This is the friend I find most unforgettable—Ma Ping-ho.
Originally from Scotland (his surname was Mc-something), Ma Ping-ho was the son of a mining engineer. Because the family was quite well-to-do, he had enjoyed the upbringing and education of a British aristocrat. While at Oxford University, he found himself drawn to Chinese studies. After two or three years of concentrated study, he not only spoke fluent Mandarin, but could write literary Chinese and had gained considerable familiarity with the Chinese classics.
Not long before the start of the World War, he saw that China was suffering deeply from Japanese military aggression. Indignant, he set off for Shanghai, without telling his parents, to take part in the literary resistance against Japan. As the war situation intensified, he volunteered his services as an English broadcaster in the political section of the Committee for Military Affairs. With the loss of Wuhan, he joined the International Department of the Ministry of Information. Aside from English-language broadcasts, he also took over the important job of editing and translating English-language documents.
While at the International Department, his love for China was so obviously loyal and earnest—to the extent that it exceeded that of many Chinese for their own country—that the Ministry of the Interior waived the usual period of residence for citizenship. So Ma Ping-ho became a true Chinese.
Ma Ping-ho was a reticent, non-smiling, lone wolf type of person. He lived a solitary sort of existence that few people understood. I worked with him during the most critica1 period of the war. Coming into contact with him more often than others, I may have been able to gain a little closer insight into his character.
I truly felt he was a person who had been deeply influenced by traditional Chinese culture. He had developed an attitude of indignant righteousness toward the world. The result was that he became a strange personality, full of a passion which he was unable to express. During the brief six or seven years that we worked together, I saw with my own eyes the effect of his behavior. It was strange enough to cause laughter, eccentric enough to elicit alarm. But I understood him and knew that his motivations were always pure and loyal. Never once did he cause me to modify my feelings of respect and sympathy.
Twenty years have passed, but the impression this friend made on me is as fresh as ever. This reminiscence is intended as a remembrance for all who knew him.
The night before I left Hankow for Hengyang, Hollington K. Tong (then the vice minister of information) told me that he had received orders to continue the difficult task of maintaining English-language broadcasts from Hankow right up to the end. He had found a very remarkable foreign friend who had volunteered to help.
Not only was this foreigner prepared to risk his life to keep the broadcasts going, but he had decided to join our International Department permanently after leaving Hankow.
His decision came at a time when almost all our foreign friends were looking on coldly from the sidelines, seeing China topple, yet offering not even sympathy. I was moved to tears when I heard of this particular foreign friend. I asked his name and the three words Ma Ping-ho made their first deep impression on my mind.
I received a telegram at the Hengyang office from Hollington Tong—"Ma Ping-ho leaves by train tomorrow morning with the last group of colleagues. Please arrange to meet and accommodate him."
I began the process of arranging to take care of a foreigner, rushing around to prepare for Ma Ping-ho the kind of living quarters that foreigners in China usually expected. Of course, with all of us living an unsettled wartime existence, no one who joined in our cause— not even the foreigners—made excessive demands. However, it went without saying that even the minimum living standards of foreigners were somewhat higher than our own. So I found a room for him in the Hengyang office and bought a rattan and wood-framed bed. Because the weather was turning chilly, I arranged a new cotton quilt on the bed. I added some very simple wooden furniture, but I still felt that the room was a bit too shabby for a foreign guest.
The next morning, I was at the station when the Hankow train arrived with the last batch of evacuees from our office. At the end of the line I saw a foreigner wearing a long black cotton gown and a Christ-like beard. I had no idea that this was the new foreign advisor engaged by our office. He held an umbrella in one hand, a cloth bound bundle in the other, and had a brown wool army blanket thrown over his shoulders. He was walking slowly among the people, his head bowed. Some colleagues who had traveled with him told me that this was Ma Ping-ho. I went up to him and courteously greeted him in English:
"Are you the foreign advisor, Mr. Ma Ping-ho, that Vice Minister Tong wired me about?"
