The Liberated Soul

By Sele Chang

Readers are invited to step into the protagonist’s shoes, contemplating how they might navigate the events and characters encountered amidst the life journey portrayed in this book. This exercise aims to deepen the understanding of the adages ‘character is destiny’ and the profound truth in the saying, ‘there’s no unattainable action, only unthought possibilities.’ Thanks to the author’s optimistic nature and rich experience from decades as a stage actor, he brings a distinct lens to narrating his rough life journey, unlike any other writer. His keen ability to capture the minutiae, even during harrowing times of unlawful detention and five years of unjust imprisonment, brings a unique texture to the tale. The narrative, rich with vivid imagery, encapsulates the detainees’ longing for freedom and their nuanced emotions, making the reading experience a ride through real drama and legends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035801398

Sele Chang

God gave Sele Chang an adventurous character, and he began an unexpected and bumpy life. His grandfather was imprisoned for breaking away from the CCP’s revolution, and his father was imprisoned for the same grievance. Sele was imprisoned at the age of thirty-two to thirty-seven during the Cultural Revelation. Fate closed the door of darkness but opened a lucky window for Sele. A woman with immortal character appeared and gave birth to a boy when she passed away. Sele liberated his soul at least and created a wonderful second half of his life in Australia with his son Yi Zhang.

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About the Author

God gave Sele Chang an adventurous character, and he began an unexpected and bumpy life. His grandfather was imprisoned for breaking away from the CCP’s revolution, and his father was imprisoned for the same grievance. Sele was imprisoned at the age of thirty-two to thirty-seven during the Cultural Revelation. Fate closed the door of darkness but opened a lucky window for Sele. A woman with immortal character appeared and gave birth to a boy when she passed away. Sele liberated his soul at least and created a wonderful second half of his life in Australia with his son Yi Zhang.

Dedication

I have missed my deceased wife Shuyi Shen’s noble sentiments and perseverance for the rest of my life, and the excellent character of my son Yi Zhang has made me sincerely proud. Without them I would not have conceived the idea of writing this book; without them this book would not have been completed; they are the soul of this book.

Copyright Information ©

Sele Chang 2024

The right of Sele Chang to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035801381 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035801398 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.co.uk

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

On the occasion of the publication of this book, I would also like to express my heartfelt thanks to Shen Shuyi’s angel aunt, Mr and Mrs Stanley Spector, the former professors of Washington University in St Louis, who provided extraordinary help and support for studying overseas.

I am grateful to Dr Jun Xiao for her generous attention and encouragement to publish this book, for recommending an excellent cover designer, and for finding editors.

To Eric, Lisa and Eleonora

1

A boy squatted in the corner outside the walls of the Christian Church, his pair of hesitant and childish eyes stared intently into the arched gate of a Neo-Renaissance building across the street, where the Kuomintang Shanghai Municipal Government was located. It was the early morning of 26 May 1949 because the communist army hadn’t invaded the city, the streets were deserted and businesses were closed.

Why is there no one inside? The boiler workers should come to work now. The boy stared and thought to himself.

The boy’s name was Shinto Zhang, only eleven years old of age, he had sneaked out of home early morning, just wanted to see what was happening in front of the former Kuomintang Shanghai Municipal government before the CCP’s army invaded.

The boy stared intently into the depths of the arch and after a long look, he still hadn’t seen any boiler worker coming to work. Unusual tranquillity inside the arch led the boy to conclude that the people from the Kuomintang Municipal Government had escaped.

No courage, run without hitting! Shinto was full of contempt for the fleeing Kuomintang Municipal Government.

Shinto turned his attention to the outside of the arch and saw a row of brand-new fortifications built with straw reclining on the road in front of the arch, the fortifications faced the direction of Henan Road, where the communist army might attack.

The historical scene in front of a Neo-Renaissance building laid a row of military fortifications, happened in the early morning on the eve of the communist army’s occupation, full of irony.

Shinto was too young to understand the historical and aesthetic connotations of this scene, as the residents were fast asleep and the media reporters of both sides of the war had no chance to witness it. Shinto, an eleven-year-old boy became the only witness of it.

Shinto’s home located on Jiujiang Road, which was commonly known as ‘Second Road’. It was just next to Nanjing Road, which was commonly known as ‘The Big Road’.

Shanghai was well known as the ‘Paris of the East’ by Westerners and the Nanjing Road was the ‘Ten-Mile Foreign Market’ in old Shanghai.

In Nanjing Road, there were many properties of Jewish merchant Hardoon. Hardoon was born in June 1851 in a poor Jewish family in the city of Baghdad, under the Turkish jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire. In 1856, he moved to Bombay, India with his parents and became a British citizen. There, he attended a charity school funded by David Sassoon.

