The Boatman and the Scholar

“We should’ve stayed with the Ngs!”

“No, that’s crazy!”

Mom and my brother-in-law, Wah-Ching, were still arguing about the best way to escape the invading Japanese army. First, we ran inland for days until we got to our friend’s farm. Long story short, we changed our minds and ran back to Jiangmen train station where Mom talked her way onto an oil barge headed for Macau.

Mom and my brother-in-law continued arguing loudly, but I was too tired to care. I curled up against an oil barrel and fell into a deep sleep.

I was back in our old village, Dong Sing Li again. I was in our old, haunted house, looking up at three pale, ghostly children staring blankly down at me from the landing. Then, I was outside with my mother, Jin Gee, brother-in-law, Wah-Ching, and sister, Ping Gim, watching an endless line of Kuomintang soldiers shuffle past. Ghostly, pale, quiet, similar to the ghosts in our house.

I recognized the first soldier, Chaoxiang. He was from our village, only a few years older than me. I waved at him and asked him what happened. But he just continued on as if he didn’t see me. Further down the line, I saw Ching Muchen. He was the son of a merchant who sold vegetables at the market. I asked him the same question. He was about to answer, but…

… A hand roughly shook me awake. I looked sleepily up. A scruffy-looking Kuomintang soldier towered over me. At first, I thought I was still dreaming.

“Your family’s leaving.”

I rubbed my eyes and focused. We were still on an oil barge. The sun’s morning rays were just starting to stretch out over the horizon.

“Hung Mau-ah!” Mom yelled my name in musical Toysanese. “Get over here!”

I struggled to get up as I grabbed my suitcase. The soldier put a steadying hand on my shoulder and guided me to her.

I looked over the water: we were moving towards a pier where oil barrels were stacked. Sampans were moored nearby. Mom looked nervous. Wah Ching and a Kuomintang officer looked annoyed at her.

“They’ve got to load that oil on!” Wah Ching yelled. “There’s no room for us!”

“Yes there is!” Mom snapped back.

The officer didn’t say anything. He only glared at the back of her head. I felt annoyed at Wah Ching. I didn’t like when he talked back to Mom.

“What’s going on?” I whispered to my sister.

“Just what my husband said,” Ping Gim (my sister) explained in a low voice. “There’s no room for us.”

“Just as well,” I said. “Oil barges are a military target.”

The barge vibrated as the engines went into reverse.

“All civilians off!” The officer growled.

We obediently stepped off. Mom was way ahead of us, splashing through the morning surf, to negotiate with a sampan owner to take us the rest of the way.

Wah Ching shook his head.

“Crazy,” Wah Ching said, chuckling. “Japanese could attack us any moment, and your mother will still waste time haggling.”

He put a hand on my shoulder.

“C’mon, let’s get off.”

I shrugged his hand off as we stepped onto the pier. The soldiers finished loading the oil barrels. The barge backed out into the water.

Mom continued to haggle. My brother-in-law found it annoying, but I always admired her abilities in this area. I could see she was wearing the sampan owner down. I was so engrossed watching them, I didn’t notice the bombers buzzing in over the Jiangmen railway station.

Finally, they settled on a price. The sampan owner held out an open palm. I laughed when I saw Mom reach into her hair bun and take out a string of coins. Throughout our time on the run, I couldn’t figure out where she hid her money.

Mom waved to us.

“He’ll take us! C’mon!”

The sampan looked a little worse for wear. I said a silent prayer that it would hold together until we got to our destination.

I watched Wah Ching gently help Ping Gim aboard. He was a kind, intelligent teacher, I thought. He taught at Pui Ching, a prestigious school. By comparison, Mom didn’t even finish grade school. Maybe that was why they didn’t get along. Was Mom jealous of him? Was I?

The sampan owner was a wiry, muscular man with white hair and whiskers. He wore a conical hat. He shoved off with a scull, and we were on our way.

Then I heard the explosions. I turned and saw the Japanese bombers over Jiangmen dropping their bombs. Orange flames and black smoke vomited out from what was the train station.

My family stood at the stern, staring at the destruction with horror. I sat with the sampan owner and turned away from the bombing. I couldn’t bring myself to look at it.

“My family was just there,” I told him.

The owner didn’t respond. He kept steadily rowing.

“I mean, at Jiangmen,” I explained. “It’s being bombed now, did you know that?”

“All I know is what’s in front of me,” he finally answered. His eyes remained focused ahead, at the barges, and Macau off in the distance.

I looked ahead too.

As I heard more explosions behind me, I tried thinking of peaceful images. I shut my eyes and imagined what it would be like working and living on a sampan. I opened my eyes and saw the small cabin he slept in. Simple, everything in one place. But so cramped. No, I could never be comfortable in that.

And I could still hear the explosions behind us – and Wah Ching arguing with Mom.

“I told you we should’ve stayed at the farm!” Mom yelled.

“There’s no one around that farm for miles!” Wah Ching snapped back. “The Japanese can kill us all, who would know?”

On this point, my brother-in-law was right. The Ngs were the only humans in that area. We walked twenty miles to reach them, and all that way, we didn’t see another soul. So after going all that way to stay with them, we had to walk back to our starting point.

Mom glared out at the smoke billowing from what was Jiangmen.

“So now we’ll be bombed and drowned instead,” she grumbled.

“Is this hard work?” I asked the sampan owner loudly.

He frowned down at me, puzzled. He kept rowing while Wah Ching and Mom bickered some more.

I stole a look back and saw a second wave of Japanese bombers flying towards Jiangmen. From this distance, they looked like miniature models.

“Will they bomb us?” Mom asked.

“I don’t think so, Mom,” Ping Gim said.

