Mom said when she was seventeenth, she and her father fled Suchou running away from Japanese invasion. They went to Shanghai and opened a food mart near the pier in Jiangy in. It appeared that my father, a first mate on a ship at the time, met my mother in that sho p once before. When the Japanese was about to occupy Shanghai, everybody ran like hell. In the midst of turmoil, a big bomb from the Japanese airplane knocked out the escaping r oute and separated my mom and her father. In a mysterious way, however, my mother and my father reunited and they fled together hand in hand to Sichuan. My father was appointed as the station master by the China Marine Navigation Company while they were setting up a ship-pulling station at a place called Qin-tan near the upstrea m of the Yantze River. It was financed by the then Finance Minister Kong Xiang-xi who hired the crew from San-bai Marine Company, moving the winch and steam engine from a steam ship in Nanjing to the montain top over Qin-tan. After test run of the winch, the c rew all took off, couldn't wait to play mah-jong, they turned over the equipment to my fat her in a hurry without the steel cable. Later it was revealed that the crew sold the cable fo r their own taking. Without cable how could the winch pull ships of several thousand tons? Someone suggested using bamboo strips, but bamboo strips won't go into the winch. The only way was to haul it by men. Now the problem was how to get so many men? Knowin g that the Hubei triad controled the livelihood of the region, my father and mother, using chains and gears with rifles on their back, climbed up the cliffs where the underworld bos s, FangMao-san operated. He was hiding in the mountain fighting a guerralla warfare aga inst Japanese at the time. After meeting with my parent, he was really impressed about th eir enthusiasm and fortitude and he granted my father "Wu Ye", meaning the fifth master. In doing so, he assigned a few hundred men under my father's charge to pull hundreds of ship docking at Yichang City port before the Japanese moved into the City. The operation involved moving all the ships loaded with supplies upstream along Yangtze River from Q in-tan, the inlet, all the way up to Chongqing lest they fell in the hands of the Japanese De vils. Mom said I was born on November 23rd of the Lunar calendar in 1941 in the midst of ma ssive bombing by the Japanese. All day long loud alarm sound filled the air. I was deliver ed by my father in the air-raid shelter where my father and very pregnant mother were hid ing. Dad often brought up stories of the old time: He said during 1635, an evil man name d Zhang Xian-zhong massacred most people in Sichuan, and the emperor ordered the peo ple of Guangzhou and Fujian to fill the gap in an operation called "Hubei and Hunan Fill Up Sichuan". Our ancester worked for the emperor, in carrying out the order, we moved f rom Shang-hang City of Fujian to Bishan of Sichuan; built Lui's Family Shrine and my fa ther was born there. His grandpa was the president of the High Court, Grandma Yang's fa mily had a armed escort operation, often escorted the government revenues like food, salt, hard currencies, and other valuables to the emperor. After my father reached adulthood, h e followed my grandpa's wish and enrolled in the marine school operated by China Marin e Navigation Company in Shanghai. A few years later he graduated and was sailing along Yangtze River through Three Gorges until eight years after the victory of the war before h e went back to Shanghai. After the war we moved from Sichuan to Shanghai, living in North Sichuan Road of Hon
kou District, on a street called Doron Road; It was allocated by the Navigation Company as dormitory, a two-story building left by the Japanes after the war. Grandpa and grandma lived on one floor with two cousins of mine. A small stairway led to second floor where my parent and brothers and sisters lived. When the weather was hot, everybody moved to the hallway and slept on the bamboo couche. I was the most naughty one, loved to play c hase and fight or hide and seek, runing up and down, making all the noise, driving my gra ndpa absolutely crazy so he always tried to catch and punish me. My little sister, Xiu-tien loved to follow me around and joined in for the fun. Mom often took me to a money store to exchange currency. Mom was only in her early twenties and very beautiful, especially dressed in traditional Chinese Qi-pao, plenty of whistling along her path. Sometime mom would pout and scold in