Chapter 2

May 3, 1939, was a day I will never forget. I was sitting
in drawing class at about ten in the morning, when the air-raid
sirens began to sound. For the previous two months the sirens
had sounded frequently, but no enemy planes had ever
appeared. But because Chongqing had become China’s wartime
capital, we were all very nervous and this time all classes were
suspended. I hurried home, but no sooner had I run out of
Zhongshan Park, than I heard the rumbling of Japanese planes
and the sound of bombs exploding in the distance. As the
explosions drew closer I could feel them in my heart and smell
them in the air. Then they began to explode directly around me
and the earth shook under my feet as I continued to run home.

There were screaming people everywhere and the street was
full of smoke as buildings burned wherever I turned. I ran as fast
as I could and finally reached home and threw myself into my
mother’s arms. She immediately began to scream in horror. I
stood there with blood all over my clothes, face, arms, and
hands. But I felt no pain. After some frantic searching, we
discovered that I was not even hurt, and that I had been
splattered with someone else’s blood while running through the
streets.

My family, nearly thirty of us, hid in the basement under
the theater stage. We hadn’t been hiding very long before
billowing smoke and even sparks found their way into our
hiding place from the outside. My mother was the first to notice
the impending doom and began to cry, “Get out quick! They’ve
dropped incendiary bombs!” Mother was right and we all ran
out from the basement into the burning and chaotic street. It
was packed with people, all of them running, shouting, and
crying. All of the houses around us were burning, and
everywhere I looked, scattered about the street were the many
dead and wounded from the strafing and bombing of the
Japanese airplanes. Because my mother had been trained to be
a nurse by the Christians, she was able to help many people.

Soon though, we were forced to run for cover with the crowd
back up the hill toward Zhongshan Park. Meanwhile, the
firemen remained to fight the flames raging throughout the city,
and their sirens and bugles sounded like sad crying animals
over the screams of the people around us. I felt desolate, but I
was not as frightened as the adults. This was a new experience
for me. It was exciting and aroused my curiosity, much like a
great adventure in one of my uncle’s movies. But even so, I
knew the horror was real. Fortunately for us, the Japanese
planes did not bomb and strafe in waves that day as they would
in the days to come, or many more innocent people would have
been killed.

We reached Zhongshan Park at last and waited in the
open until dusk when the all clear was finally sounded. Hoping
to calm the people, government officials came to talk to us and
hand out bread. My family escaped with only a slight loss
compared to what we would lose in later attacks. The strangest
loss was a millstone, flying from somewhere, which tore a huge
hole in our roof and landed on my parents bed. Also, many
valuables, including our woolen sweaters, were stolen by
pillagers who, like maggots, took advantage of the death around
them to feed off of the pain of others.

Fear and disorder still prevailed early the next morning
as the smell of sulphur and smoke hung everywhere about the
city. Those who had the opportunity joined relatives in the
country. We also fled, to my Uncle Wang’s home outside the
city, hoping to escape the next air raid. On the ferryboat at
Chao Tian Men (Facing the Sky Gate), one of my younger
brothers urged, “Be quick! The enemy planes will come again
soon!” He was quickly scolded for saying such a thing, because
the elders thought it was a bad omen to say such things in the
morning. Whether bad omen or foresight, my brother was right.
The Japanese bombers appeared only a few minutes after he
was scolded. On this day, the bombing was worse. Ever since
then, May 3rd and May 4th have become synonymous with
memories of the days the Japanese fire-bombed the wartime
capital of China. We know what is meant when people ask,
“Where were you on May 3rd and May 4th?” Or when one
says, “My parents died on May 3rd, May 4th.” Even today,
elders understand when someone says, “I have not returned
home since May 3rd, May 4th.”

Many years later, in 1986, I received a letter from an
American friend, Roy Gridley. I first met him and his wife
Marilyn in Beijing in 1982. He is younger than I, and before I
told him my story he had known about the Japanese bombing of
Chongqing only through his memories of the movie-news. In
1939 I did not yet know about the Flying Tigers or Victory-Mail.
But like the ancient Chinese poet Tu Fu, we Chongqing
Chinese thought of the geese flying in their V-formation as
bringers of good news. Roy sent me this poem in his letter:

May 3-4, 1939

Too late now for geese
Bringing their V-Letters
Like Flying Tigers to Chongqing.
Too late for Ginger Rogers
Dancing a-top Chinese captions
On the war-lord patrolled
Theater screen
Downhill from Zhongshan Park.
Now, no sounds of weeping sirens,
No fear of strafing Nippon Vultures
Bombing the craggy, crowded city,
No blossoming anti-aircraft fire.
It’s no longer black-and-white
Movie-tone to me, who now await
Fresh news upon a breeze blowing
Across the Jialing
From Liang-feng Hill.


I was now twelve years old when we were forced to
temporarily live with my Uncle Wang for about four months.
His home was north of the Jialing River, about five miles from
Chongqing. During that time, my uncle was able to purchase an
old house on a small plot of land at the top of a gentle slope
called Liang-feng Bao (Cool Breeze Castle). This was another
five miles from Uncle Wang’s other country home, and my
father soon built a new house for us there, which was right next
to the old one on the same plot of land.

The countryside in Sichuan is beautiful, and Liang-feng
Hill (Cool Breeze Hill) was a deserved name, but sometimes it
was not just breezy, but actually stormy. Our home sat on top of
the hill, surrounded on three sides by a dense bamboo grove.
There was a courtyard in front, and next to the courtyard was a
beautiful pool of about 60 square meters. At the north and south
ends of the pool there were huge banyan trees stretching their
limbs out over the green water, creating a picturesque scenery.
A variety of trees also lined the path up to the houses. One
beautiful tree was a Mengzi, whose leaves gave off a strong
and delicate fragrance. I would often wrap my fishing bait in
these leaves to give it what I thought would be an alluring
smell. All around our property were terraced fields, and the air
was filled with the mingled scents from many plants. It was
easy to feel relaxed and happy in this refuge far from the fire,
screams, and death of Chongqing.

Unlike in Chongqing, the birds sang merrily everyday.
Especially sweet were the sparrows who would sing to us every
morning. It was as if a bomb had never fallen on Chongqing. As
the sparrows sang their clear true song, a species of thrush
played in the bamboo groves and flocks of lark and magpie
clustered and chattered in the banyan trees. Around the broadbeans
growing in the garden on the left side of our house, the
hudou and broad-bean birds would fly and congregate looking
for what they could steal. They are half the size of a sparrow,
always in groups, and always singing rich clear melodies. Yet
another, most beautiful bird with emerald green feathers, often
flew by our home. It was probably a species of parakeet drifting
down from the deep canyon forests. In flight it would flap its
wings twice, then enter into a graceful glide with its long tail
trailing behind as it squeaked overhead, contrasting sharply to
the sweet clarity of the sparrow’s voice.

I developed a love for the natural wildlife in Liang-feng
Hill, except for the snakes. I remember that in the summer of
1942, when I was fifteen, I alone killed seven snakes, some big
some small, some poisonous and some nonpoisonous. A fierce
fight in our kitchen between our dog and a boa constrictor
awakened us late one night. The sounds of barking and a
horrible thrashing sound brought us running from our beds.
Groping for a flashlight, I opened the kitchen door. There coiled
on the floor, was a huge boa as thick as the mouth of a cup. It
was already wounded and our dog, Silver, was further
encouraged in his attack by my sudden appearance, lunging at
the terrified snake with even greater zeal. With his deadly sharp
teeth, Silver made sure the snake could offer no further
resistance. Fortunately the boa was nonpoisonous, otherwise it
might have proven disastrous for our over-zealous dog.
We named him Silver because of his frosty white color.
He was our best hunter and a good friend to me. One day when I
came home from school, a maid-servant suddenly warned me to
be careful of him. What she said frightened me and I ran to find
him. When I found him, he was lying alone in a corner of the
courtyard. He did not greet me with his usual wild-with-joy
shaking head and wagging tail. He just laid there, with no
expression in his eyes or body language at all. He
acknowledged my approach, but he then just rose slowly and
limped away. My young heart was crushed and I felt sure he
wanted to tell us, “Please don’t touch me. I might infect you.”
He had distemper. That night he left the house and never came
back. When I was told a week later that Silver had been killed
by someone who feared his disease, tears of grief rolled down
my face. It was like I had lost my best friend.

