Last Boat Out of Shanghai

by Helen Zia

  Richard King (San Francisco)

  Maria Lee Koh (Seattle)

  Rosalyn Koo (San Mateo, California)

  C. F. Kwok (Annandale, Virginia)

  Frank Kwok (Foster City, California)

  Julia Lauh (San Mateo, California)

  Lily Loh and Frank Lee (San Francisco)

  Ming Cho Lee (New York)

  Vera Lee (Shanghai)

  Vic Lee (San Francisco)

  Sueyung Li (San Francisco)

  Zichong Li (Shanghai)

  Kenneth C. Liang (Hawthorne, California)

  Florence Lin (Walnut Creek, California)

  Julia C. Lin (New York)

  Annabel Annuo Liu (Wallingford, Pennsylvania)

  Henry and Theresa Hsu Liu (Farmington Hills, Michigan)

  Maria Liu (Shanghai)

  Herbert Ma (Taipei)

  Kenneth Pai / Bai Xianyong (Santa Barbara, California)

  Benny Pan (Queens, New York)

  Lo-Lo Zhang and Sandy Pan (Burlingame, California)

  Y. C. Pan (Beijing)

  Y. K. Pei and Mary Li Pei (Beijing)

  Xiaohong Shao (Beijing)

  George Shen (Atherton, California)

  Linda Shen (Shanghai)

  Yip Shen (San Francisco)

  Charlie Sie (Palos Verdes Estates, California)

  Margaret Soong (Riverdale, New York)

  Myra dos Remedios Souza (San Francisco)

  Mary Ann Sun (Berkeley, California)

  Ronald Sun (Walnut Creek, California)

  Mary Koo Tai (Kona, Hawaii)

  Jack Tang (Hong Kong)

  Nancy Tang Francis (Atherton, California)

  Nellie Sung Tao (Vancouver)

  James Tong (Shanghai)

  Frances Tsu (San Francisco)

  Miling Tsui (New York)

  Tung Chee-Hwa (Hong Kong)

  Reginald Van (Hong Kong)

  Wang Yi-fang (Shanghai)

  C. S. and Loretta Wang (New York)

  Mary Wang (Oyster Bay, New York)

  Jeannette Wei (Foster City, California)

  Margot Chou Wei (Silver Spring, Maryland)

  Alma Wen (Gaithersburg, Maryland)

  Mary Wong (Queens, New York)

  Yungfi Wong (Long Island City, New York)

  Diane Tang Woo (New York)

  Wu Lao (Shanghai)

  Alyce Wu (Los Angeles, California)

  Jin Wu (Washington, D.C.)

  Stanley and Vivian Wu (Moraga, California)

  Xu Zhouyi (Shanghai)

  Dongsheng Yan (Shanghai)

  Linda Tsao Yang (Davis, California)

  Marlene Yang (Foster City, California)

  Peter Quai Yang (Hong Kong)

  Richard Lin Yang (Shanghai)

  T. C. and Joan Yao (Moraga, California)

  Y. C. Yao (Beijing)

  Taofu Ying (Hong Kong)

  Matilda Young (San Francisco, California)

  Beilin Woo Zia (Walnut Creek, California)

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  TO HELP FIND SHANGHAI exodus survivors, a corps of enthusiastic volunteers emerged serendipitously, with everyone querying families, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, coworkers, and random strangers for potential interview subjects. My sincere gratitude to all, many of whom were themselves children of Shanghai emigrants whose descendants now number in the many millions; my apologies to anyone I may have missed: Anthony Chan, Connie Chan, David Chan, Sue Chan, Ann Mei Chang, Dallas Chang, Claire Chao, Arthur Chen, Steve Cheng, Allan Chiang, Anthony Chiu, Renee Chow, Helen Doo, Maureen Fan, Kip Fulbeck, Gloria Holt Hartman, Kathy Hsiao, Jay Hsu, Lee Hsu, Wendy Hsu, Victor H. Hwang, M. Jean Johnston, Daphne Kwok, Jane Leung Larsen, Benson Lee, Kathy Wah Lee, Maya Lin, Wendy Lin, Andrea Liu, Betty Ming Liu, Jennifer Liu, Leo Martinez, Jeannie Park, Rachel Sha, Xiaohong Shao, Bing Shen, Eugenie Shen, George Sing, Amy Sommers, Benedict and Jane Tai, Minna Tao, Mi Ling Tsui, Rachel Wahba, Lulu Chow Wang, Alfred Wen, Andy Wong, Nancy Wong, Robin Wu, Tim Wu, Philip Yau, Albert Yee, Laura Wen-Yu Young, and Matilda Young.

