Journey Across the Four Seas (32 page)

For once Hok-Ching’s fear was well founded. Southeast Asia Trading was in the red and was relying on the
Hong Kong
branch to bail it out. Hok-Ching panicked. As always, whenever the sun got too hot for comfort, he ran to the shelter of the big tree: his father.

Baba had done very well since he returned to the Chiang Kai-Shek fold. After taking up various government posts, he’d once again ascended to the position of Deputy Prime Minister, the highest possible for a nonKuomintang person. As usual, he had a following of admirers. One of them was a wealthy businessman who worshipped him as if he were some kind of national treasure. This man was in the process of establishing a flour mill. When he heard that Hok-Ching was considering moving to
Taiwan
, he offered him a managerial position in the new company. All the plans for the mill had been completed. The only item missing was the government’s approval, and the owner didn’t foresee any problem. Well, of course he didn’t. He thought that the moment the Deputy Prime Minister’s son stepped on board, the permit would be issued the next day.

For three months I fought my husband. We were comfortably settled in
Hong Kong
. The children were enrolled in the finest schools, and even Patrick’s studies were chugging along on the track I’d laid for him. Even if Southeast Asia Trading were to fold, there had to be other solutions than uprooting the family. Both Hok-Ching and I were educated and experienced, and we already had a financial base on which to build. Many people with fewer advantages could make it on their own. Why couldn’t we?

My biggest objection was over the children’s education. They’d been going to missionary schools where the instruction was mainly in English, whereas in
Taiwan
instruction was completely in Chinese—Mandarin, at that. Raised in
Hong Kong
, my children spoke Cantonese. How were they going to adapt? The worst headache was Patrick. He was fifteen going on sixteen, the draft age in
Taiwan
. Immediately upon arrival, he would be thrown in the army for a year. From what I’d heard, the teenage sons of affluent families had all gone overseas to study. Yet here we were, thinking of delivering our son like a lamb into the tiger’s mouth.

But nothing deterred Hok-Ching. He flew by himself to
Taiwan
. While there, he sent a letter of resignation to Uncle Ben. I was still holding out, reporting to work at Southeast Asia Trading every day. If need be, we would keep separate homes, and we wouldn’t be the first couple to do so. Then a letter came from Baba. This was the first time he’d written solely to me. His flowery opening about the prosperity of the motherland and the privilege of returning to her embrace left me dry-eyed, but when he appealed to my loyalty to my husband, I was moved. His insight cut straight to my core: without my support, Hok-Ching would destroy himself. Baba didn’t have to say much to convince me. Ever since I married this man, I’d acted as his personal firefighter. He lights a fire, I put it out. He lights another, I put it out again. If I didn’t run to him once more, he would surely burn. My efforts of the last sixteen years would be for nothing.

The decision was the toughest I’d ever faced. The choice was between my husband and my son. If I moved to
Taiwan
, I could save one but ruin the other. The quandary consumed me for days. At a lunch with friends, one of them came up with a suggestion. This was Dr. Huang, a physician and a gregarious man whom I’d known since Chengtu. "Why don’t you go with your children except Patrick?" he said. "He can stay with us in
Hong Kong
. I have three girls around his age. They’ll be good company for each other." His wife nodded, her small, rounded features exuding kindness and tolerance. In all the years I’d known her, I’d never seen her frown.

I went home and thought about it. Patrick would be entering Form Four, just one year before the standardized tests. If he passed that hurdle, he would be eligible to compete for a place in university. This was a crucial time for him. I had shed blood and tears to get him to where he was. Over my dead body would I let the army or anyone disrupt his education. After mulling it over many times, each time erupting in tears over the thought of abandoning my child, I accepted Dr. Huang’s offer. My only consolation was that I was abandoning him to a good home. Thus, with a heavy heart I left Patrick behind and flew with my four other children to
Taipei
. It was the summer of 1963.

