Remembering My Grandfather
Tonight, with nothing to do, I washed up early and went to the hall’s study room to read. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a name popped into my head — Grandfather. Then my mind said to me: you’ll never see this person again. I resisted: as long as I go back to Shandong, I can see Grandfather. My mind said: you’ll never see him again — he’s gone, gone. I refused to believe it: if I go back, I’ll see Grandfather sitting in front of the house drinking tea and sunbathing, just like always. Surely. Definitely. But reason reminded me — Grandfather is really gone. The oil lamp wick, the burial clothes, the funeral home, the cemetery — these were my experiences just three days ago.
August 27, 2011 — the day of great sorrow when heaven and earth were separated forever.
When I received my father’s phone call the day before, I was overcome with grief. I rushed back to Shandong. Grandfather was already in a coma on his sickbed — I don’t even know if he was aware that I had come back. That same night, he passed away. Everything that followed was procedural. The only thing I could do was stay close to Grandmother and He Shiqian.
I am the most unfilial! The last time I spoke with Grandfather on the phone was right after I arrived in Hong Kong. He told me not to worry about home, that there was nothing to be concerned about. Yet in that month and a half, I was too busy with my studies to come back for even a single day to tend to Grandfather on his sickbed. If, in those final days, Grandfather was hoping to see me one last time but didn’t get his wish, if I let him leave this world with regret, how can I ever find peace?
Grandfather was born in 1921 (the tenth year of the Republic), on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month — a few months before the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. He was 90 this year. My hometown is the Yimeng Mountain area — back then, a poor mountain backwater, a “three-no zone,” which is why it became a revolutionary base. Grandfather joined the CCP and the revolution at age 20. I asked him many times why he didn’t join the government forces instead of the anti-government armed forces, or the opposition — how could he have been so accurate in predicting that this group would end up ruling the country? Grandfather would just smile and say nothing. Thinking back now, maybe it was because our area was a communist-controlled zone — the government forces had already retreated. It’s like today in mainland China: if you want to join the Party, you don’t have a choice. You can’t go to Taiwan to join the KMT, and back then you couldn’t go to Nanjing to join them either.
Grandfather participated in half of the War of Resistance Against Japan and the entire Chinese Civil War. During the war, the movie “Landmine War” depicts how Shandong’s communist forces used homemade landmines against the Japanese. My grandfather’s experiences were probably similar. But he never wanted to talk about this period. I learned some details from my grandmother and maternal grandmother. Two things worth clarifying: First, many people online claim the communist forces didn’t resist the Japanese, only the nationalist forces did. In reality, the communists also fought — when the Japanese attacked nationalist areas, the nationalists fought; when they attacked communist areas, the communists fought. There was an element of defending their homeland. It’s just that communist-controlled territory was too small. Second, Yuan Tengfei said the landmine war used gunpowder, not explosives — that stepping on a mine would make a loud noise, scare you, and give you a black face from the powder, but not kill. According to my grandmother, they did kill. After the Japanese stepped on mines and retreated, they went to look. She said human body parts were hanging from the trees by the roadside…
When the Japanese came, they didn’t need an army to occupy a village — just two people on a three-wheeled motorcycle. The Chinese peasants at the time had never seen a motorcycle, and most had no idea what the Japanese were. In many people’s minds, since the Japanese spoke an incomprehensible language, they were categorized alongside tigers, lions, or aliens. My maternal grandmother, even in the 1990s, would say the Japanese weren’t human — they could scale walls and rooftops, and their speech was unintelligible. The “collaborators” (traitors) were human, and their speech could be understood. She once told me about an encounter: she was boiling water inside a house when a Japanese soldier jumped over the wall. She said, “Sit down and rest, I’ll boil some water for you.” The soldier said something in bird language, grabbed a rooster, and left over the wall. She felt the Japanese grabbing chickens was no different from a weasel stealing one. Later, someone in the village shouted that the Japanese were coming and everyone should run. So the whole village fled, not knowing why — they just gathered their families and ran. It speaks to the ignorance of Chinese people at the time.
The communist soldiers were indistinguishable from ordinary people — they had no proper uniforms. My grandmother told me that when the Japanese came, they would bury mines and run to another village where the Japanese hadn’t arrived. Life was peaceful there — people were even eating dumplings. So hungry they could barely stand, they asked people in the other village for some dumpling soup and got a whole bowl of dumplings instead. After eating, they had the strength to bury more mines. It was similar to the roadside bombs faced by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I once saw a powerful video: two Iraqi children playing by the roadside. A Humvee drove by, and one child threw a hand grenade into the vehicle, killing all the American soldiers inside. The communist guerrilla warfare back then must have been exactly the same. Japanese soldiers on a motorcycle pass by, and local peasant-soldiers who were just chatting and laughing suddenly throw a grenade, blow things up, and vanish. Impossible to defend against.
That’s all I know about this period. After liberation, Grandfather donated several homemade landmines to the Military Revolution Museum at Tiananmen Square, where they’re displayed as evidence of the Party’s landmine warfare. There’s still a thank-you letter at home, though it’s not worth much.
Grandfather was even more reluctant to talk about the Civil War — after all, it was countrymen killing countrymen. The Yimeng Mountain area was famous for supporting the Huaihai Campaign with wheelbarrows. I remember a post on Tianya last year where a person from Linyi complained about the government’s forced evictions. Someone replied: “Who told your ancestors to push those wheelbarrows so enthusiastically? You deserve it.” After the People’s Liberation Army moved south, my grandfather didn’t follow — he stayed behind to guard his homeland.
