Tag: love

Surviving the Nazis

By C.S. Hagen

JAMESTOWN – A local news broadcast finished with a clip of US presidential nominee Donald Trump standing before a giant NRA poster. The 2016 Republican candidate gripped a podium’s sides tightly, raised a bushy eyebrow before promising to bring back the American dream.

Lore Hornung recounting her days in Nazi Germany

Lore Hornung recounting her days in Nazi Germany – photo by C.S. Hagen

Lore Hornung set her liverwurst on rye down, and pointed excitedly at the television set.

“The names we had for Hitler are like what we have for Trump,” Hornung said. “Names that I won’t repeat.”

Born in Bad Rappenau, Nazi’s Germany, the 84-year-old woman recalled the day Adolf Hitler declared war on Czechoslovakia in 1939. Huddled around the “people’s receiver” radio with her four siblings and parents, Hitler’s rhetoric then reminds her of Trump’s promises today to make a country great again.

“The hateful rhetoric is what is frightening,” she said. “At first we thought Hitler was a clown, and then he became real.”

Using words like fear, self-protection, power, national pride interchangeably with broken dreams, Hitler stirred a nation to hatred. At only 10-years-old when World War II began, Hornung had no choice but to don the navy blue dress, white shirt and necktie, and the brown Hitler jacket emblazoned with the Nazi badge. The only gifts she says she ever saw from the Nazi regime.

Lore Hornung (left) at the beginning of World War II in Nazi Germany

Lore Hornung (left) at the beginning of World War II in Nazi Germany

“We had a good life before the war and could even afford a maid and a cleaning lady,” Hornung said. The day after Hitler’s declaration of war against Czechoslovakia, her father, a railway freight manager, fanned local stores hunting salamis and storable foodstuffs. “I was 10-years-old when the war began, and for the first six months everything was quiet.”

And then the changes began.

Shoes became a luxury item, one new pair every two years. “You would be lucky if you got one pair of shoes a year.” Additionally, new clothes disappeared from store racks. Many goods, including coffee and chocolates, required ration tickets, which were issued by the government. At her young age, she received a small box of chocolates, also government issued, at Christmas. Older children received real coffee, a welcome break from the muckefuk kaffee, roasted corn and chicory sweetened with beet sugar. “To this day I put no milk in my coffee, and no sugar in it,” Hornung said.

Stylish new clothes were impossible to find. International radio broadcasts were replaced by propaganda and speeches by Hitler and party propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, as the Nazi juggernaut conquered one sovereign nation after another.

Lore Hornung as a child wearing Nazi jacket

Lore Hornung as a child wearing Nazi jacket.

The paramilitary wing of the Nazi party marched into town.

“First, they came in uniforms, brown shirts, and riding boots,” Hornung said. “My dad even had one. They came marching into town singing. It was so stupid.”

Young teachers were drafted to the frontlines. Older, stricter teachers wielding bamboo sticks for punishment replaced them. The school’s new headmaster was a fanatic, but mostly avoidable. He walked into school in the mornings with a Nazi salute. Living in a town of 2,500 people, a tourist spot for its brine hot springs, Hornung wasn’t subdued to the brainwashing techniques many other students her age in larger cities endured. Her years in the Hitler Youth, known as Jung Mädel for children up to 14, and later in the League of German Girls or the BDM, were spent primarily crafting wooden elves as Christmas presents, marching in formation on Sundays, listening to speeches, helping workers in the field, and singing nationalistic songs such as the Horst Wessel. Once a month her entire school of 18 students – four girls – watched a motion picture featuring German victories and the ever-present propaganda.

French prisoners, bedraggled and under guard, began appearing in town. Many were assigned day duties in the fields before returning to a nearby prisoner of war camp, she said.

Lore Hornung and her father pre World War II

Lore Hornung and her father pre World War II

One night, a nearby commotion piqued her interest. Her father rushed to discover what was happening. He returned with frightening news.

“I had never seen my dad so mad,” Hornung said. “And dad almost got into trouble. He said three Jewish families in town were attacked. Windows were smashed in, and rocks were thrown at them.”

In 1933, ten Jewish families lived in Bad Rappenau, according to the Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust. In 1938, four Jews were killed and a Jewish shop was destroyed in Bad Rappenau, according to the Jewish Cemetery Project. By October 22, 1940, no Jews remained; all were deported to the Gurs Concentration Camp in southwestern France, according to the Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust.

At a time when anything but mass conformity was persecuted, she wore a bikini to practice diving. “I was a tomboy,” she said. Chuckling at the memories, she said she used to climb cherry trees for a snack, stole away from Hitler Youth duties to swim. To Hornung, the Hitler fanaticism passed her by.

“Once I had made plans to swim,” she said. “Diving was my favorite sport. I could do flips even, but this night, my classmates tried to pressure me into going to help pick peas. I had already made my plans to go swimming, and I told them no.”

