A Time of Ghosts. Hok-Pang Tang
with their parents for discipline at home, reported them to the authorities. Their spiteful revenge took a terrible toll.
Regular meetings were held to criticize the behavior of those who did not meet the Communist standards of doctrinal purity. Such meetings made me very sad. I saw teachers, parents of schoolmates, neighbors, friends – all arrested as a result of such accusations. It felt not like a school, but like a labor camp filled with lurking spies. The only relief from this nightmare was when the Kuomintang planes attacked. Then we got to leave school for the air raid shelters as soon as the high whine of warning sirens began. For me, that was like a vacation from the ongoing misery of school.
As the Korean War continued and the death toll mounted, depression and disenchantment grew. More and more documents of congratulation were issued to parents losing sons in the war. There was a great indoctrination of the public in anti-U.S. sentiments. Every wrong ever done China by the West was resurrected and exploited.
A cousin of mine in high school was something of a hooligan. Nonetheless he volunteered for the war, no doubt attracted by the excitement and adventure of it all. His family was very opposed but could do nothing. Volunteering made him a school hero. His parents foolishly made their opposition too well known, and were put under house arrest for being unpatriotic. He was one of the lucky ones. He lost a leg, but came back from Korea alive. Yet he returned quite a different person. Having seen so much pointless death and the power of the American military, he began to speak out in opposition to the war. He became an open anti-revolutionary, and was sentenced to life in prison.
I saw that it was not wise to speak the truth or talk facts in public or with school friends. It became obvious that one had to learn to fabricate stories, to evade, or to keep silent. Truth was excluded. I saw that often students had to lie simply out of self-protection.
Paradoxically, I went from being a social pariah due to my clothes to being temporarily quite popular. In the fervor of patriotism stirred up by the war, my school decided to stage a big parade. They needed a boy to play Truman, the American president. Truman had to wear a shirt and tie. Because I was the only student who possessed those essentials, I was chosen for the role. At the time I had no idea who Truman was, but I did as they told me and wore a nice shirt and tie. My part was not difficult. It consisted simply of walking down the street in my fancy clothes. My portrayal seemed to serve the purpose effectively, because as I proceeded, people began to spit on me and kick me, releasing their pent-up anger against America. I was frustrated and angry, but when we returned to school the district officer went on at great length about how successful the parade had been, and he rewarded me for my crucial role.
Immediately after the parade two things changed. I was made leader of the parade and dancing troupe, and once again people began to speak to me. I found it all quite strange, and turned the experience over and over in my mind. It seems that in life when someone is humiliated and humbled, it makes that person miserable. But strangely enough it makes someone else feel good. Allowing myself to be kicked and spat upon made me unhappy, but it really cheered up the others. It reminded me of Charlie Chaplin in the old American films I had seen. His life seemed to be a continuous process of humiliation, but people loved to watch it. It made them happy. That is the lesson I learned from the Little Hobo.
But just as Chaplin seldom found happiness in his adventures, my new status did not bring me happiness. School was mind-numbing in its mediocrity. The teachers were very poorly educated, and so had little to pass on to us. I recall one geography class in which there were two maps of different scale on the wall. One was a map of all China. The other was a map of Canton. The map of Canton was larger than that of China. A not-too-bright student raised his hand. “Teacher, why is Canton so much bigger than China?” The teacher went into deep thought for a few moments, and then declared, “It must be a camera mistake – they took a big picture instead of a small picture.”
Other classes were equally bad. The mathematics teacher was always coming up with wrong answers. Chinese-language teachers would write characters incorrectly. I was often the only one who caught such mistakes, because I was really educated at home. When I once dared to correct a mistaken character in class, I was punished by being sent to the principal, who ordered me to apologize to the teacher. I replied, “I respect my teacher, but I respect truth more.” My parents were notified, and I was threatened with suspension from school for several days.
One of my father’s friends, on hearing of my difficulties, suggested that I should just fall in line and obey at school. Otherwise I would just make trouble both for my family and for myself. He told me “Just be like a sailboat; feel which way the wind is blowing, and let it take you. Do not go your own way, contrary to the wind.” My personality would not let me do that. So I refused to give in and accepted the suspension.
I pondered the fate of my music teacher. He was a great violinist, but came to class with a whisky flask in his back pocket. Eventually he was discovered to have performed for the Japanese during the invasion. He was arrested and jailed. In my home, art had always been apart from politics. Yet in school we were taught, “Art is politics – it either serves the working class or the bourgeoisie.”
In spite of my obstinacy, such events slowly changed me. I learned how to survive under Communism. I found I could not always do what I wanted or get what I wanted or be what I desired to be. It was a very dismal realization, and I could foresee only obstacles ahead. I had to learn to control my tongue. I could not speak words I wanted to speak. I had to abandon pride and my attachment to what was right and just. It was very painful, and caused a terrific internal disturbance in me. Yet I could see that it was the only way to survive. I had to learn to accept internal and external humiliation. The Way of Charlie Chaplin was not an easy path for a ten-year-old.
The emotional and economic impact of the war was pervasive, and it now seems sadly comical that my parents chose that time to – of all things – go into business. My mother could no longer deal in real estate, so she turned to the skill in sewing she had acquired as a child, and opened a shop for making flags and award banners for meritorious workers. She somehow managed to order Singer sewing machines from Hong Kong, and threw herself wholeheartedly into the new venture. But it was destined to fail.
Everything went wrong. When she used leftover scraps of cloth to make clothes for the children who came to work with their mothers, she was accused by the Communists of taking goods from the people. She protested that everything had been paid for with her own money, but nonetheless they used that excuse to take over her factory.
My father’s attempted new venture was no more successful. At Mother’s instigation he began a bus company so that my wastrel uncle would have a means of income. Because of the war there was no gas. Buses had to be powered by burning charcoal.
The bus business had two forces working against it. First, it was only a matter of time until the Communists nationalized all businesses. Second, my uncle regarded the bus company as his private transportation service, and used it to take himself and his friends to parties at any time he chose, playing havoc with any attempt at scheduling. Then too, the company buses were strangely always “breaking down,” requiring my uncle to lounge around the shop of the mechanic – who happened to be a friend of his – for days, until the supposed damage was “repaired.” And of course Uncle always needed money from my father to pay for replacing “damaged” parts. In short, it was another of my uncle’s scams.
Why did my father put up with his endless wrongdoing? Because that was the old Chinese tradition in which we were raised. Uncle, vile though he was, was family.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE REPOSE OF THE WHITE FLAMINGO
Long before the Communists came to power I had decided what high school I wanted to attend. On my way to elementary school I daily passed through the foreign quarter – fine homes surrounded by strong iron fences – swimming pools – tennis courts. It was like visiting another country. The