Out of China, 1950
In Part II of my conversation with Ian Grant, China's Communist government declares, Westerners must go!
This is the second part of my interview with
, who spent three years, from age 7 to 10, at boarding school on Lushan (Mt. Lu), China. Today a UNESCO World Heritage site, Lushan in the early 1930s was the mountain where my family built a home and which I later fictionalized as “Cloud Mountain” in my novel of the same name. [Click HERE for more historical photos of Lushan.]Ian remained at boarding school in Kuling, the hilltop town center of Lushan, for over a year after the Communists took control of China in 1949. This gave him a child’s-eye view of the politics and transition that drew the Bamboo Curtain shut.
Read Part I of this interview here:
Part II: Leaving Communist China, 1950
Aimee: At the end of 1949, China’s brutal civil war reached its conclusion with a Communist victory. Chiang Kai-shek and Nationalists who had money and high-level connections fled to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the U.S. (Sadly, they did not include my own grandfather, who was stranded inside China, permanently cut off from his American wife and children in the U.S.) But you stayed in China for another year before leaving. What was Kuling like during that time?
Ian: The Communist takeover of Kuling was very peaceful. As a nine-year-old, I was not aware of these momentous events, but one day at the breakfast table we were informed that overnight the Communist soldiers had taken Lushan, and that the Nationalists had left the mountain quietly on the other side.
It was not unusual for Nationalist remnants to counterattack after the communists took over, and this happened in Kuling on one occasion, although much to my disappointment, I slept through it. I was informed the next morning that there had been gunshots in the night, and some heard the whining of bullets. How long this went on I don’t know, but by daylight, the rebels had slunk off into the night.
I remember that one day there were a lot of guns shooting very near our compound, but it turned out they were young soldiers, possibly new teenage recruits, who were conducting target practice. A few of us couldn’t resist creeping through the bushes to watch them, and fortunately, we were not discovered – not even by our teachers. (I say ‘we’, but was I really part of this clandestine venture, or did I just hear about it from some other boys? I am not sure, but it seems more romantic, and gallant to include myself in the ‘we’.)
In general, following the initial takeover of the area by the Communists, things continued as before, although there were some restrictions on our movements off the school property. I remember one occasion when there was quite a commotion where children and teachers were crowding around two soldiers who had two or three teenage students in their custody. The teachers were communicating with the soldiers in Chinese, but soon it was revealed that the boys were observed somewhere in the bushes, and one boy was cutting down a shrub to make a walking stick. The school was informed that on no occasion were we allowed to cut down or destroy any trees or shrubs, anywhere. These were now the property of the People’s government. Soon the school made a rule that no one was to leave the property without being accompanied by a staff member.
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Aimee: When did you leave China, and how did you get out?
Ian: In December 1950, all missionaries were instructed that they must leave China. My brother David and I left several days before Christmas, in a party of about twenty students and a couple of staff. The only staff person I remember was our Mandarin Chinese teacher, Miss Wu, whom I was not fond of, because she was strict and rather dour.
A highlight of leaving was that I was finally considered big enough to walk down the mountain rather than ride in a sedan chair. I had no difficulty making the descent. Had I been older I am sure I would have walked down with a great sense of nostalgia, and disappointment, for Kuling was truly a paradise on earth.
When we reached Jiujiang, the city at the foot of the Lushan mountains, we were taken to the railway station and boarded a train heading south to Canton, today Guangzhou. Although we were on the train for three days and two nights, there were no Pullman cars. We spent the entire time on hard wooden seats.
At one point I remember a fight broke out between two Chinese lads, which was so violent that we all had to move out of the way. I don’t remember how it eventually turned out.
At every train stop our baggage was searched by what seemed to be young teenagers, operating with glee. Our baggage was in a baggage car way down the train to which we had no access since the last search, but it was searched again anyway. And we were all called to walk down the platform to our open trunks and suitcases and told to repack them. It was senseless, and intimidating, which, I am sure, was the purpose— getting back at the repulsive foreigners who had mistreated China for so long.
Another feature of this train trip was the constant swaying of the train, from one side to the other. I remember that when we finally arrived at Canton and walked down the platform to go to a hotel, we walked like little drunken sailors, swaying from one side to the other. It was both humorous to us, but also disconcerting. I remember that we boys talked about being drunk, even though I had no prior experience with anyone who had been drunk. It was also a relief that we knew that tomorrow we would be experiencing freedom, although I doubt that I knew what that meant.
At the hotel in Canton we were all given inoculations for the usual illnesses and viruses, who knows what for, but for some reason it seemed important to the Chinese officials that we receive them. Maybe this was the last opportunity to inoculate us with communism. We walked around for a day or two after with painful arms.
From Canton we boarded another train for a brief ride to what was called the Freedom Bridge, which we walked across, and then boarded a train in British-occupied Hong Kong to Kowloon. As soon as he crossed Freedom Bridge one missionary with us got down on his knees and kissed the ground. Why would he do that? I understand that now.
Two days later, in Kowloon, we were told by our British rescuers that we again needed inoculations. “Why?” we asked, since we’d just had them in Canton. “Oh”, we were told, “those were Communist shots. These are the real ones.” Another couple of days with wooden arms. Maybe we were being inoculated with capitalism?
Aimee: One might have thought, with all the anti-imperialist destruction, especially in the 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution, that Kuling would have been demolished. The settlement there was developed entirely by Americans as a resort, and most of the buildings architecturally would have looked right at home in Massachusetts. Yet when we went there in 2007, I felt as if the main part of town, including the Kuling School, had come through all this political upheaval unscathed.
Ian: In the 1950s after all westerners had left China, Mao Zedong, who loved Lushan, decided to build his own villa there. Initially, Mao occupied the vacated Chiang Kai-shek villa while his own was built. But he also wanted his to include places where government meetings could be held, so it became a fairly large complex.
Aimee: Yes, we visited his villa in 2007. It was in the Lulin valley. I believe it stood roughly where my grandparents’ house had been!
Ian: Nearby he had a small lake created in the heart of Lulin Valley.
Aimee: Yes, in the late 30s my grandfather had funded a bridge over the stream that later fed the lake. The bridge is long gone, but there’s still a plaque there dedicated to him today. As we found during our visit, the people of Lushan have long and generous memories. And so do you, Ian! Thank you for taking us on this trip back to your childhood in China.
Thanks so much Jay♥️. Yes. I’ll share my grandfather’s story of leaving Kuling in another post.
Enjoyed it as much as Part 1. Is there a Part 3? 😊