Falling Leaves: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter (3 page)

Soon after receiving this letter, Grandmother and fifteen yearold Aunt Baba hurried to join Ye Ye in Tianjin, leaving my thirteen-year-old father in the care of Grand Aunt. Aunt Baba was told to drop out of school because advanced education was considered detrimental to the marriage prospects of young girls. Confucius had professed that ’only ignorant women were virtuous’.

Father remained in Shanghai and continued attending Chen Tien Catholic Boys’ School. He excelled in English and Ye Ye

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advised him not to leave his excellent teacher, an Irish missionary. Father lived with Grand Aunt until graduation five years later. During this time, he converted to the Catholic faith and was given the name Joseph. He also developed a close relationship with my Grand Aunt, who became his mentor.

After completing middle school in 192.4, Father chose not to go to university. He joined his family in Tianjin and was em-; ployed as an office boy under Ye Ye at Hwa Chong Hong; Although this was a menial post and the salary was minuscule, Father claimed in later life that it was the best possible education for a bright, inexperienced teenager. He learned all facets of the import-export business at first hand. Because of Father’s fluency in English, K. C. Li soon relied on him to write and translate most of his firm’s correspondence. ;

Father bought a second-hand typewriter and often typed important business letters after eating dinner at home, with his whole family clustered around the dining table in awed admiration. Once Ye Ye wondered aloud how the heads of these international companies would react if they found out that valuable documents worth hundreds of thousands of taels of silver were being banged out with one finger by an eighteen yearold boy barely out of high school.

Hwa Chong Hong developed profitable relationships with various large pharmaceutical companies, including the German firm Bayer. Enormous quantities of the Chinese plant ma huang were purchased by Hwa Chong Hong and exported abroad. For many centuries, ma huang was used by Chinese herbal doctors to treat asthma and general malaise. Eventually, scientists working in the West identified and extracted the key component of the plant, ephedrine. This was then imported back into China in its purified form and sold to pharmacies prescribing western medicine.

Meanwhile, outside the foreign concessions, the Japanese military presence in Tianjin deepened. Well-armed and ruthless, they were a law unto themselves and treated the Chinese with contempt. Hwa Chong Hong’s prosperity did not escape

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the notice of the Japanese. Company headquarters were situated outside the French Concession and unprotected by French law. K. C. Li was being increasingly harassed to ’collaborate’. There were no formal demands, just vague threats hinting at the need for ’protection against criminal elements’. During a routine ’visit’ by Japanese inspectors, K. C.’s employees were randomly beaten for not showing sufficient respect to photos of the Japanese emperor in old newspapers, which were frugally being cut up and used as toilet paper. K. C. realized that at any time the situation might explode. Rather than give in to Japanese coercion, K. C. decided to move out of Tianjin altogether.

Father did not follow Hwa Chong Hong on its departure. Instead, at the age of nineteen, in 1946, he started his own firm, Joseph Yen & Company, within the French Concession in Tianjin.

Ye Ye had such faith in Father’s business acumen that he invested his total life savings, about 2.00,000 taels of silver (equivalent to over one million US dollars in today’s currency), in his son’s company. Ye Ye resigned from Hwa Chong Hong and became the new firm’s chief financial officer. No formal contracts were drawn up between father and son. It remained unclear whether the money was a gift or a loan. However, Ye Ye had authority to sign all company cheques and extracted an oral promise from Father that he would look after everyone in the family and pay all expenses, including Aunt Baba’s dowry should she marry. At this time, my aunt had left Tianjin and was living in Shanghai. Grand Aunt’s recently opened Women’s Bank was flourishing. Reliable assistants were urgently needed and Aunt Baba had been dispatched to work at the bank.

