Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Life (Part II)

(From Sinotaneous)

(Continued from Part I)

By 1986, Mr. Chi had indications that there might soon be a way for him to at least get in contact with the remnants of his family, if not reuniting with them. Through intermediaries, he was able to receive and send letters to his two now adult daughters. It was from the correspondence that he found out his wife had died in the 1960s, during the tumultuous times of the Cultural Revolution.

A few years went by, after a slowdown precipitated by the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, the opportunity to visit China finally presented itself. Not having seen his family for more than 40 years now, Mr. Chi was determined to go at the first chance he got.

With Taiwan also relaxing its restrictions on contact with China, Mr. Chi finally made the trek back to his birthplace and ancestral home in 1993, nearly 50 years since he last set foot there. It was an emotional reunion. His two daughters, now in their 40s, both have been married and have children of their own. The living conditions in Yifeng was far from ideal, and Mr. Chi took steps to make sure they improve.

With a somewhat generous pension from the KMT and years of frugal living in Taiwan, Mr. Chi freely dispensed with his cash on his children and grandchildren. He helped to fund the building of two three-story concrete and stucco buildings as single-family homes for his two kids. And with his brother also taking part, they built a kindergarten — big enough to accommodate 100 local children — in yet another adjacent building.

He and my grandfather made a triumphant return to Yifeng in 1997 to see the fruits of their labor. Now both in their 80s, the journey from Taiwan was quite an ordeal. First, a 90-minute flight to Hong Kong. Then a long overnight train ride from Hong Kong, through Guangzhou, to Nanchang. From there, it was a four-hour car trip on mostly unpaved roads.

But Mr. Chi wasn’t going back. He had decided to come back to Yifeng and stay. He bid my grandfather goodbye, with both knowing that it would be the last time they’d see each other. My grandfather had made Taiwan his home, and to this day, he would not want to have anything to do with Communist China.

Since coming home to Yifeng, Mr. Chi learned many painful details of his family’s plight. His older brother, deciding to stay in China and hoping to ride things out, was summarily executed by the communists when they entered town. His ancestral home, a modest brick and masonry building with a small courtyard, was nearly demolished for being a reactionary element before being divvyed up and distributed to various communist party apparatchiks and other locals.

His extended family scattered about China for a time before finally returning home. A couple of his nephews spent years in re-education camps for sins of being a “landed elite.” Kids a generation down could not enroll in schools or get decent jobs because they were deemed class enemies and incapable of being “reformed.” Life was hard.

Things got better in the 1980s. Communist orthodoxy lived on in name only. To get rich was glorious, even for those previously blacklisted. Money opened doors, even if it came from the KMT, the communists’ sworn enemies for much of the 20th century.

Mr. Chi lived out another decade in the Yifeng house he built. He endured yet another tragedy when in 2007, one of his daughters died of breast cancer. He had to bury his hard-luck child in the hills not far from Yifeng — in a place he had reserved for himself.

I last visited him in 2006. He was nearly blind and very hard of hearing, but he was glad to see me. He was too frail to accompany me to the kindergarten down the street, yet I sensed that it was truly his pride and joy. I shared with him some photos of my own family, and a letter from my grandfather that I had promised to deliver discreetly.

Two year later, Mr. Chi finished a journey that was full of turbulence and turmoil. He lived in a time that saw China taking a dramatic leap from a insulated feudal society to a giant economic engine. He saw democracy sprout and flourish in Taiwan and withering, yet not dying, in mainland China. He bore witness to the transformation of the Sick Man of Asia, to emerging global superpower.

Yet, at the end of the day, the most important development in his life was being reunited with his family after half a century of separation. Despite all the heartbreaks and heartaches, that’s what made it worth living. It made him whole again.

I will miss you, er gon gon. R.I.P.

Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Life

(From Sinotaneous)

Chi Xia-Sheng （漆俠生）passed away on April 22, 2008, in his native Yifeng, Jiangxi, China. He was 96. I can think of few lives that symbolized the heroic struggles and monumental changes that took place in China over the century than Mr. Chi's.

His story is one that I know intimately well. He was my great uncle.