Suchou dialect but I was baffled because mom wasn't really angr y so I supposed that wasn't anything bad after all. At that time, the most widely distributed currencies were silver coins in two denominatio ns nicknamed "big head" and "small head", very valuable. Mom would buy me some sma ll toys and snacks. But my favorite thing was eating soup made of chicken and duck bloo d from the food stand at the Town God's Temple. Sometime mom would give me some ch anges to rent comic books from the book stands alongside the road, reading cartoons of h umanized animals or animalized human as well as some characters like Wu Song from C hinese classic novel. One day as I was looking for one of my favorite comic book, I accid entally touched the proprietress's body. She accused me sexual harasment because it was her chest that I touched. God! I was not even nine at the time. Mom took me along, boarding a small ferry boat, from Shanghai to Suchou to pick up my little brother, Feng-tien, who was staying with Wai-po, my grandma from my mother's sid e. They lived in a village named after Deng's family in the town of Wei-tang located at no rth of Suchou. We were riding in a typical wooden boat, the kind that most villiagers used at the time, with a covered tent made of bamboo at the center of the boat to keep passeng ers comfortable in the shade. The boatman was rowing with the oars at the back, moving t he boat forward. On the way, the wind was gentle and the waves calm; besides the chirpin g of the birds, cicadas and frogs, the sounds of the boatman and the oars rowing in the wa ter filled the air. Plants over the water and willow trees along the shore gently swung with the breeze. Purple, yellow and red flowers on the water plants twinkled along the way lik e neon lights, bright red dragonflies and sky blue butterflies flew in the light wind, so hea venly! It was like out of this world! Every once in a while, a boat from the opposite side p assed us by; otherwise we were like the only one in the water, calm and tranquil! Along c ame lunch time, the boatman swooped down a net into the water near the water plants alo ng the shore. Caught in the net, a bunch of small pink shrimps and silvery frys were jump ing up and down. The boatman just dumped the lively creatures in the frying pan, sprinkl ed on a little soy sauce, and voila! A seafood dish was served! Adding a few fried eggs, so me cabbage and steaming rice: Wow! Life was good! After the meal and an afternoon nap, took a dump at the edge of the boat, like bait in the water, schools of fish chased after the dung, forming a line at the rear of the boat like a tail, so funny! Next morning, we arrived Suchou, on the way to Wai-po's home. She was fromYao's fami ly and they owned a local grain shop. We went ashore to the market, got a big piece of 'Re d Wine Pork', and some New-year-cake from the well known Guan-qian Street. After sh
opping, we set sail again and went through a big lake named "Cheng-ze lake". Passing t hrough a waterway across that lake, our boat docked right at Wai-po's home. Wai-po w as married to the Chou's family, and that's why the whole villagers were surnamed Cho us. A stream went through the village and each family built their home on either side of the stream facing the water. Wai-po's home was a farm house built of mud, entering th e door was the living room with floor also poured with mud. The kitchen In the back ha d a big stove with a built-in chimney going through the roof. The bedroom at the side o f the living room facing the courtyard had two wood windows carved in flower pattern. During hot days, villagers moved their dinner tables near the stream and ate supper rig ht there, with a fan in each one's hand for cooling and getting rid of mosquitos. The bri ght moon and stars in the sky illuminated the whole village, looked so lovely! We loved Wai-po's ghost stories, ghosts of all kinds: black and white, bloody face with l ong tongue, stiffs that could only move forward by leap and bounce..., scared the hell o ut of all the neighborhood kids that nobody dared to walk back home anymore. It happ ened to me one night as I was walking home through bushes of peach trees, suddenly, s ome ghost-like flames flew right in front of me, couldn't help but wondering these mig ht be the flames generated from corps. Wow! The ghosts were coming! I got so scared a nd could hardly move. My little brother and I loved to stand on the stone steps outside the door in front of the stream, watching the water for any creatures that