“Why would they bomb a sampan?” Wah Ching asked, rolling his eyes.

“Maybe they’d bomb an oil barge and hit us instead,” Mom snapped back. “Ever think of that, Professor?”

Mom looked at the boatman.

“Row faster, before they bomb us!”

“Leave him alone,” Wah Ching said. “Poor man is doing his best.”

Ping Gim took a step closer to the boatman.

“Sorry to bother you,” she whispered. “Maybe you could go a little faster?”

The sampan owner ignored them. He smiled down at me.

“Would you like to hear a story?”

“Sure.”

He spoke loudly enough so everyone could hear.

“There was a scholar who hired a boat so he could cross the river,” he began. “The boatman never went to school. As the boatman rowed, the scholar asked him, ‘Do you know how to write?’ The boatman shook his head no. ‘Pity,” the scholar said. ‘You’ve lost a quarter of your life.’ The boatman said nothing. ‘How about history?’ the scholar asked. ‘No sir,” he responded. ‘I don’t know these things.’ ‘Too bad,’ the scholar said, shaking his head. ‘You’ve lost half your life.’”

Ping Gim and I slid closer to the sampan owner to hear him better. Wah Ching and Mom continued to bicker at the stern.

“Suddenly, a great storm started up. Great waves smashed against the boat,” the owner continued. “‘Sir, do you know how to swim?’ the boatman asked. ‘No, I never learned,’ said the scholar. ‘Too bad, you’re about to lose your entire life,’ he said. ‘The boat is sinking.’”

Ping Gim giggled. I smiled. For a moment, we forgot about the bombing.

“Row faster!” Mom and Wah Ching called out to the owner.

The sampan owner sighed and rowed faster.

“My God, look at that,” Wah Ching pointed back at Jiangmen.

We all continued to watch the bombers dropping their payloads. Sometimes Zero fighters would swoop in and strafe the Kuomintang troops.

I moved closer to the stern. As I did, my feet sloshed through cold water. I looked down and saw a growing puddle at my feet. I bent down and felt along the side until I found a crack in the hull where water was steadily streaming in.

“Be quiet.”

I looked up. The owner was glaring down at me.

“I mean it,” he whispered.

I looked from him to the crack.

“Trust me, it’s nothing,” he continued in a low tone.

“But we’re sinking!”

“Nah,” the owner responded. “Sampan’s old, but sturdy. We’ll get there.”

“But…”

“Kid, remember my story,” he said. “You know life on land; I know the water. We won’t drown. And besides…” He looked furtively at my mother, then whispered, “… I’ve had it up to here with her yelling. BE - QUIET.”

Meanwhile, the crack had grown into a gash. Water was now gushing in, and I was ankle deep in it.

“We’re sinking! We’re sinking!” I cried out.

My family didn’t hear me. They continued to watch the bombing. I grabbed an empty tin can floating by and started to bail.

The water was above our ankles, and still, nobody noticed. I yelled again, but my family didn’t hear me. They continued to stare mesmerized at Jiangmen.

Finally, I hurled the can of water at Mom.

“WE’RE SINKING!”

Mom wiped her face. She blinked and looked wide-eyed at me, as if waking up. She looked down at the water at our feet.

“Ai-ya! We’re going to drown!”

Ping Gim also looked down and joined in on the screaming. Wah Ching started to bail with his bare hands. The sampan owner rolled his eyes and kept on rowing.

Turned out he was right; we made it to Macau without sinking. I’d like to think my raising the alarm and bailing were key reasons.

It was low tide; the owner was able to get us close to shore. We rolled up our trousers, jumped out into knee-high mud and trudged towards shore. There were fish standing up straight out of the mud and sunning themselves. When I tried to pick one up, it jumped away and slithered deeper into the mud.

A Kuomintang officer met us as we walked towards Macau’s memorial arch. Mom told him what we had been through, and that we were seeking refuge. The officer stopped us dead in our tracks with one question:

“Have you been vaccinated?”

None of us had even heard of vaccination, let alone got one. Although I did get a shot once. A couple years ago, I was very sick and Mom sent me to a nearby Buddhist temple. They fed me a spoonful of ashes which only made me worse. I went on my own to see a Christian missionary. He gave me a shot and almost immediately, I felt better.

And here we were, at the gateway to Macau, and we couldn’t get in. Stuck in the mud, literally. For once, neither Mom nor Wah Ching knew what to say.

While the officer moved towards another sampan to check on its passengers, I noticed a soldier standing at attention a few yards away. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. I closed my eyes and struggled to remember my dream.

I opened my eyes.

“Ching Muchen?” I called out.

The soldier turned to us.

“Yip Hung Mau!!” Muchen cried out.

It was the merchant’s son from the village. We laughed and embraced. Muchen looked thinner, and tired.

“Well if it isn’t my favorite math student,” Wah Ching said, smiling.

Muchen bowed politely.

“Teacher.”

“Ching Muchen,” my brother-in-law said. “Brilliant but lazy. Can you help us get into Macau?”

“What’s the problem?” he asked.

While we talked, the officer walked back to us.

“We can’t get into Macau because we never got a vaccine,” I explained.

“Oh, that’s easily fixed,” Muchen said. “Just go to the Pui Ching Infirmary.”

Pui Ching. I was quietly grateful we were all alumni.

Seeing we were friends, the officer waved us through.

We got vaccinated and the proper documentation. Mom gently tousled my hair.

“My son.”

“The child shall lead,” Wah Ching said, smiling. I started to like him again.

With that, we were able to walk through Macau’s great memorial arch and enter the Portuguese colony.

As we did, I thought about the scholar and the boatmen. We made it through without losing our lives drowning.

But I felt like, in a way, I’d lost half my life.