She was worried what her father would say, but his response surprised her.

“Never lie,” Hornung said her father told her. “Hitler says don’t lie, so you do not lie. If you made plans to go swimming, then you need to stick to those plans.”

Her father was a member of the national socialist party for the first year after war broke out, Hornung said. “For the first year or so my father supported them, and then he left the party and refused to wear his Nazi pin.”

When the Allies began bombing campaigns in Germany, Hornung and her sisters refused to leave the upstairs open window. They knew their small town of 2,500 would be of little interest to the invaders.

“We would open the window up and start counting how many airplanes. When they left we also counted, and sometimes as many as 60 or 70 were missing.” Her father would encourage them to go downstairs into the basement for safety, but usually end up watching the spectacle with them, Hornung said.

Her town was hit once by Allied bombs, forcing her and her family to spend the night in their basement. Little damage was caused however, but she worried, as everyone knew an armaments factory was nearby. The nearby city of Heilbronn, however; was devastated by bombing raids. On September 10, 1944 Allies dropped 1,168 bombs on the city, killing 281 residents, according to the World War 2 Database. Within one half hour on December 4, 1944, more than 6,500 residents died during a second bombing raid, most of whom were buried in mass graves, according to the World War 2 Database.

The Americans invaded Hornung’s town first, she said. From her kitchen window she watched as a tank parked into her front yard. A large man asked for English speakers, of which she was one.

Neiboring city of Heilbronn after Allied bombing and during invasion of US troops

Neighboring city of Heilbronn after Allied bombing and during invasion of US troops

“He asked me if there were any German soldiers, and I said no,” Hornung said. “Then he filled his steel helmet with potatoes, and that just didn’t go well with me. I said ‘you potatoes, me meat.’ And then he spoke a lot of English I didn’t understand and took me toward another tank. I thought, ‘Oh no, they are going to take me away,’ but he gave me a large tin of ham.

Once, while riding her bike she came across chickens, and in her hurry to stop her chain broke. She crashed in front of a group of US soldiers.

“I was so afraid they were going to hit me for running over a chicken,” she said. “I was afraid the Americans would kill me, but instead they helped bandage my scuffed arm. They were good to us.”

The tomboy in Hornung refused to let the US soldiers have free reign with local swimming pools, which, according to Hornung, became property of the US Army and local residents were not permitted to swim. She defied the rule, however, and went swimming anyway.

Heilbronn destruction

Heilbronn destruction after World War II

“I said come and get me, and he did not. Maybe he couldn’t swim, I don’t know.”

German surrender on May 7, 1945 brought inflation, a scarcity of food, and horrid revelations to Hornung. She and her family had no idea of how Jews had been treated across Europe. “We did not know about it, not until the newspapers began reporting on it and then we saw the people coming in. Some of them walked for two weeks surviving on what farmers fed them.”

“We were so glad when it was over, we hardly kept anything to remember those days,” Hornung said. “I did not live in a big city, just in my hometown with two thousand or so people.” The majority of Germans in her area shared her relief, Hornung said. “But there were some then who were like those today crazy about some politicians,” she said. Small gangs formed. Some took advantage of the lack of a functioning government, looting and robbing. Devastation in nearby Heilbronn, was difficult to imagine, she said.

Hornung and her mother, a Swiss national, escaped some of the post war hardships by traveling to Switzerland, and did not return until they heard father was seriously ill. He died soon after they returned home. Nearly seven years after the war ended, Heilbronn still resembled a war zone.

Private Glen W. Hornung, now a staff sergeant, in Germany after World War II

Private Glen W. Hornung, now a staff sergeant, in Germany after World War II

She met her future husband, Jamestown native Staff Sergeant Glen W. Hornung, at Café Mayer, in 1952. “A most beautiful café,” Hornung said. At the time Glen was sent to West Germany as a Jeep mechanic.

“It was all rubble,” Glen, who was a private when he set foot in Germany, said. “The houses were bombed out, streets were full of rubble ten-feet high. People had nothing to work with.” He too was a self-admitted ‘outlaw,’ and spent his first years in the military drinking, and chased Hornung for nearly two-and-a-half years before she agreed to marry him.

“I lost more stripes then than most people ever make,” Glen said. After a night with bad Thai whiskey however, he decided the drinking must end, and has never taken another sip of alcohol since. The gangs, or “local yokels,” as Glen described them, frequently created mischief. Fistfights with them were common, he remembered.

The Hornungs boarded the USS Upshaw from Bremen to New York City in 1956. From there, they moved their family around the world until eventually resettling into Glen’s hometown, Jamestown, not far from where his German ancestors, immigrants of more than a century ago, homesteaded.

