A LOVE STORY

 

By Theresa Marie Moreau

 

 

 

J

oseph Ho stooped over his anesthetized patient lying on the operating table, belly up, a crimson-colored abdomen crimped open with hemostats dangling from pinched flesh.

On staff at Regional Administrative Hospital in China’s Guizhou province, Joseph, a surgeon at the age of 26, had been on call the night of July 4, 1960, when he had to perform the emergency surgery. That was to be his final night at the hospital, but he didn’t know it, yet.

Just as he located the acute intestinal obstruction in his patient and prepared to slice away the life-threatening section, Joseph heard the doors of the second-floor operating room slam open behind him.

“Stop the operation!” yelled the hospital superintendent as he entered, followed by two plainclothes officers from the Public Security Bureau.

Joseph, with scalpel in hand and a bit stunned from the sudden intrusion, looked up and stood back from his patient.

“Take off your gown, and follow these two men to the Public Security Bureau,” the hospital superintendent ordered.

Joseph had no choice. He had to surrender his patient, mid-surgery, to his first and second assistants, who scrambled to take care of the emergency and to telephone for a backup surgeon to finish the operation. He put down his surgical instruments, and, as soon as he had untied his face mask and removed his bloody gloves and gown, the two officers pulled his arms behind his back, handcuffed him and led him away.

Minutes later, after a brief ride in a military vehicle, Joseph stood before two interrogators.

“Where are we?” one of them asked.

“The Public Security Bureau,” Joseph answered.

“What do we do here?”

“Arrest people.”

“No!” one of them screamed. “We arrest counterrevolution-aries! You are a counterrevolutionary!”

Joseph was a Roman Catholic faithful to the Pope, which was a crime in Communist China, where Party members must be vowed atheists. Any Roman Catholic devoted to the Pope was considered counterrevolutionary, counter to the People’s Revolution, therefore an enemy of the People, an enemy of the Party, an enemy of Chairman Zedong Mao.

Before Joseph, they placed a detention paper.

“Sign!” they ordered, repeatedly.

Repeatedly, Joseph refused.

Unable to sway him, authorities transferred him to Province Jail Number 3, where he underwent a thorough search. Guards confiscated his eyeglasses, shoes, belt, then led him to his cell, a 9-foot-by-9-foot room, which he shared with a dozen other men.

Some were political prisoners, but others were hardened criminals, not the most trustworthy sort of men. And Joseph trusted no one, for inmates were rewarded with merits of sentence reduction for reporting to authorities the thoughts, words and deeds of others.

In the cell, there was no bed, only the cement floor. No bedding, only a single sheet to cover the entire floor, which it did not. No toilet, just a bucket for waste elimination placed in the corner, where new cellmates were forced to sleep.

No heat, just occasional drafts of air through the cracks. And because Joseph was still in his summer clothing and only had a thin blanket, he suffered from the increasingly cold temperatures as the days and weeks blew by.

Only two gourds of water per person, per day, to drink only, not to wash. And because inmates were never allowed to wash, their bodies were infested with lice.

Two meals a day of starvation rations – rotten rice covered with mold, occasionally garnished with some pickles.

That was 1960, when the masses of China were gripped tightly in the death hold of the Great Chinese Famine. No one had enough to eat except the Communist Party’s top officials, who had plenty.

Because of his empty stomach, Joseph’s thoughts dwelled on food, especially as he was ordered to sit all day every day on the cement floor and think about his Catholic “crimes” against the People’s Government. At night, he lay awake, struggling to fall asleep, fighting the hunger pangs. Unable to move, he had to remain still, crammed between the other inmates. It seemed as soon as he shut his eyes, he was wakened by the clanging of a key in the cell door.

“Number 18! Come out! Follow me!” ordered the guard.

Joseph struggled to his feet and stumbled to the interrogation room, where he was forced to stand, for hours upon hours. Behind the bright light pointed directly toward his eyes, the voice of an interrogator hidden in the shadows repeated the same questions.

During the periods of silence, the only sound was the scratching of pen on paper. A recording secretary somewhere in the darkness wrote down by hand everything that was said.

But Joseph refused to answer their questions.

Thinking a little “encouragement” might help, guards wrapped heavy chains – more than 10 pounds – around his legs. Around his wrists, they clamped French handcuffs and screwed them so tightly that he could feel the blood circulation stop to his hands. Not sufficiently satisfied, one of the sadistic guards looped a rope around the cuffs, then yanked up, pulling Joseph’s arms into the excruciating jet-plane position. Mosquitoes buzzed around, stinging him, as he was unable to move.

“We don’t give you torture,” Cadre Wu said, laughing, hitting Joseph’s face.

“Yeah. We don’t give prisoners torture,” another taunted, hitting Joseph.

For his lack of cooperation and for his “bad attitude,” Joseph was dragged to a different cell, where he remained in solitary confinement for the next eight months, enduring inhuman treatment. Because his hands remained cuffed behind his back, he was forced to eat his meals off the floor, bending forward while in a kneeling position. When he had to urinate, guards ordered a prisoner from another cell to help him. With the handcuffs so tight, blood vessels burst, causing intense pain. He feared irreparable damage and that, very probably, he would lose the use of his arms.

After three months, he noticed a rusty nail sticking out of the window frame. As a student in secondary school and in college, he had joined the gymnastics teams and had excelled at the rings and the high bar. From all his years in athletics, he was still limber enough to step through his cuffed hands, bringing them from the back to the front.

Just barely able to reach the window frame, gradually, he popped the nail out from its bed in the wood. Sitting on the floor with his back against the door, under the peephole so the guards could see only his feet, he worked diligently to pick the lock of the custom-made handcuffs forged by a blacksmith. After two days, success.

For the next five months, during the day he kept the cuffs on, loose, in case the guards looked through the peephole. But because he was in isolation, the guards never entered his cell, so during the night he removed the cuffs and hid his hands.

Finally, on June 8, 1961, the cell door opened.

“Number 18, come out!” ordered a man Joseph had never seen.

His isolation had ended, and the cuffs were removed.

“Follow him,” ordered the man.

“Stand over there,” said a second stranger, opening a briefcase and pulling out a paper.

“I announce,” the stranger read aloud, “the punishment for Joseph Ho, Cantonese, hospital doctor, age 26. You are an active counterrevolutionary, but you have no activity, so according to the Reeducation-Through-Labor Department, we punish you with three years reeducation through labor. If you want to appeal, you have three days.”

“Give me that paper. What evidence do you have against me?” Joseph said.

With that, the man stuffed the document back in the briefcase and left the room.

Joseph had only three days to file an appeal, but he had no pencil, no paper. He had had no trial, no judge, no jury, no lawyer. His particular “crime” was a civil matter, which – unlike a criminal matter – wasn’t required to go to court. Instead, his case and punishment had been discussed and decided upon by the Communist Party members in the Regional Administrative Hospital, the Public Security Bureau and the Reeducation-Through-Labor Department.

Two days later, on June 10, 1961, Joseph was transferred out of Province Jail Number 3.

 

†††

 

U

nder an armed escort of two soldiers hired by the Public Security Bureau, Joseph and two other prisoners were ordered onto a public transportation bus, alongside regular commuters.

Upon reaching their destination in Anshun District’s Puding County, the three prisoners were pushed out of the bus and forced to walk many, many miles, without any rest. The entire way, the armed soldiers screamed and threatened to use their rifles to shoot the unshaven, dirt-encrusted, half-starved, half-naked men, who could barely walk. Every step of the way, Joseph felt that he would never make it to the end, to Tai Ping, Peace Plantation, a prison slave-labor farm, hidden in the bleak countryside.

But he did make it, and once there he was immediately forced to work alongside other prisoners in a labor team.

Luckily for him, he arrived in the summer, the best time to labor in the fields during the famine, because he was able to steal enough to survive while harvesting corn, wheat, soybeans and peanuts. Unbearably hungry, while pulling peanuts out of the earth, he stuffed handfuls into his mouth without rinsing off the soil, which had been fertilized with human waste.

Because of the unsanitary conditions, Joseph and the other men suffered from roundworms, which laid eggs internally, which were passed through their bowels, which were eliminated in defecation, which was used for fertilizer, which contained parasite eggs, which contaminated the food, which was eaten by the inmates, which began the cycle all over again.

Doctors often used santonin to treat the men suffering from roundworms, but the vermifuge caused the dying worms to twist together, frequently causing intestinal blockage.