These years in the country were also my first
acquaintance with peasants and their way of life. Everyday I
saw them toil on the land from dawn to dusk for their landlords.
Yet what the landlords gave back in return for their life’s labor
could not begin to fill the peasants’ stomachs. Often they could
only afford one quilt for an entire family. Underwear was
unknown to the girls, and they wore only the minimum of outergarments
as well. Many fled from starvation to become beggars
and prostitutes in the cities. Whenever I encountered one of
them I felt ill. I would give a bowl of rice to a local beggar
when I could, but I knew it was of no lasting use. My efforts
wouldn’t change anything. It would only enable them to live
through the night, then the hunger would begin again. I often
wished I could become the richest man in the world to help all
the desperately poor people around me to live a better life. Of
course I didn’t know what caused such poverty. Because of
what I was told, I poured all my hatred out on those rich
landlords, profiteers, and corrupt government officials who
seemed to suck the very life out of the poor. I thought I could be
one of the famous heroes, from some of the books I had read,
who had robbed the rich to help the poor. While young, it is
very hard to understand why such suffering is taking place in
your own back yard.

Meanwhile, even after moving out to Liang-feng Hill,
family life went from bad to worse. The root of the problems
was still opium. Again and again our elders lost the chance of
reopening our cinema or even getting another job, as they lay
on the bed under the influence of that horrid opium. We lived
on selling things such as family jewelry, films, movie
projectors, fur coats, shoes, and anything else we could. It was
as if in some drug induced vision, they knew what horror the
future would bring to those who worked hard, were selfemployed,
and showed any evidence of wealth. Those servants
who were employed by my family were left idle as the
household deteriorated in a downward spiral. Wet-nurses were
maintained long after the babies had grown to be children. One
of them even joined her masters and became an opium addict
herself. She would lie on the bed with Uncle and Aunt smoking
opium all day long. There she would sleep in a daze until late
at night, or rather early the next morning. Then the inevitable
happened. She began a sexual relationship with Uncle, while
Aunt tacitly approved. The woman aborted one baby, and then
eventually another. My two elder brothers had become so
ashamed and indignant at being part of such a decadent family.
Together we all made up our minds to leave that house for good
as soon as we could.

By this time in 1940, the Japanese began bombing
Chongqing in earnest. This carnage was a coercive tactic to
make our President, Chiang Kai-shek, cease his resistance and
surrender totally. They wanted to clear the deck in China so
they could direct their military energies toward the growing
Pacific War. The air raids against the city increased with
intensity as the enemy began to bomb in waves. We called it
“fatigue bombing.” We couldn’t sleep or even prepare our
meals without being interrupted by the sound of incoming
bombers and their deadly messages, and we were miles from
the city.

Finally, the Air Defense Headquarters developed some
much-needed measures. They made use of the distinguishing
feature of Chongqing as a mountain city. Poles fifty meters
high, were set up on selected mountain tops around the city.
When the enemy’s planes took off from Enshi in Hubei province
to the east, they were still more than five hundred miles from
Chongqing. When word came to the government that bombers
had left the Japanese air base, huge red balls were raised up the
poles. We called them the red lanterns, because they were
shaped like old court lanterns. They could be seen from all
sides for dozens of miles. When the people spotted the first red
ball, they knew they had just enough time to prepare food and
water, and gather any necessary clothing. The first person to
spot the ball rushed to tell all his neighbors. We called the first
red ball the “pre-alarm.” When the Japanese planes reached
Wanxian in eastern Sichuan, they were about three hundred
miles away. Then the second red ball would go up. At the same
time the sirens sounded one long and two short blasts. When the
planes were no more than fifty miles away, the two red balls
were brought down and the sirens’ emergency alarm
sounded—one long blast followed by continuous short bursts.
Within minutes of hearing the emergency alarm we
began to hear the rumblings of the Japanese planes approaching
to the east. We didn’t dare stay in the house, even though we
were ten miles from the center of the city. We would hide in a
hollow place beneath a large rock which projected out from a
hillside about half a mile from our house. On summer nights
when the bombers came, we walked in the moonlight along
narrow dikes of land that divided the water-filled rice paddies,
making our way toward our rock shelter. In a silent and single
file line, we walked and listened to the frogs singing, thousands
of voices—as one fell, another rose—not unlike a modern rock
chorus. Even though the expressions on the faces of the adults
revealed their increasing terror with each step, we young boys
shivered with a nervous, childish excitement.

A sadness hung heavy in the air after the siren began its
cry. The cliff faced east, so we could see the bombers
approaching from over the horizon and then passing just above
our heads on their return. During the daytime raids, I would
count them one by one. Usually there were twenty four or thirty
six planes per wave, with two to three waves per raid. Within
seconds, we could hear the screaming of the bombs as they
were dropped from the planes onto the people in Chongqing.
Then we would hear a sudden concentrated explosion. After a
few of these raids, we knew that if the bombs were released
right over our heads they would fall directly on Chongqing. We
also knew how far ahead of us they needed to be dropped if
they were going to fall on us. So, once the planes had passed a
certain point, we all felt safe if we hadn’t heard the screaming
terror of the falling bombs by that time.

Out of necessity, as the days wore on, our ears became
very well trained. Eventually, we could roughly calculate the
number of planes and even the type, and even whether they
were Japanese or our own, by the rumbling sounds of their
engines. The Japanese mostly used a two-engine bomber, Type
96, nicknamed the “Vulture.” They felt so secure, they did not
even have fighter planes escort them. Our fighter planes that
were sent up to meet them were old British Hawks and Russian
E-15’s and E-16’s. Later we had American P-39’s and P-40’s,
the planes of the Flying Tigers. Later still, there were twinfusalaged
P-38’s and P-51 Mustangs.

Unfortunately, we never seemed to have enough planes
to match the Japanese onslaught. Even so, the Chinese pilots
proved to be very brave. One day I counted 108 Japanese planes
flying overhead. This was the most I had ever seen at that point
in the war. A single Chinese plane, by itself, with no other
support, challenged all 108 of them the best he could. We
watched this lonely E-16 dive more than once firing into the
pack of bombers. On his fourth pass, the massed gunfire from
the bombers hit him. A small blossom of fire burst from his
plane. It went into a spin and we watched with excitement and
cheers as the pilot parachuted to safety. Later we learned,
however, that he had died of his wounds. We all felt
downhearted. Watching his challenge as we had, it was like a
personal defeat as is often the case with war.

The Japanese knew we could never match the number of
their planes. They swelled with arrogance in the bold manner of
their attacks. One day a single Zero fighter flew back and forth
over our area trying to locate the anti-aircraft guns that were
hidden only 500 meters from our house. In his search he flew so
low his plane almost touched the treetops. Our gunners became
so enraged by his boldness that when the Zero gave up and
turned its back on them they were emotionally compelled to
fire at him across the treetops, in spite of their orders not to.
Immediately the plane turned back around at the renewed
evidence of the guns’ presence. I watched in excitement as our
guns immediately lay flat again under their camouflage. Then
the damned Zero swaggered arrogantly away. These were the
repeated experiences that increased my resolve to eventually
join the air corps. I resolved to avenge these insults and shoot
every Zero in the sky.

We had only a few of these anti-aircraft guns with which
to defend Chongqing. There were four German .76 caliber guns
in place near our home. We soon made friends with the guns’
communication squad, which was even briefly stationed in our
home. The soldiers let me stand nearby and watch when they
practiced shooting their guns off into the distant mountainside. I
would just stand there next to the guns and feel like I was
already one of those soldiers defending my country. During the
many Japanese daytime raids we would watch as the antiaircraft
shells exploded in the sky around the bombers like big
white flowers in a vast blue field. But I was even more intrigued
by the search lights criss-crossing the sky over the city at night
looking for the bombers. To this day my heart still aches
because I only saw two Japanese planes shot down during those
many raids on Chongqing. One was a lead plane of a bomber
squadron with an eight man crew aboard, and I remember the
shock of learning the unbelievable news that one of the crew
was from far off Italy!