Lore Hornung, German born survivor of Nazi Germany, and her husband Staff Sergeant Glen W. Hornung, in their Jamestown home

Lore Hornung, German born survivor of Nazi Germany, and her husband Staff Sergeant Glen W. Hornung, in their Jamestown home. – photo by C.S. Hagen

 

Plight of the Twin Paragon Sisters

By C.S. Hagen 

TIENTSIN, CHINA – Ligu and Chungu never lingered at market, like other girls their age, hoping to get noticed.  When the Zhang sisters grew hungry, they tightened their clothes.  Too poor to have their feet bound, they contended themselves with helping mama embroider lotus shoes and trinkets for copper pennies.  During a time of near anarchy, as the Qing Dynasty succumbed to Sun Yat-sen’s Republic in 1911, Tientsin’s streets teemed with gangsters, prostitutes, foreign merchants, and revolutionaries, but the Zhang sisters held true to their family’s Confucian values, keeping the “door wind” (门风), or bad reputation, at bay.

The Zhang sisters, Ligu (丽姑), the eldest, and Chungu (春姑), stayed home, as virtuous young girls under the Confucian order.  They adhered to the “four virtues,” practicing proper speech and jealously guarding their chastity; they worked diligently, and strived for modesty.  Their family was among Tientsin’s poorest classes living in the Heping hutongs, but they didn’t complain even when their father, a rickshaw puller, couldn’t earn enough to put rice on the table.

A painting done by C.S. Hagen in 1987

A maobi painting done by C.S. Hagen in 1987

Innocent of the prostitutes and gangsters around them, the Zhang sisters blossomed into young teenagers, catching the eye of a local wealthy mawang, or pimp, Dai Fuyou (戴富有).  Dai was more than a pimp, however; he was a “white ant,” a trafficker of young girls sold, tricked, or kidnapped then forced into the prostitution trade, known in Tientsin as the Land of Broken Moons.

Dai schemed.  He plotted how to tempt the Zhang sisters into his “wolf’s lair,” according to a November 20, 2013 documentary broadcasted by China Central Television Network (CCTV12), and didn’t find an opening until baba, Zhang Shaoting (张绍庭), lost his rickshaw.

And then Dai set his trap.

The Twin Paragon Sisters (双烈女案) case is documented in part through an unnatural death records book dating to the Ming Dynasty. The book is thick, revealing more than 36,000 women who met grisly ends in attempts to keep their chastity, and reads, according to CCTV12, like a “King of Hell’s Death List.”

The Zhang sisters’ case is also known as one of Tientsin’s “Eight Strange Cases of the Republic.”

 

Baba

Every time Zhang Shaoting found a little fortune, disaster followed. Much like Old Testament Job. The two men could have been bosom buddies.

In the late 1890s, Zhang, at 19-years-old, fled his hometown of Nanpi in Hebei Province and took refuge in Tientsin’s Old Xikai District, a 4,000-acre strip west of the old “Celestial City” under French control. (Present day Xikai Catholic Church, Isetan, and Binjiang Road area).  He found gainful employment in a ceramics shop, worked hard, and won the shopkeeper’s daughter’s hand in marriage.  He was a cautious fellow, submissive, sometimes talkative, according to Nanpi Government reports. Being raised as a devout Buddhist, he was careful to protect his family’s “door wind.”

Lao Xikai Church, or St. Joseph's Catholic Church, in the Lao Xikai area - Tianjin Archives Museum

Lao Xikai Church, or St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, in the Lao Xikai area – Tianjin Archives Museum

When Ligu was one-years-old, the first disaster struck.

In June 1900 approximately 120,000 Righteous and Harmonious Fists mauled Tientsin, declaring war on colonial foreign powers of the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Germany, Russia, Hungary, Italy, and the United States in what came to be known as the Boxer Rising.  Supposedly impervious to bullets through magic charms pasted on their chests and Plum Flower Boxing, the Boxers attacked embassies in Peking, beheaded missionaries across the provinces, slaughtered opium dealers at the port cities, and joined forces with Qing Dynasty Imperial troops to sack the Tientsin Foreign Settlement, an area along Tientsin’s Hai River given to the eight foreign powers through the Unfair Treaties of 1860.

Read more about Boxers here.

Read more about the Boxers’ Red Lantern Society here.

The Eight Allied Nations’ response was harsh.  Naval cannons aboard the H.M.S. Terrible and H.M.S. Fame flattened Tientsin’s ancient walls and city, including the ceramics shop in which Zhang worked. Jin Lao, the proprietor, died days after the siege, leaving Jin Shi, his wife, and young daughter stranded.

An uneducated man, Zhang turned to the rickshaw. Grueling work in Tientsin’s hot summers and bitter winters.  Lacking money to purchase the vehicle, Zhang was forced to rent.  Costs weren’t cheap, according to Michael T.W. Tsin in a book called Nation, Governance, and Modernity in China: Canton 1900-1927.

