Last Boat Out of Shanghai

by Helen Zia

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  MAMA HSU WAS THE young wife of a government official. To Bing, she looked just like the pretty women on the billboards and posters for the latest movies. Mama Hsu had gone to school to become a nurse and said she would send Bing to school too. She assisted occasionally at the local clinics because she wanted to, she said, not because she had to.

  She brought Bing home to a large walled house along one of Suzhou’s canals. It looked grander than anything she’d seen in Changzhou. Overnight, Bing found herself in a different world, cared for as though she were a child of money and privilege.

  A servant bathed and dressed her, even putting Bing’s shoes on for her. This alone took getting used to since she had never worn shoes before. The house was so grand that even the floors were of smooth, lacquered wood—not the dirt or rough, hand-hewn wood she was accustomed to. A cook prepared meals with vegetables, fish, meat, and fine, aromatic rice—delicacies that she had rarely known in Changzhou. Her thin frame grew stronger.

  True to her word, Mama Hsu sent Bing to school. Bing had never imagined that she, a girl, would be educated. In her part of Changzhou, only rich families could afford to send children to school, and that expense was almost always reserved for their sons. Her mother in Changzhou had said many times that it was pointless to pay good money to educate a daughter, who would eventually move to a husband’s family, just as it was a waste to spend a single fen on candy for a girl.

  But Mama Hsu wanted Bing to get an education and enrolled her in the nearby primary school. At first, Bing was afraid, worried that a girl like her didn’t deserve to be there, that the teachers would tell her to leave because she had been abandoned. But to her delight, she soon discovered that she, too, could learn to read and write. She enjoyed arithmetic and couldn't wait to go to school each day. She did so well that she imagined her baba and ma would be glad to take her back once they saw how useful she, a daughter, had become.

  In spite of the comforts of her new life in Suzhou, Bing would have traded it all to be back in Changzhou with her baba. She awoke feeling sad every day, under a cloud of gloom that followed her everywhere. She looked for Baba whenever she left the house. Sometimes she thought she saw him, only to find a stranger. And for all of Mama Hsu’s kindnesses, Bing didn’t truly feel accepted as her child. Mama Hsu didn’t introduce her as “my daughter” to other people. She had Bing sleep by the kitchen, near the servants. Worst of all, Mama Hsu didn’t tell her husband that she’d adopted Bing. Since he was often away, working in Nanjing or elsewhere, he never seemed to notice her when he came home.

  Bing might have been able to ignore those slights had Mama Hsu’s servants not taken every opportunity to stab at her pain, needling Bing whenever Mama’s back was turned. “You think you’re better than us?” they sneered. “Madame hasn’t told her husband about you because the master doesn’t like children—he will never accept you.” Or they said, “You’ll never find a husband; no one wants a wife from an unknown seed, with no ancestors to give her good luck.” They told Bing that Mama Hsu had taken her in only because adopting a young girl was supposed to bring fertility to a childless woman.

  Not long after Bing arrived, the servant who was assigned to be her amah played a cruel joke. She informed Bing that Mama Hsu was pregnant and expecting a baby boy. “Do you think she’ll want you when she has her own son? They’ll put you out to live as a beggar,” the amah said. At school, Bing told her teacher that Mama was pregnant. The teacher, in turn, congratulated Mama Hsu. Perplexed, Mama and the teacher asked Bing how she could say such things.

  The unkindest cuts came from the children of the servants, who, taking their cues from their parents, were relentless in their torment. “Nobody wants you! Your family gave you away!” they taunted. They ridiculed her new name, a homonym of the Chinese word for bottle.“You’re a bing, an empty bottle. A nothing, a nobody.” They took every opportunity to pick at her. Bing wanted to run and hide whenever she saw them, but there was no escape. She grew to hate her name and its constant reminder of her shame.

  As time passed, Bing despaired that she could no longer remember the surname of her Changzhou family. It was getting harder to recall details of her father and mother, her two brothers. In her dreams, she imagined she could still trace the curve of her mother’s face, the strong muscles in her father’s arms, the rough contours of the earthen floor, and the joy she felt whenever her baba returned home. But it was also true that her parents had given her away because she was a girl. They would never have given those precious sons away, she knew. And now she was a bing, a “nothing.” If only she could find her parents and show them all she had learned.