One of these massive raids proved especially destructive
to our family. The Japanese decided to fire-bomb Chongqing
again. The result was the inevitable mass destruction, with
more than a hundred homes and businesses left in flames across
the city. It was in that raid, on June 9, 1939, that our theater
was burned to the ground. Nothing was left. Even with that cruel
and desperate raid, neither the Chinese people nor our family
were cowed into thoughts of surrender. Ultimately this is always
the response when defending your motherland. About a year
later, on a fine summer morning, the Japanese planes flew over
again, dropping not bombs, but leaflets, like large snowflakes
blowing in the wind as they fell from the sky. These poison
snowflakes carried an ultimatum demanding once again that
Chiang’s government stop resisting, and come to the surrender
table. In a rage of national pride, we all tore the leaflets into
pieces and threw them back into the sky—to be carried away
by the wind.

My mother eventually became panic-stricken with severe
anxiety attacks as the air raids continued month after month.

Her heart problems seemed to grow worse and worse with each
raid. As her condition worsened, she became too sick to even
walk to the cliff shelter with the rest of the family. She could no
longer bear the heart-shaking roar of the anti-aircraft guns,
especially when they began to fire without warning. So, during
the raids I would place myself where I could view the guns and
my mother sitting outside her room, both at the same time. As
soon as I saw the flash of the firing guns and before hearing the
roar, I would signal to her. This helped prepare my mother for
the noise to come, making her feel a bit easier.

Obviously, during those years, all of our schools were
closed because of the air raids, so as students without a
classroom, we often spent our days gathering wild mulberries,
fishing or hunting. Once on a sunny morning I was lying on the
grass watching the clouds drift by when I spotted a small
sparrow attacking several eagles. I had never seen so many
eagles at one time before. I was amazed, because a sparrow is
no match for even one eagle. But this sparrow was so nimble
and quick, diving with such speed and agility, the eagles were
baffled. He would dive from great heights like an arrow shooting
through the sky. As I watched him, I thought of our tiny Chinese
air force which flew with such courage against the mighty
Japanese. I admired him so much that I engraved a new name
on my slingshot: White Sparrow. Like the bird, I again resolved
to join the air corps to fight the eagles in our skies.

While living in the Chongqing countryside, we often saw
hares, foxes, wild ducks and other fowl around our house. My
oldest cousin-brother Yan-hua, once even captured a young
leopard. Another time, near our house, we surrounded and tried
to kill a fox. We had a German double-barrel shotgun, two rat
killing air-rifles, and from my uncle’s former French bodyguard,
a big revolver. Yan-hua, age twenty-five and the chief of our
group, had the shotgun. Two older cousins chased the fox
through the woods and left me, the youngest, with the big
revolver at a fork in the road to prevent the fox from escaping.
As planned, the fox came running toward me. I hid behind a
tree and lifted the revolver, too big and heavy for my young
hands. Unfortunately, I forgot to click on the firing hammer, so
when I pulled the trigger the gun jumped, fired, and where the
bullet went I didn’t know. The fox ran faster and never looked
back as he darted into the woods.

One bright autumn day we went to hunt wild ducks on the
Changjiang River. On that stretch of the river, there was a huge
rock islet jutting majestically out of the water. There we spotted
a small flock of ducks sunning themselves on the west side of
the rock, so we found a small boat and rowed around to the east
side of the islet, out of sight from the ducks. Leaving the boat
behind, we climbed the rock and crept quietly toward the ducks.
We aimed and fired! The startled ducks took flight in all
directions, but three were hit and fell into the churning water.
We hurried to the boat and rowed quickly to pick them up, but
they had vanished. The current was so swift they disappeared
only a few seconds after hitting the water.

Swimming was always one of my favorite sports. There
was a pond nestled in a quiet valley near my Uncle Wang’s
house. It was formed by a mountain stream that flowed down to
the Jialing River. It was a fast flowing stream, cascading down
from the slopes above at almost forty-five degrees, with its bed
full of exciting bumps and hollows. I was fond of sitting in the
water upstream and sliding down its slick course into the pond.
However, the bumps and hollows created some definite trouble
for my buttocks. But I was glad the hollows were there just the
same, for in them I found tiny fresh water shrimp and small
crabs which I ate raw on the spot.

One summer my mother took me to a fortune teller who
told her that I should stay away from water or something bad
would happen to me; perhaps I would even drown. I hated this
woman for telling that superstitious nonsense to my vulnerable
mother. Of course, something bad did happen to me. That was
the fact that my mother forbid me to go swimming anymore.
Still, I secretly went swimming anyway. One day when I came
back from such a swim, mother asked, “Dear, where have you
been all afternoon?” I assumed an indifferent pose and
answered, “Oh I’ve just been playing with some boys on the
slope and picking wild mulberries.” Then mother drew me to
her side, held out my arm with her left hand, and scratched
along my forearm with her fingernail. Following her fingernail
was a clear, white strip where she had scratched away the film
left by the river water. I had no rebuttal. From then on after
swimming I was very careful to wash the muddy river film from
my body. Then when mother scratched my arm, she felt more at
ease and wore a satisfied smile.

But one day I barely escaped with my life. During the
summer, the river often rises suddenly because of the piandong
yu, or heavy eastern rains. When this comes, you can hear the
roar of the waterfall in the lower reaches of the river above
Chongqing from quite a distance away. That day I had not
noticed the sudden rise in the river, and in the excitement of
my sport I did not think of the danger. After just a few strokes
out into the cool water, the undertow caught me. It felt like
driving a car and the brakes stop working. Instinctively, I swam
hard for shore, which was only five meters away. Fear increased
my strength, but the current fought against me. I won the
struggle, but I reached the shore only thirty meters from the
waterfall. My legs were like jelly, as I lay exhausted on the
river’s bank just thankful to be alive. You can be sure I never
told mother about that swim or near catastrophe. It would have
only re-enforced her beliefs in the superstitions.

During those years in the countryside, we had a cook
named Fu who was the strangest old man I’d ever seen. He was
about sixty-five, tall, thin and very healthy. He had tanned,
wrinkled skin, but only a few scattered teeth. His face was
always flushed and his eyes were bloodshot from all the wine
he drank. Almost every night in the dark he went to fetch water
in the valley with only the moon for light. “Aren’t you afraid of
ghosts?” I once asked when he returned from one of his nightly
fetches. With pretended reproach, he said, “How could there be
a ghost in this world? I’ve never seen one in all of my sixty-five
years!” In this way, the realistic old villager inoculated me
against any future fearful belief in ghosts.

He was optimistic and humorous. He gave crazy nicknames
to the boys in our family which he would rhyme in
Chinese into a jingle:

Even-handed the Eldest
No Needs the Second
Flurry the Third (that was me)
Joker the Fourth
Next Back
32
King of Hell the Fifth
Bed-Wetter the Sixth, and
Crying All Day the Last.

We called him Yaksha because of a strange habit he had.
He usually fell asleep before eleven at night. Then, when the
big clock in the sitting room struck eleven, he would begin to
sing in his sleep. He sang songs from the local opera,
accompanying himself with sounds like an orchestra. A Yaksha,
in Buddhist lore, is a helper of the demons in hell. We thought
this old man must be a spirit from the nether world the way he
sang in his sleep.

Yaksha had no wife, which could have explained his
irresistible desires. A forty-year old widow also helped in our
house. One night we boys were playing hide-and-seek, and I hid
in a corner behind a door. Then I heard a rhythmical groaning
coming from Yaksha’s bamboo bed in the kitchen. I peeped
through the crack between the door and the frame. What I saw
amazed me so much I froze. There lay old Yaksha and the
widow, stark naked. The moaning grew shorter and quicker until
together they broke out in a strange, strong groaning sound.
Then, suddenly all was mysteriously quiet and calm. What I
saw and heard created a strong sense of mystery and of course a
great sensual appeal. I had seen them flirt and touch, but I had
never before seen anyone doing what they were doing that
night. The next morning I told my two elder brothers about it,
and I was surprised that it was not news at all to my eldest
brother.

