CHAPTER ONE

My Childhood

I was born in Hangzhou on September 4, 1924. With its picturesque West Lake, Hangzhou is famous, at home and abroad, as a "Paradise on Earth", but while it was a paradise for the rich, it was not so for the lower classes, such as our family. I had a miserable childhood there.

My mother, Li Changsi, was a housewife. She took my elder brother,thirteen years my senior, and I to live in Hangzhou, while my father, Li Jinshen, a junior bank clerk, continued to work in Shanghai. We relied on the monthly remittance, which my father mailed to us, for our needs. As my parents were not on good terms, my father seldom came back home, so my elder brother and I would see him only at festival times. When my father did come back home, my parents often quarrelled. Eventually, my father found another woman in Shanghai and sent us ever smaller sums of money, making our life increasingly difficult.

Fortunately my mother, though uneducated, had a clever mind and deft hands, and was excellent at sewing fur coats and Qipao (traditional Chinese robes). With accurate cutting, delicate needlework, superb workmanship with lifelike designs of embroidered flowers, insects, birds, fish, flying dragons, dancing phoenixes, etc, the dresses made by her were prized more highly than those produced at a professional couture. As a result, a lot of potential customers preferred to send their materials to my home rather than find expensive alternatives. Even so, my mother's income was not enough to cover our daily needs. Sometimes, in order to satisfy our hunger, mother needed to take my elder brother and myself to the suburbs, with a bamboo basket slung over her shoulder, to gather edible wild plants. I still to this day miss a kind of wild plant, called Malantou. It tastes very delicious. During summer time, our astute mother regularly dried the surplus edible wild plants and bamboo shoots growing in our courtyard and preserved them for winter use.

My photo taken at the age of 33, 1957

Although we were poor, our mother valued us and we loved our mother, so we had a warm family life. In the Chinese feudal society, most of the parents favoured their sons. My mother was no exception and she laid her hopes on my elder brother, Amao, often encouraging him to keep on working hard at his lessons so as to pass the university entrance examination. She was sure that after my elder brother graduated from university, he could obtain a good job and support her in her old age. To raise the tuition fees for my elder brother, mother always cooked simple meals, rarely buying meat for our meals. Unexpectedly one day, I believe it was during the summer vacation of that year when he was about to graduate from senior high school, my elder brother suddenly fell ill following a visit to the West Lake. My terrified mother couldn't afford the hospital expenses, nor did she have an elementary knowledge of nursing. All she could do was to watch his condition deteriorate rapidly. A few days later, my elder brother died. He was only 19 years old. My poor mother sank into extreme depression. She missed her son and his death crushed her completely. With tear-stained cheeks, she often took leave of her senses, however my strong mother always clearly remembered to escort me to and fro from school and she continued doing the sewing work for others. However, in 1932, when I was only eight years old, she finally grew world-weary so, with a heavy heart, she lay down and died. Then, my poor mother was not yet forty years old.

After my mother's passing away, as an eight-year-old girl, I was incapable of taking care of myself. My father returned to take me to Shanghai, to his home in the English Concession. A woman was living with him. Evidently, they had been living together for a long time. Dad wanted me to call her mum, but I was reluctant to do so. From the very beginning my harsh-natured stepmother didn't like me. When I got home from school, she would order me to do chores. Her dislike of me grew; I was like a thorn in her flesh. She kicked me, beat me and swore at me whenever she was unhappy with me or in a bad mood. I was frequently beaten black and blue by her, especially when I quarrelled or fought with my stepbrother. She would always beat me first, never wanting to hear my side of the story. After being beaten or reviled by my stepmother, I never dared to complain to my father, because stepmother had already threatened me that she would beat me to death, if I did. When noticing that my eyes were swollen, my father would question me closely:

"Has she beaten you?"

"No", I replied.

"Has somebody been bullying you?"

"No", I reiterated.

"Then, why are you crying?" he asked.

"I fell over and hurt myself", I said.

Anyway, my father still cared about me, and finally he realized the truth. He was indignant with my stepmother and argued with her. Father pitied me, trying his best to comfort me with his love. I remembered once, before a festival, that he kindly bought me a beautiful coat and a pair of leather shoes. He proudly showed them to me when he came back home, saying: "Xiaomei, come and put them on and let me have a look at you!" Knowing that I liked fruit, my father often brought some home for me. He always put the fruit into my hand personally, because he worried that my stepmother wouldn't let me eat it when he was away. Being jealous of this, my stepmother would get very angry, so that an argument would break out between them.