He came to Hong Kong alone in 1872 and moved to Shanghai the following year, where he worked in Sassoon & Co as a rent collector and gatekeeper. In 1886, he married Luo Jialing, a fireworks woman who was half Chinese and French and believed in Buddhism.

Hardong quickly showed his talent in the real estate field. In 1887, he served as the director of the Shanghai French Concession Public Directorate Bureau and in 1898, he was appointed as the director of the Shanghai Public Concession Bureau of Industry. In 1901, he separated from Sassoon and established Hardoon & Co independently, specialising in real estate.

Hardoon achieved great success in the development and operation of Nanjing Road (he owned 44% of Nanjing Road’s real estate) and he invested 600,000 taels of silver to pave part of Nanjing Road with iron wood, which not only increased its popularity in Shanghai but also his real estate on Nanjing Road had greatly appreciated and he had become one of the richest millionaires in Shanghai.

In 1904, he purchased 300 acres of land on Jing’an Temple Road and spent 700,000 taels of silver to build Shanghai’s largest private garden, Aili Garden (Hardoon Garden), which was a typical Chinese-style garden. Hardong was keen on Chinese classical culture and also founded Cangsheng Mingzhi University in the park.

Hardoon and his wife, Liza Roos, also seized a large area of land near Qiuyue, the Gushan Pinghu, on the West Lake of Hangzhou and built a garden building in 1919, called ‘Luoyuan’. In 1927, the National Revolutionary Army took back Luoyuan. In 1928, the National Academy of Arts was established and Luoyuan was leased for 1 silver dollar as the school site. Now, it is part of Pinghu Qiuyue Attraction.

Hardoon and his wife had no biological children and Hardoon adopted 11 foreign orphans as adopted children and Liza Roos adopted 9 Chinese orphans as nephews. On 19 June 1931, Hartung died of illness in Aili Garden and Luo Jialing also died in 1941. However, the wills left by the couple were very different, which triggered the protracted Hardoon inheritance case. In 1954, the CCP government requisitioned Aili Garden to build the Sino-Soviet Friendship Building (now the Shanghai Exhibition Centre).

The Sassoon Building by the Huangpu River were the best annotations of ‘Adventurer’s Paradise’, the famous four major department stores ‘Yongan Company’, ‘Daxin Company’, ‘Xinxin Company’ and ‘Xianshi Company’ sat on Nanjing Road between Henan Road and Xizang Road, laying the foundation for the giant commercial status of Nanjing Road and there were also ‘Hendry Watch Store’, ‘Lao Jiefu’, ‘Bao Daxiang’, ‘Xie Daxiang Cloth Shop’, ‘Wang Kai Photo Studio’, ‘Lao Fu Zhai noodle restaurant’ and other century-old shops could be found everywhere and the streetcar jingle drove in the middle of the road.

The ‘Zhang Shuji Wine Shop’ run by Shinto’s father was located on Jiujiang Road between Henan Road Central and Shandong Road. To the right of it was a ‘Liu Demao Decoration Shop’ run by a Nanjing native, doing a simple facade decoration business. There was an old master who Shinto called ‘Uncle Bingsheng’, was amiable and often provided decoration materials to help Shinto complete the school’s labour class works.

To the right, there was an alley called ‘Youxinli’, a large restaurant, a family steamed bread shop and then to the right of the Shandong intersection was a ‘Yuanyuan Hat Shop’ that sold hats. There were four entrances and exits between the facade and windows. The left side was also a ‘Maxiangji Decoration Shop’ that did a facade decoration business. The owner was a Pudong native surnamed Ma across the Huangpu River.

Shinto had never seen her husband, her eldest son was a hooligan known as ‘813’, before liberation, he brought some dancers to Hong Kong. The second son was a hooligan and was arrested after liberation. After joining the labour reform team, the third and fourth sons ran businesses at the shop. The youngest daughter was a student who was studious and motivated.

Shinto’s father’s wine shop was located at the ground floor of a three-story single-bay residential building.

On the right side of the shop was a long ‘L’-shaped counter and against the wall was a row of wine jars, and on the left side of the shop were several rows of unopened wine jars that were almost piled to the ceiling. This was the basis for Shinto to deduce that his father operates a small-scale wholesale business. Shinto still remembered that when his parents quarrelled, his father threw the silver dollar in his hand on the top of the wine jar, later, the stacked wine jar disappeared.

The Eight Immortals square table was used for dining and a small snack cabinet with a low front and a high back was installed in the corner of the noodle street. On the left side of the small cabinet was a radio broadcasting news to attract customers. Shinto clearly remembered he sat at the door of the shop once, listened to the live broadcast of ‘Ke Sun, Ke Sun, Zongren Li, Zongren Li, Sun Ke’ for the national government’s vice presidential election.