Still the air raids continued. Still we all went to hide
under the rock. Still there was no school. In fact, I did not have
the opportunity to return to school again until I was thirteen. By
this time I needed to make up two years of primary school, so I
used my elder brothers’ books to create my own lessons. When I
was finally admitted to Jianchuan Middle School, nine miles
from our home, it was necessary for me to become a resident
student. I came home the very first weekend and stayed close to
my mother the entire time. By this time she had grown
extremely weak from her illness, so as we approached our
house after our short walk together, I held her arm and halflifted
her up the slope. When I first did this she was startled,
then she smiled happily as if she thought, “Look my dearest is
grown up now. How strong he is!” Even so, two weeks later I
was struck down with an attack of appendicitis. My mother took
me to a hospital in Chongqing, but refused to give them
permission to operate. In those days it was still a dangerous
operation, and she was very fearful. She had me undergo a long
treatment with medicines instead. As a result, I missed yet
another year of school as I spent weeks in bed and months of
convalescence.

~~~

It was during that summer in 1941 that my mother,
frightened and exhausted by the endless waves of Japanese
bombing, was confined to her bed, never to get up again. In
little more than a month she left us forever. She was only thirtythree.
For the first time I knew the true pain of a broken heart
and of total loss while only fourteen.

The day before my mother died was my aunt’s birthday.
That evening the rest of the family was preparing for the
birthday celebration, so I was the only one left by her bedside.
For a long time mother did not utter a word. Then, in a last
radiance of the setting sun, she spoke clearly to me saying,
“Dear son, today is your aunt’s birthday. Go have fun, and
hurry.” At such a moment how could I run outside and play?
Instead I bent over her failing body, never wanting to leave her.
I felt her arms turning cold. I had heard that when the limbs
become cold the person is going to die. Dread began its attack
on me. I held her arms in mine and tried to warm them by
pressing them against my face. I realized it was hopeless, but I
prayed for a miracle. If the Budisatva Goddess Guan Yin, really
existed, she would save mother now. She had to! I needed
Mother so much! I went to the bamboo forest, knelt facing the
west, and prayed that Guan Yin would use her greatest magic to
help my poor mother and stop the endless bombing.

But no one could save her, not even Guan Yin. She
lingered on through that night and into the next day. Late in the
afternoon she began to struggle. I hurried to locate my father,
which took me some time. He was sitting under the big Yong
tree by the pond reading a novel. I couldn’t believe he would be
sitting there reading a novel while mother was dying. I will
never be able to wipe that painful image from my memory. He
didn’t seem to have the least ounce of human feeling for his
own wife. Even animals feel more compassion at such a time
than he showed that day. It showed me that his heart was empty
and cold as a winter stone. He was in shock and I hated him
from that moment on. Mother was at her last gasp when father
finally came to her. She urged him to clear the flem from her
throat for it was suffocating her. When he did, with it came her
last breath.

Perhaps my mother had begun suffering from my father’s
terrible temper and neglect early in their marriage, and then
continuing through the years as his humanity degenerated
further and further with his addiction to opium. I watched her
die in pain, with her eyes dreadfully wide open as if in terror. I
burst into tears, my heart was torn apart. All of my world
seemed to depart with her. Crying, I threw myself upon her dead
body, wanting never to part from her again. She was the only
loving and stable thing I had in my life.

After Mother’s death, I changed into a boy of very few
words, weighed down with sorrow and easily carried away by
my emotions. My mother would not have died if she’d had a
good husband. Of that I was sure. In the meantime our family
circumstances continued to go from bad to worse. Father took
one of Uncle’s maids, a slave girl named Xiuqin, as his wife
only five months after Mother’s death. Xiuqin was only two
years older than I. We had often played together and my older
brother had always loved her very much. His hidden love for
Xiuqin became a very painful secret after she married Father.
She was certainly not the legendary cruel stepmother.

Rather she was a kind-hearted country woman, the daughter of
a very poor peasant. Xiuqin had two companions who were also
sold to my family when they were children. One died of an
early illness and the other eventually became a prostitute,
frequently entertaining the soldiers in the back of our theater.
As the family continued to change I knew there was nothing
much left for me at home, and I knew I would soon have to
leave and learn to fend for myself.

That following year, when I was fourteen, I attended my
first semester of junior middle school in Chongqing. As our
situation continued to deteriorate my father was soon unable to
afford the expense of my board and lodging. This became very
evident after he lost his job as the head of the local highway
department. He was fired because of his corruption and his
opium addiction. That ended any hopes of my formal schooling
until I entered Zhejiang Art Institute in Hangzhou eight years
later.

During this period, as the cursed opium and the cruel
Japanese continued to destroy our lives, we began to live in
cold and hunger. Often we had only water, and no food. The
endless aching in my stomach would keep me from sleeping.
When I would step from the table that served as my bed, my
legs trembled with weakness. Once we collected wheat husks
and bran and boiled them in water, but what we ate went
straight through us. It did not digest at all. By winter, there was
no bedding left. My table-bed was covered with ragged cotton
wadding that offered only the barest protection from the cold. I
huddled up, muscles drawn tight, the whole night. I would wake
up in the morning exhausted.

Later in the bitter days of spring, I contracted malaria.
We couldn’t even afford a doctor or a stay at the hospital. The
treatment I eventually received only furthered my illness. It
depended purely and solely on fright. At night my superstitious
older cousins and an old widow servant would yell and hit me,
trying to surprise and scare the malaria out of my body. It didn’t
work. In fact it nearly destroyed what strength I had left in me.
Then, one day, during a malaria attack, they claimed
that I must climb to the top of the mountain near our home. I
did as they said, climbing three miles along a very narrow path.
I shivered, first my body then my heart. My shivers led to fever.
I became more and more tired, weaker and weaker. I sweated
profusely. Although I despaired, I endured with dogged will. My
legs weighed a thousand pounds each. I collapsed completely
when I finally reached the top. Tears of pain streamed down my
face as my eldest brother carried me home on his back. Once
again, the ordeal proved to be no cure. My face become pale
and swollen, my body weakened. I suffered from malaria for
nearly two more years.

During this desperate time my cousin by marriage, Guihua,
came to visit from Chengdu. She was my only source of
human warmth. One night under the lonely Yong tree, where we
buried my mother, she suggested to me, “Why don’t you go to
your grandma? I can buy you a train ticket.” Qianwei, where
grandmother lived, was a long way off, in far southwestern
Sichuan. I kept my head down and didn’t utter a word. I couldn’t
accept help from a female cousin of my own generation. My
pride and self-respect stood in the way.

Soon after, late one night I was awakened from sleep on
my table-bed by her warmth and gentle kisses. She held me
tight. I hadn’t felt so loved since my mother’s death. Gui-hua
became my first love at age sixteen. She was nine years older
than me and I began to depend on her love to get me through
each day. Before long, however, my cousin Yan-hua, her
husband, joined her from Chengdu. I was so jealous, I hated him
and did not want to even look at him. When he arrived I left
home sneaking through a little hole in the back wall of the
house. He was very puzzled by my disappearance and
remarked, “It’s strange that my third brother does not want to
see me?” Only Gui-hua knew why. In the weeks that followed
she tried every possible way to meet me and give me her love,
but in a month she was gone with her husband, leaving me only
her gold ring to remember her by.

Not long after that, my Aunt Man, my mother’s third
sister, said she would take care of me. She never came to our
home because she hated my father, but I met her in the house
of a friend, Mrs. Fu. Aunt Man told me she would help me go to
school and I was very happy at this prospect, but then I thought
of my younger sister May who had never been to school. I was
afraid that father, who was gambling and smoking opium, might
sell her as a slave. I begged my aunt to take May to our
grandma before she would take me or considered sending me to
school. She promised me she would. The next morning, without
letting my father know, my sister and I crept out of the house
and set out to Aunt Man’s. Poor May, her entire luggage was no
more than a little bundle of underwear. We crossed the Jialing
River on the ferry. We stopped at a food stall where I bought
her favorite sweet dumplings made with fermented glutinous
rice. Then we came to another small shop where I bought her a
handkerchief with the little money I had saved.

When Aunt Man took her into the house I did not follow
for I knew I would cry. I turned my head and walked painfully
away. I saw May turn and look after me, tears streaming down
her face. I felt a lump in my throat, but I could only wave to her
with a fake smile and tell her to take care of herself. When I
was out of her sight I stood on a corner and wept bitterly. Later
she wrote that she did not use the handkerchief, but kept it
under her pillow. I would not see May again until Beijing, 1968,
twenty-five years later.

Aunt Man wanted me to attend Meng-Zang Middle
School, a Two Nations School for Mongol and Tibetan
minorities. It was a public school without charge and she had
the connections to get me admitted. Aunt Man was a hottempered
woman, often flying into rage at the slightest
provocation. She was always ready to put people in their place
with a vicious sneer or a crushing dressing down. My cousins
and I knew her temper well before I eventually went to live
with her, so this side of her personality was no surprise.
The day I took the entrance exam for Meng-Zang Middle
School, it was extremely hot. Chongqing in the summer was
known as one of the three “stoves” of China. A play called
“The Foggy Chongqing” also celebrated its almost daily heavy
fog. After the exam I walked down the hill toward Changjiang
River from the school with the sun directly overhead. Hungry
and weak, I suffered a heat stroke before I got to the river.
Dizzy and sweating, I fell to the ground unconscious. I woke up
on a lawn under a tree, a middle-aged woman squatting beside
me and smiling warmly. “Do you feel better, boy?” “Oh yes, I
feel all right now, thank you, aunt.” She asked about me and
my family, and then she insisted on accompanying me to Aunt
Man’s. I was deeply grateful to her but could not find a phrase
to express my gratitude when we parted. I still have not
forgotten the lovely dimple on her cheek and her warm gesture
of kindness in such a harsh cruel world.

I did not immediately realize that she had cured me with
a treatment called “Jiusha.” To do this you lie the heatstroke
victim flat on their back, bend your forefinger and middle finger
like a pair of pliers, then wet them in water or oil and
repeatedly pinch the victim’s neck and elbow to relieve blood
congestion. This works for both sunstroke and fevers. When I
saw signs of my slightly ruptured blood vessels in the mirror I
suddenly realized what she had done for me.

But when I walked into the sitting hall, Aunt Man
immediately began to scold me for being late, never giving me
a chance to tell her of my stroke. I could not stand her temper,
and I only grieved all the more over the loss of my mother. My
aunt’s offer of help for me to go to school was beginning to
come at too high a price. Without explanation, I finally left her
forever. Now I regret that I left like that. As I grew older I came
to understand her. She was really a good-hearted woman. She
wanted to help me grow up healthy and educated, but her bad
temper made her impossible to live with. I wasn’t alone either,
for my cousins all felt the same way about her.

I had no where else to go, so I returned to my father’s
house. When he found out that I had arranged for my sister to go
to grandma’s, he was furious. He poured a stream of abuse on
me and knocked me about my head and face. I remember
thinking, never again will I take his abuse. I’d had enough,
especially with my mother’s death only a year before. I was
fully aware of the situation around me and what horrors were
developing everywhere. In his blind, selfish rage, he even
threatened to sign a paper breaking off our father-son
relationship. He always thought only of himself. His family
meant nothing to him. With pain and deep sorrow weighing
down upon my heart, I ran out of the house and threw myself
upon my mother’s grave. I blamed the Japanese for her death
and hated them with a passion. How many Chinese families