  Even those gossamers of hope seemed to slip away as the threat of war with Japan sent Bing’s new life with Mama Hsu spinning. Although Bing was happy when she was reunited with Mama and living with her two friends, the news about the assault on Nanjing—China’s capital before Shanghai’s fall—reached them soon after her arrival, casting a pall of gloom that only grew over their rented room in the new year of 1938. Mama’s husband had already fled inland with the Nationalist government for the new wartime capital of Chongqing, but Japanese soldiers ruthlessly killed many thousands of civilians—old people, women, children, even babies. Like Suzhou, Changzhou was in the path from Shanghai to Nanjing. What if Bing’s parents’ home had been flattened like the ones she had seen as her train passed near the Chinese section of Shanghai?

  Thousands of refugees flee from the devastating Chinese jurisdictions on the north side of the Suzhou Creek, streaming into the International Settlement and its famous Bund via the Waibaidu (Garden) Bridge.

  Bing overheard Mama talking with her friends in hushed tones of the Japanese soldiers who raped, killed, and mutilated girls and women in Nanjing, slicing women’s breasts off to keep as trophies and ripping babies from their mothers, tossing them in the air to be caught on bayonet points. When Bing cried out in horror, Mama warned her to stay far away from the Japanese soldiers who patrolled Shanghai, for they, too, might grab a young girl like her and do horrible things.

  During the day, while the adults were at work, Bing played in the neighborhood streets and alleys with a girl from the next-door apartment. Since Mama didn’t know how long they’d be in Shanghai, she didn’t enroll Bing in school. Mama added to the list of shady characters for the girl to avoid: beggars, spies, gangsters, puppet police. But Bing was already wary of all the strange people she saw: big-nosed foreigners accompanied by Chinese servants in starched white uniforms; brown-skinned Indian police with thick black beards, curled moustaches, and red turbans; Japanese women in kimonos and high wooden sandals; raggedy beggars huddled in doorways.

  With her new playmate, Bing learned to speak the Shanghai dialect, which was similar to her Suzhou dialect. Bing found Shanghai pronunciation to be harsh-sounding compared to the soft lilt of Suzhou speech. According to Auntie Fong, the doctor, the Suzhou dialect was so mellifluous that women from that canalled city were considered to be the loveliest in all of China.

  Other friends of Mama’s, also nurses, sometimes stayed overnight in their one-room home. It was too dangerous for women to travel home alone, especially when nightfall approached. Anyone lucky enough to have a place to stay, no matter how temporary or crowded, made room for friends and relatives in need. Sometimes the women slept in shifts, occupying all available space night and day. At those times, Bing slept on the floor. She didn’t mind. The women were all kind to her, as if she were really Mama’s daughter, never ridiculing her the way the servants had. On occasion, Mama or the aunties took her around Shanghai by rickshaw, pedicab, or tram to visit the big department stores on Nanjing Road, the beautiful parks in the treelined French Concession, and the ancient City God Temple, set amid the narrow, winding lanes of the Chinese walled city.

  After she had spent a few months in Shanghai with Mama and the aunties, removed fro
m the taunts of the servants, the protective shell that contained Bing’s sadness seemed to crack ever so slightly. There were brief flashes when she let herself imagine that she could possibly continue to live as Mama Hsu’s daughter in this strange and exciting city. When Bing had first arrived in Shanghai, she had often been both startled and thrilled to see men who resembled her baba. Then she’d sink into the disappointment of her mistake. But after nearly a year in Shanghai, she understood how difficult it would be to spot her father on the city’s crowded streets. In her darkest moments, she wondered if the Japanese had attacked Changzhou and if her baba and family were still alive. There was no one she could ask.

