Falling Leaves: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter (15 page)

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Hong Kong. The owners of the company lived below us in the Boundary Street apartments. They generously supplied us with samples.) Ye Ye was too gracious to accuse Franklin directly. He could sense my sorrow and rage. ’You have your whole life ahead of you. Be smart. Study hard and be independent, I’m afraid the chances of your getting a dowry are slim.’ I nodded. ’Don’t end up married off like Lydia. You must rely on yourself. No matter what else people may steal from you, they will never be able to take away your knowledge. The world is changing. You must make your own life outside this home.’

Towards the end of 1951 Father moved his family into a secluded villa on Stubbs Road at Mid-levels on Hong Kong Island. Stubbs Road was a major highway with cars hurtling down at breakneck speed. There were no shops within the vicinity and walking was hazardous. A car was needed for the simplest purchase. Ye Ye’s letters to Aunt Baba became more and more despondent. ’All of us cling so tenaciously to life,’ Ye Ye wrote, ’but there are fates worse than death: loneliness, boredom, insomnia, physical pain. I have worked hard all my life and saved every cent. Now I wonder what it was all about. The agony and fear of dying, surely that is worse than death itself. The absence of respect around me. The dearth of hope. In this house where I count for nothing, du ri ru nian (each day passes like a year). Could death really be worse? Tell me, daughter, what is there left for me to look forward to?’

Ye Ye died on 2 March 1952 from the complications of his diabetes. In the last three months of his life, he wrote to Aunt Baba mainly about the past. The ten-course feasts prepared by his own father for Chinese New Year at their tea-house in the old, walled city of Nantao; horseback riding with Grand Aunt as a boy when much of Shanghai was still rural; watching his sampans as they sailed up and down the Huangpu River; the many happy days he spent with Grandmother when Aunt Baba and Father were little. He apologized for not having arranged a suitable marriage for Aunt Baba. ’If I erred, I erred because I cared too much,’ he wrote. ’Somehow, no one was ever quite

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good enough for you. I felt you needed someone special to look after you. Perhaps no such person exists, except in my mind.’

When Ye Ye died, Father was too busy to inform Aunt Baba himself. Instead, she received the news second-hand, from a letter written by one of Father’s employees.

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Original Ideas in Literary Composition

My illness in 1951 was during the summer vacation. Most of the girls had gone home. I started coughing up blood, developed a fever of 104 degrees and had difficulty breathing. After two days I was admitted to hospital. At first the doctors thought I was going to die. They informed my family.

I was lonely and afraid. No one came from home. Mary, my best friend from boarding school, was my one and only visitor. Her father kept a concubine. She lived with her mother in a separate house within walking distance of the hospital. She told me she had nothing better to do. I was deeply grateful for her trouble, whatever the reason. As my condition improved she brought me little treats: fresh sweet mangoes, roasted peanuts, Dairy Farm ice cream, dried persimmons. We played cards, drew pictures, solved puzzles and shared the food she brought. The fever abated. The cough diminished.

One day, at lunchtime, Father suddenly appeared. Mary had gone home to eat. He walked brusquely into my room unannounced, dressed impressively in a dark blue suit. He stood by my bed looking anxious.

’How are you feeling?’ he asked. I wanted to reassure him. ’I’m feeling fine, Father. I’m much better.’ The combination of pleasure, fear and surprise rendered me tongue-tied and I could think of nothing else to say.

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Apparently neither could he. He watched me for a few minutes until our mutual silence became awkward. Touching me vaguely on the forehead to gauge my temperature, he muttered, ’Take care,’ and left.

A nurse and Mary walked in at that moment. ’Who was that?’ the nurse asked.

I answered proudly, ’That’s my father.’

She looked at me, astonished. ’We thought you were an orphan.’

’Almost an orphan, but not quite.’ I looked at Mary, wondering if I had said too much.

’Me too,’ Mary told the nurse. ’I’m in the same general category.’

’In fact,’ I added brightly, ’you can find about fifty of us in the same general category at the Sacred Heart.’