happened to passby. Just learned ho w to catch fish with a bamboo basket, every pick-up of the basket was a pleasant surpris e: What kind of fish had such big eyes with thorn? What had a such large tail like a fan? All kind of strange creatures that were living in the water. One day I saw a fisherman using a long bamboo stick poking in and out of the water. Tr ying to learn the trick of the trade, I followed the same way using a bamboo rod poking the water, suddenly the rod couldn't take the load and broke, and I fell into the water li ke a rocket! Darknessfilled my eyes and chill felt through my whole body. With my mo uth full of water, a beam of light suddenly shone from up above: water around me looke d like white cloud, translucent fish swam right in front of my eyes, rainbow like silvery fish looked at me with curiosity, water bugs and shrimps gathered around me; this had got to be another world that I was looking at. Before I knew it, I was fished out of the wa ter by someone. I kept spitting water and crying, felt the pain from the bump on my leg. Everybody around me said I was lucky that someone was around swimming when I fell in the water. Now that I won't go near the river so I settled for field and stream on land. Rice fields, p articularly, were my frequent playgrounds. There were no short of supply of all kinds of strange looking bugs, frogs, snakes, rodents, and eels in yellowish black color, some cou ld hide deep in the mud. Wai-po assigned me to pick snails in the rice field, just the righ t job for me, couldn't catch big fish anyway, this was really a walk in the park (field), pic king snails? That's too easy! So I picked a whole basket of snails for Wai-po to cook. A w hole dish of mouth-watering fried snail filled the tummy of everyone with joy. I was thr illed but eventually I noticed that the snails were bigger and plumper near shit holes. T hat made me fee kind of uneasy so I no longer tried to get food supply near there any m
ore. All day long I beat my brain out trying to catch big fish. One day after rain, left a pool of water on the muddy road. A closer look revealed that pood of water had a bunch of red fish swimming in it, wondered how were they gonna get back to the river, poor things! When the grown-ups went fishing in groups, I begged them to take me along. Noticed t hey stepped into the water in bare feet, most with nets but some holding long spears. Li nes of men used feet to stir the fish in the water, drived those frightened creature into t he net. With grown-ups at the side, I felt safe to step into the water in my bare feet too. Imitating the adults, I also sticked my feet in the water to stir the fish, only felt all kind of creatures like fishes, shrimps, and snakes nibbling my legs, so itchy and exciting! Tha t was fun! Got out of the water and back on land, took a look on my legs and found lots of leeches sucking my blood, so scary! Everyone gathered around me trying to pull out t hose blood sucking monsters. Someone of the villagers suggested that I put some salt o n the leeches and they would melt into water. I gave it a try after I went home. It really worked, the leeches did turn into water! Back to fishing: they picked up the nets, a bunc h of shinning silvery fish, mostly big crucians, were jumping up and down in the net. So many huge fish! How I envyed them! Some of the men just used long spears, aiming at t hose swimming cat fish and threw at them, one spear one fish, so ruthless and accurate! I wished I could do that someday! (Late breaking news from the States, scared the hell out of many Americans, about the 'Snakehead Fish', actually called 'Black Fish' introduced from China years ago, said: Th e government was planning to use poison to eliminate the Snakehead fish becausethey invaded most inland rivers and streams thereby threatening the livelihood of many do mestic fish.) Strange thing is the same kind of fish has been in Suchou over sixty years a go, they coexisted in the water with many other kind of fishes, never heard of any thin gs like the black fish wiping out other kind of fishes, they are just tougher to stay alive. They are not our enemies but if we keep polluting our rivers and environment then the government won't have to poison them and they will die off anyway and then we will j ust have to pick another kind of enemy or devil to take on. My uncle taught in the village, so I was also put in that private school. Only memory of that was I had read the "Three-character Primer", something like 'Men were born