2019 is the 45th death anniversary of my father, Swan Chang (常子华). In all
the years since he passed away, I have been constantly puzzling over the same
riddle: In the deepest depths of his heart, what had he hoped to see from me,
his youngest son? What teachings had he hoped I would receive, what books did
he hope I would read, what career would I take, what sort of person would I
become? He never told me any of these hopes when he was alive. Maybe this was
because China had been going through a constant series of turbulent political
movements since I was born in 1952, so he could never find a suitable time
where he could express his expectations to me freely.
As far as I can recall, my father never
asked me about my studies, and even seemed to ignore my musical talent with the
piano. I was a talented piano prodigy from an early age, the star pupil of my
teacher Jessica Wang (王重生), and once passed the entrance exams for the Beijing Central
Conservatory of Music in the Spring of 1966. But the results of that exam were
cancelled out by the stormy rise of the Cultural Revolution Movement; this
became one of my life’s greatest regrets. I don’t remember my father ever
giving me any sort of comments regarding my musical skills, leading me to
assume for a very long time that he didn’t understand music at all.
2. A comment from my father
In December of 1968 at the age of 16, I was
sent to a remote farmland to be “re-educated“ by the communist government —I stayed there for
two years working as a poor farmer, up until I joined Weifang City’s Cultural
Art Troupe. Not long ago I managed to connect with Miss Guiying Wu (吴桂英) – an officer who was in charge of investigation of my family's political background the year I applied for the art troupe. During
my chat with her on social media, I unexpectedly got to hear a comment my
father had given about me back when he was alive, which left me deeply moved.
Below is a record of my conversation with Miss Wu:
Wu: The articles you write are all so
touching, and your family is a marvelous one; the different eras allowed you to
taste all the joys and sorrows of life, but you were still very fortunate after
going to America. Before you entered the cultural art troupe, Jiachang Zhou (周家昌) and I went to Qingdao to complete the
political investigation for you. Your father and older sister were
very kind to us.
Chang: There’s a question in my mind that I’ve
always wanted to ask you. My parents at the time were classified as enemies of
the state, the lowest of the low, one a “comprador of the bourgeoisie”, the
other a “counter-revolutionary”. With such a bad political background, how
could you have the courage to recruit me into the cultural art troupe?
Wu: Yes, it was indeed a serious political
problem we encountered. Back then we had due diligent discussion about your
family’s background many times, and ultimately decided that you were both young
and bright, and couldn’t choose the circumstances of your birth; besides, the
troupe really needed to hire talented young musicians like you.
Chang: I’ve wanted to thank you all these
years, but never had the chance. I was afraid to contact you back then when I
was in the troupe, because the political fighting between its two factions was
particularly intense, and I didn’t want to cause you any trouble.
Wu: At the time the administration office was
split into two groups—Jiachang Zhou and I were in one group (as heads of the
Singing team). The two of us were the main ones in charge of recruiting you,
though of course we also needed Communist Secretary Chuanfu Ren (任传夫) to approve it.
Chang: By then I’d been settled down in the farm
for two years, then was temporarily transferred to Hanting County’s art
performance team for a few months; why did you go to Qingdao to complete my
political screening procedures? Where were my personal profile back then? I’d always thought that, after getting settled in my place in the
farm, my personal profile would follow me to the People’s Commune in Wei County.
Wu: Our main purpose in going to Qingdao was
to visit your family; of course your files had to be transferred from Wei
County, along with some other necessary information. How exactly we went about
the process, it’s been too long for me to remember clearly.
Chang: Do you remember what my mother said to
you? In all these years, I never knew you went to my home; at that time my
parents had been driven to live in that damp, dark little house in the rear
court of 32 Longjiang Street(龙江路32号).
Wu: We didn’t get to see your mother when we
went there, only your father and older sister. Your father told us that you’d
learned the Yellow River piano concerto and other new piano pieces through listening to the radio, and that you were very smart,
with great intellect. Your sister didn’t say much. The rest was just normal
chat, and when we left your father walked us a long way down the road. He left
a very deep impression on me - he was a very charming old man.
Chang: What my father said was true. I did not
have any piano teacher during the Cultural Revolution Movement, and no longer
had a piano to practice, because our family’s piano was seized by Red Guards.
Wu: It’s because you’re smart and love to
learn that even though you didn’t play much piano back then, when the troupe
urgently needed someone to perform the Yellow River Piano Concerto, we decided
to recruit you.