The rickshaw puller taking a break - Virtual Shanghai

The rickshaw puller taking a break – Virtual Shanghai

“Most companies charged a daily deposit of C$5 [five Chinese dollars] plus a rental fee of about C$1 for each rickshaw.  The amount was paid by the contractor, who assumed full responsibility for the vehicles.  A puller had to pay the contractor a commission for his service, in addition to the cost of leasing the rickshaw.”

In Tientsin, contractors formed guilds to protect their interests, and zealously guarded their rickshaws and fiefdoms on which they moved people and goods.

“The transport workers and the guilds that controlled them, with a history of more than 200 years, were among the oldest and most important participants in the making of the Tianjin [Tientsin] working class,” according to Gail Hershatter in her book The Workers of Tianjin, 1900-1949.

“Tianjin [Tientsin] lived by trade: it was the meeting point of five rivers, an important juncture on the Grand Canal, the loading point for sea shipment of goods from North and Northwest China, the entry point for foreign imports and Shanghai goods, and the major northern station of two railroad lines,”

Freight haulers, rickshaw pullers, and three-wheeled carts all worked for the highly organized guilds frequently fighting each other for turf.  Tientsin’s guilds were among the most feared and despised organizations, according to Hershatter.

A puller, such as Zhang Shaoting, was usually charged 60 Chinese cents per shift, which varied from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., or from 2 p.m. until midnight.  Naturally, rickshaw pullers labored at the bottom of Tientsin’s social order, and were affiliated with Dark Drifters, hunhunr, and gangs, such as the Qing Bang and the Green Gang.

“Carters, boatmen, innkeepers, transport workers, brokers – even if innocent, they deserve to be killed,” was a common Tientsin folk rhyme in the early 20th century.

The copper cash strings Zhang brought home were hardly enough for three mouths, and when Chungu was born three years after her elder sister, mama turned to embroidery to make ends meet.  Later, she also gave birth to a boy, ensuring the family’s name, but forcing her husband to work longer hours, deteriorating his health.

In the spring of 1916, Zhang’s rickshaw was stolen while he napped.  A rickshaw in those days would take a year’s wages to pay for, and Zhang, now nearing 40, became desperate.

Wang Baoshan (王宝山), a Dark Drifter lackey of Dai Fuyou, hurried to his “elder brother” with the news, according to CCTV12.  When Dai heard of Zhang’s plight, he sprang his trap.  He knew all he needed about the Zhang family, after all, they did not live far away; they were practically neighbors.

Read more about Dark Drifters here.

“Give your daughters in marriage to my two sons, and I will more than settle your score for the stolen rickshaw,” Dai said, according to CCTV12 and Xinhua News. “I can have the marriage contract written up immediately.”

Seeing no way out of his predicament, Zhang agreed, and hurried home with the good news.  His daughters were to be wed to wealthy landowners. The Zhang’s family fortune had taken a good turn.

True to his word, Dai soon brought the marriage contract, but found excuses not to sign. “What’s the hurry?  We’re all one family now.  Listen up, I can do you one better.  Since your daughters are now my daughters, and my sons your sons, and because you are not wealthy, why not let your daughters live in my mansion?  They will be treated like my own blood, or my name is not Dai.”

Once again, Zhang agreed, and Ligu and Chungu, filial daughters, left with Dai to live in his mansion.

 

The Wolf’s Den

Not long after the Zhang sisters arrived, Dai hired a middle-aged woman to teach the sisters how to sing crude songs, fit only for a teahouse brothel.  Daily, men came to listen to the lessons, and Ligu noticed the men speaking excitedly to each other in hushed tones.

In the Qing Dynasty’s twilight years, teahouses were community centers, nests for gossip and news, but were also podiums for talented artisans, courtesans, and prostitutes to tell stories, recite poetry, sing songs, and tempt possible lovers.  Such establishments were hounded by the so-called “mosquito press,” local tabloids who rated the performances, and gave helpful “tips” to anyone wanting to enjoy the “Flower World,” more appropriately known as the Land of Broken Moons.  The comings and goings of strange men and heavily painted women at Dai’s mansion increased Ligu’s fears she and her sister had been tricked, according to CCTV12 and Tianjin Museum Archives.

Early one morning Ligu and her sister fled Dai’s mansion, returning home.  Ligu found baba sick, too weak for work, but when he heard the news, he was livid.

When Dai discovered his sons’ fiancées had ran away, he too was angry.  Having such tasty meat so close to his lips could not be forgotten, according to CCTV12.  But Dai had laid his trap, and was not deterred.  Having in his hands the original unsigned marriage contract, he made a counterfeit document, with all parties’ signatures, and promptly sued Zhang for breach of marriage contract in the Zhili Province Supreme Court.

Upon seeing the signed forged document, and recognizing a man of means, court officials wasted no time in siding with Dai, and ordered the Zhang sisters to return home with Dai to be married to his sons.  Dai’s lackey Wang and his two sons also testified the marriage document was authentic, according to CCTV12.

