Mu Han

The White Crane village was buried in the morning mist. It was mid-winter. The air was dry and unbearably frosty on Mu Han’s bare feet. It never snowed in the White Crane mountains no matter how cold it was. 

The first hour of Chén Shi had just begun. Faint rays of sunlight danced in the morning mist, slowly making its way into the village. Han paced the front yard outside the bedroom where his wife, Shwen, was in labour. His feet were numb, the tips of his toes turning blue. He rarely wore his straw sandals at home. They were for protecting his feet when he hiked deep into the mountains to attend to the orchards or heave trays of rice seedlings up to the rice terraces. The seedling trays hung at both ends of a bamboo rod pressing down on the back of his neck. Every step was perilous. His straw sandals kept him safe, and he needed to make sure they lasted as long as possible.

He was a rice farmer. You’d think he would have plenty of straw for making sandals, but nothing he and his father worked for belonged to them—not the fruit or rice, nor the straw. Everything in the village and the mountains, including the mud house they lived in, belonged to Master Huang.  

Master Huang was a powerful landlord of the Min-nan people. The Min-nan people were the privileged flat-land class. They had no sympathy for the suffering of the Hakka people in the White Crane mountains. The only reason why Master Huang had increased the rice rations to feed Han’s sons was because when the boys grew up, they’d toil on Master Huang’s land and make him richer.

Every time Han thought about his sons sweating for Master Huang just to avoid starving to death, he wished he hadn’t brought them into this world. 

Now there was another baby on the way. Another mouth to feed. Another child brought into this unkind world. What if it’s a girl? He shivered, hugging his chest. 

Han had five older sisters. His mother had tried to bear a son five times and had girls instead. She would not stop until she had a boy. It had been her duty.  By the time he was born, all his sisters had been sold as Tung Yung Xi—children bought to be raised as daughters-in-law.

Han had grown up alone and met his sisters only once a year on the second day of Lunar New Year when daughters, sold or married, were allowed to come home to visit their birth parents. Although he hadn’t grown up with them, he loved them and missed them very much. Their presence had brightened his lonely childhood and now his harsh life as a tenant farmer. 

It’s a girl

The sun had broken through the pale mist. The hours of Chén Shi had matured, roosters crowing. Shwen hadn’t screamed at all since she had gone in labour last night. All Han had heard was panting and muffled moans. His mother, Niang, who was also the village midwife, did a good job keeping Shwen quiet. Hakka women showed no weakness. Screaming during childbirth was weakness and would bring the Mu family shame. 

Shwen had been in labour for nearly five Shi. This was the third baby. It shouldn’t have taken this long. Han was getting increasingly anxious.

Birds in the trees began to join the roosters. The village was waking up to a symphony of crowing, chirping, tweeting, squawking and … baby screaming!

Han’s heart leapt with joy and dread as the baby wailed incessantly. He waited for Niang to give him the all-clear. A moment later, the baby’s cries subsided. 

‘Ah-Han, you can come in now,’ Niang called, popping her head out of the window, wiping her hands with a piece of cloth. It was hard to tell from Niang’s face whether it was a girl or a boy. She never revealed herself to anyone. 

Han loped to the front door, jumped over the old wooden threshold and made a right turn into the bedroom, parting the tattered curtain at the doorway.

The bedroom was sparsely furnished with a beaten-up dresser by the doorway, a round wooden stool in the middle of the room and a bamboo commode in the corner. Shwen was lying on her side on the wooden bed made with long timber planks nailed to the walls on three sides, her back facing Han.

She wasn’t sitting up holding the baby with a smile on her face. 

 Han’s heart sank into his empty stomach. It’s a girl. 

Niang, kneeling on the floor and rinsing cloths in a wooden bucket, lifted her head and cast a glance at the bamboo basket resting on the windowsill, a wriggly bundle cooing inside it. 

He walked over gingerly and looked down into the basket. His eyes and the baby’s eyes met. He reached his hands to scoop up the baby and rocked it gently. 

