My ilpside-'lJown 'Wor{d
Madeleine Poston
Benneta Publishing Portland, Oregon
,. tllPINAS HE ITAGE L ltAll
Copyright Š 2002 by Madeleine Poston All rights reserved Printed in U.S.A. ISBN 0-9722814-0-1 Cover design and editing by Jackie Mauritz of Electric Loft Printing by Electric Loft Text design by Sheryl Mehary This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by electronic or any other means which exist or may yet be developed, without permission of:
Benneta Publishing 4900 S.E. Rinearson Road Gladstone, Oregon 97027 cposton@aol.com
Preface When I was a child, a persistent picture would come to mind. I did not know if it was a dream or memory. It always made me feel sad. I would see in my mind's eye a man and a woman holding hands, walking down a dusty, deserted road that cut through a scene of horrific devastation. Between them was a small child. After I was married and having one of my usual visits with my mother, she brought my childhood vision into the realm of reality. Mother told me we were crossing the Pacific Ocean at the time of the great Tokyo earthquake in September, 1923, and she felt the rise and fall of the sea as our ship passed over the tidal wave. We were returning home to Shanghai, after visiting my grandmother in Sacramento. After landing in Yokohama, we went to Tokyo to survey the damage. I then realized that the dream was a memory of my mother, father and I walking down this lonely road in Tokyo. I was barely two years old. I asked Mother on several occasions to write down her memories, but she never did. However, over the years I had many conversations with her, during which she told me about the early days in Shanghai, details of her life, the history of our family, and stories of my father, whom I vaguely remembered from fragmented childhood memories. As a young woman, I embarked on a journey from China to America to find my father. It was a journey that should have taken a month to complete. In reality, it would be almost four years before I finally reached America, a seemingly interminable period of time during which I was a prisoner of the Japanese in Manila. After my long-anticipated reunion with my father, I settled in MidAmerica. My British-American accent sounded so foreign to the ears of my new friends and acquaintances, they would say, "I can tell where you come from by your accent and the way you talk."
I would respond, "Really! Where am I from?" "You come from New England or somewhere in the east." And I would say, "You are right about the east, but it is the Far East! I was born and grew up in Shanghai, China." Children were told if they dug deep enough, they would reach the other side of the world, China, where everything is upside-down. My story is about growing up in this upside-down world; my journey spent looking for who I was; enduring a war and starvation; getting lost in illness and misery; finding I could survive, and ending my journey in America. I will tell this story once again, perhaps for the last time, to my children and grandchildren and future generations, so that they will know their history, and in doing so, share my story with you. I have learned it is not easy to find yourself, that under the worst of circumstances, we are all equal, and what we do and how we act does, indeed, matter. So, while I still have the capacity to remember and the ability to put it all down, here is my story.
;v::'~::.:::, I
11111111111111111111111111111111111 J
I
- , RoderickHaIlCOtI. 13575 CT788.P67A32002 II E R I TAG E My upside-down world I Madeleine Poston
ISBN 0- 9722814 - 0-1 $19.95 1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
9 780972 281409