“Dragons breed dragons; a phoenix gives birth to a phoenix. A mouse’s son can dig a hole,” CCTV12 reported, meaning Dai’s sons were as wicked as their father.

Zhang, barely strong enough to walk, spewed blood across the courtroom floor after a coughing fit.

“Zhang’s sudden loss, followed by the elation from arranging his daughters’ marriages, and then the consequent anger at being cheated was too much for Zhang to bear,” CCTV12 reported.

“He became deathly sick and died two days later,” the Xinhua News and online records from the Tianjin Museum Archives reported.

 

Suicide

After nearly 100 years, a memorial stone dedicated to the Zhang sisters still bears their tragic story.  The massive stone was spared the ravages of war and the Cultural Revolution, CCTV12 reported, because a former viceroy of three northeast provinces, Xu Shichang (徐世昌), wrote the story, and a famous politician and calligrapher, Hua Shikui (华世奎), painted the characters.

The Twin Paragon Sisters memorial stone still standing in Tianjin's Zhongshan Park - online sources

The Twin Paragon Sisters memorial stone still standing in Tianjin’s Zhongshan Park – online sources

The Zhang sisters were distraught, characters in the stone read.  No one could help them.  Their father was dead; their mother was a simple seamstress.

With Tientsin law on their side, lackey Wang and Dai’s two sons pounded on the Zhang family door, demanding that the sisters report to the Dai household the next morning.  If not, both would be sold to a brothel, CCTV12 reported, which was a fate the sisters already suspected.

All night long the Zhang sisters cried to the heavens and to the earth, with no response, the memorial stone read.  Nearing dawn on March 17, 1916, Ligu, who was 17-years-old, turned to her 14-year-old sister.

“The life of a whore is no life for us,” Ligu said.  “It is better we die than to let the door winds befoul the Zhang family name.”

Choking on her tears, Chungu agreed.

Ligu procured three packs of red phosphorus matches from under the bed.  One by one, she cut the tips off and placed the match heads into a pile.  She poured two cups of kerosene and dumped the match heads into the cups, creating a powerful poison.

“You must drink this.”  Ligu handed her younger sister a cup.  “The fate of a whore is worse than these few minutes of discomfort.  If we must die then that is our fate, but we must not ever slight the Zhang family’s name.”

Ligu drank down the poisonous concoction.  Chungu hesitated.

“I heard those who commit suicide will go to hell and be tortured,” Chungu said.

“Do not be afraid,” Ligu said. “Even in death we will leave behind our innocent bodies.”

Chungu raised the cup to her lips, obeying her big sister and crying as she gulped kerosene and match heads down.

A picture broadcasted by CCTV12 about the Zhang sisters before their suicide pact

A picture broadcasted by CCTV12 portraying the Zhang sisters before their suicide pact.

Pain didn’t set in for two minutes, the memorial stone read, and then the sisters’ stomachs began to roil.  Both fell to the ground, screaming in pain, waking mama and neighbors who hurried to discover the commotion.

Mama urged the girls to drink water.  Both refused.  Ligu convulsed.  Blood leaked from her eyes and mouth.  And then she lay still.

“Even in death, we will leave behind our innocent bodies,” neighbors reported Chungu said.  And then, with a final, weak cry, Chungu followed her elder sister into the afterlife.

 

The Aftermath

The Zhang sisters’ tragic story spread like wildfire through Tientsin, alerting young and old, rich and poor, alike.  Thousands took to the streets in protest of the court’s decision.

News of their double suicide soon reached the ears of Xu Shichang, a future Nationalist president during the Warlord Era, and Hua Shikai, a Tientsin native, and former military minister for Qing Dynasty princes.  After the revolution in 1911, Hua retired to Tientsin, bought a house in the Italian district, and became a renowned calligrapher.

One of the four famous ministers of the late Qing Dynasty, Zhang Zhidong (张之洞), also heard of the Zhang sisters’ suicide pact, and was moved, not only because they shared the same surname and hometown, but because of the girls’ adherence to Confucian principals in a time when most Tientsin natives could not afford to.

Hua, Xu, and Zhang Zhidong publicly damned the Tientsin courts, and demanded Dai’s arrest, according to Tianjin Museum Archives.  The fragile Nationalist government, in only its fifth year since the revolution, grew fearful of unrest.  All attempts to arrest Dai failed; the white ant escaped.  Protesting crowds grew larger.

Paragon Sisters group pic

Before the third day after death, when the spirits return to collect monies for heaven, Yang Yide (杨以德), the Zhili Province police minister, scripted province-wide arrest warrants for Dai, and tried to appease the populace by collecting monies from local merchants and gentry for a proper burial, according to the Tianjin Museum Archives.

