Escape from Shanghai (21 page)

Upstairs, Bou Bou used to play a game with me. When I did something good or said something funny that pleased her, she’d stop whatever she was doing and hold her finger to her lips. “Shhhh,” she’d say. “Don’t tell anybody, but come into Bou Bou’s room in two minutes. I have a surprise for you.” Then she’d glide off on her tiny bound feet like an angel walking on air.

Naturally, I couldn’t wait the two minutes, so I followed her. Her door was slightly ajar. Bou Bou had a box of chocolates hidden on top of her bureau—just high enough and out of my reach. She took a chocolate out of the box then replaced the box.

“You may come in now,” she said in her small singsong voice.

“Which hand,” she’d ask, holding out both arms.

If I guessed wrong, she’d squeal with delight and show me the chocolate in her other hand. If I guessed correctly, she’d frown as if she had lost the game. In either event, she’d give me the chocolate.

One afternoon, I hadn’t seen her that day, so I went looking for her, hoping to play her game. Her bedroom door was slightly ajar. I peeked in. She was sitting in her chair with her left foot resting on a small low stool. She had taken off her tiny silk shoe and was in the process of unwrapping the gauze bandage from around her foot, something that her maid used to do. She was having a difficult time of it because it was hard for her to bend her back. She couldn’t hold that bent position for long. She’d unwrap one round, then sit back and rest. Then do it again, each time with obvious discomfort.

Having seen enough, I walked into her room, silently sat down on the floor next to her stool and began unwrapping her bandage. She didn’t say a word.

Her foot had been broken at the arch, and her malformed toes had been bent under her foot. In effect, she was walking on her shriveled-up toes.

I looked up at her. “Slide that basin over here,” she said softly. “Use the cloth to wash my foot.”

“Does it hurt, Bou Bou?”

“No, but it smells if I don’t wash it,” she said with a laugh. She gave me a towel. I dried her foot. “Here’s some scent. Rub it on, then you can bandage me again.”

Former Governor Li, his wife, two daughters, two sons, one interpreter and the children’s Amah left China in January, 1947. They traveled First Class on their way to their first stop, America.

We saw them off and wished them well.

The Li’s got an apartment on the West Side of Manhattan. Once their children had been enrolled into the proper schools, the former governor and his wife left on their global tour. First they visited Europe, then South America.

Li was getting his international credentials in preparation for his return to Chiang’s government. True to the Confucian tradition, education would cure all past transgressions. Knowledge equals enlightenment, even for the worst of the sinners. (The ardent revolutionary, Mao Tse-tung, believed in re-education as a means of rehabilitation. This practice still goes on in China today.)

Meanwhile, the political situation China was deteriorating. Chairman Mao’s Army was growing by the day.

The YWCA in Shanghai was a large block of a building built from yellowish-gold slabs of stone. The four-story structure included a square walled-in courtyard guarded by a massive black, wrought iron gate. The concrete courtyard had a number of parking spaces, but the gates were shut and the yard was not used for parking anymore. A shortage of gas meant few cars. And in keeping with the symmetry of the structure, a balcony on the second floor matched the width of the front steps below.

A large covered well was located just to the right of the main entrance.

When the job as Director of the YWCA became available, Mom took it. She wanted and needed to do something while waiting and bribing her way through the Passport-visa process. She took the job to assert her independence and to show her father that she was, indeed, one of the new generations of Chinese women. The Sun family had been advocates of modernization since the nineteenth century. She wanted to continue the family tradition.

Mom and I occupied a two-room suite on the second floor of the YWCA. Our two windows looked down squarely at the well below. There were no bathrooms in the building. A neat row of stone bath stalls had been built behind the building, and a row of toilets had been placed some distance behind them. This was a woman’s residence. The only other male was the caretaker. As there was no running water in the old building, the caretaker’s main function was to bring water from the well to the kitchen and to the bath stalls.

I slept in the room with the windows overlooking the courtyard, directly above the well. One night, the sound of water splashing woke me up. Knowing that something was wrong, I woke Mom. She had heard the splashing sounds, too. She opened the window and shouted: “Who’s there?”

The splashing slowed and a small voice answered: “It’s only me,” the caretaker responded sheepishly.

“What are you doing down there in the middle of the night?”

There was silence for a long time. “I...I fell in.”

“Oh my God,” Mom said.

“I’m sorry I woke you ma’am. I didn’t want to disturb anyone with my foolishness,” he said.

Mom rushed downstairs turning on the outside lights as she went. The bucket was in the well. “Grab the bucket,” she shouted.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Grab the rope,” she told me, “let us try to pull him up.” We pulled, but he was too heavy. “Go get help, wake some of the women.”

