Return to the Homeland and Travel on the Mainland

After our two grandsons grew a little, my husband Benchang and I planned to return to our old home in Sichuan to see family.

While cross-strait mail was still forbidden, in 1983 my husband asked Mr Wu—the father of a friend of our eldest son—to carry a letter to his mother from Hong Kong to Longchang in Sichuan. The letter told her he had made a family in Taiwan and had five children. She was overjoyed to hear it. For a long time after posting, no reply came.

In 1984 we at last received a letter from cousin Chang Wan, telling my husband that his mother had passed away in 1979 and that his uncle, seventy-three, was still alive.

When my husband learned his mother was gone, he was grief-stricken. Night after night he wept under the quilt; I did not know how to comfort him.

On 1 December 1987 the government opened travel to the mainland for family visits. Poor retired veterans received a travel subsidy of twenty thousand dollars and were escorted to Hong Kong by staff. From 5 to 20 September 1988 my husband went home with Guangxian and Mr Lü. Guangxian was a distant nephew who had left home with my husband to sit the military academy entrance exam during the war.

The next year, 1991, my husband suggested I go with him to our old home. I gladly agreed.

He also invited Guangxian and his wife. Juhua, Guangxian’s wife, was delighted at the thought of returning to the mainland. A Mr and Mrs Zhang from Tainan were old fellow-townsmen who had left home for the academy together. Mr and Mrs Yang, Sichuan fellows from Taipei, joined as well.

This Chengdu tour was run by Yongli Travel Agency in Kaohsiung. The group stayed one night at Chengdu Hotel; the next day each person went home for ten days of family visits. Ten days later, thirty-six members met on time at Chengdu Shuangliu Airport.

The first time I went home with my husband I was both glad and nervous.

Three couples hired an eight-seater for six hundred yuan. Mr Zhang bought two television sets; Guangxian and my husband each bought one as gifts. We left at eight fifty in the morning and reached Shuangfeng Township, Longchang County at four thirty in the afternoon. At the Shuangfeng guest house, cousin Chang Wan and his wife Xiao Dongxian and their children, Chang Wan’s elder sister and brother-in-law, and three younger sisters and their husbands all came to welcome us.

Guangxian’s relatives did the same—all came to meet us.

Though we were meeting hometown kin for the first time, there was no strangeness; everyone was warm. After a simple dinner on Shuangfeng Street we set out for Chang Wan’s home. By then it was dark. Three kilometres of field paths led there. The ridges were narrow; three or four people had to share one torch. We followed whoever carried the light in front—quite an adventure. We reached the old home near nine o’clock.

What moved me most was that the family treated me like a bride just through the door: the washbasin bore the red double-happiness character, the towels too. The bedroom prepared for us was like a bride’s room. My husband and I were deeply touched.

Guangxian’s home was the same. Day after day there was no end to old stories. The ten days flew by. We said reluctant goodbyes and took the train back to Chengdu to rejoin the tour.

On my first visit to my husband’s family, everyone received us warmly and took us to pay respects at my father-in-law and mother-in-law’s graves.

My husband’s father died when he was seven. His mother raised him alone.

At seventeen he left home for the military academy. He came back to see his mother after the war ended when he was twenty-two, then left again. In 1949, at twenty-four, he came to Taiwan with his unit; the next year he married me.

At my mother-in-law’s grave I told her how good it would have been if family visits had opened sooner—we could have met, and the grandchildren could have known their grandmother. The changes of the age and the tricks of fate—people can do nothing about them.

In late April 1993 my husband and I joined a tour from Muzha fellows to Hangzhou, Thousand-Islet Lake, Huangshan, the Three Gorges, Wuhan, and Chongqing. After the tour we left the group and went home for a week.

In mid-August 1997 we joined the first Taiwan compatriots’ tour of the Shandong Peninsula. When the tour ended we left the group and went home a third time for a week, then flew back to Taiwan via Macau. Our flight left at five in the afternoon. My husband and I hired a taxi for a thousand Taiwan dollars to see Macau’s sights and got back to Taipei safely that evening.