At the back of the shop was the kitchen. In the kitchen, there was a stove according to the custom of Hunan’s hometown and a large pot for cooking rice. The cooking method was also to cook the rice according to the hometown of Hunan and then take out the rice soup, then continue to steam the rice.

The rice soup could be drunk and could be used to iron the clothes before starching and the black smoked bacon hung above the stove. During the Chinese New Year, Shinto also ground glutinous rice on small grinding plate and then put the glutinous rice slurry into a large white cloth bag hung from the four corners. After draining the water, making rice cakes was essentially a small business of a husband and wife shop, maintaining a well-off life for seven children.

In the early morning, Shinto’s parents and his three brothers and two sisters were all asleep, only Shinto woke up because he had an idea in his mind to observe the situation outside the Shanghai Kuomintang Municipal Government before the Communist Army captured it.

Shinto got up gently from the quilt, put on his shoes, neither washed his face nor brushed his teeth and went gently downstairs. Shinto saw a small slogan on the wall of the opposite residential apartment when he had just opened the home door, the slogan said: ’Zhu and Mao are not to dead, the chaos will be endless.

Shinto understood that Zhu referred to the Commander-in-chief of People’s Liberation Army, De Zhu and the Mao referred to the Chairman of the Communist Party of China, Zedong Mao. The street was empty, all of the shops closed, Shinto guessed that it must be a spy of Kuomintang who secretly posted it on the wall last midnight.

Shinto stood on the stone step outside the door, he could hear the sound of cannons from the outer suburbs, it became the sound of firecrackers. Shinto closed the door, along the wall of the building next door, bent his waist, walked cautiously towards Henan Road.

The streets layout in downtown of Shanghai was the same as in downtown of Melbourne, the main streets were north-south direction and east-west direction squares intersect. Shinto’s home located in Jiujiang Road between Henan Road and Shandong Road, the Kuomintang Municipal Government located in Hankou Road, next to Jiujiang Road, separated by one street.

Shinto stood up at the intersection of Jiujiang Road and Henan Road for a while because he had heard anecdotal rumours that a boy was killed by a stray bullet in the Henan Road. The troops of Communist and the troops of Kuomintang had fought fiercely on the Henan Road bridge yesterday, Shinto had worried that the stray bullets might fly from Henan Road Bridge at the time.

After a while of watching, he believed that there were no more stray bullets in Henan Road where he would enter because the battle on the Bridge was over. Shinto then walked towards Hankou Road, where the Kuomintang City Government located.

The Hankou Road were East-West direction, there were no stray bullets in the road. Shinto turned into Hankou Road with confidence, squatted down in a corner outside a garden he was familiar with.

The church of the Holy Trinity Cathedral Shanghai located in the garden and a few tall ginkgo trees in front of the church, Shinto and his playmates had often stood under the trees, picking up the ginkgo falling to the ground from the tree.

The garden faded in to Jiujiang Road, Jiangxi Road Central and Hankou Road, the Shanghai Kuomintang Municipal Government located on the Hankou Road. The corner where Shinto hid was a great position to observe the government building because it just faced the arched gate of the government, which motor vehicles enter and exit and the government was in the building of the Neo-Renaissance architecture.

The architecture was not as high as the buildings on the Bund, it was only four floors, large pieces of black-grey granite wall made the building particularly stable. The architecture nearly occupied one block, surrounded by Hankou Road, Jiangxi Road central and Henan Road. There was a row of short shrubs between the building and the stone fence, the fence was also made by black-grey granite, it was about one meter high and forty centimetres wide, Shinto and his playmates often sat on it or even ran on it after school and on the weekend.

Shinto concentrated and observed the inside the Neo-Renaissance architecture through the arched gate, he knew that there was a boiler room inside the architecture, normally the boiler workers should work at the time as they need to prepare the boiling water for the officers of the government who work there but he couldn’t even see one person there; it was surprisingly quiet inside the arched gate.

Shinto wasn’t reconciled, he kept his eyes on it and tried to find out the reason why nobody worked there at the time. Shinto noted there was a row of small military fortification built up by straw bags laid out diagonally from the arched gate to the middle of the street, the military fortification faced the direction of Henan Road central and Shinto understood that the troops of Communist could attack only from Henan Road Bridge.

Shinto noticed that the military fortifications were completely, he could see there were no traces of the battle, the ground around was also cleaned, everything showed the fortifications hadn’t been used since it was built up.

