Dad's youth without a song

Author: Kong Xianghua / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
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· The birthplace of my father—Xiangxi · On August 27, 1941, my father was born in Yushuwan, Hunan, and soon moved to Chenxi in Xiangxi. To my father, it was a mysterious place. When it comes to Chenxi, it is located at the confluence of the Chen River and the Yuan River. The small stone city is surrounded by water and mountains, with countless lime kilns emitting wisps of white and green smoke, and it is also a famous coal mining area. If you are interested, you can read Shen Congwen’s essays Xiangxi Notes and Xiangxi, where he describes many scenes and stories of Xiangxi. Coincidentally, the day my father was born was also the anniversary of Confucius’s birthday. My grandfather gave me the name Xianghua and the courtesy name Shaizou (meaning to inherit from ancestors). My father was often busy with military affairs, and after my mother became pregnant, she lived alone, relying on chili peppers for meals. I was born as a frail infant with a thin body, a large head, and big eyes. In those chaotic times, this was quite common. By the end of the year, World War II in the Pacific had broken out. The Nationalist KMT (Military Police) Training Group moved from Yushuwan to Myanmar. My father was transferred to serve as the (director) of the Chenxi Coal Mine in Hunan. During those years, the Nationalist army led by Wang Yao Wu fought the Japanese in Changde and Dongkou. My father continuously transported coal to the front lines and was also responsible for raising funds to buy land, develop farms, and rescue refugees fleeing from Changsha, Hunan, who were forced to cultivate the land and produce for self-sufficiency. In 1943, my younger brother Kong Xiangliao was born. My father was always busy outside, rarely returning home to visit my mother or us. In my earliest memories, our home was at the foot of a mountain, with the mountain behind us and the water in front. The coal mine was nearby, and soldiers were stationed outside our house. This was a village inhabited by the Miao people and also a place where bandits often appeared. We followed my mother, who suffered from mild mental illness, and a young soldier who often carried my younger brother and me up the mountain to play. In the summer, we often walked barefoot on the muddy ground, and a group of tall yellow-crowned white geese in the village would stretch their necks and peck at our feet with their big mouths. This is a terrifying yet amusing memory that I still have today.
On August 8, 1945, Japan surrendered, and I was only four years old at the time. The people in the Xiangxi mountain valleys stayed up all night celebrating, with firecrackers exploding everywhere. People ran around shouting, “The Japanese have surrendered!” Around that time, our family took a boat and left Xiangxi. I still vaguely remember us squeezing into a covered ferry boat and sailing down the river. My mother kept telling me that when the boat reached Qinglang (Qinglang Beach), the water was deep and the waves were fierce, so we had to offer food to the divine birds to ensure a safe passage. Qinglang had a large temple dedicated to Ma Yuan, also known as the General of the Wave-Breaker, from the Han Dynasty. When boats reached this point, it was customary to burn paper money, sacrifice chickens, and throw rice balls into the air for the crows to eat, so that the danger could be averted and the wind and waves would calm down. I waited curiously but fell asleep without realizing it. By the time the adults took me out of the boat cover, we had already passed Qinglang.
Chenxi has a saying: “You can walk across the entire world, but not cross the Chenxi ferry.” I wonder if this refers to this story. If so, then even as a child, I had already crossed the Chenxi ferry, so what difficulties could I not overcome?
In early 1946, my father was appointed as the Executive Committee Member of the KMT Party Department and the Director of the Personnel Office in Beijing. P7-8