  As the Japanese occupation dragged on into a second year and the enemy soldiers grew more arrogant and aggressive, Bing overheard Mama and the aunties talk about leaving Shanghai to join the Nationalist government in the deep interior of “Free China,” so named because it was not under Japanese occupation. One day in December 1938, Mama received a message via an undercover Nationalist agent who worked with her husband in Chongqing, the distant wartime capital. The plainclothes messenger spoke in a whisper, making hardly a rustle as he came and went. Mama warned Bing not to tell anyone that such a man had stopped by. His message was simple: Mama Hsu’s husband wanted her to join him in Chongqing. The man told Mama that the trip would be very difficult, a journey of more than a thousand miles through enemy territory and across battle lines. Traveling on any route was dangerous: The Japanese were bombing the free, unoccupied regions while the retreating Chinese Nationalists were blowing up bridges and rails to prevent them from falling under Japanese control. The plan was for Mama Hsu to accompany the undercover agent when he traveled back to Chongqing.

  Bing noticed a change in Mama. Instead of being cheery and bright, she seemed worried and distant. Soon enough, Bing learned the reason. Three years had gone by since Mama Hsu had adopted Bing, but she still had not told her husband about the girl who called her Mama. How then could she take Bing to live with them in Chongqing?

  The nine-year-old had assumed that she would be going to Chongqing. But Mama presented her with a terrible choice: Bing could come along with Mama Hsu on the dangerous journey, which would be many times more arduous for a child, Mama told her. Or Bing could stay in Shanghai, and Mama Hsu would find her a new family to live with. “It’s your choice. Which do you prefer?” she asked.

  The old hole in Bing’s heart ripped open again. Her sadness and shame at being an unwanted girl had never truly left her, and now it came flooding back. She could no longer remember where she had lived in Changzhou. She didn’t know her own birth date. The names and faces of her first family—even her baba’s—had gradually sifted from her memory. But she was certain of one thing: If Mama really wanted her, she would never have posed such a question. A real mother would take her real daughter with her—that much Bing knew.

  It took only a few seconds for Bing to answer. She shrugged her small shoulders and stiffened the shell around her heart. Then she gave the answer she thought Mama wanted to hear: “I guess I’ll stay in Shanghai.”

  When Mama didn’t try to dissuade her, the heartbroken girl knew she had been right.

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  THE NEXT FEW DAYS were a blur as Mama prepared to leave for Chongqing while looking for a new home for Bing. One of the aunties spotted an ad in a newspaper: “Shanghai family wishes to adopt a girl.” Mama called the number, and soon a smartly dressed woman named Huiling Woo appeared at their door. Mama and Miss Woo sat at the table. So did Auntie Fong and Auntie Rose. Bing stood nearby, watching and listening intently. While the women sipped tea in the small room, Bing tried to appear casual as she scanned the visitor. To her eyes, Miss Woo was as poised and as beautiful as Mama Hsu, but there was something different about her. She was more like the pale-skinned foreign ladies Bing sometimes saw ordering store clerks and servants around. Unlike Mama, Miss Woo wore a qipao that seemed like a second skin around her body, and her face was carefully painted, with rouged lips and cheeks, blue shadows on her eyelids, black eyebrows drawn in perfect arches.

  Miss Woo said that she lived with her mother but was going to be married soon. She was looking for a girl to adopt, not a xiao yatou housemaid. The girl would be a daughter to her mother and a younger sister to her. Bing could tell that although Miss Woo was a bit younger than Mama and the aunties, she seemed mature and worldly. She spoke loudly and was more direct in her manner compared to their gentler Suzhou ways. She had a Shanghai style and attitude that gave her a confidence that verged on haipai, the Shanghai arrogance that Mama Hsu and the aunties sometimes joked about. But haipai was a good trait for a woman trying to survive in Shanghai, they all had to admit.

  “Bing is a bright child and has attended school for three years. Her education has been interrupted by the war. It’s very important that she resume,” Mama Hsu said to Miss Woo. “Will you promise to send her to school?”

  Miss Woo said that she herself had completed middle school and attended college for a year, until the Japanese war. She promised to continue Bing’s education. With that vow, Mama was convinced that Bing would be in good hands. It was decided. Bing would go to live with Miss Woo.

  Bing waited expressionless, not happy or sad. Numb. This was how she had felt when the mean servants maligned her, when other children ridiculed her, when she gave up looking for her baba. She had no expectations, no wishes, no fears. Miss Woo seemed as good as anyone she might be sent to live with. Going with Miss Woo was better than going to live in the village with a servant. Better than landing on the street as a beggar. At least she would be able to go to school again.

