went back to Jinzhou in 1984 and tracked her down she had gone almost blind from the chemicals. She was wry about the ironies of her life: having beaten the Japanese in a race, she had ended up being treated as a kind of collaborator. Even so, she said she had no regrets about winning the race.
It was difficult for people in Manchukuo to get much idea of what was happening in the rest of the world, or of how Japan was faring in the war. The fighting was a long way away, news was strictly censored, and the radio churned out nothing but propaganda. But they got a sense that Japan was in trouble from a number of signs, especially the worsening food situation.
The first real news came in summer 1943, when the newspapers reported that one of Japan's allies, Italy, had surrendered. By the middle of 1944 some Japanese civilians staffing government offices in Manchukuo were being conscripted. Then, on 19July 1944, American B-29s appeared in the sky over Jinzhou for the first time, though they did not bomb the city. The Japanese ordered even household to dig air-raid shelters, and there was a compulsory air-raid drill every day at school. One day a girl in my mother's class picked up a fire extinguisher and squirted it at a Japanese teacher whom she particularly loathed.
Previously, this would have brought dire retribution,-but now she was allowed to get away with it. The fide was turning.
There had been a long-standing campaign to catch flies and rats. The pupils had to chop off the rats' tails, put them in envelopes, and hand them in to the police. The flies had to be put in glass bottles. The police counted every rat tail and every dead fly. One day in 1944 when my mother handed in a glass bottle full to the brim with flies, the Manchukuo policeman said to her: "Not enough for a meal." When he saw the surprised look on her face, he said: "Don't you know? The Nips like dead flies. They fry them and eat them!" My mother could see from the cynical gleam in his eye that he no longer regarded the Japanese as awesome.
My mother was excited and full of anticipation, but during the autumn of 1944 a dark cloud had appeared: her home did not seem to be as happy as before. She sensed there was discord between her parents.
The fifteenth night of the eighth moon of the Chinese year was the Mid-Autumn Festival, the festival of family union. On that night my grandmother would place a table with melons, round cakes, and buns outside in the moonlight, in accordance with the custom. The reason this date was the festival of family union is that the Chinese word for 'union' (yuan) is the same as that for 'round' or 'unbroken'; the full autumn moon was supposed to look especially, splendidly, round at this time. All the items of food eaten on that day had to be round too.
In the silky moonlight, my grandmother would tell my mother stories about the moon: the largest shadow in it was a giant cassia tree which a certain lord, Wu Gang, was spending his entire life trying to cut down. But the tree was enchanted and he was doomed to repeated failu/e. My mother would stare up into the sky and listen, fascinated.
The full moon was mesmerizingly beautiful to her, but on that night she was not allowed to describe it, because she was forbidden by her mother to utter the word 'round," as Dr. Xia's family had been broken up. Dr. Xia would be downcast for the whole day, and for several days before and after the festival. My grandmother would even lose her usual flair for storytelling.
On the night of the festival in 1944, my mother and my grandmother were sitting under a trellis covered with winter melons and beans, gazing through the gaps in the shadowy leaves into the vast, cloudless sky. My mother started to say, "The moon is particularly round tonight," but my grandmother interrupted her sharply, then suddenly burst into tears. She rushed into the house, and my mother
It was difficult for people in Manchukuo to get much idea of what was happening in the rest of the world, or of how Japan was faring in the war. The fighting was a long way away, news was strictly censored, and the radio churned out nothing but propaganda. But they got a sense that Japan was in trouble from a number of signs, especially the worsening food situation.
The first real news came in summer 1943, when the newspapers reported that one of Japan's allies, Italy, had surrendered. By the middle of 1944 some Japanese civilians staffing government offices in Manchukuo were being conscripted. Then, on 19July 1944, American B-29s appeared in the sky over Jinzhou for the first time, though they did not bomb the city. The Japanese ordered even household to dig air-raid shelters, and there was a compulsory air-raid drill every day at school. One day a girl in my mother's class picked up a fire extinguisher and squirted it at a Japanese teacher whom she particularly loathed.
Previously, this would have brought dire retribution,-but now she was allowed to get away with it. The fide was turning.
There had been a long-standing campaign to catch flies and rats. The pupils had to chop off the rats' tails, put them in envelopes, and hand them in to the police. The flies had to be put in glass bottles. The police counted every rat tail and every dead fly. One day in 1944 when my mother handed in a glass bottle full to the brim with flies, the Manchukuo policeman said to her: "Not enough for a meal." When he saw the surprised look on her face, he said: "Don't you know? The Nips like dead flies. They fry them and eat them!" My mother could see from the cynical gleam in his eye that he no longer regarded the Japanese as awesome.
My mother was excited and full of anticipation, but during the autumn of 1944 a dark cloud had appeared: her home did not seem to be as happy as before. She sensed there was discord between her parents.
The fifteenth night of the eighth moon of the Chinese year was the Mid-Autumn Festival, the festival of family union. On that night my grandmother would place a table with melons, round cakes, and buns outside in the moonlight, in accordance with the custom. The reason this date was the festival of family union is that the Chinese word for 'union' (yuan) is the same as that for 'round' or 'unbroken'; the full autumn moon was supposed to look especially, splendidly, round at this time. All the items of food eaten on that day had to be round too.
In the silky moonlight, my grandmother would tell my mother stories about the moon: the largest shadow in it was a giant cassia tree which a certain lord, Wu Gang, was spending his entire life trying to cut down. But the tree was enchanted and he was doomed to repeated failu/e. My mother would stare up into the sky and listen, fascinated.
The full moon was mesmerizingly beautiful to her, but on that night she was not allowed to describe it, because she was forbidden by her mother to utter the word 'round," as Dr. Xia's family had been broken up. Dr. Xia would be downcast for the whole day, and for several days before and after the festival. My grandmother would even lose her usual flair for storytelling.
On the night of the festival in 1944, my mother and my grandmother were sitting under a trellis covered with winter melons and beans, gazing through the gaps in the shadowy leaves into the vast, cloudless sky. My mother started to say, "The moon is particularly round tonight," but my grandmother interrupted her sharply, then suddenly burst into tears. She rushed into the house, and my mother
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