Hearing Ms. Guiying Wu’s recollection of my
father’s comments about me half-a-century after the fact, I felt a flood of
emotion overcome me, my tears falling like rain. Three years after his meeting
with Ms. Wu, in 1974, my father passed away in Beijing. In the year before he
passed, I’d often tended to him at his bedside, but he never once mentioned
this event to me. When Ms. Wu went to Qingdao in 1971 to screen my family
background, my elderly parents were living in a penniless predicament. At the
time they’d been labeled “first-class enemies” by the people of Jiangsu
Street’s sub district office, and were forced to go through “reeducation
through labor” every day in front of our home, 32 Longjiang Street: Sweeping
the street, breaking rocks, suffering all sorts of degradation. In order to
protect my father’s safety, my mother, Mary Liang (梁今永), had done as much as possible to prevent him
from going outside our home. But when sending-off the “rare guests” Ms. Wu and
Mr. Zhou after their investigation visit, he’d actually made an exception and
walked them “a long way down the road”. When it came to his love for his son,
my father’s unusually eager actions spoke louder than words.
But this precious information which Ms. Wu
gave to me still did not resolve the unanswered question in my mind. What
exactly did my father expect from me? It seemed like he’d over exaggerated my
piano-playing talents to the investigators Ms. Wu and Mr. Zhou when they came
to inquire, because there was no way he wouldn’t have known that a young man
who’d been working in the farm for two years, whose hands had become covered in
calluses, would have lost the sensitivity he once had as a piano player, and
would no longer be able to reach such gloriously great heights when performing.
3. A set of English-language hardcover books
in the attic
A month before this writing, my wife and I
went to visit the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. This place was
once the private estate of Henry Edwards Huntington (1850-1927) and his wife,
Arabella (1851-1925). When Henry passed away in 1927, he left a will declaring
that this 120-acre villa would be opened to the public. It’s a place the two of
us love to visit; not only does it possess a fascinating desert garden, as well
as Japanese and Chinese gardens, but it’s also home to a collection of famous
European artworks from the 18th and 19th centuries, along with many priceless
books.
Standing inside this luxurious study, I can’t
help thinking of my father’s mysterious little study back in the tiny attic of
32 Longjiang Street, back in Qingdao. Although there’s no way it could compare
that little study of his to the gigantic one in the Huntington estate, the
literary charm it gave off was something I’ll never forget in my
lifetime—because space was limited, it was impossible for the little study to
store all of my father’s books, so he’d built a long row of crude floor-length
bookshelves along the wall of the hallway outside, the shelves of which were
then stuffed full of books. This became my favorite place to visit as a child;
I’d often sit there by myself, flipping through the books, swallowing up the
stories within them, reading every book there without really understanding what
it was I’d read: The Complete Works of Lu
Xun, The Collected Works of Guo Moruo,
Ba Jin’s Home, Spring, and Fall, Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Tolstoy’s
War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Cao Xueqin’s Dream
of Red Mansions, Shi Nai’an’s Water
Margin, Ethel Lilian Voynich’s The
Gadfly, Wu Cheng’en’s Journey to the
West…
The thing on these shelves that most caught my
eye was a row of dark coffee-colored hardcover English books; there were
probably about 20 in the series, all with an identical old-fashioned cover. The
title pages within these dark coffee hardcover shells had gilded English
lettering, written in beautifully elegant lines. Just like the venerable old
books in the study of the Huntington estate. This long row of English books was
unique among all the works on my father’s bookshelf, giving off a thick air of
mystery. I’d often pull one out and flip through its pages, but I couldn’t read
a word of it, because the words inside were all in English. However, the books
also held many elegant illustrations that I absolutely loved; these pictures
included oil paintings, photographs, animals, natural landscapes, and my
particular favorite at the time, a selection of pictures designed for children.
It was these books that led me to dream of learning English when I grew
up, so that I could read and understand this fascinating set of books my father
owned.
4. A precious birthday present
One July day half a century later, in Southern
California on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, I received a package in the
mail. I could see from the front of the package that this was sent from my
older sister, Angela Chang, who lives on the east coast. Because the day I
received that package just happened to be my birthday, I guessed this must be a
birthday present from Angela.
When I opened the package, I was so astonished
I couldn’t believe my own eyes, because what entered my vision was one of the
books from that set on my father’s old attic bookshelf at 32 Longjiang Street!
Hadn’t all these books been burned a long time ago? How could Angela have
managed to save one?