were ruined by Japan’s murderous attacks upon us? At sixteen
what could I do about this growing blood-debt? I swore then and
there that sooner or later I would avenge my mother and my
people. I was the first of six brothers to leave home. I changed
my name from Shuhua meaning from Sichuan, China, to W u
Chachi, meaning a thoroughbred horse of the Wu family. Soon
my next younger brother left to join the Youth Army. Following
in my footsteps, as his role model, he also changed his name to
match with mine. Then my oldest brother joined the Air Corps.
On December 7, 1941, all the newspaper headlines
shouted news of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.
This unprovoked act of aggression against another peaceful
people made my anger even hotter. Years later I cheered with a
vengeance when the headlines shouted much better news, “500
American Planes Bomb Tokyo!” I didn’t care if they
exaggerated. It felt so good to think of Tokyo getting a taste of
Chongqing’s terror and death.

By 1943, Japan had planned to create a safe corridor
from the northeast to the southern border of China through
which it could move troops and supplies on its road of
aggression in southeast Asia. To achieve this, it mounted a
large scale offensive against southwest China. Also, Japan
knew that if it could readily supply its troops in the south it
could cut off Chiang’s supply lines and force him to eventually
surrender. Liuzhou in Guangxi province and Dushan in Guizhou
province fell in quick succession. Chongqing was seriously
threatened and the situation was becoming critical. This danger
to our homes fired up the patriotism of all the students in our
local schools.

I read in the Chongqing newspaper that the Northeast
University students in Sichuan’s San Tai county petitioned the
government to allow them “to throw aside the brush” and join
the army in its fight against the Japanese military. The students
could no longer bury themselves in their books at such a fateful
time in their country’s history. Throughout free China students
volunteered one after the other to join the army. In November,
the government decided to establish an expeditionary army
along the India-Burmese border. The student volunteer unit from
Northeast University was formally named, The Training
Regiment of the Military and Political Ministry, and became
the predecessor of the infamous Chinese Youth Army. Much
excited by the news of these events, I immediately rushed out
to enroll my name at the Military Services Office located on
the other side of the Jialing River, halfway up the mountain.
Politely the enlistment officer refused to accept me when
they read on my school report that I was only sixteen. Eighteen
was the minimum age for enlistees. Discouraged, I turned my
back without a word. Back home I changed the 16 to 18 and
went back to the Military Services Office the next day. I was
once again received by the enlistment officer. He wore
eyeglasses and had a proud military bearing. He looked about
thirty. I was sure he didn’t remember me from among all of the
faces he encountered every day. He very carefully looked over
the report on my first half year at middle school. I held my
breath waiting for him to decide. When I noticed that his face
showed some evidence of goodwill, I felt more at ease.
Finally he spoke, “Well, your technique in altering the
character sixteen is not bad, but you’ve come back much too
soon. You are impatient. I haven’t yet forgotten your look of
disappointment from yesterday.” He paused. It was as if he
didn’t have the heart to torment me while I stood there
speechless. I didn’t beg or try to defend myself, although I was
very anxious. “Listen young fellow, neither your age nor your
school record meets the enlistment requirements.” He paced
back and forth, but something in his manner encouraged me.
Finally he said, “Although you do not meet the formal
requirements, you do have strong patriotic feelings and
determination. Ok boy, register here tomorrow morning.” I
bowed deep and low, then ran for home. All my surroundings
suddenly seemed much brighter.

I was excited! I finally had something to look forward to
in my life. We must win over the Japanese. I must bring credit
to the Wu family. The next day with purpose, I climbed the
narrow path on the cliff above the river and came to the gate of
the military service office. Once in the courtyard I saw lots of
people already there, nearly 150 when I arrived and over 1800
by the end of the day. They were all from different parts of
Sichuan. Most of their faces were very youthful and friendly. It
felt as though we had known each other for years, and fighting
for our country was a common vision we all shared. After
signing some papers, we were issued new cotton-padded
uniforms, canvas shoes, toothbrushes, canteens, and towels. I
happily threw away father’s old green coat that had barely kept
me warm. Finally I was back in durable clothing again, it had
been a long time. I also felt happy and confident with the
energy of the other young men who were now my comrades. It
was the uniform, all the same for each, that made us feel
closer.

We were formed into companies of about 120 men each.
The companies were then assigned to the three battalions which
made up the regiment. I was in 7th Company, 2nd Battalion of
the First Training Regiment. With its ranks in good order, the
regiment set out along the narrow path down to the Jialing to be
ferried across the river, and then marched the fifteen miles east
to a beautiful place called Affectionate Couple Bridge. The
area around the camp was known by the name of this bridge
and was, in its geographical characteristics, just as poetic as its
name, with undulating hills, woods everywhere, murmuring
streams, and birds singing. It was a true paradise to my
desperate soul.

Our training camp was located in a basin in the middle of
these rolling hills. It had a vast rectangle of level land at the
bottom of the valley to serve as our parade and training ground.
On one side were rows of one-story houses which had been
converted to serve as our barracks. On the other side were large
slogan boards admonishing “Fight the Japanese to the End” and
“We Must Win the War and Reconstruct the Country.” We
went through our basic preliminary training here for about three
months. The training was hard, especially since I was one of the
youngest and shortest men in the regiment. I looked ridiculous
in my bulging padded uniform, shouldering a .38 Wuhai rifle,
its Japanese style bayonet nearly as long as I was tall.
The 1st Independent Company was made up solely of
male college and university students. The 2nd Company was
made up of women, about 80% of whom were students from
high schools and universities. The rest of the regiment was
made up of about 60% high school students and the remaining
from all walks of life—farmers, shopkeepers, even a monk with
a shaven head and six ritual marks on his skull called jieba.
Many carried their own painful family histories of blood and
tears. Scores who had fled the Northeast or Shanghai with just
their lives, told of parents killed, sisters raped, and homes
burned. One of my comrades, Mr. Wang, was from Nanjing. He
told the most terrible story of all. How the Japanese ruthlessly
massacred Chinese civilians during their early occupation of
Nanjing. More than 300,000 were executed in the cruelest
manners imaginable, and over 60,000 women were raped. His
aunt was one of them. His story made my blood boil! How could
a people so rich in art and culture become such savages?
Our instructors were new graduates from the Kuomintang
Central Military Officers Academy at Chengdu, and were
overflowing with the fresh enthusiasm of youth. During our three
months of training, we were also visited by several delegations
of high ranking military leaders who brought us official
greetings and words of appreciation from the government. We
looked forward to those visits because they always brought
many welcome foods with them, including live pigs and
chickens. On those days we would have a “Sacrifice to the
Teeth,” known as a dayaji, or a meal with a large ration of
meat. During those early months, and throughout the war, we
seldom had meat, only a small portion once a month. Those
leading military figures who visited us included such men as
Zhen Dongguo, the Commander of the Chinese Expeditionary
Army in India and Burma, who later rebelled in 1948 during the
second Chinese civil war, He Yingqing, the Minister of
National Defense, and Vice-Minister Bai Chongxi.
But the visitors who impressed me most were five
delegates from the “800 Warriors.” They were soldiers of the
29th Army, the brave defending force made famous in the battle
of Shanghai in 1937. Led by Colonel Xie Jinyuan, they held
their position at the Four China Bank warehouse, north of
Shanghai, and never surrendered. When the Japanese flags were
raised all around them, proudly they raised a lonely Chinese
flag smuggled into them by a young woman student named
Yang, at the risk of her own life as she swam with it across the
Suzhow River. These brave Chinese warriors shared their
resolute hope and pride with the people of Shanghai. In my
heart, I worshipped these heros to this day. I often sing to
myself the “Ode for 800 Warriors.” But when I first saw these
resolute heros standing on the platform in front of the drill field
of our camp, I felt sorry for them. They looked malnourished
and sick. They had not been given the care that they deserved.
After seeing and hearing those heros of the “800 Warriors,” our
spirits said, “We will return to our homes only when all of our
enemies are wiped out!”

As we prepared to defend our country, we felt strong and
alive in our camp. Our common cause against the Japanese
enemy united people from all over China. A student from Fudan
University in Shanghai wrote a very patriotic song and taught it
to the whole regiment. It was soon adopted as our regimental
song. These words illustrate the fervor and resolve we all
shared:

“Follow us! Join the army!
Go to the Expeditionary Army.
Go to sing. To put on a play. To write an article.
Go to be an interpreter, to build a bridge of languages.
Bring the culture of school to the army camp.
Apply the knowledge of books to the battlefield.
Don’t just mouth high-sounding words.
Cast away illusions!
Be earnest and down-to-earth.
We face all difficulties,
With determination and guts.”

Aside from the intense training—drills, rifle practice,
physical workouts, maneuvers—the atmosphere of the camp
was also one of romance. The peaceful privacy and seclusion
we found in this wooded valley were favorable for lovers. The
2nd Independent Company of 150 women was a natural target
for their male comrades-in-arms. Every night I would see pairs
of lovers in the woods, down the slope, or along the stream.
Remember, the place was named Affectionate Couple Bridge. I
had my own opportunities one after another. There was a
desirable girl from Fudan University, attractive, smoothskinned,
and plump figured whom I never had the pleasure of
strolling with. She was nicknamed Bus because of her many
lovers. “Whoever had a ticket could ride.”
After about four months, in April, 1944, when we had
completed our rigorous course of training, we were asked to fill
out a paper indicating which branch of the services we would
prefer. I wanted to learn to drive, so I wrote in my wish to
become a truck or tank driver. In case of death I chose seaburial,
because of my love for the sea. So far, I have never
driven a tank nor been buried at sea, but I’m only seventy, so
there is still time.

Then the Aviation Commission came to our camp just as
we were preparing for our departure for India. I was quickly
reminded that I had wanted to fly a plane long before I wanted
to drive a tank. I was chosen immediately because of my record
and physical condition, and then transferred to the Air
Preparatory Training School in Tongliang County, two hundred
miles west of Chongqing. This was in a range of the Ba
Mountains—undulating hills, green and luxuriant. There our
barracks were hidden in the woods, with a beautiful stream
nearby. Crazy about swimming, I never missed a chance to
enjoy a quick dip at the end of the day.

One day I climbed into a tree that stretched out over the
stream. Without knowing the water’s depth in that area, I dove
in without thinking. Fortunately, I always open my eyes under
water. As soon as I hit the water I saw the stream bottom
dashing towards me. I pulled up quickly, but my face scraped
against the rock and sand covered bottom. At first I didn’t
realize that anything had happened, but when I finally climbed
out of the water I felt my face burning. It was bleeding heavily
and I had learned my lesson.

Water appreciates my feelings for her. I love her and she
loves me, even curing me of my malaria. Since the age of
twelve I had malaria attacks. None of the many cures I tried
had worked. Then, one day as I walked along the stream some
of my fellow cadets asked me to join them for a swim. At first I
hesitated, because I had a malaria attack the day before. From
previous experience I fully expected another at about three or
so that afternoon while we would be swimming. I had not yet
taken any quinine for it that day and I was afraid if I got into
the cold water the attack would come on again. Then I thought,
“Forget about it! It is bound to happen whether I go swimming
or not.” I simply wanted to swim. So, I jumped in with my
friends and had a great time. The malaria did not come that
afternoon and it has not returned since! I still wonder about this
miracle. That’s why I feel so grateful to the water. What else
could have finally cured my malaria?