The most dangerous time for the laborers to work was in the rainy season, in the autumn, when mushrooms popped up in the fields. Because the men were starving, some ate anything they could get their hands on, including the many poisonous mushrooms.

But to be on the labor farm in the winter was the absolute worst. The arrival of cold weather brought more deaths. Every day, several prisoners died, mostly from infectious diseases that invaded their bodies because of the starvation. The emaciated corpses were dumped in mass graves, with soil loosely thrown on top. At night, the wolves would disinter the bodies, devouring flesh and bones.

And then there was the brainwashing.

Every night except Saturday, for two hours or longer depending on the supervising ideology cadre, there were small-group study sessions, for the purposes of brainwashing. However, during the winter months, with nothing in the fields there was not much outside work, so the prisoners were forced to endure more hours of daily “reeducation.”

During the sessions, with units of 20 to 30 prisoners, each man took his turn criticizing, reporting on what the others had said or done during the day while working.

Did each man work diligently? How was the attitude of each? Did anyone malign the Communists?

One of the prisoners acted as recording secretary and took notes, which were given to a cadre and filed away. Each year, each man would receive a yearly evaluation for attitude.

Some nights, usually once a week, a cadre would announce that there would be a struggle meeting. The entire brigade of prisoners, consisting of 300 to 400 men, would meet in the big hall and sit on the ground, as one of the prisoners was isolated on the stage in front.

The political ideology cadre, who was in charge of thought control, spoke first about the prisoner, explaining how the prisoner was against the Communists, against the People’s Government. Then the prisoners sitting on the ground would be forced to accuse, to criticize, to say something against the targeted victim, who was usually handcuffed, tied and tortured.

The next day, the prisoner would be forced to work in handcuffs and chains. Or he would be isolated in a cement casket, in which there was very little room to move and where everything had to be done, including relieving one’s bladder and bowels.

Because Joseph’s hands were still numb and he was very nearsighted without his eyeglasses, he had to be extremely careful not to break any of the plants while laboring in the fields. Otherwise, he would have been accused of intentionally damaging the crop, for which he would have been targeted and attacked during a struggle meeting.

After several months of fieldwork, Joseph was transferred and assigned to a 100-man team that cut down trees in the Dayong forest.

To fell trees and cut off the branches, prisoners used primitive tools, either a single-man or two-man saw. Then the limbless trunks had to be carried away, nearly 10 miles through the forest to the mines in Big Coal Mountain. There, the trees were used as supports in the underground mine tunnels.

If a tree was not too heavy, a few men would hoist it upon their shoulders and carry it away. If a tree was extremely heavy, then at least 10 men, in two columns, would work together to move it. Two-by-two, the men paired up and shared shoulder poles between them, to which the tree was tied and from which it was hung. Dry trees were not so bad, but when wet, the work was horrible.

And Joseph was still barefoot.

Everything he did, he did barefoot – in the heat, in the rain, in the snow. His shoes had been confiscated the night of his arrest, and he hadn’t worn any since.

Though heavy work, logging was better than working in the fields. One reason was that there was only one cadre per team, and in the less-strict environment Joseph was able to interact with local peasants. Although they were extremely poor, at times he was able to exchange some little thing – perhaps, a piece of cloth – for food.

After logging in the forest, he was assigned to work in one of the coal mines in Big Coal Mountain. On his first day, with only minutes before he was to enter the tunnel, a sudden subterranean explosion shot a plume of dirt and smoke out the entrance.

A light bulb, dangling from a wire, had hit the ground and shattered, igniting a gas explosion.

More than 40 prisoners burned to death inside the mine. Those who survived suffered from severe burns, incredibly painful wounds for which there was no morphine. From the dormitories, the survivors could be heard screaming from the pain.

“Don’t shout! Don’t scream!” ordered a cadre. “Learn from the Russian hero Pavel Korchagin! Don’t complain of the pain!”

The cadre referred to the idealized selfless hero in Nikolai Ostrovsky’s 1930s Socialist realist novel, “How the Steel Was Tempered,” considered a must-read in the literary canon of Communist propaganda.

In the mines, absolutely no safety precautions were taken for the prisoners; after all, they were only prisoners. Not even a gas monitor. To burn off methane gas fumes, one of the prisoners would be completely wrapped in heavy clothing and rags, which enclosed his body, head and face. Then the clothing would be soaked with water right before he would be pushed into the tunnel with a torch to burn off the fumes.

Even though working in the mines was dangerous, the men preferred to work underground, because they received more rations.

Fieldworkers were allotted only 26.5 pounds a month of grain, such as corn, rice, wheat. Those working in the coal mines, depending on the type of work, could receive up to 39.5 pounds a month.

When labor-camp officials learned that Joseph was a medical doctor, he was ordered to work in the small clinic attached to the mine. And, finally, he obtained permission to receive from his family a pair of shoes, simple sneakers made of rubber and canvas.

While working in the clinic, Joseph overheard whispered conversations about parents exchanging their very own children for the children of neighboring villagers. Some children were dead. Others were near death. As the “goods” in the exchange, the remains of the children were eaten by those suffering from extreme starvation during Mao’s famine. Because of the malnutrition, there was no flesh, no muscle on the bodies of the children, betrayed by their protectors. Only the hearts and the livers were removed from the victims and eaten.

Saddened by what he heard, Joseph was not shocked, for he knew about China’s history of cannibalism.

At the clinic, Joseph had one colleague, a “barefoot doctor,” who knew nothing about medicine. He had gained his position by ingratiating himself and currying favor with the cadres, who expected and received from the barefoot doctor everything free from the clinic, including medicine, for themselves and their family members.

Joseph, on the other hand, sent all bills to the accounting office, which charged the cadres. Unhappy to pay for services and medicine, the cadres sent Joseph back, after about six months, to Tai Ping, Peace Plantation.

†††

 

M

onths dragged into years. In custody since July 4, 1960, on June 10, 1964, Joseph learned that his status was about to change.

“You’re finished with your punishment, but you’re to stay on the farm,” one of the cadres told him nonchalantly. “Go to the other camp, where you’ll become a detained employee. Forget about going back to the Regional Administrative Hospital, where you worked before.”

Like all other prisoners, when Joseph was sentenced, he lost his hukou, his residential registration, which was then transferred to his labor camp. A way for the authorities to control the masses, since 1955, food and other necessities had been rationed and supplied according to each person’s hukou.

When Joseph’s prison sentence ended, like others, he was not allowed to leave and return to his former work unit, which was the hospital in Anshun. The reason was that his hukou, like other post-prisoner detained employees, remained tied to the labor camp.

To transfer his hukou anywhere, Joseph would need permission, not only from the labor camp’s top cadre and ideology cadre, but also from the Anshun police headquarters, the neighborhood police precinct, the neighborhood association and his work unit at the Regional Administrative Hospital.

Such permission was unheard of.

So without permission to transfer his hukou, Joseph, like others, was forced to remain at the labor camp as a post-prisoner detained employee.

And since the People’s Government was in charge of labor and employment, for his first job assignment as a detained employee, he was transferred to a brick factory, where he earned the equivalent of 3 American dollars a month.

Even though he was a third-generation medical doctor, he was forced to carry wet bricks to the kiln. Over his shoulders hung leather straps attached to a wooden frame that fit down his back. About 50 bricks were stacked on the frame, but because the bricks were wet, they were extremely heavy. The whole load weighed hundreds of pounds. With only the assistance of a walking stick, Joseph, who was tall and thin, managed to stagger the 30-or-so yards, with one stop at the midpoint. At that spot, he and the other men could rest their frames for a few minutes before resuming their journey to the kiln, where someone unloaded the bricks.

When not carrying bricks, he was assigned to walk behind the water buffalo that mixed the clay with its hooves. Joseph was to keep the beast moving around in the circular mud pit, which measured about 10 yards in diameter.

Eventually, Joseph was transferred to Tai Ping Headquarters, where he was assigned to work in the labor-camp hospital, which had enough beds for 100 patients.

One of the few benefits of being a detained employee was the opportunity to apply for a home visit. In 1965, he received permission to visit his family in Shanghai. That November, he boarded a train for the three-day ride from southwest China back home to the international port city, where the Yangtze River flows into the East China Sea. But once there, he still faced pressure, for he had to immediately report to the Public Security Bureau’s local precinct, where he needed to present his visitation permission paper.

It read: “Joseph Ho, counterrevolutionary, to Shanghai, to visit for two weeks. Must report to Public Security Precinct. Under mass supervision.”

Only hours after his arrival, the local busybodies, who made up the neighborhood association’s mass supervision, arrived at the Ho family home to lecture Joseph and to instruct him on how to behave during his stay.

