For the most part, life quietly went on.
Bit by bit, we heard horror stories about the unimaginable torturing methods applied to innocent civilians; the looting and the arson; the raping of the old and the young; the killings, etc. We spoke in whispers, afraid to be heard. We made no comments on anything. Who knew who was friend or who was foe. Least you would be "reported" to the Authorities - the Conquerors, by your friends, or neighbors, or even relatives. You kept to yourself.
My father's youngest sister was a beauty. I remembered her as being tall, slender, vivacious, and exotic-looking (even in my young eyes), and she was crowned Miss Tientien in Manchuria, before Japanese occupation of Manchuria. She was married with two adorable children, a boy and a girl. But for whatever reason, she and her husband divorced. We called her husband Fish, because his surname sounded like Fish in Chinese. Remember my nickname of Ant?
Uncle Fish was tall and handsome, he and my aunt made such a good-looking couple. Many envied them. Who would have thought that their marriage was unhappy? Did winning the beauty contest made Number three aunt feeling too superior, too cocky? Or, she simply wanted more and more out of her life than what she had?
My grandfather was furious and disowned her. Divorce was a disgrace to the family. It was not acceptable. Thereafter, he would not acknowledge that he ever had a third daughter. Number three aunt (that was what I called her), though beautiful, had no skills or ability to earn a living. After the divorce, the children went to live with their father, my Uncle Fish; and she was on her own, with no money and no job. Those days there was no such a thing as Alimony. She ended up being a Dance Hall Girl - which, of course, made my grandfather even more furious.
Those days, there were many so called Dance Halls. There, they had women who had Dances For Hire. The man would pay a fee and then pick a dancing partner to do a dance or two. Chinese were big on ballroom dancing. Dance Hall Girls were looked down upon by the society. It was unspeakable to have a daughter being a Dance Hall Girl. My grandfather "lost face".
My grandmother would secretly try to help her out financially from time to time. But not long after, we learned that Number Three aunt died of diabetes and in utter poverty.
After the Japanese occupied Shanghai, we heard that Uncle Fish was a spy and he was caught by the Japanese. He, bravely, refused to co-operate, and the Japanese plied off all his finger-nails. Oh, it gives me the shivers even to think about it. He, somehow, survived it all. We learned, later, he moved to Formosa with his two children. We lost touch with them completely.
Inflation was rampant. No one wanted currency. If we had any money, we would buy Chinese gold jewelry - Chinese gold was .995 pure, traded as money. Or, we bought and sold gold bars on the Black Market. Yes, I learned about Black Market very early in my life. Little gold bars were of one ounce each. They were the size of my little finger each. Big bars weighed ten ounces each - they were heavy and beautifully shiny. Or, we would buy commodities - a bolt of materials, cotton or wool, few skeins of wool yarn, or whatever people needed - towels, sheets, toothpaste, etc. etc. If you hold your item for a few months or even a few weeks, you could make money.
Inflation was such, in the end, we had to take sackfuls of money simply to purchase a bag of rice. Rice was rationed, but the price was set by the merchants. And the unscrupulous ones would mix tiny gravels into the rice to make them weigh more than they actually did. My widowed maternal grandmother, who lived with us then, and I had the job of picking out the gravels from the rice. We spent many hours doing that.
Things got worse and worse everyday. We hoped that there would be light at the end of the tunnel. If there was one, we did not see it. We, however, did keep looking.
We lost control of almost every aspects of our lives, but we made the best of what we had and carried on.
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