kin d' et ceteras... One day, my uncle married a young lady named "Dou-er" from next villa ge across the river. Recalling that day both families were so lively, a few ladies used wo od shavesfrom elm tree, soaked in hot water and turned into hair lotion with pungent s mell of elm wood. They used the lotion to comb the bride's hair and make it dark and sh iny. Others helped her to put on make-up like powder and lipstick. There were loud fire cracker sound everywhere. Somewere blowing the horns, others banging the gongs an d drums. Kitchen gave off bursts of flavor. Everybody was drinking, smoking hookah, a nd chatting while nibbling melon seeds. Suddenly the bride appeared sitting in a red se dan chair and the whole row of housesseemed lighting up. It was like a fairy just lande d on earth-shockingly beautiful. The bride had a very gorgeous looking face that even I at such young age was fascinated and dazed. Later words were out that becausemy uncl e worked on a ship and were hardly home. His wife was lured by someone when she we
nt to Hong Kong. What a pity! That's what they say: Wife can't be too pretty! Seem maki ng sense! (moved to the front, duplicated from 'Opening' revision) I remember when I was about nine, my family moved from Hongkou to Pudong for our safety, before the communit moved into Shanghai. Thought we could avert the war atm osphere and turmoil lest the liberation army sneaked into Shanghai from Hongkou. It t urned out that they - the commie, got in through Pudong instead. We all went up the ro of to see the commotion, but there was hardly any gun shot sound, the commie took ov er Shanghai without firing a shot, let alone the sight of aircraft and tanks. Just like that, I went to bed with deep disappointment. Shanghai was lost in the hand of the communi sts. Next day I went to school and found every classroom filled with rustic but polite sol diers in grey, cotton uniforms; into the office looking for teachers but found none, alth ough the stationery like pencil and paper was tossed on the floor everywhere. I stepped outside passing the food market, there were flies circling over a dead kid, inside Hongk ou Park bustling with flower drum sound and waist-drum dance. Someone were shouti ng slogan, "Long live the people's liberation army! Long live Chairman Mao! Down with old man Chang Kai-sek!" Father was working for Zhong-xing Marine Company as the captain of 'S.S.JingXing'. W hile waiting in Hong Kong for dispactch, he sent for us, the whole family, to meet him i n Hong Kong. So the whole family took a slow train passing by Guang-zhou, I had a bow l of cured meat over rice from a food stand along the train station, it was so delicious! U nforgettable flavor with soy sauce and lard over the rice! About to go to Hong Kong via Shen-zhen, my little sister was crying ever since we started the trip. This was becauses he got her face burnt when she and I were playing in Shanghai, jumping up and down o n a bed and she fell into the burning blazer. Before we went on our trip, Wai-po put so me herbal medicine on her face and carried her to the train. She was crying all the way and the passengers were annoyed by the noise. After we left Guang-zhou, the train driver made an abrubt stop by rumors that the KMT was launching an air raid to bomb the train. I sticked my head out of the window to see what was going on? Only to find the locomotive braved the white smoke, puff puff, and the crew disconnected our car, and then they slipped away. This rendered everyone spe echless, even my sister stopped crying. Then almost everyone got out the car, hiding in the surrounding field and disappeared from the green green grass and rice field. At that moment in the car, it was so quiet and nobody even dared to breath heavily. We, the wh ole family, with old and young, were not so mobile, so we just hid under the table with my sister secretly crying quietly. Wai-po kept rubbing a string of bead while chanting b uddhist sutra. Not much later everyone came back laughing at each other about the foo lishness of taking two big birds gliding for airplanes. A few hours later, the locomotive f inally came back and whole car became lively and the train started moving alongside th e river again. Then completely out of the blue, we saw two soldiers from liberation arm y, holding a giant carp that was knocked out by a nearby bomb, smiling as our train pas sed by. It happened becausethe pilot missed the bridge while dropping the bomb, it lan ded in the water instead: bad luck for that carp!