“While here, don’t do any activity against the government or the Communists. You must obey all the rules and report to us every day everything that you do. And return to the labor camp on time,” they warned him.

Throughout China, under the Communist cell system, all men, women and children were forced into cell units, small organized groups in which the members were compelled to study and discuss Communist ideology. But their raison d’être was a raison d’état. Control. For Communists, control of the masses leads to control of the State. The rule of the cell unit – an informant system extraordinaire – was to report to authorities anybody – regardless of relationship – who thought, spoke or acted against the People’s Government. Father, mother, brother, sister, husband, wife. For the regime, those relationships all meant nothing. The only important “being” was the People’s Government, ruled by the Party.

For Joseph, the cell system not only made life difficult, it made finding a wife nearly impossible. Plenty of women had showed an interest in him. He was handsome, intelligent and well educated. But he always thought having a girlfriend was too risky. He knew that he had to find a woman he could trust not to inform on him for practicing his religion. He knew that he had to find a true Roman Catholic woman, one whom he could trust with his faith and with his life.

During his home visit, he visited one of his favorite places in Shanghai: the Classic Chinese Literature Bookstore. He nosed around the dusty bookshelves and poked through the stacks laid out in rows on the tables scattered throughout.

At one point, his youngest brother, Vincent, whispered, “That’s Magdalen, Michael’s fiancée,” and pointed in the direction of two young women standing across the room, about 15, 20 feet away.

Joseph looked up briefly. One of the women saw Vincent and waved. Vincent waved back. The other woman, Vincent didn’t know her.

Disinterested, nonetheless Joseph nodded out of politeness to the women, not paying much attention, then returned to browsing. He didn’t even notice when they left. He bought two books – one of Chinese poetry and the other of calligraphy. Then the two brothers walked out of the bookstore and returned home.

Two days later, Michael talked to Joseph.

“That day you saw my fiancée, Magdalen, the other girl is Catherine. She’s a very good girl, with a very strong faith. And because of her faith, she was in the Legion of Mary. That’s why she was arrested seven years ago, and now she’s back in Shanghai 10 days for a home visit. If you want to keep your faith, and if you like her, you can send a letter to her. She’s a very nice girl.”

“I need a girlfriend. Yes, I would like to send a letter to her,” Joseph answered.

By that time, 30-year-old Catherine had already returned to her labor camp, hidden in the suburbs of Jinhua, in Zhejiang province. She had been first arrested on September 8, 1955, the infamous night when hundreds of Catholics – clergy and laity – were rounded up in Shanghai. She was released on October 10, 1956, then rearrested exactly two years later, on October 10, 1958, and charged with counterrevolutionary activity because of her involvement with the Legion of Mary, a Catholic laity organization. When she completed her seven-year sentence on October 10, 1965, she became a detained employee, like Joseph. And also like Joseph, she had been in Shanghai for her first home visit that November 1965.

By the time Catherine received her first letter from Joseph, she had already mailed one to him, at his labor camp. But he was still in Shanghai, trying to figure out a way how to stay there. Somehow, there had to be a way. And there was. The bad luck of his father’s cousin turned out to be good luck for Joseph. His relative had a severe case of lung tuberculosis, for which he had received a medical certificate from a hospital declaring his condition.

Joseph visited him and begged, “Help me. I want to stay in Shanghai.”

When his relative handed to him the ill-health certificate, Joseph was overjoyed. All he had to do was make it look like his by bleaching out his relative’s name and replacing it with his, which wasn’t so simple in Communist China, where most things – even the simplest chemical, especially bleach – were difficult to obtain in those days. But with his knowledge of chemistry and a certain process he had learned by listening to the Voice of America radio programs broadcast from Taiwan, he succeeded.

First, he put some crystals of potassium permanganate, a common antiseptic, into water, which turned purple. Into the bath, he dunked the document to oxidize the blue-black ink that contained iron. Then he crushed vitamin C, which he dissolved in some water, into which he dipped the document. Magically, the blue-black ink disappeared. After letting the paper dry, he ironed out the wrinkles.

With his ingenious use of semi-transparent paper, needle and ink to duplicate the pixilated printing, he was able to reproduce the official stamp over the newly inserted photo of his face.

He hoped it would work.

Please, Blessed Mother, help me get through this dangerous situation, he prayed before he left his home and headed to the police precinct. He needed permission to stay in Shanghai.

“Why have you come here?” the official asked, perturbed.

“I have lung tuberculosis, and I need treatment,” Joseph said.

“Do you have a medical certificate from the hospital stating so?”

“Yes. I have a certificate. I’ve already had one treatment.”

“Give it to me.”

Joseph handed the doctored document to the official, who looked at it. Then he stood up, walked over to a cabinet, opened a drawer and pulled out a magnifying glass.

God, help me. Blessed Mother, help me, Joseph prayed.

The official sat down and leaned forward with the magnifying glass in front of his eyes. He inched closer, inspecting the paper.

“Oh, my stomach!” Joseph moaned and bent over to distract the official.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. Something painful.”

Irritated, the official banged the desk and signed the certificate.

“Take it! Get out!” he ordered. “Three months, then you must get out of Shanghai!”

Joseph was ecstatic that he could stay for three more months, but his joy was short-lived. When he returned to his home, the neighborhood association – who checked in on him every few days – was at his house wondering why he hadn’t left yet. They worried that such a counterrevolutionary was a dangerous person to have around.

Joseph waved his permission paper before the snoops.

Miffed, they warned him, “You are not to go any place. But if you do go any place, you must report to us!”

So Joseph stayed in Shanghai and had time to write several letters to Catherine. And she wrote to him. They even exchanged photos. But since all mail that went in and out of labor camps was read by the cadres, the two kept the topics superficial.

Joseph was still in Shanghai, in August 1966, when the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution erupted, prompted by the life-and-death struggle for power at the top in the Communist Party.

After Shaoqi Liu (pinyin form of Shao-Chi Liu, 1898-1969), president of the People’s Republic of China, publicly blamed Mao for the Great Chinese Famine, Mao was enraged and secretly plotted against Liu. Eventually, Mao rallied the aimless youth of China into the revolutionary Red Guards. Their mission: Destroy anyone and anything that didn’t support Mao or his Revolution. Mao was held up as the god of China, the savior of the People. Anything that he said was a commandment.

In September 1966, about a month after Mao had unleashed his lawless pack of Red Guards, Joseph and his family heard a loud banging at their front door. They dared not open it.

Furious their knocking had been ignored, the Red Guards, belligerent young men and women with red bands on their upper arms, broke down the door with axes. Once inside, one of them used an ax to chop to death the Ho family dog, a small black terrier.

“You burned the evidence!” they screamed.

No one in the Ho family had any idea what the Red Guards referenced.

Vincent, the youngest Ho brother, raised prized carrier pigeons on the roof. Earlier that day, he had cleaned the coops and burned the feathers and droppings, causing smoke to rise. Someone across the street saw the smoke and reported the incident to the Red Guards, who readily launched an attack against anyone at the slightest provocation.

For hours and hours, more than 60 of the enraged youths searched for treasure, such as jewelry and money, then destroyed everything in the house that represented the Four Olds of morality: old culture, old customs, old habits and old ideas. That included the letters from Catherine and her photo.

All six Ho brothers – Paul, 35, Joseph, 33, Anthony, 31, Michael, 29, Lawrence, 27, and Vincent, 24, – were arrested, as was their 58-year-old mother, Mary. Joseph’s 60-year-old father, also baptized Joseph, had already been arrested, in 1954, because of his Catholic faith, and had been sent away to Dafeng Prison Farm, in Jiangsu province, where he would remain until 1978.

Within a month, Joseph’s mother and brothers were released, but they were not able to return to their home, which had been sealed off. Instead, they all moved into a small, two-room apartment on the first floor of a three-story building.

Even brother Anthony, who had been wanted by authorities when the family was arrested, moved into the apartment. While behind bars, he had seemed near death because he weighed only 75 pounds due to his hyperthyroidism, so authorities released him, because they did not want him to die in custody and become a martyr.

The previous year, Anthony had escaped from a labor camp in Qinghai and returned to Shanghai, living as a fugitive, an extremely difficult life: hiding from the police, running from place to place, never able to work, never allowed rations to eat. Only occasionally, he was able to return to the family home. A flag would be placed on the balcony for him to see that it was safe to visit for the night, and the next morning he would leave. Originally, he had been arrested years earlier, because he had refused to go to an accusation meeting, where everyone was to accuse and criticize Shanghai’s Bishop Pinmei “Ignatius” Gong.