’But only among the boarders,’ chirped Mary and we giggled hysterically. The nurse left. At that moment I felt very close to my schoolmate. The thought suddenly struck me that here I was, yearning for my family to visit, day after day. Yet, when my father actually came, we had nothing to say to each other. Why should I force myself on my parents when there were loyal friends?

Mary and I began to make plans to escape from Hong Kong and live in college hostels somewhere far away: London, Tokyo or Paris.

When I returned to school after a week of rest at home, I found myself the only boarder because the holidays were not yet over. There was no one to talk to and nothing to do. I spent a lot of time in the library, flipping through books and magazines. In one of these journals I stumbled upon an announcement of a playwriting competition open to all Englishspeaking children aged between ten and nineteen. Buried in that library and with time on my hands, I set to work. My play was called Gone with the Locusts. It was about the ravages wrought by those insects in Africa. Time passed quickly and I was rather sorry when the play was completed. I sent

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off my entry and soon forgot all about it. School resumed and all the girls came back.

One Monday, months later, I was playing basketball in the lunch-break when Sister Valentine (nicknamed ’Horseface’) interrupted our game and told me that my family chauffeur was waiting for me. Ye Ye had died and was to be buried that dav.

I was driven directly to the Buddhist temple in my school uniform and saw Ye Ye’s photograph placed on top of his coffin. I started to cry and the tears would not stop, though I could see that no one else was crying. Father and Niang, James, Franklin and Susan sat stony-faced in front of the maids, the cook and the chauffeur. There were no other mourners.

I wept throughout the ceremony, inundated with a tremendous sense of loss. As we walked out of the temple, I was still sobbing, not realizing that my tears were increasingly irritating Niang.

’What are you crying about?’ she suddenly whispered angrily.

Miserably, I looked up at her with my swollen red eyes and running nose, bracing myself for a cutting remark.

It came. She turned to Father. ’I do think Adeline is getting uglier and uglier as she grows older and taller. Just look at her!’

We returned to the house after the funeral, and Niang called me into the livingroom. She wore a smart black suit and her long nails were painted scarlet. The powerful scent of her perfume caused me to feel faint. She stared at my shabby school uniform, straight, unpermed hair and stubby, bitten fingernails. I felt small, plain and worthless.

’Sit down, Adeline,’ she said in English. ’Would you like some orange juice?’

’No. No, thank you.’

’I noticed you crying just now at the funeral,’ she said. ’You are growing up. You really should spend some time grooming

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yourself. Make yourself presentable No man wants an ugly bride.’

I nodded, telling myself that this was not what she had called me in to tell me. I clenched my fists and waited.

’Your father,’ she said, ’has seven children to support. Thank goodness Lydia is safely married off. However, there are still six left. It is not too early to be thinking of your future. What plans do you have?’

Thinking of my report card studded with A grades, I glanced at the menacing presence in front of me. I knew that if she could, she would see to it that I never had a future.

Terror-stricken, looking at my feet, I muttered something about hoping to attend university like my brothers, preferably in England.

’Your father,’ she interrupted, ’does not have an endless supply of money. We have decided that you should learn shorthand and typing and find yourself a job.’

I was fourteen years old when Ye Ye died. James was going to London to continue his studies that summer. My teachers had told me that the best universities were in Europe and America. Back in my convent school I wrote letter after letter to Niang and Father, begging them to allow me to go to London with James, ’enclosing report cards filled with cornmendations, prizes and awards. There was no reply. I seriously considered running away to join Aunt Baba in Shanghai to continue my education. I was determined to go to college.

One Saturday afternoon about a month later, Mother Valentino came to me again with the news that the family car was waiting for me. I wondered who had died this time. The chauffeur assured me that everyone was healthy. Then I asked myself what I had done wrong. I had dread in my heart all the way home.