~~~

One day, all of us collectively joined the Kuomintang
Nationalist Party (KMT) at an oath-taking rally. It was by order
and not by choice. We never received party cards, but we were
told that in order to join the air force we also had to become a
member of the KMT. Because of that simple policy, I have
suffered tremendously since the Communist Party took power,
being seen as a member of the opposition. However, even if I
had joined the KMT of my own free will, or realized early that
one was “anti-Chinese,” I still don’t see why I should be made
to feel guilty or to suffer retribution. The KMT was the
governing party of the People’s Republic of China, which had
the force to unify the country after the chaos following the
overthrow of the emperor and the warlords.

In July, 1944, we were transferred to Fenghuang
(Phoenix) Hill, a suburb of Chengdu about one hundred miles
northwest of Chongqing. At the foot of the hill was a United
States air base. Since we were allies, we let America build
bases on our land to fight against our common enemy. These
bases were very valuable to the war effort because they were
much closer to Japan than any base on U.S. territory. This was a
P-46 Thunderbolt base. While there, I often sat on the grass
watching the training flights. One day there were three P-46’s
up in the sunny blue sky. They dove and then climbed high, so
high they were lost to my sight. I remember the roar of the
planes was like a beautiful score of music. As I listened and
watched, suddenly one of the P-46’s was in trouble. It came
diving down, but could not pull up. It hit the ground with a loud
crash and exploded into fierce flames. Some of my fellow
cadets ran out to the crash, but I didn’t want to see such a
depressing sight up close. About a half hour later I sadly
watched as a jeep carrying two American pilots, faces bathed
in tears, pass me on the road. I knew why they wept and I
wanted to weep with them.

In September, 1944, while still at Fenghuang Hill, we
were ordered to take a physical examination in the air corps
hospital. A few days later they announced the names of those
picked to become members of the Fifth Group of Air Cadets for
training in the United States. This training was authorized by
the United States Lend-Lease Law. I was chosen and could not
have been more excited. I had never dreamed I might one day
see the land so familiar to me from the movies, magazines, and
music I had grown up with. Who would have thought I would
really get to see the United States for myself. Once a starving
teen age boy in central China, I was now going to the United
States! I felt very lucky!