  This book might not have made the fragile transition from cherished idea to a real book project without the encouragement of journalists Martha Shirk, who first suggested I apply for a Fulbright to kickstart my research in China, and Yuen-Ying Chan, the director of Hong Kong University’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre. I also received early support from feminist writer Robin Morgan; academics John Kuo Wei Tchen, formerly of New York University, now Rutgers University, Felix Guttierez of the University of Southern California, Barbara Bundy and Jeff Brand of the University of San Francisco, Dingli Shen of Fudan University, and Paul Levine of Shantou University; Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch; and journalist Julie Chao. With guidance from David Adams of the Institute of International Education, and the sponsorship of Zhang Chunbai Chen, at East China Normal University, I am most grateful for the Fulbright Scholar award that launched my research in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

  Essential advice, information, and contacts for my research visits to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and elsewhere came from Anni Chung of Self-Help for the Elderly; Wang & Wang principals Laura Wen-Yu Young and Francis Wang; writers King-Kok Cheung, Stella Dong, William Poy Lee, Russell Leung, Shawna Yang Ryan, and Laura Tyson Li; China expert Diane Tang Woo; Sandy Pan and the St. John’s University Alumni Association; Taiwanese advocates Anne Huang and Ho Chie Tsai; and visionary Rosalyn Koo, who introduced me to the McTyeire School for Girls alumnae and the Spring Bud Project of the 1990 Institute that educated one thousand girls in rural China. A number of organizations provided tremendous assistance to my research, including the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in San Francisco, most especially press director Manfred Peng and senior press officer Janet Chang. I also thank the Organization of Chinese Americans; Museum of Chinese in America; Chinese Historical Society of America; Committee of 100 and its former president John Fugh, public affairs director An Ping, research director Yong Lu, with special thanks to its members Richard King, Betty Lee Sung, Lulu Chow Wang, Frank Wu, Shirley Young; Association of Asian American Studies; Asian American Journalists Association; Chinese American Association of Rossmoor. Many thanks to Craig Chinn for connecting me to the annual reunion of the China National Aviation Corporation.

  Invitations to lecture in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Canada allowed me to cast a wider research net after my Fulbright fellowship ended; my gratitude goes to Richard Arnold at the Taipei American School; Wu Bing of the Beijing Foreign Studies University; Asia Society of Hong Kong; U.S.-China Educational Trust and Hon. Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch; New York University in Shanghai; and special thanks to Peter Herford, Yuen-Ying Chan, Ching-Ching Ni, and James MacDougall of Shantou University in Guangdong for bringing me to teach in China a number of times over the course of writing this book. Historian Henry Yu, of St. John’s College at the University of British Columbia, invited me to be a Distinguished Johannean Visiting Scholar and connected me to the college’s oral history project involving St. John’s University alumni in western Canada. I must also thank the Sea Change–Gaea Fellowship in Provincetown, Massachusetts, for allowing me to be their first writer in residence, in a creative and LGBT-supportive atmosphere that opened my mind to the possibility of this book.

  In Shanghai, journalism and law graduate Emily Xuxuan Xu brought her indispensable energy, dedication, and friendship to the research and transl
ations. The gracious Lily Loh Lee, whose family exodus took her to Taiwan, Hong Kong, San Francisco, and back to Shanghai, lent her deep knowledge of China’s culture to my research. Sixian Deng and her sister Sizhen Chan, third generation Shanghai natives of the Cantonese diaspora, became good friends and invaluable guides to the city’s folkways. Matilda Young, a former resident and Shanghai emigrant to Hong Kong and the United States, shared her knowledge, family story, and circle of friends, especially Dean Ho of Honolulu. Many other kind people assisted me in Shanghai in significant ways, including Tess Johnston, who made available her trove of historical books, documents, and wealth of knowledge. Sociologist Lu Hanlong, former institute director with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, offered his knowledge and family’s story. Thanks also to author Lynn Pan Ling; Amanda Miu; Vera Cai Lee; McTyeire alumnae Wang Yifang and Xu Zhouyi, who took me on a nostalgic tour of the Shanghai Number 3 Girls School, showing it to me as they had known it when they were girls. Richard Lin Yang provided extensive details of his exodus journeys and gave me a DVD of his documentary, The China Chronicles, about the flight of millions from China’s coasts to its interior during the war with Japan. Other kind people in Shanghai include chef Olivia Wu; architect Anne Warr; Princeton alumni David Wu and Sam San-Kong Fang; the Explore Shanghai Heritage expatriate group, especially writer Barbara Koh, a generous daughter of the exodus.