Father’s company prospered from the start, picking up much of the business left behind by the departure of Hwa Chong Hong. Ma huang continued to be exported, as did walnut kernels, straw hats, candle wax, pig bristles and dried fruits; imports included bicycles and pharmaceutical products. In the

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state of political unrest and increasingly ominous Japanese presence, many businesses came on the market very cheaply and Father expanded rapidly by buying up their assets. He soon acquired a lumber mill, a carpet-weaving concern and a bicycle spare parts assembly plant. Father retained the loyalty of key personnel by giving them incentive stock in his newly acquired companies. Grand Aunt and her bank played a crucial role in Father’s early success and rapid growth. She had connections in Tianjin, including the manager of the local branch of the Bank of Shanghai. With her help Joseph Yen & company was able to issue letters of credit for up to half a million US dollars guaranteed by Grand Aunt’s Women’s Bank. Their arrangement was for net profits after expenses to be split 70/30 in Father’s favour. Hundreds of thousands of taels of silver changed hands with each transaction. Every deal was profitable. In three years, they never had a loss. Father began to be known in business circles as the ’miracle boy’ who had the power of dian tie cheng jin (converting iron into gold).

Marriage brokers swarmed around the young business tycoon. But, with that same bit of swagger that gave him an edge in business, he declared that all Tianjin girls were dreary and provincial. He preferred the sparkle and sophistication of the young women in Shanghai.

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Inseparable as Each Other’s Shadows

Shanghai in the late 1920s was an exhilarating city for a young girl such as Aunt Baba. While the rest of China still travelled by push carts, sedan chairs and horse-drawn carriages, in Shanghai shining imported motor cars were speeding down well paved roads alongside trams and buses. Giant, colourful billboards advertising British cigarettes, Hollywood movies and French cosmetics gazed down at crowded pavements teeming with young men in suits and ties and girls clacking around in high-heeled shoes and stylish qipaos. The Bund, close to the Women’s Bank on Nanking Road, had been transformed into a panorama of majestic buildings sweeping along the Huangpu River. Gun-boats, steamers, sampans and tug-boats festooned the muddy waters. Multistory department stores, such as Sincere, Wing-On, Dai-Sun and Sun-Sun, were crammed full of furs, jewellery, toys, household goods, ornaments and the latest Parisian fashions. Large enough to rival Self ridges of London or Macy’s of New York, these emporiums promoted seasonal sales, gave away coupons and prizes, and even held concerts and theatrical performances on their roof gardens.

Aunt Baba had become friendly with a girl a year younger than herself, who worked in the new accounts department. Miss Ren Yong-ping could render complicated currency conversions in her head with astonishing speed and accuracy. Even

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when Grand Aunt checked her calculations with the abacus they were never wrong. Glowing with high spirits and vitality she had a ready smile and warm liveliness which made her attractive.

Miss Ren came from a middle-class Shanghai family which struggled somewhat after her father, a post office official, became addicted to opium and spent the last twenty years of his life in a drug-induced haze. An only daughter, she had three younger brothers, two of whom also worked in the post office, both rising later to become inspectors. She herself was soon promoted by Grand Aunt to head the new accounts department.

Working downstairs in the bank and spending their leisure hours upstairs in the dormitory, the two girls soon became best friends. Aunt Baba remembered one occasion when she and Miss Ren lunched by themselves in the restaurant at Sincere’s, nicknamed ’Shanghai’s Harrods’ because of its physical resemblance to the famous London store. The two girls hired rickshaws which pulled them along the busy Nanking Road, where traffic lights were controlled manually by red-turbaned Sikh policemen stationed in cage-like boxes perched on poles twelve feet above ground. The restaurant was elegant, with white tablecloths, fresh flowers and crystal glasses. The menus listed only western food items with which they were unfamiliar. Chinese food was unavailable.

A little intimidated by the tuxedoed waiter, they hesitantly asked whether there was a ’daily lunch special’. Informed that it was re gou (dog meat, served hot), Aunt Baba was only slightly nonplussed. She had heard that in some provinces dog was considered a delicacy; but Miss Ren was much more dubious, remembering her family’s pet Pekinese at home. She promptly remarked that ’today’s special’ usually meant ’yesterday’s leftovers’.

The waiter became impatient. He was one of those Chinese who had adopted the haughtiness of the foreigners and preferred to serve the wealthy whites from the concessions. On

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this occasion the two girls were the only Chinese in the restaurant. They began to feel like gauche simpletons and, as much to be free of the arrogant waiter as anything else, they both ordered the dog dish. Aunt Baba was pleasantly surprised by the sausage that arrived wrapped in a bun and ate it with relish. Miss Ren, however, could not stop thinking about the little family pet and gave up after one bite. They laughed heartily when they eventually learned from Grand Aunt that re gou ’hot dog meat’ was, in fact, the classic American hot dog.

