Over the South China Sea
Mong Jin sat with his hands crossed over a raised knee as he looked out the window at the passing sea thinking about home. Far away in China's interior was a small village somewhere south of Sangqiu that no longer existed. When he was young he left it to fight in the revolution, and when he returned it was gone completely. All that remained a field of long grass and barren landscape with the few odd trees. In the veterancy of his twenties he had tried to find out what happened, but no one knew. No one could say what had happened to the village in the sea of rape seed. It had been the sort of community where great bison moved as ships among the canola flowers as farmers walked with baskets and not a single thread of modernity had come to it. In the intervening years since the close of the armed stage of the revolution Jin believed that perhaps his memories of home was merely an artificial figment impressed upon him by Japanese heroin. It threw so much out of context he felt that there was nothing before his service to the Bureau of International Relations and Friendship really existed. That it was all as dust in the wind, that escaped through the grasping clutches of a closed fist.
But looking out the windows of the airplane in the early morning as the sun was just beginning to rise out over Japan the rays lit up the water in vibrant gold and oranges that reminded him of home. Escaping deeply into himself he believed even the hum of the airplane engines might be excused as the mewling of the buffalo. If he concentrated on that long enough he might be able to catch the smell of the early morning rice porridge and cakes. Yes. That wasn't something that never left. Everywhere he had been there had been that smell come morning in another field of produce. Poppy in the Republican hills, rice in the wet valleys, golden grain in the central valley. It was a smell that belonged to no where in particular, owned by everyone ostensibly as so much was.
He shifted in his seat and looked away from the window. Much about the airplane was barren and sparse. What expenses weren't spared went into cladding the interior in a basic shell, to give it more humane value than the empty shell of a military aircraft, which is was. The seating was wide spread and thin, which gave everyone plenty of leg room but there were not many occupants with him. Two others were in view, bored guards with nothing but pistols at their hip. Much of the security they would get would be entrusted to the Philippines. And there was none of the full staff as might be expected to missions such as Ethiopia, for this was merely the first stage of the diplomatic, the laying down of the first roots for an embassy. That was his only parameter.
The instructions from Beijing were simple, simple enough to fit on a single sheet of paper he kept in the breast pocket of his suit. He was to meet with the Filipino representatives, and negotiate for the site of an embassy, and for one other or two consuls. His superiors had stressed flexibility on the consuls, if it was out of the question: he was to bend like a sapling to the reality and not press it. The main embassy should however be large enough for a staff of two-hundred. Beijing would wait for what the Philippine state would offer. Communiques to be delivered by courier. He imagined the first move would be the laying of a wire between the two nations in the future.
Jin settled back into his seat, taking a deep breath. Under his seat was a big. Reaching down he pulled from it a book, The Good Earth. He opened it to wile away the time he had left until they landed.
Mong Jin had begun his career in diplomacy by accident, and by necessity. He had left home looking for the romance of revolution and to escape the poverty of rural life. Wandering west he came upon the Communists, and took up with them in their mountain sanctuaries and learned to shoot with a rifle. He was seventeen then, and had never fired a gun before. But he proved himself proficient and became an infantryman, donning the rope soled shoes of the revolutionary and the animal fur cap of the mountain guerrilla. In those days the party kept its men back from the fighting, as Republican and Japanese troops alike waged a harsh war that had swept both Jin's brothers into the fighting as draftee and as victim. He was the last son, and before the Republican recruiter came through the village to pull what peasants he may from the field or from the houses to send marching in the army he left under his parent's noses. And in the infantry he could have remained, standing guard or going out on patrol, attending ideological seminars or doing peasant's work in the communal gardens of the detachment. But then the Americans came.
Victims of their own circumstances or simple volunteers Jin was the first to meet them as they ambled up the donkey trail lead by their guide. Supposedly they were seeking out the Communists explicitly, and after a brief exchange with the man Jin was dumped with the Americans as the old man hobbled back down the valley trail to his village far along. The Americans not speaking Chinese, and Jin not speaking American could not speak to one another, although the Americans certainly tried. They spoke in long oblique sentences to try and make their points clear, gesturing and pantomiming to Jin's silent confusion. Eventually they settled on a meaning to their insistent miming and began to shift into simply pointing at things as a means to communicate. As much as Jin managed to understand, they wished to see his commanding officer, and he took them there heading further up the narrow dusty trail to where the rest of the Communist detachment brooded in mountain caves and hovels hugging the mountain side. He introduced them to his superior commander, explaining as best as he could what little he had learned. For his trouble, the Americans were foisted on him as his responsibility and in the space of an hour he left combat duty to play as guide and baby sitter to excitable American volunteers.
