The great survivors of mainland China

We usually associate great survivors with those who have survived calamities of high magnitude, man-made and natural such as world wars, floods, tsunamis, cyclones and volcanic eruptions. But I came across a book charting the life stories of 38 inmates of "Helping Hand" (Home for the aged) and as I put the book away, I thought, here are a set of Great Survivors even more heroic than the above victims.

To say that they are still living could be erroneous unless a few tenaciously have managed to reach or pass the 100th milestone in life. They have all been born in the first two decades of the 20th century, say between the 1900s and 1920s.

None of them are Sri Lankan citizens and here I must add that we are not obliged to waste pen and ink or any modern contraption used in writing, only on Sri Lankan citizens however much we seethe with national fervour. The inmates of "Helping Hand" are all from the mainland of China or from the appendages of this country and belong too to a context of time and clime foreign to us.

In schools and universities we follow only the histories thrust on us and imprisoned within these boundaries, everything else is almost taboo as no general history was attempted, an ill remedied later by the entry of Social Sciences into the school curriculum. So it was almost with some wonder that I learnt via this book that Japan had invaded China once and failed in occupying it. I had visualised these two East Asian races, so similar in looks to be the best of friends never harbouring aggressive instincts towards each other.

Laurels

Coming into the orbit of the lives of the 38 inmates of Helping Hand, I have no intention of introducing all of them as given in the order of the original text for I could easily get into a mess like the speaker I had to listen to the other day. Very generous he began by introducing everyone who had assembled there and effused with the laurels each one had won in their life's voyage.

Then he found to his horror that he had consumed almost three fourth of the time of the ceremony to the introductions. So I will touch here and there on a Ho-chi-Min and dwell on the more spectacular facts worthy of publication and reflective of the theme, "The Great survivors".

Maybe I am too ambitious but I wish to transpire the "Heroics of living so long especially in a very turbulent time" and perhaps give a peep into how social transformations resultant on political dramas have a catastrophic effect on a country's citizenry, especially those struggling in the lower level.

Even the average and above-average have their lives completely dishevelled making them finally end up in homes for the destitute.

The book in itself is named "The Great Chaos". Actually we Sri Lankans of the present generation need not feel that lives dishevelled by external factors are some novel stuff since for years we have witnessed the horror of this social phenomenon. But the strange climes and times of China make the stuff more interesting.

Further the human dramas entailed are so familiar that stamp the universality of human behaviour as the estrangement between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law and quirks of parents impinging on the lives of children.

Tobacco dealer

There is Uyi Machi born in 1911, son of a rather prosperous tobacco dealer in Canton.

Coming no 1 in the 38, this is how his autobiography begins.

"When Japan invaded China, I joined the anti-Japanese guerilla forces run by the Kuomintang. During the war what else is there to do?"

Lee Man Jun, a female follows. Born 1912, she led a life of luxury in Canton and reminiscences a grand wedding where a large dowry almost surpassing that of Princess Visakha in ancient India is doled out to her prince.

However, the war makes short shrift of it all. Dwelling on 85 years of life she laments, "The world is chaotic and today, I have nothing at all, the redwood tables and chairs inlaid with marbles given in the dowry set all gone."

She had spent most of her life in Shanghai, during the Japanese occupation. That she bore only daughters added to the chaos mixing into the sour soup an alienated husband.

Now emerges Chan, born in 1904 and sold by her father for 220 yuan to a peasant family. Her husband dies early leaving her only debts, and to ward off the red bandits who were robbing the area in the war she marries again.

Here she is: "I married an old man in his 60s who had just returned from America. He was a crazy one but I did not care and I married him just because I wanted to eat and also for security against the red bandits."

Chaos

He had brought her to Hong Kong but when the Japanese came there they retreated to the village of Toishan to which the Japanese came again. In the ensuing chaos her husband had died. Chaos escalated with the advent of Communists and soon all her relatives were dying of starvation due to the conglomeration of misfortunes.

She "walked back" to China from Hong Kong.

Today she may be rid of all earthly troubles for she was born so early in the last century and we are in the third decade of the century following it.

Then there is the revealing story of Lei Fook.

"I was a strong man once, six feet tall and weighing over 180 pounds." He says "I do not ask for your sympathy. I am not complaining nor do I feel sorry for myself. Most of my friends too are old and sickly now."

He explains his identity as belonging to the Tanka tribe inhabiting family fishing junks that moved with the winds.

The family fortunes too changed with the winds.

"Then came the Japanese and life became very harsh. Both his parents dead, he had hung around till the Japanese caught him and sent him to Victoria barracks. He turned a smuggler. After the Japanese left he took to the sea again.

How did he end up in the home for the destitute? The Japanese were not responsible for that. His daughter-in-law kicked him out of the sailing boat!

Then there is 77 years old Yup Sik Hung, a retired school teacher who spends glorious hours in Helping Hand reading books and manuscripts.

Before coming to Helping Hand she lived with her married daughter but was later told that there is no room for her. She remembers the days of the war lords in Szechwan and Shanshi.

They were called Red Bandits by Chiang Kai Shek but the Kuomintang was equally evil. The days of the Cultural Revolution were very hard on her.

"It's not easy to be alone in one's old age but I don't want to be a burden to my relatives or children and here I have company too".

Different humans but similar stories. The tragic factor is that the compiler of these 38 tales, a young and beautiful woman as her photo shows, dies of a disease much earlier than the men and women in the book.

Sinhala Buddhists are acclimatised to facilitate the process of bearing all this sorrow with forbearance.