The baby would not take her gaze off him, cooing at him as if she was having a chat with her father. Perhaps she knew her fate and was asking him for protection. Tears welled in his eyes. He wanted to give the baby more than just protection. He wanted to give her a life filled with love, comfort and prosperity, like he would his sons.  What a haughty dream that was, for a penniless peasant. But the cycle of abject poverty that had condemned his sisters to slavery and his forefathers to hunger and tyranny must end with him. He held the baby tightly. 

‘Put that wretched thing down!’ Shwen’s voice rasped across the room. ‘She smears me with shame and should be sold as soon as possible. Your job is to find a buyer.’

Han put the baby down, walked to the bed and sat by the bedside. ‘Are you thirsty? Can I bring you tea?’ he asked tenderly, helping Shwen to sit up. 

‘Don’t get any ideas about keeping the girl.’ She gave him a cold stare, sitting up, back leaning against the wall. ‘I’ve suffered enough by marrying you. Don’t make me suffer more by keeping this worthless thing.’

‘It’s not our decision to make. Let Ah-ba decide. Now, you rest up. I’ll bring you some tea.’ Han walked out of the room with Niang, carrying her bucket.

In the kitchen, standing by the blackened farm table, Niang said to Han, ‘Whatever your Ah-ba and elders decide you must obey, or you’ll be branded an unfilial son and never be able to look anyone in the eye.’ She pressed her lips tightly.

‘Yes, Mother,’ said Han, pressing his lips tightly, something he had learned from his mother to conceal his true feelings. 

What should we do with her?

It’s been three weeks since the baby girl had arrived. Han’s father, Xing, still hadn’t named her. He hadn’t yet decided what to do with her. He wasn’t the only decision-maker in this. The elders of the Mu clan would all want to have their say. Many of them would urge him to do the practical thing—sell the baby girl. 

Han, being the youngest male in the clan, had no say in his daughter’s fate. How could he save his daughter when the entire culture and tradition deemed her a commodity? If he wanted to keep his daughter, being brave was not enough. He must be creative and cunning, something that would test his resolve. 

Lately, the elders and Xing had been meeting at the ancestors’ altar in a small mud-walled chamber adjacent to his house. One morning, he crept to the back of the mud chamber and listened. 

‘You’re getting old, brother Xing,’ said Uncle Tiang to Han’s father. ‘If you keep this girl, you’ll spend your old age toiling in the fields just to feed an extra mouth. What’s the point? You feed her, clothe her for what? Will she look after you or Han when you get old? No! She will be married as soon as she grows up and serve in someone else’s household. I say let’s find her a buyer. That way, she can be with her future family and you won’t be burdened by her.’

The other elders clamoured, ‘Well said. Well said.’ There was no objection from Xing, which worried Han. A dangerous plan began to take hold in his head. He hated himself for contemplating such a rebellious act, but if his father caved to the pressure from the elders, he might have no choice. He shook his head. It wouldn’t get to that. 

A few days later, Han came home at midday from the orchards to check on the baby girl. He caught a glimpse of Xing sitting in the ancestors’ chamber on a stool, his back against the ancestors’ altar, eyes gazing expectedly at the door. 

Han suspected another meeting was about to take place. He stayed close and watched.

Shortly, his uncles, cousins and granduncles appeared one by one, heading for the ancestors’ chamber. They raised their knees to cross the high wooden threshold, lowering their heads to bow to the ancestors as they entered, their sandals hissing on the blackened mud floor. Han snuck behind the mud chamber and heard them discussing putting the word out for a buyer.

Had they decided to sell the girl?  Had his father caved? Panicked, he dashed to his bedroom. Sticking his head past the curtain, he craned his neck to check whether Shwen was in the room. It was empty, the baby asleep in the basket. 

He quickly picked up the baby, cradled her in his long arms and rushed to the ancestors’ chamber. The elders huddled around his father, backs facing the door, arms waving, clamouring their opinions. 