I remember on a certain day when I was 12 years old, my father took me to see a celebration at the popular Jade-Buddha Temple, where the crowded visitors had come from many different places. That evening I started to run a fever and vomit. Without hesitation, my anxious father sent me to hospital, where I was diagnosed as having typhoid fever. After a few weeks I recovered, but I had a relapse and ran a fever again. After eating fruit, I had vomited it all up. During the following days, all of my hair fell out. The doctor suggested that I go to hospital so as not to infect others, but father insisted on taking me back home, so that he could look after me himself. He made me a comfortable bed downstairs in the spacious sitting room which was airy and sunny. But, stepmother wanted me to move upstairs, to a smaller bedroom. She said that she wanted to hold a party downstairs to celebrate her birthday. Father didn't agree with her, shouting at her: "My daughter's life is more important!" My father asked a well-known Chinese doctor to treat me. According to the doctor's prescription, to aid my nutrition, he ground sesame into powder and made up a hot soup for me to drink. In the mornings, my father would get up very early, first going to buy live tortoises and phytin, then he would come back to stew a bowl of phytin and crystallised sugar for me. Before leaving for work, he made sure that I ate it all. Almost every evening, he steamed tortoise meat to make clear soup for me. He took care of me meticulously, until I regained my health.

But, the unexpected always happened; hating the fact that my stepmother was mistreating me, my father was often depressed and slowly his health deteriorated. When I was 14 years old, another tragedy befell me. My dear father, the only person in this world who really loved me, took a turn for the worse and lay incapacitated in bed for several months. Finally, he grasped my hand in his and while still filled with concern for me, drew his last breath.

With my father passing away, I had nobody left to defend me. Stepmother didn't allow me to go school any more, but made me stay at home to do all the housework. Every day, I had to get up very early to cook breakfast and in the evening I couldn't go to bed until I had finished all the chores. Besides cooking, washing and tidying rooms, I had to heat the opium and make it bubble for my stepmother, when she smoked it. At times, when she was smoking opium, due to fatigue and lack of sleep, I couldn't help dozing off, while attending to her needs. Seeing this happening, and while not saying a word, she would suddenly poke my hand with a scalding, sharp opium pin. It would sear my hand terribly. I screamed with the intense pain, but noticed that she would just stare at me angrily. I felt like I was Cinderella in the fairy tale, with nobody to pour out my grievances to. Later on, my vicious stepmother planned three items of domestic punishment for me. Firstly, I was only allowed to eat one small bowl of food each meal time. Secondly, I only received the leftovers from the last meal to eat. Thirdly, I had to eat in the kitchen and never with her and my stepbrother. I never had enough to eat and was often hungry, so I had to sneak scraps whenever I could. Once, my stepmother stewed a pot of pork with bean sauce. When she left the kitchen, using my chopsticks, I would quickly pick up a piece of pork from the pot and put it into my mouth. Unexpectedly on one occasion, my stepmother came back and caught me. She glared at me fiendishly and hit me with a rolling pin. Blood dripped from the top of my head, staining my coat. She didn't send me to hospital, but instead she grabbed several handfuls of incense ash and rubbed them to the cut to help stop the bleeding.

One of my classmates, named Ruifang, lived close to my home. We were best friends and we still saw a lot of each other after I stopped schooling. She had a rich and powerful father whom often entertained friends at home. One of these friends, a fat old man, was a millionaire. He was always glad to meet me there, tapping my shoulder and warmly calling me "little sister" and praising me by calling me beautiful. When he heard that my father had already died and that I was mistreated by my stepmother, he told Ruifang's mother that he wanted to marry me, although he already had a wife and a concubine.

Hearing the conversation between her mother and the fat old man, Ruifang hurried down to my home to tell me the news. Soon after, her mother, as the matchmaker, came to deliver the fat old man's proposal. My stepmother was excited. Since my father had died, our family had lived on the limited leftovers of his money and the quality of our life was getting worse each day, while the fat old man owned a big company, with seemingly limitless funds. He promised that he would present my stepmother with a considerable sum of money as a bride price and that he would buy her a modern western-style house. He also told my stepmother that he would allow her to live together with us, supporting her for the rest of her life. I was frightened. This fat old man was even older than my father, so how could I ever marry him? My stepmother took this as a rare opportunity to make a fortune - by devious means. From then on, she began to "care" about me. She affably advised me:

"Since your father's passing away, our life has been getting more and more difficult. Mum has no money, so we suffer, but the 'uncle' you met at Ruifang's home likes you and he wants to marry you. If you agree to marry him, you will enjoy wealth and rank all your life. He has promised to buy you a luxurious house, car, clothes, and everything you want."