He stopped, slowly raised his head and stared at me a long while with large eyes that seemed afire. Then he answered leisurely in fluent Chinese:
"I am Ma Ping-ho, but I am only a broadcaster, not an advisor. You must be Mr. Tseng. I have often heard Mr. Tong speak of you."
His pure and fluent Mandarin was entirely beyond my expectation. I had spoken in English; he had used Mandarin to answer - this was his first rebuff to me. Later I found out he never spoke English to a Chinese.
Next I asked him about his luggage so that the office boy could get it for him. He surprised me with another long stare. Then he raised the umbrella and bundle in his hands and asked:
"Luggage? Isn't this luggage?"
I had noticed that he was wearing only a thin cotton gown although a bone—chilling wind was blowing in the wintry December air. I had thought that he could get his luggage and change into a padded jacket and trousers. With this second rebuff, he successfully fended off anything else I might have wanted to say.
We all crowded into the car to go to the office. I took the foreign advisor to the room I had prepared for him. I expressed my regrets that the facilities were not really adequate and hoped he would excuse me since the times were so unsettled. Again, his reaction startled me. He did not answer but sat by the window and stared at the bed with the new quilt on it, shivering all the while.
It was getting dark. Since it was just about dinner time, I invited him to have dinner with me at small restaurant as a welcoming gesture. Again he hesitated a long time. Finally, he stammered:
"Mr. Tseng, thank you for your consideration, but I cannot accept your invitation."
His refusal was so abrupt that it amazed me. I explained that the invitation was merely an informal expression of welcome on my part, and if only for the sake of courtesy, he should not refuse unless he had some special reason for not wanting to eat with me. Once he had heard me out, he opened his eyes wide and said:
"This is the reason why I cannot accept your invitation: I never eat food that I have not bought with my own money. I know where my own money comes from and the only food I eat is food I have paid for myself. This way I feel easier."
His reaction roused my interest so that I wanted to know him better. I fell in with his feelings and suggested that we should share a meal together but solve his problem by splitting the bill. He agreed.
Mr. Ma Ping-ho was a hearty wine imbiber. After three cups, his vocal chords loosened up. He told me that he had felt the great disparity between rich and poor in England and had come to believe this was a world dominated by hypocrisy. Angered, he left to travel through Europe but could not find any place that conformed with his ideals. He longed to come to China and read the Chinese classics, believing that he might find it a land closer to his conception. Just at this time, China met with aggression from her neighbor. This increased his belief that only in China would his ideals be realized. He thought that Chinese society, after going through the catharsis of gunfire, would come out fully cleansed.
I thought to myself that he had just come from the third section of the Political Department, headed at that time by Kuo Mo-jo. Kuo was the chief source of propaganda for the Communist Party. Perhaps this foreign gentleman had had his brains washed red already. So I tried to probe him further with this comment:
"Perhaps Communism would be a good road to follow if the poor are to be liberated."
As I finished, his face turned bright red. He pointed a forefinger at me, saying:
"Mr. Tseng, I never expected to hear you say something like this. Communism is even more hypocritical than capitalism. Communism advocates aggression. How can there be peace under aggression? Communism speaks of deception. How can there be righteousness with deception?"
At that one meal, I gained some understanding of this strange foreigner.
The next morning, bright and early, I went to his bedroom to see if he had passed a comfortable night. Looking in, I got the fright of my life.
The bedclothes were folded neatly on the bed, unstirred by even a breeze. Clearly, no one had slept in them. I looked everywhere. Finally, I saw a roll of brown wool, army blanket on the cement floor, partly hidden by the bed. Inside the roll was a body—who else but our advisor Ma! I was afraid of an accident. Without thinking of the social amenities, I rushed in, shook Mr. Ma and asked him what was wrong. He rubbed sleepy eyes and said:
"Nothing's wrong!"
"Then how did you roll out onto the floor?"
