Andrew Kwong’s dramatic escape from china detailed in new book One Bright Moon
Andrew Kwong was desperate to be one of Chairman Mao’s loyal children when he was a young boy. But his revolutionary spirit began to fade after his father was persecuted, with his dramatic escape from China detailed in his new book.
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Andrew Kwong was seven when he witnessed his first execution. In One Bright Moon, he reveals the shining dream that kept his family going through starvation and danger in Mao’s China, through a near-death experience at the hands of people smugglers, to his life as a doctor Down Under.
As a boy growing up during the early days of the People’s Republic of China, I spent most of my time shouting slogans at school and was totally immersed in the many programs led by Chairman Mao to continue the revolution, and improve our lot in life.
People fervently supported the new independent republic, and kids like me dearly wanted to be Chairman Mao’s loyal children.
We’d do anything for him and the Party, even report our parents and family and friends to the authorities for any apparent disloyal acts.
But when my father was persecuted for being an “outdated intellectual” and subsequently sent away to a re-education camp close to Siberia, my revolutionary spirit began to fade.
The arrival of the Great Chinese Famine in 1959 brought further hardship, with tens of millions perishing throughout the country.
The thought of not knowing if our family would have food on the table each day was hard
enough, but enduring criticism and denigration at school and in the street for being the son of an unwanted man was demoralising.
I started to realise why my father dreamed of life somewhere else, in a place where we could breathe, learn and live.
My parents looked for every opportunity to leave China, and in the depths of the Great Famine suddenly I had a chance.
Yet it gave me a hard choice. Was gaining freedom more important than breaking up the family, leaving my friends behind and abandoning, perhaps forever, my hopes for my country?
It was my mother’s quiet hope that one day a “bright moon” would appear that carried us all
through.
Both she and my father believed things would get better and our family would eventually be
reunited. Their faith and hope have inspired me throughout my life.
My journey took me from my town of Shiqi, to Macau, then to Hong Kong and finally to Australia.
Along the way I drew on these beliefs so many times, but they were also tested. As a terrified twelve-year-old, nailed along with other frightened refugees inside a hidden cavity in a small fishing junk being smuggled into Hong Kong, I feared I would never survive.
I had seen in vivid detail what happened to traitors to the Motherland, and when the marine police boarded our boat I thought my dream of a better life was over.
I’m still not sure how the “Snake Head” smuggler evaded the police, but I know I came close to death in that tightly packed crawl space due to the lack of air.
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Many decades on, the fear of perishing that way continues to haunt me, and writing has been one way to overcome these nightmares.
The story of my family’s survival is both harrowing and happy. Through the hardships – the famine, what my father endured in a re-education camp, our terrifying escapes from China, my sister’s relocation to the countryside to “learn from the peasants”, my mother’s long years of submission to Party officials – we always expected something better, hoped and strived for it, never gave up.
Since I established a new life in Australia, this belief has continued to guide me and I hope I have instilled it in my own children.
They have not faced the difficulties I experienced in China, but a sense of hope is something that breathes life into our most significant and insignificant experiences, and gives us purpose and meaning.
I have many good memories of my childhood – of friends and family and the joy of simply living. But there were also dreams. As a young child, I would sit on the levee wall in front of my ancestral home, dreaming of a full stomach and a peaceful and fairer life.
At the time, I had no idea what personal freedom meant, but I knew that there was always hope, as long as the bright new moon returned.
And that tiny spark carried me through.
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One Bright Moon by Andrew Kwong, published by HarperCollins Australia, is on sale now.
Our Book of the Month is Darry Fraser’s Elsa Goody: Bushranger. Readers get it for 30 per cent discount at Booktopia with the code BUSHRANGER. And remember you are always welcome to share what’s on your reading list at the Sunday Book Club group on Facebook.
