by Helen Zia
The suffocating rules were bad enough, but her father’s disapproving eye was especially drawn to her. She couldn’t do anything right. Even when she did nothing, he found fault in her. Her lips were too thick, her nose ugly; her teeth were bad and her legs too short and stubby. “She just isn’t right,” her father would say about her. Annuo had heard it all before, but in Hangzhou her father had often been away. In Taiwan, her father glared at her constantly. She felt trapped in her own house. The martial law wielded over the entire island now permeated their home as her father channeled to his family, with Annuo as chief scapegoat, the fear and paranoia that had propelled the retreating Nationalists to the island.
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WITH THE MASS EXODUS to Taiwan continuing unabated, Supreme Commander Chiang Kai-shek kept Taiwan on a constant state of high alert. As one newspaper reported, “Taiwan has seen perhaps the greatest influx of population in its history [with] high government officials, rich business men, landlords and precious cargo from panic-stricken Communist-threatened Shanghai [fleeing] to this island.” Vigilance against Communist infiltration was essential, the Nationalist government warned, and every man, woman, and child had to be prepared to defend the island against a Communist invasion.
The ever-present threat of Communist infiltration helped to keep any discontent at bay, as did the fearsome secret police force, which crushed Chinese dissent and suppressed the local Taiwanese population with arrest, abduction, imprisonment, and execution. This harsh Nationalist police state became known as the White Terror, the same name given to Chiang’s extermination campaign against leftists and labor leaders two decades earlier in Shanghai.
Annuo’s father fell right in step with the Nationalists’ obsession with Communist infiltrators and Taiwanese troublemakers. He informed his family that it would be better for them to die than to live under Communism. “If the Red Bandits come to Taiwan, I will kill myself,” he declared. “I’ll jump into the ocean and drown myself. And I will watch all of you jump in first,” he commanded.
With news of each advance of the Red Bandits toward total victory on the mainland, the Nationalists tightened their military grip as the island exiles despaired that they would be next. Even the support of the American government was flagging. Secretary of State George Marshall, who had failed to bring the Nationalists and Communists to an agreement in 1947, had told Congress that it was “unlikely…that any amount of U.S. military or economic aid could make the [Chiang] government capable of reestablishing and then maintaining its control.” Fortunately for the Nationalists, the “China Bloc” of conservative Republicans in Congress tied the China Aid Act of 1948 to the Marshall Plan, procuring nearly $600 million in combined economic and military aid for Chiang’s government.
But gone were the days when Madame Chiang Kai-shek had been invited to address Congress while staying at the White House to drum up support for the Nationalists. Annuo grew accustomed to both anger and despair filling the rooms of their little house: on the one hand, her father’s bitter denunciations of the hated Communists; on the other, her mother’s regret for not persuading her own mother to come with them to Taiwan.
Surrounded by pessimism and gloom, with displaced refugees like her parents mired in their yearning for the life they used to enjoy in Shanghai, Annuo and other young mainlanders could draw only one conclusion: There was no future for them in Taiwan.
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ANNUO HAD TO WAKE up extra early to wait for a public bus to go to school. If she was lucky, eventually one would stop that had room for her to stand amid the sweaty crush. Though she would rather have been riding a bicycle, she was glad to get away to school. Her uniform that proclaimed her admission to the First Girls’ High School was her proud badge of distinction: green blouse with a red tie, black skirt, jacket, and shoes, hair cut short to the ears. Her fellow students came from all over China—and several spoke her native Shanghai dialect. They were easy to spot. Theresa Chen-Louie had skillfully sewed her black skirt from an old pair of her brother’s pants. Its A-line style with pockets was the envy of the school. Theresa, a McTyeire girl, had used her Shanghai style, everyone said. Still unintelligible to Annuo was the local dialect that the several Taiwanese girls spoke, though fortunately for her, classes were taught in Mandarin. The Nationalists had long ago designated the northern dialect as China’s national spoken language. At the end of the day, Annuo would wait for another sweltering bus to take her on the hour-long ride back to machang ding. Many of her classmates visited one another’s homes, but that was still taboo for Annuo.
Her jobless father connected with other idle warriors. They’d spend each day going over the news from the mainland, ruminating over the continuing civil war with the Reds, sharing gossip about the latest arrivals and which factions were in or out of Chiang’s favor. Annuo’s father had plenty of company. By the fall of 1949, General Bai Chongxi and his troops had retreated to Hainan Island; then they dispatched to Taiwan. That was the final defeat, for the mighty Muslim general from southern China had led one of the Nationalists’ fiercest armies. Yet when General Bai arrived in Taiwan with his extended household of seventy-some people, even he found himself adrift on the small island because he was not in the generalissimo’s close circle of trusted confidants. The general’s son, Pai Hsien-yung, who witnessed Shanghai people like his once-powerful father reduced to aimless, dissolute lives, chronicled Taiwan’s displaced and dispossessed in his acclaimed works, Taipei People and Crystal Boys.
New mainlander exiles to Taiwan arrived by boat and plane each day, stoking fears of Communist infiltration. Here, arrivals line up in Jilong, waiting to be vetted, processed, and, with luck, admitted. Many are rejected and sent to points unknown.