TAPE TEN

JOURNEYING ACROSS THE
FOUR
SEAS

1

Baba, Hok-Ching, and an entourage of uniformed personnel were standing by on the tarmac. I descended the plane, waving like a head of state visiting a foreign country. After we finished bowing to each other politely, a stewardess guided us into the VIP lounge. While the children and I sat down to refreshments, others ran around stamping our passports and claiming our luggage. Living in
Hong Kong
all these years as a nonentity, I’d forgotten the fanfare of officialdom. The special treatment is like opium. It makes you feel wonderful at the moment, but in the long term it’s bad for your health.

Sitting upright on his chair, Baba said to me, "I’m very happy that you’ve come. It’s time that the children return to the motherland.
Hong Kong
schools are good, but they don’t teach the children to love their country. From now on, they will learn to be true and proper Chinese."

I nodded obediently, but inside every part of me was bristling. I was born and bred in
Hong Kong
, yet I considered myself as Chinese as Sun Yat-Sen. The patriot who overthrew the Manchus grew up in
Hawaii
. Being Chinese was a state of the heart and mind. My children could be living anywhere in the four seas and still be Chinese.

I glanced over at Hok-Ching. His lips curled in a smug smile. It was a smile that I hadn’t seen since
Shanghai
and
Nanking
. He’d been gone for only two months, and yet I could see a significant change in him. He no longer twitched and jerked like a frightened chicken. He sat contentedly next to Baba, his face glowing in the borrowed light.

Baba turned his attention to the children. One by one, he asked them about their schoolwork. I proudly watched the exchange. They were all top students. Baba’s little eyes were twinkling. He was never one to hide his likes and dislikes. Already I could hear him tell everyone that these were his brightest grandchildren and I his most virtuous daughter-in-law. He would heap praises on us, and the other relatives would be sick with jealousy. I caught the smug smile on my lips and realized that I was once again caught in Baba’s web.

"Now I know about everyone," he said in his booming voice. Addressing my children with the Chinese names he’d given them, he pointed at each one in the order of their age. "Man-Kuk is good at languages, Tai-Loi likes math, Tai-Ying likes every subject equally, and Cum-Lun doesn’t like any subject except recess. Ha ha ha!" His paunch rose and fell. He was wearing a dark blue western suit, and it hung on him with as much aplomb as a traditional robe.

In spite of his flaws, I couldn’t help admiring my father-in-law. He was seventy-five years old, yet his energy level wasn’t much different from the first time I met him. He was still working as the deputy prime minister, as well as writing and lecturing in his spare time. His voice was as robust as before, his laughter like a cannon that could be heard far down the street. He claimed that all his teeth were his. I believed him because they were too yellow to be dentures. He also claimed that he’d never seen a doctor. I also believed him because his ego would never allow him to admit weakness, which was how he viewed any kind of illness.

Baba was indeed a most unusual man. His character was as strong as the sun, and the rest of us were planets spinning around him. I’d spent most of my marriage struggling to get out of his orbit, and now I was back in the sphere of his influence. As he walked out of the building, a swarm of people revolved around him, some running ahead to open the door, others standing back, bowing, and saluting. Swirling and being swirled, I was swept into the car.

The ride from the airport confirmed my earlier impressions of the city. I’d visited
Taipei
before and had always thought of it as a backwater compared to
Hong Kong
. The streets were quiet, the
pling pling
of pedicabs heard more often than the honking of motorcars. The buildings were boring and had the dull, earthen patina of bomb shelters. Posters loomed overhead, exhorting people to get ready to invade the mainland. So many years after the loss to the communists, the Kuomintang was still holding on to the belief that they were the rightful owners of
China
. War and sacrifice, not peace and prosperity, dominated their minds. As a visitor, I’d taken in the scenery with curiosity, but now seeing it through the eyes of a resident, the country seemed outlandish, out of place and out of time.