As for Joseph, he was returned to the labor camp in Guizhou. Immediately upon his arrival, he was sent back to work in the hospital at headquarters, where they needed him. No one ever questioned him about his time in Shanghai, because the camp cadres were too busy embroiled in their own vicious power struggles.

By then, Cadre Wu, the ideology official, had committed suicide, prompted by an investigation into his personal history during the Four Cleanups Movement (1963-66), a campaign to cleanse class enemies hiding in the Party. Years earlier he had been banished to the labor camp because of his prior history as police chief in the Nationalist government, and he could not be trusted. The transfer had been a humiliating demotion from the Public Security Bureau, in the city where Joseph had been tortured, in 1960, by Wu during interrogations, when he used his brutality in a futile show of loyalty to the new regime.

Joseph began writing to Catherine again.

“I hope we can still continue our dating,” he wrote.

He didn’t receive a letter, but he sent another, then another.

After one year, when he hadn’t heard from Catherine, he thought the possibility of a relationship with her was finished. He speculated: Maybe she had been transferred to another labor camp, or maybe she had changed her mind. He never knew her fate. He never knew his own fate. The ever-changing policies and whims of the People’s Government caused constant chaos and confusion in China. Everyone lived with a fear of the unknown, unforeseeable future.

He had no idea why she did not write back.

He tried writing again. Still nothing. Again, he tried.

One year. Two years. Three years. In all that time, he never received a single word from her. He felt it was hopeless. After sending more than 20 letters in three years, he never once received an answer. Yet, he still thought of her. Same faith, same problems. Both wanted a Catholic family. Both labeled counterrevolutionaries.

Every night, before he went to sleep in the dormitory he shared with other detained employees, he prayed in his heart, If God wills for me to marry Catherine, then He will give us the grace to be a Catholic family. I hope we can become a family.

One day in 1969, a cadre arrived at the hospital for treatment. He had begun work at the labor camp as an accountant but rose in the ranks until he was finally in charge of the whole camp.

“Do you have a friend in Zhejiang province?” the cadre unexpectedly asked Joseph.

Joseph thought for a moment.

“No. I don’t have any friends there.”

When the cadre left, Joseph thought about the cadre’s question. He had asked for a reason. Joseph was very suspicious. The question worried him.

Why did he suddenly ask me that question? Maybe they have a case that may be connected to me, which they are investigating now. There might be something wrong, he pondered.

So he mulled it over and over.

Finally.

Oooh, Catherine is in that province. Catherine is in Jinhua city. That’s why he asked me that question. Maybe she sent letters to me, but they opened and read the letters and didn’t give the letters to me from 1966 to 1969, he realized.

To get a letter to Catherine without the cadres in his labor camp intervening, he needed to find a way around the authorities. In labor camps, all letters sent to the outside were collected by cadres, who opened and read each one, then decided whether to send it. The same was true of all letters received by a labor camp. Each was opened and read, and then it would be decided whether to distribute to the intended recipients.

So he knew that he needed to find someone outside the labor camp, someone who would send his letters for him. Luckily for him, he worked at the hospital, where he not only treated prisoners, detainees, cadres and their families, but he also treated farmers and other workers from the surrounding areas that had no hospital.

In the spring of 1969, he approached a farmer, whom he treated as a patient.

“Can you help me send a letter outside the labor camp, to my fiancée, then let her letter come to you, and each time you come to me, you can bring the letter?” Joseph asked.

“Yes. I’ll take the risk,” the farmer said.

And a risk it was. If it were discovered that the farmer was acting as an intermediary between Catherine and Joseph, he could have been arrested.

Catherine received a letter, and she immediately sent a reply.

Finally, Joseph received a letter.

The relationship picked up.

They decided to marry.

 

†††

 

I

n the summer of 1969, Joseph began submitting written requests to camp authorities for permission to return to Shanghai to marry Catherine.

“No. You can’t go. You can’t marry,” they told him.

“Why can’t I marry?”

“Because, in 1965, we gave you two weeks for a home visit, and you didn’t come back. The Red Guards arrested you, in 1966, and sent you back, so we can’t trust you. We can’t allow you to go back to Shanghai to get married.”

Joseph asked a second time, a third, fourth and fifth. Always, the same answer. No.

Then, he had an idea.

“If you don’t let me return to Shanghai to get married, I refuse to work in the hospital. I’d rather work on the farm as a laborer,” he told them.

It was a well-thought-out tactical move. He knew that he was too valuable to them in the hospital.

The pressure worked. They needed a good doctor. Most of the medical personnel in the labor camp were cadres who had only in-the-field training and had never received any formal education, unlike Joseph, who had graduated from medical school. There were also the barefoot doctors, countryside youth trained in basic medical procedures, such as taking a pulse or a temperature. They were more like a nurse’s aid, certainly not at the level of a fully trained nurse.

“Okay. We’ll give you two weeks to go back to Shanghai, but you need to write down your guarantee that you’ll be back on time.”

“Okay. I’ll write down my guarantee. I’ll be back on time.”

Catherine also received permission from the officials at her labor camp. She could travel to Shanghai to get married.

So the newly betrothed couple set a date: Monday, December 8, 1969, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Again, Joseph boarded a train heading east. After the three-day ride, he arrived in Shanghai, on December 6, and anxiously awaited his bride-to-be.

But on December 8, Catherine’s older sister received a telegram. Suddenly, the cadres had changed their minds.

“I cannot come back to Shanghai,” Catherine wrote. “We must marry at the labor camp, under their supervision.”

Joseph had no choice.

On December 9, 1969, before midnight, he rode a bus to the Shanghai North Railway Station, where he boarded a steam-powered train. Six hours later, in the pre-dawn hours of December 10, he arrived at a small depot built especially for the labor camp. Nearly alone, only a few others disembarked. He approached them.

“Where is the women’s labor camp?” he asked.

“Just go that way, about 10 miles,” they said, pointing.

It was nearly 6 in the morning. With the long nights and short days of winter, and the near-black new moon, the sky was still dark. The air, bitter cold, with a biting wind that cut through his shabby and stained, drab-colored Communist-style cotton coat and trousers. His shoes, a pair of simple, rubber-soled Chinese-style canvas sneakers, did little to keep his feet warm, as he walked on the frozen tufts of mud to Catherine’s labor camp.

He toted along a few belongings – toothbrush, comb, razor, a pair of socks – wrapped up in a piece of cloth. Joseph was so poor, he would be Catherine’s only wedding present. Even though he was a medical doctor, he had no money. During the Cultural Revolution, when the Communists had “swept out” his family and confiscated their home, they lost everything. Everything had been taken by the People’s Government for the People’s Government.

About 30 minutes after he had begun his walk, he saw a shadow, someone walking toward him. He stepped forward to ask for directions.

“Excuse me. Where is the women’s labor camp?” he asked.

“Are you Joseph?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Catherine!” she said, excitedly.

That was the first time they actually heard each other’s voices.

They rushed toward each other. Joseph reached for Catherine’s hand. So happy. So excited.

Even in the dark, they could see each other.

She’s beautiful, he thought. Soft and gentle.

He’s dressed so poorly, Catherine thought. Everyone at the labor camp will see him and see how poorly he’s dressed.

“My cadre gave me permission to go to the train station to pick you up,” she said.

They walked. They held hands. Catherine soon forgot about Joseph’s clothes. They talked and talked and talked. About their faith. About their future. About the Church. About the Communists and the Socialists. About how even though the totalitarian regimes were strong, the Church – which had survived 2,000 years – was even stronger and would outlast and outlive Mao. After all, it had seen the deaths of Vladimir Lenin, of Josef Stalin, of Adolf Hitler.

The two arrived at the headquarters of her labor camp. Joseph had to register his visit immediately with the authorities.

“Do you have an approval document to come here?” the cadre asked.

Joseph showed them his permission paper.

“Joseph Ho. Counterrevolutionary. Permitted two weeks to go to Shanghai for marriage. After arrival in Shanghai, he must report to the Public Security Bureau’s local precinct. Under mass supervision. He must return to labor camp on time.”

When the cadre saw Joseph’s political status, counter-revolutionary, he started to hesitate, with a look of confusion on his face. Marriage? No marriage? He stepped into an inner office and picked up the phone to call his senior officer.

“There must be trouble,” Catherine whispered. “Pray. Ask Our Lady, Help of Christians to help us get through this.”

