(1900~ 1993)

A Feminist Activist ... and a Devoted Buddhist

Mother never hugged me,

nor showered me with any affection;

yet I know she loved me most deeply;

it was not just that I was her bone and flesh,

but that of the compassion of a Buddha.

~In my dream

One of the readers of my book e-mailed me several days ago. He wrote: even the first words—In memory of my mother, a feminist activist and devoted Buddhist— I'm excited to read your book. The casual remark brought back in bits and pieces endless memories of Mother that I must put down in writing my fondest memory of her; lest I forget before age catches up with me.

To say Mother is an extraordinary example of her generation born in and lived through the turbulent years of 'modern' China, benefitted from and suffered in her "old" and her "new", is probably more 'accurate' than to say she was one of the most extraordinary women of her times. Educated in classical Chinese, Mother was first a suffering housewife and a loving mother, and above all a "modern" professional woman: the first woman law graduate in South China, an educator, a feminist activist, a legal defender of women's right, and a congresswoman.

I never knew much of Mother because she hardly spoke about herself; I learned of her more from her young sister--No. 3 Aunt--who helped to bring me up. Born in 1898 in the final years of China's last imperial dynasty in what must be an affluent family outside of Guangzhou, she received her early education from private tutors—that she received any kind of education at all must be attributed to the strong will of my maternal grandmother.

My maternal grandfather was sent by the imperial court to study in Japan. That must be in late 1880s. He was one of the earliest to join Dr. Sun Yet Sen's nationalist movement in Japan. Graduated in law, he later served in the judiciary branch of the nationalist government in Guangzhou in the early 1920s and 1930s.

My maternal grandmother was an uneducated woman of peasant stock. Hers must have been an arranged marriage. Yet, she was most astute and proper. When she together with her children moved to Hong Kong to escape the Japanese invasion, she started a small bakery shop, believing that was the best way for her family to avoid rationing; the bakery shop later turned into one of the best-known chains in Hong Kong the 1950s. I surmise it must be Grandma's insistent that Mother—and both her two younger sisters—had a full education growing up.

Mother was trained in classical Chinese: the Confucius and the legalist teachings, poetry and prose. She was most progressive in many respects, and yet most conservative in all matters of morality and "Li"—protocols and code of conduct, adhering most faithfully to the teachings of Confucius.

Perhaps it was her upbringing and education that Mother never believed in communism. Following the footstep of her father as a Kuomintang loyalist, she was staunchly against the dialectics of Marxism.

Young Woman. My mother was nineteen when the May Fourth Movement broke out. I can imagine she might have been one of those fiery students marching on the street protesting against the "Unequal Treaties" and the corrupt warlords of Beijing.

At the age of twenty-five, she graduated in law from Guangzhou's Zhongshan University; the first and only woman graduate in her class.

In the early1930s, she was the headmistress of a girls' middle school, pioneering women's education. The school is now the normal school for training of teachers in Guangzhou. Mother must be no older than thirty two or three then.

It must be during this period she joined Kuomintang, the nationalist party, as she was active in feminist affairs of the nationalists' Women's Alliance.

Career Woman. By then, war resumed between the nationalists and the communists. It was about this time that Mother was elected to membership of the National Assembly representing one of the districts of Guangzhou. She was one of the few congresswomen then. I could only guess it was her Confucius upbringing that she remained loyal up to her death to Dr. Sun Yet Sen's principles of democracy and human rights. This is despite the fact that the nationalists were thoroughly corrupt—and losing popularity and later the war against the communists.

On the eve of the collapse of the nationalists, a new currency was issued which was supposedly backed by gold. It was mandatory to turn in all the old notes, gold and foreign currencies in exchange for the new currency. My parents complied strictly—and stupidly—with the official regulations. As the nationalist government continued to print paper money non-stop, hyperinflation was rampant.

One morning, Mother gave me a pile of notes worth some fifty thousand yuans to buy snacks. Instead of buying snacks in the morning, I foolishly delayed my purchase till the end of the school session in the afternoon. When I went to the same street hawker for the same candy bars that I could have purchased for fifty thousand yuans in the morning, I was told the price had gone up to eighty thousand yuans. Needless to say, I went home empty-handed.

My parents lost their entire savings by turning in their foreign currency and gold holdings into the Jinyuan, "gold-backed" notes that practically turned worthless.

As Refugees. As it became apparent that the nationalists were being over-run by the communists, my parents decided to seek temporary shelter in Hong Kong, believing it was merely a change of regime and that we would be returning to Guangzhou shortly. In 1947, our family moved to Hong Kong.

After not quite a year, my parents quickly ran out of funds—neither of them possessing any kind of skills adaptable to the commercial world of Hong Kong. I remembered Father who was an avid collector of Chinese antiques took out his favorite pieces, selling them at dirt cheap prices. It didn't take very long before Father exhausted his collection.

In her late-forties and at her prime, Mother's career had come to an abrupt halt. Father, an ex-nationalist military officer, was no help. To make a living, Mother and No. 3 Aunt ran a small barbershop. Mother was strong-willed and was never depressed.

In the early 1950s, Mother left for Taiwan where as a member of the National Assembly she received stipends from the nationalist government, providing the only financial means to support her family. In my teens, I was put to live with my relatives—first with my maternal uncle, then my No. 3 Aunt. Despite the dire strait we were in, Mother kept me in the best schools. Far short of opulence, I was never deprived of the basic needs of a teenager

In 1955, I entered the Diocesan Boy's School—DBS for short—which was and remains to date one of the best schools, if not the best, in Hong Kong. I matriculated in 1958.

I had wanted to go abroad for my tertiary education. Not knowing how she managed to obtain the necessary funds, I left for university in Canada in 1959. Other than a steamship ticket, Mother gave me one thousand Canadian Dollars for my college fees and living expenses. Only much later I found out she had borrowed the money from her friends and relatives. I managed to get through university working part-time: first as a dishwasher, then a bus boy and eventually a restaurant waiter.

A Devoted Buddhist. In 1968, I finally managed to complete my schooling and went to work in New York. I was then married and had my first child when Mother came to stay with us in 1971. Later, she joined us living in Tokyo and travelled between there and Taipei where she continued to hold her post in the National Assembly.

It was during this period that I took notice that Mother would spend hours and hours holding and counting in her hand her Buddhist beads, meditating and reciting prayers. Mother never visited temples or making offerings to the pantheon of gods. She was a devoted Buddhist in her heart, and a living practitioner of Buddhist compassion.

In her seventies, Mother for some reason that remained unknown to me to this day decided to return to Taiwan to live by herself. For months, she would stay inside a monastery praying and meditating.

When she suffered her second stroke in 1988 at the age of ninety, she became bed-ridden. I moved her to Hong Kong where she lived another four years. By late 1992 when Mother was ninety-two years old, I had the vibe that this most strong-willed woman was quickly losing her willpower to continue her suffering in this world. In February1993 at the ripe old age of ninety-three, Mother went away in peace in the middle of the night to meet with her Buddha.

If there is any regret in my life, it was my lack of appreciation of Mother; all the sacrifices she made to provide for me, and the hardship she endured. Her love was unconditional of any returns. Looking back, I appreciate Mother was like the light house standing erect on the rock jutting out to the sea; her beam of light never extinguished in guiding me through rain, fog or storm.

In the middle of the night before dawn: 2010/01/22