  In Hong Kong: my thanks to the Chinese University of Hong Kong vice chancellor Lawrence Lau and the Universities Service Centre for China Studies staff for naming me a research scholar with access to their excellent facilities. My carrel at the University Service Centre was near that of historian Suzanne Pepper, who loaned me the bound volumes from the 1950s of U.S. consular monitoring reports on Chinese media that she rescued from a dumpster. I am grateful to Eugenie Shen, a child of the Shanghai exodus; historians Betty Peh-t’i Wei, John M. Carroll, Elizabeth Sinn, and sociologist Wong Siu Lun; law professor Lucetta Kam, who showed me the old sites of Shanghai refugees and exiles; Hong Kong’s first Chief Executive, Tung Chee-hwa; Alice King; John Dolfin; Ann Marden; Ting Fong Lee of the Dui Hua Foundation; Tom Gorman of the American Chamber of Commerce; and numerous alumni of McTyeire, St. Mary’s, Aurora, and Lester schools and of St. John’s and Jiao Tong universities and others, several of which are listed previously as interview subjects.

  In Taiwan: Academia Sinica historians Jiu-jung Lo and Chien-ming Yu generously met with me about issues faced by women in the post–civil war period, and thanks to Professor Lo for taking me to monuments to those who resisted martial law. Thanks also to Jean-Lien Chen, president of St. John’s University in Taiwan, who welcomed me to a tour of her campus; artist Ya-Ping Lin, who introduced me to Old Taipei and military dependents’ villages; Judge Herbert Ma; Anne Huang’s sister Wei Lun, for taking me on an old train route to see the lives and culture of rural Taiwanese.

  Elsewhere in China, thanks to Benedict and Jane Tai, who kindly hosted me in Beijing, and to Sixian Deng, who accompanied me to Wuxi and Changzhou in search of the area where Bing’s birth family had lived.

  I am grateful to many friends in academia who assisted me in countless ways. Besides those already mentioned, thanks go to scholars Mary Yu Danico, of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; Wei Li, Arizona State University; Christopher Lee, University of British Columbia; Gregory Chow of Princeton University and Paula Chow, founding director of its International House; and several historians: Madeline Hsu at the University of Texas, Austin, who invited me to her conference on TransPacific China in the Cold War; Xiaojian Zhao, of the University of California, Santa Barbara; Gordon H. Chang, at Stanford University; Virginia Yans, professor emeritus at Rutgers University; Emily Honig and Gail Hershatter, of the University of California, Santa Cruz; Wen Hsin Yeh, of the University of California, Berkeley; Charlotte Brooks, Columbia University; Evelyn Hu DeHart, Brown University; Franklin Odo, Amherst College; John Cheng, Binghamton University; Wang Zheng, University of Michigan; Betty Lee Sung, professor emerita of City University of New York; and Philip and Sarah Choy, with the Chinese Historical Society of America.

  A number of leading Chinese scholars met with me in China during my months as a Fulbright Scholar: with special thanks to Zhang Zhongli, of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and a senior scholar of the history of modern Chinese cities, who gave me his demographic estimates of class breakdown in the Shanghai of the late 1940s to help gauge the potential size of the Shanghai exodus; Chen Zishan, of East China Normal University; Ma Jun and Ding Xinghao of the Shanghai Academy of American Studies; Feng Xiaocai, Fudan University; Luo Keren of Fudan University invited me to his conference on Hua ren, the Chinese diaspora; S. J. Chan, a scholar on the Su-Zhe (Kiangsu-Chekiang) associations of Hong Kong.