If Joseph couldn’t register for a visit, they couldn’t marry.

As soon as he had silently prayed, Mother, Help of Christians, help us to become a family, the cadre returned.

“Since we asked you to come to the labor camp to marry, we’ll allow you to stay here one week, and we’ll give you a room to stay together,” he told them.

“Can we go to the village to register our marriage?” they asked.

“You can go,” he said.

Walking to their room, Catherine whispered to Joseph, “First thing, as soon as it’s light, we must go to the marriage department to register our marriage, before they change their minds.”

They arrived at their honeymoon suite: a small room, empty, except for a poster of Mao and another poster with Chinese characters for the Three Loyalties: Loyalty to Chairman Mao, Loyalty to Zedong Mao Thought, Loyalty to Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line.

As soon as the first daylight appeared, they walked several miles to the nearby village. For their civil wedding ceremony, they wore their wedding attire: Mao pants and jackets. There was no exchange of rings, no formal pronouncement of husband and wife, no kiss, no flowers, no first dance, no cake. As proof, each received a marriage certificate, complete with a photo of Mao smiling at them.

God had been their witness.

They searched for a photo shop to have their picture taken to commemorate the day, and they found a run-down studio, where they posed. Catherine, with a dreamy gaze, and Joseph, with a happy smile.

For their wedding feast, they found one shabby restaurant – an open-air noodle stall that had no door and no windows, just a few dilapidated tables and chairs – where they could celebrate their nuptials. The cook stood over the stove tucked into a corner in the back. They could have anything they wanted, just as long as it was noodles, plain noodles, with a splash of soy sauce and a few drops of oil. Everything was rationed and in short supply. They paid with the ration coupons everyone needed to make all purchases. Joseph and Catherine sat down and enjoyed their banquet of noodles.

Returning to their love nest, they needed to make their marriage bed. Venturing outside, they searched for scattered bricks, which they needed permission to use. They found a board to put on top of the bricks, and Catherine walked the five minutes to her dormitory to retrieve her mattress.

Their marriage had stirred up a lot excitement, and the newlyweds received secret notes of felicitations from secret friends.

“Congratulations!” many whispered.

Starting in 1966, during the Cultural Revolution, not only were new marriages not allowed in labor camps, but those couples who had already married were separated and could have no family life. So when those in the labor camp who were forced to live a single life saw that Joseph and Catherine were married – the first detained employees to do so – it gave hope to others.

Their honeymoon suite lacked even the basic necessities. No heat. No water. Just the Three Loyalties poster and Mao’s portrait, with a burst of solar rays emanating from behind his head, idealizing him as the Sun Rising in the East, symbolizing his Cult of Personality. The picture could not be removed, under any circumstances. Everyone had heard stories of those who were executed on the spot for showing disrespect to the mere portrait of Mao. So Catherine borrowed a mosquito net and hung it on the wall, obscuring Mao’s face.

They laughed.

Settled into their room, Joseph kissed Catherine for the first time. That night, they stayed together in the same bed.

I’m so lucky. God gave me this present, this angel, he thought.

The following day after their marriage, Joseph’s brother Michael arrived at the labor camp, bringing with him new clothes for Joseph, some food for the newly wedded couple and a very simple camera that he had illegally purchased from a Cambodian visiting China who needed money fast.

First thing, Michael had to check in with labor-camp officials and show them the obligatory paperwork.

“Do you have documents?” the cadre asked.

“Yes, I’m a worker. I have a worker’s document,” he said.

“Oh, you’re a worker. Good,” said the cadre, glad to have a real proletariat around for a visit. “You can stay overnight. But let me tell you that your sister-in-law is no good. She’s not close with the People’s Government. She’s no good.”

“Why?”

“In the labor camp, she never reports other people. She never turns other people in.”

That’s good, Michael thought, as he told the cadre, “I will educate them how to be close with the People’s Government.”

Michael started to leave, but turned and asked, “Can I take a picture of them in the labor camp?”

“No. You can never take a picture inside the labor camp. It’s not allowed.”

“Okay. I won’t take any pictures.”

Michael spent the night. The next morning, Joseph and Catherine walked with him for several miles back to the train station, and on the way they found a hillside. With no one else around, Michael gave Catherine a new jacket to put on, then he secretly snapped three pictures.

After seven days, Joseph had to return to his labor camp, back to Tai Ping, Peace Plantation, in Guizhou province, on the other side of China. Camp authorities permitted Catherine to walk with him to the train station to see him off. Then she had to return to work. She had no choice.

Before he even left, Joseph felt lost, like he had lost Catherine. He didn’t know when he would see her again, when they would be together again, when they would have a family. He thought it would be six months at the most, maybe. He hoped.

They walked together to the depot. He cried. She cried. They held hands. They wiped each other’s tears.

Then Joseph boarded the train. They watched each other, until they were out of view.

They didn’t know if they would ever see each other again.

Six months passed.

Joseph filed a petition with the authorities at his labor camp, asking for permission to visit Catherine.

No, was the answer.

After another six months passed, Joseph filed a second petition. It had been one year since he had seen Catherine.

Again, no.

More petitions. Two years passed.

Still, no.

Three years.

No.

Joseph hadn’t seen his bride, Catherine, since December 1969, when he had been forced to board a train and leave her labor camp in eastern China and return to his in the southwest. They had been married for only one week.

For three years Joseph and Catherine didn’t see each other. He was not allowed to go to her labor camp, and she was not allowed to visit his. Their only communication was through letters, always read by labor-camp cadres before mailed out or handed out, which made it a little difficult to be romantic.

Finally, Joseph spoke with authorities at his labor camp.

“My marriage, for what? We’ve been married for three years, and we can’t see each other. This isn’t a marriage. We have to live together, like a couple.”

Joseph requested a transfer to Catherine’s labor camp.

“We need you here. You can’t move,” they told him.

He approached Cadre Zhanxing Li, the labor camp’s second in command. Cadre Li was a decent guy, as far as cadres went, for cadres were the professional revolutionaries, the foot soldiers of the Communist Party, whether wielding power on the battlefield, in the cities, countryside villages or labor camps.

“If I can’t transfer, why can’t you move my wife here, to this labor camp?” Joseph asked.

“It’s impossible, because there has never been a transfer before,” he answered. “However, I’ll try to help you get permission to get her transferred from there to here. I’ll send a request asking them to transfer her here.”

Cadre Li made good on his word and sent a request letter to Catherine’s labor camp, directly to her officer.

No answer.

Cadre Li sent a second request.

Still, no answer. By that time, it had been nearly four years since Catherine and Joseph had last seen each other.

“There’s no response. Maybe it’s hopeless,” Cadre Li told Joseph.

“Please. Will you try again?”

“Okay. I’ll try again. We’ll do our best.”

The third time, Catherine’s supervisors responded.

They said, yes.

 

†††

 

J

oseph was told to report to the office. When he walked in, he saw Catherine, smiling and very happy, with a few pieces of luggage at her feet.

The date was December 21, 1973. The last time they had seen each other was in December 1969.

They were to finally live as husband and wife. Joseph was 40. Catherine was 38.

For their first home, they were given a single room. No heat. No water. Just a clay floor and four clay walls. Not even a roof. On Christmas Eve, they snuggled in bed and looked dreamily up into the darkened sky under the new moon and watched the stars slowly float from east to west.

“Oh. It’s really Christmas, and we are in the manger,” Catherine said.

At first, Catherine was assigned to work in the fields, where she tended vegetables. The following spring, she was transferred to the labor camp’s tea workshop, where she sat before a wok over an open flame and dry-roasted tea leaves. The workshop was close to the clinic, so Joseph could visit her and pocket a pinch of tea leaves while there.

In 1975, authorities removed Catherine’s “hat,” her counter-revolutionary label. But because Joseph had charged the authorities for medical services and medicine, they retaliated and refused to remove his  until 1977.

When Xiaoping Deng, best known as the paramount leader of China, announced his Open Door Policy in December 1978, thus opening China to the world for trade, English teachers became in demand, but were in short supply. Even though English was the lingua franca in the sphere of global commerce, very few Chinese knew English. They had preferred to learn Russian to communicate with their “Big Brothers” in Russia.

With a Catholic school education, Catherine was one of those few Chinese who did know English. Officials in the labor camp transferred her from the tea workshop to the labor-camp classroom, where she taught English to the officers’ children.