Yang Yide (杨以德)

Yang Yide (杨以德)

“Funerals, like weddings, could be a ruinous expense,” Hershatter wrote in her book The Workers of Tianjin, 1900-1949.  “Families went into debt to buy burial clothes and to rent a burial plot for the deceased… ; to do otherwise would violate the codes of filial piety and invite bad luck and the scathing judgment of the neighbors.”

When the burial day arrived, more than a thousand people joined the funeral parade.  Musicians were hired.  Professional criers wailed at the parade’s tail.  Soldiers in full military regalia cleared the streets.  Relatives from Nanpi, now known as Dongguang County, made the journey, and the largest, most extravagant coffins were hoisted by eight pallbearers each.  The funeral parade started in the western part of old Tientsin, circled the city, and ended on present day Xiguan Avenue.  The sisters were laid to rest inside a Female Paragon Temple, or temples for strong women.

Before 1911, Female Paragon Temples, Lienv Ci (烈女祠), were reserved primarily for female martyrs defending piety and chastity.  Tientsin’s Paragon Temple at one time housed more than thirty graves, including the Zhang sisters, and held sixty-one tablets honoring those who died while defending their innocence.

On May 4, 1919, the wife of the future  first premier of communist China, Deng Yingchao, declared women’s equality across China, consequently abolishing thousands of years of feudalism and Confucian thought.  Tientsin’s Paragon Temple was destroyed to make room for a movie theater soon after the declaration, according to the Tianjin Museum Archives.  A hutong sprouted around the theater, and became known as the Female Paragon Temple Hutong (烈女祠胡同).  Most, if not all of the hutong, is now gone.

According to the Tianjin Museum Archives, the Zhang sisters’ remains and their headstones were relocated to Nanpi before the theater was constructed.  Monies left over from police collections were used to provide for widow Jin and their brother, who also returned to Nanpi under Zhang Zhidong’s protection.

In later years, the Zhang sisters’ tragedy was featured in numerous Peking operas and plays across the nation.  The stone monument telling the sisters’ story sits in Tianjin’s Zhongshan Park, protected under a small, grey-roofed pavilion to this day.  How the stone survived Tientsin’s  warlords and revolutions isn’t important.  Its facade has smoothed with time; the characters are chipped, and difficult to read, but it remains as an affirmation that goodness, sometimes, is stronger than evil.

Hua's house

 

Chuanyechang wood plaque, characters written by Hua Shikai - online sources

Chuanyechang Bazaar on Binjiang Road wood plaque, characters written by Hua Shikai – online sources

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red Lanterns Rising

By. C.S. Hagen

TIANJIN, CHINA (PRC) – Red Lanterns once flew over Tianjin.

The skies crouched with anticipation as bewildered children and eager onlookers jostled toward the South Canal.  One by one the red lanterns sailed east, flickering like demons’ eyes.

“What’s happening baba?” A child in the crowd asked.  Bone-rattling drums drowned the child’s question and baba leaned closer, wrapping the seven-year-old in an embrace.  Before placing her on his bony shoulders for a better look he spoke into her ear.

“The Red Lantern flies toward Moscow and Tokyo,” said the child’s father.

A white lotus flower

photo by C.S. Hagen —  A white lotus flower

“Why?”

“To destroy the foreign devil’s and Island Dwarf’s cities.”

At the South Canal’s north embankment, near the current Japanese Concession area surrounding Heping Road, the drums reached a fevered pitch.  Trumpets blared.  A thousand voices cried out in unison welcoming the Yellow Lotus.

From a sampan unfurling red sails, dressed in red, holding a red lantern in one hand and a similarly colored kerchief in the other, Lin Hei’er stepped from the boat and on to Tianjin soil.  She had left in disgrace, but returned as a goddess.

“Who’s that baba?”  The child yelled into baba’s ear.

“Yellow Lotus Holy Mother.”  Baba spoke in a whisper that somehow drowned the chanting and throbbing drums.  “Fallen from the sky and here to drive the foreign devils into the sea.  Happy heaven, happy earth.”

More than ten thousand Tianjiners watched as Lin Hei’er, former zaji actress turned saltwater girl, sworn to destroy the foreign occupation soldiers and religions, stood still as an idol while Zhili Viceroy Yu Lu wrapped an official yellow cloak around her shoulders.  Nine sister fairies dressed in red silks, red shoes, red scarves, red tasseled flying knives sheathed across their backs held up their red lanterns, reflections of the floating lights above and casting the harbor into a bloody, wet sheen.

“I want to be like her,” said the child.  “She’s beautiful.”

“Aiya, little yaya.  You poke your head into the clouds while your feet are still here on earth.  Don’t think such foolish things.  There is no ivory in a dog’s mouth.”

Although little yaya was too young in 1900 to join the Red Lantern Brigade, Lin Hei’er, the Yellow Lotus, elusory brigand, whore and leader of the Red Lantern, opened the doors to women’s liberation for little yaya and millions like her.