  That night, Mama packed a small bundle of clothing for Bing and took her to the apartment where Miss Woo lived with her mother. It was a short distance away, in the French Concession. They climbed the stairs to the second-floor apartment in a large house near French Park. Huiling Woo’s mother was a small, hunched-over woman who said little as she looked Bing over. Her hair was pulled tightly back, and she wore a traditional matron’s qipao that made her look as severe as Huiling was modern.

  Since the Woo family appeared to have a decent home for Bing, Mama Hsu was satisfied to leave her. The family even had a telephone—a sign of well-being in such a volatile time. Before Mama said goodbye, she took Bing aside and held her hands. “I’m sorry that I can’t bring you along with me, but it is good luck for you to be joining the Woo family before the start of the New Year. Miss Woo promised that she will take good care of you and send you to school. Just in case, I’ve asked Auntie Fong and Auntie Rose to check up on you. If you ever need to find me, you can go to my uncle’s big house in Suzhou; he’ll know how to reach me.”

  Bing nodded. Mama Hsu gave her the address to memorize, and Bing repeated it back.

  “Be a good girl, and do as Miss Woo asks,” Mama Hsu said. Then she walked out the door. Gone. Just like Bing’s father. She didn’t cry this time. She was older, and she knew better than to expect anything for herself. She locked the sadness and hurt into a dark place. That would make the pain go away.

  Miss Woo put Bing’s things in a cabinet and showed her where she would sleep: on a bedroll on the floor next to her mother’s bed. “Bing, now you are part of the Woo family. You can call me Elder Sister, and you will call my mother Ma. She is your mother now.”

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  AT TWENTY, HUILING WOO was eleven years older than Bing and the kind of Shanghai woman who bowled people over with her strong personality and big-talking ways. In addition to the Shanghai dialect, she spoke enough English, Japanese, and French in her throaty, cigarette-smoke voice to command attention in any crowded room. Elder Sister seemed to love the good times, nightlife, and opportunities that Shanghai had to offer. She went out almost every night, leaving Bing to stay with Ma.

  Soon after Bing moved in, Elder Sister threw a welcome party in the apartment, inv
iting her close friends and family members to meet her adopted sister. She hired a cook to prepare all of the delicacies that Shanghai was known for: succulent lion’s head meatballs, chewy nian gao rice cake, tender five-layered pork belly, and steaming hot xiao long bao, the special Shanghai soup dumplings. Ma’s sisters came—Big Abu and Small Abu, along with Auntie Li, Ma’s eldest daughter, and her children. There were also several of Elder Sister’s girlfriends, dressed in the latest Shanghai fashions. They were all there to meet Bing and welcome her into their family.

  “This is a happy day for the Woo family; we have a new daughter and a new sister. Welcome to Bing!” Elder Sister announced, her voice booming over the din. “I hope you will all show her every kindness and treat her as your own kin, for she has joined our Woo family.”

  Bing was so surprised she could hardly eat the fancy food. She could never have imagined a party just for her. And unlike the situation in her last mother’s household, with the Woos at least there would be no ambiguity. Everyone knew she was the adopted daughter and sister. Bing was both embarrassed and relieved to have it out in the open. Still, the party couldn’t fill the empty place that her baba used to inhabit. She felt a pang, too, for Mama Hsu and the Suzhou aunties. And no party could erase the shame she felt in being abandoned. Not once but twice.

  One day, Auntie Fong, Bing’s Suzhou mother’s friend, stopped by the Woos’ flat. As usual, she was dressed in a man’s Western-style suit, with a gray fedora on her head.

  “I’ve come to see how you’re doing. Are you going to school?” she asked. Bing answered yes. Elder Sister had enrolled her in Nan Guang primary school in the French Concession. It was so close by that Bing could see the children playing in the schoolyard from the apartment window.

  But Bing didn’t tell Auntie Fong about the other changes in her life. In Suzhou, servants had taken care of her every need. At the Woo apartment, it was different. Not only did she have to quickly learn how to wash, dress, and feed herself, but she also had to attend to Ma. Bing had never known anyone so demanding. Whenever Ma shouted,“Bing!” the nine-year-old was expected to bring her hot tea, pound on her back, straighten up the apartment—whatever Ma wanted.