Joseph continued working in the labor camp’s hospital during the day. In the evenings, he avoided the two-hour, nightly ideology brainwashing sessions. The brigade chief was Cantonese, like Joseph, and felt a kinship to him; therefore, he let Joseph skip the sessions and use that time to open his medical office. Laborers, who couldn’t visit the doctor during the day when they worked, could visit him in the office at night. And since he needed an assistant, he enlisted Catherine to help distribute medicine, after she finished her daily teaching duties.

Then after work, they retreated to their room and closed the door to the rest of the world. They prayed and lived their secret religious life. As devout Catholics, they had to keep their faith a secret.

A cradle Catholic, Joseph had been forced to learn by rote many prayers in ancient Chinese, as a first- and second-grade student at École Primaire du Sacré-Coeur, Sacred Heart Primary School, Chongqing Road South, (formerly 224 Avenue Dubail), in Shanghai. It was those prayers that he taught to Catherine, who had converted to Catholicism on May 13, 1950, when Father Shixian “Joseph” Shen baptized her.

Father Shen was a much-loved priest, who was arrested for his faith on September 7, 1951, along with Father William Aedan McGrath. Both were locked up in Shanghai City Prison, commonly known as Tilanqiao.

After 16 months, Father Shen suffered from a severe case of pleurisy and was transferred to the prison’s infirmary, as was Father John Billot (Society of Jesus). On January 10, 1953, when prison doctors attempted to remove, with a syringe, some of the liquid in Father Shen’s lungs, he began having convulsions. Father Billot ran to him, ignoring prison regulations.

“We are all martyrs of Christ,” gasped Father Shen, only 35 years old.

Father Billot made the sign of the cross twice, then Father Shen threw out his arms as if being crucified and died, a martyr.

In the labor camp, Joseph and Catherine lay in bed each night after their prayers and discussed their cases.

Catherine had been arrested because she had joined the Legion of Mary, a laity-based religious organization spearheaded in China by Father McGrath.

In 1949, the regime had established the Three-Self Reform Movement, so-called for its aim to be self-governing, self-propagating and self-supporting, in an attempt to break the faithful away from the Holy See.

When Mao discovered the Communist version of Catholicism wasn’t catching on and that the true Roman Catholic Church headed by the Pope was not only still alive, but flourishing, he was furious. He dispatched spies to find the culprit responsible. They discovered it was none other than the Legion of Mary.

Mao labeled the Legion as Public Enemy Number 1, and its members were ordered to break with the Pope and join the Three-Self Reform Movement, which was the independent, official church.

Nearly all steadfastly refused, as did Catherine.

Subsequently, she was arrested for being a counter-revolutionary, one who opposed the People’s Revolution. As a political prisoner, her case would be very difficult to correct.

Joseph’s case was different. Although accused of having joined the Legion of Mary, he never had and there was absolutely no proof. During his interrogations, they had never asked any questions that linked him to any actual counterrevolutionary activity. Because he had received an administrative hearing, his case never went to court, and he had never received a formal, written document declaring his sentence.

So he and Catherine believed there was no paper trail, leaving him a chance of correcting his case. All he needed to do was to send an appeal, which couldn’t be done from the labor camp.

One rule in prisons and labor camps was that inmates could not deny guilt. Guilt of accused crimes against the People’s Government had to be recognized and admitted. If guilt was denied, torture was applied.

To write an appeal was to deny the accusations, so Joseph had to approach the matter with delicacy. He had to wait for a home visit.

But first, he needed to know what evidence, if any, they had against him. He had to find out what was in his secret file. In China, all files – even those of Communist Party members – were secret and kept under lock and key by the Public Security Bureau and never shown to the accused. Even for Party members, it was not easy to get their hands on their own files, so for Joseph it was even more difficult.

In Communist China, there are two types of counterrevolution-aries. An historical counterrevolutionary is one who worked for the former government before the Communists took power. An active counterrevolutionary is one who began activities after the takeover.

The labor camps were filled with enemies of the Communist regime, which initially included the landlord class, the rich peasant class, the counterrevolutionaries (historical and active) and the bad elements. Eventually, a fifth was added: the rightists. The total comprised the Five Black Categories.

Again, Joseph asked his cadre friend for help.

“Cadre Li, I’ve been in the labor camp for 13 years. They charged me as an active counterrevolutionary, but I never received any written proof. They gave me three years reeducation through labor, and they never showed me any evidence of what I did wrong,” he said.

“I don’t know your case, but I can let you see your secret file. Nobody can see their files, not even Communist members, but you’re special to me, because you helped my daughter.”

When the cadre’s only daughter was very young, because of malnutrition during the famine, she became extremely sick with gastritis, an intestinal problem. Joseph treated and cured her. The cadre’s wife, who was an accountant, a very powerful position in the labor camp, had access to documents not readily accessible to most. She would be able to retrieve Joseph’s secret file.

“I’ll help you, because I know you’re not a bad person. Tomorrow, come to my house, and pretend to give my daughter treatment. I’ll bring your secret file, and you can read it in my house. But don’t tell anyone. If you do, or if anyone finds out, I’ll get in trouble, and you’ll get in trouble. Both of us will have trouble.”

The next day, Joseph walked to the cadre’s home. As he sat down, he held in his hands for the first time his file, a folder stuffed with paper, almost three inches thick. And he had only one hour to read and digest the whole thing.

Joseph knew Communists were experts at causing dissension between friends. When people faced the authorities and were tortured and their freedom was threatened, out of fear they accused others, because they believed they would escape trouble. But they were wrong. They would not escape, because everyone would have trouble.

Still, what he found out pained him.

In medical school, Joseph’s roommate, very good friend and former classmate in Sacred Heart Primary School, was questioned by authorities. He told them that Joseph had spoken English to a fellow student about anti-Communist guerillas in Guangxi province.

He read on.

While a student in Nanjing, Joseph stayed away from the official church in the diocese, headed by a priest, Weiguang “John” Li, who had been one of the first to join the Three-Self Reform Movement and be consecrated a bishop, without papal mandate.

Instead, Joseph joined an underground Catholic group that attended Sunday Mass offered by an underground priest. However, during the Campaign to Eliminate Counterrevolutionaries, launched in 1955, one of the group’s leaders was arrested, and the Communists found out about the other members, including Joseph.

But there was no evidence.

Next, his cousin reported that Joseph’s family was an extremely reactionary family. Why? Because they were Catholic.

Joseph’s father was a second-generation doctor, arrested after being accused of being a counterrevolutionary for helping neighbors, two Belgian priests, Father Alain de Terwangne, of Antwerp, and Father Clement Kenirkens, of Liege.

Father Terwangne had worked as a book illustrator for the Catholic Central Bureau, and Father Kenirkens had served as secretary for Bishop Kaimin “Simon” Zhu (pinyin form of Kai-Min Chu, 1868-1960, Society of Jesus), one of the famous six bishops consecrated in Rome, in 1926.

The bishop and the priests were not only friends and patients of Joseph’s father, but the two Belgian clergymen also lived in an apartment directly across the hall from the Ho family. And when Joseph had been home, he was always the altar server for daily Mass in their private chapel.

Joseph’s father had warned the foreign priests to be careful about what they said on the telephone, because the Public Security Bureau was tapping into phone conversations.

“We don’t care, because they don’t understand our Flemish language,” they told him, dismissing the warning.

Naïve, the priests continued talking freely on the phone. They were arrested, on the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, March 25, 1953, accused of being spies. The “evidence” against them: a peephole in their door, then uncommon in Shanghai homes.

Under interrogation, the priests were asked, “How can you know that we have recording devices for the telephone?”

Still naïve, they innocently tried to explain how Joseph’s father had informed them. But that only caused the authorities to arrest Joseph’s father a few days later. He was soon released; however, he was arrested again, on August 19, 1954, when Communists falsely accused him of being a special agent for Generalissimo Jieshi Jiang, of the Chinese Nationalist Party, the Guomindang. The charges against him were all a fabrication, a character assassination.

Still no evidence.

When the Communists took over, step by step they slowly and methodically began to destroy the Church on the mainland.

The first step was to separate the Church from the Pope. The second was to rid China of all foreign missionaries, either by imprisonment or expulsion. And the third step was to control the native Chinese Catholic bishops, priests and faithful.

Joseph’s grandfather, Paul Hall, was a very famous doctor in the Church in Shanghai. He was much admired, because he performed countless works of charity in orphanages and nursing homes, totally free of charge, for which he received, in the 1920s, a knighthood in the Order of Saint Sylvester.

After the Three-Self Reform Movement was launched, the authorities tried to coerce the best-known and most-loved Catholics to renounce the Pope and to join the government’s independent church. Most refused. Joseph’s grandfather was one of those.