At last, my luck had changed. I did not know it, but I had been nominated first-prize winner of the playwriting competition I had entered seven months earlier. The review board wrote to the Hong Kong educational department which

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released it to the newspapers. The announcement was given great prominence and carried as a front-page insert. My name, age and school were mentioned as well as the fact that the competition was open to students from all over the Englishspeaking world. Father was going up in the lift to his office that Saturday morning when an acquaintance nudged him and showed him the news article. ’Would the winner, Adeline Junling Yen, be related to you?’ he asked. ’You have the same uncommon last name.’ Father, elated and bursting with pride, read and re-read the article. That afternoon, he sent for me.

Arriving home, I was told to go immediately to the Holy of Holies, a room I had never been in before. Niang had gone out and Father was alone. I could see that he was in a happy mood. He showed me the article in the newspaper. I could hardly believe it! I had actually won! Father wanted to talk to me about my future.

My heart began to beat wildly. ’Father, please let me go to England to study. Please let me go to university.’

’Well, I do believe you have potential,’ he replied, ’and might even possess zi chu ji zhu (original ideas in literary composition). Tell me about your career plans. What subjects do you wish to pursue?’

I was silent for a long while. I had no idea what I wanted to study. Going to England was all I dreamt of. It was like going to heaven. Did it matter what you did after you entered heaven?

Father was waiting for a reply. Flushed with the thrill of my recent triumph, I said boldly, ’I think I’ll study literature. I shall become a writer.’

’A writer!’ he scoffed. ’What sort of a writer? And what language are you going to write in? Your Chinese is very elementary. As for English, don’t you think the English people can write better than you?’

I readily agreed. Another of those awkward silences followed.

’I’ve thought about it,’ Father announced. ’I’ll tell you what the best profession is for you.’

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I was relieved. I would do whatever he advised.

’You are to go to England with James to study medicine. After you graduate, you will specialize in obstetrics, just like Grand Aunt’s best friend, Dr Mary Ting. Women have babies and someone has to deliver these babies. Women patients prefer women physicians.’

That night I was allowed to stay at home. James and I talked late into the night. We were full of plans. The future seemed limitless. Then I started to worry. Suppose the English should discriminate against us? What about eating English food daily? Would we be the only Chinese in our English schools and be considered rare or odd? At midnight, we were searching the dictionary, with James proclaiming that we would be called ’rare’ if the English liked us, and ’odd’ if they did not, when the door opened and in walked Niang.

Father and Niang had been out to a dinner party. She was dressed in a black sequinned evening gown with diamonds flashing at her throat and matching jewellery on her ears and fingers. Her long nails were polished black. She did not look pleased. ’What are you two doing wasting electricity and laughing at this time of night?’ she demanded. ’It’s bad enough that you do nothing but eat and sleep during the day. It’s intolerable that you should continue to waste your Father’s money and joke around until all hours of the night!’ With that, she switched off our light and left the room, slamming the door after her.

We climbed quietly back into our beds. I tried to comfort James. ’At least she didn’t forbid us to go to England,’ I told him.

’No matter how bad it is in England,’ James declared, ’no matter how much they discriminate against us, no matter what names they call us, just remember, it can’t be worse than this!’

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Same Bed, Different Dreams

In January 1949, Lydia fled from Tianjin to Taiwan with her husband Samuel and his parents. Samuel’s father, our family doctor in Tianjin, soon established another medical practice in Taipei. He started an affair with a younger woman and brazenly established her as his concubine. The situation became unbearable for Samuel’s mother. After a bitter quarrel, she left and returned to Tianjin in 1950.

Taiwan in the 19408 was a semi-tropical island with an economy based on agriculture and fishing. There was hardly any industry. Jobs were scarce and living conditions primitive. Samuel was unsuccessful in obtaining suitable employment. After the birth of a daughter, they decided to follow Samuel’s mother and return to Tianjin.

Father tried to dissuade them from going back to mainland China. Repeatedly he warned them of the hardships and tyranny under Communist rule.

A few months after their return in 1950, Samuel was arrested and accused of being a counter-revolutionary. Samuel’s uncle had been a well-known political figure in the Kuomintang government, a prominent member of the ’exploiting class’. Though this uncle had defected to the Communist side in 1949, Samuel’s background was considered tainted and his past required to be examined. During his imprisonment, Lydia and