Annuo’s father and his cronies constantly discussed possible escape routes off the island in case the unthinkable happened and Taiwan fell to the Communists. Hong Kong and Southeast Asia were too close to China. Hawaii was a favored possibility, but it would be too difficult to get a visa to the American territory. Her father talked about moving the family to Brazil, whose government seemed to be extending open arms to skilled and educated people, including Chinese. Some families left on freighters bound for Singapore, Mombasa, and Cape Town, eventually reaching South America. A girl of Annuo’s age, Vivian Hsu, left with her parents and ten siblings on a two-month journey to São Paulo, intending—but not succeeding—to learn Portuguese while at sea.
Upon hearing of each potential haven, Annuo’s father and his friends hatched new plans. Annuo’s heart sank as her father grew excited about Brazil. How could her escape plan work if they moved yet again, this time to an area even more distant and strange? She hoped it was just bluster, the talk of men with nothing better to do. Her family barely had money to pay for groceries and bus fare, let alone passage to Brazil.
Machang ding was filled with mainlander families like hers. Some claimed that they could hear executioners’ gunshots in the area. Newer arrivals still came every day, packing into already crowded homes with relatives and friends. All were marking their time on an island they had never cared for, nervously waiting for the decisive battle with the Communists that could end in their own annihilation. Countless men, who, like Annuo’s father, had once held prestigious jobs, desperately schemed to get lucrative employment, get the mainland back, and get out. When more enterprising Shanghainese opened small teahouses serving xiao long bao and other regional foods, the exiles spent their days there, drowning in the everlasting sorrow of loss and separation from loved ones, old glory and all things familiar.
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AN OPPORTUNITY AROSE OUT of this dissolute time—for Annuo’s mother. With the millions of refugees on Taiwan, there was a critical shortage of doctors. To keep the lack of medical personnel from becoming a health disaster, a special program was launched to retrain doctors and other nonpracticing health professional
s. Friends and acquaintances urged Annuo’s mother to use her medical training.
In the Japanese-style house with its paper walls, Annuo lay on the tatami late one night, unable to sleep in the heat. Her parents were talking, and she strained to hear her mother’s low voice. “My beloved father sent me to school to do some good,” she said, adding, “and we could use the money.”
Annuo had no problem hearing her father’s response. It was immediate, angry, unequivocal. “If you start working, I will divorce you.”
After that, there was only silence. Annuo wished that her mother would challenge her father’s threat. She recalled her mother’s stories—how she had stopped the foot-binding process that had already damaged her feet and how she had begged to go to school with her brothers. Annuo’s mother had fought to become a doctor, then stifled her dreams to appease Annuo’s father. Yet they had survived the many war years when he was away only because her mother had managed to find work in occupied Shanghai.
But once again, Annuo’s mother acquiesced to her father. He instructed her to learn mah-jongg so that she could better entertain his many guests, and she became addicted to the game. On doctors’ recommendations, she took up smoking to improve her weak heart. Annuo’s father demanded her mother’s constant attention. She seemed to shrink in stature, becoming little more than Annuo’s father’s helpmate. Annuo resolved that she would never let her potential become so diminished. She wanted to use all her talents, whatever they proved to be.
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THERE WAS ONLY ONE THING that her mother couldn’t accept in silence: She couldn’t tolerate sitting on the floor. With surprising insistence, she’d complain that she needed a chair. Every day, at every mealtime, she twisted and fidgeted, looking awkward and uncomfortable. Her legs were too stiff; her broken feet swelled; her dresses were unsuitable, she said. Being forced to sit on the floor, Japanese style, was not only uncivilized but also unacceptable for Chinese who had risked everything to defeat that terrible enemy. She wanted a chair.
Annuo’s father refused to allow her mother to get one, arguing that they wouldn’t be in Taiwan long enough to justify spending their limited money on furniture. It was the only time Annuo saw her mother openly disagree with her father. His unchanging rebuttal: “There’s no point in wasting money when we’ll be home soon.”
One day, Annuo returned from school to a big surprise: On the tatami of the main room were some wicker chairs. Her father had brought them into the little Japanese house. As usual, neither of her parents said a word about it. They acted as though the chairs had been there all along. But Annuo sensed her mother’s satisfaction. She couldn’t remember when her reserved mother had ever looked so pleased.
Annuo and her siblings took turns flopping onto the seats, laughing at the wonderful stiff chairs as they dangled their legs. In the midst of her fun, Annuo suddenly realized that the chairs could mean only one thing. Despite the official propaganda that a Nationalist victory was imminent, her father must have decided that they wouldn’t be leaving Taiwan soon. She would not be returning to her school in Hangzhou. They would not be reuniting with their amah, Zhongying, or other family members. The sobering thought deflated her excitement.
Finally, though, Annuo’s father found a job—to be the director of the fisheries bureau of an American organization. He would be paid in U.S. dollars and would even have the use of a car and driver. Her family’s fortunes greatly improved and they could start repaying their debt to General Han.
