Falling Leaves: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

windows, balconies, charming porch and pretty garden, the house was considered ultra-modern because of its flush toilets, running
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    water and central heating. The latter constituted the height of luxury: most Chinese homes were still being heated by raised brick sleeping benches called kangs.
    Father converted the ground floor of his house into offices for some of his staff. The rest of the family lived with Ye Ye and Grandmother on the second floor. There were seven servants to take care of the household. Father bought a large black Buick for himself and a black rickshaw for Grandmother to visit friends and play mahjong.
    Aunt Baba often took the train from Shanghai to Tianjin, a two-day journey in those days, and stayed for long visits. Father and Mother would meet her at the station in the Buick and the three would spend hours catching up on Shanghai gossip and Grand Aunt’s latest business triumphs. There were outings to restaurants, films and the Chinese opera. According to Aunt Baba, it was an idyllic time for them all.
    Mother’s obstetrician, Dr Ting, was almost a member of the family by the time my three brothers were born. Like Grand Aunt, who was her classmate and childhood friend, she too had been educated at Shanghai’s McTyeire School for Girls. She converted to Christianity and at the age of fifteen had spurned an arranged marriage. The intended bridegroom came from a wealthy family but was sickly, in pain and already addicted to opium. On her wedding day, the bride simply vanished. Her parents were sued and forced to pay the bridegroom’s family a great many taels of silver in compensation for breach of promise, besides enduring considerable loss of face. With the help of her uncle, Mary escaped to Hong Kong where she continued her studies at another missionary school. Mary’s uncle followed her to Hong Kong, cut off his queue (pigtail) and sent it to their family in Shanghai in a gesture of defiance. This was a serious crime and amounted to a public declaration of rebellion against the Qing emperor. (After the Manchus conquered China in 1644, they had imposed the partly shaven head and queue on every Chinese man to state their dominance.) Mary and her uncle were both disowned. He
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    went to work in Hong Kong to pay for Mary’s education. Later Mary won a scholarship to the University of Michigan Medical School and specialized in obstetrics and gynaecology. Returning to China, she settled in Tianjin rather than Shanghai where painful memories haunted her. She founded her Women’s Hospital and became the best obstetrician in town. My sister and three older brothers were all delivered at Dr Ting’s hospital.
    When my mother became pregnant with me, the political situation in China had deteriorated drastically. In 19x8 the Manchurian warlord, Chang Tso-lin, had been murdered by the Japanese while riding in his private railway coach. Over the next few years, Japanese soldiers invaded Manchuria. A puppet regime (Manchukuo or Nation of Manchu) was established under the former boy emperor Puyi in I93Z. The United States refused to become directly involved. Britain looked the other way and recommended compromise. The League of Nations promised to investigate. Chiang Kai-shek, commander in chief of the army and head of the Nationalist party (Kuomintang), was fully occupied fighting the Communists, who had formed their own army and government in the rural strongholds of Yan’an in the north-west. Emboldened, Japan proceeded to launch a full scale attack on Tianjin and Beijing in July 1937. This was the beginning of the Sino-Japanese war which was to rage on for eight long years.
    Japanese soldiers were everywhere, wearing surgical masks and carrying bayonets, demanding bows and obeisances, taking bribes and threatening violence. The foreign concessions remained neutral, small havens of uneasy independence amidst a vast sea of Japanese terror. The rest of Tianjin was now occupied territory under Japanese rule. In the