They spent long hours together. Jin showed them the rifles, and walked them through how to operate and aim them. They were far better skilled and adept at getting around them than Jin had thought and he marveled at how naturally they came to learn their way around the guns. And as they went he taught them words, and they taught them theirs. He learned such words as: rifle, stock, trigger, bolt, action oil, snake, rock, fuck, shit, jazz, cock, groin, eye, zoot suit, wind, rain, basketball, pitcher, base, home, home plate, Iowa, Idaho, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Ford, station wagon, aeroplane, zeppelin, and so on. Through one he learned a little of Spanish and he prided himself on having a small dictionary of words in two languages he used interchangeably in his communications. He learned their names were Paul, Peter, Sam, and Roger. He reported what he did with the Americans, what he learned and what he had told them to his superiors who either respected the amount of attention given, or dismissed it out of hand. Over time their skills mutually improved and more gradually showed up. With a basic yet usable grasp on Chinese he became the go-to whenever an Englishman or American showed up. He became the default persona to approach foreign journalists when they arrived to the mountain camp to probe, interview, and investigate. They managed to find them so readily there became a very real fear the English speakers were spies from the Kuomintang who not yet managed to trace their presence to this cold dry valley. After a time, it became pressing to find out what to do with all the Englishmen who walked up the sandy goat trail and communiques were sent to other units to coordinate their disposal efforts. It was suggested once that they all be killed in their sleep to prevent them from leaking out any more information than they could, but Jin came quick to say that apart from the journalists they had hardly written out from their camp. And he, who was beginning to consume and read their papers said that even the journalists had not divulged their location, speaking only of their “where” vaguely; even though he kept from them that he was months behind, beginning when four writers had come and gone.
The matter was settled on what to do with the Englishmen and Americans to assuage fears of their location becoming known, and together with them Jin was released from the local command, and would be re-attached to the Revolutionaries of Xi'an and they left in secret.
Xi'an was at the front lines of the conflict, and pressure from the Kuomintang was constant all through the time Jin was there. Kuomintang airplanes regularly flew over the city, scouting it or dropping single bombs and leaving. There were always stories at the market square about Kuomintang airplanes strafing the roads. But as the party leadership boasted to Jin, the city's unions were too firmly behind the cause for the spirit of the city to be crushed. And further, there were many more Revolutionaries in the city that spoke English that Jin's role as the sole manager of the rag-tag American volunteers felt small in comparison. If it had not been for the command of the Revolutionary garrison hearing of Jin's efforts, he may have well found himself in the field, if with a promotion to command his Anglo-Saxon comrades against the Nanjing government. As the fates would have – though he would swear against it – he was transferred from combat and began to work in the administration itself, directly handling the affairs of foreign volunteers and persons in a commissioner capacity. It was here that he honed his English, and picked up many more languages.
“Comrade Mong, we're almost there.” said a voice. Mong Jin stirred from his book and looked up. A stewardess loomed over him, and smiled. She left him as he turned to look out the window. Land was under them again and the sun had risen higher. It was perhaps now mid-afternoon or later, and he realized he was hungry. Before the stewardess could get far he rose his voice and spoke out to her.
“May I get something to eat?”
“Excuse me?” she stopped, turning.
“May I have something to eat? I haven't had anything to eat since we left.”
“I'll find something.” she said pleasantly, and left. Mong Jin touched his belly and sighed contentedly. He looked out the window again and realized he was here, in the Philippines. Or over it rather. This he quickly came to reason was the first time he ever left China. It dawned on him with sudden clarity, long after he ever lifted off from Hong Kong. But then he had been on many flights and train rides before, he had been over the country in various capacities. But not once had he left it. It felt strange, and foreign to be so far away. He felt something catch at the back of his throat and he choked on the surprise as he looked down at the tropical jungles and hills of the Philippine islands with its many villages and long dirt trails and stretches of rail roads. It did not feel so far from China at such a height, but he wondered if the people had even seen a Chinese airplane.