Before arriving Hong Kong, the train staggered through numerous bamboo bridges (te mporary built to replace the destroyed steel bridges); from up above, the whole operati on was like a toy train moved through bridges made of match sticks, staggering and sha king all over, scared the hell out of me! As the train moved higher, the darker the sky b ecame, then the train passed a mountain, suddenly a wall of light shone upon my eyes, golden, silvery, reddish and greenish light, so beautiful, was I in heaven? Oh yes! We ha d arrived Hong Kong! After entering Hong Kong, into the city, it was like looking over the paradise through a magnifying glassonly to find whole lot of wounded soldiers: some without legs, some g ot their eyes blasted off. They sticked around the hotel's back door around the Jordan R oad alley, fighting for leftover, poor fellows! This heaven was only skin deep! Father gave each of us a bottle of Coca-Cola, took our whole family on board the "S.S.Ji ng Xing" to settle down temporarily; then treated us a banquet in the hotel at Jordan R oad, so delicious that I would never forget! So tasty was the soup! We also met my big si ster, Ming-liang and my little brother, Feng-tien, and had a ball of the lifetime (They ca me to Hong Kong from Shanghai with our father earlier). We had waiters in the captain room and they served our food and drink. Even if we hit the ball into the sea, the sailors would jump in the water to retrieve for us. Sometimes I would tag along while my father went to work a in a small ferry boat to the pier or Seaman's Union, ran into foreigners of blond hair and blue eyes. They would pol itely greet my father and made me feel very comfortable. One day we were passing thro ugh Yu-ma-di, Kowloon, in the food market on Shanghai Street, suddenly turmoil broke out in front of us: a street vendor, carrying two baskets of food on his back, ran toward us, spilling soup and water everywhere. Several fierce looking men in uniform, holding police sticks, cursing and yelling, were chasing after the vendor, poor fellow! Another day, a flurry of chaos woke me up, after rubbing my eyes I saw a dark and skin ny man, kneeling buck naked with loops of robe tied around his body. Two sailors were holding the man on the deck, waiting for marine police to pick him up. It turned out th at the man was a 'water ghost', a kind of thief specializing in stealing stuff from marine vessels by diving in the water, climbing robes that were holding ships in place. Just no w, he stole a heavy brass bell and tried to swim back ashore but was caught before he co uld sell it to support his miserable life. A few weeks later, father met two visitors in his room, discussing about how to deal wit h "S.S.Jing Xing". Becausethe owner - Zhong Xing Marine Company, already was leanin g toward the 'left' and the Communist Party wished that my father could sail the ship b ack to Shanghai, then to Pu Dong, this way they could certainly get a warm welcome an d positive effect of the government for their unification effort. They even sent my uncl e who was a communist party member at the time to persuade my father. (My father kn ew communist well becausehe had cooperated with them in the ship pulling operation during the war with the Japanese.) My father said it wasn't easy to move the whole fami ly from Shanghai to Hong Kong, how could he possibly go back to Shanghai just like tha t? In the end, they decide to pay my father double and promoted him from the chief ma
te to captain. So my father set sail back for Shanghai, and the ship was renamed to "S.S. Zhong Xing 9". Our days in Hong Kong finally came to an end in 1950. Father set eyes on a row of four-story tenement building near Tian-xing pier in Yu-madi of Kowloon and rented the third floor to accommodate our whole family. He then sail ed back to Southeast Asia. I was about eleven or twelve years old and a really naughty b oy. In this dazzling world - Hong Kong, I was like a baby just opened his eyes curiously l ooking around: first time for everything. In my father's desk drawer were many coins fr om everywhere of the world. I took those coins to the money store learned from my mo ther and exchanged a lot of Hong Kong currency. My little brother and I were living lik e royalty. There was a goldfish shop not far from home, lots of fish! I too wanted to have goldfish for pet, and inexplicably imitating the shop, I installed electric water heater and pump. Passing the stamp shop along the street, I too started collecting stamps. From stamps, I saw celebrities