It is often believed that children are the first to suffer the most from war. Once they lose their families and homes, they are left on the streets with no clothes or food to eat. Thousands of such orphans were orphaned during the war against Japan that took place in modern Chinese history. According to statistics, there were 4 million refugee children among the 15 million refugees who were internally relocated, and at least 100,000 needed to be rescued.
The Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek realized from the beginning of the war that children were “the vitality of the country and the vitality of the nation” and that protecting children was preserving the bloodline of the nation. Therefore, during the entire war period, not only were a series of measures taken to save children in distress, but also a child welfare policy with modern welfare implications of “good seed, good birth, good nurturing, good protection, and good education” was formulated. The wife of Chiang Kai-shek, Soong Mei-ling, led the wartime children’s aid, and the nearly 30,000 children who were rescued were affectionately called “Mama Chiang”.
Soong Mei-ling initiated the establishment of the Wartime Child Care Association
In March 1938, Song Mei-ling, together with Shen Junru and Cai Yuanpei, established the Wartime Child Care Association in Hankow, with Song Mei-ling as the chairman of the board and 286 honorary board members, including leaders of both the Communist Party and the Kuomintang, military and political dignitaries, democratic parties, non-partisan people, cultural and educational figures, as well as people from Hong Kong and overseas Chinese communities, international friends and envoys to China. The mission of the Society is “to safeguard the lives of children and to make them sound citizens”.
According to the article “Soong Mei-ling leads the rescue of difficult children in the war” in the sixth issue of Inflammation and Yellow Spring and Autumn in 2003, the first priority of the Wartime Child Care Association after its establishment was to raise funds and to establish a nursery to rescue and receive difficult children. Based on a minimum cost of living of 5 yuan per child per month, 60 yuan was needed for the whole year. Since the national government was unable to provide assistance due to the wartime financial situation, fundraising became the primary way to help children. Many groups and individuals donated enthusiastically at that time. From March 10 to April 12, the Wartime Child Care Association raised a total of 94,845.23 yuan, of which Song Mei-ling personally donated £10, $15, and $26,389.63 in cash, the highest amount.
At the end of April, when the Chinese army was fighting against the Japanese in Xuzhou and Zhengzhou, the Society sent two teams to the war zone and rescued more than 400 children. After that, due to the intensification of the Japanese bombing of Wuhan, the nursery association began to transfer the children from the Hankow Temporary Nursery to Sichuan by batches.
From April 1938 onward, various branches and nurseries of the Wartime Child Care Association were set up to receive the refugee children. By March 1940, there were branches in Jiangxi, Anhui, Guangdong, Sichuan, Hong Kong, Fujian, Guizhou, Guangxi, Chengdu, Zhejiang, Hunan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Shaanxi-Gan Ning, with 37 nurseries under their jurisdiction. There were also nine nurseries under the General Association for Wartime Child Care. In addition, there is the Guizhou Bertram Nursery, which was founded by the Christian Church under the leadership of the General Association, and the Zhan’en Children’s Home, which was founded by Liu Wang Liming in memory of her husband who died for the country.
The children adopted during wartime were trained to be the successors of the war effort to build the nation. Soong Mei-ling pointed out, “Now the children have no family education, but rely on the nursery, we are quite responsible for them, we should make them automatically capable of being a national, in order to live up to the hope of the society and donors.”
Song Mei-ling had made specific comments at the nursery directors’ meeting, “First, we must pay attention to the children’s health and living habits; second, we must cultivate the children’s personality and inspire them with a sense of duty; third, we must make the children aware of the hardships of the country and the difficulties of material resources, and we must make them especially hardworking and economical.”
From March 1938 to December 1945, a total of 29,849 children were housed and educated in the nursery schools belonging to the General Association for Wartime Child Care and its branches.
At that time, all nursery schools nationwide provided primary education, and after graduating from elementary school, children were mainly promoted to secondary school. By 1945, more than 5,000 children had gone on to secondary school. Those who were willing to learn the art after graduation were arranged to work in factories such as arsenals and toothbrush factories. Many of them grew up to be outstanding representatives and qualified personnel in various fields of the country, while some chose to join the military, and some died in the war against Japan.
In terms of the entire wartime childcare business, Song’s leadership did play a unique role. In an article in Modern Women, No. 1, 1946, edited by Cao Mengjun, it was said, “The whole country’s childcare work was under the leadership of Madame Chiang. This is the most relevant thing that conservation work can still have some results. Because Mrs. Chiang was at the top, some of the difficulties that came from politics were a little better avoided.”