I let the tears flow freely down my face,
sitting quietly there for a good long while; once my feelings had calmed down
somewhat, I picked up my cellphone and gave Angela a call. I thanked her over
the phone, telling her this was the most precious birthday gift I’d ever
received in my life. On her end, she explained that perhaps because our father
had had too many books stored in that little attic on 32 Longjiang Street, this
book had been lucky enough to escape the misfortune of getting seized and
thrown into the fire during the revolution—but because my parents were evicted
from their home at the time, it had moved along with them to the dilapidated,
damp, dark little shack behind their old house. When it poured outside, it
would rain on the walls inside as well, so this book had suffered serious
damage under these poor conditions, and many of its pages had gone moldy. I
don’t know how my sister knew about her little brother’s “secret crush” on this
book, deciding to part with her “treasure” in gifting it to me for my birthday.
For the sake of my health as a sickly man with stage IV cancer and a weak
immune system, she’d taken this moldy book to her work unit, Cleveland Clinic’s
Lerner Research Institute, and used ultraviolet ray equipment in the labs to
sterilize it, as well as putting in the time and effort to remove the moldy
areas with alcohol swabs.
In the days following this, as if having
discovered a precious treasure, I finally began to read this long-lost and
newly-recovered English-language book.
5. The Book of Knowledge
This is a children’s encyclopedia (originally
titled The Children’s Encyclopaedia),
first written by Englishman Arthur Mee. In 1910, the famous American publishing
company Grolier bought the rights to this book, and began publishing it in New
York under the name The Book of Knowledge.
The set of children’s encyclopedias which my father had collected in his tiny
attic room was published in 1923, a rare early edition of the Book of
Knowledge.
The birthday present Angela had sent me was
the fourth book of this 20-volume encyclopedia set. When I cautiously cracked
open this 96-year-old encyclopedia, I was immediately drawn in by the contents
I found inside. This was an unusual and wonderful children’s book. Unlike the
encyclopedias of today, this earlier edition’s contents aren’t written in
alphabetical order. Instead, each essay is sorted into different categories or
classifications, and then placed at random within those categories. When you
open this encyclopedia, it’s difficult to find what you’re looking for; instead
what you find are things you’d never thought to imagine before, making for a
surprisingly exciting reading experience.
Among these different categories is a
fascinating one called “Wonder Questions”. This category gives
easy-to-understand explanations to satisfy a child’s desire for knowledge, for
example: Why is the sea never still? What makes the current in the sea? Where
does the wind begin? Why is fire hot? Can we fall off the Earth? Why do we get
tired? How does a dog know a stranger? Do the flowers sleep at night? What is
light? Can animals talk to each other? Why can’t we sleep with our eyes open?
I discovered that this book is like a
playground, just like its editor said in the preface: “The child will find
whatever he wants… The child who can be left out of doors to play will find
here the beginning of interest in natural things. All the games and pastimes,
all the fireside enjoyment children love, the mechanical interests of boys, the
domestic interests of girls, and homemade toys for both of them ---- this is
but one phase of the practical value of the book.” Aside from this, children
can also enjoy eloquent speeches, inspiring sermons, graceful and outstanding
essays, passionate songs, lofty poems and works of art.
On the front page of this fourth volume, I saw
a familiar oil painting, The Blue Boy. This was created by the famous English
portrait and scenery artist, Thomas Gainsborough, in 1770. With his bold and
unrestrained brush strokes, and his delicately detailed coloring, he became a
well-known figure in the world of European traditional art. When he created the
Blue Boy, he found the son of a factory worker and had him dress in blue,
playing the part of a prince for this portrait. In the painting, the artist
brilliantly displays this boy’s casual and confident poise, and the texture and
fragility of the blue satin clothes he wears are extremely lifelike.
Coincidentally, Gainsborough’s original
authentic work is displayed in a second floor exhibit hall in the Huntington
Estate. In 1921, Mr. Huntington invested an amazing $640,000 to buy this
painting from England; this is equivalent to $8,500,000 today. My wife and I
got to see this famous 249-year-old painting when we visited the Huntington
Library a month back; it’s currently in the process of restoration, because the
sapphire blue colors have already faded by now. The cost of restoration is
incredibly high, and will take about two years to complete.
This fourth volume of the Book of Knowledge has a small number of color pages, the Blue Boy
being one of them; its being placed on the very front page of the book goes to
show the high degree of interest the editor had in this work. But due to the
hardships this book has been through, plus the limitations of color printing
technology a century ago, the sapphire-blue colors have now completely faded,
turning the picture black-and-white.