"I didn't roll off the bed. I decided I wanted to sleep this way."
He had chosen to roll himself up in an army blanket and sleep on the floor, foregoing bed and warm quilt. This really puzzled me. I asked for an explanation and he said:
"I came to China because I hated and despised the luxuriant, decadent life of the European upper classes. How could you possibly think that I would be willing to live a kind of life that was better than that of the average Chinese!
"China is at war. We should follow the example of the soldiers at the front line. The soldiers are cold. They suffer bitingly cold winds and spend the night with half their bodies in cold water. How could I possibly sleep in that warm bed?
"I am only trying to find a life that will make me feel easy in mind. I am a broadcaster. Please don't call me an advisor. I just want to move into the employees' dormitory and live the same kind of life as my colleagues. Please use this room for something more important!"
He asked so earnestly that I had no way of refusing. From this time on I resolved to look on this foreign friend in a new light. I now considered him a faithful comrade in our cause.
As the war intensified, the military nerve center was moved to Chungking. Our International Department went to Chungking along with the government. Our offices were in the Pahsien Middle School at Liangluko.
Ma Ping-ho's job, aside from his daily broadcasts, also included the selection and translating of English-language articles and important documents.
Ma Ping-ho's writing was truly classic—the pure product of Oxford. His translations from Chinese to English are famous to this day. Because of his excellent background in English and his deep understanding of Chinese, his translations were often better than the originals. But each work cost him intense suffering. Because he always wanted to use exactly the right word in the right place, he would pace the room for perhaps half an hour, beating his brow and perspiring profusely, before sitting down, satisfied, to write feverishly.
He also wrote and broadcast all his own radio programs, never letting anyone else share the burden. His writing and broadcasting greatly taxed his strength.
At the time, the Chungking international broadcasting station was situated at Shapingpa. But Ma Ping-ho would write his scripts at the International Department at Liangluko because he wanted to take advantage of the source materials there. It was more than ten miles by mountain road from Liangluko to Shapingpa. Every day, Ma Ping-ho would take his script, written at Liangluko, and climb the road to Shapingpa for the broadcast.
The common means of transportation in Chungking was the rickshaw. But Ma Ping-ho thought that the rickshaw, which used man in place of a draft animal, was not humanitarian. He refused to ride in one.
We also had an automobile at the office. It was reserved for the use of Hollington Tong. Mr. Tong did not use it every day, so he offered to let Mr. Ma have it for his daily trip to the radio station. This only met with Ma Ping-ho's categorical refusal. He felt that he did not warrant such special treatment. The result was that he walked more than 20 miles to and from the station every day. He never seemed too tired and never uttered a word of complaint.
The dangerous time was when the enemy bombers were over Chungking. The enemy's system of bombing the city was to follow one of the two main roads. If they were flying the north-south route, people living along the east-west route would be spared from catastrophe, and vice versa.
Unfortunately, the International Department was at Pahsien Middle School, right at the crossroads of the two routes. No matter which direction the enemy planes were flying, we had bombs falling on us. Our dormitory and offices were hit 36 times.
Though faced with such peril, Ma Ping-ho continued to work with as much dedication as the rest of us. What really demonstrated his iron will was the way he continued to write his radio scripts of some 3,000-5,000 words, walk 20 miles up and down a mountain, and still manage to keep his broadcasts on time despite the nerve wracking daily bombings.
In describing Ma Ping-ho's personal life, one could say that he had assimilated all the bad habits of the Chinese literati in maintaining shabby dress and slovenly appearance. All year long, throughout the four seasons, he would never bathe. He always had a strong odor about him. Those who had occasion to come near pretended to be scratching their noses to avoid the smell. When we first moved to Chungking, he lived in the bachelors' dormitory and ate in the mess hall. Because of his odor, the men in the General Affairs Section had headache after headache in trying to determine his roommate and table companions.