Standing at the high doorsill, Han gulped down a nervous lump in his throat. Staring at the altar and the incense sticks burning in the urn, he prayed to his ancestors for forgiveness for what he was about to do. He raised his knee and crossed the doorsill with a bow. Summoning his courage, he said shakily, ‘She’s not going,’ his voice drowning in the vigorous discussion. 

He took two steps forward and raised his voice. ‘She’s not going anywhere. She stays with me.’

The clamour trailed to a hush. One by one, the elders broke up the circle, turning their faces to Han, Xing’s eyes staring under his grey long eyebrows, lips pressed thin.  

Xing got up from the stool and approached in slow and firm steps. ‘Ah-Han, you’ve overstepped your mark. I’m the head of the household. The decision is mine, and I must be impartial for the benefit of everyone involved. If  you have any respect for your ancestors at all, you’ll leave immediately and let our meeting continue without further interruptions.’ Han’s father was well-read and a self-taught poet. In winter, he’d write beautiful poems in calligraphy for the village people to stick to their doors as good luck charms for the new year. 

When Xing spoke eloquently and sternly, he meant business. 

Holding the baby tightly in his large hands, Han thrusted the tiny bundle forward. ‘Otosan, look at her. How could you not keep her? She belongs to me. To us. To this family,’ he said in Japanese, a language he had learned in his Japanese schooling. He did so to impress his father and to remind his elders that although he was the youngest, he was still the best educated amongst them. 

Xing’s Japanese was not as fluent as Han’s. He replied exasperatedly in Hakka, ‘Ah-Han, you know very well we don’t have the means to raise this child. We barely have enough food to feed ourselves as it is. What do you want me to do? Let your sons starve to save this girl? Master Huang expects yield even when the ground freezes over. We’re so far behind on rent. If I don’t pay up soon, we’ll be evicted. I have enough stress as it is, and now I have to deal with you too?’

‘Ah-ba, my elders, please hear me out before you dismiss me,’ Han replied in Hakka. He musn’t overdo it. Unlike his father, his elders hated everything about the Japanese and had stopped speaking their language as soon as their troops left Taiwan after the war. 

‘Ah-Han, say what you need to say and get out of here,” said Granduncle De. 

Han said to his father, ‘Ah-ba, if you let me keep my daughter, I promise I’ll find a way to get us out of these treacherous mountains and into the prosperous flat lands.’ He made eye contact with his elders one by one. ‘If I make it, your sons and grandsons will follow. Do you really want your offspring to be peasants forever?’

‘We’re Hakkas. We’ve been peasants for hundreds of years. It’s tradition,’ said Uncle Tiang. 

Han replied, ‘Rice farming has kept us alive, but that’s all. We toil like our oxen. We wear out and die before our 60th birthday. What for? To fatten the landlords? I don’t want to be a rice farmer anymore. I certainly don’t want my children to toil in the fields or be sold as slaves.”

There were derisive scoffs in the room. 

‘You have such haughty ambitions, Ah-Han,’ said Uncle Wei. ‘Look around you. We’re surrounded by rugged mountains. Farming is not just a tradition. It’s the only occupation.’ He continued wearily, ‘In case you haven’t noticed, we’re Yao-ping Hakkas. They call us the mountain peasants. The people on flat lands don’t want us there, not even the flat-land Hakkas. The moment you set foot in their territory, you’d be an outcast, thrown in jail for the slightest offenses. You’re a fool if you think you can survive down there.’

Han held the baby firmly and stood his ground. ‘I’m not afraid of the flat-land folk. Like them, I was educated in the Japanese system. The Japanese taught me technology and science. I must take a chance and see where these skills can take me. Otosan, you scrimped and saved to send me to school. Isn’t it your hope that I can improve myself and live a better life? Let me keep my daughter, and I’ll prove to you that I’m capable of raising her.’

Xing’s furrowed brows relaxed, as if a breeze of hope had brushed his face. The topic of education had always caught his attention. He was a peasant but a curious and open-minded one. 

Just as Han thought he was getting through to his father, Shwen’s voice grated from behind.