The officers inside of the government have run away! Shinto subconsciously yelled out and walked out from the corner and towards the fortification, touched the face of the fortification by his hands, felt it was really new, then he climbed up the fortification and sat on it, shook his legs, showed a joy of completing his adventure.

Taoyazi! (Shinto’s parents called their children their hometown) Where were you going at this early morning? Shinto’s mother requested immediately when Shinto just entered through the door.

At home, Shinto’s parents called him a nickname ‘Taoyazi’ which was ‘Peach’ in English.

Just went to Hankou Road. Shinto replied.

The People’s Liberation Army will soon come in, that’s a dangerous area these days and you would be beaten if your father knew! Hurry over to have breakfast with your brothers and sisters together before your father comes downstairs! Shinto’s mother said in a pampering voice. Shinto hurriedly squeezed into the Eight Immortals Table where his brothers and sisters were eating the breakfast.

Where were you going? The brothers and sisters rushed to ask.

Hush! Shinto quietly stopped them and escaped his father’s accountability once.

The next early morning, Shinto seemed to hear a little strange noise from the street when he just woke up, he got up secretly, still didn’t wash his face and didn’t brush his teeth, tiptoed downstairs and straight away opened the door. There were two big slogans that came directly into his eyes, the small slogan had disappeared on the opposite wall, covered by the bigger slogans, the big characters had written on the slogans: Long live the PLA! and Long life Chairman Mao!.

Shinto stepped out of the door. One thing surprised him more than the slogans, he found many soldiers with live ammunition sleeping on the sidewalk outside his home. Shinto trotted to the middle of the road, looked far to both sides of street, stunned by the sight in front of him, countless of PLA soldiers slept on all the sidewalks, couldn’t see the side at a glance.

Shinto had never seen such a grand scene, he felt that the soldiers seemed to come down from the sky. The bed at home should be a suitable place to sleep, how could these soldiers sleep on the dirty sidewalk? Shinto thought in his mind. At early morning, Shinto only saw that a cadre of PLA politely evaded a bowl of water handed to him by a commoner.

Shinto couldn’t control his feelings, began to jump for joy, clapped his hands vigorously, he liked the new army, this grand scene struck the young child’s soul, a hazy new country appeared in his heart and the soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army had become the heroes of the time.

It was early summer after the PLA captured Shanghai, many residents enjoyed the cool on the street after dinner. One day after dinner, Shinto noticed a young soldier looking like a cadre passing his home from the west to the east. At the same time next day, the soldier appeared outside his home again, Shinto took the initiative to step forward and spoke to the soldier:

Hello, Uncle PLA, are you going to the Bund?

Yup kid, how do you know that? The soldier replied with a smile.

I saw that you went in the Bund direction yesterday. said Shinto.

Wow, you are so smart! The soldier replied.

I am very familiar with the Bund, I can go with you. Shinto was to be even happier because it was the first time that he got the opportunity to talk to a hero, who was in his heart after seeing the group soldiers who slept on sidewalks a few days ago.

Ok, you can be my guide. The soldier said and held Simon’s hand walking together to the Bund.

What’s your name?

My name is Shinto Zhang.

How old are you?

I am eleven year old.

What grade are you?

Third grade.

Was it your home where I walked through?

Yes, yes.

After that day, people could always see a boy and a soldier walking and talking together at the Bund, until the soldier no longer showed up but Shinto still sat in front of home and waited for the soldiers’ reappearance. Shinto was disappointed for many days after that. Due to the difference in age and status, Shinto couldn’t remember what they really talked about.

Later, Shinto often imagined that the associate with the soldier was a baby elephant following a mother elephant. The magnificent scene of the PLA on the sidewalk gave Shinto an extremely powerful sensory experience and the few days experience of interacting with the young soldier at the Bund was like a drizzle into Shinto’s heart. It became a seed of revolution sowing in Shinto’s heart.

After the liberation of Shanghai, social life returned to calm and the school resumed normal classes, loving New China and the Communist Party of China had become the dominant political and ideological education, the touching senses of the PLA sleeping on the sidewalk and the breastfeeding interaction of the young soldier to an eleven-year-old primary school student was like a simple and beautiful picture in the future.

2

Shinto was born in Shanghai, his father Xinrun Zhang and his mother Qiuhan Gong followed Shinto’s Grandfather Shuen Zhang to move to Shanghai from Xiangtan, Hunan Province. Shinto’s father had run a wine shop at No. 292 Jiujiang Road. The shop was a storefront house along the street and called ‘Zhang Shu Ji Wine Shop’.

The shop’s name was based on Shinto’s grandfather’s name Shuen Zhang. Shinto’s uncle Bingyi Zhang also ran a wine shop near the ‘Great World Playground’ in French Concession. It was also