The number of times he visited the barber in a year could be counted on one hand. Strangest of all was that long black robe he wore. He wore it in summer and he wore it in winter. Because I had suffered his rebuffs already, I did not dare suggest that he should put on a little more clothing in winter. I felt truly sorry when I saw him with face and hands blue with cold.
At first he gave away his salary, except the little required for his own expenses. Then he built a cottage just behind the Pahsien Middle School. Going into the streets and alleys, he found several homeless boys and took them to the cottage. Later, the number of orphans grew so large he couldn't manage by himself. He persuaded a Chinese friend to move in and share the work.
This scheme provided the burden of a large family for Ma Ping-ho, who hitherto had been a bachelor with no strings attached. His salary became inadequate. He had to find some other way of making money. So in his spare time, usually after supper, he started teaching English.
He had a unique approach to teaching. He had no regular classroom and did not exact a set tuition. Whoever wanted to learn from him, regardless of their previous knowledge of the language, could go to him and register their names. When applicants had reached what he felt was a sufficient number, he would open a class at a nearby school or any other public place. The first class would be held at a selected school which would not necessarily allow him to continue using its facilities. His classes were therefore mobile. Often the meeting place was announced only at the end of the preceding class.
Tuition was in the form of donations. He told the students that he wanted to help the poor and that each person should leave whatever he could afford on his seat at the end of the lesson. Those who had money gave; those who didn't—well, no matter. Actually, he never noticed who gave and who didn't. Still less did he pay any attention to the amount. After class, the students would disperse like birds to their own nests. He then would walk down from the platform, collect the money, and go home to fill the stomachs of his homeless children.
His Buddha-like kindness to children was fully revealed to me one night. It was close to midnight and raining very hard. I woke to hear someone pounding on my bedroom door. It was a soaking wet Ma Ping-ho. He looked at me and both his hands came up to shake my shoulders. He stammered agitatedly:
"Mr. Tseng, you have got to help me out this time!"
He was standing in the rain so I tried to pull him into the room. But he wouldn't come in, saying that the matter was urgent—it had to be taken care of immediately. The more excited he got, the less coherent he was.
He finally told me that just a moment before, while walking in a dark alley, he suddenly heard the sound of sobbing. Following the noise, he found a boy of seven or eight lying beside the wall. He found the boy's forehead almost hot enough to burn his hand. He caught the boy up in his arms and took him to the nearest clinic.
It was the middle of the night and with the rain falling so heavily, how could he possibly expect to find a doctor? But Ma Ping-ho had many friends and found one familiar face at the clinic. Through the friend's efforts he persuaded a doctor to leave his warm bed. The diagnosis stunned Ma Ping-ho; the boy had scarlet fever and the hospital wouldn't take him in. So Ma Ping-ho had come to me. He wanted me to find a hospital that would take the boy.
It was a difficult problem. I was to be kept busy throughout the rest of the night. I found colleagues to accompany Ma in the search for a hospital. At the same time, I made phone calls in trying to find a doctor friend to help us.
About daybreak, one of those who had been with Ma Ping-ho called to tell me the boy had died.
Mr. Ma bought a coffin and saw the boy decently buried.
Approximately a year before, the end of the war, I came in one morning to find a letter of resignation from Ma Ping-ho on my desk. His writing was usually very precise but this letter was written in a scrawl and the phrasing was confused. It puzzled me.
Ma Ping-ho had been on leave of absence for more than a week. I had thought that it was good for such a relentless worker to rest a few days. I had the office boy tell Mr. Ma that I wanted to see him.
The Ma Ping-ho that walked into my office was unrecognizable. In the few days since I had last seen him, he had changed completely. His cheeks were caved in and his cheekbones stuck out prominently. His eyes no longer flashed. He stared straight ahead, and his footsteps dragged. He walked to the chair in front of my desk and sat down. I asked him to tell me the reason for his resignation. He remained silent for a long time, then burst into English:
"This is a world of deception! Sarcasm is rampant! I can't stand it. No matter where I go, curious eyes follow me. What does all this mean? It's clear that there's some kind of plot going on against me behind my back. And I'm not the only victim. Everybody who is kind, pure, and upright is the object of destruction. I can't go on like this. I can't bear this society. Mr. Tseng, you must let me leave this deceiving world and go somewhere far away!"
