A Million Drops of Blood: "Our Days in Red Terror," by Ye Weiyou

My Paternal Grandparents

My paternal grandfather Ye Chong-Zhi （alternative name Ye Wenqiao）,with his ancestors in Anhui Province (the mid-south of China),lived in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1908,the last feudal dynasty in China), having experienced two tiles of emperor's reign: Guangxu and Xuantong. Grandpa came from a 4-line of officials, the highest being like a state governor of the U.S.Fearing the terrible persecution (chopping head) even to those who just sympathized with the reformists in imperial court,Grandfather found an excuse and quit his official position:head of the Public Security Bureau of Hebei Province.Soon he started to run industries with a position in his two banks, chairman of the board.

Grandfather married three women. His first parent-arranged bound-foot wife #1 grandmother Cang was of equal socioeconomic status with her hometown in Jinan, the capital of Shangdong Province. While flying a kite, Cang had an abortion and became barren ever since. In feudal society of China a doctrine was among the three unfilial things having no offspring is number one. A young girl Liu came from a poor family in Henan Province. After a severe flood, Liu was sold to a rich family in Tianjin as a maid (Tianjin is a port city near Beijing). The lady in the rich family happened to be my great-grandmother's friend. #1 grandmother Cang often accompanied my great-grandma to the lady's for mahjong(a game of Chinese origin played with tiles resembling dominoes)One day, while playing the game, Great-grandma found Liu there and asked about her background. The adoptive mother told everything true about the girl except her age: she was then 14 but was said 16.Great-grandmother often saw her there and came to like the girl. Then she decided to buy Liu for my grandfather as a concubine to continue the family tree.

#2 Grandma Liu soon was pregnant but did not show any sign in a month. Soon, on a business trip in Henan Province, Grandpa got to know a pretty Beijing Opera actress Chen who played a male's role in the opera. After hearing about Chen's poor life experience, Grandpa sympathized and fell in love with her. Having made sure that Chen was selling just her singing not body, Grandpa decided to marry Chen as a second concubine but dared not bring her home for the poor social status--actresses, particularly poor ones, were just above prostitutes. Fortunately, a month after living together, hen conceived a child and this made Grandpa very happy and bold enough to write home immediately.

Great-grandma agreed to accept Chen and allowed his son to bring her home at once though by then Liu also proved in a family.#3 Grandma Chen was about two years older than Liu.Interesting enough, the two women's first five kids were born in the same year and of the same sex with their first baby being both female. Thus the two humble-origin women produced for the family 14 offspring in all, each of them had five boys and two girls. The ten boys and four girls were ranked by sex in two groups. Chen was my grandma, #3 grandmother.
#2 Grandmother Liu's first girl was a couple of months older than my grandmother’s first girl. She was adopted by Cang and became the family's treasure. When she died at the age of three, Great-grandmother attempted a suicide by striking her head to the wall! The two concubines’ second child were both boys.#1 uncle was Liu's while #2 uncle was my grandmother Chen's. Her first daughter, my poor #2 Aunt was disdained by great-grandmother as she suspected the girl's blood lineage

As the 2nd boy in Ye ancestors' families tended to live short, when 2# uncle reached the age of 6 or 7,he was rearranged to number 8 after the newly born #7 Uncle. Unfortunately, the reranked boy (#2 uncle) couldn’t avoid an early death either. He died at the age 7---another grief storm in the family...My father, ranked #3,is Chen's second boy, and #6,#7 and #9 (originally ranked 8) were all her sons. My grandma’s first daughter, my poor #2 Aunt died young as a result of being bullied by her husband, a landlord's son. He forced her to watch while making love with a maid. Grandma’s second daughter my #3 aunt died of stroke in 1980.Her husband was not good either: taking opium. All Liu's children died except her youngest girl, my #5 Aunt, 87 years old, in Shanghai. Her kind husband, a famous translator lived to see Mao's death, predicting a great change in China. Concubines' children in a feudal Chinese family had to call their own mother aunt, while call their father's first wife mother. The same unfair rule in my grandfather's family.

With her low position in the family, my grandma was sort of discriminated. Her brother was not allowed to talk with her inside the house but just at the gate, so her father never came. And her children were also treated less well than #2 grandmother Liu's. My grandma tried to tolerate all this but occasionally vented her grievances on Father and asked him to take her out of the family after he graduated from Yanjing University (the predecessor of today's Beijing University, a missionary school run by the last American ambassador before 1950) Father had great pity on his mother and, while tapping her legs to relieve her pain, he once again promised to make her dream come true.