  My gratitude goes to several accomplished people who translated various research materials into English: In addition to those previously noted are Maria Lee Koh; John Shing-chit Yu; Xenia Chiu and Gang Li, both of whom were students at the University of British Columbia. A number of excellent student translators at Shantou University included W. J. Gary Huang, Leah Liu, Jo Jo Huang, Jiayi Keri Xu, Liyi Luis Lu, Ying Helen Liu, Shanshan Lu, Xiuxia Anci Feng, Pingping Della Liang, Bihui Alice Huang, Ziyan Wind Zhang, and Lynn Cheung. Thanks also to Samantha Duarte and Gwendolyn S. Wells, research assistants for Mary Yu Danico at the Asian American Transnational Research Initiative of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

  Certain libraries and archives served as veritable temples of knowledge for this book: Shanghai Main Library; Library of Congress; Shanghai Municipal Archives; Old China Hands Archive at California State University, Northridge, with its founder Robert Gohstand; Hoover Institution Library and Archives; National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C., New York City, and San Bruno, California, and its archivist Marisa Louie; the Archives of the Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas; the microfilm and special collections of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong; Regional Oral History Archives of the University of California, Berkeley, and its former director, Ann Lage; Museum of Chinese in America and Yue Ma, director of collections; Bob Hope Library Archives on Ellis Island and archivists George Tselos and Barry Moreno; CV Starr East Asian Library at the University of California, Berkeley; Old China Hands Reading Room Cafe in Shanghai; the Oakland Public Library’s main branch periodicals room; and the San Francisco Maritime Museum and Archives.

  Many friends and family members sustained me with their support and kindnesses in every way, and I owe them my heartfelt gratitude. Daniel Else, a former U.S. Navy officer and brothers Hoyt and Hugo Zia, former officers in the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force, respectively, answered questions about military organization and warfare. Donna Kotake dug through boxes of old slides for a few that she took on the inside of Tilanqiao prison during a study tour of China eons ago. I received helpful feedback from Sally Lehrman, Teresa Moore, Venise Wagner, and Lisa Schoonerman, who read very early pages, as well as Kate Morris, M. Jean Johnston, and Linda Morris, who combed through later drafts. My sister Humane Zia read countless versions, giving unfailingly good suggestions, while her spouse, Kevin Else, provided excellent technical support. Steve Cheng, whose father was a stranded medical school graduate of St. John’s University, gave me detailed notes with his keen insights. I must also thank Steve for encouraging me to file a Freedom of Information Act request for my father’s FBI and INS files when Steve was producing Bill Moyers’s Becoming American: The Chinese Experience; the files contained my parents’ deportation hearings—and the INS decision not to deport because of the harm it would inflict on their young American-born children. Even in the depths of the Cold War and McCarthy hysteria, it was unthinkable to separate children from parents.

  I owe tremendous thanks to my editor, Susanna Porter, whose infinite patience and wisdom guided me to find the right narrative; her brilliant, meticulous editing invariably made this book stronger. Gratitud
e always to Sydelle Kramer, my talented and knowledgeable literary agent, who gave crucial advice and support for this book. Many thanks also to Susanna’s good-natured and omnicompetent associate editor, Emily Hartley.

  Throughout the long journey of this book, my spouse, Lia, has been my greatest supporter, nurturer, cheerleader, and best friend, tolerating my absences for research and the necessary solitude for writing. She has read and reread every version of every draft with enthusiasm, giving me the gifts of her suggestions, encouragement, affection, and laughter. My gratefulness to you, Lia, knows no bounds.

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  WORDS CANNOT CONVEY THE esteem I hold for the book’s central individuals—Annabel Annuo Liu, Benny Pan, Beilin Bing Woo, and Ho Chow, as well as Ho’s wife, Theresa—who have spent countless hours with me, answering my intrusive questions and entrusting me to tell the truth of their joys and woes. Over the years, they have grown frail, and many more of their generation have passed away, including my mother, Bing, who died unexpectedly as my manuscript neared completion. To my sorrow, my dear mother and other brave tao nan did not live to see others find meaning from what they shared in this book. But their stories continue on. Even as I write this, Annabel Annuo Liu has penned an essay for her public radio station, drawing emotional parallels between her childhood separation from her family and the current-day hostilities against immigrants.