‘Ah-Han! What are you doing?’ She chided across the doorsill. ‘Give me the child!’ She thrust her arms forward.  

Her interruption gave the elders the chance to dismiss Han. They waved him off, turned their backs on him and huddled around Xing to resume their meeting. 

‘Ah-Han! I said give me the child,’ Shwen demanded.

Han lowered his head and walked out of the chamber. There was something terrifying about Shwen. Not just her temper but the words she said and how she said it. Nothing he had learned in his education or in society prepared him for someone like her. As if her charm had been used up for the matchmaking, she was nothing like what the matchmaker had described. But a penniless peasant couldn’t be a chooser. He had been grateful the matchmaker had managed to find him a wife. 

Shwen wrested the baby out of his hands. ‘You have no business here. Go find a buyer. Have you spoken to anyone yet?’

‘I will as soon as Ah-ba decides.’ 

‘If you find him a buyer, he won’t say no. Don’t sit around and wait for him to decide. Show me and your father what you can do.’ She walked away. 

Shwen had been raised by her birth parents until she married Han at the age of 19. Her parents had been able to keep her because they were flat-land Hakkas who fished and cultivated vegetables. What they did was not as harsh as rice farming in the mountains. Girls were often kept as labourers. With her fortunate upbringing, why wouldn’t she want the same for her own baby girl? Han could never understand. 

A rebellious plan 

The winter had passed, rice terraces on the mountain sides shimmering in the warm morning sun. Han’s mud house sat high on a hilltop above layers of rice paddies drawing water from the burbling creeks.

It had been three months since the baby girl was born, and she still had no name. Han secretly called her Roulan because she was as soft and delicate as an orchid, and at the same time resourceful and hardy, surviving in the most arid conditions even on the faces of rocks. She would need extraordinary fortitude to get through life, now that Xing and the elders had made a firm decision to sell her.   

Not naming her was a way to prevent family members from getting attached to her. Shwen had been keeping her sons away and telling them the baby was someone else’s. It broke Han’s heart to see his daughter being shunned like a disease, missing out on the love of her mother and her siblings.

Determined to save her, he had decided to go ahead with the plan he had hatched when the baby was only three weeks old. He plotted to go into the city to register her birth at the council, entering her name into the Mu family’s household registration certificate to give her civil rights and protect her from being trafficked.

It was an elaborate plan. He needed time to save up enough money for the trip to the city and the registration fees. He also needed his mother’s help. He wasn’t sure whether Niang would agree to it. She had raised him to be a filial son. What he was planning to do was rebellious, the worst thing a son could do. She would surely be enraged. 

But there was another side of Niang he knew. She was a loving mother, not only to Han but also to her daughters, who had been sold against her will. Han knew how much her mother suffered from losing her daughters. Surely, she wouldn’t want him to go through the same pain. Given time, she would help him.  

But time was of the essence. So much had to happen before he could execute the plan. In saying that, selling a three-month-old baby wasn’t an easy task either. Buyers often wanted to see the baby survive the first year before they’d offer good money. He estimated it would take at least another six months for a serious buyer to come along. 

Waving a goad in his hand, he drove his ox, ploughing a rice paddy on the hillside below his house, his legs deep in water and mud. The sun was high. It must be lunch time. He had been working since dawn.

‘Ah-Han, time to eat rice,’ Xing called, standing on the bank of the rice paddy, pants rolled up to his thighs, mud staining his legs. Tenant farmers from surrounding villages all trudged out of the rice paddies, thronging to the lunch spot under a large fig tree. Nearby, a clump of tall reeds grew out of a marshy area where frogs croaked.

Han squatted under the tree alongside his fellow Hakka peasants. Lunch box in one hand, chopsticks in the other, he ate his lunch consisting mostly of white rice, five pieces of pickled vegetables and a piece of preserved tofu.

Xing went around, talking to farmers to gauge their interest in buying an infant daughter-in-law. Han wasn’t worried. Who would want to buy a three-month-old baby? He continued eating his lunch and resting his legs. 