I heard him out but didn't know what he was talking about. I could only try to comfort him. I urged him to find something he liked to do or take a rest for a few months. He should never, never talk of resigning, I said.
Even as I was talking, he persisted in muttering. He said the same things, over and over, and I began to realize he was mentally disturbed.
I asked the office boy to call Ma Ping-ho's Chinese friend to take Mr. Ma home. I urged the friend to take good care of Mr. Ma and see that he rested for a few days. It was from this man that I found out what had happened to Ma Ping-ho.
More than a month before, an American woman correspondent had arrived in Chungking. Her name was Jennie something or other.
Jennie was an old friend of Ma Ping-ho from Shanghai days. They got together at a dinner with mutual friends and talked over old times. They seemed to like each other more than ever.
Jennie lived at a hostel at Liangluko. Ma Ping-ho lived not far away. It was possible for them to meet every day. But Ma Ping-ho was shy. If anyone saw him talking to a woman, he would blush and run. Never would he dare knock on Jennie's door. But he had fallen in love with her. His recourse was to write a love letter and have somebody deliver it at Jennie's hostel.
He was astounded when the messenger returned with a long and flowery answer from Jennie. Overjoyed at this initial success, he wrote her day and night. It made him wildly happy when Jennie answered every letter. Within a month they had accumulated close to 40 letters apiece.
Then Ma Ping-ho received an invitation from Jennie to have a drink and a talk at her hostel. Ma Ping-ho's rejoicing can only be surmised. Careless and slovently though he always had been, he took a bath on this day. At the specified time, neatly dressed and full of romantic dreams, he went to visit his love.
His dream was shattered as he reached Jennie's door and looked in. The room was crowded. Clearly, this was no lovers' tete-a-tete. What startled him still more was the way the whole room rose up excitedly with cries of "Here he is!", "He's come!"
Jennie pushed her way through the mass of people, took Ma Ping-ho to the liquor cabinet, and mixed him a drink. At the same time she raised her own glass and cried out to the crowd:
"Everybody has to congratulate us on the successful culmination of our love-letter writing!"
Everyone clapped and shouted approvingly. Jennie called for quiet and continued: "I'm just a student of Mr. Ma's. Mr. Ma is really the expert at writing love letters. I am holding this cocktail party so everyone may appreciate the great love letters Mr. Ma has written this last month!" She took out a packet of letters and prepared to read them one by one.
Ma Ping-ho finally realized he had been the victim of a big joke. Paying no attention to anyone, he ran from the room, the laughter ringing in his ears, and back to his own cottage. As he burst through the door, he cried out to his friend:
"Please! Get a stick and beat me to death! I don't want to go on living!"
This was the gist of his friend's story. I knew Jennie. She was a shameless woman who liked to play around with men. It was tragic that she should have come to know Ma Ping-ho, who never dreamed that anything in life could be taken lightly or playfully. To this day I doubt that Jennie realizes the extent of the disaster she wrought in Chungking.
Ma Ping-ho's friend took care of him for a few days. Then the friend came to tell me that Ma had disappeared. We notified the police, but no trace of him was ever found. I hope that he is still in this world. But I admit the chances are not good. This world, so full of deceit, trickery, and sham, was not the place for Mr. Ma.
He had wanted to leave—to leave for a faraway place. And he did. Surely he must have found an atmosphere of serenity and unfailing truth. Whatever his fate, my memory of this strangely wonderful man will never fade.
Condensed and translated by Pan Shih
Tseng Hsu-pai is director of the Central News Agency and dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the National Chengchi University. A native of Kiangsu province, he was educated at St. John's University in Shanghai.