On one of Father’s frequent visits to Shanghai to discuss business at the Women’s Bank, he was introduced to Miss Ren. Xiao qiao ling long (petite, vivacious and interesting) was Father’s verdict. They began to correspond. Five months later, they were married. An enormous banquet was held at the Xin Ya (New Asia) restaurant in the International Concession just off Nanking Road. Besides immediate relatives, most of the guests were business associates of Grand Aunt’s and Father’s. It was 1930.

Father took his bride to Tianjin and bought a large house at

40 Shandong Road, conveniently located in the town centre of the French Concession and very near a public park. Across the street was St Louis Catholic Boys’ School.

Their marriage was happy and they had four children in as many years. The young couple were ru ying sui xing (inseparable as each other’s shadows). First came a daughter. The baby was large and Dr Mary Mei-ing Ting, an obstetrician, applied forceps during the difficult delivery. Force had to be exerted and the baby (my eldest sister Jun-pei) was born with a partially paralysed left arm. Then came three sons (Zi-jie, Zi-lin and Zi-jun). There was a gap of three years before I (Junling) came along.

The family house was spacious, with two storeys and a large attic where the servants slept. With its rounded bow windows, balconies, charming porch and pretty garden, the house was considered ultra-modern because of its flush toilets, running

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water and central heating. The latter constituted the height of luxury: most Chinese homes were still being heated by raised brick sleeping benches called kangs.

Father converted the ground floor of his house into offices for some of his staff. The rest of the family lived with Ye Ye and Grandmother on the second floor. There were seven servants to take care of the household. Father bought a large black Buick for himself and a black rickshaw for Grandmother to visit friends and play mahjong.

Aunt Baba often took the train from Shanghai to Tianjin, a two-day journey in those days, and stayed for long visits. Father and Mother would meet her at the station in the Buick and the three would spend hours catching up on Shanghai gossip and Grand Aunt’s latest business triumphs. There were outings to restaurants, films and the Chinese opera. According to Aunt Baba, it was an idyllic time for them all.

Mother’s obstetrician, Dr Ting, was almost a member of the family by the time my three brothers were born. Like Grand Aunt, who was her classmate and childhood friend, she too had been educated at Shanghai’s McTyeire School for Girls. She converted to Christianity and at the age of fifteen had spurned an arranged marriage. The intended bridegroom came from a wealthy family but was sickly, in pain and already addicted to opium. On her wedding day, the bride simply vanished. Her parents were sued and forced to pay the bridegroom’s family a great many taels of silver in compensation for breach of promise, besides enduring considerable loss of face. With the help of her uncle, Mary escaped to Hong Kong where she continued her studies at another missionary school. Mary’s uncle followed her to Hong Kong, cut off his queue (pigtail) and sent it to their family in Shanghai in a gesture of defiance. This was a serious crime and amounted to a public declaration of rebellion against the Qing emperor. (After the Manchus conquered China in 1644, they had imposed the partly shaven head and queue on every Chinese man to state their dominance.) Mary and her uncle were both disowned. He

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went to work in Hong Kong to pay for Mary’s education. Later Mary won a scholarship to the University of Michigan Medical School and specialized in obstetrics and gynaecology. Returning to China, she settled in Tianjin rather than Shanghai where painful memories haunted her. She founded her Women’s Hospital and became the best obstetrician in town. My sister and three older brothers were all delivered at Dr Ting’s hospital.

When my mother became pregnant with me, the political situation in China had deteriorated drastically. In 19x8 the Manchurian warlord, Chang Tso-lin, had been murdered by the Japanese while riding in his private railway coach. Over the next few years, Japanese soldiers invaded Manchuria. A puppet regime (Manchukuo or Nation of Manchu) was established under the former boy emperor Puyi in I93Z. The United States refused to become directly involved. Britain looked the other way and recommended compromise. The League of Nations promised to investigate. Chiang Kai-shek, commander in chief of the army and head of the Nationalist party (Kuomintang), was fully occupied fighting the Communists, who had formed their own army and government in the rural strongholds of Yan’an in the north-west. Emboldened, Japan proceeded to launch a full scale attack on Tianjin and Beijing in July 1937. This was the beginning of the Sino-Japanese war which was to rage on for eight long years.