Unexpectedly, the book also contained a photo
of the San Francisco Bay area’s Golden Gate, which we’d visited just last
month. This black-and-white photo was probably taken around fifteen years
before the Golden Gate Bridge was built; it was only when I read the
description of this photo, that I learned that this part of the San Francisco
Bay area had already been called Golden Gate long before the bridge came to be.
It was clear to me that the “class struggle”
revolutionary education I received in elementary and middle school in the 50’s
and 60’s was much too different from the expectations my father had for me. It
goes without saying that I didn’t understand a word of English at the time -
even my Chinese studies were ended suddenly at the age of 14 when the Cultural
Revolution sprang up, and I unluckily became one of the lost generation in
modern Chinese history - so how could I have managed to understand this set of
English encyclopedias my father had thoughtfully prepared for me?
One August day, as I was reading the Book of Knowledge, I casually
flipped to a collection of poems titled “The book of poetry”; I particularly
like one poem in this collection, titled “Prospice”. This poem was written by
English poet Robert Browning (1812-1889) in 1864, not long after the death of
his wife Elizabeth, and was written in the form of a dramatic monologue. In
this poem, the poet portrays the point of view of someone on the verge of
death.
Maybe it’s because I’m a stage IV cancer
patient, putting me in the same boat as the soliloquist in the poem, but every
line of this English poem resonates within me, taking a tight hold upon my
heart. I tried looking up a Chinese translation of this poem online, but came
up empty-handed, so I decided instead to try translating it to Chinese myself.
6. Prospice
by Robert Browning
Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the
storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible
form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit
attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be
gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and
forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my
peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's
arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the
brave,
The black minute's at end,
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that
rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out
of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee
again,
And with God be the rest!
7. Let’s fight with Death once more!
It was August 25th when I finished translating
this poem in the hallway of City of Hope hospital. My wife Diana had been
keeping me company in the hospital for practically the entire day. I had to
first get a blood test in the lab area, then head to the radiation department
for a CT scan, after which I needed to go meet my oncologist Dr. Pal ...sitting
in the hospital hallway, surrounded by an unending flow of patients and medical
personnel, I focused myself solely on translating this English-language poem.
The name of this poem, Prospice, is a Latin
word meaning “to look forward”, or “to expect”. The poet chose this name in
order to imbue his poem with a philosophical touch. The poem in its entirety is
made up of seven stanzas, each stanza consisting of four lines, with the first
and third line being long, while the second and fourth lines are short. The
poet used simple and vivid metaphors throughout.
The poet gets right to the point in the first
stanza, answering his own questions as he says, Do I fear death? I’m already at the brink of death. He describes
the feeling of facing death as having fog in one’s throat, making it difficult
to breathe, his whole body feeling cold as a multitude of storms appear within
him. At first I didn’t quite understand why he’d used fog in the throat to
describe how someone feels before death, and hesitated a long time over how to
translate the line as I sat in the hospital hallway. It wasn’t until I was
called into my oncologist’s consulting room, and saw the pictures of my CT scan
on his computer screen, that I understood what the poet had felt. I saw the
shape of an ugly black tumor invading my trachea. Half of its formerly round
shape had been crushed flat, leaving only a narrow semi-circular space. “Do you normally feel pain when eating or
speaking?” Dr. Pal gently asked, concerned. “It hurts a little when I swallow
food - I haven’t told my wife yet, because I’m afraid she’d worry.” As I
replied, a sliver of a bad premonition attacked my thoughts, the first stanza
of that poem suddenly rising in my mind: To feel the fog in my throat. But what
was in my throat wasn’t fog, but a very real malignant tumor.
In the second stanza, the poet takes it one
step further, saying that Death has appeared in a clearly visible form before
his eyes. To a dying man, this is the most vivid description in the poem. All
the gratitude and grudges in this life, all the trials and tribulations, the
pains and hardships, are all brought to an end with the appearance of the
reaper.
