

  “In the dark morning hours of the sixth day, we escaped. It took us three months to make our way to Canton, and then we floated on a log to Hong Kong.” His jaw muscles tightened. “Mei-lan was so brave. She was so brave. She did not know how to swim. We were in the water for ten hours.” He stopped talking.

  Wen-shan respected his silence. Finally she went to the cabinet and retrieved one of her grandfather’s paintings. She knelt down by her uncle’s chair and unrolled the scroll onto the floor. A cocky copper, black-and-orange feathered rooster paraded on the silk paper. Surrounding him were several fat yellow chicks, scratching and pecking for food. The rooster looked offended to be in such company.

  Wen-shan and her uncle laughed. They couldn’t help it. The painting evoked such joy that any other emotion fled at first glance.

  “How can a rooster have an expression?” Wen-shan laughed. “My grandfather is brilliant!”

  Her uncle nodded. “Yes, he is.” His voice became intense. “And I will tell you one thing, Wen-shan. Where others may not have survived this evil regime, my venerable brother will have found a way.”

  Note

  The early days of the LDS Church in China: Elder David O. McKay dedicated the land of China for the preaching of the gospel on January 9, 1921, in a garden area located in the heart of the Forbidden City, Peking.

  Elder Grant Heaton was called to be the first missionary to Hong Kong in 1949. He returned in 1955 with his wife, Luana, to serve as the mission president of the Southern Far East Mission. He was twenty-six years old at the time. He and Sister Heaton served faithfully in Hong Kong until 1959 when they returned to Utah to work, raise their family, and continue to serve the Lord.

  Ng Kat-hing was baptized May 31, 1956, and became one of the first Chinese members of the Church in Hong Kong. He became interested in the Church when he sold furniture to Brother and Sister Heaton, who were looking to furnish the new mission home. Brother Ng served as a branch president, district president, mission president’s counselor, stake president, and stake patriarch. When the Hong Kong Temple was dedicated in 1996, Brother Ng became the first temple president.