For three days, authorities confined him in isolation in the Public Security Bureau.

Finally, Joseph’s grandfather said, “Okay, I’ll help.”

But it was a ruse.

As soon as the Communists released him, he began planning with his three brothers how to escape from mainland China to the nearby island of Macau, a Portuguese colony. He had no choice. He had to leave China. Hong Kong would be the most predictable escape route, so Joseph’s grandfather and his brothers thought that he should hide first in northern China. It worked. The Communists did send special agents to the southern border to wait for him. After one month, they suspected that he had already slipped through, and they gave up. Joseph’s grandfather waited in the north one more month, then traveled to the south and made a successful escape to Macau.

Still, no evidence against Joseph.

He continued reading.

One day in 1951, Joseph’s mother went to visit her elderly nanny, who had taken care of her when she was young. She took many tasty treats as gifts.

“Why is it so hard to buy food? We have money, but we can’t buy food because of a shortage. We go to the shop, and the shelves are all empty. Nothing,” her nanny said.

It was a common complaint on everyone’s lips those days.

Joseph’s mother said, “They send the food to Russia in exchange for weapons.”

It was true. The Chinese Communists had sent conscripted and volunteer troops in the People’s Volunteer Army to North Korea during the full-scale Korean War (1950-53) between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea. China wanted to help in the fight, which they called the War to Resist America and Assist Korea. China needed weapons. Moscow had weapons but needed food. China had food. They exchanged, even if it meant that the Chinese people went without, which they did.

Two days after Joseph’s mother visited her nanny, a woman arrived at the Ho family home and ordered her to go to the Public Security Bureau. She had no idea why or what she had done.

They scolded, “You’re a counterrevolutionary! You spread rumors that we send food to Russia! Since this is the first time, we’ll only give you a warning. Next time, you will be arrested!”

His mother didn’t know who had reported her. Certainly, she couldn’t believe that her nanny had. Almost 20 years after the incident, Joseph found out who had.

The nanny’s 7-year-old granddaughter had eavesdropped on the conversation between the two women. The girl reported the conversation to her political instructor, who reported it to the Public Security Bureau. On the day of the visit, Joseph’s mother noticed that the girl had worn a red scarf, the uniform of the Young Pioneers of China, a cell unit run by the Communist Youth League that brainwashed the children of China to find and report the “bad guys,” the enemies of the People’s Government, no matter who they were.

“Father is dear! Mother is dear! But not as dear as Chairman Mao!” was a chant commonly taught to the children.

Joseph had looked through his entire file and found no solid evidence against him. He could start writing his appeal, to correct his case. He just needed to find opportunities to get out of the labor camp to deliver his written pleas.

At times, it was necessary to transfer patients from the labor-camp hospital to the Regional Administrative Hospital, where he had once worked and where he had been arrested. And like most hospitals in China, the people running it were corrupt.

To be admitted, a patient would have to “burn the incense,” a Chinese idiom for offering a bribe, referring to the Buddhist custom of offering incense to Buddha for favors. If someone from the labor camp appeared at the hospital without anything to offer, the patient would not be admitted and would be sent back to the farm.

Since Joseph had worked at the hospital before his arrest and was well respected by the admissions staff, his patients were usually accepted without a bribe. So the labor camp most often sent him to accompany the patients.

The trips provided him with opportunities, every now and then, to either send or deliver in person his handwritten appeals to the different departments that were needed to sign off on his case.

But nothing ever happened. He had no luck.

Years passed.

From 1973 to 1978, he mailed out and handed out dozens of appeals. He never received a single answer.

But God was good. During that time, Joseph and Catherine, who was almost 40 years old, had a son, born in February 1975. He also received the baptismal name of Joseph.

Then, finally, the Ho family got a break.

 

†††

 

 

A

 former classmate who worked in the regional hospital recommended that Joseph talk to one particular man who worked in the Communist Party’s Inform Department, which accepted appeals.

Joseph sought his help.

“Your case,” the man told him, “is very difficult to open, because all the arrests were ordered by the chief of the municipal Public Security Bureau, and your case cannot be opened unless he opens it. Only he has the key to open your case, and we can’t go against him. If we correct your case, it means what he did was wrong. And because he has the power to arrest, if we go against him, he could make trouble and arrest people.”

But Catherine and Joseph never gave up hope. They continued to pray. They believed God would help them. Even if people wouldn’t, God would.

In 1978, Joseph suffered a hemorrhaging duodenal ulcer and had to have emergency surgery. Admitted into the Regional Administrative Hospital, where he had been assigned to work after graduating from medical school, in 1959, his former classmate operated on him, then visited him while he was recovering.

“I have good news,” he told Joseph. “The chief of the municipal Public Security Bureau has a problem. He asked me to help.”

“What kind of problem?” Joseph asked.

“He has only one son, and after eight years of marriage, no child,” he said.

According to Confucius, not having a son is a great shame upon the entire family. People would think the chief and his son were both evil, because there was no successor. To save his reputation, the chief desperately wanted a grandson.

The son was infertile because of a congenital deformity, for which he needed an operation. Local surgeons had already operated twice, but both attempts failed. The son needed to see a specialist. Only in Shanghai could a urological surgeon be found.

The chief had asked Joseph’s classmate, “Could you help find a urologist in Shanghai to correct my son’s problem?”

“I don’t know anyone in Shanghai. I am not originally from Shanghai, but maybe you can find Doctor Ho. His family is originally from Shanghai. His father, his grandfather, his uncle were all doctors. He must know some good urologists in Shanghai. Maybe you can find him, and you can talk to him,” Joseph’s classmate told the chief.

“I wouldn’t be comfortable talking to Doctor Ho. I had him arrested,” the chief said.

“Let me talk with him. We’re good friends.”

“Okay. You can talk to Doctor Ho.”

That was good news. No. That was great news to Joseph.

“If you can help him, he’ll help you,” Joseph’s classmate told him. “He’ll correct your case. Everything will be fine.”

Joseph arranged everything.

His aunt, who worked in the People’s Number 1 Hospital in Shanghai, was able to find the urologist. And not only did his family find the specialist, but they also welcomed the chief’s son to stay in their home for almost an entire month before the operation, so he could register for and establish temporary residence to be permitted to be treated by a surgeon in Shanghai, rather than one near his registered home.

The son’s operation was a success. After six months, his wife conceived. And not only were they going to have a baby, they were going to have a son. The family, the chief especially, was overjoyed. His honor would be saved.

Joseph was overjoyed, too. Finally. Finally, he would have the chance to have his case corrected.

One day in August 1978, he accompanied a patient to the Regional Administrative Hospital and decided to attempt a visit to the chief. Before he had helped the chief’s son, Joseph could never even get past the guard stationed at the front desk in the Public Security Bureau. That day in August was different.

“Who do you want to see?” the guard asked at the door.

“I want to see the chief,” Joseph said.

“What’s your name?” the guard asked.

“Doctor Ho.”

The guard made a call.

“Let him in,” the chief said on the telephone.

So Joseph went to his office.

“Sit down, please. Please, sit down,” said the chief, fawning over Joseph. “Pour the tea for Doctor Ho,” he ordered the servant.

Before Joseph had a chance to talk or to sip his tea, the chief said, “I know your situation. Don’t worry. Be patient. Go back to your labor camp. I will totally solve your problem. Just be patient, and go back. In several months, I’ll correct your case. Don’t worry.”

Four months later, in December 1978, Joseph was called to labor-camp headquarters. A cadre handed to him a brown envelope, which he ripped open. Inside, he found a document, for which he had waited a very long time.

It read: “In the 1960s, the international political situation was very dangerous, and we suspected Jieshi Jiang had contacted mainland China. Under that situation, we suspected Joseph Ho was a spy, so we arrested him and placed him in the labor camp under our supervision. In the labor camp, he was treated as a counterrevolutionary, which was not correct. We learned that he was not a counterrevolutionary. We permit his release from the labor camp and his return to work at Regional Administrative Hospital, where he worked before.”

The letter had not only cleared Joseph, but it had also given him back his old job.

However, more obstacles stood in the way. Hospital authorities informed him that there was no room for him in the dormitory and that he could not return to his old job unless he made his own living arrangements. He also had to make plans to get his wife and son out of the labor camp.

Joseph’s new friend, the Public Security Bureau chief, who happened to be in charge of the cadres in the labor camp, stepped in. He went to the labor camp and spoke with the head cadre.

