A Thousand Pieces of Gold: A Memoir of China’s Past Through its Proverbs - Adeline Mah Yen

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Han dynasty onwards, written on silk or bamboo slips.

      My grandfather told me that when he was a boy growing up in Shanghai, he saw many large red boxes placed at major street corners. Each had four gilded characters written on its surface: jing xi zi zhi (respect and cherish written words). Workmen with bamboo poles patrolled the streets picking up any stray pieces of paper that had been written upon and painstakingly placed them in the red container. The contents of these boxes were burnt at regular intervals at a special shrine in the Temple of Confucius. These paper-burning ceremonies were solemn occasions resembling High Mass in a Catholic cathedral, with music and incense. Candidates who had successfully passed the Imperial Examination were the only ones allowed to participate. They would prostrate themselves in worship and pray to Heaven until all the paper had been reduced to ashes. On their way out, they would further show their respect by placing a donation into a separate red box labelled yi zi qian jing (one written word is worth a thousand pieces of gold).

      4

       Binding your Feet to Prevent your own Progress

      

GUO ZU BU QIAN

      

      IN 1949, MANY SHANGHAI ENTREPRENEURS fled south to Hong Kong to escape the Communists. Like the scholar Li Si years earlier, my father also left his home and travelled to a distant place in search of better opportunities and a fresh start. My siblings and I did not realise it then, but my father’s move destined us to become part of the 55 million Chinese living and working outside of China.

      At the age of fourteen, I won an international writing competition, which convinced my father to send me from Hong Kong to London for higher education. Three years later, while waiting for medical school to commence, I applied for a summer accounting job advertised in the evening newspaper. Over the phone, the manager sounded eager to hire me. He gave me directions to his firm, and asked if I was ready to start work that day. As soon as he saw my Chinese face, however, his attitude changed. Avoiding my eyes, he told me that the position had just been filled. He was a nice man because I could hear the embarrassment in his voice as he repeated the lie. One part of him knew that I would be a good worker and was reluctant to let me go. Nevertheless, he sent me away.

      Throughout the long period of my training at medical school in London, I knew in my heart that if I were to remain in England after graduation, I would never be given the same opportunities as my British classmates. In order to secure a decent career, I realised I would have to go elsewhere. Because of my dismal childhood, the feeling of being discriminated against was only too familiar. I had decided long ago that life was unfair and that each person needs to find her own way of overcoming adversity. Besides, the bias I was encountering in Britain was far less than the blatant prejudice I had endured for so many years in my own home.

      After graduating from medical school, I went back to Hong Kong. To my shock and dismay, I came across more prejudice. My colleagues resented me because I was not Cantonese and was a graduate of an English, rather than Hong Kong, medical school. The fact that we were all Chinese simply meant that they could be more open in their intolerance. They nicknamed me ‘imported goods’ and told me to my face that I was a ‘foreigner’. No matter how hard I tried to please, I remained an outsider.

      My last refuge was America. Even before I set foot on American soil, I was already being helped by a total stranger. The medical secretary of the Philadelphia hospital where I had applied for a job turned out to be kinder to me than my own parents. As soon as I wrote to her, she advanced me the airfare from Hong Kong to New York against my future earnings, whereas my millionaire father and stepmother simply turned down my request for a loan. In America, I found that my gender and ethnic origin were still a hindrance, but the country was large and the people were generous. However, despite these favourable considerations, I did come across one particularly ugly instance of discrimination.

      In the 1970s, there were few board-qualified and fully trained physicians specialising in anaesthesia. As such, my services were in demand. A Catholic order that owned a large and prestigious private hospital in Los Angeles encouraged me to apply for a position in obstetric anaesthesia. In due course, I was interviewed. As soon as I sat down in front of the white, male and arrogant head of department, that familiar childhood feeling of ‘being picked on’ came flooding back.

      ‘Despite what you have been told by the nuns who own this hospital,’ he began, ‘our medical group is not looking for more anaesthesiologists.’

      Taken aback, I said somewhat lamely, trying to please the godlike figure in front of me, ‘I thought I might be given a chance to do locums and fill-ins during sick leaves and vacations.’

      ‘Look!’ he replied icily. ‘No one in our group ever gets sick or takes a vacation. Do you understand?’

      I stared back at him in silence and he added, ‘Have I made myself perfectly clear?’

      I nodded and prepared to leave. In those days anaesthesia jobs were plentiful. His rejection did not devastate me because I knew that I would be able to find a position elsewhere. As I bade him goodbye, however, I was seized by a sudden impulse. With my hand on the doorknob, I turned to him and asked, ‘Have you ever heard of the Chinese proverb “binding your feet to prevent your own progress”?’

      That proverb guo zu bu qian was a phrase first used by the King of Qin’s minister, Li Si, in the third century BC. Like the brain drain into the United States today, a similar flow of talent was happening 2200 years ago. Qin was the richest state of that era and talented scholars from all the other states flocked there to seek employment. Their success caused such resentment among Qin’s native population that they eventually persuaded the King to expel all non-Qin scholar-officials. Reluctant to relinquish his post, Li Si wrote a letter to the King of Qin protesting against his deportation. He complained that Qin’s new exclusionary policy was akin to ‘binding your feet to prevent your own progress’.

      Li Si was a commoner from a humble family from southern Chu (present-day south-eastern Henan province). During that time of constant warfare, talented young men would seek out famous writers and philosophers to be their teachers. After a period of study, the young scholars would travel from state to state and attempt to attach themselves as advisers to the rulers. These scholar-bureaucrats were called shih. Their function was comparable to the tasks performed by political aides and ministers today.

      As a teenager, Li Si worked as a petty district clerk for a few years. He wanted to save up enough money to study under Xunzi, an outstanding Confucian scholar who lived about 600 li (200 miles) away — at that time considered a great distance. Even at that early stage of his life, Li Si already had the foresight to conclude that man’s fate depends very much on where he chooses to live.

      After completing his studies, Li Si did not wish to go back to his native state of Chu. Recognising that Qin was becoming increasingly powerful, Li Si decided that he would travel there to seek employment. On leaving, he said to his teacher Xunzi: ‘I have heard that one should not hesitate when the right moment dawns. Now is the time … The King of Qin wishes to devour the other states and rule them. This is the opportunity for the common man to rise. It is the golden period of the wandering scholar. One who does not move and decides to remain passive at this juncture is like a bird or deer that will merely look at a tempting morsel of meat but not touch it. There is no greater ignominy than lowness of position, nor deeper pain than penury … Therefore, I shall go

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