A Time of Ghosts. Hok-Pang Tang
was called to lecture us on avoiding the material temptations of Capitalism.
“These clothes all belonged to 'bourgeoisie' men and women,” a school official stood up and declared. “Foreign working class people cannot even afford to have clothes on their bodies. The overseas student’s relatives must be working for the bourgeoisie, who are using this opportunity to erode Communism with their decadence. So you must protect yourselves! Don’t wear those clothes!”
In spite of the lecture, some continued wearing their prized hand-me-downs, but they were subjected to heavy criticism and finally had to demonstrate their proletarian sympathies by burning the clothes or cutting them up with scissors. Yet even with the ban, we continued to be amazed by what the overseas students possessed – wonderful soaps, toothpaste, even socks that miraculously fit all sizes, unlike our Chinese socks. Their colorful plastic toothbrush cups, their toothbrushes, even their underwear appeared of marvelous quality to us. We ordinary mortals washed our clothes with a certain kind of crushed plant for soap, and brushed our teeth with salt, using pig-bristle toothbrushes. Many of us did not own underwear.
We were also mystified by adults visiting from Hong Kong. They all looked so energetic, dignified and well-groomed. The men had nice suits with shining shoes, the women were like flowers opening in the wind. Both males and females smelled good, which even became a saying in China – “People from Hong Kong all smell good.” Some even thought the wind in Hong Kong perfumed. Of course it was just a fantasy helped along by the meaning of the name Hong Kong – “Fragrant Harbor.”
One day an overseas girl showed up at school wearing a mini-skirt. To her it was natural, but it got the boys very excited, and they followed her everywhere – the library, the halls, the dining room – always finding some excuse to circle about and watch her. She must have felt very attractive with all the attention, but the school soon set a rule that all skirts must cover the knee, or be considered part of a rotten lifestyle designed to entice others into criminality.
That did not stop the youthful libidos. After the new rule went into effect, the male students developed fantasies that women in the outside world always wore gauzy garments showing off their breasts, and that among them bikinis and nude swimming were common – and those fantasies became a big part of their emotional lives.
Some things the overseas students told us seemed like outright lies, but we believed them nonetheless. They said in Hong Kong you didn’t need rice coupons, and you could eat whatever you wanted. And they told us something else that seemed like heaven on earth – that sugar was put on tables in restaurants and people could use all they wished, with no extra charge. It was astounding. In China sugar was used more like a medicine, obtained by getting a doctor’s note and buying it through the “back door.” It was like gold dust. Though we found the tale very hard to take seriously, we never denied that it might be possible.
Of course we all longed for a view of the wonderland outside. The mere thought excited us.
Then, at age sixteen, I got the opportunity to go and see for myself.
Overseas Chinese students poured regularly into and out of China through Hong Kong at that time, and for a while student travel outside became so easily approved that my parents agreed to let me go with my sister and her boyfriend and her two girlfriends on the train from Canton to Kowloon via Shenzhen at the border. Even the name “Shenzhen” was exhilarating. In Cantonese pronunciation, it sounds like the Chinese word for a butterfly-fluttering of the heart.
My Father wrote his niece and nephew in Hong Kong, arranging for us to stay in their home, and he also wrote his sister-in-law and some other old friends, asking them to give us an allowance to spend while staying there, because we could not exchange Chinese money for foreign.
When the great day came, my parents loaded us with gifts for the relatives in Hong Kong, and told us ten thousand times to be careful and watch out for one another. It rained lightly as we all piled into pedicabs, carrying our oiled-paper-and-bamboo umbrellas. At the station we folded them and returned them to our parents.
The train was late. Mother kept dispensing last-minute advice, but our minds were already in Hong Kong and we paid little attention. When at last the gate to the platform opened, my parents bought special platform tickets to come a little farther with us to say goodbye. We, however, had already forgotten them, and my sister and her friends hurried off to the train unmindful. But Mother would not let go of my hand. She kept massaging my head, giving advice, and I impatiently said, “Yes! Yes!” and tried to pull away to the train, not really hearing a word she said.
Finally she released me, and I hurried onto the train and sat down with the others, chattering eagerly. A double whistle of the engine broke our conversation, and the train began to move. I could hardly bear the excitement.
It took six hours to reach the border, and it seemed forever. But at last we passed through Shenzhen, and I saw armed police watching us as we moved to the magic line that separated us from the outer world. Loud, tinny, political voices and shrill revolutionary songs shouted from the loudspeakers.
And then the moment came.
We crossed the border just before gliding onto a long, long bridge with almost no water beneath it. The moment we were across, the atmosphere seemed to change. No more blaring songs or harsh political slogans!
The train pulled to a halt and we got up and stepped onto a platform where we transferred from the Chinese train to a Hong Kong train.
Our new conveyance was a different world. Things were so bright! It was filled with colorful advertisements, and there were snack sellers from whom one could buy candy and cigarettes. Even the little snack bags were beautifully printed and decorated. But the Communists had done their school indoctrination well. The first thought that came to my mind was, “Capitalist tricks – making the outside beautiful while hiding rotten things inside.”
In spite of that, there was pleasant music, and the train not only looked better, it smelled better too, and it moved faster, yet more quietly. I looked around at the other passengers and was surprised to see relaxed faces, not the serious ones to which I had become accustomed.
We got off at Kowloon. When we walked out of the station into the open air, I was amazed by the crowds, the fast cars, the tall buildings, even the speed at which people walked. In China all walked slowly and gloomily, but here they all seemed in a hurry to get to something for which they were late. Car fumes gave the air an odd smell that I found strangely enticing and energizing. It made me feel cheerful.
I held my fifteen-dollar Hong Kong bank note in my hand and did not know where to go first. Hong Kong was small, but filled with excitement. People say a foot of land there is worth an inch of gold.
We divided up to stay with different relatives at different places. All of us together were too much to inflict on any single family. My sister and her boyfriend got into a taxicab and disappeared. Her friends vanished as well.
I was supposed to stay with a female cousin. I did not know if my fifteen dollars was enough to get me there in a cab, so I decided to take a bus – but which one?
I asked an old lady, but she did not know. I waited for a bus to stop, and when it did, I asked the driver. He told me I would have to transfer from bus to bus to get to my destination, and “We don’t give change” he added before driving off, leaving me there.
I went into a nearby grocery store, where immediately my eye was caught by chocolate. I was ecstatic. It was only fifty cents! That gave me change for the bus.
By that time it was about seven in the evening. I took the next bus, looking out the windows at countless brilliant neon lights all along the way. Though it was night, the lights were on in all the buildings and the whole city radiated as though it were day. Accustomed to streets dark even with streetlights in China, I was fascinated.
The driver was very nice. He even let me off between stops and showed me where to wait for the next bus, adding, “Just give the address to the next driver, and he will tell you when to get off.”
Following his directions, I easily reached my cousin’s house. It was in a very quiet