and well known scenic spots all over the world, like those old movie pos ters, stamps were the only massmedia of the world. Money really talks, with it one can get anything. Of course, abundant material life to ki ds of pre-teen wasn't so demanding after all, as I took my little brother to alleys squatti ng down and ate fish ball, beef tenderoin, pork rice rolls, etceteras, really fantastic to us! Those were something that we had never eaten before in Shanghai. Once we went to a toy store and what amazing British styled toys we saw! We built up our courage and bo ught a small and exquisite electric motor in red color, so beautiful and it really rotated! Another time we passedby a store called "Radar Shop" specializing in selling model air planes and trains, so expensive! We wouldn't even dare to go in, after all we were not re ally rich, all we had were small changesfrom our father. The only comforting thought was the store's name happened to be the same as our surname. My little brother remembered one day while he was strolling with our grandfather near a movie theater named "Happy Cinema", walking into them, face to face, was the famou s movie star - "Bai-guang", a well-known goddessat that time and her sudden appearan ce had no doubt tempted my grandpa to hit on her; asked my grandpa to my brother, "g o say hello to miss Bai-guang!" Couldn't remember what score did my grandpa get. Ano ther time, my brother remembered: in the commie school named "Xiang-dao Middle Sc hool" where we were studying; not only we had to shout slogans from the "Three Antimovements" and "Five Anti-movements" but also draw political cartoon, accused his cl assmate to their teacher, "Sir, Lei Feng-tien insults Chairman Mao!" becuasehe drew to o ugly a picture of Mao Zedong. Xiang-dao Middle School, then, was located at Waterloo Avenue. The back of the School was near Lion Mountain where it had grass stems that could be used to make bow and a rrow. We often climbed up the mountain to catch those golden, silvery, and bluish beau tiful little spiders that were hiding in the thorny cactus. Then we brought the spiders to the classrooms and participated in spider fighting with other students. We were walkin g to school, passing through many alleys, lots of fun and really lively! Sitting next to me were a pair of twins from New Zealand, plumpish with fair complexion, very polite. The
y also spoke Chinese, were the first white folks that I came into contack with. I still rem ember their looks. There was another school mate that looked entirely different than t he white twins, dark complexion and skinny, never smiled as if he didn't care about any thing. Becausehis uncle was an important official of the customhouse, living in a garde n mansion halfway up the mountain, lots of servants. That's what I called 'rich folks'. O ne day I passed by a church for the white folks and saw many young folks in red and wh ite clothing, gathering around the front door. They looked so beautiful, how I envied th em! Ferry Street occupied only one block, one side of it was a row of shops on ground floor built into a four-story "tenement". Across the street is a long row of warehouse, it's wal kway was paved by sand. We and neighborhood kids all loved to play in the sand pile ac ross the street. Once a well polished black sedan passed by, I was looking at the car in a daze. The driver thought I did something and made a sudden stop, he got out the car, lo oked at me then at the car, without saying a word, he slapped me in the face. I was wro ngfully accused but couldn't clear it up becauseI didn't even touch his car. That made me then, resent those priveleged servants. It also taught me not to be snobbish and bec ome someone like that. At night, the stair of every household was occupied by wounded soliers. We kids gather ed around them, At night, the stairs are each occupied by wounded soldiers, our children are around thei r coach husband, ask them to practice doing something, I remember early in the morni ng up to hold urine, the first practicing qigong, etc. What Fong Sai Yuk , Liang Hongyu a re we playing on the picture to play the idol. roof rooftop is a place we like to play, do t he above basking in the many Dougu grandmother, soy sauce, pickles, etc., a gust of win d drift off, incense and ah, the neighbors house keep on top of a lot of pigeons, cooing t o arguing with creak, I heard the people to maintain contact with the mainland with th e communication, the sky there are many kite flying, we were also learned to fly a kite,