Remembered today as a revolutionary hero the Yellow Lotus, (黄莲圣母林黑儿), was born in a fishing boat on Tianjin’s South Canal in 1871.  She matured under the rigorous training of zaji acrobatic entertainment.  Before an early marriage to Li Youchuan, she was a saltwater girl, selling her body on river and on dry land.  One of her suitors, a man named Li Youchuan, became her husband.  Little is known of their relationship other than she married at a very young age.

At the Hejia Hutong, near to the South Canal, nearly deserted.  According to residents this area once flourished, and would have been a focal point for the Red Lantern.

photo by C.S. Hagen —  At the Hejia Hutong, near to the South Canal and marked for destruction as of 2012. According to residents this area once flourished with business, theater and markets, and would have been a focal point for the Red Lantern.

Love, although in Chinese is a fairly modern word, is as old an emotion as hate, and must have bloomed between the young couple, for she swore vengeance upon the foreign nations squatting in Tianjin after British soldiers arrested her husband for opposing the opium trade.  Li Youquan died shortly after being interrogated, beaten and starved inside prison.

The Yellow Lotus, at that time still known as Lin Hei’er, fled to Tianjin’s outskirts where she eventually became involved with the White Lotus sect, a popular quasi-religious, martial band of Chinese who opposed the Manchu rule and more importantly, the foreign occupation of China’s trade ports lost in the Opium Wars.  Tianjin Boxer leader Zhang Decheng became Hei’er’s benefactor.  Like thousands of zealous followers before her, she knelt before the Boxer leader, swearing her life to freedom, to mutual faithfulness and to secrecy.  She swore to take the heavens as her father, the earth as her mother, the stars as her brothers the moon as a sister and drank a bowl of chicken’s blood.

Hejia Hutong, resident looking at the house he has lived all his life - soon to be torn down

photo by C.S. Hagen  —  Hejia Hutong resident looking at the house he has lived all his life – soon to be torn down

“If I, your pupil, do not respect your law, or if I divulge this Way of Immortals, may my flesh be reduced to congealed blood.  I will never go against this teaching.  If I should go against this teaching may a thunderbolt strike me dead.”

Incense seeping into her nostrils, Hei’er bowed three times, striking her forehead on the ground.

“I am a teacher.”  Decheng returned his oath.  “I do not teach a heretical sect.  If I should transmit any heretical teaching or if I should use tricks to get people’s money for myself, then may a thunderbolt strike me dead.”

Hei’er, which means ‘black child,’ soon learned the true words, eight character-long protective incantations that would keep her safe as long as she prayed to the three Easts, three times a day.  Once in the morning facing east recited twenty-seven times; once at noon facing south, recited fifty-four times and once in the evening facing west, recited eighty-one times.  Cross-legged, hands clasped to her chest, she learned how to empty her mind.  Forty-nine days later after intensive martial arts training, and a burn mark seared with wormwood leaves most likely at the back of her head, she was a fully inducted member of the Boxer’s Righteous and Harmonious Fists, and leader of the Red Lantern Brigade.

During the early 1900s, rebellions swept China’s northeast.  The Red Lantern, however, originated in Tianjin and became a nation wide symbol of revolt and mystic power.  With their red kerchiefs the Red Lantern became the Boxer’s arsonists, destroying buildings with a gentle wave.  Nearing midnight the lithe, young Red Lantern women took to the streets, shouting propaganda and drawing thousands of onlookers who were swept away with their elegance and violent slogans.

“Women don’t cut your hair,” the Red Lantern shouted.  “Cut off foreign devils’ heads.  Women do not bind your feet.  Strike away the foreign devils’ smiles.”

The Red Lantern was more than arsonists and the Boxers’ propaganda machine.  They were shrouded in mystery.  Legends from the time report they carried flying daggers on their backs, which when thrown, could strike the head off an enemy from leagues away.  The Red Lantern women were also known to possess powers of astral projection, and spied on the Western armies and concession areas.  At dusk, while chanting their protective true words, they stared into the setting sun until their eyes glowed with fire and then pinpoint the enemy’s locations.  Some said their souls floated on copper bowls filled with water or their bodies could fly through the air simply by waving a fan.

One of the spells, or true words the Red Lantern taught Boxers to chant was known as the Closed Fire and Sand Curse.  The true words, when recited with a righteous heart, repelled bullets and made the body impervious to harm.

“Disciples in the red dust, obstruct the cannon’s mouths.  Let their guns resound together and part the sands on both sides of us.”

A representational painting of the Red Lantern - artist unknown

A representational painting of the Red Lantern – artist unknown

A 2013 article in China’s Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences reports the allied armies countered the Red Lantern’s spells by painting naked women on their cannons.