‘Ah-Han.’ Xing squatted down next to him. ‘I think we have a couple of interested parties.’ He gazed at Han solemnly. ‘They’re keen. Serious buyers.’

Han was unprepared. He put down his lunch box, tears and rice stuck in his throat. He swallowed, keeping his composure. 

‘It’s better you part with her now. The longer you keep her the more painful it’ll be,’ said Xing. ‘These families are good families. One of them already has a son, so she will have a husband when she grows up. The other family doesn’t have a son yet. They’re hoping to buy a daughter-in-law to nudge the gods to give them one. They’ll treat her well.’

No Tung Yung Xi had ever been treated well. Every one of Han’s sisters had suffered in the hands of their adoptive families. Roulan would not suffer the same fate. Filial piety or not, he would not lose his baby daughter. It was time to put his plan into action. 

That night, he turned to the only person he could trust. He revealed his plans to Niang quietly in the kitchen after everyone had left. He begged for her help. ‘You’ve suffered the pain of losing your daughters,’ he said to Niang. ‘I see how you love them and miss them every day. Please don’t let me suffer like you do.’

‘I had to obey the decisions of the elders. So do you. What you’re doing is unfilial. If you go through with it, you’ll bring your father and the entire Mu family to shame,’ Niang said as she swept the bamboo broom across the blackened mud floor. 

‘I will accept the consequences. I just want to save my daughter. It’s the right thing to do.’ Han brought Niang the makeshift wooden dustpan. ‘You would’ve saved your daughters if you could, wouldn’t you?’

Niang stopped sweeping. Under the amber light bulb hanging on a wire from the roof beam, her face glowed softly. 

Han pressed, ‘Would you help me? I need money for the registration, and I need you to make up an excuse to send me into town so no one suspects.’

‘You’re making a big mistake, Ah-Han. Your poor old Ah-ba …’ She sighed. ‘I don’t have money. The best I can do is pretend I know nothing.’ 

Han didn’t give up. He pulled out Roulan’s proof of birth papers from his pocket. ‘I can’t register her with this. What should I do?’ 

Niang snatched it from his hand. ‘You can’t show this to the council. The baby is already three months old. They’ll know we’re trying to sell her. You’ll get us in trouble.’

Clutching the document in her hand she hurried out of the house into the moonlight and headed towards the ancestors’ chamber, her mud-caked feet thumping the ground. 

Han followed, trying to keep up with her.  

In the chamber, she lit the oil lamp and rummaged through the drawers of Xing’s writing desk. She pulled out a piece of paper and a calligraphy brush. She poured some water into the well of an ink stone and started to grind the ink stick on the stone. ‘Come, write this down.’

She told Han how to forge the date on the baby’s proof of birth document, making her three months younger. She then affixed her midwife’s seal on the paper. ‘This will satisfy Chiang Kai-sheck’s Mandarin dogs. Besides, every girl wants to be younger than they actually are.’ Her tight leathery face loosened momentarily into a strained smile. 

‘The proof of birth only says she’s my daughter. She needs a name. Can I name her?’ Han asked.

Niang shook her head. ‘No. You must follow the tradition and let your father do the naming. It’d lessen your punishment.’ She looked at him gently. ‘Don’t worry. She’ll be named tomorrow morning. I’ll make sure of it.’ 

‘What about the money for the registration?’ Han asked cautiously. 

Niang was silent. She snuffed the oil lamp out and walked out of the ancestor’s chambers into the moonlight. Han followed her back to the kitchen. Ignoring Han, Niang sat on a stool and started to string beans in a wooden bowl in her lap. 

Standing at the kitchen door, Han realised he had to find the money elsewhere. He turned to leave.  

‘Ah-Han,’ Niang called, ‘before you go, can you even out my bed? It rocks at night. The stack of paper under one of the bed legs needs replacing. I can’t lift heavy stuff anymore. I’m getting old.’

Han went into his parents’ bedroom, lifted the bed leg and yanked out a wad of paper wedged under it. The weight of the paper took him by surprise. He passed it from palm to palm and felt something wrapped inside. 