As soon as we completed preparations, we first flew back
to Chongqing to go through the necessary official formalities,
including the issuing of American visas from the American
Embassy. Then back at Xinjin Air Field, also near Chengdu, the
only field large enough for B-24’s, B-17’s, and B-29’s, we
boarded our B-24 troop plane, and began our flight through the
Himalayan Mountains. The Himalayas are mountains of
enchanting but majestic beauty unlike anything I had seen
before. Such height, such precipitous cliffs, and so much snow.
They were so high that we had to fly through, not over them.
Even in late September, most were already white with snow.
For our trip to India, the first leg of our journey to the United
States, we were loaded onto six bombers, with twenty cadets in
each plane. As we climbed higher and higher into this world of
ice and snow, it became bitterly cold in the plane and we were
forced to stay wrapped in all of our heavily padded clothing.
But once through the mountains and into the golden skies of
India, the temperature rose quickly. After the cold we felt
scorched in the sun beaten planes. This was now the beginning
of my only hope for the future. A new life with a purpose and
direction. The only pain I felt as I left China was for my sister,
May.

~~~

This was my first time in a foreign country. Everything
around me struck me as new and captivating. My image and
knowledge of India was not as familiar to me as my knowledge
of America. Everything seemed so exotic. The only Indians I
had ever seen were the Indian guards at the front of the British
bank in Shanghai. Also, I had imagined the romance of The
Song of India by Rimsky-Korsakov, to represent the sounds and
mood of India. As I stepped down out of the plane, hot air
mixed with the aroma of tropical plants greeted my senses. My
first sight of the Indian people gave me a strange feeling.
Brown-black color, big sunken eyes, long hands and feet, and
“bloody” teeth. Only later did I learn that the red teeth were the
result of chewing binglang (areca or betel nut). Many of the
women were beautiful, with stream-lined curves of different
sizes. They seemed very elastic with large fully developed
breasts, huge liquid eyes, and frequently bare footed.
Sometimes I met them as they gracefully carried water on their
heads, costumed in their beautiful saris that revealed the soft
roundness of their bodies. They were irresistibly attractive to a
young Chinese lad.

We lodged in a Chinese Air Corps hostel in a place
called Dumdum located just over the Indian-Chinese border, not
to be confused with the airport in Calcutta. The hostel was a
simple thatched cottage structure. There were also tents
scattered about the area. In the searing heat we could hardly
wait to put on light khaki uniforms replacing the heavy cotton
padded ones we had worn in China. Soon we were served our
first meal of long-grained rice from Thailand along with canned
beef and beans. I thought this strange meal must be typically
American. I think because of that I liked it very much, even
though most of my friends didn’t. But I didn’t like the running
water, which smelled awful and the mosquitos who were
numerous and huge, and seemed intent on eating us alive. I
wondered how the Indians could sleep at night without netting
wrapped all around them.

On our first night in India, we were plagued with a
strange new type of trouble. Monkeys broke into our tent and
ransacked everything that wasn’t packed away. They made a
complete mess of all we had left out. The next morning some of
us intended to launch a counter attack and give the monkeys a
lesson. Just as we were about to leave, an old Chinese
serviceman at the hostel stopped us. He cautioned us sternly
that the monkeys were regarded as divinities and must never be
harmed no matter what the provocation. Luckily he stopped us,
or who knows what trouble we would have gotten ourselves into.
After breakfast we then decided to just go for a walk.

The countryside around Dumdum looked impoverished,
bleak and desolate. Just a short way out of the village along the
road, we found an old rusty tin can hung up in a latrine fenced
off by a straw screen. The can was full of water. When I
returned to the hostel I was told that this was for washing our
hands after using the latrine. I also learned that it is because of
their toilet practices that many Indians never use the left hand
to make food or shake hands.

While walking that morning, we came upon a small
market and couldn’t help but notice a basket with a strange
smell of rotting fruit. There I bought a dozen fresh oranges for
one rupee. They were different from any I had known in China,
all very large and green with the peel easily broken away from
its fruit. In the dusty heat they were very sweet. As we
continued to explore the town, we were surprised when we
came upon a little grocery run by a Chinese from Shandong
Province. Meeting someone from our homeland in this strange
place made us feel very happy. In my excitement I bought a
pair of boots from him, and he told us over and over what care
we must take while in India. He advised us of many things we
should and should not do. For example, he told us we must
never eat pineapple that had been crawled over by a poisonous
snake, but of course we never learned how to know if a
poisonous snake had crawled over our pineapple.

After a few days we boarded a train and were transported
to a United States Army Camp in Calcutta. This larger camp
was at the better known Dumdum air base just outside of the
city. On our way to Calcutta, we reached an expansive river
and for some unknown reason our train stopped for about an
hour. Most of us got off to get some much needed fresh air. We
stood and looked at the tree-lined riverbanks and played hand
signing games with the friendly Indian children who surrounded
us. By this time India had become a battlefront in the Pacific
War against Japan. China, America, and Britain formed the
Allied Army pitched against them from the bases in India. So,
also traveling with us were discharged American soldiers who
were going to join us later on the same ship from India to
America. When the train stopped at the river, one of them ran
toward us when he saw that we were Chinese. He greeted us
with his thumb up and shouted, “Ding hao!” which means,
“First rate!”

This friendly American soldier told us how brave the
Chinese 38th Division had been when it fought shoulder-toshoulder
with them against the Japanese in Burma. He was
about nineteen, clever, and always cheerful, with a square,
smiling face. He was from Cleveland, Ohio and his father was a
farmer. He proved to be very interested in learning Chinese. He
took out a little notebook with all the Chinese words and
phrases that he had already learned and proceeded to add what
we began to teach him. He was a quick learner, especially with
the dirty words. His name was Eddy, and had served as a
machine gunner. Once his unit lost a battle in Burma and he
was chased into the jungle by the Japanese. He ran and ran
until he came to a cliff above a river, where his only escape
was to jump. Fortunately, he was a good swimmer and escaped
certain death by the skin of his teeth. He and I became good
friends from then on. He called me “Baby” because I was not
only young, but I was also a soldier cursed with a childish face.
While our train was still stopped, a cargo ship came
along from the upper reaches of the river and tied up on a dock
nearby. The ship’s deck was loaded with tanks and next to one
of them I noticed a Chinese soldier standing alone. I wondered
if he could be one of my former comrades with the volunteer
expeditionary army. I knew that some of my friends were in the
tank corps here, so I wrote a brief self-introduction note and
gave it and a coin to an Indian boy standing nearby, motioning
for him to take it to the man on the ship. I watched the boy run
onto the ship and hand the note to the soldier. I could see him
clearly as he read it. Suddenly he grabbed a pair of binoculars
and turned them on me. He immediately began running toward
me with lightning speed. It was like the old Chinese saying,
“No coincidence, no books.” Meaning that without the
coincidences of life there would be no need to write a book.
There would be nothing of interest to connect us.

The soldier on the deck turned out to be one of my
closest friends from my company in the Training Regiment,
Mr. Li from Inner Mongolia. He was dark-skinned, good-natured,
and a very muscular fellow. After our reunion, we talked over
what we had done since we had been separated. He told me
how their troops rescued the British army when the Japanese
encircled them in Lasu, Burma. We couldn’t talk for as long as
we wanted because his ship pulled out again after just a short
while. We parted and have never seen each other again since. I
have often wondered if he lived through all those brutal battles
which were to soon follow in India and Burma.
While on the train we received rations that were made
for American servicemen overseas. They came in a rectangular
boxes marked “B” (breakfast), “L” (lunch), and “S” (supper).
The box also contained cigarettes, chewing gum, and what
surprised us most, condoms! That was a strange and mysterious
matter for a young man from an ancient culture with strict
moral concepts of sexual behavior. We had no formal sex
education at all. I sensed that I had really come into another
world. After all, because these condoms were in with our
breakfast, it appeared that the Americans thought that the
sexual act was as right and proper as eating a meal.

Whenever our train stopped at stations along the way to
Calcutta, lovely young girls sang to us accompanied by
accordions. This is how they earned their living. One young girl,
about fourteen, sang a sweetly piercing melody. I felt a sorrow
in her singing beyond description, even though I couldn’t
understand a word. Whenever I feel blue I still hum the moving
tune I heard coming from her lips. When I do, her lovely