In mid-August 1999 we joined a Jiuzhaigou tour organised by friends from Muzha and Laomei. The schedule was too tight for another home visit, so we only arranged to meet Chang Wan, Dongxian, and Tang Ran, and asked Chang Wan to give the scholarship fund our son had donated for needy students in the old home to Mr Du for the schools to distribute. We talked less than half an hour and parted with reluctance.

In early March 2001 I joined a Guangdong tour and met niece Tang Ping in Shenzhen.

In late August 2002 my husband and I joined a Northeast three provinces tour from Muzha fellows without going home again. We also travelled to Korea and Phuket.

On every trip abroad, the five children, knowing their mother had no income, prepared travel money for me. My husband had his lifetime pension and did not need the children to pay his way. Their filial care moved my husband and me deeply.

Lastly, in 2006, for my husband’s eighty-first birthday, the children suggested he celebrate in the old home. Guanghua, Chunlan, and Chunfang all wanted to go with their parents. We invited Guangxian and his wife as well.

When the plane landed at Chengdu Shuangliu, seven of us took a nine-seater minibus on the Chengdu–Chongqing expressway straight to a hotel in Longchang.

The next day everyone visited Ancient Moon Lake and the chastity arch street, with a guide explaining along the way.

On the third day the car took us back to Shuangfeng. Many relatives were waiting. We were all delighted to meet—especially to see two nieces we had never met. Aunt Dongxian was so happy she hardly knew where to begin. Talk was endless until Guanghua reminded us, and we gathered ourselves to go to our grandparents’ graves and fulfil the wish of bringing the children to honour their ancestors.

After paying respects to his parents, Chang Wan and his wife led us along the field paths back to Shuangfeng Street. The party first went to my husband’s old school, Shuangfeng Primary,

and gave a modest gift to improve the classrooms—a small thank-you to his alma mater—

then to the restaurant cousin Qinxue had booked. Thirteen tables were laid for kin, friends, the township head, and Taiwan affairs staff. Besides thanks, we also celebrated my husband’s eightieth birthday. When the banquet ended, everyone returned happily to the Longchang hotel.

Early on the fourth day we set out in the travel agency’s nine-seater for four days of touring.

We first visited Zigong’s salt wells and dinosaur museum, then Leshan to see the Giant Buddha and Baoguo Temple, and stayed that night in a hotel in Emeishan City. The next day we toured Mount Emei. The scenery along the way was lovely and ancient temples many. The family climbed to the Golden Summit and saw the nearly finished Golden Summit Temple and the tall bronze Guanyin statue—very imposing.

Many workers from provinces all over carried stone up the mountain. Each trip they had to rest at least three times to earn five renminbi. I felt it deeply and thought of the days my husband and I had once known, and of now having children and grandchildren in plenty and still being able to travel.

We stayed one night on Emei, came down the next day, and went straight to Chengdu. We thanked the driver and guide Ms Kong for two days of devoted service that made the trip such a joy. Ms Kong was a descendant of Confucius and brought the historic sites vividly to life.

That day happened to be the Dragon Boat Festival—a day of great meaning for my husband.

He left home for the academy at seventeen on the Dragon Boat Festival. He came home after victory in the war on the Dragon Boat Festival. He left Guangzhou for Taiwan on the Dragon Boat Festival in 1949.

Mr Lin, the agency owner, treated us to a rich lunch; then we all rushed to Shuangliu Airport.

Nephew Tang Ran and niece Tang Xia were already at the airport waiting. We said goodbye with reluctance.

This time my husband could bring the children home to honour their roots and fulfil a wish held for years. He was very happy, and we all returned safely to Taiwan.

Taking the children back to the old home in Sichuan. (2006)

Taking the children to Sichuan to pay respects at their grandparents’ graves. (2006)