He peeled back the aged paper layer by layer. Inside were rows of silver coins, neatly stacked into a small square. His father’s savings.  

He had never stolen anything before and would never contemplate such a thing. But in this moment, he had only one thing on his mind—saving his daughter. He took the money.

Naming the baby

The next morning, the Mu family gathered around breakfast, stools scraping the floor as they sat down. Spread out on the chipped and blackened farm table was a pot of rice porridge, small dishes of dried turnip strips, salty plums, preserved tofu, and deep-fried baby fish caught from the nearby creeks. Han sat at the end of the table, facing Xing’s seat. It was currently vacant waiting for his arrival. Shwen was on his right. Next to her was his two-year-old son, Bao-bao. On the left side were Niang and Han’s four-year-old son, Fuher. Fuher was Xing’s favourite grandson and must sit by his side. 

Han had almost everything he needed to descend into the flat lands and enter Hue-Shang. At Hue-Shang, he would register his daughter’s birth at the city council. The only thing missing was a name for the girl. As Han waited for his father, he rehearsed in his head what he was going to say to the council. 

His mother wasn’t in the habit of making promises. But when she did, she never broke them. He was certain today was the day his daughter would be named.

Xing’s footsteps could be heard—the only pair of slippers in the household slapping the floor. Like he did every morning, he turned on the most expensive household item—an old radio he had bought from the last Japanese family to leave Hue-Shang in 1955. When Xing had first seen the radio, he had no idea what it was. He had picked it up and shaken it. Eyes round as longan fruits, he asked Han, who was by his side, ‘What do the little people eat in the box?’

Han had been 16 at the time and had had many years of education in Japanese schools. Technology didn’t faze him. He explained that there were no people living in the box and that the voices were transmitted through radio waves in the air. His father stared at him incredulously.   

Xing sat down as everyone greeted: ‘Ah-ba, may you have a peaceful morning.’ 

After stroking his favourite grandson’s cheek, he addressed the table: ‘Kai-dung.’ You May Begin.

Niang ladled out a bowl of steaming rice porridge and placed it in front of Xing. Shwen was the next to serve. She passed a bowl of porridge to Han and did the same for her boys. She then waited for her mother-in-law to eat before her.   

‘The baby girl needs a name,’ said Xing, as chopsticks clicked busily around the table. ‘But don’t get attached. Two tenant farmers working down the hill are coming to inspect her. A name would be handy though. I’m thinking Ah-Mei, or Ah…’

He paused when news about a famous actress named Huei-ching sounded from the radio. He listened for a moment and concluded, ‘The little Mandarin man in the radio has spoken. The girl shall be named Mu Huei-ching.’

It was a Mandarin name, but Han didn’t mind. He was relieved the baby finally had a name. He looked over at Niang gratefully and nodded, signalling it was time. She nodded back, lips squeezing tightly. 

A Hakka peasant’s journey into town

After breakfast, Niang sent Han down the mountains to post letters for the neighbours and bring home salt and miso paste. Han packed his only pair of shoes and some clean clothes in a rice sack and rode his ox down the mountains into the flat lands. At the foot of the mountains, there was an inn where he left his ox and changed into his clean clothes. He then hiked to the nearest bus stop and headed for Hue-Shang. It was a one-and-a-half-hour ride. 

Despite wearing his best clothes and only pair of shoes, people still stared at him on the bus. The bottom of the mountains was populated by Hakkas, but not Yao-ping Hakkas. They were flat-land Hakkas who spoke different dialects. 

These flat-land Hakkas could easily tell Han was a mountain peasant by looking at his outdated clothes, his brown skin, malnourished body and sunken eye sockets. Han was tall, which made him look even thinner. 

Rocking at the back of the bus, he felt self-conscious but intrigued by a group of Hakkas who spoke Mandarin to each other. Han could tell they were Hakkas by their accent. Under the rule of the Republic of China, everyone must learn Mandarin. But Hakkas were a proud people. It surprised him that these Hakkas would be willing to speak Mandarin amongst themselves in their home town. 