Born in Yifeng in 1912, Mr. Chi's birth coincided with the founding of the Chinese republic. But the most turbulent time in modern Chinese history was just beginning. His native province Jiangxi was a fertile ground first for warlords and then the nascent communist insurgency. It was in the poor villages of Jiangxi where Mao first set up shop, looting and shooting, all in the name of revolution. One of the unfortunate souls, whose lifeless body was dragged around the streets of Yifeng in 1927, was Mr. Chi's mother -- my great grandmother.

As did the rest of his family, Mr. Chi became an ardent anti-communist and joined the Kuomintang. Chiang Kai-shek, fresh off a successful Northern Expedition that nominally united China, was beginning his chase for Mao. It was during this time that Mr. Chi and my grandfather, his younger brother, joined the KMT. They spent a few years flushing the Reds out of Jiangxi, as Mao embarked on his Long March.

With the Communists out of Jiangxi, Mr. Chi took on new duties to reform the countryside. But the time of tranquility proved short lived. The Japanese invaded China in 1937, and within two years, Nanchang, the provincial capital of Jiangxi, fell. Mr. Chi, as with the rest of the KMT forces, fell back, first to Changsha, then Chungking, China's wartime capital after the fall of Nanking.

During the protracted retreat, Mr. Chi was unable to maintain constant contact with his family, who was left in the Japanese-occupied Jiangxi. He finally returned home in 1945 following Japan's surrender, but again peace proved fleeting. The guns roared once more as the Chinese Civil War broke out. And within four years, it was to swallow China whole.

By the fall of 1948, a storm was sweeping China from north to south. The Communists, nearly vanquished by Chiang before the Japanese invasion, now had emerged as an irresistible force. Mr. Chi's various postings took him to Shanghai, Nanking and Wuhan. But by the beginning of 1949, it was nearly certain that Mao's troops would emerge victorious.

The fall of KMT in mainland China was stunningly swift. By April 1949, the Communists crossed the Yangtze River, the last natural barrier in their quest of a complete victory. The remnants of KMT fell back, first to Chungking, then Guilin and finally, by the end of 1949, to Kunming, in the southwestern corner of China.

This was when another tragedy, and a dilemma, awaited Mr. Chi. My grandfather, by then had risen through the ranks to become the adjutant of Chiang Ching-Kuo -- son of Chiang Kai-shek -- was able to bring along his family during every step of KMT's retreat. And a large family it was -- his pregnant wife (my grandmother) and four children, with my father the eldest. Mr. Chi, in contrast, had to leave his own wife and two young daughters behind.

By this hour, there was neither time nor opportunity for Mr. Chi to retrieve his family. He had two choices: Help my grandfather to shepherd along his family to the next safe haven; or return to his family in Jiangxi but face certain torture and death as an officer in the KMT army, and one with intimate connection to the Chiangs. After a few agonizing days, he made up his mind.

It was a decision that would haunt him for the next half century. With the governor of Yunnan Province about to switch allegiance to the Communists, Mr. Chi and my grandfather's clan boarded one of the last few flights leaving Kunming on a chilling December morning. By nightfall, the Reds' takeover of mainland China would be complete.

Along with my grandfather's family, Mr. Chi would settle in Taiwan, facing an uncertain future. While a Communist seaborne and airborne invasion never materialized -- thanks to the outbreak of the Korean War, for the most part -- there was a sense that, for the 2 million KMT refugees who followed Chiang to Taiwan, they would never see China again.

It was against this backdrop that Mr. Chi went about his business. I was born in 1969, and got to know him as a toddler. Whereas my own grandfather was stern and demanding, my great uncle was just that, great. He was optimistic and gregarious. He loved to travel but was hemmed in by the political isolation of Taiwan. Going to China, of course, was out of question.

He never let on how much he regretted leaving his family behind. But he struggled daily with this decision. With no contact whatsoever between China and Taiwan for 30 years, he had no way of knowing whether his family members were even alive, let along well.

A breakthrough, finally, came in the 1980s, as China reopened its doors to the outside world, as well as Taiwan.

(Continued in Part II)