           Catherine and Joseph Ho with their son, Joseph, in Tai Ping, 1978.

“Release Catherine Ho, and permit her to move with her husband out of the labor camp,” he ordered.

“How can I release her? Her case has not been corrected. She is still a labor-camp detained employee. We need an English teacher in labor-camp school. We cannot release her.”

“Who is in charge?” the chief yelled, pounding the desk. “Whoever is responsible, release her!”

Catherine was released in December 1978.

But she needed a job.

Again, the chief helped. He phoned the Education Department.

“I know a very good English teacher,” he told them. “Can you find a position for her in the Number 2 Regional Administrative School?”

After school administrators learned how powerful the chief was, they immediately found a position for Catherine. Happy to get a qualified English teacher, they also provided her with a two-bedroom apartment, complete with a dining room, an almost-unheard of bourgeois luxury. The living arrangements solved their immediate problems, and Joseph returned to his old job.

Once out of the labor camp, a small concentration camp, Joseph and Catherine wanted to get out of China, the big concentration camp. They wanted to get to the Free World. Their next dreamed-for destination: the British crown colony of Hong Kong.

They decided to really work at endearing themselves to the chief and his family.

Almost every week after work, at least two or three times a month, Joseph, Catherine and little Joseph visited the chief and his family, to see their long-awaited grandson. And they never went empty-handed. They made sure they always had a gift for the baby. Catherine’s parents, in Hong Kong, mailed her a little money and a package every month. One time they sent a calculator, another time a hi-fi record player, both rare items in China at that time and highly prized as gifts.

At first, Joseph and Catherine never mentioned their long-range goal of moving to Hong Kong, until they secretly agreed that Catherine would talk to the chief’s wife, to feel out the situation. It was still dangerous, because they could be accused of being traitors and arrested for even wanting to go to Hong Kong, a capitalist country. So they had to proceed very cautiously when they tested her.

“Oh, some day, I need to go to Hong Kong,” Catherine casually mentioned to the chief’s wife.

“Oh! Hong Kong? Why Hong Kong?” the wife asked, surprised.

“I’m the only daughter,” Catherine fibbed.

“My father has not seen me for more than 26 years,” she continued. That was the truth. “They have property in Hong Kong and no other children there. If they die without any children to inherit the property, the British will take over the property. So we need to go to Hong Kong to receive the property, then we will come back to China.”

Several times she dropped Hong Kong into the conversation.

Finally, the wife said, “Let me talk to my husband.”

During a subsequent visit, she told Catherine, “My husband will consider your application.”

One night, the chief announced, “I have some good news. I can help you go to Hong Kong to receive the property, but first we need a letter from your parents.”

After a few weeks, Joseph presented to the chief a lawyer’s letter about the property, which had been translated from the original English to Chinese.

Because of Joseph’s guanxi, his relationship and influential connection with the chief, once the chief signed the document, those below him were compelled to sign, and it was approved at each rung of each department in the local, municipal ladder.

Then Joseph needed to go to the provincial Public Security Bureau, to obtain approval.

A dead end.

Joseph went back to the chief.

“Your boss didn’t approve us to go to Hong Kong,” Joseph said.

“Let me think about it. Let me talk to him,” the chief said.

After two weeks, the chief had an update, and a request.

“I need a Sony color television, 32-inch screen,” he said.

Televisions were considered a luxury. While still living in the labor camp, Joseph had purchased a 9-inch, black-and-white television through the “backdoor,” the black market, during a home visit to Shanghai. Back in Guizhou province, the television was such a rarity that when it was turned on, the locals would stand outside the window to try to catch a glimpse. Eventually, the crowd outside the window numbered in the dozens, so Joseph placed the very small television on a desk outside, where everyone could gather around to stare and marvel at the talking images on the 9-inch screen.

In those days, there was only one television station in the whole of China, in Beijing, that aired programs in color. Nonetheless, Catherine sought help from her parents, who were very smart. They didn’t buy just one; they bought two: one for the provincial chief and one for the municipal chief.

Everyone was happy.

All Joseph needed to do was to visit the provincial chief, to get his applications approved. Instructed to go to the official’s home in the middle of the night, which he did, Joseph knocked. Through the door, cracked open only a couple of inches, he was told to go to an office the following day, at 10 a.m.

The next morning, the provincial chief looked at Joseph’s two application forms. In order to save himself embarrassment, he made excuses, albeit flimsy ones, when he explained why he had not approved the original applications.

“See. Here, your application is not good. There, it is not good,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll give you new applications. Let me show you how to fill out the forms.”

He filled out the two forms, one for Catherine and a second one for both Joseph and their son.

“Oh, your picture, it’s too big. But that’s no problem. I can just use the scissors. See? Cut it a little smaller. Now, it’s okay,” he said, snipping off the slimmest piece from the photo.

Finally, with two booms, he stamped the applications.

It was almost unbelievable. Fearful the policy could change overnight, as had often been the case in the past with the Communists, Joseph and Catherine arranged to leave as soon as possible.

First, they sent a telegram to Joseph’s brother Lawrence, asking him to visit them, right away. He quickly boarded a train to Guizhou; however, a rainstorm caused a mudslide that blocked the tracks. But, eventually, he arrived, and they entrusted to him their possessions that they could not take with them.

They packed only a few belongings, and the chief offered them a ride to the airport, in Guiyang, the provincial capital. While at the airport, where usually only the Party elite were permitted, young Joseph had to relieve himself. So his father took him to the restroom, where the boy saw a toilet for the first time and cried, too afraid to sit on the seat.

Once onboard a four-propeller plane, the Ho family flew to Canton, where they purchased tickets for a train headed to the border.

 

†††

 

I

t was July 27, 1979. A very hot day. Very crowded, with thousands and thousands of men, women and children waiting in an excruciatingly long line at the checkpoint. All hoping their name would be on the waiting list to get across the border.

And that day, the quota permitted only 72 people to leave the mainland for Hong Kong.

Joseph, Catherine and 4-year-old Joseph finally made their way to the guard.

“No. She can’t go. Her name is not on the waiting list,” the guard said.

Joseph was not willing to leave China without Catherine.

Each person leaving the mainland was allowed to take only a few dollars. In preparation to “burn the incense,” Joseph had purchased 20 packs of very expensive, imported Marlboro cigarettes and put them in a zippered bag. Just in case.

“I can’t take care of the child, if my wife can’t go,” Joseph explained, as he cautiously unzipped the bag of cigarettes and moved it toward the guard, who saw it was filled with the highly coveted American cigarettes.

Joseph said a prayer in his heart.

The guard took the bag.

Oh, I have hope! He took the bag! Joseph thought.

“Okay. Wait one hour. Go outside! If somebody on the waiting list can’t go, maybe she’ll have a chance.”

They waited one hour. Again, they asked the guard.

“Go! Immediately! Go!”

It was about noon when Joseph, Catherine and little Joseph – on his father’s back – all held hands, as they walked across the famous Lo Wu Bridge connecting mainland China to Hong Kong.

Catherine was so scared, she didn’t know if they were still in China or not.

“Did we already arrive in Hong Kong?” she asked.

Joseph looked overhead.

“Oh, the flag is a British flag! We’re out of hell. Thank God! We’re free now!” he said.

Exhausted and thirsty from the heat and humidity, with the little bit of money they were able to bring with them, they purchased from a peddler on the street at the station one can of cola, which they had never tasted or even seen before.

As they shared their first drink in freedom, they looked around and saw the beautiful buildings.

“Maybe we don’t have enough money to get to my parents,” Catherine said.

They walked toward a public pay telephone to call them.

Her father answered the phone.

“Who are you?” her father asked.

“I’m Catherine!”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m in Hong Kong!”

“I don’t believe you!” he said and fainted.

Catherine’s mother picked up the receiver.

“Are you sure you’re in Hong Kong?” her mother asked.

“Yes, I’m sure!”

“Where’s your husband? Where’s your baby?”

“We’re here together! We made it across the border together!”

 

 

 

†††

 

 

 

 

Addendum

 

J

oseph, Catherine and their son lived in Hong Kong for seven years. A second son, John, was born in Hong Kong, in November 1980. Eventually, the family moved to America. Joseph was the first to arrive, on January 1, 1986.

In “The Lark and the Dragon,” Catherine chronicled her own story of the 20 years of persecution she endured in different prisons and labor camps. Catherine and Joseph presented her work to Pope John Paul II in October 1993.

On August 4, 2006, Catherine died from natural causes, at home, with her family around her, praying.