In the third stanza, the poet thinks about how
his life is nearing its end, how he’s fulfilled all the duties required of him
in this life, and achieved the summit of his existence. There’s nothing left
for him to do, all the problems and obstacles he’s ever come across are now
resolved, there is nothing left to impede his forward progress. But he doesn’t
wish to die like a coward, he wants to go down fighting like a warrior. This
reminds me of the part of the Bible which Paul wrote while imprisoned in Rome: “I
have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto
all them also that love his appearing.” (Timothy 4:7)
In the fourth stanza, the poet says “I was
ever a fighter, So one fight more”. This is the not only the last battle of his
life, but the last glorious battle he’ll engage in. To fight with Death himself
in retaliation for the life he’s lived, this is the greatest prize he can bring
to his wife when they meet in Heaven—and it’s for this reason that he doesn’t
fear dying. In my oncologist’s consulting room, I silently told myself this as
well: So one fight more. After this fight is over, and I meet my father in
Heaven, I’ll tell him that although I couldn’t fulfill his hopes when I was
young - not picking up that Book of
Knowledge he’d prepared for me to read at age 7 until I was the ripe old
age of 67 - I at least managed not to let him down before the end of my life,
and didn’t meet Death as a coward.
In the fifth stanza, the poet takes it one
step further, saying that death does not take pity on him - it’s the thing
which humans most fear, and yet he doesn’t fear it. He doesn’t want to die the
way others do, unconscious and lacking reason; he wants to face it with full
awareness, so that he can fully experience all the pain and suffering which
death brings with it. This might be the most unfathomable “bold vision” written
in this poem - something that’s very difficult to do in reality. Just think,
who in the world would gladly and willingly go to experience the immense pain
one must suffer when on the brink of death? Based on my own personal
experience, having undergone eight surgeries, lost many of the precious organs
God had gifted to me, suffered through the unimaginable pain of side effects
from anti-cancer medications—if I were to rely on willpower alone, it would be
impossible for me to endure the pains that death brings with it. If I didn’t
have God’s grace and mercy, I’d likely have given up a long time ago. It’s just
as Jesus said in the Bible: “...In me you may have peace. In this world you
will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
In the sixth stanza, the poet believes that
the attitude with which you treat death is really just the difference of a
moment. You just need a moment to understand that death can turn a person’s
greatest weaknesses into their greatest strengths, and turn the most cowardly
into the most brave. This signifies death opening the doors to Heaven, when all
the darkness of this world, all the ugliness of human nature, all the roars of
the devil, are left far behind. This is the war between God and the devil, a war
which God will ultimately win. From a human point of view, this poet seems like
someone in a fantasy story: How could a dying man suddenly turn the worst parts
of himself into the greatest courage? But looking at it from the point of view
of God, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
(Mark 9:23) There’s proof of this in a letter I received from one of my
readers, by the name of “Meimei”. This is what she wrote:
“The first time I saw your writing, I was
honestly shocked that someone who lost many of his organs could still have such
a joyful spirit, and write so many popular, rewarding, and wonderful works.
Many people treat their illnesses very seriously, to the point that a loss of
hope brings despair along with it; I feel that God is showing you to the world
like you’re a living, breathing recommendation letter, because the comfort a
man who has been sick can give to people is different from that which someone
who has never suffered before can offer. When someone who has suffered before
shares with another suffering the same pain, the feelings they get are one and
the same: There’s someone else out there
who’s gone through the same experiences as me, there’s someone in this world
who has it worse than me. This gives the reader a sense of comfort, not a
superficial consolation but one that comes from the heart. Being an emissary
who can comfort and encourage others isn’t an innate ability; one must first
pay a great price, collecting much suffering throughout your own life, in order
to pour out help to others. There is really no way for us to control everything
that happens in a person’s life, every illness or suffering that may suddenly
catch us unawares. There is no way for us to know what unexpected mishap might
meet us first tomorrow. All we can do is trust in the eternal faith of God, in
order to change our attitudes toward suffering. The sweet dew of Heaven will
only appear in the dark night of the soul.
In the final seventh stanza, the poet speaks
in my ear with an extremely tender tone, saying, rest assured, everything will change, all the
suffering on this earth will come to an end with death; pain will change to
tranquility, you will obtain radiance and joy, meet with your father in Heaven,
and find rest in the Lord’s embrace.
As my wife Diana drove me
home from the hospital that day, she asked with concern: “How do you feel?”
“I feel at peace in my heart,” I truthfully
answered. “This might be the most peaceful I’ve ever felt in all these eleven
years of continued death sentences. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to
concentrate so hard on translating this poem back in the hospital hallway; this
is the first time I’ve ever translated an English poem.”
“I feel the same way,” my wife softly agreed:
“Let’s fight Death one more time.” So one fight more…
Written September 11, 2019