As people alighted and boarded, their demographics and accents changed. Hakka accents were replaced by Mandarin spoken with a heavy mainland accent. They were mainland Chinese, brought over to Taiwan by Generalissimo Chiang. The last time Han had ventured this far from the mountains was almost 10 years ago. Generalissimo Chiang and his troops had already retreated to Taiwan then, but they weren’t in this part of the island. Now, here they were, near the White Crane mountains, trumpeting Mandarin in thick mainland accents like they owned the place.

The bus trundled for another hour before it arrived at the outskirts of Hue-Shang. The city had changed so much, he couldn’t recognise where he was. Square concrete houses occupied a land that was once rice paddies. There were more shops than he remembered, selling things he’d never seen before. 

He got up from his seat, swayed his way to the front of the bus and shouted at the bus driver in Mandarin, ‘Where is the city council?’

‘Two more stops,’ the bus driver replied in Mandarin with a Min-nan accent, looking at him in the rear-view mirror. ‘You’re Hakka?’ 

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve travelled far from your home. What business do you have in town?’ 

Han wasn’t sure what to say. So he just stared. About five minutes later, the bus stopped.

‘Hue-Shang City Council,’ the bus driver announced. He turned around and sized Han up and down. ‘It’s a big city. Make sure you don’t get lost. Hakka peasant.’

Embarrassed, Han hurried off the bus. 

The city council building hadn’t changed much. It was still a grey concrete building, but the inside was lit with long fluorescent light tubes that Han had only seen in pictures.

‘Mister, you must bow to Generalissimo Chiang and our founding father Sun Yat-sen before you can do business here,’ a uniformed man said in mainland Mandarin, pointing to the portraits on the walls.

It took Han by surprise. Bowing to pictures? It made no difference whether Taiwan was occupied by the Japanese or the mainland Chinese. Obedience was the only way to survive these authoritarian regimes. He bowed to one wall and then the other. 

After the ceremonial bows, everything went smoothly. In an hour, he held the updated household registration certificate in his hands. Seeing his daughter’s legal name and forged birthday on the certificate, happy tears rushed to his eyes. It was done. She was saved. 

The punishment 

Han made it home at sunset, sweaty and hungry. As soon as he secured his ox, he went straight to his father who was walking in the front yard after dinner. ‘Where have you been?’ Xing asked sternly. 

Han fell on his knees and held up the updated household registration certificate. ‘Ah-ba, please forgive me.’

Xing yanked the certificate out of Han’s hand and opened it. His lips twisted in rage. He threw it to the ground. ‘You, unfilial son!’ Raising his hand, he was about to strike Han. 

Niang grabbed Xing by the arm and begged, ‘Please, don’t hit him. He’s not a boy anymore. He has offended his ancestors. Let him kneel before the altar. Let the ancestors deal with him.’

‘Did you know?’ Xing shouted at Niang, eyes on fire.

Niang didn’t reply. Xing pushed her to the ground. 

‘No!’ Han lunged forward to help Niang up. ‘Hit me, Ah-ba. I deserve it. Don’t hurt my mother.’ He begged, kneeling.

Xing’s palm slapped across Han’s face, knocking him to the ground. ‘You’ve shamed us all. How can I face the elders now?’ He seized Han by the collar and dragged him to the ancestors’ chamber. ‘Kneel and pray that your ancestors will forgive you.’

Han kneeled on the hardened mud floor in front of the ancestors’ altar for a night and a day without food or water. Shwen had come once, not to see how he was, but to spit on him. 

In the evening, Niang came in with some water and a bowl of rice. ‘You can get up now, but don’t expect your father to speak to you. He’s still angry.’

Han wanted to get up but couldn’t. His knees were stuck to the floor. 

Niang took his arm and helped him up. He could barely walk. ‘I need to see my daughter.’ He staggered to the bedroom to hold his baby girl. He told her she was safe.

But he was wrong. The girl’s ordeals had just begun. 

The story continues. Please come back to my blog for new posts. 

Roulan