After stopping briefly at Baba’s, we were driven to our new home. The house that Hok-Ching had rented was in a sleepy neighborhood. It was a typical Taiwanese house, heavily influenced by
Japan
, the former colonial master. As I’d been here before, I knew what to expect. The children, however, eyed uncertainly the shelf full of plastic slippers at the foyer. I told them to pretend that they were at a Japanese restaurant. They were to pick out a pair that fit them and change out of their shoes.

Shuffling in my oversize slippers, I stepped into an already furnished house. Hok-Ching had also hired a local farm girl to cook and clean and a retired soldier to pedal us around town. Hok-Ching explained that we would have to make do with a pedicab for the time being. The flour mill was currently paying him a small nominal income, but once operations started in a month or so, he would be getting his fair share. We would be able to afford a car then.

He went on to show us the rest of the house. We followed him around, listening to him point out the Japanese-style sliding doors, the tatami floor in one room, and the courtyard in the back that would allow us to keep a dog. At the mention of a pet, the children loosened up and started discussing how to divide the bedrooms among themselves. I was delighted that they were delighted, but for some reason I couldn’t shed the weight in my heart. Something was bothering me, but I didn’t know what it was.

After a while, the children reported their decision. The three girls had staked out two of the bedrooms, and Joe would have one to himself. What about Patrick? I caught myself before the words flew out. A wrench twisted my heart. I fled to my room.

Hok-Ching came after me. "You don’t like the house?" he said.

"It’s not that. I just thought of Patrick. My home can’t be complete without all my children."

Hok-Ching grimaced. His eyes squeezed shut. When he opened them, they were swimming in tears. It was entirely his fault, and he knew it.

I slept fitfully in the strange bed that night. Every time I opened my eyes, I thought I was back in my homey apartment on
La Salle Road
. But as the outlines of the furniture registered in my muddled brain, the disappointment was overwhelming. I buried my face in the pillow and wailed in silence. This wasn’t a nightmare. I really had given up everything I cherished to come to this foreign place.

I dragged myself out of bed the next morning. Like it or not, there was plenty of work to be done. School was starting in a month, and my children didn’t speak a word of Mandarin. Hok-Ching had given me the name of a Mandarin teacher. I dialed the number and in my rusty Mandarin asked her to start instruction at my house the next day.

Enrolling the children also needed my urgent attention. I’d thought that Baba could refer them to the reputable schools, but when I approached him about it, he turned a stiff shoulder toward me and looked away. "Everyone has to get in by his own merit," he said.

I was miffed. I wasn’t begging him for favors, but having rushed over here at his insistence, his guidance would be useful. At the same time, I understood why he was so touchy. He’d suffered tremendous buffeting in his political career. Many years ago his enemies had blamed the failure of the gold
y
uan reform on him, putting the loss of the country to the communists squarely on his shoulders. Today, certain members of the Kuomintang were still angry that Chiang Kai-Shek should promote an independent before them. They would use any excuse to accuse Baba of wrongdoing. Considering his sensitive position, I was willing to overlook his coldness. Hok-Ching, however, was less forgiving, and I was once again the peacemaker between him and his father.

No thanks to Baba, I found out that the government had put out many incentives to lure
huachiaos,
or overseas Chinese, back to the motherland. One of them was to grant them admission privileges to the best public schools. Joe, fourteen, and Veronica, thirteen, had no difficulty enrolling in the Number One Boys’ Secondary and Number One Girls’ Secondary. Chris, seven, also got into a premier primary school. Agnes was admitted to the prestigious
Taiwan
University
. It turned out that as a
huachiao,
she was entitled to a place at the national university without so much as an exam. Even Baba didn’t know that.

The next thing was to prepare them physically for school. Aside from uniforms, students below the university level were required to wear their hair according to a strict code. The boys had to have their hair shaved to a military crew cut, and the girls had to have theirs chopped to exactly one centimeter above the ears. I was told that teachers went around with measuring sticks. Those who failed the one-centimeter test were punished. Sitting at the barbershop, I cringed as the barber snipped off Veronica’s silky hair and shaved the nape of her neck to a bluish black. When she got off the chair and turned around to face me, I was in shock. She looked like a prisoner. I could imagine a cell full of girls wearing the same ugly cropped hair, milling around like convicts. Whoever thought of this rule was out to debase the children. I’d been reluctant to come to
Taiwan
. Now, as I looked at the watery film in my daughter’s eyes, my misgivings were turning into revulsion.