I ran into the building.

“Hold on to the bucket until help comes.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The women arrived and we pulled him from the well.

“What happened?” someone asked.

“I was getting water for the kitchen, like I always do, but I slipped and fell in.” The caretaker hung his head in shame.

“It is all right,” Mom told him, “accidents do happen. Now go dry yourself.” Then she turned to the rest of the people: “He’s fine. He’s fine,” she said as she waved everyone inside.

The poor man had been willing to stay in the well until daylight just so he wouldn’t wake anyone. Mom realized how prevalent this sense of deference was with the average Chinese. This was being polite and considerate to the extreme, but that was the mentality promoted by the Confucian ideal. The lower the class, the more deference and politeness one showed, regardless of gender. And this was the Confucian social order—all the way up to the Emperor. The pecking order was clear. You always deferred to and obeyed the rank above you. Women deferred to men,
because men ranked above women. Wives deferred to husbands. But having lived in America gave Mom a different perspective.

Mom was clearly annoyed at the caretaker for being so meek and subservient, but she couldn’t reprimand him for being who he was. Instead, she told him that everyone at the Y counted on him. That the Y wouldn’t have water for cooking, cleaning and bathing were it not for him. She told him how important he was to the organization—the Y couldn’t function without him. She tried to instill a new sense of self worth in him, and as a consequence, he became even more productive. No one had ever empowered him like this before. His new-found sense of confidence actually expanded his horizon and made him a bigger contributor to the organization. For the first time in his life, he had been told that he was important and that he had value. While he still drew water from the well to supply the needs of fifty people, he was now conscious of his contributions. He was no longer just a mule that hauled 50-pound buckets of water to the kitchen and the baths.

Mom also encouraged him to expand his skills and duties, knowing that he would, one day, be replaced by a few pipes and a pump.

On Sunday evenings, the Y’s courtyard was turned into an outdoor movie theater. News footage from the United States about the war against the
Germans and the Japanese were shown to overflowing crowds. The people of Shanghai saw the atomic bomb explode over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And when the Japanese signed the unconditional surrender on the Battleship Missouri, the crowd cheered even though that was old news. But the people turned silent when they saw the liberation of the German concentration camps and heard the horrible tale of the mass murder of millions of Jews. The sight of those starved skeletal bodies with deep, blank sunken eyes told a horrifying story. But everything was all right now. America had saved the world. No one doubted or disputed it. Everyone in China knew it. Even the Communists.

We all hoped that the world was now a better place.

It was clear that America had fought the war for Freedom, while the Japanese had fought for loot and booty.

Meanwhile, Mao’s Communist revolution was gaining strength and pace. Mom knew we had to leave as soon as possible. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was going to lose this war, too. The fact of the matter is that the Generalissimo hadn’t ever won a major battle against the Japanese. Why would the war against the Communists be any different?

Mom developed a carefully planned ritual whenever we went to see a government official about our travel documents. She would wedge a small envelope into her purse, then make certain that she could take this envelope out easily, even without looking. She practiced until she was comfortable with the procedure. She had set things up so that there would be no fumbling around with her purse to get the envelope. She wanted to do it smoothly to impress the bureaucrat with her business-like efficiency. And as a safety measure against pickpockets, she closed the flap to her purse, hung the leather strap on her shoulder then tucked the black bag securely beneath her armpit. As always, she made sure that I walked next to her purse.

She hailed a rickshaw and haggled with the coolie over the price of the ride. This ritual sometimes ended up with her going to another rickshaw in search of a better price. There was never any hurry in these small financial negotiations. It was part of the cultural process back then to negotiate to get the best price. One rickshaw driver might value his time differently from another. The price a rickshaw man charged is totally under his control. He can sell himself cheap or dear, depending on his circumstance of the moment. If his belly were full, then he might want to charge more because he’s not desperate for
food. Conversely, if he’s hungry, then he might be willing to charge less just to get the job so he can eat. This is the classic Chinese supply-and-demand, labor-intensive economy. When in China, you negotiate because each person sets his own value for his time.

And take your time. Life should be leisurely. In the old days, no one in Shanghai was ever on time. There was a social stigma to showing up on time for any function.

This tradition took form in early Imperial times. The emperor always showed up late for his appointments. Naturally, no one dared to comment on his lateness. After all, he was the emperor. He could do as he pleased. In time, other important members of the Court began to follow the emperor’s lead. No socially-aware person criticized this practice because it would have meant being critical of a superior’s behavior. With time, this practice trickled down the ranks until it became socially acceptable with the upper crust and finally among the wealthy middle class. The tradition flourished as a status symbol. Being late was both fashionable and a statement of your social position.