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ON OCTOBER 1, 1949, Mao Zedong announced the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) immediately recognized the Communist government, while the United States continued to treat the Republic of China on Taiwan as the sole legitimate government of China.
So it was to Chiang’s great surprise and disappointment that on January 5, 1950, Truman bluntly clarified his position on China and Taiwan:
[The United States does not] have any intention of utilizing its armed forces to interfere in the present situation [in Taiwan]. The United States government will not pursue a course which will lead to involvement in the civil conflict in China. Similarly, the United States government will not provide military aid or advice to Chinese forces on Formosa [Taiwan].
The generalissimo and Madame Chiang’s powerful friends in America’s China lobby roundly attacked what they saw as Truman’s abandonment of China to Mao’s Communists. General Douglas MacArthur disagreed openly with his commander in chief’s unwillingness to attack China. At the same time, Senator McCarthy began to rock the United States with rhetoric that singled out the State Department’s “China Hands” for suspected Communist sympathies.
Truman’s rebuff intensified the Nationalists’ isolation and fears of Communist infiltration. The vise of martial law further tightened as Taiwan became an overt police state. With the island full of soldiers, the hunt for possible subversives was relentless, tightening the generalissimo’s iron grip. Foreign journalists had their visas revoked if they deviated from the official line. There was no room for dissent. The label of “pro-Communist” spelled certain death.
On March 1, 1950, Chiang Kai-shek announced his return to the government’s presidency, forcing out the acting president and further consolidating his control. He declared Taipei to be the “temporary capital of China.” Chiang re-created his mainland government in Taipei, as though the exiled bureaucracy were still running all of China instead of a small island. With ex-governors, high-ranking officers, scholars, and officials lining up for spots on the government payroll, Chiang brought on his own trusted people at every level, pulling the military, party, and government under his authority. The local Taiwanese population found itself even more displaced. A large political prison was built on Green Island, off Taiwan’s eastern coast, to lock up Taiwanese leaders far from their communities. As one businessman declared, “We Taiwanese have been made to feel like slaves to the Nationalists; we represent four-fifths of the population and have little or no say in setting our policy or choosing our leaders.” With their vision of an imminent return to the mainland dashed, the Nationalist government could no longer put off housing the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and their families who huddled in makeshift tarp shelters. Chiang reorganized his army-in-retreat, building large urban residential sectors that his government called “military dependents’ villages.” Each military family was allotted about two hundred square feet, with thousands of them packed into flimsy, boxlike structures.
By concentrating his soldiers and their families into such military dependents’ villages, Chiang was able to claim that his battle-ready troops were set to spring into action and “retake the mainland” at a moment’s notice—with America’s aid. Thousands of Nationalist soldiers began digging fortifications on the small island of Jinmen, barely a mile off the Chinese coast near the port city of Xiamen. From there, the Nationalists could launch their great offensive—and perhaps draw the Communists into a confrontation that would force Truman’s hand.
President Chiang was biding his time, certain that the Cold War between the United States and the USSR would heat up. If another war broke out, he’d use that opportunity to obtain American support and relaunch his armies to retake the mainland. No matter how much Truman disdained the Nationalists, Chiang believed he was America’s only alternative to the Chinese Communists. The island of exiles prepared to wait for America to back them up in an all-out attack on their mutual enemy.
Annuo could see signs of the growing tension everywhere. Nervously, she wondered if another war was coming. On the bus to school, she passed endless streams of patriotic banners exhorting, “We will return to the mainland fighting!” Slogans alluding to classical Chinese literature promised to “return the mountains to the water!” Though the hope of a victorious return to the mainland seemed hollow, Generalissimo Chiang c
ontinued to send bombers to attack Shanghai and other coastal cities.
Nevertheless, America under Truman was cutting its losses in China and withdrawing. Chiang’s Republic of China on the island of Taiwan would have to fend for itself. With the loss of American support, a constant worry gnawed at Annuo: Her father’s threat to drag them all with him into the cold, dark ocean loomed ever possible.
SAN FRANCISCO, 1949
Bing moved briskly through the cool summer air along busy Columbus Avenue in San Francisco. With a tight grip on five-year-old Peter’s hand, she was headed to the sidewalk greengrocers of Chinatown to get some inexpensive food to tide them over until Elder Sister could find a solution to their latest predicament.
A few days earlier, Kristian and ten-year-old Ole had boarded a train to New York, where they would transfer to a Denmark-bound ship. The family was nearing the end of its cash, and Kristian needed to tap into his pension and bank account in Denmark. Once he arrived in Copenhagen, he would wire the money for the others to join him. Before he left, Kristian had reached into his thin leather wallet and handed Elder Sister fifty dollars.
“What is this?” Elder Sister had asked, incredulous. “How long do you think this will last us?”
“I’m sorry, darling, but that’s all I can spare,” he answered calmly. “Ole and I have to get all the way to New York, then Denmark, with barely enough for the tickets. If anyone can make a go of it, you can. At least the room is paid up to the end of the month.”
Elder Sister made no further protest. Kristian was right—she had supported seven family members through the wartime occupation with only her Shanghai charm and savvy. Bing wasn’t worried either—her supremely confident elder sister could do anything.