All unmarried women with unbound feet were welcome into the Red Lantern.  The Yellow Lotus trained prostitutes and beggars, giving the young girls red robes when they finished training.  Only those with lotus feet – the rich – were rejected from the Red Lantern ranks.  Widows and those too old to participate in the fights formed the Blue and Black Lantern brigades.  A fourth brigade called the Sha Guo Zhao, or the Cooking Pan Lantern, was also formed.  Armed with magic saucepans that never went empty, they fed the sixty-thousand-strong Boxer army.

Reports published shortly after the Boxer Rising, such as in A Miscellaneous Record of the Boxers and A Month in Tientsin, attribute the crazed actions of many Boxers and Red Lantern women to the ingestion of mercury sulfide.

“The teacher first draws a circle in the ground,” the A Miscellaneous Record of the Boxers reported.  “He orders those who wish to receive instruction to step inside it.  They stand with their eyes closed, and the Teacher murmurs spells into their ears.  Before long, some fall prostrate on the ground.  These he teaches.  Those who do not so fall are regarded as un-teachable. When they practice boxing the instructor holds the boy’s right ear with his hand and makes the boy himself recite the spell three times.  When the spell is completed, the boy lies supine on the ground, almost lifeless.  He is then slowly urged to rise and dance about… Pairs of such boys will fight together as if facing a mighty enemy.  In truth, they are like people drunk, or in a dream.  After a time, the Teacher will slap the boy in the middle of the back and… he will wake up, and stand there like a wooden chicken, having entirely forgotten the art of boxing.”

At the Boxers and Lantern’s helm stood the Yellow Lotus.  When her troops were ready, she fought alongside Boxers.  Hand in hand with Boxer men, (a strict taboo of the times to be seen outside the home touching a man), they marched through Tianjin streets defying Manchu rule and foreign aggression.

According to a 1900 article in the Atlantic Monthly, Boxers revered the Red Lantern women, and Yellow Lotus was judge and jury of all those brought before her.  Found guilty of befriending foreigners or aspiring to foreign ways and heads would roll.  She pardoned a small handful when enough gold was presented.  Viceroy Yu Lu, the governor of Zhili Province, which included Tianjin, invited the Yellow Lotus once to his home and begged her to predict the result of the Boxer movement.

“I have arranged for an angelic host to destroy them (foreign powers) with fire from Heaven,” she told the viceroy.  “You need not be alarmed.”

The viceroy believed.  Tianjin believed.  Foreigners, according to Brian Power in his book Ford of Heaven, believed, to an extent.  Newspapers such as the Tientsin-Peking Times and magazine The Atlantic Monthly reported the Yellow Lotus was wounded during the Battle of Tientsin, caught by British forces after the short-lived Boxer Rising, and was decapitated.

Many other sources, such as the above-mentioned Ford of Heaven, report the Yellow Lotus disguised herself once again as a fisherman and escaped.  She continued striking fear into the hearts of Tianjin’s concession children.  Western soldiers after the Boxer Rising looted Red Lantern sites, specifically Luzu Tang, for Red Lantern memorabilia.  Three decades after the Boxer Rising, the Japanese spy network had exhausted itself searching for the Yellow Lotus’s secret lairs.  Years preceding World War II numerous pirate raids on boats and godowns, or warehouses, plagued Tianjin.  Trains were attacked and robbed.  Kidnappings, which were called ‘seizing a goddess of mercy’ for taking women and ‘grabbing a fat pig’ while snagging men often coincided with train raids.  On May 7, 1923, one hundred and fifteen people, twenty of whom were Westerners, were kidnapped outside of Tianjin from the Shanghai-Peking Express train.  One British citizen, surnamed Rothman, was killed, according to the Winnipeg Tribune.

The Nationalist government at the time would not admit the raids or rash of kidnappings were the work of the Yellow Lotus.  But Tianjiners still believed.  Legends say she escaped to Tianjin outskirts where a cloud awaited to take her up to heaven.

Alive or dead, Lin Hei’er, the Yellow Lotus, at only twenty-nine years of age, broke the shackles of feudal ethics, showing the world women were just as capable as men.  She was the first revolutionary in modern China, according to some an ‘inventor of tradition’ and mother of the Chinese women’s liberation movement.

Her methods can be questioned, and have been for more than a century.  Writers during that time name her whore, bandit and witch.  Her motives, however, cannot be denied.  The foreign hands responsible for her husband’s murder lit the Red Lanterns, burned her love to hate, and cast its bright light for the world to see.  And in a way, more than one hundred and thirteen years later, her red lanterns still fly over Tianjin, and have reached much further than Moscow or Tokyo.

 

Red Lantern monument, erected 1994, at the spot where Lin Hei'er the Yellow Lotus, landed along the South Canal

(Taken from Xinhua Net) — Red Lantern monument, erected 1994, at the spot where Lin Hei’er the Yellow Lotus, landed along the South Canal

 

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