After the founding of the PRC, Grandfather, having chosen the right side, became village party secretary. But back then, village officials couldn’t compare with today’s. Before liberation, sanitary conditions were terrible. Babies were born at home. Two of my father’s older siblings died of infections. After liberation, Grandfather had four children — my father was the eldest. During the Great Leap Forward, Grandfather led by example, giving everything from the household to the commune, even prying off door locks for steel smelting. Then came three years of natural disaster. I heard from Grandfather that my father nearly starved to death — he was saved by a neighbor who gave him a bowl of rice.
Things were calm until the Cultural Revolution. Grandfather had a rough time — leading cadres were the main targets of Red Guard struggle sessions. It was truly a time when officials couldn’t even live in peace, worse than in America today. He was often plastered with big-character posters, subjected to struggle meetings, forced to wear a dunce cap, stand on a chair, and bend over at 90 degrees. I’m told my father even struggled against my grandfather (only during those ten years could such absurd things happen). The county magistrate couldn’t bear it and hanged himself, posthumously labeled as “confessing his guilt before killing himself.” Another man in the village who had fought the Japanese with the government forces during the war and came home after victory was directly tortured to death during the Cultural Revolution as a “Kuomintang reactionary.” Thankfully, Grandfather survived and was rehabilitated after the Cultural Revolution. When reform and opening up came, village officials’ spring arrived, but Grandfather was mentally and physically exhausted — he retired and returned to his hometown.
When Grandfather was 60, I was born. Sixty years — a full cycle of the Chinese zodiac. Grandfather and I share the same animal sign. As a child, I remember not wanting to go to kindergarten, and Grandfather would ride his bicycle to my house, take me to his place to play with my cousin all day, and bring me back in the evening.
Then I went through elementary school, middle school, and eventually to Shanghai for university. I saw Grandfather less and less, only calling home occasionally. He was always unhappy about me going to Tongji University — he thought I should go to Shanghai University. He knew Peking University was pretty good, and by analogy, Shanghai University in Shanghai must also be excellent… Later, Grandfather’s hearing went, and he couldn’t hear on the phone anymore. But whenever I called, even though he couldn’t hear what I was saying, he would still urge me to work hard and be an upright person.
In 2008, I got married. Grandfather was 88 years old and worried that attending would require others to take care of him and cause trouble. No matter who asked, he refused to come. But on the morning of the wedding, he braved the cold, rode his bicycle 2 km to the nearby area, quietly listened to the wedding firecrackers, then rode back, reassured and satisfied.
A year later, on February 23, 2009, He Shiqian was born — Grandfather had four generations under one roof. Shandong people are quite traditional. He Shiqian is Grandfather’s eldest son’s eldest son’s eldest son — the orthodox heir (of course, since both my father and I are only children, the single lineage makes it even more precious). Just after the 100-day mark, I flew back to Shandong with the baby for Grandfather to see. Later, when He Shiqian started talking, he was supposed to call him “Lao Ye Ye” (great-grandfather) in the Shandong tradition. But He Shiqian, raised on Japanese formula, had a tongue that couldn’t make the “L” sound, so he always called him “Yao Ye Ye” (“bite grandpa”). Grandfather was delighted. In his youth he killed Japanese soldiers; his great-grandson was nourished by Japanese formula. Meiji formula has nearly a century of history. By that logic, the Japanese soldiers my grandfather blew up back then probably drank the same formula as babies. There’s some irony there.
Grandfather’s last two years should have been quite happy. Shandong people hold the traditional belief that more children bring more blessings. From 2009 to 2011, within three years, my cousin, my younger cousin, my older cousin, and I between us produced six boys — not a single girl. By the government’s math, the probability is 2^6 = 64. A one-in-64 chance — also once every 64 years. Four were great-granddaughters, two were great-grandsons: Shiqian at two and a half, and my cousin’s HeShiKun at just 100 days.
Grandfather is gone. He Shiqian is still too young to understand. At Grandfather’s funeral, watching the filial descendants kneel and kowtow, he found it spectacular and kept asking me to take photos with my phone. Taking him to Grandfather’s house, he looked everywhere asking where “Yao Ye Ye” had gone. In his future memories, there probably won’t be any impression of “Yao Ye Ye.” Just like in 1984 when my great-grandfather passed away — I was also two and a half. I have no memory of my great-grandfather at all. History repeats itself.
Grandfather was fiercely self-reliant. Afraid of burdening his children, even at 90 he and my grandmother still cooked for themselves and managed their own lives. It wasn’t until I went to Hong Kong, just two months before his passing, that he allowed his children to take care of him.
As for the older generation, Grandfather had a very strong Party spirit — though I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or criticism these days. When Hong Kong was returned in 1997, he stayed up all night watching the live broadcast, worried the British might not accept it and start fighting again. He said he was ready to carry his landmines to the front and liberate Hong Kong. The CCP was fairly decent to him — pre-liberation Party members received good treatment. In his final years, Grandfather received over 3,000 RMB per month, higher than my father’s pension (my father worked for the CCP his whole life and ended up a laid-off worker). I wonder how many pre-liberation revolutionaries are still alive.
Talking to my family on the phone today, I learned that my 88-year-old grandmother has moved in with my parents and He Shiqian. Being able to watch her great-grandson grow up every day — that must be a joy in itself.
No matter how much I write, I have to stop. Life goes on. This is in memory of my grandfather.