In 1988, the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Wartime Child Care Association, Deng Yingchao wrote to Song Meiling on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, stating, “Looking back on the years when the country was in great distress, Madame devoted herself to the national war effort, fostering domestic unity, seeking international assistance, promoting anti-Japanese public morale, and rescuing wounded children and soldiers.” The Chinese Communist Party had to acknowledge the merits of Song Meiling’s rescue of children.
Memories of a rescued child
According to the article “Mother Jiang’s Children” written by Yao Yulin, one of the rescued refugee children who later left for the United States, after the establishment of the temporary nursery in Hankow, 16,000 displaced refugee children from the war zone were successively taken in 28 batches, first to Yichang, then by boat to Wanshou Palace in Chongqing, and then distributed to nurseries all over Sichuan.
Yao Yulin and her 10-year-old sister were in the 16th group to the Wanshou Palace in Chongqing. After that, they went to the third nursery in Sichuan. Life in the third nursery was good, with new clothes to wear, four dishes for three meals, and music. But in the fourth year of the war, the nursery was merged with the sixth nursery in Zigong because the national government had no time to care about the rising prices of goods.
When he grew up, Yao Yulin became a chief resident in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Taipei Air Force General Hospital. In 1960, Yao finally met Song Meiling when she came to the hospital to work with the military, and in 1979, while practicing medicine in New York, Yao responded positively to Song’s call for relief for Vietnamese refugees, and submitted a newspaper article stating that he had been a child rescued in Hankow forty-one years earlier and wanted to repay her kindness. When Song Mei-ling died in 2003, Yao Yulin, who had not been invited, made a special trip to attend the memorial service and was allowed to attend as a representative of the wartime children’s nursery.
It is worth noting that in Yao Yulin’s article, it is also mentioned that among the 370 nursery students of the Yan’an nursery was Li Peng, the former Premier of the Chinese Communist Party State Council, while many other nursery students were fought by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, saying that they were “spies” left behind by Song Meiling. What is this all about?
The “second generation of the Red Guard” and other nursery students in the Yan’an Nursery
The Yan’an Nursery, which was affiliated with the General Association for Wartime Child Care, was established in July 1938 to take in the children and orphans of Communist cadres and soldiers, and was funded by the General Association. According to incomplete statistics, the “second generation of Reds” who lived in the Yan’an Nursery include Li Peng, son of Li Shuoxun, Li Tiying, son of Li Weihan, Liu Aiqin, daughter of Liu Shaoqi, Deng Lin, daughter of Deng Xiaoping, Liu Taixing, son of Liu Bocheng, Zuo Taibei, daughter of Zuo Quan, Luo Arrow, son of Luo Ruiqing, Xu Wenhui, daughter of Xu Haidong, Ren Yuanfang, daughter of Ren Bishi, Luo Yinong, son of Luo Yinong’s son, Luo Northwest, Peng Pangpai’s son, Peng Shilu, Yang Yong’s son, Yang Xiaoping, etc.
What is obvious is that in the history of the Chinese Communist Party, there is no mention of the background of the establishment of the Yan’an Nursery, and there is no mention of Song Meiling’s merits. The public statement is that the nursery was “established at the initiative of progressive people, social groups and the Shaanxi-Gan Ning Border Region government.
As for the fate of the “second generation of Reds” who lived in the nursery during the Cultural Revolution, it was naturally closely related to the fate of their fathers. For example, because Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were knocked down, Liu Aiqin was expelled from the Party, dismissed from public office, and sent to the countryside for labor reform, and her husband divorced her; while Deng Lin was told not to go home, not to talk nonsense, and then deported to Xuanhua in Hebei. Then, for example, Luo Ruiqing was implicated, and Luo Arrow was branded as a “child of the mob,” and so on.
This was the fate of the “second generation of the Reds” in the Yan’an nursery, but the fate of other nursery students raised in the nursery was no better if they chose to stay on the mainland. Yao Yulin’s claim that they were seized and fought and that they were “spies” left behind by Song Meiling should not be unfounded. Unfortunately, due to limited historical information, it is not known how many such orphans were persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party.
Silence under the Chinese Communist Party
However, one incident illustrates how silent these orphans were under the CCP’s rule: In August 2006, the wartime nursery celebrated its 68th anniversary with a speech by Ms. Fang Zhiyi, the grandson-in-law of Song Mei-ling. When she asked the hundreds of elderly people on stage, “Do you remember when Madame Chiang was in Chongqing, she came to the nursery every day to eat with you?” She asked two or three times, and no one nodded or shook their heads.
Neither denied nor affirmed, what does it mean? It means that in their hearts, they still have lingering fears about the persecution they once suffered, perhaps fearing that admitting it will call for the Chinese Communist Party’s killing again; while their inner conscience as human beings prevents them from denying what Song Mei Ling did for them back then. What a painful internal struggle it must be for them, and what a stab in the heart it must be for outsiders.
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