Mr. Pan

Emily Hahn

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781497619449
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Fiction historique

Mr. Pan is no highly-placed official. Mr. Pan is the Mr. Smith of China—an ordinary man with extraordinary reach—and China, like America, depends as much on its Mr. Pans as on its powerful and world famous officials. Here, in a series of linked vignettes, you'll get a glimpse into a new way of life—Mr. Pan at work, Mr. Pan with his father, Mr. Pan with his docile wife, Pei-yu. It is a rare glimpse into a time and place, as only Emily Hahn's perceptive pen could produce. This is fiction as delightful and penetrating as any truth. Author of such celebrated and acclaimed works as The Soong Sisters, China to Me, and Fractured Emerald, Hahn has been called "a forgotten American literary treasure" ( The New Yorker ).

Sound of Metals

FIRST CANTON FELL, with a rapidity that was horrible and sickening, and then Hankow surrendered. Though we in Shanghai had expected it for a long time, it came as a shock. Pan Heh-ven, tired and bitter, said on the day we heard the news of Canton, “Is not there some way a Chinese can change his nationality?”

Naturally he was ashamed of himself afterward and said sarcastic things about patriotic slackers. He was very unhappy. I had an uneasy feeling that he didn’t like to see me those days. All sorts of rumors float about Shanghai; we pass them on for want of more exciting employment, and most persistent is the one about how the Chinese hate all foreigners. The idea seeped into my mind and worried me. Every time I went to call on the Pans I had to make an effort to get started, and on one day in particular my thoughts were gloomy as I splashed through the muddy road toward his house. I had been reading the morning newspaper.

This paper, ever since Shanghai saw its last of the Chinese army’s rear, has been ardently pro-Japanese. It gives a lot of space to the lighthearted comments and prophecies of the conquering heroes. That day, for example, there had been a good column and a half of some visiting colonel from Tokio, on the subject of The Chinese Child.

“We love the Chinese people,” said the colonel, “and we have hopes that they will in time realize that we are their best friends. Even now there are many signs that they begin to know us; it is a year since we entered Shanghai, and living conditions are vastly improved in the surrounding country.… Even though the present generation may still be stubborn and blind, I have reason to believe that their children are growing up with a proper attitude toward their benefactors, who have released them from the tyrannical slavery of Chiang Kai-shek.”

Near this speech in the paper was an item to the effect that General Matsui, the hero of Nanking, had adopted a three-year-old girl taken from the side of her dead mother when the kindhearted general espied her by the road, clinging to the corpse as he marched past. She was growing up “quite happily,” said the paper, dressed in a kimono donated by a colonel, playing with a doll presented by an admiral, and chattering in Japanese which had been contributed, probably, by the entire army. It was a pretty story, but it omitted any information as to whether the general, after killing the mother, had seen fit to give her proper burial.

Children in China.… I thought of Pan Heh-ven’s children, and I wondered as I strolled along in the winter rain. How much effect was all this having in the schools? Do children have any real sense of politics? I had never heard the little Pans mention the war. But then they are very young; Little Ven is the eldest, and he is only ten. What does he make of this? I asked myself. When his father wouldn’t let him go to his traitor uncle’s birthday party, did he understand, or did he simply resent missing the fun? It seemed more natural, more child like, to resent it. Did I really want those children to interest themselves in the dirty pastimes of their elders? I couldn’t decide.

Anyway I had arrived.

I pushed open the front door and found the living room full of the children. They were cutting out paper and pasting it into hats; running back and forth, in and out of doors; screaming to each other; ignoring their parents, the servants, and myself.

“Oh, you have come,” said Heh-ven, who was sitting calmly in the middle of it. “Come in, and do not be alarmed. It is merely that they are busy today, acting out plays. Little Ven has been writing plays very quickly lately, you must know, one after the other. You say ‘one after the other’? I do not know what has started him; it somewhat frightens me. His sisters are dressing themselves up for their parts, and as a costume is completed they act out the play, and so it is finished.” He glanced around helplessly at the mess and tucked his feet farther under his skirt. Pei-yü, his wife, had cleared a little island for herself, where she sat peacefully knitting a sweater for the next baby.

I sat down on the edge of a hard little sofa.

“You see through that door?” demanded Heh-ven, pointing. “In that room and on that large bed is their stage. I am hoping they will let us to come and watch, but I doubt it. Pei-yü says they will not. They are growing very independent, isn’t it? They act for the love of acting, not for any audience.” He stared at them as though he had never seen his children before, while they ran and shouted and slammed doors.

“Too many children we have,” he decided suddenly. “I wonder—But I suppose it is now too late. Oh, terrible.”

There was nothing helpful to say to this. I asked him what he was writing.

“I am translating these plays of Little Ven,” he said. “Perhaps you would be interested, so I have changed some already into English. They are for the most part very short. Here is one; please to read it to me aloud. I am trying to improve my English, and then, besides, although they are nonsenses, they are interesting for a study of child’s psy—psychology, isn’t it? Read aloud, if you please.”

So I cleared my throat and began.

“ASSASINATION

Traitor

His Bodyguard

Patriot

Policeman.”

“This one they have never acted,” interrupted Heh-ven, “because nobody, not even the amah’s little boy, would take the part of the traitor. Excuse me, and continue.”

I read,

“ ‘TRAITOR: It’s so busy in the office. I couldn’t go home until this minute. It is dangerous. (Takes out his pistol)

Bodyguard: Don’t worry. I am with you.

Patriot (Disguised as a peach-seller): Wei! Peach.

Peach. Three cents each.

Traitor: How much?

Patriot: Three—(Takes out his pistol from the peaches and shoots him dead. The bodyguard has already run away) Long live China. (Exits)

Bodyguard (Enters again timidly): Oh, I am lucky. (Shouts of the policeman heard behind the stage) Well, he is dead, the murderer has escaped, but the policeman will surely ask me why I didn’t shoot back. Let me do it before he comes. (He makes two shots)

Policeman: So you have killed him. Let’s go to the station.

Bodyguard (Crying): So this is the reward you get for helping the traitor!

Curtain.’ ”

I looked up at Heh-ven. His face was impassive. “Why,” I said, “it’s very good. Did Little Ven really—?”

Heh-ven handed me another one. “This one is called Tide Rising, and it is better, I think. Oh yes, he writes them all.”

TIDE RISING

A, B, C, D: four farmers.

A: Wei! Wei! Look, the tide is rising. Let me go and measure it. (Exits and enters again) Why, it has already risen one foot, and it’s still rising. (Shouts to kill behind the scenes)

B, C (Behind the scenes): Fatal, fatal! The enemy has come. Come on, everybody, let’s fight them back!

A: All right. (Beating the gong) Come on! Come on!

D: Be quiet, you old fool. What’s the matter...