melancholy face reappears before my mind’s eye to this day. I
often wonder why she appeared so sad.

When we finally reached Calcutta, we had nothing to do
but wait. Sometimes we went into the city to see the sights.
Calcutta was a very large city, very much like Shanghai in
scale and status. But there was a notable difference. Who would
think of white cows lying in the middle of a main street in
Shanghai. I was surprised to learn that these white cows were
sacred. In China, we would have eaten every one of them! After
wondering around for an hour or so, I bought some souvenirs
from a Chinese-run jewelry shop—an ivory elephant, a rabbit
figurette, and a bracelet made from Indian coins, annas,
threaded one by one into a charming piece of jewelry. In China
twelve animals are used to characterize the years in which
people are born. The rabbit is the animal representing the year
of my birth. I kept these exotic souvenirs for many years, until I
finally gave them to my girlfriend at the Hangzhou Institute of
Fine Arts.

As we passed rows of little cottages going out of town
toward the base, heavily made-up women waved and shouted to
us, “Three rupees! Three rupees!” while they raised three
fingers. To a small group of naive Chinese boy soldiers this
seemed a very cheap price for one night of love a world away
from home. They asked just twice as much as the cost of a roast
chicken, but none of us dared to accept their tempting
invitation. Though some of the women were very attractive, the
thought of the dirty surroundings we saw everywhere made us
afraid of disease.

One day I did not feel very well so I went to the U.S.
Army Clinic on the base. The American doctor took my
temperature and sent me to the hospital with a temperature just
above 37 degrees celsius, about 100 degrees fahrenheit. By the
time I finally got checked into the hospital I felt fine, even
without the help of any medicine. The doctors were evidently
concerned about an infection by tropical ameba. While in the
hospital, my friend Eddy came to see me. I was surprised to
learn that he too was a patient, but he didn’t seem like most of
the other soldiers there. I was glad to have his company. He
treated me like a brother, tucking me in, and waking me in the
mornings. He was fond of drinking and gambling by any means,
cards, dice, anything. He often won at playing cards. But what
surprised me, was that he sent all the money he won gambling
home to his family. That made him more lovable in my eyes.
More Chinese I suppose.

Most patients were no more seriously ill than I was.
Therefore, with lots of energy to spare, we made fun all day.
When the blonde American nurse in our ward turned her back to
us, Eddy would make a face and say, “No good. Her buttocks
are too big.” However, I thought she was pretty. Besides, she
was warm and patient with us. Once we played cards with some
black American soldiers who had a separate ward. They did
some card tricks. I knew that western people as a whole were
better than us at playing poker. After all, it is a western game.
Still, we Chinese wouldn’t be outdone. I had an idea. One of my
friends would use his cigarette as a signal. I divided the poker
deck into three portions and let one of the black soldiers pick a
card and put it into the portion he chose while my back was
turned. I then followed the signal of my friend’s cigarette and
found the card right away. They never caught on as we played
this trick on them over and over again. They looked at each
other bewildered with mouths wide open. Even though we still
couldn’t beat them at poker, we laughingly showed them that
we were better at card tricks.

We also discovered that there were also many organized
recreational activities in the hospital. I soon learned a strange
new game with cards covered with numbers and piles of
buttons, called Bingo. I proved to be much better at this fun
game of luck than I ever could be at poker. After all, I won a
smoking pipe the first time I played. After celebrating my
victory, I gave it to a friend because I did not smoke. But the
biggest prize of my hospital stay was that I finally began to
learn English from the lyrics of American popular and folk
songs. Through years of watching American films I had become
familiar with its strange sounds, but I never had the opportunity
to learn any words. Then one day a sentimental song came to
my ears through the loudspeakers in the ward. It was Always
sung by Dinah Shore. Her voice was sweet and husky. It
touched my heart, and I became anxious to learn to sing it. The
melody was easy, but the words gave me trouble—“I’ll be
loving you, always. With a love that’s true, always...”
I knew nothing of English but the alphabet and some
phonetic pronunciation. I had bought a very small pocket
English-Chinese dictionary in the Chinese district of Calcutta
and began to look up each word one by one. I soon could sing
the words and began to understand what they meant, but I still
couldn’t comprehend some of the sentences. The way they were
constructed was so different than in Chinese I did not have any
introductory schooling in English and this made my learning the
language take twice as long. While most of my friends in the
army had graduated from college or university, or at least high
school, my lack of education also caused me to feel inferior.

But I thought that by learning English I would advance my
education and eventually my opportunities to do what my
friends could do. I studied behind their backs, for fear they
would look down on me. The second song I learned was, I Walk
Alone (because to tell you the truth, I’ll be lonely...). I first
heard it sung by a black soldier singing with a soldier band one
night at the hospital. To this day, those first English language
songs are still favorites of mine. Music always was the master
of my feelings. It can bring all my passion into play more than
any of the other arts. I have to say it taught me English.
While in the hospital I was surprised to discover that
Eddy was a drinking lush. When I was eventually released from
the hospital, he often slipped from his room and asked me from
the inside of the hospital fence, “Baby, please buy me a
couple of cans of beer.” Then I would run to get khaki colored
cans of army beer, cold from the PX. When I handed them to
him through the fence, he would look around to be sure no MP’s
were watching. Then like lightning he would slip them inside
his gown and grimace as their cold surface touched his skin. As
soon as he was released from the hospital he ran first thing to
the PX to get drunk, wasted. That night he fell to the grass
outside the bar and slept there until the next morning.

After five weeks in Calcutta we were transferred to
Bombay to await our ship to America. On the train a big fat
strong Indian man in traditional dress, got into a fight with one
of the British soldiers. He was fearless and his strong fists beat
the British soldier bloody. I thought this would cause great
trouble since the British still ruled India, but to my surprise,
nothing happened. Afterwards, everything went on as it had
before. This was so different from what we thought of the British
back in China.

We were soon settled into a British army camp in
Bombay. The camp was huge, but the food and
accommodations were much worse than those we had in
Dumdum. However, Bombay is a much more attractive city
than Calcutta. It is a port city with beautiful white buildings
along the seashore, facing a blue sea capped with an even bluer
sky. After settling in, my friends Zhao, Li, He, Jiang, and I took
a taxi into the city. The taxi driver thought since we were
foreigners our pockets must be bulging with money. He
overcharged us again and again. When Zhao Zhong-heng, a
boxer and wrestler from what is now Beijing University, asked
him to take us to a nice brothel, he grew even more greedy and
really overcharged us. At that, we all grew very angry. When he
stopped the taxi for a traffic light, Zhao reached over and took
the keys out of the ignition, stopping the car, hoping the driver
would be charged by the police for blocking traffic. He gave the
keys back only after the driver begged for mercy. Finally he
drove us where we wanted to go without even the slightest over
charge.

I could not imagine that the building he took us to was a
brothel. It was a huge elegant white building with a beautiful
lawn, surrounded by an impressive white wall. A middle-aged
Indian woman answered the bell, welcomed us, and led us into
a luxurious sitting room where we sat anxiously waiting to see
what would happen next. Soon, down from the upstairs rooms
came five girls, one for each of us. I was surprised that we were
all well paired. My partner was very young and quite attractive.
She looked only fourteen, like a girl not yet grown up enough to
be working a brothel. The other four were well developed and
very sensual. They sat on my friends’ laps and hugged them. I’d
never been in such a place and did not know where to go with
my eyes. Still what I saw stirred my heart and my loins. My
young girl sat speechlessly on my lap, just looking at me,
maybe because of my silly, shy and self conscious behavior. I
didn’t dare look directly at her. I was too embarrassed. I didn’t
know what to do. I heard Zhao say, “I can’t sit here any longer.”
Then they all got up and took their girls upstairs.
On his way up the stairs, Zhao turned and pointed at me
telling the middle-aged lady in English, “He won’t. He’s too
young.” My girl turned and went away without a word. I sat
there alone and embarrassed while my friends satisfied their
desires in their respective rooms upstairs. After about an hour,
they finally came down in pairs. I tried to imagine how each of
them did during their time in the arms of those sensuous girls.
Then I looked carefully into the face of each girl to see if there
was any sign of change of satisfaction in them. The more I
looked at them, the more I was provoked to thoughts of love
and passion, while being angered at Zhao for taking this
exciting opportunity away from me.