Little Bridge Head, a small derelict village off the South China Coast, in the township of Shanwei is my parents’ hometown.
My parents were born there, raised there, and lived their very early years of married life there, until 1962, when Chairman Mao’s unremitting political upheavals such as Great Leap Forward and People’s commune gnawed at their stomachs and forced them to eat tree barks to survive. Like some other villagers, my parents had no choice but to flee. Starvation made the unknown life of smuggling themselves to HK much less intimidating.
When I was 8, I made my first visit to Little Bridge Head. My memory was vague, but the seashore in front of the old houses stayed vivid in my head. I have always loved the sea and always have the privilege living close to water. I think something had genetically imprinted in my DNA — a desire for the sea.
This time when I went back to Little Bridge Head, the sea is somewhat different. The coastline has been rounded up with two-meter high wall. A fish-farming company has bought the area and built miles of pools alongside the coast for fish farming. Rapid development has improved livelihood a great deal in the mainland; however, there is a cost. Nature is gone. Morals, sometimes, are traded for money.
On my first day during this current visit to Little Bridge Head, I took a brisk walk to the coast. I sat on the rocks where I sat on 20-something years ago. Two decades for me is not a short time. I was only a primary-schooler then, and now I have quite a few strands of gray hair.
After a while, my dad saw me and walked towards the shore too.
One cannot say Dad and I have a close relationship. He’s a dutiful father who worked hard to bring bread to the family. But seldom did he talk to us children, ever. He’s been emotionally absent since I have known him.
As I was sitting overlooking the sea, dad sat on a nearby piece of rock, facing the ocean.
“See that island over there?” he murmured and pointed at an island further out in the sea. “We took a small boat and sail there on our way to Hong Kong.”
Then dad turned to the beach and pointed at a small boat and said, “The boat we took was smaller than that one.”
The boat on the beach was about 15-feet long. Nothing fancy.
My dad seldom talked and I seldom listened. Those moments by the sea were rare, yet precious.
“It took a few days to get to that island.”
I tried to imagine the year of 1962, half a century ago, when my parents were only in their early 20s. They had no money at all, no personal belongings. They took the bold step with their first child, a girl less than 2 years ago, to smuggle themselves to Hong Kong.
Between words, dad was quiet, staring at the sea. I sat behind dad and saw only his back. In front of me seemed not the 75-year-old dad. Rather it’s him in his 20s.
Then he turned and pointed at a sandy corner in the left and said, “As a little boy, I swam there.”
All of a sudden, I felt a lump in my throat and my eyes went moist.
He’s not the dad what I felt emotionally absent all the years, neither the stranger or room mate living under the same roof. Suddenly, he’s a human. A human like you and me — with history, with sorrows, with memories, with life.
It’s the first time I felt a desire to love him. Not because I have to, neither because I want to. It is just because a person just like you and me – worthy of love.
And of forgiveness.
And during this family trip, I could not remember how many times I scecretly stared at my father and put him back into perspective, into the place where he was raised and belonged and felt my eyes totally ladden with tears.
If we strip the expectations coated on people by the names of “parents” “children” ” siblings” “spouse” “partner” and let them go naked — as naked as just a human soul, we may well up a different kind of understanding and affection for that person.
In my dad, I see a stranger.
In the stranger, I see me.
Between the stranger and me lies something called humanity.
Dad staring at the sea recounting his past. It's from this coastline that my parents boarded a small fishing boat sailing all the way to HK some 50 years to embark a new life. At the gate of the Tin Hau Statue in the city of Shan Wei. Dad and I took a brisk visit before we headed back to HK.
It's from this coastline that my parents boarded a small fishing boat sailing all the way to HK some 50 years to embark a new life.
At the gate of the Tin Hau Statue in the city of Shan Wei. Dad and I took a brisk visit before we headed back to HK.
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