From Sea to Sea

Here he is, a Harvard student working on his Ph.D. all the way from underneath the barbed wire in southern China to Cambridge, U.S.A. How unbelievable! But I knew it was a true story as soon as I met his eyes, intense and sincere behind a pair of dark-rimmed glasses.

In that moment of life and death, my father sent a letter to his most trusted brother (whom we called 4th Uncle) in England, the very last letter he sent from the country where he would never return, a letter without a single word but a photo of his six children as if to say “These are my beloved ones, please take care of them should I perish before reaching the free world.” How he must have been torn between his desire to be with his family and his strong sense of duty for the government which he had dedicated his life, energy and faith. He certainly did not expect his brother would choose to return to Beijing to join the opposite side of China.

I heard one of my little brothers weeping. I couldn’t cry. I felt utterly lonely and empty. The world was simply incomprehensible. When I returned to school, I said nothing to my friends about my mother, nor did any of them ask about her. Overnight the world was divided into two: One part belonged to those who still had their parents, and the other to those who lost one or both.

In the darkness of night, I see you smile at me. When I return home from work exhausted, I slump into the couch. I feel your hands pull me up, “Min-Hwa darling, it’s time for dinner now; eat first, then go to sleep”. I walk on the street; your outline against the green trees moves towards me in big strides. As a snow storm rages outside; I hear you calling “come home, my dear! If you don’t leave work now, you won’t make it back.” In the crowd, I instinctively extend my hand for you to lead me through the zebra line. When I weep, I hear you sigh. When I mourn, I see sadness in your eyes. When I sleep, you drift in from the window with the morning breeze and gently touch my cheeks.

Indeed, this trip reconnected me to the past, wherever I was, in the air, in the sound, in the smell, and in the taste. This is the world I used to come home to, and this is the world I had lost for so long.

I see a little girl wandering about in the meandering alleys between the school and her home. I see this girl spend her last pennies buying a pencil with a doll’s head to make a standing Barbie. I see a growing girl eager to open her lunch box prepared by her loving mother every morning. I see a teenage girl cramming for college entrance exams in the sweltering heat of summer. I see a young college student climb to the mountaintop to pick the tips of tea leaves. I see the girl and her friends ride on a one-track trolley, gliding along the ocean cliffs.

I hear the croaking of frogs in the rice paddies on my way to school. I hear the endless humming of cicadas in our backyard. I hear the sound of opera from the neighborhood houses. I hear dogs barking and roosters crowing as the train rushes through the countryside. I smell the burning of incense in the tiny temple at the street corner, I smell the food cooking in front of the shops. It brings me back to a different world when I taste the fresh bamboo shoots, the world of untamed earth and unspoiled innocence.

No matter how the world has changed and will be changing, I can always find the past. I have relived my childhood through my grandchildren, through their eyes, their ears, and their hearts.