I dreaded what school had in store for them. For Joe and Veronica, the day turned out to be long and cruel. Every morning I watched them leave home in the dark. Classes began at
9 am
, but students had to report for janitorial duties two hours before. They had to wipe the desks, mop the floor, and even scrub the worm-infested latrines. At
8 am
they assembled in the schoolyard, where they marched, sang patriotic songs, and listened to speeches about taking back the mainland. This was the absurd dream of old men, and they were brainwashing the children with it.

After a ten-hour day, Joe and Veronica returned for a quick dinner, then went straight into tutorial. I’d hired a top-ranking student at
Taiwan
University
to coach them. My heart ached to see them work so hard, but they needed the extra help to catch up. The standard of Chinese was much higher than what they were used to. Because Chinese was the medium of instruction for every subject, their handicap in this one area became a handicap in all.

Chris was having an easier time, being only in second grade. But a month into the school year, I caught her hitting her palm with a ruler. She began with a tentative pat, but with every strike she got bolder and bolder. I got alarmed when she raised the ruler over her head and brought it down with a thwack.

"What are you doing?" I cried.

She looked at me, unperturbed. "I want to numb my hand, so that when the teacher hits me I won’t feel anything."

"Why did the teacher hit you? You ranked eighth on your last report card. You had very good grades in every subject." Chris was a bright child whose brain was a candle with a flammable wick. One match was all that was needed to light it. She’d adjusted to her new school without trying.

"I got ninety-five points in arithmetic. The teacher hit me five times."

"You missed five points out of a hundred, and you got punished? Was there anyone in the class who didn’t get beaten?"

Chris blurted out a name in Mandarin, the only one out of a class of forty-some. She went on to say, "We all stuck out our hands like this." Chris showed her palm, still red from the self-inflicted beating. "The teacher went down the row with a big stick and…." Whack, whack, whack, Chris demonstrated on herself. I tore the ruler from her hand and confiscated it.

I went back to my room, steaming. The principal would hear of this. The deputy prime minister would have to intervene. But in the back of my mind, I knew it was useless to complain. Baba would only say to me, "This is good discipline for your daughter. The teacher is only encouraging her to strive for perfection. That’s why Taiwanese standards are the highest in the world."

The last time I complained about Joe having to clean the latrines, Baba’s reply was: "Do you know what President Chiang does when he inspects army barracks? First of all, he asks to see the latrine. Once inside, he rolls up his sleeve…." Baba mimed with his own. "Then he puts his hand inside the bowl and swipes the side. If his fingers come out clean, he’ll say, Fine! But if there’s a smear on his fingers, he’ll order the soldiers to get on their knees and scrub it again." Baba didn’t have to go on. His message was clear: if the president of the country is willing to dirty his hands, what right do you have to complain? It was also clear from the bluntness in his eyes that I was slipping in his list of favorite daughters-in-law.

Agnes faced problems of the opposite kind. Her life was too comfortable. Afraid that her Chinese wasn’t good enough for the other departments, she picked English as her major. What a joke! She’d been studying English since nursery school, while her Taiwan-bred classmates had taken only several years of rudimentary English. Since kindergarten, Agnes’s teachers had been either British or American, and her best friend in primary school was an English girl who eventually moved back to
England
. Agnes’s English was so flawless that if you heard her over the phone, you would never have guessed that this was a Chinese girl speaking. She was miles ahead of her classmates. Nevertheless, when she entered an English speech competition, she captured only second prize. Afterward I overheard many in the audience say they thought she deserved to be first. Of course there was bias among the judges. After all, the first-prize winner was a homegrown woman with a homegrown accent that everyone could understand.