"Okay", I said sarcastically, "You may marry him."

She cunningly replied, "Yes I really want to marry him, but unfortunately, he doesn't like me."

Knowing her deceit hadn't worked, she switched tactics by trying to terrify me. She shut me in a room without food for several days. Not long after that, the fat old man gave a dinner in a popular restaurant, inviting Ruifang's family, my stepmother and myself. My stepmother didn't tell me who had invited us beforehand, but made me dress up. I had a slim figure, fair complexion, bright and big eyes, and a shiny and thick plait of hair reaching down to my waist. She looked me up and down, and smiled craftily. As I followed her into the splendid dining hall, I spotted the fat old man seated at the head of the table. Understanding everything in a flash, I turned tail and ran, ruining their plan. Upon returning home, my stepmother became exasperated and gave me a sound thrashing. She swore to me angrily: "I will starve you to death!" I was shut up in my room again and had very little to eat. It was almost unbearable, but I would never agree to marry that fat old man, no matter how cruelly she tortured me.

I was in misery. Contemplating my suffering over and over again and tired of being so ill-treated, I decided to follow my father by ending my life. One day, while my stepmother was taking a nap, I quietly swallowed several of her opium "hits". I was soon struggling in agony on the floor, startling two of our neighbours. They ran down and forced the door open, finding me already unconscious. The two good souls quickly sent me to a nearby hospital. The contents of my stomach were pumped out and my life was saved. On my return I was confined to the house where my stepmother still exerted pressure on me to marry the fat old man. I was clearly aware that I was still in danger and I thought of my aunt. She was actually my father's step-sister, and had liked me from my earliest days. I managed to escape from my home, close to the field on Bubbling Well Road (now Nanjing Road), to find my aunt who lived on Myburgh Road (now Xinchang Road). She was a landlady, relying on rent for a living. Very soon, my stepmother angrily came to fetch me home. My aunt tried to put her off the trail, saying that she hadn't seen me and that I hadn't been there. My stepmother didn't believe her, so she paid some dubious characters to wander around my aunt's house to spy on us. My aunt was anxious that they would snatch me back, so she decided to send me to Beijing, where her older married daughter lived (her younger daughter had married a dentist and lived in Shanghai). So, for my own safety, I went to Beijing. My elder cousin's husband, a native of Canton, had been a businessman who had long since died. Widowed at the age of 27, my cousin, with her two little children, made ends meet by doing laundry for others. My coming had added to her burden, making me feeling guilty. After two years, she couldn't carry on and had to return to her husband's home town, to get help from his relatives. I was left alone in Beijing.

My colleagues and I at Guanxiang Hospital in 1960

As a girl of 19, without any knowledge of the ways of the world and in the midst of the chaos of war, I couldn't live independently and so had to marry a Chief Police Officer. But I never expected that I was entering into such a deplorable marriage. He was a playboy, and later on, even kept a mistress outside. I found this out when I was three months pregnant and the shock of learning this caused me to lose the baby. Later, my husband simply left me, to live with his mistress, leaving me at home by myself. In August 1948, I eventually freed myself from my disgusting husband, by moving out of his home. To improve my education, I became a student at the Beijing Yuwen School. Six months later, Beijing was peacefully liberated and on October 1st of the same year, a new country, the Peoples Republic of China was officially established. I saw hope in my life and I glowed with joy. I was young and determined to learn a skill to support myself. One day, while glancing through the newspapers, I was delighted to discover the general regulations for the enrollment of nurses for the Yinhui Nurses Training School. They were recruiting Nursing students at Lishi Lane, off Tongsinandajie Street. With a few of my girl friends, I took the entrance exam and fortunately, was accepted at once. I enrolled for two years of intensive study in Basic Nursing Theory, after which I followed our teacher, Madam Shu Yueping, to practice nursing in a clinic. I was scared the first time I watched a baby being delivered, but after two years of practicing, I had mastered this and other skills of clinical nursing. In 1955, I began to work as a nurse at the Jingshan Clinic in the Chaoyang District in Beijing. The clinic was opened by Doctor Ni, from Taiwan, who had a Japanese Medical Degree, specializing in paediatrics. He was a very distinguished Paediatrician attracting a lot of patients. Although busy with his own work, Dr. Ni kindly squeezed in time every day, to give me extra tuition. In my two years there, my clinical nursing abilities improved, and my medical and clinical knowledge grew. In 1958, the Public Health Bureau of Chaoyang District Government amalgamated several private clinics and turned them into the Guanxiang Hospital which covered a variety of Western and Chinese medical practices. I was always busy and happy to have become a nurse in this new hospital.