Family Ye was then very famous in Hebei Province, especially in the city of Tianjin, for their achievements in industries and great generosity to their servants, friends and particularly the poor around. At the peak of the family, there were about forty servants in the large house including wet nurses for each grandchild’s birth. Grandpa never demanded any receipt for a loan. Whenever there was a natural disaster, he and his mother/our great-grandma would give out grain and relief fund to the needed. Grandpa died quickly of stroke at the age of 58 as a result of his carriage accident. Then Father was still in Tianjin Nankai High School, one of the very few top missionary schools in China. About a month after Grandpa’s death, my father received admission notice from both Yanjing and Qinghua University(in comparison to Oxford and Cambridge in Britain)Yangjing admitted Father due to recommendation by his high school for his excellence in his studies while Qinghua admitted him after an examination. When Grandpa’s safe was unlocked after his death, instead of a great fortune they supposed to find, there were quite a few receipts since he never pressed for repayment of debts. No wonder Grandpa Ye Wen-qiao was known as philanthropist in Tianjin. Since early childhood all the boys had been imbued by Grandparents with the spirit of self-achievement: never rely on family properties. And Grandpa encouraged them to study natural sciences, thinking only this could save China.

While paying great attention to his sons' education, Grandpa didn't let his daughters go to school as he believed in another feudal doctrine: having little talent and learning is a female's virtue. So except #5 Aunt, the youngest girl in the family, all the other four girls had little literacy as Grandpa just let the half-illiterate sewing women servants teach them. In Grandpa's eyes, it was good enough for a woman to be able to write a simple letter reporting her safety to her husband when she got married. A female in a feudal eastern society was always dependent: obeying her father before marriage, then her husband and finally her oldest son after her husband died. When living with my #3 Aunt in the same Chinese house (a compound with houses around a courtyard), my mother often taught her Chinese characters.

After Grandfather's sudden death in 1920s, with limited wealth, the family began to decline, which made Father, his full brothers and two half brothers, #1 and #5 uncles, work even harder at school with a determination to have a good future for themselves and for their disaster-ridden nation. Number Three Aunt, my Grandma Chen's second daughter, fell ill with TB, which was almost incurable in those years. One day, when combing hair for that favorite girl, Grandma prayed to deity with the words to a crow in a tree Oh, god, let me catch the disease and save my daughter. If you hear me, please make the crow cry three times. At this, she heard the crow wa,wa,wa. Coincidentally, Grandma soon caught TB and got worse and worse while my #3 Aunt fully recovered. In the momentary recovery of consciousness just before death, Grandma struggled
to kneel on her bed and asked the supreme lady Cang what she was allowed to wear after death. Number One
Grandma Cang, with some mercy, said that she could wear red skirt since she made some contribution to the family by having produced and brought up both girls and boys. Red skirt in the old days of feudal China was a symbol of a first wife, not a concubine. Hearing this, Grandmother was touched to tears and said with a faint smile: Thank you, Madame and left the world sort of satisfied.

My father grieved so much over his mother's death that he, in order to invite her soul return,
according to a superstitious saying, fasted three days with his eyes closed and his mind deeply meditating. But nothing happened. That painful trying in vain may have reinforced his atheism. My poor grandmother didn't live to see Father's graduation and failed to wait for the day: being taken out of the house of humiliation and staying with her favorite son in another place.#1 Grandmother Cang died second of I don't know what disease.#2 Grandmother Liu was shocked to death in 1966,the start of the Cultural Revolution, by the Red Guards who rooted her apartment and forced her to kneel in front of the household building, shouting with angry and insulting words...Except #2 Uncle who died too young, none of our grandmother Chen's other four sons,Father,#6,#7 and #9 uncles, failed to live up to her expectations--winning honour for her when they grew up. All of them, though having suffered in different way with the nation's lot, have done pretty well either in social or in natural sciences, and all have a long and respected life. My father and #6 Uncle died in 2004 and 2005 after several years of hemiplegia.#7 & #9 Uncles are still alive today though the latter,#9 Uncle also caught the disease of hemiplegia two years ago, in 2006.