The stewardess returned with a plate of cold dumplings. “This is all I could find.” she said humbly, “They're vegetable. I hope that is OK.”
“That is fine.” Mong Ju said, “Thank you.”
“You're welcome. Will you need anything else? I hear from the pilots we're maybe an hour out yet, more if we do not get lost.”
“I think I'm fine.”
“Very well. Enjoy, please.”
“Thank you.”
Mong Ju looking out recalled some of the people he had worked with in his revolutionary capacity. He recalled a story about Ohio, where it was so flat and empty, except for the corn that you could swing and try as you might to hit like Babe Ruth all day and not be afraid to break out any windows, because no one lived around you for miles except for the corn fields.
He likewise remembered a description of Wales, with his mountains of coal and high rocks. He wondered if the mountains were coal themselves, and if the valleys echoed with boy's voice choirs as the volunteer had insisted they did. But he put it aside. The country he observed below was very much unlike Ohio or Wales as he knew of either. It was new and unique, at least to him and he awed at the spectacle as he ate his dumplings in the airplane seat. He looked over at his companions who looked just as curious and intrigued as he, if not even awestruck and enchanted.
As they flew over Mong Ju collected his thoughts and education on the Philippines. He knew that the country was a colony of the Spanish, then of the Americans. He imagined from the thought a nation of old Spanish colonial villas were baseball was played in the front lawns. But that he doubt would be the lasting legacy in the country below because much had changed since then. The government of the country was something of a libertarian government, much like the pockets in the north of China. He began to wonder if he would be dealing with committees or individuals. He knew Spanish, but he did not know of any language from the Philippine islands. He was aware of them, but never once crossed paths with anyone from the Philippines. Neither had he ever met a Spaniard, but had come to know the language through various Americans. He knew of men from Texas who spoke it, and wondered what had happened to them now that the revolution was over: did they remain in China or did they go back to Texas? But if America would be unfriendly to them, perhaps Mexico?
He let his thoughts return to the Philippines. The country's independence coincided with his revolutionary career, peeling off of the United States in the 1930's as lead by a former Catholic priest. The priest married, and his daughter Priscilla Aglipay-Rizal was elected president after him. The nation had for as far as he knew remained in a state of dynastic Republicanism. There were whisperings among the state halls of Beijing that the Philippines have a hand in the ongoing crisis in Vietnam, though none of these details have been confirmed from the intelligence apparatus and so far nothing has been said to connect them. But there has been rumors and suggestion. To Mong Jin, it is as likely the Thai have been involved. He supposed on some level, that is also part of the reason for him going: to learn and find answers to questions China has let slip on by without it. He was the first step for proactivity.
“What are your thoughts, comrades?” he asked turning from the window.
The two guards sent with him turned to Jin, “Thoughts on what?” asked one.
“On the country, the Philippines. What do you think?”
“That it is a country.” said the other brusquely.
Jin snuffed out a laugh and watched the landscape below again, padding the single sheet of orders in his pockets as he watched the passage of the rice paddies below. The farmers among the swampy rows simple dots in the reflective mud.
Mong Jin was done with his plate and it sat in the empty chair next to him. After a time it was announced they were closing in on Manila and Mong Jin watched out the window as the landscape turned urban and the roads became denser and a multitude of train tracks met with them to form the warrens and neighborhoods of a city's suburban expanse. Here and there the quickly built and humble shanties of the poor and the factory workers stood huddling close together along narrow streets and along street car routes up to small factories or the harbor. The flew circles over the city as the pilots sought out the airport, and found it far out at the edge among plantation fields and clusters of mud shanties hidden among palm fronds and tropical foliage. The foreign ground underneath rushing up to meet the airplane as the pilots made their descent. The tires touched the tarmac and there was a bounce and squeal as they hit the hot blacktop. Taxi'ing around Mong Jin got a good look about. No ceremony was there to greet him, which was expected. His work would be done quietly, in the idling car he saw not far off, waiting as the aircraft coasted and turned towards it, propelled by its turbines to its position.
Mong Jin's breath rattled in his chest as he muttered practice phrases in Spanish. Idle rhymes and nonsense sentences without any attachment to one another to prepare his tongue and his mind. It had been a long time, he hoped he would not make a fool of himself. When was the last time he wrote in Spanish? To make jokes out of it that would only make sense in Chinese?
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